CPN Shows Weakness – Uhoh [Long Post]

Since it long (+3000 words) I’ve put a summary at the end because I’m nice like that. I said in my post yesterday that my appointment with my CPN on the 15th was cancelled and I finally saw her on the 26th. The 15th was a Friday so there was plenty of time to cancel it in the week and yet 20 minutes before she was supposed to arrive at my house, the receptionist called and said my CPN couldn’t make it because of [perfectly valid reason] and she’d give me a ring on Monday to reschedule. I did consider asking for her to use e-mail instead, but I’m just no good at being assertive. Besides, she would’ve called me anyway. She knows I don’t use phones because of anxiety but I guess she’s not supposed to let me avoid these things. Thankfully, my mum was home so she answered but it was still difficult.

Something I found strange, was that in our appointment on the 29th Dec she said she might have to cancel and she told me why, but when she called she started to say why, paused and said “I just had to take some time off.” She told me why about 2 weeks earlier, the receptionist gave me the same reason but on the phone she didn’t say it? In our appointment the cancellation came up, but she sounded like she’d forgotten.

“Ah yeah…Friday.”  She just stared at me with this anticipatory, anxious smile as if waiting for me to explode into a rant about her abandoning me, but I kept a completely blank face, “Did I tell you why?”

“You warned me last month and the receptionist told me.” She didn’t really want to talk about it, well actually she did but not with me. Still, I asked the polite questions and pretended to be interested (which she probably saw right through because I didn’t really care about convincing her).

Anyway, I’m back tracking already. She arrived 20 minutes late and as usual she apologised but I didn’t say my usual response. Normally, I’d say “That’s alright/ok/fine” but this time I thought ‘you know what, no, it’s not ok. I was panicking out of mind because of your poor time keeping!’ I just stayed silent and we settled down in the living room which took a while because the cats were being awkward. She just stared at me the whole time so I’d look over and smile. Clearly, it did nothing to help the situation because we sat in near total silence for about 10 minutes.

Finally, she asked me what I wanted to talk about. It didn’t really work at getting me talking so she commented on the lack of the rabbit in the room. He was outside and I figured I’d make an effort so I briefly talked about how he had loved the snow a few weeks ago. Then it was back to silence.

“Are we just going to stare at each other, then?” I found that quite funny since I had barely looked at her, but I thought it might sound a bit hostile if I’d been pedantic and said actually, I was staring at the floor.

“What do you think we should talk about?” I didn’t really want to ask because the profs are always so careful about helping me make decisions. If someone gives me a cue, then decision-making isn’t a problem. If I’m left to make up my own mind, I get no where so the profs seem to think it’s a good idea to pressure me into the latter situation. It seemed like this was what the outcome was going to be, but she ended up having a mini-rant.

At first she just commented that she doesn’t know what’s being going on with me recently so she doesn’t know what needs to be said (something I felt was a bit of a dig because I didn’t e-mail her with my usual updates for about 3 weeks) and that means she needs me to take responsibility for the session. This is what I expected and throughout the silence I had thought about this power game we seemed to be playing.

This silence at the beginning of an appointment is nothing new to me, but it does make me uncomfortable. It used to happen a lot with the CAMHS team in the beginning (occasionally later if they wanted to test the waters again), but either they learned that I’m too stubborn to give in first and lead the session (or I’ll purposefully bring up something unimportant) and so gave up with the game or they pretended to be ‘playing the game’ but actually let me ‘win’ on purpose so that I felt safe and in control.

I’m probably using the phrase ‘game playing’ a lot because my CPN mentioned it. It was kind of under her breath and hidden in between something else she was saying, but obviously I catch these things. The curse of being observant. Now it’s in my head that I’m playing games with her and being manipulative. I don’t know if it’s true.

Anyway, during the mini-rant she was going on about how she can’t just sit here chatting to me with no target because she has to go back to her manager (what a horrid title in this profession. I prefer ’supervisor’) and prove that she’s doing worthwhile work. She’s said this before, I think it was in our 2nd or 3rd appointment and it scared me then. It still scares me now, because basically what she was saying in this mini-rant was that either I do as she says or she’ll leave.

She said she was trying to motivate me so I commented that I wasn’t sure if the method was really ethical. As usual she interrupted to defend herself and I lost the courage to explain, but when she finished her self-righteous spouting about “It’s got nothing to do ethics” she said “but go ahead and talk about ethics if you need to.” Erm, excuse me? Are you seriously sitting in my living room, criticising me and defending yourself when just earlier you were saying you were trying to be supportive? I think someone needs to try harder ¬_¬ or sort out countertransference issues with someone other than the patient. *Deep breath* That’s the first time I’m reacted angrily to this appointment…and now I feel guilty.

I’m afraid of doubting her professionalism and competence. On one hand, I don’t want to insult her. Doing so would make her dislike me and leave, while also making me feel very afraid, remorseful and alone. On the other hand, I do want to insult her! I’m fed up of giving her excuses for all her invalidating and insensitive comments and blaming myself for them. I’m fed up of being criticised all the time for not doing as I’m told or ‘giving things a go’ when clearly there must be reasons that need sorting first to enable me to take direction and to take the risk of trying. Profs are trained to treat the causes not the symptoms and yet she seems to just be ignoring that. Look! There’s an example of me being reluctant to criticise her. I said she’s ‘ignoring’ it, instead of saying she hasn’t noticed. The former suggests it’s purposeful and the second is unintentional through ignorance. I guess it’s easier to believe she dislikes me or is punishing me and not being incompetent.

I’m also afraid of doubting her professionalism and competence because maybe that makes me superior to her in a way. I know I act with a sense of superiority a lot of the time in person, but it’s just an act because everyone knows that my self-esteem is so low it barely exists at all. In reality, I can’t bear to be better than others. If I sense that this is happening then I’ll self-sabotage so that I am lesser than whoever has made me feel superior. I tell people I’m a bad person and why to convince them that I’m not the amazing person they thought I was. That pushes them away, I fear abandonment and we get into that wonderful relationship cycle. In fact, my acting superior is a way of pushing others away as well. Who wants to feel inferior all the time? Oh wait…I walked right into that one!

Anyway, back to the appointment. I’ve actually not written this chronologically because before she started telling me that I’m not trying hard enough, that I’m difficult and awkward, she was actually blaming herself. This is where my title comes in.

She sat there leaning forward, looking at the floor, brow tense, wringing hands, saying that she doesn’t believe she has the ability to help me and maybe she should pass me on to someone else. Well…shit. Not only have I been doubting her and ’self-soothing’ by giving her excuses and blaming myself, now she’s actually telling me that she’s incompetent! Dammit! Isn’t she supposed to be convincing me she’s trustworthy and that I do have a chance?! She sounded so frustrated and sad.

The thing is, if you’ve read this blog post (or at least the end before the edit addition) then you’ll know that I discovered that I’d been trying to be a burden on her so she would pass me onto someone else. I’m in a state of shock that it actually appears have worked. I can’t decide if it really has worked or if she was acting. Maybe she knew what I was doing and so pretended to be all self-doubting so I’d realise that I don’t really want to push her away and I’d open up to her. Thing is, I can’t tell if that’s giving her too much credit. I know she knew I’ve been pushing her away to test her (she said so in the appointment eventually) but is she really capable of putting on such an emotive act? If she is, I reckon she chose the wrong profession.

