Tuesday, 28 February 2017

"Not really disabled"

The other day, George Freeman (Theresa May's Policy Chief) gave some very insulting and trivialising comments about anxiety disorders. You'll find the details in this article . It seems he believes that those with anxiety disorders are "not really disabled". Apparently all we do is sit at home; taking pills.

After a lot of (very much deserved!) criticism, he responded with a feeble non-apology; where he expressed "regret" that people were offended. Now I do understand that he has had an anxiety disorder in the past & I would never invalidate his experience of that. I do think, however, he needs to educate himself on various anxiety disorders. He may then learn that the symptoms can vary in severity, are complex, and can be very debilitating.

Disability is officially defined in the Equality Act 2010 as this:

"A person (P) has a disability if-

(a) P has a physical or mental impairment, and
(b) the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on P's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities."

I cannot speak for everyone with an anxiety disorder/s, but here are the ones that I have and how they affect me.

Agoraphobia

I get very anxious about leaving the house; especially if there are people outside. To travel anywhere, I rely on my dad driving me. I get far too anxious to take public transport, and can't even take a taxi on my own. I can't manage group situations where I have to stay in the room/it'd be considered rude to leave suddenly (such as a class or meeting) and have to be near the toilet or exit if I'm in a restaurant/cafe etc.

Last time I managed to take a train by myself (years ago), I had panic attacks and had to wait for a later train than the one I'd planned to take. I felt very nauseous, dizzy, shaky and sweaty for the entire journey. Once I arrived at my destination, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I found it very hard to focus, and when I had to change trains, I ended up lost for an hour and almost in tears at the train station. It's a good job the friend I was meeting was a patient one! In order to get home, I had to get my dad to pick me up (the journey takes over an hour by car).

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

I've had OCD since childhood, and have tried hard to hide my compulsions. On a bad day, it stops me from leaving the house. It makes me irritable, snappy, and has caused arguments in the past. I take much longer to do things than I should, and am often late for appointments because I've had to complete compulsions, or repeat them until I am "reassured" enough to leave the house. This condition makes me feel trapped and, when I did work, it caused me to miss meetings and compromised my performance at work.


Generalised Anxiety Disorder

I don't react well to changes in plans. I need to know what to expect, Usually, my anxiety flares up in response to things, but I do find that I can randomly panic and not know what has set it off. I get panicky about hypothetical situations, and cannot just wait to deal with a certain situation when it occurs. I tend to think 10 steps ahead of myself, and think of the worst case scenario. I will dwell on potential problems; even more so if I cannot think of a solution.

I find I get very paranoid as well, and I worry a lot about people's opinions of me. I worry about losing friends and look for cues that they may be annoyed at me or drifting away. I also am constantly asking for reassurance.

Phone Phobia

Recently, my phobia of this has lessened and I can now cope with making some phone calls. I still find that I get very nervous when receiving phone calls though, and most of the time I will leave it to go to voicemail. I worry about not knowing the answers to questions I may be asked on the phone. I also worry about not having details like reference numbers ready when needed. I often mishear things and get very anxious (panicky even) if I have to keep asking the other person to repeat themselves. When I worked, I had customers react angrily over the phone because of this. I would avoid answering the phone in the workplace, and have been told off by my manager. I think this contributed to decisions not to carry on my temporary contract too.

I cannot think of a job where you are not expected to use a phone, leave the house, go to meetings, cope with changes, be punctual, have good attendance or be timely with tasks. Even without my other mental health and physical health problems, I highly doubt I could manage work of any kind.

So yes, George Freeman, I may sit at home and take pills but there's so much more to anxiety than that, and yes I am "really disabled".
    

Friday, 3 February 2017

My Mental Health Timeline

Childhood: When I think back to my childhood, I believe I had some mild mental health problems back then; which were probably brought on by the bullying I experienced. I have always had a low self-image, and been critical of myself. I've always had anxiety in some form or another as well. I'd feel anxious about eating in front of people, being in busy places, and catching the bus. I still managed to do all of these things, but I constantly worried about embarrassing myself, seeing one of my bullies, or having a panic attack. I self harmed fairly frequently as a way of releasing my emotions, and as a way of punishing myself for not dealing with things as well as I thought I should.

As I moved onto secondary school and the bullying continued, I became very self conscious & blamed myself for anything that went wrong. I started carrying out certain routines (praying 3 times, exactly at midnight) and carrying "lucky charms" in specific pockets. I truly believed that, if I did this, the bullying would lessen or I'd cope with it better. If I didn't carry out the routines, or forgot to bring certain "lucky charms" with me, I believed my day would be awful & that I wouldn't be able to cope with anything. If I did have a bad day, I believed it was because I hadn't done my routine properly or at the right time. I started to have violent intrusive thoughts, that led to violent dreams. I worried that I'd carry out those violent acts and that I was a terrible, evil person.


