First Dose Done

 That's right. I've had my first dose of covid-19 vaccine. Yay! I'm quite pleased about it so obviously I am very pro-vaccines and pro-vaccine education. I wholeheartedly believe everyone should get vaccinated, voluntarily, and as soon as it is available for them. 

I got the Pfizer vaccine. I'm eligible, here in Australia, even though I am under 40 because I have Type 1 Diabetes. Add on to that my history with clotting and my clotting gene mutation and it definitely rules out AstraZeneca. I would have applied for the AstraZeneca if it wasn't for all my clotting issues and even went to my GP as soon as it was available, but I'll probably post about the whys another time. 

For those Sydney-siders waiting to get their first dose done I though I'd share my experience with you. 

I won't get into the applying process as we're all experiencing a fun time with that. I booked my appointments and had a two month wait for the hub at Sydney Olympic Park.

The vaccination process itself was quite smooth. When I went, unfortunately, they had a big ol' technical glitch. Their system crashed. It was so unfortunate given Wednesday was so cold! It meant they were running 1.5 - 2 hours behind. My appointment was 5:15pm and they were still at 3:45pm when I showed up. Early. Of course. Before 5pm.

From Therapy to The Future

 I just had a full day of therapy and I feel like my brain is about to explode. I need to stare into space for an hour to process. A full day is appointments with my psychologist and psychiatrist, 2 hours tops, but holy shit it's enough to melt my brain. 

They were really good sessions, but I think the reason my brain is melting is because of the topics we discussed. It's really hitting home for me how disruptive and erratic my life has been. I've been living day-to-day, taking everything as it comes. I've needed to in the past and it's what I am accustomed to. Now I've been presented with the idea I can create goals for my life and strive for something in the future. It's just.... WTF dude?

This is where I am in my life. I've been working so hard on reaching the goal of normalcy, stability, well-rounded health for so long I haven't truly believed I could get there. Now I'm almost at a precipice where these possibilities are somewhere on the horizon and every time it comes up my mind is blown. I'm starting to think my head actually hurts after these moments because my brain is being forced to change. It needs to change for me to actually accept all these ideas can be a part of my life. It's flooring. I don't know what I want to do with myself. Part of me wants to cry.

I'm sure this sounds dramatic to someone out there, especially when their life has been full of stability and consistency. That doesn't throw me at all. I'm actually happy for those people, but to me they are also unicorns. We're talking about a unicorn life here. Unicorns all over the place. Unicorn city

My Fitbit Broke

 My Fitbit broke the other day and I think it might be a great thing.

I've been using a fitness tracker, off and on, since 2012. First Fitbit, then Garmin, and back to Fitbit. In 2012 I was suffering from muscle weakness after years of being unwell with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) and FM (fibromyalgia) to the point of being bed-bound for quite some time. I was fortunate to move out west and receive wonderful health care by people in the profession who gave a shit and didn't ascribe my condition to depression or being lazy 😒 

Yeah, the whole ME/CFS and FMS experience I had with health professionals back then is definitely a sore point for me. Anyway, back to what I was saying before I go off on a tangent. 

I was diagnosed with pulmonary embolus (three blood clots in the lungs) in late 2012. By this point I wasn't eating, existing on sustagen instead, and just a mess. Mentally and physically. The benefits of using a fitness tracker, at the time, was the motivation it gave me to reach my goals of slowly, oh so slowly, building up my muscle mass again. It was hard work, but I had to introduce movement back into my life no matter how much pain I was in. Not only had I been diagnosed with a PE, but it turns out I have a gene mutation which causes excess clotting. 

I didn't process the trauma of having PE very well. The benefits of using a fitness tracker were still there, but I also have anxiety and OCD so... eventually the fitness tracker became a problem as well. 

