Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Corny]

Oh thanks for the beaut vista Miss Sherry and my own waterfall and pool, I love a skinny dip with the mermaids. I'll just make sure I distract the nurses and turn off the security cameras at concierge before I splash. They have their finger on the pulse here though, I was at breakfast for too long the other morning chatting to one of the patients, I lost track of time, so I get this call on my mobile, and its the nurse on the ward saying, "Corny, it is 10am and you are not medicated please come to the canteen pronto".....next they'll be putting a bracelet on me and tracking my movements, dance ones and all, on an app. They have no faith in me, I'm not a rascal Sherry. 

I have noticed the same thing, when the depression grabbed me by the ankles the PTSD symptoms subsided and vice versa. PTSD is just a different beast. It feels completely different in the body. It's been really interesting being in here and meeting other patients, chatting to them and observing differences in symptoms between genders. Guys can have more positive psychotic symptoms when both genders experience psychosis, women seem to be much more dissociative and off the planet in a different way, but I reckon the chicks PTSD is worse, maybe I am just biased. I dunno if overall because we have had more sexual and physical violence it just seems worse, but for me, it is the fact that the body remembers every tiny little detail is what grounds me. Body flashbacks are just pure torture, having to relive all the sensory and felt sense body assaults over and over and over and over again........exhausting. Sigh. And you're right, the "experts" don't have a clue. They do their research in closed gated communities that are built on incest and nepotism, there is no such thing as meritocracy, it does not exist, and the research suffers, but ultimately in the end the people that really suffer are the patients. Its full of corruption, massive egos and I do not hold on to any hope of a cure in my lifetime whatsoever. PTSD is too political, and it is tied to the US military and American insurance companies, making it a dead end treatment wise.

You have so much on your plate at the moment Sherry I really feel for you. Reading about it is like looking back at myself, there are no words for that level of stress. You are in Carers Chaos!

When my father committed suicide I was driving back to my parents place after work every Friday to look after my mother in psychosis and then driving back Sunday night and working, she was completely traumatised and totally dependent on me, I would call her 3 times a day at least, we had a legal case against us over my fathers debts, my grandmother (her Mum) was dying, our earth mother was dying (they both died in the 18 months that followed), we had to pack up 35 years of stuff and move the whole family to Sydney, and I was unravelling all my worst childhood traumas and landed in psychosis myself.....it was pure hell on earth, I kid you not.

I completely understand the pressure, strain and fatigue beyond words you are under right now. My heart goes out to you and I wish you the deepest cuddle comas imaginable. Plank an Otter tonight. 

Be very selective with who you give your time and energy to Sherry, we are all breakable. There are users and takers out there masquerading as decent people, and they don't deserve your time. I remember having to listen to people's banal conversations how they were tormented and deliberating over what colour kitchen tiles to choose for their .25 million dollar renovation......please.....get a real problem. 

Big hugs and Continuous Cuddle Comas,

Corny xxx

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hey @Corny ..... good to see you ❣️

I have been super busy, but “around”.  

My studies are totally therapeutic for me, as you say.  I have multiples of the same mindset here atm with visiting family from interstate ..... all sorta on the same page-ish with my hubby ..... supporting his behaviours with complimentary comments about “will-power” and “self-control”.

I hope things are coming along the recovery path okay for you .... thinking of you often.

[Corny]

Hey @Faith-and-Hope that's hard to read that extended family are unknowingly encouraging an ED.

From this fish bowl that I am in and seeing where it can end up, with major mental illness, I really don't know what the solution is as a society. I guess not everyone develops an eating disorder but we are all exposed to the constant pressure to be thin and gorgeous, but it seems to affect people that were vulnerable to MH to begin with and this is just the form their MI takes .......there are some patients in the hospital that are so weak, so frail and so malnourished that they have to be pushed around in wheel chairs. Of course everyone here is suffering immensely and there are heartbreaking scenes, some of the patients with severe SH I will never forget for the rest of my life, it is so confronting and upsetting. I guess everyone is doing their best and it takes a lot of courage to come here and be exposed.

I hope at least you are getting some enjoyment out of the family being around and having some laughs along the way and getting some sunshine. Maybe you have even sat in the garden.....I haven't been to the art gallery in ages and was thinking I must go soon.....

take care

Corny xx

[Faith-and-Hope]

I can sit in public gardens sometimes @Corny, but we are in “condensed living” here with not even a balcony space for pitted plants.  I have to avoid the sun - melanoma survivor here 👋.

My in-law family have a focus on the sort of appearance and behaviours and ideals that are known to promote the development of ED’s if there is any pre-disposition to them at all, and there are recent studies to suggest genetic pre-disposition.  It must be traumatic for you to witness the level of treatment-dependent sufferers.  I still hold hope that our slide won’t go that far, but of course I can’t be sure of anything here.  While we have a fair share of MI history, ED’s were not a part of that, so it’s been a massive learning curve along with all the upheaval.  I just remember counsellor after counselling advising me to learn as much as I can, so I could understand what was going on, and what I can and can’t do about it ..... 

On the “can” side is taking care of my own health, and that of the kids as much as possible.  Pretty much everything else belongs on the can’t side while my mr. is lacking insight and therefore “treatment non compliant”.

