Keeping Promises

At the beginning of the year, I promised myself that I’d make an appointment with my GP to talk about my mental health, because, to me, it’s clear that something isn’t right.

I still haven’t made that appointment.  Every time I’ve thought about doing it, something has come up and I’ve done something else.  Mañana, mañana.

This afternoon, I received a massive kick up the backside.  It appears that my particular self-harm has started being visible to my friends.  To them it looks particularly innocuous.  To me it was an unpleasent surprise.

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with the nurse to get my wounds checked on.  Tomorrow morning, I’m going to try to get an appointment with my GP to fit in shortly after.  Because enough is enough.  This isn’t getting better, no matter what lies I tell myself.  Today, I got home, sat down in front of my computer, and despite having a reasonably good day (aside from one rant which is going to follow), felt like crying.  No real reason, I just felt really upset.  And this isn’t right.  I deserve better than this.  I have to believe that.  I do believe that.

So, it’s time to do something.  Because at this rate, I’m going to hit rock bottom so hard I’ll never get back up.

Crash! Again!

So, a couple of days ago I came off of my bike.  Again…  Not in to a nettle bush this time, which is good, but instead sliding along the tarmac, which is bad.  I have some lovely grazes on my knee and elbow, as well as some cuts and bruises on my face.

All things considered, I was lucky.  I tore my coat and trousers, shredded a pair of gloves and dented a helmet.  Fortunately, this meant that I didn’t seriously tear up my arm or leg, shred my hands or dent my head.  Which is good.  My glasses didn’t appreciate the encounter with the road either, but at least these are repairable.  The rest of my stuff is a write-off, and isn’t going to be amazingly cheap to replace.  Particularly not in UniTown.

Embarrassingly, I was in uniform at the time, and was on my way to a my youth leader interview, typically…  Luckily, it wasn’t a paramedic I knew, otherwise I’d never have lived that down…

I’m well on the way to healing now, and hopefully will be back on my bike soon (perhaps even this weekend, if I’m lucky).  Just have to finish replacing all my kit, as I currently have no smart trousers for my unit meeting on Thursday, oh, and a half-empty First Aid kit…

*sigh*

Down Again

Morale seems to have reached a nadir, again…  Everything, my uni project and Organisation work alike seems to be a constant battle, and I’m just feeling so down.

I’ve been bad.  I promised myself that I would make a doctor’s appointment to talk to someone about this, and I haven’t.  So tomorrow, I’m going to try to force myself to get my arse in gear.  Because this is getting stupid.  I can’t work out if I’m feeling bad because everything is going wrong, or if it’s something else, and I’m rapidly approaching burnout.  About half an hour ago I nearly withdrew my application for the Youth Leader role, swiftly followed by my notice of stepping down from my Youth role.  Which is rubbish, because I love working with the kids at my unit, but at the moment I just don’t know if I can do it.  Something has to give, and that may have to be the first to go.  Which really sucks.

I feel like I need someone to talk to, right now, but I know it will turn in to a rant, and that’s not fair on Valentines Day, not when the people I would be talking to have loved ones to be spending time with.

So it’s time to follow my own advice, and reach out for help.  Because if I don’t, I’m going to crash and burn.

New Years Resolutions

It’s easy to make New Years Resolutions.  Not so easy to keep them.  I could make the usual ones:

• Exercise more
• Eat better
• Keep up with my studies better

The list goes on.  Add in my particular circumstances and I could add:

• Come out to my parents
• Blog more regularly

Again, the list could be a mile long.

I’ll say right away, the first item in the second list isn’t likely to happen any time this decade, and the latter really depends on how much inspiration I have.

However, the first list shows some potential.

If I want to get anywhere in my ambulance work without damaging myself, I need to get fit, and I need to get stronger.  I noticed that my fitness was going down when I stopped cycling to work.  Suddenly, the cycle to uni, which used to be pretty average, is a nightmare.  Well, the few times I’ve tried it before the snow got bad.  In short, more exercise is needed.  I’m at a uni that has amazing sports facilities.  Shouldn’t be too hard, as long as I stick with it…  That, unfortunately, will be the problem.

As a student, the eating properly think is always a problem.  Hopefully that’ll get better as I get a bit more free time.  More importantly on the health front, I think I need to see a Doctor.

I should explain more thoroughly…  A few months ago, I had a chat with a GP about my mental health.  To cut a long story short, I’ve been self-harming for quite a long time, now.  In fact, I can’t really remember when I started, it was so long ago.  At first I just saw it as a bad habit, but looking back, at my behaviour, my feelings, everything, I got a bit concerned.