Regardless of whether she was truly doubting herself or testing me, I felt for her. I don’t know if it was sympathy, empathy, pity or whatever other words there are but I know I felt sad and guilty. It’s my fault she doubted her abilities. I’m the one being difficult and awkward. I’m the one being a burden. I’m the one playing games. Damn, I’m such a horrid person.

Well, after she went through the self-doubt she started suggesting things like seeing a Psychologist or Art Therapist or if I’d decided about medication and a referral to the GIC. When I either didn’t respond or didn’t agree to give them a go (can’t recall now), that’s when she went into criticising me. I’m sure you can guess the things she said. All those wonderful things like I don’t try hard enough, I’m helpless/hopeless, I play power games (try to outsmart her) and she either said I’m a ‘waste of time’ or I’m a ‘time waster’.  I’m not quite sure since there was no way I was going to interrupt her mini-rant and get into a fight just because I wanted clarification. I was upset enough as it was.

We’re now back at the ethics issue and I’m going to quote parts of an e-mail I wrote last night to her. I haven’t sent it yet because it’s unfinished and basically an incoherent mess.

It’s like you were threatening me into doing what you wanted me to do to. “Either you do this or I’ll leave.” I realised while we were talking, that it worked. I agreed to see the Psychologist. [My old therapist] used this tactic on me quite often so I resent that you have too, intentionally or not (right now, I trust you that it was unintentional).

There was also something else that happened a while ago now. You suggested (read: threatened) to end an appointment early because I was being ‘difficult’ [...] As soon as you suggested ending the appointment I panicked and got talking. Afterwards, I got really angry at myself for essentially giving you a tactic to get information out of me.

These things get in the way of me trusting you. You have control over me. By simply saying you’ll end an appointment early, you won’t see me any more, I’m a waste of time/hopeless etc you can get me to do whatever you want.

Honest and trust were big topics in this appointment. I don’t mean ‘big’ as in we talked at length about them, but they seemed to be the most important. I couldn’t really express myself here verbally and I can’t say I’ve done well in the e-mail either. It’s just in bullet points really. In order to even get started on the trust topic, I had to write out 6 different definitions!

I have very strong conflicting views and feelings on these subjects, but I’m going to summarise (I’m so tired. I got about 1 hour of sleep last night and whatever I have, cold, sinus infection, flu, I don’t care, it’s giving me hell).

The whole honesty thing links into identity. If I don’t know who I am (and therefore, what I believe) how can I be honest? What I see as ‘truth’ changes on a daily basis at the longest. Normally, it’s several times a day. So which view/thought/feeling  etc is the true one? I wish I knew because it drives me up the wall how I can be so contradictory!

This also links into our trust discussion. I said that I can hardly trust others when I can’t trust myself. She believes it’s easier to trust others because according to her, I can do more damage to myself than she can. I beg to differ. I’m accustomed to my barrage of constant self-hate, I’m used to the voices in my head telling me how bad I am. However, I’m not used to real people telling me those thoughts and feelings are true. It’s hurtful when someone else says all the things I use against myself because at least when I do it, I can think back and tell myself it’s not true. If it was true, then why would people be telling me the opposite? Why do people always tell me I’m intelligent, caring etc if my thoughts of self-hate were true? Are they just lying to me? In which case I’m justified in not trusting people.

You see, she believes that I should trust her. It started off when we met that she was saying trust is earned and she doesn’t expect me to trust her or to open up straight away. Now, she expects it. Does she really think she’s earned my trust? I can’t think of anyone that I trust fully so why would I trust her? I haven’t known her all that long and in the time that I have known her, she’s been invalidating, insensitive and pressuring. I really don’t cope with pressure well, but I’d cope with it a lot better if she wasn’t criticising me as well.

I used to trust her to be honest and I trusted her to hurt me (technically that’s not trust, as one definition is ‘to allow without fear’ well, I fear being hurt…though I suppose I ‘allow’ it! Still, another definition is ‘to expect/predict’). I still believe the latter, but the first is now really confused. After all her self-doubt and her blaming me, in a squeaky, cracking voice I told her my view on the ethics bit. I said I didn’t think it was right to scare someone into ‘motivation’. Then came the tears as she apologised and explained that it hadn’t even occurred to her that what she’d been saying could be taken that way. She said she didn’t mean to scare me or bully me.

Here came the contradictions.

You said that you don’t know what to do and you don’t feel able to help me [...] One minute you say ‘we’ll get you through this’ and the next you’re telling me you doubt your ability [and mine]? That’s not a criticism. I simply can’t understand this in relation to the honesty and trust conversations. I mean, you expect me to trust you and to believe you’re being honest, but you contradict yourself.

[...] it’s hard to trust you when you don’t always say what you mean [...] like when you said I challenge you to get a fight out of you, but when I pointed out that wasn’t quite right, you said you knew and explained that it was because I was testing you.

Your argument near the beginning was that you needed to convince your manager that you’re doing useful work with me and that telling them that I want to get more depressed was conflicting with your job, but later on you proved to not believe that I really want that. You’d said that you didn’t really believe it when I said it on the 29th Dec, but yesterday I didn’t really know whether to believe you honestly thought I want to be more depressed or if you actually did see through it.

[...] when I basically called myself a liar you agreed, but later when I said I don’t mean to lie, you said you know and that I just do it to protect myself.

Maybe you’re taking what I say to be the truth and pretending to fully believe it so that I get frustrated with you supposedly misunderstanding and just tell you the truth? Is that not manipulation? Kind of like what I was saying earlier about ‘threats’ of ending appointments early or not seeing me any more.

Summary

• Silence as CPN tries to get me to take a more active role in our sessions.
• CPN blames herself for me not getting better. She doubts her ability to help me.
• CPN blames me for not getting better. I don’t make enough of an effort, I’m a waste of time/time waster, I’m helpless, I’m a liar, I’m awkward and difficult.
• CPN calms down when I blame myself. She says she thinks we are equally to blame (our characters/personalities are antagonistic) and then contradicts much of what she has previously said (though doesn’t take back the blame onslaught).
• I’m going to be seeing a Psychologist for an assessment on what type(s) of therapy could be useful to me. Apprently, she specialises in CBT and EMDR which doesn’t impress me at all. I think I might go for the art therapy just because it might be good for the shits and giggles.

I make my CPN sound so nice, don’t I?

~FD~

Active But Blurred Month

The last month has been such a blur. I can’t even remember the first week of January. All I have is a horrid sense of frustration and self-hatred. Nothing specific at all. I find that quite worrying really. Forgetting the odd thing here and there is normal, but an entire week which included my brother’s birthday and a best friend’s? I guess I’ve been dissociating a lot, but it’s only really the first week that has felt ‘bad’. The rest of the month has little to no emotion attached to it.