Have you managed any creative activities yet ?  You sound like a good writer ..,,

[Maggie]

@Corny  Yey for going home next week. 👍👍👍 Transitions are always tricky and take time. I wish there was a middle in there somewhere though. A place to prepare for the big move back home and into society. 

I understand the baseline no budging CPTSD. I’ve tried dental on and off, but facing the hard facts of ongoing MI is a better, though difficult option. I can’t use accepting yet, maybe never will. I do avoidance well. 😩😩😩😩

I know you used to exercise really hard, so gently, if you can, is the way to go.

I’m stuck there, as RA is ruling my activity . If I over do things, I pay painfully, pain being a good and very reliable teacher.

Home cooked meal, yes please. 😍 What will be your first choice?🤔🤔

Take it easy @Corny . Looking forward to catch ups. ❤️❤️❤️

[Former-Member]

Lovely to hear from you @Corny . Replying on the run here. Going away for 10 days. Catch you when I return. Sounds like you'll be out by then? Best of luck, will be thinking of you. 😀

Sherry 💕

[Corny]

That's terrible @Faith-and-Hope , I am glad you are in recovery. You have to be really vigilant with getting your skin checked, women remember to do pap smears and breast checks but skin doesn't have the profile of the others cancers. I guess skin is another fascination our society has with equating being tanned with beauty, but it depends what culture you come from. One of the nurses was telling me that she hates summer because she goes so dark and that in Latin America they associate it with aging in a bad way and being lighter is what everyone strives for. 

I don't know if knowing our MI's have a genetic component changes anything. It doesn't mean that he could have prepared for it any better, or at all, or that that knowledge opens up a tailored treatment that will cure your husband.

Is knowledge always power, for me it isn't. Looking back over the last 10 years, reading extensively and learning as much as I could about early life neglect, deprivation, abuse and maltreatment has just filled my head with more facts and at times made me feel worse. When you read all the research and findings on the importance of the first 3 years of life for a child's brain development that affects them across the life span, and the attachment/sensory/maternal deprivation stuff, or Bessel van der Kolks book, I just finished it and was like, "well I am just screwed". It doesn't help when health professionals agree with you without explicitly saying it, and keep reminding you how complex your case is, that you should be in jail and just to be alive is a miracle.......they mean well, but if they catch the patient on the wrong day at the wrong time they may give up.......I guess my point is I know that the health professionals have good intentions and you can gain insight Faith, but sometimes they don't realise that they can make a patient or family feel despairing when they get to that moment in their life when they realise more knowledge doesn't change a thing when it comes to some aspects of MI and traumatic childhoods. More knowledge about diabetes will not cure a persons diabetes, they will just learn how to manage it better, and the same is with major MI. It's a really sad fact but the higher the insight a person with schizophrenia has, the higher the suicide rate. They're not silly. They know precisely what that diagnosis means, and how society views them, which is appallingly. 

I guess obsession with physical appearance and attractiveness like everything else occurs on a continuum but it sounds like your husbands family have a healthy dose of it which can't be easy for him. I wish there was an easy answer Faith but they are terrible conditions to have, we all feel useless and totally incompetent as a carer of MI. You feel so powerless and bewildered by it all, its something you have to experience first hand to know what its like. 

Enjoy your morning coffee

Corny 

[Corny]

Thanks @Maggie, I know you understand what it is like transitioning back, naturally I am nervous, and I am sure I will feel like a tourist sometimes, or at least on the periphery of life looking at other people in the middle. 

I have some moments when I do accept it, but I look up to my older friends who have MI that are between 15-20 years older than me and they said they fought it and fought it until they got to their mid 40s and thats when they finally accepted it. Some days you can, and some days you can't. Life is unfair, and teaching small children that life is fair as long as you are a nice person, means that later on if anything goes wrong, they make it personal. When really, life was never fair to begin with. I look around and I see absolutely no evidence of karma, I don't believe in it, but maybe some people find that sort of magical thinking comforting and gives them a sense they can control the uncontrollable. 

If I disappear off the forums it is because I am adjusting and trying to find myself!

Take gentle care of your gentle self Maggie, get some sunshine.

Corny 

[Corny]

I will reply to you later @Former-Member , I've been summoned down to concierge, maybe the warscally wittle wesbian is in trouble again.

Later,

Corny  

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hearing you @Corny ..... 🌷💜.  It must be hard to balance out empathy and understanding with acknowledgement of things that have happened, and it seems to me that many doctors are big on the acknowledgement of factual material, but often unable to engage with the empathy and understanding that shines a light on a path forward, with a focus on achievements and successes.  

Have uou you set some small goals for yourself in the coming weeks @Corny ?  I know our circumstances are very different, but I am using small goals as a way of moving forward.  They are achievements in and of themselves, with no set-in-stone timeframe, and the option to keep taking them on, again and again, until I feel okay with them.

Is art therapy an option for you ?  There is such a creative force in it, and creativity has healing, restorative power, even at a small trickle ...... 

I am interested in art produced from advertising flyers and other junk mail, or discarded magazines.  I have posted some in the art thread before, and can post some more if it interests you ?

Its an unhealthy obsession with physical appearance and attractiveness in our wider family.  My hubby is a more extreme presentation of something that is a deeply embedded dynamic.  Have tried to steer my kids clear of it, without going the other way.