University: When I finished school, I decided to go to a university where it was unlikely I'd know anyone. I needed a fresh start, and felt I was a bit happier and confident enough to make new friends. I think this was one of the best decisions I made. I was independent, popular, enjoying life! I was also very impulsive and a bit of a risk taker when it came to certain impulses.

In my second year of university, the physical health problems started and I think this is what led to the anxiety relapse and depression. It certainly didn't help that I was in an abusive relationship at the time, and lost friends thanks to my fluctuating physical illness. I blamed myself for everything again and felt I had to explain why I was well enough to go out some days, and not others. I felt very trapped and isolated by my illness, as well as by my partner at the time. We broke up, but I still felt isolated & I struggled with making plans. As well as feeling too physically ill to attend most lectures, I became very anxious with being in busy lecture halls. I spent more time in my room & became fairly paranoid about friends. I wondered what they thought of me, whether they believed me, whether I was losing them.


Work: After university, I had my first full time job. I was in a relationship at the time, and was fairly happy. It was lovely to come home from work to my partner. He made me feel wanted, and encouraged me to be more sociable. Although not as good as university, I became a little more sociable; catching up with old friends. When it came to work, I often felt as if I wasn't good enough. I struggled with phone-calls, as I worried that the customer wouldn't think I was competent. I still had anxiety with busy situations, and found meetings made me panicky. Whenever I could, I would avoid meetings.  Eventually, my physical health had worsened so much that I had to give up working. My anxiety had worsened a lot too.


Breaking Up: The paranoia I had, the anxiety, and the fact that I wasn't well enough to go out much, I think led to my partner breaking up with me. I struggled with being single, and felt completely worthless and broken. Finding out that he'd met someone else just two days later didn't help either. Was I that easily replaceable? I'd moved back to my parents' flat and away from old friends. Most of my social interactions were online, and so I didn't go out much. I lost more friends, and ended up breaking ties with the rest of one friendship group, before they broke ties with me. It hurt a lot, and I still have times where I dwell on it now.



Unemployment: Once I'd moved back home, I had to decide whether to force myself to work again , or to try claiming Employment and Support Allowance. I was really worried that I'd be thought of as "faking it" or just not being ill enough to qualify. After a horrible assessment, I was accepted for ESA. Stories in the tabloids of "fakers", "scroungers" etc made me paranoid that maybe I'd be accused of this if I was seen outside, or walking one step further than I should be. If I saw a strange car or van outside, or if someone looked at me for longer than normal, I instantly thought they worked for the government.


Starting Therapy: I noticed my moods had been so low, and finally decided to open up to my GP about this. (You can find my blog post about this here). I was given the number to self refer for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. My first lot of CBT was at a low intensity level, and I saw my therapist every fortnight. We talked about my home situation, physical health (and how that had an impact on my mental health) as well as things that'd happened recently and how to re-examine my thoughts. I liked the therapist, but wasn't finding therapy very beneficial. It seemed too simplistic, and I wasn't sure I really fit the boxes that come with mental health questionnaires etc. I didn't know how to explain it so thought that maybe I just wasn't trying hard enough. I started to have very strong suicidal urges, and was soon in crisis. My therapist at the time contacted crisis team, and I had assessments but nothing else could be offered for the diagnoses I had (Generalised Anxiety Disorder, & Depression). I got very panicky at my last low intensity therapy session, and was then referred on to high intensity CBT. I was also prescribed Amitriptyline by my GP, to see if this would help my moods.

I didn't seem to have such a good rapport with my second therapist. I felt she was repeating a lot of what I'd already learnt about CBT, and I wasn't given much opportunity to talk through how I felt. It seemed more about going through worksheets. If my suicidal thoughts were more frequent, my therapist would instantly go to contacting crisis team. In the end, I told her not to, and I began to hide my darkest feelings and just comply with the worksheets. I ended up finishing this lot of CBT early, partly because I couldn't get transport there any more (and was too anxious to use taxis/buses), partly because it just wasn't helping me.

My third lot of CBT (again at high intensity level) was carried out at home. I was far too anxious to travel, and had then been diagnosed with Agoraphobia, which helped a lot with getting a therapist to come to my house. I got on well with this therapist, and was opening up a bit more. I still didn't find much benefit from the worksheets, and found that I was just going through the motions with homework. It seemed I wanted the therapist to think they'd helped me a lot. I felt like I was failing otherwise. Apart from this, I found a bit of benefit from having the odd walk outside, with the therapist. She wanted me to get a bit more confident outside, and I liked how we didn't have to always be indoors for therapy. I knew I needed help for my agoraphobia, and having someone accompany me outside and build up to me being a bit more independent, would be a good idea. Unfortunately the sessions came to an end before I could make any noticeable progress.

