Abortion limit kept!

Just thought I’d drop a quick post about the abortion limit, which has been kept at 24 weeks, a victory, I think, of common sense and medical understanding over religious belief and emotive arguing.

Here’s the F-Word’s take on it!

Trial jog…

So, it’s now been five weeks since I broke my toe. At the moment, it’s still swollen, but it doesn’t really hurt to walk on, so I’m going to try out some jogging this week, just really lightly, and see how it responds.

I also wanted to add that my doctor’s put me on fluoxetine (Prozac) for a trial month to see if it helps me. At the moment I’m just under one week on it, and I’m not seeing any benefits yet, but I guess these things take time. It’s not making me drowsy like the escitalopram or nauseous like the citalopram, so that’s good.

I’m still having horrible, recurring thoughts, though, and anxiety. I haven’t binged in a while, which is awesome, but I’m still finding it pretty hard to cope.

Introducing myself

Anxiety has been a part of my life for… well, always. Even on good days it’s there, inescapably lurking at the back of my mind, reminding me of its presence with the occasional twinge, with my entire attitude to the way I live my life. The fact is, I don’t think I have ever gone a day without it.
So, I have anxiety. A fair bit of it. My main issue is OCD, but I also experience social anxiety, generalised anxiety, panic attacks, and so much of the OCD spectrum that I almost feel perversely proud to cover so many bases all at once.

I wanted to introduce myself here by explaining a little about the kind of OCD I suffer with. Pure-o - generally the lesser known side of OCD. It means ‘pure obsessionality’, although actually it is anything but - we have the same degree of compulsions as washers and checkers, but the compulsions are often invisible. 
OCD is known as the doubting disease and pure-o is no exception. It makes you doubt the very essence of everything you believed you were as a human being. You doubt your character, you obsess that you are not a ‘good person’, you dig up every instance from your past of actions you regret and dissect them over and over, each time convinced that they prove you are a terrible person, evil, damaged, sick. You may experience the cold horror that seeps into every corner of your mind that perhaps you are a pervert or a killer in the making. That every ‘wrong’ thought or image you have ever imagined is proof that you are and have always been the moster you fear you are.

So, you change your behaviour. Keep yourself away from children, relatives, anyone you fear you may harm. Avoid going to certain places and watching certain programmes because they contain images and people that will trigger the anxiety. And when the anxiety starts it’s so, so hard to stop obsessing.
Of course, this is not the only type of so-called pure obsessionality, but it is, in my experience the most pervasive sort and the only kind that can make me seriously consider self-harming.

I’ve been in therapy for 2 years now, most of that time spent doing CBT. I was diagnosed when I was 22, though I’m sure I’ve had OCD since very early childhood. I’m starting to realise that I have a lot to say about these experiences, but after an anxious night and maybe three hours sleep, I don’t think I’m making quite enough sense to continue.

I hope that now I’ve got the intimidating First Post out of the way I can contribute something to the amazing work that is already here.

Getting To Work On Time

I am a student panicking about my future. I am not untypical. However, living with a disease that robs me of my energy and motivation makes it incredibly difficult to picture my future. I know I do not want a job I am not passionate about. I am a creative person. I care about issues to do with mental health and feminism. But in looking at my options on the many, many career websites pushed forward by my university I can’t help but feel confused and isolated. Many of the options open to me (as someone who is undertaking a degree which does not lead to a steady job) seem difficult and in most cases impossible when I take on board my depression. The whole ‘Kick Start Your Future’ campaigns and adverts featured on these websites (magazines, leaflets etc), usually accompanied by pictures of smiling, bright-eyed young people, only serve to make me feel nervous. When considering my options, I seem to only meet a series of dead-ends. Should I go postgraduate? Bang! It’s too expensive, I’m not sure which subject, should I do creative writing again? But then will I end up with a career after that etc etc. Should I try and get a job? Bang! No idea what job that would be, where would I go, how much would I earn, would I need to take time off for my illness etc etc.

I am a little clueless about what kind of careers there are available to people who want to work in fields of mental health/feminism. Feminism, especially. With the current culture of girls wanting to grow up to be glamour models, where is there information available for those who want to work to make things better for women? I have always been interested in mental health, but then is it a good idea to pursue a career in this field while I am still in therapy myself?

