Friday, June 27, 2008

Updates

Some of this post has been deleted

Some time during the winter months Mr Man’s CPN, Mark, had a job change, so now Mr Man has a new Care Co-ordinator; an Occupational Therapist who we will call Sandy.

Being an Occupation Therapist, she wanted to do something practical to help Mr Man with his anxiety. Since he has already been on every anxiety management course imaginable with little or no success, it was decided that she would go for a walk with Mr Man every two weeks to gradually build up his exposure, and to talk him through how he was feeling during the walk. This seemed like a reasonable plan, and she turned up the following week without an appointment as planned; prior notice would have given Mr Man time to worry about it. That was 3 months ago. This could have been a great opportunity for her to establish a relationship with Mr Man, if she had followed through, but since then she has only come to see Mr Man once, with a trainee in tow.

I think the plan was supposed to be that I was to carry on what she had started, as after the first walk she said “Maybe Mrs Man could go out for a walk with you next week?” and since then there has been no mention of her taking another walk with him. This irritates me because on one hand they are very fond of telling me to step back and that Mr Man has to learn not to be so dependant on me alone, and yet on the other hand they expect me to be the one to support him in all of their wonderful plans for him; not to mention the fact that I don’t always have the physical or emotional energy to undertake these endeavours due to my own health problems.

How do I stop the darkness from rolling in, for Mr Man or myself?

"The Darkness Rolling In" by Philippa King


Mr Man would like to start running regularly, to try to lose some of his medication weight, but this is going to be difficult to put into practice. Obviously he doesn’t feel able to run alone, and I really don’t have the health to support him in that way. It would be nice if someone from the Community Mental Health Team could take half an hour out of their day to run with him, but these people don’t want to give you the practical help that you actually need; they prefer to hold “Well Being” classes to just tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing – if you can overcome your anxiety to get there in the first place of course. I wonder if this is partly due to wanting to maintain a certain amount of professionalism and emotional detachment, or whether they just don’t care enough to do anything even remotely outside their job description.

More recently Mr Man has been experiencing some fluctuations in his symptoms. We expect this from time to time, but when the symptoms are particularly bad there is usually a trigger, such as a stressful situation. No such situation springs to mind, but the voices have been telling Mr Man to cut himself again. More about that in my next post.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear things havent been so good, and I agree the CMHT should really get off their backsides and do something.

I am doing ok, tho totally fed up with my situation.

Slurry

Catherine said...

When I first started reading I thought maybe the CPN change would be a good thing for Mr Man; obviously not so much.

As for you, I am glad that you have at least some sort of counseling available to you right now. For many people it really really helps.

Anonymous said...

I love this blog Mrs.M. It's honest, insightful, funny, sad and everything else in between.
I read it and take mental notes of how not to be when I qualify. It's really helpful in that respect aswell.

Loads of love to you and MM x

Mr Mans Wife said...

Thank you Slurry. Things aren't so bad for us really - they've been much worse!

I'm not surprised that you're feeling fed up. Any idea when you will be able to go home?

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Catherine, I thought it might be a good thing too. Although we were starting to get along better with Mark, Mr Man does usually tend to respond better to women. This woman hasn't given him much to respond to though.

Thanks Catherine. I hope the counselling helps, I'm just finding it so hard to open up this time.

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Hello Margery! Thank you for reading and thank you so much for your compliments regarding my blog. I'm sure you will be wonderful at your job once you qualify. I only wish I could hand pick the staff that deal with Mr Man!

Anonymous said...

Hi MMW...I have missed you. I understand about the long winter months. I have bipolar...and even though I take my meds the way I am supposed to...I am often all over the map.

Depression was the norm for me this past winter...and it hasnt fully lifted. It is so very tiring to keep this up.

I guess I just want you to know I have been thinking of you.

Laurie

Anonymous said...

I am new to your blog, and i really enjoy it, no beating around the bushes.
keep up the good work

Mr Mans Wife said...

Hi Laurie. Thank you so much, that means a lot to me.

I'm sorry that you have also been struggling this past winter, and continue to do so. I sincerely hope you find some relief soon.

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Welcome to my blog Amisulpride, and thank you for your positive comments. I will try!