Now don’t misunderstand.  I have never done myself lasting damage.  Never anything that risked my life, and I’ve never considered suicide.  I have no visible scars (at least, none that were deliberately self-inflicted), and nothing that you’d see in everyday life.

I had a feeling that something wasn’t right, and when I went to the Doctor, she agreed that something was wrong, possibly depression, or it could be anxiety.  She gave me a questionnaire to fill out, and told me to see her in a week.

I missed the appointment.  Not intentionally. I honestly thought she had said two weeks, not one.  More importantly, though, I didn’t set a new date for the appointment.  I could have done.  I have thought about doing it, more than once, and have seen a GP about other things since.  It’s just never happened.  If I’m honest, it’s probably because I’ve never worked up the courage to do it again.  It was hard enough having the conversation the first time around, why would I want to do all that again…

Except I need to, because the harm hasn’t stopped, and I’ve not miraculously started feeling better.  I would be lying to myself if I said I was.  I have trouble sleeping, I am still harming myself (even as I write this post, and that scares me because I know what I’m doing, but still do it), I always feel run down, and am always feeling generally ‘low’.

So my New Years Resolution is simple.  Look after myself better.  And I can achieve it.  I have to believe I can achieve it.  Because if I don’t, I’ve already lost the battle.

And I can’t let this get any worse…

Stinging Nettles 2

Thankfully the swellings gone down, and I have been given some hydrocortisone cream by a friendly pharmacist. Unfortunately, this seems to be having no effect as well. The rash is now one of the prickly kind, and I am going mad trying not to scratch it.

Did I mention that I disliked nettles?

Stinging Nettles!

I am obviously very sensitive to stinging nettles. Not only is my hand now one big swelling (fun!), the anti-histamines I have are having no effect and I can’t get to a pharmacy to get anything different.

I hate nettles!

Car vs Bike vs Hedgerow

I am not best pleased at the moment. I have just had a close encounter with some muppet in an expensive car. A very close encounter. Even closer than the normal encounters I have with cars on a daily basis in UniTown.

While cycling along what is normally a very quiet road, some lovely person decided it would be a good idea to drive as close to the edge of the road as possible, right past me… Now this isn’t a narrow road, so there is no real reason he couldn’t give me enough room. But no…

Faced with a car suddenly appearing in peripheral vision, far too close for comfort or, for that matter, safety, I had to take evasive maneuvers. One way was under the car, so I had to take the other, in to a hedge.

This was the normal sort of hedge you find by the side of a road where there isn’t a pavement: fill of brambles, nettles, prickly bushes and a tree. This did not make the softest or most comfortable of landings.

After a quick self check (head clear, neck feels fine, no severe pain anywhere) I picked myself up, hoping to see the car just down the road. Oh wait, that would be a no. They had hit me and then run off.

Once I had extricated myself from the bushes, I had a look over myself. No obvious signs of bleeding. No head or neck problems appeared. No limbs misbehaving. (Does anyone else think I might be a First Aider?)

Oh. My hands are swiftly swelling up. They obviously found the nettles, and I seem to be particularly sensitive. Perfect.

Self assessment over, I took a look at my bike. Thankfully it was only as rubbish as it had been when I’d left my house.

Happy that I was now probably safe to continue, I mounted up and continued on in to town. I registered a few strange looks from pedestrians, and assumed (wrongly) that it was because my face looked a little beat up.

Arriving in town, my hands felt like they were burning. It was the decision between getting to work on time, or getting some antihistamines. Which do you think won?

One oral antihistamine later, I was on the train, heading for WorkTown.

It was then that I discovered why people were looking at me funny. It turns out I had completely flattened part of my helmet. How I or my head didn’t notice this I have no idea. I didn’t even have a headache.

Incidentally, this is the second helmet I’ve put a proper dent in to. And people wonder why I wear them…

I had another surprise when I had a proper look at my bike on my way home. On the right handlebar, I found that I’d collected some paint. Car paint, to be specific. It seems that before I was dumped my bike managed to get a bit of revenge by itself. I can honestly say that this wasn’t my intention, but seeing it gave me the slight satisfaction of knowing that the driver would have to spend hopefully a not insignificant amount of money repairing that.

I know it’s not very charitable, but I think I have earned the right to be a little please about this…

Go carefully, you cyclists out there.

P.S.

I had another self-examination, and thankfully all I found was a nice big bruise on my leg, and a couple of sore joints. Aside from the intense irritation from those bloody nettles (no pun intended), I seemed to get away quite lightly. Though I’ll probably feel it tomorrow…