"putting the SPRING back in our step - village support for depression and anxiety"

[LEMmingaround]

Heres the new thread guys. What is this, thread 9?

This is a thread that is situated in a virtual village of support for those suffering from mental health issues, or just those struggling with what life throws at them.

Please feel free to join in.

Thanks ciq needed those hugs :)

Welcome tigglette this is is a great place to get support everyone is lovely! Sorry to hear ur having a hard time at work - can u maybe think about taking some more time off if you haven't recovered properly? In the meantime had some &

Thanks DumDum, I've been back at work for a couple of months now, the situation is such that if I'm not there it just won't be dealt with so being there and pressing on through is better than sitting it out at home knowing I'll return to work and still need to pick it all up. Mostly it's not too bad and I manage day to day but this week's proving tricky. I've just moved in the last couple of sessions to seeing my counsellor fortnightly but I'm toying with asking her to fit me in next week rather than waiting... I'm sure she'd be fine with that but it feels a bit overly dependant for my liking... I'll see ow I feel as the week goes on I suppose.

Hi tigglette welcome. This is a lovely thread. Sorry to hear you're having such a tough time. Sounds like a really sensible idea to see your counsellor weekly given your work is so difficult at the moment.

Dd Hope your dds in bed soon and you can rest.

Hello tigglette and welcome. I always struggled with work as I take it very seriously, it takes over my head, and I find it difficult to fit it in with Actual Life. (Added to that a cocklodging H (now Ex), 2DC and no-one but me doing much housework, plus I couldn't help getting into bother by speaking my mind at work )...

Enough about me, just mean I sort of understand

If your name is derived from who I think it is, perhaps you need some of Roo's medicine, which I seem to recall was Malt Extract? (Just trying to cheer you up...)

I can't keep up. Welcome tigglette (((( all ))))

Have to have another blood test tomorrow, the results came back wrong earlier in the week

Night all!

Malt extract sounds good, assuming you mean red wine flavoured "malt extract" and yes my name does derive from Winnie the Poo... Well done on loosing your cocklodger btw.

It's so difficult when work stays in your head isn't it. I too fear I've made a bit of a tit of myself at work by speaking too openly, mainly driven by anxiety to be honest but still, I feel like I've got some ground to make up. Theres other stuff going on too tha i feel totally deskilled in trying to deal with. I'll see how I feel tomorrow - I was left with a lot to think about from this week's counselling session, it may all settle down with a good nights sleep and if not I'll give her a call and book an appointment for next week.

I do hope you mean Pooh not Poo (I always wondered about the name, but perhaps they didn't call it poo when the book was written?)

What a bugger over the blood tests, snowy. I too have hard-to-tap veins.

I've been advised to email my doctor about CPN/PALS. Can't do any harm, can it...

I don't think it can MissGineapigs, who advised you to contact your GP - have you spoken to your GP before about MH issues and how did it go?

Ah sorry, I've just caught up Miss, contacting your GP may be no bad thing - I'd be wary of any CPN who doesn't recognise how important a decent relationship is to your treatment. It's not necessarily the case that things would be the same with any CPN, you may connect with someone else in a way that works better for you. It's perfectly reasonable to explore whether you could transfer to someone else.

Tigglette, A local chaplain I've had dealings with previously. My doctor is brilliant, but I'm not sure how much she can do. Anyway, my surgery doesn't seem to have an email address so I can't email her. I'm going to try PALS first thing this morning.

Tigglette I'm now very wary of having anything to do with my CPN. That terrifies me. I feel she's being very unprofessional, childish, and almost playing with me.

nn it stresses him too much. And then he is short with the DC. And he is short tempered with them and me for the whole day before, so it's just easier not to go. He has sleep problems, so sleeps in another room, ear plugs (often tablets & alcohol) and gets very angry if he is woken up by the children so if I go out it ruins his sleeping routine and he says that if he goes to bed before I get back then he will still use ear plugs etc so if DD woke he wouldn't hear her and DS knows not to go and find him so he would think he was left on his own if he couldn't fine me and I don't think its fair on them. But then he was stressed because the Il's were here and is still annoyed with me about it. Don't have any energy to go into any more detail, think I posted a couple of stays ago. In my drunken state I emailed my counsellor about the results of that AS questionnaire. Regretting that now.

Hope your blood test is more successful today snowy and your DD's are feeling better DD and ciq. Welcome tigglette and missg. Hello everyone else, hope you're doing ok. I can't keep up. Sorry.

