surfacing

CW: medication switch struggles, depression, loss of self

Well, I have been very low and it has taken me a really long time to pull round ‘enough’ to want to post again. Most of the trouble has been connected to coming off Citalopram after 10 years, and switching onto Duloxetine. They are both anti-depressants with strong anti-anxiety effects, and Duloxetine is also supposed to help with pain management, though so far it has not had that effect for me, but the two friends with chronic pain I know taking it who feel a benefit are on far higher doses. I’ve also had an allergy to the treatment for the allergy to the treatment for my eye trouble… sigh. Itchy eyes and blurred eyesight are not conducive to creativity and it’s been over 6 months now. Another problem has been missing my continuity people, my oldest friend has been away for 6 months and I really miss her wisdom and listening. My therapist of the last 10 years died last spring, and I didn’t get closure as she was suddenly rushed to hospital. I’d like to think I can weather stuff like this, but apparently not, or maybe not when it all falls together with a GP demanding I follow treatments that are traumatic for me, while trialling 4 therapists in 15 months to replace lovely Sharon.

I now have a new therapist, a MAN!! [I’ve only ever seen women for 27 years] who is so far impressing me though the usual drawback is occurring – Sharon and I had worked out that a 90 minute session worked really well in allowing me time to trace through triggers and issues in my complex PTSDs and time to re-surface and face the world again, as an agoraphobic going home after delving deep. I’ve now been told by various people [who I found tbh pretty inadequate at their jobs as counsellors, therapists and supervisors] that this was inappropriate, but you know what, it worked. I have atypical agoraphobia in that I can go places and do things others find difficult, but can sometimes find no feeling of safety anywhere, including my home. I challenge myself to stay part of the world, to make art, to be at some level an activist, to not be silenced by my experiences and their perpetrators. 50 minutes to name, explore, trace, untangle and figure out strategies is impossible, without then also the making safe… at least I only have to get a taxi home now and as I am very good friends with 1 of the drivers, and liked by all the others in the small company I use, I can feel safe enough to get home and crash, if necessary. Before I had to take 2 buses home, and change in the busy city centre.  So maybe it only needs to be a 2 minute turnaround? It irritates me that what I know works best for my long term balance and self care is unavailable on my limited budget, because of the Government cuts to disability benefits. Cuts? Yes, they are frozen, and the cost of living isn’t. A bus ticket costs £1.20/ 33% more than it did 10 years ago, a loaf of sliced bread 25p- 60p more, depending what kind you get.

I went to a really good conference last Friday and Saturday and have come out with lots of thoughts and questions, having met some lovely people – potentially 3 new friends! – and while it was an extravagance of spoons/energy, I really needed a bit of a shake-up, as the GP had weighed me down with appointments and bad diagnoses, so I was feeling like my life had no fun, and I was becoming very dull to be around. Though my kind friends have never hinted at this, I’ve been aware of having to ask for extra listening, and of course it becomes that spoonie anxiety nightmare – will I know when enough is too much? Will I wake up one day with only paid helpers coming round? Luckily most of my friends are intersectional in their politics, and often have experience of these issues themselves, but with no therapy holding the space, it has been very hard, and I have cried with friends and others who really didn’t expect it, as their question was a straw that broke my back. Two friends in particular stepped up to the plate, and I am very grateful to them. I have always ‘kept my face up’ as part of my self-defence, so this became upsetting in its own little spiral.

The single hardest day was when I woke up and thought about my artmaking, and just felt the thought settle that there was no point to it. At this point I normally joke, but actually it was very frightening. I have always managed a lot of my anxiety by doing and when I am doing enough, I can then feel safe to be. I grew up with no acceptance of my right to be myself – I was instructed from an early age to be my mother’s comfort and to do whatever it took to cheer her up. One of my earliest memories is of her bursting into tears when my father came home from work, and of feeling I had failed. That’s not a feeling a 4 year old should have. I was also told I wasn’t allowed to make art or study art at various points, and it has taken years and a really supportive tutor on the Access course I attended to break the block, ‘be selfish’ and attend to my own needs by making. My oldest friend is my absolute go-to champion for my making, and after 18 years of her friendship, I thought I was pretty solid on this. I have had solo shows and made some wonderful pieces, had people tell me how much a piece meant to them, but still… I hit that place of feeling the world has no need of my art. And it has been very hard to hold, because if my art is not needed, then I am not needed. I could feel that here was a ‘wonderful opportunity’ to heal some of that bad scripting, and replace it with solid assertion of my right as a human being to just be.

Without a therapist, missing my best ally/friend, feeling the general depression of all Remainers about Brexit, feeling the fear and anger of all disabled people about how the Department of Woe and Persecution is killing thousands with the Government’s blessing and the Opposition’s silence and the media’s collusion… yeah, that’s a bit of a tall order.

Instead, I am holding onto making what I can – patchwork, painting components, recently tie-dye and dressmaking. And now I have a commission for some textile art and a request for some collage art I had already planned to make as a gift for that person, and they are slowly creeping forward. I have plans for a new quilt in grey and sunshine yellow! I have bought a swimdress and am planning to go to a disabled swimming session, I have found a new doctor… I am resurfacing, feeling the sunshine on my skin, looking out in my tiny garden or on the terrace of the British Library, reading lots and thinking about things and being present. Being. Being me. Breathing, being, breathing. Phew.