I’ve been pretty active. I’ve met up with friends, I’ve gone out with my mum a couple times to the city (I feel so rural when I use that phrase) and we’ve been redecorating. You see, my sister moved out fully on Saturday 23rd, but we moved all her stuff into the new place on Friday. I swear I nearly passed out, no exaggeration. 2 flights of stairs and a long hallway carrying heavy boxes.

This means that I get my old room back! It was my room from about 6-15 years old but I gave it up because my sister ‘needed’ a bigger room. Well, she needed a double bed (wink wink) which wouldn’t fit into her room of the time and since I didn’t and still don’t need a double bed (man, I feel a bit lonely now), we swapped rooms. I was told this was temporary. 3 years down the line and I’ve finally got my space back! I’m so done with living in the cupboard! It also means I can use my PC whenever I want since it lives in that room. It seems wrong for something I own to be controlled by someone else.

The room hasn’t changed in regards to design since I left, but my sister doesn’t really take of care of things so the walls were chipped, scrapped, smudged and the carpet was horrid. Literally the morning of my sister leaving, my mum tore up the carpet! She’s like me in the sense that once she gets something in her head she just has to do it now.

A lot of people seem to think it’s insensitive to change the room so fast, but personally I’d find it more insulting if everything was kept the same. It would be like my mum was expecting me to fail and have to come back. We’ve shown my sister that we’re happy for her and that we’re not happy that she’s gone, but happy that she’s doing what she wants to do and she’s making her own way in life.

Anyway, so 2 days ago we went out and bought new carpet (dark brown) and 5 paint samples (all red-browns) because we’d gone into town and bought some purple but I didn’t like it. My mum didn’t want to waste more money on a whole tin of paint I won’t like (even though it’s my money). You see, the room was a very dark purple anyway so we were just going to freshen it up rather than change it. Yesterday, we put up the first coat and when my mum gets in we’ll do the second.

She’s at the hospital now. A few weeks ago she found a lump and saw the GP. She then went to the hospital for a biopsy and has gone back today for the results. The doctors had no idea what it was but they don’t think it’s cancer (obviously they can’t rule it out though). Hopefully she’ll be home with good news soon.

On the topic of family illness, I don’t know if I said but a few months ago my dad had a heart scare (which he didn’t tell his children about until a few weeks after he got out of hospital) and had a stent put into an artery. He’s been off work for a while so he’s been pretty frustrated. My ‘step-dad’ (they’re not actually married…after 14 years) has been getting chemotherapy and had a check up yesterday. From eavesdropping I’ve found out he still has tumours in his lungs but they aren’t significant enough to need more treatment at the moment.

Anyway, my appointment with CPN did indeed get cancelled, but I finally met her yesterday after 28 days. I won’t go into that in this post as I imagine I’ll end up having a lot to say! I need to put a bit of time into sorting that out but I will post on how it went either tonight or tomorrow.

Thank you to everyone who has commented recently! Sorry if I don’t reply personally, as I said at the beginning, this month has been a bit of a blur so I’m not totally with it.

Oh, I have a horrid cold. I felt it starting yesterday but it’s hit me hard today. I think it might be more of a sinus thing as my eyes are really hot and achey. I had a sinus thing in November as well. Urgh.

Take care,

~FD~

CPN Appointment

Had my appointment with my CPN several hours ago and it was my worst appointment with her ever (not that I’ve had all that many – probably about 10). I actually cried. They were silent tears but they were there nonetheless.

I’d told her about my last post via e-mail a couple days after I wrote it, but not what it was about and we decided we’d talk about it today, but near the end of the appointment she said that she specifically didn’t bring it up because she ‘didn’t want to touch’ it. She got mixed up and thought it was about my old therapist since we’ve been talking about her slightly recently, so I explained that it wasn’t (without saying it was about me being a lying, manipulative bitch).

Most of the appointment was her harping at me about her not being able to help me unless I want to be helped (provoked by me saying I didn’t mind either way about taking medication again so long as I don’t gain weight), but I’ve said right from the start of all this therapy crap that I’m not bothered about getting ‘better’ and in fact, most of the time I want to get more depressed so that I’ll finally kill myself.

‘So why am I here? Why do you talk to me? Why do you connect with people online instead of cutting yourself off from everything. You’re smart enough to know that you’ll get more depressed without all those things. I’m thinking Maslow’s hierarchy here.’

‘Because I’m clearly an idiot and a walking contradiction.’

They’re rough quotes and rather condensed but you get the idea. Most of the appointment was me calling myself an idiot and her saying something to the effect of ‘don’t be stupid’. For example, ‘I won’t accept that’. Oh wow, that’s not invalidating at all!

‘Some argue that people get depressed for a reason. Some argue it makes you a tougher person for having gotten through it all.’

She then made the mistake of bringing up ‘the Buddha route’ (literally her words) and said that I need to get better etc so that I can have a better life next time and eventually reach enlightenment. Big mistake. ‘Well, if you want to go down the Buddha route then technically, I’m having a shit time because I was a bad person in a previous life.’ She accepted that on the surface but mostly ignored that it validated my thoughts/feelings of self-hatred and lack of worth. I replied by explaining that I could just shirk it off for my next life to deal with by killing myself, because the me of here and now won’t be the exact same person in the next life. ‘I’ won’t be aware of the suffering of ‘my’ next life. My ’soul’ would, but I’m not exactly sure what I believe as far as that goes (maybe the soul doesn’t even have a consciousness?). It’s not like I remember a past life so why would my next one remember this life (and realise that I kinda screwed them over)?

Maybe I’m thinking about it wrong by seeing my next life as a different person, but the thing is, we are what our life experiences make us. It’s not all just genetics (or fate/’God’s will’), there’s the environment (e.g. family/friends, financial situation) and culture/society we’re brought up in. In my next life I might be a Thai male that decides to become a monk (and so my karma will get a boost regardless of the circumstances of my death this time) or even an African fundamentalist Christian. Who knows? Maybe me trying to go down the Buddhist path will be for nothing because in my next life I won’t even believe in Buddhism (which I’m not sure I completely do now, but it’s the only religious belief system I can relate to). Maybe…just maybe, I’ll be a heartless, atheist (I’m not saying atheists are heartless). That way, I won’t even get good karma from doing good deeds while a Christian (since that’s part of getting to Heaven. People should do good deeds anyway, but that’s not the point of my example).

She came up with the theory (all by herself, don’t you know) that I’m scared of moving forward because ‘what then?’. There was something else she said with that but I can’t recall, but the ‘what then?’ part I’ve been saying for ages, though possibly not directly to her, but no one bothers to offer a solution to this.

My old therapist used to say that I seemed to not think there was a ‘future’ (it never fitted in with my thought processes) and now my CPN gets the impression that I think about the future all the time (because I’ve researched GID and the process of treatment in detail). How the hell did that flip happen?

I’ve just thought, since she believes I think about the future a lot, surely I wouldn’t be thinking ‘what then?’ because I’d already have an idea. Maybe she thinks I look in the future in a vague way or that I simply believe there is a future, whereas my old therapist believed I didn’t think there was one (which is closer to the truth, in my opinion).