As well as going through therapy, my latest crisis also led to some appointments with a psychiatrist. They changed my medication to Sertraline (with Diazepam as a short emergency prescription). They also suggested I have Psychodynamic therapy, as CBT didn't seem to be suiting me. Unfortunately, I was not given that therapy. I'm not sure any available therapists were trained to carry it out. My third CBT therapist did say, however, that due to the trauma I'd experienced in the past, she may be able to offer me EMDR, as she was training in it. She wanted me to have a break from therapy for a few months first though.

Moving: My parents and I moved house quite quickly, a couple of months after the third lot of therapy. Unfortunately the area we moved to was not under the same mental health team, so I was discharged and told to approach my GP and get referred to the team in my new area. I struggled to get up the courage for quite a while, and took longer to phone the self referral number. I wanted to avoid mental health services altogether, and be left alone. I felt that I wouldn't be reliable and would be discharged for cancelling so many appointments; due to (physical) ill health. When I did eventually call the number, and soon after got my telephone assessment, I found myself rambling a lot to the therapist on the phone. I wasn't sure where to start, and was already very nervous. It felt as if they listened though.

Interpersonal Therapy: I was very pleased to be offered a type of therapy that wasn't Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I needed to talk about things in the past, and how I formed/maintained relationships, so Interpersonal Therapy seemed like a more suitable one for my issues. At my most recent session, however, I lost trust in my therapist after they dismissed my concerns about my self harming getting worse, as well as a diagnosis I thought I might have. This condition is Borderline Personality Disorder. I explained some of the reasons why I thought I had it, but I didn't feel listened to. The therapist just told me that BPD was something that psychiatrists diagnose you with, if they don't know what's wrong with you. This made me really angry, as I know this condition is real. I couldn't listen to what he said for the rest of the session, and spent most of it wondering whether to just walk out. It was a good job I stayed until the end though, as he suggested I get referred to Secondary Care services (CMHT). I went to my GP the next day, who contacted my therapist to confirm this referral was right for me. After a quick phonecall with the therapist, later that day, I was referred. I was contacted the following day by CMHT; who gave me an appointment for 3rd February.

Community Mental Health Team (Secondary Care): On Friday, 3rd February, I went to my appointment. In the room there was a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN). and psychology assistant observing. The CPN explained about my referral and gave me a Wellbeing questionnaire to fill in rather than the usual Depression (PHQ9) and Anxiety (GAD) ones. This questionnaire included questions about coping, making decisions, whether I've felt close to people etc. I've found this questionnaire, with similar questions. I was ticking rarely or none of the time for a lot of them; so I'm guessing my "wellbeing" isn't great!

The CPN then went on to asking why I think I've been referred to the Secondary Care Team, what my main struggles are, and what sort of help I think I need. I spoke about mood swings, the intensity of my moods, how I would be full of emotion (to the point where I feel I'll burst) or feeling nothing at all. I told him how I found it hard to cope with how quickly/extremely my moods can change. I mentioned the numerous crises I've had, suicidal thoughts (which became plans at one point) and frequent self harming that's getting worse. I said I was feeling less in control when it came to my moods and self harming. I can get very irritable and angry, but tend to turn this anger on myself. I also mentioned the times where I've been hypomanic, quite impulsive, agitated etc and how I find that strange; given my diagnosis.

I spoke about the many years of psychological bullying I experienced, as well as an abortion I had at 19, and a controlling, abusive relationship I had, not long after.

Finally, I spoke about my last therapy session, where I felt I could now open up about how, for over a year, I've wondered if I have Borderline Personality Disorder.  I can relate to pretty much all the criteria, although some were more prominent when I was a teenager/ very early 20s. The CPN didn't confirm or deny a BPD diagnosis, but did say that (looking over what I'd told him) he believed I had a long-standing trauma related disorder. He wasn't entirely sure if secondary or primary care would be more suitable for me, but he would have a word with my therapist and give me a call next week.

So this is where I'm at now. I'm not entirely sure what to think about the CMHT appointment. It was a shorter appointment than I expected, and not quite as thorough either. The CPN did ask some specific questions, but it was mainly left to me to explain how I'd been feeling. There were things I forgot to mention to him (and he has given me contact numbers to ring if I do need to talk about them) but I think he got a fairly good picture of my problems. I guess I'll just have to wait and see!