a warped view

Working with my psych has made me realise that one of the biggest mistakes I make is invalidating my own feelings by explaining away other people's bad behaviour. I've spent the majority of my life rationalising, its something that I think I learned from my mother. It's something that used to make me angry at my mother. She is a big believer in seeing both sides of the story, and consequently so am I. Seeing both sides of the story is not the issue though, I still think that's a great ability to have. The problem comes when you are so good at seeing the other persons side of the story that the feelings they caused with their actions become secondary, or get lost completely.  I realised today that I now do it to my daughter and I want to stop. When she comes to me to tell me about something that has happened with her friends she doesn't want me to be objective, she wants me to soothe her hurt feelings. She doesn't need help seeing why the other person did what th...

So I was a bit anxious about seeing a psychologist. I've done it before in the past and the experiences were mediocre at best. I didn't find them particularly helpful in the long term though they did probably provide some short term benefit. I am always worried that I won't like the psychologist. That I won't feel comfortable with them and I will spend the whole time wishing I could leave. I am, to my own detriment, sometimes too quick to judge people. Although I am most often proved right about my gut feelings I do occasionally get it wrong and then have to eat some humble pie while trying to apologise for getting it so wrong. When I first saw the woman who would be my psych my anxiety levels increased. She had a hard edged look about her, sharp and harsh. Not soft and caring and anything at all like the sort of person I wanted to spill my inner secrets to. Luckily, in this case, I was wrong. Once we got into the session I could see she was very good at her job and...

I am feeling down. Have been for a while. That's why I haven't been posting. It's not an all encompassing downness, I have moments and days where I feel fine, but the thought of blogging (along with numerous other to-dos) have left me feeling tight chested and anxious. I've also been avoiding people, avoiding social situations and I've been crap at communicating with the people I love. I've stopped tweeting, stopped texting, stopped calling. I'm hiding. It's impossible however, to hide from yourself. Today, right now, I am feeling particularly down. I was fine this morning, I had a lovely day with the HSP and saw a movie I've been desperate to see (Oz). Yet this afternoon the cloud descended around my shoulders and I suddenly felt the darkness wrap it's fingers around my heart and squeeze. I suddenly and instantly wanted to bury my face in my pillow and cry. Not just cry, sob, that physical crying that involves your shoulders, your chest, your ...

So I wasn't going to write a blog post today. I haven't really felt like writing about my mental health the last couple of weeks, the words just haven't flowed. I've been doing reasonably well and I never want to write about things when they are going well. I'm all about the doom and gloom. Then all of a sudden, BOOM! A series of small events and I'm on the edge of tears and feeling like shit. This week I got into a hated discussion with someone on twitter. This person has said a few things in recent weeks that have really gotten to me and I've been contemplating unfollowing them but was worried about hurting their feelings as I don't hate them or anything, I just don't see the world the same way as them. Or maybe they just purposely write things on twitter to cause shit and I always seem to be the one who bites. In any case I got into a disagreement with them this week which ended with them telling me they were blocking me. After weeks of worrying...

Quite often, when trying to explain my depression to people I use the phrase "my depression voice" or the "irrational voice" to describe the constant critic that lives in my head. Occasionally I wonder if people are going to take that to mean that I hear voices Beautiful Mind style or that I might start conducting a fight club with myself or talking to a giant rabbit. I can promise you that none of those thing are true, or are going to come true... well I might start talking to Frank but it's unlikely. However the truth is that I do deal with a constant voice in my head. The depression voice is always there, sometimes whispering quietly, sometimes screaming at me until I break. The depression voice is that arsehole that is constantly telling me that I'm not capable, that I'm worthless, that people don't like me. It's the voice that stops me from leaving my house, its the voice that looks in the mirror and tells me how ugly and unlovable I am...

since i started considering the possibility that i may have adhd, and since receiving my diagnosis, i have been doing lots of reading about it. the diagnostic criteria is seen by some as a bit nonspecific and there is no blood test you can do to confirm for sure. in fact some people are still convinced that it's not even a thing. there are three different types of adhd; there is predominantly inattentive type, predominantly hyperactive/impulsive type and there is a combination of the two. the diagnostic criteria tend to come off as quite negative (things that are wrong with you) including things like,  does not give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes,  has trouble keeping attention on tasks,  has trouble organizing activities,  avoids, dislikes, or doesn't want to do things that take a lot of mental effort for a long period of time,  loses things needed for tasks and activities, i s easily distracted, i s forgetful in daily activities, ta...