It's not good that she leaves you feeling so bad, if your GP is supportive it would be worth talking to him/her and seeing if there are other options. MH provision is so under resourced you may find your options are fairly limited though.

I'm still swithering about whether to bring my counselling appointment forward to next week. Can't decide whether I really need the support or am just anxious because she's about to go on leave so won't be around for a couple of weeks. If its the first, there's no issue with booking an appointment, if its the latter I should really just man up and get on with things... It's so hard when you can't trust your own judgement.

tigglet you don't have to "man up", just make the appointment. You can talk about your swithering (lovely word) during the appointment.

Tigglette I've been told many times to 'man up and get on with it'. You wouldn't be expected to do that with a physical problem, why should you with a mental one? Don't worry about it, get the appointment booked.

I tried the CBT route last year i.e. 2013. They gave me a woman only recently qualified and in the past I have had the benefit of some highly experienced and qualified people in London. Where I now live thanks to the lack of resources in the UK at the minute she was also 20 years younger than myself and I have an issue with it. She understood nothing about single parent issues and to my mind half of it was to do with those circumstances to start with.

I fail to see the sense in counsellors qualifying when they do not understand everyday family support issues such as these!!

I thus left after 3 appointments.

Her manager promised to call me 6 weeks after that and failed to do so. To me that is negligence and quite appalling. The same manager also promised to contact my neighbour and friend about follow on counselling and she also failed to do this.

Honestly some people!

I do wish anybody good luck with any counselling they are experiencing or waiting for though as it can really help.

Thanks everyone, I've emailed asking to see her next week - I'm sure she'll be fine with that.

Bad news re your experience equinox at one point you couldn't train to be a counsellor until you'd reached a certain age - basically to get some life experience behind you - but I don't know if that's the case now. You definitely need to be able to connect with however you work with though, I think that's possibly more important than the approach they use etc to some extent.

Yes you are right Tigglette.

Luckily I don't feel I need counselling at present as I am getting on nicely with my Buddhist chanting.

tul hope you're doing ok today, same to dd, snowy
hi to equinox and tigglette

Packing today. And am feeling low. Still calm as per yesterday, but low . God this is relentless.

Hope everyone's having a better day x

Well, I have just had my feedback session with the Autism Assessment Team - and I do not meet the criteria for any form of autism.

I note, however, that face blindness did not form part of the assessment, and all the info I've read says it is part of it.

So perhaps it's a separate thing. It's always caused problems. Even now, I often don't recognise people, or they look familiar but I can't put a name to them. I've got better over the years, and less embarrassed to have to keep repeatedly asking for names.

If you add a cocklodging Ex into the equation (for decades), plus my cognitve style as manifested at uni and in employment, stir all together, and you get a rather sad person.

Under it all, I've always been an optimist though. And I seem to have, at last, got to a happy place :)

Love and peace to all.

Not doing so well today. Just wish I could give up completely.

Where you going CiQ anywhere exciting? Is that a relief TSP or were you hoping it would bring answers?

I have answers :) Now I'm going to be asked to be discharged from secondary services - I would have been discharged before, but wasn't, so that I could get the assessment more easily. I've been discharged several times, then the stress of money, work, housework, kids, and above all Ex has always put me back into the system.

Tup it's so hard for you young ones (but then perhaps it always is, down the generations.) Kids, the pressures of not enough time, money, sleep, holidays, downtime...

Remind me, are you packing for a move?

TSP - i think your posts sound really positive, long may it last :)

CiQ where are you off to? somewhere lovely and relaxing i hope.

Equinox - i found that CBT didn't suit me and i left, it may have been the counsellor because we didn't really gel, i found him a bit prescriptive, as if he couldn't veer from the activities. Ironically the best counsellor i had was someone younger than me, she was a bit rough around the edges as well which i think helped me relate to her. We got on well, sadly she left but i have managed (just) since she did.

Diet is going well - i treated myself yesterday to a chai latte and a pastry - it was sooo lovely and then i had actually lost weight today :) I feel so much better physically - maybe it will leach over into my mind at some point, would be nice! Anxiety is a bit high today - had a row with DP last night and it has made me question if we will actually make it. Everything is fine when everything is fine but if there is a problem then its shit. We are friends again now but i am not best pleased.

LEM with my LFWB (loving friend with benefits), we have shouty arguments, they nearly always come from a misunderstanding, and are quite quickly resolved.

With my Ex, I did the shouting, he did the stonewalling. Then he did the sulking.

Everyone has disagreements - if they don't, you can bet your bottom dollar someone is keeping quiet for fear of the consequences.

The great thing is, to be friends again - as you and your DP are, LEM.