I sat down tonight determined to get started on “Bipolar Disorder for Dummies” kindly lent to me by my fantastic CPN but it just wasn’t happening. I still have the concentration span of a gnat on acid and I’m beginning to fear it will ever return to normal.
I’ve never been a particularly tranquil kind of person but I could sit for hours with a good book and would happily read every newspaper every day if I had the time but now I struggle to make it from one end of a text message to another.
Even the spoken word is causing me problems- 5 minutes into any conversation and it all becomes largely meaningless (sorry to all of you who have engaged me in conversation lately). I like to think I’m doing a great job pretending that I am half of the conversation but I’m not too sure.
I have amassed an enormous pile of books and self help material to help me on my journey but I just can’t sit and read any of it. Possibly because some of its shit and possibly because I just assume some of its shit but I’m convinced there’s some good stuff in there and I just don’t have the staying power to get at it.
I still write, notes, diary entries, mood charts, lists of things to do, lists of things done, lists of things to remember and of course I write my blog. But I can’t even concentrate to read the stuff I’ve written!
I’m not sure what purpose all this writing has but I do find myself compelled to do it, I am never far from a pen and notebook and I find myself inextricably drawn to stationery shops where I can spend minutes deciding on just the perfect notebook to fill with thoughts, fears and ideas on my journey through mental illness.
I like to think that my writing is my own form of self help but perhaps I am fooling myself. I am surrounded by a veritable library of books on various aspects of mental illness all written by people better informed than I am yet I prefer to note
“on the verge of a panic attack so have retreated to my room to try and get through it. Don’t want to take Lorazepam as it’s too close to bedtime and I need it to sleep”
Very closely followed by
“think ‘panic attack’ was actually Lorazepam withdrawal so took some”
I suppose it’s self help in a way as it helped me decide to start writing down (in yet another notebook) when and why I am taking Lorazepam!
I hate not being able to concentrate, it makes me feel permanently out of the loop, particularly where politics is concerned- basically I have no idea what’s going on and am unable to react to the snippets I have managed to grasp.
Perhaps though there is the proof that writing does help as I can’t remember the last time I even though about politics, let alone my own engagement with it. It does make me very easy prey for the Labour leadership contenders- whichever one contacts me last before I place my vote will get it as I'll have forgotten what the others said- so the race is on, whoever you are!
So I’ll keep on writing, in notebooks, on my whiteboard, on post-its and on my blog in the hope that in some sort of bio-feedback way I become able to concentrate on output again sometime soon.