Australian psychiatric hospitals like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? I don't think so

The last time I wrote a post in response to a newspaper article was when the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine published a piece on Zanax and it's over use. In The Xanax (and other benzos) dilemma: My story I talked about my experience with benzodiazapine addiction and how my addiction was allowed to flourish while in a private psychiatric facility.

Now I want to respond to another story in the Fairfax press. Inside a psychiatric ward was published on the Daily Life website earlier this week. Author Kasey Edwards writes about her friend's experience in a Melbourne psychiatric facility. Now I don't know what hospital Ms Edwards is referring to, and as it is in Melbourne I know it's not one of the three psych hospitals I have been admitted to, but I take real issue with the article's negative generalisation of psychiatric hospitals in Australia.

"If your idea of psychiatric wards comes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, then you're not wide of the mark", writes Kasey Edwards.

From my experience of three psychiatric hospitals she couldn't be further from the truth. Talk about sensationalist journalism! Never did I see any patients catatonic or frothing at the mouth or in straight jackets or talking about killing themselves because they wanted to escape the dreadful place they were imprisoned in.

Between 2007 and 2009 I had six admissions to three different psychiatric facilities so I have a fair bit of experience with this.

The article talks about a "$9,500 per week" hospital so Ms Edwards must be referring to a private facility. All three hospitals I have been admitted to were private. I cannot talk about the public sector because I have no experience with it.

The first time I was admitted was to a small private hospital in a beach side suburb of Eastern Sydney. The hospital cared for drug and alcohol (D&A) patients as well as patients with serious mood and anxiety disorders. I was admitted for drug and alcohol addiction as well as depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder.

Yeah, it wasn't fun. People were not happy in that place - everyone was pretty fucked up so come on, of cause it wasn't a laugh a minute. We had rules and schedules to abide. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served at specific times. We had to line up for our meds. Sometimes the nurses weren't as sympathetic as you'd want them to be - especially when you're begging for your second PRN Valium in an hour because you're coming down hard and it sucks. Sometimes you had to wait a bit for your meds, but usually the nurses were able to get everyone sorted in a timely matter.

"Patients being forced to assume child-like behaviours"? If you're managing a ward with let's say 30 patients of course you are going to have schedules and you're going to have to line up together for meals and meds. When you are admitted to a hospital you are under the care of that hospital so there are going to be only certain times that you can leave. There are procedures for signing in and out of the ward if you want to go to the shops. That is so no one goes AWOL unnoticed or hurts themselves.

That first time I was in hospital I was pretty terrified and I probably did look like a "skittish kitten that had been kicked". Being so new to any type of therapy was scary. I had only once before, very briefly, been on antidepressants so I was new to psychiatric medication as well. I was put on an ever changing cocktail of meds trying to find the right combination for me. It was not easy. In fact I had a pretty hard time of it.

One combination of medication brought on the most shocking restlessness. I couldn't sit still and my mouth even started quivering making me stutter. And then the meds they put me on to stop the restlessness caused me to slur my words for a couple of days. The first time I took Seroquel I had the most horrific night terrors I thought I was dying in my sleep. On both occasions, when I asked to speak to a doctor about the side effects the drugs were having on me, the medication was changed immediately.

My second and third admissions (both D&A, PTSD and attempted suicide) were at a different facility on the other side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This is where I did come into some grief. I've discussed it in detail in my previous post. More set up for mood disorder patients than drug addicts, I got into trouble with another patient, after spending a total of 10 weeks there. The only reason I left was because I was kicked out.

My fourth (D&A) and sixth admissions (post natal depression) were to a larger hospital in the inner western suburbs. Having several wards, it catered to drug and alcohol, mood disorders and post natal depression sufferers.

On my fourth admission I was kicked out for drinking (read the Dad Question Part 3) and on my sixth I was seriously sick with post partum thyroid disease which made me extremely anxious to the point I thought I was losing my mind again.

The fifth admission in between was back to the first hospital to wash out of Effexor (just like Julie in the article). I was on a very high dose of the antidepressant because of the then undiagnosed post partum thyroid disease I'd been suffering for four months - extreme anxiety, excessive sweating, 'brain buzzes', insomnia, paranoia - just presented like I was an over anxious new mum.  I was falling apart but no one thought to test my blood for thyroid issues. Anyway, I'll get over that one day.