Anyway, I couldn’t really explain any of my thoughts but I was saying that I didn’t want to get better just to live my life with a load of bouts of depression again and again. Once someone has a serious, chronic depression they’re likely to slip back again. I just do not think I have the energy or will power to go through that repeatedly, even one more time to be honest. Actually, I don’t think I can even do it this time.

Oh, I’ve remembered what else it was she said with the ‘what then?’ bit. She believes that I want a good, happy life. I then accepted that what she’d been saying was ‘fairly accurate’ but I didn’t want a good, happy life because of the likelihood of me just getting seriously depressed again. What I said I wanted was a good, happy life all the time (with only a few, mild downers which everyone gets day-to-day) but since that’s impossible, I’d rather be depressed all the time. Now there’s some epic all-or-nothing thinking right there.

‘What horrid thing is it that you think you’ve done to deserve this as punishment?’

Punishment? I’ve never said or even hinted (at least intentionally/consciously) that I believe I need punishing. Granted, I don’t hide the fact that I’m in a constant state of self-hatred and see myself as an object for others, but punishment? I didn’t say that to her because denying it seemed stupid since it got me thinking. Maybe that is my problem. She described me not moving forward in treatment as a sort of self harm (I call it self sabotage but whatever, it’s just terminology) and that maybe I see getting better as the ‘wrong answer’ or wrong thing to do (it can’t be the right thing since I deserve the punishment).

‘Clearly, I’m just a bad, evil person.’

‘*pause* When you can justify that, [I'll believe you, but I don't accept it without proof].’ Brackets because I don’t recall that part but that was the meaning.

Something else she said was that she thinks I choose to be irrational. I’m not sure I have anything to say to that, just a dumbfounded look will do, I reckon. I don’t really understand that, but she was saying that even when I’m irrational, there’s still some rational thought there. I think she was trying to say that even when I think/say/feel/believe irrational things, I’m aware at the same time that they’re irrational. How that means I choose to be irrational, I honestly don’t know. I also don’t completely think it’s true that I’m aware of being irrational all the time. Yeah, most of the time it’s like:

Irrational thought -> rational counter-thought -> irrational counter-thought etc

But not always and that example suggests that I swap between believing something fully in an irrational way and then either fully believing the rational alternative or I’m simply trying to convince myself that there is an alternative. That’s not being irrational and rational at the same time, at least for the first example, the second is more questionable. Maybe I should ask what she meant?

I told her I was 7 stone again (as I’d lost more last time we’d met) and she thanked me, but I told her I didn’t do it on purpose and that I’ve barely been eating so how I gained in the first place was ridiculous. She said ‘oh don’t say that! Ruined the moment.’ So, I’m supposed to lie to her in order to get praise for doing well? I do that with everyone else, one reason I see professionals is because I want to actually be honest some of the time!

At the end we got onto the choice of seeing her (or any professional) again and I said I want to tell her to fuck off (though not because I hate or even dislike her). She said that was fine and she would, but she’d come back and even if I said it enough for her to not return, then that’s my choice to not see professionals since I’m not (at the moment at least) ‘sectionable [sic]‘. ‘It’s not really a choice. It’s an ultimatum.’ Either I see a professional or I’ll kill myself.

‘That’s the most positive thing you’ve said today.’

‘*pause* In a round about sort of way…’

‘It means you don’t want to kill yourself.’

Oh, no she didn’t! The last time someone said something similar (‘If you wanted to kill yourself, you’d have done it already’ – my old therapist) I took an overdose. It wasn’t in a ‘ha ha, in your face!’ sort of way, it just triggered me. I probably should’ve warned her, but she was in a rush and I was scared of what she’d think if I said I was at risk when she was trying to leave. For once, it wasn’t because I feared abandonment, I actually thought it would be sensible to tell her but I know she’d just think it was a tactic to stop her from leaving.

Also, yeah, I don’t want to kill myself. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to die and it doesn’t mean I won’t do it when push comes to shove. My want isn’t to ‘kill myself’ it’s to ‘not live’, therefore I don’t care much for the method, whether I get hit by a vehicle by accident or the driver purposefully mows me down (as opposed to me stepping in front of them) or I’m in a rough neighbourhood and get stabbed/shot or I get so desperate that I do it myself or put myself into dangerous situations, so long as the end result is death, what does it really matter?

That’s not to say I want others to take the responsibility for my death (e.g. I go to a rough neighbourhood purposefully to have someone else kill me). I don’t want my life on someone else’s conscience, but when in the throes of suicidal thoughts and feelings I’m not really thinking in detail about the guilt I won’t even feel afterwards or the consequences I won’t live to experience. I still wouldn’t do that to someone though.

Lastly, she thinks that as soon as I figure out who I am, then everything else will be easier to cope with. Well, that’s easier said than done really, isn’t it? She doesn’t know what it feels like to have no solid identity so how can she know that everything will be easier? This reminds me, she vehemently said that I can’t possibly know what my life will be like and whether the times of no depression (haha, that’s funny) will be worth the depressed times. I replied, ‘you don’t have to bite the doughnut to know it’s sweet.’ ‘What if you don’t know what sweet tastes like?’ Touche CPN, touche.

Anyway, I’m seeing her again in 2 weeks which she might cancel and she has a good reason. She specifically said ’so that you don’t get all paranoid.’ I’m thankful she gave me warning.

“We can get you through this, C. I honestly believe that.”

~C~

I’m a Fake [Long Post!]

I posted my last blog entry not so long ago (at the time of the start of this entry) and was just checking up on blogs on my blogroll, when I got hit by a thought I haven’t had in a while. I don’t think the blogs triggered it, I just got distracted.

It started off that I was comparing how I am in my blog posts and in my vlog. My thoughts were, that here even though my writing style is often emotionally disconnected and more ‘intellectual’, readers have told me that they can still sense the emotions I’m experiencing just lurking underneath. On my vlog though, I don’t really show any true emotion. My first videos were mostly completely lacking any emotion (even fake ones) and my voice was rather monotone, but I purposefully tried to work hard at having tone and emotion there, because I knew no one would watch my videos otherwise. Afterall, watching a motionless person and listening to their monotone voice drone on for 5-10mins is pretty excruciating!

I did well, didn’t I? In my later videos, I’m quite bubbly and I smile and laugh a lot. Occasionally, I gradually get more down, but as soon as I realise I force myself back into smiles.

I’m such a fake.

I’m a fraud.

I’m going to get caught.

My life will be ruined. No one wants or cares about a fraud.

I’ve battled with these thoughts nearly all my life, but not constantly. I’ll be going through my days acting absolutely fine but talking about emotional difficulties, which would convince people that I was connecting with them and sharing. It showed I was emotionally available to people so they felt safe and able to talk to me about absolutely anything. Then it’ll hit me. All the thoughts above just smack me all at once and my face will physically drop from being all smiles to depression, shock and despair. It happens when I’m alone and recapping my day, while I’m walking about town with a group of friends or even when I’m right in the middle of a conversation with someone.

