so two weeks ago my kneecap spontaneously dislocated. no one really knows whats up with that. i get raised eyebrows and “but what did you do”s every time someone sees my splinted leg and asks what happened. so the orthopedist says this stays on for six weeks. then, you can do physiotherapy and we’ll hope this never happens again.

ok, great. so the good news is i CAN put weight on it. the doctor in the hospital gives me a pair of crutches, smiles at me like it’s not 6am and i haven’t been sitting in the er all night, says Just In Case. that’s great too.

the bad news?

i live on the third floor of a building with no elevator.

the building i work in has three floors and one elevator on the opposite side from where we’re located, which can only be accessed with a special key anyway. oh, and there’s construction going on this summer - so actually, the elevator isn’t even going to be accessible. plus, it doesn’t go to the third floor anyway, which is where my classroom is, at the end of the hallway.

that’s fine, though. i take public transit to and from work every day. at least the metro stations have elevators, right? well…14 out of about 70 stations in the city have them. i’m lucky that my local one does - the station i transfer at for work doesn’t have one to the platform i have to transfer to. the one i leave work from has three flights of stairs from the platform to the terminal.

so, keeping in mind i have to go up and down the stairs at work by the whims of my children and supervisors, and the staff room where i have to eat my lunch is on a different floor than my classroom, i’m averaging 20+ flights of stairs every single day. and cannot bend one of my knees, which is at the end of each day about as swollen as it was the day i dislocated it. my doctor prescribed me a month’s worth of naproxen, which my pharmacist was shocked by. she said, usually you only need this for a week. until the swelling goes down.

but the swelling is managed with some ice here and there anyway. so i’ll live. what really hurts is when i’m on the bus - because my commute to work involves two busses and two trains each way - and people trip over my leg because they just aren’t paying attention. i am at the mercy of kind strangers who notice and stand protectively over my leg, when i am lucky enough that upon boarding a bustling bus someone even gives me their seat. otherwise, i’m forced to stand on one leg to avoid putting too much force on my injured one each time we hit a bump.

(three times since my injury i have been the only person to offer my seat to another person with limited mobility on the bus, which every time the person in question has denied while everyone else’s eyes remain down and mouths remain shut.)

and lets not forget - i live in a city where everything is built atop huge fucking hills. at the top of one is the hospital. just below that, my university’s campus and student clinic.

am i just complaining for the sake of complaining? a little bit. but mostly i am thinking about how the inaccessibility around me is actively making it more difficult for me to heal from what is, spontaneity aside, a fairly common injury. i can’t quit my job. i need to attend my appointments. were it not june, i’d have to go to class. i am incredibly lucky to have friends who are willing to help with groceries and laundry, which would be particularly difficult for me due to the number of stairs i’d have to climb with my hands full, but if i didn’t - those are not things i could stop doing for myself and expect to survive for six weeks either, especially when i’m working 40 hours a week with 2+ hours of commuting a day.

anyway. maybe there’s not a lot the average person can do to help people with limited mobility. but giving up your seat on the bus is a pretty good first step and always has been.

adhd anon here 1) your experience with adhd things that are dismissed in women so they go undiagnosed for a long time 2) rejection sensitive dysphoria!!! i just read about it and started to cry 3) what did you think about your mental health before you were diagnosed like what diagnosis you had for yourself unofficially i always had my eyes on anxiety but now i suspect something else i wonder what that is 4) hyper!!!!fixations!!!!! please and thank you

1) from what admittedly little I've read on it, ADHD tends to go undiagnosed in women (counting myself as a woman here because like even tho I'm nb I've been socialised and treated as female my entire life for obvious reasons) because it tends to manifest verbally rather than in physical behaviour. girls with ADHD tend to be excessively talkative which is often overlooked since ADHD is most commonly recognised through hyperactive body language and restlessness. A kid with ADHD manifesting in not being able to sit still is much more likely to get diagnosed than a kid whose ADHD manifests in them talking too much, which was the case with me. I haven't really looked into this side of it too much because my struggles relating to like. It taking so long to get me diagnosed wasn't because of my gender but because of the fact that I was a "gifted" kid. ADHD is seen as an intellectual disorder rather than what it actually is, which is a developmental disorder, so the general opinion is that ADHD = stupid, and someone like me, who is just overall very intelligent and always excelled in school when I was younger, couldn't possibly have ADHD. The fact that I was intelligent allowed me to fly under the radar until around GCSE's (16 years old for those who don't know) because school work didn't require much concentration. But when it got to exams and I actually had to put real effort in and do work past the six allotted hours a day and take the initiative to voluntarily learn and produce work, combined with the fact that I was able to breeze through 12 years of school without having to learn how to revise and study properly, the realisation that there was something wrong hit me hard and fast and I was forced to confront something that I simply hadn't had to think about earlier on. My lack of diagnosis wasn't necessarily caused by the fact that my ADHD manifested early on in my life in a way that was overlooked; it was mostly caused by not having to consider I may have a learning disability until I was expected to take my learning past a point that could be completed and set aside quickly and easily with minimal concentration involved.