Now for some generalisations that I experienced at three very different psychiatric hospitals in Sydney:

• All three hospitals had schedules and rules to follow. This is like any hospital, mental or not.

• All three had good, bad and indifferent staff. From the psychiatrists you saw once or twice a week for private one on one sessions, to the psychologists you saw in daily group therapy, through to the psychiatric nurses who were around all the time, there were some great practitioners and some crap ones.

• Never, ever did I have to take a medication for a prolonged period that made me feel bad or had adverse side effects.

• Never, ever did I hear a patient say they'd rather die than stay in hospital a minute longer. On the contrary, I met so many patients, especially women, who didn't want to leave! Hospital was a safe haven. A place where they could rest and gather themselves before having to go back out into the scary big wide world.

• Never, ever did I have to talk a doctor into letting me discharge myself. Never.

• Once I had been around the traps a few times there were others who were inpatients at all three hospitals at the same time as me. It was like a revolving door. So many people came in and out just to go back in again.

• Not once did I ever feel over-drugged or that I had 'lost my agency'. In hospital I felt a greater sense of control which the routines help bring about. The outside world was where I felt out of control. So often I wanted to feel out of it, to escape from my reality, my flashbacks, but the therapy was there to help me deal with what was waiting for me on the outside. 

• At all three hospitals I always had a sense that the staff were preparing you to leave, not trying to hold you indefinitely. Group therapy sessions of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and mindfulness were given to arm patients with the life skills to deal with life on the outside. And anyway, there are waiting lists to get into those hospitals. The doctors are not going to hold you back if they deem you fit to leave and you feel ready to go. Not when there is another patient out there desperately waiting for your bed. 

So Kasey Edwards has given one account of her friend's experience in a psychiatric hospital and her personal experience of visiting that friend. I am sorry Ms Edwards' friend had such a terrible experience when she was in hospital. But to call out that "we need to focus on the type of care mental health patients are receiving" as if it is all bad and that "it's likely that the 'cure' will be worse than the disease" is, in my belief, misinformed and rather dangerous.

What if some frightened person with serious mental health issues read that article and then became too scared to go to the doctor to seek help because they're worried they're going to be sent to the mental asylum where people are not allowed to leave?

Please, if you are not feeling ok and need to seek help, do so without fear of Australian psychiatric hospitals.

If you do need assistance these sites maybe helpful:

reachout.com
Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia
Beyond Blue
Black Dog Institute



V.

Kiss smart: The BB goals for 2013 - For the soul

Twenty thirteen is promising to be a big one here at babblingbandit.me. Too keep myself in line I have started a blog series on my goals for the year.

I've named them KISS SMART goals to remind myself to Keep It Simple Stupid and to make sure my goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

One month into 2013 and already my goals are wavering. Without getting all negative about it I'm writing to get myself back on board the positivity train.

A couple of weeks ago I outlined my first goal:

Kiss smart goal number 1: Health Basically, I have pledged to lose 7kgs by 30 June. To do this I will give up sugar, eat whole foods and exercise more.

Why is it always so much easier said than done?

Because life happens. Because, as the old cliché says, old habits die hard. I want to assassinate those bad habits and replace them with good ones - healthy positive habits.

I had a major setback a couple of weeks ago: I attempted to go back to working in an office and fell flat on my face again. I hate that shit. That feeling of going backwards. It totally freaks me out when I feel great and then something sends me back to feeling bad. I run. Get the fuck outta there. Eat shit to feel better.

Ah, what?

Eat shit to feel better? What is that? Self sabotage for an instant high is what it is. It doesn't work Vanessa (talking to myself through my blog surely means I'm losing it)! I never has worked.

But I have a plan to turn this thing around. It includes writing more goals in order to help facilitate that healthy eating/moving goal.

This is a holistic plan. Bare with me.

Which brings me to...

2. For the soul

I think a lot of people get caught up in the doing and achieving part of goal setting. What about the goal of relaxation? We all need to give ourselves time to rest and relax and take a moment to just sit still and do something we enjoy just for fun.