I don’t know who I am or even how I feel most of the time so it’s unrealistic to think I’m a fraud…in a way. Maybe the way I’m acting is how I really am? I don’t think so though. I feel a chronic emptiness nearly all the time. Sometimes there’s respite, but it’s normally when I’m ‘acting’ so is it really respite or just denial?

I’ve tried to stop in the past. I thought I had stopped actually. I thought I was past it and I was actually genuine. I guess I just deluded myself into believing what I wanted to believe. I put on an act to myself, I suppose you could say.

This time the year before last, when the depression really became too much and I was failing at school and ignoring my friends, I was hit by these thoughts. It was a terrible time for them to strike because I was already down, but I was acting a bit. It wasn’t a full façade as I was too depressed to put that sort of effort and energy into it, but my manner was very blase. I utilized my well-known smirk to show that I didn’t care about anything or anyone’s feelings, but really it was my way of pushing everyone away. If they just thought I was being awkward then they’d give up and validate my feelings of abandonment and no self-worth.

So, these thoughts hit me and I looked back on my life and realised that ever since my nan’s death, if not before (which I think is likely but I can’t remember much of my childhood), that I’d just put on this act. I had my barriers and my mask so no one could find out who I really was, or indeed, that actually I wasn’t anyone inside. I was just a shell that reacted to situations depending on the personality of the person I was with. If I was with someone outgoing, then I was too. If they were arty, then so was I. By studying others I learned what to do, what to laugh at, how to respond in any social situation. I know that teen years are for finding your identity anyway but in retrospect, I was considerably more extreme in this area than my peers. When I was alone though, there was no one for me to imitate and I wouldn’t always be able to remember the people I most liked to copy, so even when I tried to keep a core identity it just slipped away. No one else knew though of course because I was alone.

When I was told to see the school counsellor, my act went into overdrive. The first few appointments I was unemotional as I gauged her, but then she always mentioned my nan and I would burst into tears, but soon I built a barrier for that and she couldn’t touch me. I had my trademark smirk almost constantly in place and nearly everything I said was sarcastic and smarmy. This was my ‘I’m superior to you in every way but I’ll play your little game’ mask (long title but at least it’s accurate).

The only times I wasn’t like that to her was when I was manipulating her. Something I got a real buzz out of when successful, because it just proved that I really was superior. I would even tell her right afterwards or in the next appointment that I’d done this, just so I could get the satisfaction of rubbing it in her face. I even got rewarded from friends because they saw it as a skill and a sign of intelligence! Of course, if the manipulation didn’t work, I just felt even more empty.

I continually threatened to stop seeing her and in the end I said it to her and she finally gave in and handed me this questionnaire to fill out (other times she would tell me to go off and think about it so I always ended up coming back). As I walked out she blamed me for it all. She said I was “very negative anyway” (was she trying to convince herself it wasn’t because of her own ineptitude? Hmm). No shit, I was seeing you because of depression. Since when was depression positive? I should’ve asked her to be more specific so I could grill her. I was really up for a fight.

Anyway, my theory on that mask was that it was just like her, or what I experienced of her personality at least. She was always very opinionated, judgemental and had a superior air about her (there wasn’t an ounce of caring even right at the beginning). If you know me at all, you’ll know that’s the worst combination when handling me. It’s a sure-fire way of provoking me, as it is with most people. No one likes to be talked down to or judged. I also think it was a bit of come back because I’d been weak by crying in front of her. I needed to prove that I was just as strong, if not stronger, that she was.

Fast forward a few months and I’m seeing my old CPN. I wasn’t acting so much now, as far as I was aware, because my depression had worsened. I didn’t have the energy for even a little mask. I felt no emotions at this point. I was slow to respond to anything and most of the time, didn’t talk at all.

Onwards again and I’ve started seeing my old OT. I definitely acted with her, but it was difficult. She often commented on my barriers so it became clear to me that she saw through some of my act, but not all of it. Later into the relationship I really kicked myself into gear with the acting (and I don’t mean I stopped). I would try to act blase about her, but really I was either feeling overly dependent and needy (which made me feel weak) or I thought she was useless. From there it just spiralled and turned into a love-hate type thing so I was constantly in a cycle of push-pull.

Again I was hit by the thoughts of being fake and I actually told her. I said I felt like I was always lying and that I couldn’t control it because it would happen before I realised it; it didn’t take conscious thought. When I was struggling for words to describe my need to lie she offered ‘complusive’. I agreed at the time but now I’m not completely sure. She said it was ok so long as I tried to correct the lies as soon as I noticed.

That proved harder than expected because nearing the end of my time as an inpatient, I felt it all again. I was so frustrated with myself. These people were trying to help me and I was acting and lying to them? What does that say about me? I’m going for ‘I’m a horrible person’ or ‘I’m too insecure to tell the truth’. I can’t tell which I’d rather believe.

Anyway, I talked this time to the inpatient OT rather than my usual one. OT2 (aren’t I affectionate?) was lovely and always caring and supportive. OT1 though could be invalidating at times and because of the push-pull thing, I often went to OT2 when I was avoiding OT1. She asked me more questions about it which helped me be a bit more aware of it, but I don’t really recall what came out of it other than that.

I just remembered something but I’m not sure where it is chronologically. I had said to OT1 on a separate occasion to the one described earlier about the faking, but I went on to say that I felt like I actually lacked my own identity. In person I couldn’t completely explain it so I promised her I would e-mail it and I did. In the wonderful medium of bullet-points, I explained the most prominent personality traits of 4 of the professionals helping me (my old CPN, psychiatrist, OT1 and OT2) and how my own personality changed depending on who I was with. I won’t go into detail on this but needless to say, I was rather different in each scenario, particularly when comparing OT1 and OT2 (OT1 I was humorous and strong/proud and with OT2 I was frail and childlike). This perspective was invalidated and put down to my differing ‘comfort levels’ with each of them. It’s a valid point, but I don’t think it fully accounts for the changes and my other examples (outside of CAMHS care) were ignored.

Now, none of them are around and I have a new CPN. She knows that I lie to people/exaggerate my feelings/allow them to believe that I like or care about them more than I actually do. I explained my motives for it as not wanting to hurt them (I’m not sure if that’s through actual caring for their welfare or because I would feel guilty). Since then (last Friday) I thought it over briefly and thought maybe it was more to do with abandonment. Someone would be less likely to abandon me if they thought I cared about them.

Hmm. I just seem to elicit a genuine, deep caring from people and when I can’t return it, I pretend instead. If I showed that actually I didn’t care much about them, then surely they’d stop caring for me? Also, there must be some reason that I elicit such caring from people in the first place. Am I manipulating them? Clearly, I can’t possibly deserve it!

I always have been talented at manipulation and after a while I used to see it as good thing. It was a skill that not everyone had and my friends complimented me on it, in fact they admired it. It confused me that a word predominantly used as an insult could be a good thing, but after being praised enough, I guess any behaviour would stick. It didn’t stay like that though as my group of friends started splitting into warring factions (that’s only a slight exaggeration) and I was stuck in the middle. I was always described as the ‘glue’ that kept everyone together, but this group split was when I was absent a lot because the depression was getting worse. It was then that my being manipulative was used as an insult. It was subtle as no one would really dare get aggressive with me, but it was there and I think that might have been what triggered me to think about how fake I was at that stage.