2) (I'm gonna talk about the pre-diagnosis before RSD because it kinda feeds into that nicely) I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 12, and while I definitely think I was suffering from what the professionals call "low mood" at the time that was unaffected by my ADHD, I don't believe that those two things, at least now, exist separately from it. ADHD is often diagnosed as anxiety and/or depression, especially in teenagers and young adults, because the inability to concentrate and commit to anything is attributed to the lethargy and apathy of depression, and the rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is attributed to the paranoia and forced asocial behaviour of anxiety. It's understandable considering the stigma around ADHD being "a child's disorder" that a lot of people with ADHD are labelled with depression and anxiety, but it can be so harmful to those who are misdiagnosed, simply for the reason that anxiety and depression are "temporary" issues. You can get therapy to fix depression and anxiety. You can learn it out of you. It takes time, but it's possible. That's not the case with ADHD. You can't CBT the ADHD away. It's something you're stuck with for life, and mislabelling the symptoms of ADHD as disorders that you can fix gives you false hope that one day, if you try really really hard, all of this will go away and you'll just be "normal" again and everything will click into place. I was failing all of my subjects, but I convinced myself that this inability to work through it was just a barrier I could overcome if I worked at it, because it was caused by depression, so eventually I would feel better and it would go away and I'd be able to magically fix my grades. But ADHD doesn't work like that. You can't prevent it; you can only learn coping mechanisms. The realisation that my inability to perform to the standards expected of me because I could just Not Do What Was Being Asked Of Me, even simple things like a worksheet or a research task, was not something I could just power through, brought about the realisation that the path I'd set out for myself of getting qualifications, going to university, getting a degree, etc. was impossible because the kind of things that were expected of me were things ADHD would not allow me to do, which was and still is crushing, and I've basically been forced to have to rethink. My entire future. And that fucking sucks. And all it comes down to really is that I wish I'd been diagnosed sooner. (I'd like to talk about this more in depth at a later date but this post is already so long so I'm just gonna leave it here. Basically: if you've been diagnosed with depression or anxiety but you suspect you may have ADHD, please assess your symptoms and see which they fit into best. You may have been misdiagnosed. It'll save you a lot of time and stress.)

3) RSD!!!!! IT'S NOT FUN!!!! I don't wanna talk about this too much because it just makes me sad but yeah I had no idea this was a thing until one of my friends with ADHD pointed it out to me and it was like the mist cleared and for the first time I saw clearly what the fuck had been going on with my stupid brain for the last however many years. RSD fucking sucks man. I've lost friends over it. I've missed out on a lot of experiences because of it. If you have been diagnosed with anxiety but you suspect you have ADHD, I am BEGGING you to read up on RSD. It's a very specific type of anxiety exclusive to ADHD and it definitely called me out more than once.

4) (I cant do much more of this because my head is killing me but I'm trying my best ok) hyperfixations!!!!! they rule my life!!!!!! and every single one is bigger than the last!!! every single time I get a new hyperfixation I'm like "I'll never care about anything else as much as I care about this" and then six months later I CARE ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE MORE. IT'S NEVERENDING. ADHD brains are wired to think about one thing All The Fucking Time, so everything makes me think of good omens. just like everything made me think of pacific rim this time last year. everything can be related to the hyperfixation. there are no exceptions. looking back on my childhood I definitely had a lot of hyperfixations that went unchecked, like the one with the hunger games when I was 11 where I would force my friends to play pretend games where we murdered each other in the fields behind our houses.....that and like. dinosaurs. basically every year or so I reshape my entire personality around a new obsession. I cannot just Enjoy things. I must Become them. and no one else gets it!!! NO ONE ELSE GETS IT. I get made fun of a lot by people around me for getting so excited and emotional all the time over seemingly tiny little things, which in turn plays into the RSD (ADHD is its own worst enemy for fucking real), which is why I enjoy being here so much. because like....everyone else is exactly the same. and I'm really thankful to have found people who feel things as strongly and care as much as I do. so....thanks for that everyone

if you want me to talk about anything else or go into more detail I would be very happy to but unfortunately it is 2am and I have a splitting headache and also I've typed nonstop for about an hour now and that's more than the stupid hyper dumbass idiot brain usually allows and now I'm exhausted lmao....but thank you for taking interest in this and I hope this. idk. helps in some way??? gn

