Be Mindful

It's strange to think it's August already. My New Years Resolution this year was to get out of the house, in public, once each month. Not counting appointments and the hospital admission, I've achieved that a grand total of four times. The last time I went out was when we went to the cheese factory on May 16th. It just seems I've lost all motivation to re-immerse myself in the world.

The mental health nurse had even more printouts for me this week, all of them about Mindfulness and BPD. She asked what I'd thought of the handouts she have me last time, and I told her no one had mentioned BPD to me before, and she just said "oh, shit" a couple of times. She said that doctors tend to hesitate on actually talking to people about it, which makes no sense in my mind. I was just like, are you fucking kidding me? I thought that crap only happened back in the 60s, à la Girl, Interrupted. It certainly doesn't give me any more trust in a system that's screwed me over countless times.

Anyway, one of them had a mindfulness exercise about mindfully eating an orange. I've taken a photo of it if you want to have a look, but basically is describes the process of eating an orange, and doing nothing else. The senses, actions, thoughts. It's interesting to read over. I am mindful while eating most of the time, I guess, although it's more an ED thing than anything else. I don't know how to apply it in other areas. I can't do the breathing exercises because of my lungs, it just distresses me more, which sucks.

How to eat an orange, mindfully

I feel a little lost with the whole mindfulness thing though, and admittedly a bit stupid. I don't know. I guess I don't feel like I'm ever present enough to think to practice it.
For any of you out there that do, when do you practice mindfulness? Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

Then she started talking about DBT. It's a two year course. She gave me a URL to an online self-help DBT course to have a look at and get an idea of what it's about, and said we could do it one-on-one since I don't function in a group setting. But I really don't feel ready to start something like this, and I don't understand why everyone's suddenly pushing it. I didn't ask for help with this and I don't feel ready for it. Too many of the behaviors etc. are linked with trauma stuff and I can't deal with that right now.

Frankly I'm just tired of hearing about it all. BPD had never been mentioned to me until two week ago. Now it's all they're focusing on, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. Before that they were fine focusing on the depression. The BPD's been lurking for a long time, it's nothing new, and I can deal with the behavior stuff at the moment, I have been anyway. It doesn't effect me as much as the depression does.

But now she says we need to be doing something like DBT. "Otherwise, what do we do? Just sit here and twiddle our thumbs?". So I shouldn't even bother coming in. I was apprehensive enough about starting to see the mental health nurse, but after my GP said it would just be to have someone to talk to, that didn't sound so bad. But that's not how it's working at at all and it's not okay and it's making me panic. If I felt ready to do more than just trying to talk I would, but I can't.

She said it's up to me whether or not I want to do DBT, but what other choices do I have?
I just wanted new meds and someone to talk to.

I can't have antidepressants. My GP suddenly doesn't want to change them, when even 6 months ago she was still trying new meds. I can't just go see a psych. Every psych I've ever seen has done more harm than good. I really don't feel ready/able to do DBT. I can't even have someone just to talk to about why everything's so shit.

Then I start to wonder, why even bother? Why get help to make daily life less unbearable when, at the end of the day, all I want is to disappear?

Towards the end of the appointment she asked if I thought I needed to be in hospital. Naturally I got defensive and said no.
"If I saw someone as sad as you, I'd be thinking they needed to be in hospital. But you've been through all of that before - does it help?"
No. There is nothing more useless than inpatient. She asked if I could try going into A&E when I feel like cutting, and I just said hell no, that the private A&E don't deal with psych emergencies and I would die before seeing the Horrible Psychiatrist in public again. She asked if I thought the cutting was dangerous enough for me to be in hospital, but I highly doubt it. No one's mentioned it as being particularly dangerous and I stay away from risky places, and my calves are plenty meaty, obviously (ugh).

On Tuesday I was a full half an hour late to the dietician's appointment. Mum phoned ahead and thankfully she'd had a few cancellations so it didn't really matter. I was still crying in the waiting room. Usually I can hold it back until I'm at least in a less public place, but not this week.

She saw my crying and said she was proud of me for still coming in, but it's not really an option to not. I don't have much routine in my day-to-day life. Appointments are really all I have left, and the dietician's are the only ones on a routine basis. Everything else is sporadic. If I didn't go to see her every Tuesday morning, life would descend into chaos.

My weight is creeping down so unbelievably slowly it makes me want to cry. Food lately has mostly been fruit, soup, yogurt and liquids, with occasional things like crackers or rice with soy sauce. I still just feel too sick and low and exhausted to put much effort in, or to move much at all really. My GP was sick on Friday so the nurse just took my stitches out, but I couldn't get my lungs checked or anything. I have another appointment Thursday. I know I should probably see someone earlier but I really don't want to see a different GP, and it's not that bad (famous last words, anyone?).

Sorry for being so negative all the time guys. I'm just miserable and so tired of everything. Living shouldn't be this fucking painful. 

xxBella