Back to my CPN, I do have a façade with her. I haven’t completely figured it out yet, but it’s similar to the one I had with OT1 in the beginning, in the sense that most signs of genuine emotion are unacceptable. I don’t think this is unusual though. It’s probably how a lot of people cope when getting used to someone new. It’s inevitable that it’ll change into a different façade.

I think I’m testing her too. My old CPN, psych, OT1, my senior nurse (we did not have a good relationship) and 2 support workers who were on my care team (while an inpatient), independently of each other and at different times in my treatment, told me that I test people. I was really shocked by this because they said they’d actually seen me do it with other patients, staff and they’d experienced it first hand from me. At first I thought they were saying that I tested their worthiness to interact with me, but it was explained that they thought I was testing how much they cared and I would see how far I could push them before they had enough and abandoned me.

My usual tactics seem to include being deeply insulting so they hate me, convincing people I’m a horrid/evil person so they hate me/think I’m not a worthy person to associate with and being overly dependent/needy so they feel overwhelmed and can’t cope.

This revelation has only come to me whilst writing this. I think my tactic this time is bombarding her with information so I’m deemed too needy or too much work early in the relationship so she’ll just say “Fuck this. I’ll pass her on to someone else.”

Should I pass this entry onto her?

~C~

Edit: It’s about 12hours later from when I posted this, but something has occured to me. When I was in year11 at school (the year before the crash-and-burn I usually mention, though I did have one around this time as well), I was sitting with about 5 friends around a table in our Physics class. None of us liked Physics and I always avoided working because it involved too much maths (I love Physics so long as someone else does the maths!) so as usual, we were all just chatting and joking about.

Somehow the topic came up that I have very distinct personalities. I did not bring this up. They did. For some reason, they felt the need to tell me that they thought I was mentally insane, but they did it in a way that came across as “It makes you special and we love you for it.” At the time, I fell for it. I mean, no way could I let myself believe that actually they were insulting me, because then surely that would mean I had no friends? Denial anyone?

They described 5. Five. Maybe it’s noteworthy that that’s how many friends were discussing this. I was just sitting there smiling and laughing, while inside I was digesting this fascinating information. Anyway, the ‘personalities’ even got named. For example, Victoria (“We are not amused”) and Vladimir (“I vill kill you all wiz my bare hands!”). I would mention others but they’re linked to my real name. Whilst talking about it, 2 more were thrown in. Seven?!

I wasn’t sure if they were actually distinct personalities (as they were describing them) or mood swings. For example, Victoria could be that I just wasn’t in the mood for humour, Vladimir was when I was angry and aggressive, another was depressed, the next dependent/needy. Oh and of course there was Eva! I almost forgot about her. She was the ‘I’m superior to you’ and ‘I like to play mind games’ personality.  Another was very childlike but with this one, I conceed this was a blatent stealing of personality from one of my friends.

Looking back on it, it’s like they all got together behind my back and talked about how I was with each of them and compared before telling me in an environment I couldn’t blow up in.

Blog Neglect and My Old Therapist

I wrote part of the second post on the friendship topic (my last post), but I just can’t bring myself to complete it and then I’d have a third as well. I really want to have them recorded here, but I can’t seem to get myself to write them. I will try my best to get something done about it.

So what else is going on with me? Well, I’ve been really depressed (after having made improvements), I’ve slipped back into panicking about my gender and what to do about it and I’ve been having a lot of intense but mixed feelings over my old therapist.

On Friday, I had an appointment with my CPN and she brought up the topic of my last therapist so I tried to give her what she wanted to know, but it was really hard and in the end she changed the topic because I visibly got very down and was actually close to tears (I don’t know if she noticed that though, to be honest). During the conversation she worked out that my transference with my therapist was maternal (something I had never told my old team and neither did they guess, because they thought she was too young for me to see her as a mother!).

I got really upset last night over all this so I sent an e-mail to my CPN to explain all the stuff I couldn’t be verbal about. It’s really long so I won’t put it all here, but I’ll quote a few important bits:

Pretty damn ridiculous really. I knew [my therapist] about a year, several months worth of which was hatred and fear and yet she trumps my mum who’s physically been there all my life? Also, earlier this year and a few days of [my therapist] being on holiday were horrific! But no, my mum gone just doesn’t bother me. I could understand if I missed my mum a little, but not at all? It says bad things about me.

You said that I seemed embarrassed by my feelings for [my therapist], which I figured was accurate at the time, but I thought about it earlier and actually, it doesn’t really come close. The feelings I associate with this are predominantly shame, remorse and hatred.

…I don’t want to make the same mistake twice. I’m grateful that you said something like you didn’t want to make the mistakes [my therapist] did but the thing is, I’m not sure that she really made any. She probably did since she’s only human, but I think it was mostly just my fault.

I can never quite tell if I like or hate [my therapist] these days. If I have a hateful thought I immediately counter it, but it won’t just stop there because then the ‘hate-side’ will argue back.

What is probably the main reason the ending sucked so hard was actually [my therapist] herself. Normally, she was lighthearted, a bit sarcastic and we took the mick out of each other quite a bit…However, in the last few months her professional barriars went right up and she was really cold (I tried very hard not to accuse her of not caring but I strongly implied it a lot). Some of her comments or questions sounded angry/annoyed/impatient…

Also, her excuse for ending the appointments early…was because she had another girl to see down in
Bognor. Oh great. Just use my lack of self-worth against me why don’t you? “I’m cutting our appointment short because someone else needs me. I know you understand that everyone is more important than you so I won’t make you feel guilty by taking up my time. Bye!”

The really annoying thing about it is that I can’t actually trust any of my opinions about [my therapist] because they’re either over idealised or she’s the most hated person I’ve ever met. Both are completely ridiculous.

Considering how much is there, I’m sure you can imagine that the e-mail was much longer! Anyway, I’m kind of glad I explained stuff to my CPN but I do feel some regret. She’d said in the appointment that transference was natural and not something negative, but if it happened with her we would have to talk through it properly (which didn’t happen with my old therapist as I always avoided answering or lied about it). That’s really scary. Here’s another quote from the e-mail:

I’m still keeping you at arms length because I fear you. I don’t want to attach to you, I don’t even want to like you. I’d be happy if you stayed in my ‘indifferent’ category but I know you won’t…I know there’s nothing I can do about it… if that’s the way this turns and that just makes me feel helpless.

This is a quote from a previous e-mail conversation (this is what made my CPN bring her up as a topic in the first place:

I hadn’t quite realised how much I had distorted my view of her, so I’m realising that you two aren’t much different. I’d already drawn some similarities and these have affected how much I talk to you, both verbally and via e-mail, so to find more is not a good thing in my opinion.

[Her reply] I have to admit to feeling a little confused about what you are trying to say about [therapist] and me being similar? I realise you feel it is ‘not a good thing’ but I find myself needing to ask why?

