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At one point when manic in a session with L, my lived experience worker, I said ‘this is a metanoia’. She replied that that was cool, because she has a tattoo of metanoia in the greek characters, due to having had her own metanoia.

I was definitely using such fancy speak because of being high as a kite, but I wasn’t wrong. “The term has been used in psychology since late 19th century, when the American philosopher and psychologist William James, often labelled as the “Father of American psychology” used it to refer to a fundamental and stable change in an individual’s life-orientation which is followed by a positive re-building” and that’s exactly what the past 2 years have been.

It was a process beginning in November 2020, when my then boyfriend told me he wasn’t sure if he’d believe his child if they disclosed abuse. That was the trigger for my eventual mental health crisis I believe, and it certainly made me re-examine a lot of things. At the time, I felt like my needs were ‘too much’ to merit consideration, because historically I’ve needed a lot more than most people and most partners haven’t comprehended why. So I didn’t handle the situation well, and became very mentally unstable.

It was after that though that I found Chime to Thrive, on the NSUN website in a list of places they had awarded grants to. I initiated contact with L in the hopes of her advocating around my trauma symptoms, but instead we identified that I had as yet unidentified neurodevelopmental differences. During my time working with her, I was becoming increasingly manic, and she was exceedingly patient with me and my difficult symptoms at the time. Looking back, it’s crazy how the mania led me to just simply trust in the process, that the increasing self-awareness was leading to significant changes and ‘positive re-building’.

Thankfully, given that I was unfortunately very unsafe at one stage in my manic episode prior to being hospitalised, that process really has given me the chance to work on positive re-building. I managed to self-advocate that I needed supported accommodation in my first ward, which lead to the rehab ward being the option chosen rather than temporary accommodation. When that failed, an occupational therapist on the ward conducted an activities of daily living assessment, which secured me the supported accommodation I needed.

Since living here, I’ve had a safe place to struggle with functional care tasks whilst I regain demand capacity. I’ve had the safe space to practice and learn strategies that help me manage demands. I’ve realised that I can handle working, so long as it feeds the PDA current do so. I’ve realised that my long term goals would be either to research PDA, from a lived experience perspective, or to work as lived experience peer support for neurodivergent adults. Towards that goal, last night I had a mentorship session with two ladies from the Survivor Researcher Network, in order to gain advice on how I might pursue that goal.

It’s been a long, difficult and at times scary process, but I’m glad that manic me was able to trust. It was worthwhile.

It’s just under a month until my first christmas as a diagnosed PDAer. Christmas is a time many PDAers, especially the kids find difficult – it’s full of demands! I don’t recall that being a problem for me, I was always quite excited to get gifts (which can sometimes pose a problem for PDA children due to representing uncertainty in what will be received).

I do recall that in my teen years some Christmasses felt like a lot of pressure to pretend to be happy when I was really very unhappy. I find Christmas when you’re not in the mood to be quite difficult, so now I tend to make an effort to get into the spirit of things to lessen that. I like buying people gifts, the decorations, and some of the traditions. I do tend to feel a sense of ‘this again, already’ though. A Christmas at the end of every year feels like a ‘lot’. It never feels that long since the last Christmas to be doing all the same routines again.

This Christmas will be a little bit special as it’s my first with my own flat to decorate. I’ll admit, I’ve already done so, because I needed cheering up at the end of the last week and my little tree arrived. It’s only small, 4 feet tall and artificial… but it’s my first Christmas tree of my own. I’m planning to keep it to use as a secondary tree in years to come, because I do love real trees. For now, in my little supported living flat though, it does nicely.

Time flies when you’re not an inpatient at a psychiatric ward. These past seven months have passed an awful lot quicker than the preceding seven months stuck as an inpatient. It feels so good to be moving forward with my life.. I’d say again, but really for the first time in years.

After my first manic episode in 2015, I lost a lot of functioning. I attempted to return to university, but didn’t really cope. I wasn’t cooking for myself properly anymore, became very isolated, wasn’t able to sit my exams. Eventually I moved back home with my parents, until the 2020 lockdowns, becoming very depressed. In 2020, I moved to a shared house, but still wasn’t really functioning. I was more just existing. My quality of life was very poor.

So I’m very glad that the one thing I managed to communicate in the first hospital last year was that I wanted supported living. The doctor there dismissed the idea saying, surely I’m too independent for that. Thankfully, at the second hospital, an OT did a activities of daily living assessment and that proved that I needed supported accommodation. The funding was secured, and my CPN found me the place where I live now.

I’ve come a long way in the seven months of living here. I’ve started work for the first time in my life, as a SEN teaching assistant. I absolutely adore that work, it’s great to work with autistic kids. I’ve recently started attending social groups in a city I can reach by train. I had been quite worried that I wasn’t making social connections outside of the scheme, meaning that when I moved on I’d still be very isolated and lonely. So my keyworker helped me find some groups, and I’ve been making an effort to go to them. Tonight’s was a geek meetup, which is perfect for me.

I’m also making a little progress when it comes to maintaining my flat. It helps that I’m motivated to have a nice space to decorate for christmas at the moment. I’ve decided that I’m going to store my clothes in bags for life in my bedroom, so they aren’t taking up space in the living room anymore. I don’t feel able to put laundry away in drawers at the moment, so having a designated place for laundry bags to live helps keep things under control. It was reading ‘How to Keep House While Drowning’ that gave me the idea. It validated that I needed an adapted system that worked for me, rather than ‘the proper way to do things’. I also cleaned out my hoover, disentangling things that had got tangled and preventing it from suctioning.

I’m hoping that within the next seven months I’ll have made even more progress. Who knows, I might be allowed to own a kitty.