Bipolar and the stigma

Bipolar and the stigma against mental illness

When people hear mental illness they tend to shudder with fear and smugness as if there better than anyone who suffers from something. When people hear Bipolar they run a mile! Some may say I am exaggerating but I am not. Iv seen it first hand. I myself suffer from Bipolar Type 2. Now i emphasise the type as thats important. When people hear Bipolar they think of manic, mania, psychosis, hyper, unhinged...the list goes on. But I am none of those things. Type 2 sufferers tend to have long bouts of low periods and very intense anxiety, in all honesty the anxiety can manifest into paranoia-so there is an element of psychosis but nowhere near as much as a Type 1 sufferer.

I was diagnosed 3 years ago at the age of 27 going on 28. Prior to this, Id only ever had one other breakdown and that was 10 years before hand in my late teens. I had always suffered from some form of anxiety but i had always managed to control it. My job as a manager kept me mentally busy and challanged and i thrived on stress, in fact in one interview i even said i loved it! but in the end it was stress that broke me down, and now sadly that aspect off any job i do in the future will be a no no for me! But since my diagnosis iv noticed a wave of stigma attached to mental health. People are geniunly scared of it! There scared of what it means and what it can do. they dont realise the effects that can have on the person suffering!

I myself have never told any of my employers about my illness for this reason, because a lack of understanding on their part can make them nieve, and regardless of how qualified I am I wont be fit enough for the job because my brain ever so slightly works in a diffrent way to others! I know my triggers and I can control it to a point...the only thing that stops me having control is pregnanacy, because adding those hormones to an already altered mind makes for very confusing times! I spend weeks indoors not talking to anybody or seeing the outside world-but its all for the greater good, and though i can turn into a hormonal nightmare when pregnant, having a baby is a blessing and ill take all the bad that comes with it!

I recently wrote an open letter on twitter to many celebrity ambassadors for mental health, including the young royals- below is the letter i wrote:

I am writing to you today as I have been reading about all your work that you are doing surrounding mental health namely the stigma surrounding it. I am writing to you in a capacity of desperation to get my voice heard. You both are the voice that can speak for the millions so I figured it was worth a shot so here goes. Let me give you a background on myself. I am 31 and am a freelance journalist/poet and a manager within the NHS. I has my first mental breakdown when I was 16 at the time people thought it was a mixture of hormones and family factors, none the less I had to leave 6th form and was medicated for a few years. When that fog lifted I returned to college and went onto university to study new media journalism. To support myself I had to work in the post room within a NHS trust. I worked my way up that corporate ladder very quickly and after graduating kept the journalistic side to freelance and continued to work my way up in the NHS,  iv worked in A&E as admin manager, iv worked as unit managers for CNWL's Addiction services, and even ended up managing the admin team at the same unit that treated me when I was 16 within west London mental health trust, which was ironic really but also showed how far I had come and accomplished! The same doctor that treated me still worked there too! I went from being her patient 10 years before to drinking with her in a pub at 26 a fully fledged cured adult who managed the admin team including her secretary! The signifance of me telling this will become apparent soon.... In november 2014 I suffered a severe break down and voluntarily went into a low secure mental health unit just to rest and get the treatment I needed! Again it was west London mental health I was treated by, but this time I had two perspectives, one the patient and two the employee! The same doctors and nurse I had been drinking in a pub with 2 years before now saw me as a patient, some wouldn't even say hello.  The only people to acknowledge me were the patiebts who rembered me from the services they attended, but now i was one of them. This was my first experience of the stigma of mental health, I was no good anymore I was just another patient. It was at this point I was diagnosed with Bipolar type 2, I would like to emphasize the type 2 as that's another stigma I get. The difference between type 1 and 2 is vast, there is no mania with my type and more anxiety and depression. It was a hard diagnosis but it hadn't come from nowhere I had it since 16! It made sense all the times I'd have down patches I just put down to environmental factors, a bad relationship, argument with friends, stress at work etc... I just thought it was what the doctors had said when I was 16..hormones and family factors, but it wasn't it was bipolar.. So the entire time I had been working I had bipolar and nobody had known, not me, not my colleagues not even the doctor who treated me at 16 and drank with me on Friday night and now wouldn't even say hello to me after seeing me in hospital! Stigma is stigma and even employees and doctors have them. Knowing that keeping busy controlled it and stress made it worse I went straight back to work in a brand new job at the RNOH in stanmore in January 2015!! I took a step back and went in as a EA to the hospitals operations director....not an easy job but less stressful than managing things myself but it wasn't long before I got the urge to take the reins once more and within 9 months I was unit manager of paediatrics at the same hospital!  Again nobody knew until I fell pregnant in March 2016, I was not on any medication apart from calming pills to stop my anxiety flaring up but I stopped all these when I found out. I had my first and only encounter with perinatel who are a great team and service, unfortunately I miscarried at 20 weeks, and within 3 days I was discharged from the perinatal service and was on my own. The pregnancy hormones and lack of medication had made Me very edgy and anxious more so than I had ever been, then losing the baby caused more emotions which were hard to deal with. I had to finish at my job in the June of 2016 as the stress and the commute were making me sick again and being pregnant I had to make that my priority not my career. It was the first time I hadn't worked since I was 18 and being at home made my illness worse. None the less me and my partner tried again and I fell pregnant in may 2017 but again lost it at 6 weeks. This sent me into a downward spiral and I had to make a decision to try again or go back to work but we tried again and here I am 11 weeks pregnant and everything thus far going well and being monitored  everything but my mental health. Iv had no further contact from a perinatel team and  am on no medication. When I do see my midwife my mental health always gets used as a weapon. Iv been told I must have a cesarean for my own health but I also must have meeting regarding mental health to see if I could cope with a baby and what my support network is. That is what has pushed me to write to you both.... The stigma. Just because I have a diagnosis does not mean I am not capable or of sound mind! I went 12 years with nobody none the wiser not even the doctor who had originally treated me at 16, but now they can name my problem I'm not a worthy and am treated a second class citezen. People Dont talk about mental health because of this reason, and things need to change. If I had another invisible illness like epilepsy would I have the same stigma... Probably not. With my corporate mindset I ask you, when you work with mental health issues, departmentalise each issue.... Suicide, depression, psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders . within each of these things there is a stigma and within each of those boxes is a person like me who can control, hide and survive through my issues everyday with nobody knowing, working in high level jobs too scared to say anything because when I do I become somebody everybody is scared of abd treat differently just because I'm labeled with a mental illness and as the voice of the many I do hope the work you all do goes someway to helping the case I have put to you today because this is an issue that needs changing and changing fast.I have enclosed copy's of 2 poems I have written about mental health which are also published online, I look forward to your response Yours faithfully

Needless to say I never got any replys-which made me more determined to start a blog, to have my voice and get it heard!!

Iv recently read in the news today that they believe the grand old president of the USA, Mr Donald J Trump is apparently suffering from a mental illness-which could in effect cost him his job! According to the BBC, experts believe he is suffering from narcassistic personality disorder- now hes the kind of person that gives people with genuine mental illness a bad name! He's not mentally ill, hes an egotistic old man who is too twitter happy and obscessed with big red buttons. Everything he says is pathetic and he cant be taken seriously, the way the USA can justify thier horrific mistake of electing such a gorrilla is to brush it off with, "we didnt realise he was mentaly ill"!! cop out if you ask me!!! Just take his tweets with Mr Kim Jung un- iv seen 3 year olds in nurserys have better arguments than that!! Thats not a mental illness its a child in a 70 somethings body!! Hes the human real life version of Tom Hanks's character in Big, just not as nice or as clever or as entertaining!! I defenitly wouldnt want to play the big piano with him in a toy store-god forbid you were better than him- you'd be banned from America and called a loser on twitter before being handed a shovel and some bricks to go and build his mexican wall!

My point is, mental illness is a stigma and when its used to describe somebody like Donald Trump its no wonder people get scared!! We should be allowed to talk about it more freely and openly without the fear of being judged-but if that will change who will know...Until then all we can do is live on and fight the big fight that is mental illness which ever one it may be..... we'll talk more on this subject... but until then take care...

The typist behind the screen xxx

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