[My reply] You and [my therapist] being similar is bad because I only ever had a black or white view of her… It was a crazy emotional rollercoaster and I don’t want that to happen again. Also, it’s a constant reminder that she’s not around.

This is the first time I’ve truely expressed my thoughts/feelings over my old therapist so I’m feeling pretty damn vulnerable. I just hope she doesn’t read this! I would die on the spot. Why haven’t I gotten over it yet?

~C~

Friendship

Fuck that. Well, that’s a bit harsh but bascially, I’ve been having some issues with my friends recently. We don’t all get together very often so when there’s a reason, everyone tries to get there and make the most of it. November has 4 reasons to meet before it’s halfway through:

1. Guy Fawkes/Bonfire/Fireworks Night – 5th November but we ‘celebrated’ on the 7th
2. M’s Birthday – 11th November
3. F’s Birthday – 12th November but we celebrated on the 13th
4. R’s back to Leeds – 15th November but we met up on the 14th

I’ll put 3 of these (not no.2) into separate posts otherwise this’ll be far too long! All this has happened over the space of a week today and I’ll spread out the posts a little. I’ll try to do them quickly but you know me, so no promises.

So, to start we have Guy Fawkes Night. This is my favourite day of the year, only just before Shove Tuesday (pancakes!). I don’t know why I like it so much, but the reasons Christmas and my birthday aren’t at the top, is because I don’t like family get togethers, planned big dinners, receiving gifts or giving them, but not because I don’t like spending on people.

On the 6th, I got a text from L asking if I wanted to go to a ‘nearby’ fireworks show and bonfire, to which I replied ‘I’d love to!’ My normal response to things is something like ‘I guess’ or ‘depends who else is going’ but this time I didn’t care because I wanted to celebrate Guy Fawkes. We carried on texting but not about details of the meeting, which I asked for early the next day, but got no reply until 7:30pm. I found out that the torch procession started at 6:30-45pm so then they reach the bonfire and light it around 7pm. Clearly, I’d been left behind. The reply was ‘we’re already at the bonfire x.’ x? Are you kidding me?

I only knew of L being there at this point, but being left behind really upset me. I really wanted to do something special this year, I showed a very clear enthusiasm and I got completely forgotten about. My mum was sad and angry for me as well so she told me to go and get ready because she’d drive me there. We couldn’t drive all the way as the road was closed (presumably a health and safety issue) but the drive was about 10minutes and I then had to walk for another 10minutes in the pitch black. Let me point out, my area is made up of farm- and woodland. It was not a nice walk.

So, I walk around a corner and up on a hill I can see the crowd and the bonfire, but at the bottom of the hill there’s a few small groups of people and as I got closer, I noticed that bright orange, plastic fencing. A bad sign, but I ignored it and kept my head down. Did I get through. Of course not! Some short, bald guy wearing a reflective vest tells me I can’t go through. I politely fight my cause a bit but he’s having none of it. I could’ve pegged it, gotten through the next barriar and hidden in the crowd, but I really wasn’t in the mood.

I walked back a bit, fighting the tears and the fireworks started. 3 metres away. Good on them for putting a barriar up but when it’s that close, it’s rather useless. They were literally going off right above my head and as they were so close, they were a hell of a lot louder than I’m used to. I’d been texting L on the way, so I let her know I couldn’t get through and I also told my mum who then rang me and I tried not to cry down the phone, but it didn’t really work.

When they finally finished and the barriars were taken away, a huge procession of people came my way,  L wasn’t answering me and it was raining heavily. I was standing there being stared at for a full 5minutes before L replies telling me they have to go because they have a lift with Sa’s dad. Oh great. Not only was I forgotten about before the fireworks, I was forgotten afterwards as well even though they walked right past me.

I later found out that there were 3 others including my best male friend (I only have about 3!) Sc, so that makes 5 people (3 of which are close friends) who forgot me. I’ve done so much for Sc and we’re really close (as close as can be non-romantically) and even though I haven’t been friends with him for as long as I have with L (I’ve known him as long but we lost contact for a long time), I was more hurt that he’d essentially abandoned me than I was at L. Sc understands me and my issues much better than anyone so for him to not think like that was just ridiculous.

My CPN is angry at them as well and I don’t think we’ve even met 5 times yet. I had sent her e-mail when I’d gotten home that night so obviously, my written tone was much more hurt, frustrated and angry. I guess she just felt it through that.

L and Sc are fundamental to the other 2 events I’ll be writing about as well. Sa will also be mentioned mostly in the last installment of the ‘why I hate my friends’ series =P Maybe I should call it the ‘friendship’ series!  Anyway, that’s the first step on the road to me being a loner. Follow me and we’ll see what happens.

~C~

Camera Club

Back at the start of September I joined the local Camera Club which meets every fornight on Wednesday. The first meeting was a non-league competition and you can either enter Prints or Enprints. The former photos are mounted, enlarged and are allowed to be manipulated, while the Enprints are a max size of 7×5 and minimum of 4×6, unmounted and unedited. I’m sure you can guess that Prints is far more popular. Well, I entered Enprints because I know nothing about mounting and didn’t have time to order any enlargements. It’s also incredibly rare that I edit a photo so Prints really isn’t my thing.

So, they have a guest judge come in and go through every photo in the Prints competition at the front where everyone can see. We aren’t told who the photo belongs to, but we get told the title and get to hear the critique of the judge. Now I’ll point out that there must’ve been about 30 people there so in theory that’s 90 photos as every member can submit 3 photos. It took a long time to go through them all.

Then it came to the Enprints. The chairwoman wasn’t there for this or the following meeting because she was doing a charity 10k bike ride, so it was up to the other commitee members how they were going to judge the Enprints. In this case they were treated much the same as Prints, but less time was spent on them. There was only about 10 photos and 3 were mine. The judge liked all of mine, one in particular but I still didn’t get a winning place (which were 1st, 2nd, 3rd and he choose 2 for Highly Commended). What irritated me was that I was so close, but he chose a photo to win that he didn’t even particularly like and some of the photos submitted were enlarged so shouldn’t have been there anyway (including the photo I just mentioned). Hey ho.

The next meeting was a speaker evening. The speaker was Ken Scott. His speciality is landscapes especially in the mountains which he’s written a book about. I bought the book in the break of his presentation and I do recommend it. His topic was ‘Besides and Beyond – the art and psychology behind everyday photography’. Basically, on Flickr he was challenged to the project of taking at least one photo everyday for a year and his presentation was all about how this improved his photography, since he’d been a specialist for so long, and in some ways his outlook . It’s not like he could go up a mountain everyday! When it came to the end of the year he had the dilemma of whether to stop the project or try to continue for another year. He continued and is still submitting a photo to Flickr everyday. His account is called ‘touchingthelight’ so please do check out his work.

Next was the beginning of the league competition and the subject was ‘yellow’. I hate yellow and I didn’t have any photos that could really be used so I needed to take a new one, but I procrastinated until the day of the meeting. Unfortunately, it was a busy day as my sister was getting her second tattoo and my mum was at the hospital with my step-dad who’s getting chemotherapy. So I took some in the morning of a cut lemon and some sherbet lemons, but I didn’t get to check them until around 4pm when I got home. They were rubbish so after a while of just giving up, I set the whole thing up again and started over. Again most were rubbish (to be fair the lighting was horrific!) but I picked one out and me and my sister went down to Boots around 5:20pm to get it printed. The meeting was at 7:30pm at which time my mum was finally back.