Grounding Techniques for Dissociation

Dissociation, derealisation, depersonalisation, are all funny things. The 3D's are a coping mechanism which can be great and horrible. When our bodies and minds are going through crises our brain sends us off into lala land to cope. Unfortunately, later on, it can become chronic. Your brain and body still think you're in danger and once again will send you off to lala land. Sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes completely out of the blue.

When I say lala land I don't mean being out of touch with reality due to ignorance or a blissful state. If only. No, I mean you struggle to connect with physical reality. There's different degrees of dissociation. In my experience I've had where I don't feel real, I don't feel like a real person, I can't feel my emotions, and I've felt like I am having an out-of-body experience where I am watching myself function. It's pretty horrible and scary if you don't know what's going on. 

Here's more info for dissociative disorders.

So how do you overcome it? I think a big part of it is to recognise it is actually happening and what is triggering your episodes. For this I recommend therapy. Get the help to learn how to identify what's going on.

Other than that, grounding techniques. Grounding techniques are great. You can use them for more than dissociating. I use them for depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and PTSD rage.

How I Understand Mental Illness

 What is mental illness? As I understand it. I can only ever explain something as I see it and if I've experienced it. The answer to what is mental illness might be an obvious answer to some, but not everyone. There's mental illness and then there's chronic mental illness too.

First off, health is not just physical. It's mind, body, spirit. If one is out of balance then, at some point, another part will be affected. All three are equally as important. NB: With spirit I mean your go-juice, what makes you happy, what gets you out of bed in the morning, your thirst for being. 

For me to best explain mental illness as I understand it then I must start with physical and genetic disorders. It all starts before you're even born. From the moment of conception you're already set up for predisposition. You're predisposed if your family history has cancer, stroke, heart disease, fibromyalgia, diabetes, alzheimers, blood clots, and the list goes on.

Not everything is purely down to genes. I have a prothrombin 20210 gene mutation. One of my parents has it and there was a 50% chance I would get it. I didn't find out I had it until I had a blood clot (pulmonary embolism) when I was 29. My chances are up because I am predisposed to developing clots, but why did I go 29 years without developing a clot?

Introducing the environmental factors. At the time I had pulmonary embolism I was quite unwell. I was underweight, suffering from muscle weakness, I had anaemia, and when I went christmas shopping I ended up spending two whole days in bed. I wasn't moving and I was probably dehydrated. So I got some clots.

Catching Up

I've been distracted lately. Or maybe the right term is busy. In a good way, mostly. 

My back has decided sitting at the dining table to type is not cool. I'm doing physio three times a week and a bunch of exercises three times a day. It's kinda made me not want to type or blog, but today I am taking over my partner's desk as she is in the office. I felt inspired.

I finished a great psychology book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, and began a new one, Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. It's a big deal for me after the anhedonia and depression. I realised the other day I had begun a trilogy in January 2020, made it to the sequel, only to lose reading momentum at page 378. 378! That's some effort and yet apparently not enough for me lol. So, yeah, big deal for me.

I've officially started a book club. We're getting things underway, have chosen our first book, and have set the date for our first meet up. I had a book club years ago which I ran for two years. Unfortunately I was so triggered at the time, and unaware of it, that book club wasn't a fun experience for me. This time will be different and I'm quite excited.

Anhedonia!

I am excited.... I'm having a moment. In my first post I mentioned there is a condition I have and couldn't remember the name of it. Was having a brain fart. For days, apparently. All I could remember was there was an "A" and a "H."

In the original post I said I would post about it when I remembered the name, so here I am.

It's Anhedonia!

anhedonia

/ˌanhɪˈdəʊnɪə/

Learn to pronounce

noun

PSYCHIATRY

inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities.

THIS^ has been my life for the longest time. It's weird, I didn't really know the impact of it until things began to improve. Albeit marginally, but still improvement enough for me to have an "oh?" moment. 

Literally. 

I don't remember what I was doing, but one day I was in the middle of something and I felt enjoyment from my activity. It was fleeting, but it was wonderful.

I FELT SOMETHING DIFFERENT.