"frustration"

i need help for my mental health although it was not until 2007 that i received a diagnosis. up till then i had just !felt! weird, with a lot of distress and chaos in my life, in my thoughts and a tendency to react dramatically or in a distressed emotional way. this made sense of the diagnosis which is - although i have no way to describe it, as Borderline Personality Disorder.

it means when i feel faced with adversity, with stress, with loss, or a multitude of emotional states, or if i have to make a decision or am in a crisis, then i cannot always rely on my internal or external response. it could range from reactions which incorporate anger, rage, crying, shyness, ignoring another, and possibly a whole host that havent come to mind while writing

and in explaining myself, i can describe myself in multiple ways, according to how i feel, and where i am, at the time, which overall builds up a sense of being very flaky, perhaps unreliable or giddy, not always false, but certainly perhaps misleading but also in behaving defensively or arrogantly, in becoming displaced or at least, never the same, shall i say. when meeting others then, i am sure their opinion of me is different, perhaps on every occasion

it incorporates a fragile sense of self, and of worth

and in reality or in relating to others, our emotional states (or mine) can dip and soar and change dramatically, become fearful, want to hide or be open, garrulous, generous, a whole gamut of experiences

i asked for help, feeling both unwell physically and psychologically although i had struggled for many years with no idea who i was, how i was portraying my own inner and outer self, and feeling terribly vulnerable after many interaction and this makes defining who i am very hard when asked "how are you" or "describe how you feel" and i need consistency, yet at the same time i yearn for difference, i need a balance, yet cannot be tied down

i felt the mental health team did not want to know. i asked over several months and as there was little change for the better i persevered with the mh team in order to get support. i received a home visit where on describing aspects of how i cope with life, i became distressed

the care co-ordinator, keyworker, occupational therapist - these were all unfamiliar terms and roles to me, suggested there was little that he could do with me, but i couldnt leave things as they were and pursued at length - meaning several months and culminating into years all the various routes for some kind of support

i dont find that i cope well, either individually, cos i receive multiple messages to a situation, different voices in my ears, similar to a running commentary, and dependending on how i view the world at that moment, but it is very hard to get this across to others and in shame, desperation, frustration, anxiety, anger even, i shun society more than i revel or take part in it

i dont know how to describe how i find myself other than to suggest "frustration" as a running commentary

the care worker could not or did not provide any level of consistency. he did not express or explain what the condition i was diagnosed with meant, to live with, to understand or how to proceed with life from that point on

i was very willing, i was able to engage, i couldnt always embrace what he tried to impart, especially if i found it triggery or emotional

but when i wanted to express what i wanted, where i wanted to go, this was ignored and again the frustration was resurrected

i complained officially, wanting to be able to help myself, to live a life more full than one that was frankly miserable, depressing, frustrating, that dipped in and out of emotional states i wore myself out, how i felt dissilusioned and less able to engage with others, how i felt apart, abandoned, distant, and alone

i took all of this, in its form, thro the various stages to the Ombudsman attention and still got nowhere and this is my story, in its summary, in order to help others understand what it is to live, to be diagnosed, with a mental health condition which encompasses so many states, which attacks and debilitates you on so many levels

the most distress i experience is on days where it comes up to a birth, christmas, events of my past, followed by chaos and its detriment, thro the years, following into my own fears and distrust of others, today and whilst there may be support and help out there, its very hard to know how to proceed, to be heard, to feel justified in experiencing these states, without having to express or disclose how they came about, but how all of this is lightly dismissed by others, as seemingly trivial and "to let life go on". that is so much easier said than done, as i certainly wouldnt be in this position if i were so able to allow this to happen