This meeting was a little controversial for me and my mum, because many of the pictures didn’t really have ‘yellow’ as the subject. One of the winning photos in the  Prints competition was called OJ…it was of three glasses of orange juice. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a very good photo, but it’s orange. Not only that, but the Enprints got mixed up because the chairwoman was back and had differing views on how it should be done. Her opinion was that Enprints was more descrete so they shouldn’t be up the front and critiqued like the Prints (apart from the winning 4-5 photos). This is fair enough and it’s good to have a competition like that, but at the time we weren’t aware that Enprints was meant to be for those who are more on the shy side (though no one finds out who’s photo is whos unless they win) so my mum got pretty annoyed that my photo might not get any comments, especially since they were trying to get more people submitting Enprints and for it to be seen as valid a competition as Prints.

Well, in the end the photos were all put up at the same time and all given a short critque…except mine and one other. Typical. I was a disapointed, but not really angry. I figured I wouldn’t enter future competitions though (not in an immature ‘well I just won’t take part’ sort of way. It just didn’t feel worth it). However, my mum was angry and she told me that I should leave before her. I was filled with dread and tried to persuade her not to say anything. Afterall, we’re only new members and it’s rather out of place for us to shake up the way they do things. But in the end I just left and waited for her. It went well. I got a critique which was great (and I retook the photo the next day with those comments in mind) and my mum had a nice general chat about me. Oh joy. I was not impressed but the chairwoman is very nice so I guess it’s okay.

The most recent meeting was last night and was supposed to be a talk by Nick Scott, but it got a bit messed up so a different photographer called Glen/Glyn (I think =S I forget his last name unfortunately) who took a trip to America to travel Route 66 (LA – Chicago). It was interesting but he wasn’t the best speaker to be honest. He works entirely with film and processes his own work on the most part so it was quite nice to see slide work for once. Personally, I have no interest in film photography. While some think of the wait for the photos to be processed as exciting and it’s like getting a present, to me it’s more something to dread. I would hate to have gone on this Route 66 trip and the photos bombed. I would be devestated! So much so I doubt I would pick up a camera again. I do respect film and photographers who still use it though, it’s just not for me. During this meeting I also got some mounting card which I’ll be using for the next competition (non-league).

Anyway, since I have been negligent of updating recently here’s a long post and I’ll be putting some in my drafts to post over the next week to catch up with goings on.

Take care

~C~

Sorry, Wrong Number

I haven’t posted in well over a month, but this is priceless so I must share. I’ll make a serious update soon I’m sure.

It’s 21:55 and I’m just finishing watching the new episode of Mythbusters which I have enjoyed immensely, when my mobile phone that sits on the nearby coffee table vibrates against the wood. I have a message. Who could this be? It’s rare that I get a text and even more rare that it’s an actual person on the other end and not some automated bot.

Anyway, I pick it up, unlock it and check the number; it’s not anyone I know. Must be a wrong number.

“Hi reagan u ok school on wednesday im not looking forward 2 it”

Definately a wrong number. So I wrack my brain for a response. Nothing seems good enough so I request assistance from my good friend ‘A’ and she comes up with a marvelous, yet bizarre, suggestion which I adapt slightly and send back to Mr/Mrs Sender.

“We shouldn’t talk like this nemore. The pies are listening.”

Suddenly, the phone vibrates against my leg after a few seconds have past. “That was quick,” I remark to A but clearly, this person on the other end isn’t in the mood for playing our little game as s/he replies “Wht”. How boring. Again I enlist the help of A and a few adaptions later, we respond:

“Goddammit man, don’t you understand?! The *pies*! They know. They saw. We need to lay low.”

The tension rises as I wait. It’s a longer pause this time. I make a comment to A to pass the time “I wish I was there on wednesday when he goes up to Reagan and asks wtf he’s on.” Then, just as I’m distracted bzzzz goes the phone. “Who is this”

They don’t like to use proper grammar in their texts it seems. I should use this ploy, as it’s likely Reagan doesn’t either. I must get into character to prolong the conversation with Mystery Caller, as I’ve come to call him/her. But first, I must get around the sticky situation of the reply.

“We’re busted!” I cry, but still we try to save the conversation with “U know who this is. U txted me dude” But alas, MC isn’t having any of it and even his/her texting ability goes out the window, “Eyy who is this now whis ir nt funny x”

What is this?! An ‘x’ on the end? Surely not a kiss symbol. It seems so out of character for MC, especially since s/he’s said this isn’t funny. So far, MC has been abrupt. Straight to the point and the endings left bare. Not even a full stop, but not this time. There’s an ‘x’. I swiftly reply but unfortunately I kept losing signal and the message simply sat in my outbox ‘Waiting…’.

“Come on man. I’m not kidding about the pies. I’ll tell u more about it on wednesday”

“shut up reagan”

Is it so? S/he thinks we’re still Reagan?! We did it! We’re not busted any more! Okay, it’s time for caution. I refuse to completely dump the pie storyline but I soften the blow with some normality.

“Never   The truth must be told! Anyway, u all sorted for school?”

Again I lose signal. My patience is wearing thin as I wait for MC to get my message and reply. How will s/he take it? Will s/he fall for my little trap to keep the conversation going. The reply is shakey. Is it good or bad?

“Omg reagan stop it now”

Well, MC still thinks we’re Reagan but they aren’t answering the question. They didn’t fall into it. It takes a long time for my next message to send and I don’t know if Mystery Caller even read it. I guess we’ll never know.

“I thought i had since i asked a simple q x”

MyPersonality.info Badge

Update – Appointments and Trans

Saw my CPN yesterday and her and my psych wrote a risk assessment for me and one of the risks was ‘exploitation’ and it said I ignore safety online. I’m slightly miffed. It’s not like I ever tell people my location or my full name! I’m not that free on the net.

I was supposed to have a joint appointment with both my psych and my CPN yesterday, but my psych dropped out of work because of a migraine, so couldn’t make it. I didn’t mind as I was pretty damn scared, though it did mean I couldn’t talk about any trans stuff. I came out to my psych so it felt weird continuing the conversation with someone else.

On the trans note, I came out to a friend of mine. I told her several years ago that I was considering a sex change in the future and she was really accepting so I just brought it up again to let her know how it’s progressed. When I told her those years ago I also told a male friend of mine and he basically said he would disown me if I did have a sex change. Well, my female friend told me that he’s obsessed with me and won’t stop talking about me to her and that’s within the last week so I’m sure he won’t have changed his view. He’s liked me for such a long time and we tried to have a relationship but it just didn’t work. We’re boths aspies and couldn’t even have much of a conversation unless it was about video games. He was devestated when I came out as a lesbian. I’m a bit worried about losing him though.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment =)

~C~

[Edited on 28th January 2010 to delete a few paragraphs and a link.]