My university has a welfare office and a careers office but they run completely separate from each other. If I mention my career at the welfare office or vice versa, they simply refer me to the other office. As if the two things are not interlinked…

I have had discussions about this with a friend who is in a similar position to me. We are both young (early twenties), both in full time degrees and both only with vague ideas what we would like to do afterwards. We both suffer with clinical depression which limits our work options, and neither of us can rely on family members or partners for support. I feel like maybe there are more people out there who are suffering in silence under the same conditions, unable to come forward and admit it because of the current extremely helpful (note the sarcasm) governmental incentives to get everyone into work immediately, regardless of circumstance. If you don’t know what you want to do, or if you’re not currently in the position to find out, then God help you…

I’d like to throw open the discussion for anyone else who feels the same way, or anyone who has experienced similar feelings in the past. Anyone stuck? Anyone finally found their dream job? What kind of things do you all do and how does it affect your mental health/feminist principles?

Frustrated, Miserable and Upset

Seeing as how succesful my previous (f)art attempts have been, I haven’t got high hopes that anyone will read this, but at least I’m getting it out of my system.

Sane Responses

I found an email from Davina James-Hanman of the Greater London Domestic Violence Project in our feministmhuk account:

Hi – lurker here!

I thought you might be interested in our latest publication – Sane Responses – which is a toolkit for those working with clients who are experiencing both domestic violence and mental health issues. Written from a feminist perspective, it provides practical guidance and tools for professionals working in either sector. It’s free to download from our website or available to purchase in hard copy. More information here: http://www.gldvp.org.uk/C2B/document_tree/ViewACategory.asp?CategoryID=168

Best wishes

Davina

Definitely check this out, it makes for inspiring reading.

Mad Chicks and UK Bloggers

I went to Ladyfest last weekend and it was awesome! While there I met an absolutely wonderful woman who was one of the founders of Mad Chicks. From their site:

Mad Chicks is a new movement, which focuses on issues specific to women mental health service users, using creativity to achieve our aims and attract attention to our causes. We have developed from within Mad Pride, an international user-led movement which challenges discrimination and misinformation in relation to mental health and celebrates mad culture.

Mad Chicks was formed as a response to the number of women coming to Mad Pride meetings, who had hitherto been in a kind of vacuum, with little contact to others and no opportunity for debate, while struggling with mixed wards, childcare, assertiveness, rights, abuse and sexism in the NHS.

We believe the female service user voice has been overlooked as a positive force. Our aim is to create for ourselves a supportive environment, where women can find a voice and identify commonalties and priorities.

Of course as soon as she told me about it I told her all about this blog and we spent a long time nattering about feminism and mental health. I pondered over why it is that so many of us feminists seem to have mental health problems - she replied that nobody could realise they live in a patriarchal and womanhating society without going crazy! I think she has a point, and the crux of her group really resonated with me so I thought I’d mention it here.

And while I’m at it, I’d like to let everyone know about the new UK Feminist Bloggers group. An idea birthed by Kate Smurthwaite aka Cruella-Blog, and raised into a group by Anji aka me, this is a place for all feminist bloggers in the United Kingdom to come together and discuss national and regional events and issues, regardless of which flavour of feminism you come from. So tell all your feminist blogging friends, acquaintances and even those you don’t really know. I’d love for it to be a central place for feminist bloggers in the UK to network and liaise about all feminist matters. What are you waiting for?

Site redesign

Hi everyone

Hope the redesign is ok for people - everything that was there still is, there’s just a tag cloud now and a personalised image.

I’ve started the Links list, but if anyone else knows of other useful feminist sites, or just those related to mental health, please comment with the url.

Equally, if there’s anything anyone wants me to change at all, please say!

Bonkersfest 2008 & Mad Pride

Sorry if anyone’s already posted this, but I’ve been reading more about mental health acceptance, or ‘Mad Pride’, groups in the US, and through this great article about Liz Spikol et al, I found out about this:

BonkersFest! 2008 ‘De-normalisation: The next civil rights movement?’

Date: Saturday 7th June 2008
Location: London (at the old site of Bedlam!) Bedlam, The Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, Lambeth Road, London SE1 & at exactly the same time and date in four other parts of the UK! (I’m working on finding out where they are now, and will post as soon as I know)

And for those who can’t make Saturday, there’s also the BonkersFest! Tea Party - Camberwell Green, London SE5 on Sunday June 8th 2008 - presumably there as it’s very close to the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital (where I used to work as PA to the Dean, oo er)…

The blurb from the site:
BonkersFest! - the acclaimed annual arts and music festival opens a public space to a roaring creative vortex. A celebration of the pure embrace of both art and madness working to a single end, the moral purpose that great art embodies and a truly joyful exaltation of madness, creativity, the expression of individuality and diversity.

“Bonkersfest!…a huge success, you should be very proud of yourselves” - Jo Brand

So, does anyone fancy going, praps as a Crazy Like Us? group?

p.s. Toe still too buggered, according to various medical professionals, to run on. I’m going back to the doctor today, so will post results of that one later. They want to put me back on SSRIs for my anxiety…

Alone