To nurture my soul I intend to do the following:

a. Continue with fortnightly therapy sessions

Someone told me recently I should lessen my reliance on therapy. Well that person is a doofus. Therapy keeps me in check. Whenever I take extended periods of time away from my check ins with Shrink I feel lost and out of control. And even when I do go there and I'm feeling fine, I walk away feeling even more confident that everything is on track.

b. Read more

This is going to be hard this year as I have so much going on. I'm enrolled to do one subject this study period for uni so no doubt there will be a lot of academic research to be read.

I have a lot of books on my Kindle that I've purchased and have either started and not finished or have not had a chance to open. Reading is such a great way to unwind and escape, especially if it's fiction you're reading. So I'm going to make more of an effort to escape with a book.

Rather than go to bed with my phone scrolling through my Twitter feed into the early hours which, considering it is an election year, will no doubt cause all matter of anxiety, I'm going to escape to Westeros and follow the trials and tribulations of the Game of Thrones gang. The politics there might be just as blood thirsty but at least it is in a make believe land rather than in Canberra!

c. Time with friends and lovers

The hardest thing for me as a sole parent is finding time to see friends on my own, and if I am lucky, maybe even a lover.

Even though I know a few great babysitters, it is still an expensive night out if I have to pay someone to look after Noo while I hit the town or the sack (hahaha - get it?).

Noo's grandparents absolutely adore him but they have really busy social lives too. And they live over two hours drive away most of the week. The key here is booking in Nanna and Pa well in advance and then try to book in drinks with the girls or a date with a bloke on those nights my parents are in town.

I love my time with Noo. We get up to so much fun but I do really enjoy hanging out with adults and forgetting about parenthood for a couple of hours or more. I plan to make this more of a regular habit this year.


OK, checking in with the KISS SMART pledge:

Did I keep it simple?

Goal: Nurture my soul

How: Keep up fortnightly therapy sessions,
read more fiction, spend more time with friends and lovers

Are my goals smart? 

Specific: See above
Measurable: Anxiety levels will determine if this goal has been successful
Achievable: Totally
Relevant: Absolutely
Time-bound: Yes, to be measured on 30 June 2013

Two down five to go. Check back soon for the next goal to be set for 2013: Finances. Eeek!


How are your goals or resolutions going so far? Sticking to them or have you fallen off the wagon like I have?


V.

Work: My one taboo subject unleashed

Tears are streaming down my face. I have the proverbial frog in my throat and my skin is prickling with anxiety. My chest is tight and burning while my head feels woozy and I'm having trouble focusing my eyes on the screen. I'm hungry despite having just had breakfast and I feel nauseous at the same time. I want to lay down and close my eyes and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist but my mind is going fifty to the dozen and I know I need something to focus on or this feeling could spiral out of control.

I'm letting people down again. But I can't go back there. Not now. Maybe never. I hate it.

I've been avoiding writing about my return to working in an office. This year is supposed to be all about positivity. About being happy and achieving what I want to do. This year I was to join the majority of the adult populace and start working again. But here I am on day three and I'm not at work. I'm here at my own desk. The place where I feel safest.

I've been promoting my blog on Facebook to my own friends and family. Now as I write I am cognisant of the fact that I now have an audience of people who know me in the real world. I love that but I have had to make a promise to myself that no matter who is reading my blog I wouldn't let that knowledge change my voice.

I've written about some pretty damn full on shit here over the last year or so but I don't fear anyone's judgement about my crimes of the past. I do fear, however, what people think of how I am now. Actually, the only judgement I fear is about what I do for money. I should I say what I don't do.


Whether we live to work or work to live having a job is an enormous part of any adult's life. Whether we work the 9-5 or the 7-7 or 8-3, in an office, a hotel or at a school or anywhere, we can spend more time at work than we do with our families. For many, work can be what defines us. For most of us, work is what brings in the money so we can live. What we do for a living and how much we earn determines what kind of life we can afford to live. And what we do for work can also be how other people judge us and how we can judge other people.

I started working when I was 18 years old. I didn't have a part time job through high school, not because I was lazy, but because I was too scared to. I was so terribly shy and awkward that I hated dealing with people I didn't know. I spent most of my final year of high school hiding in my room.

All through school I had no idea what I wanted to be. I liked the idea of graphic design because I loved art and I did my year 10 work experience with a graphic design firm. Other than that all I knew (and I have written evidence of this somewhere) was that I wanted to travel and then get married and have a family.

When our family had to move from Sydney to Melbourne my sister and I got to choose what school we went to. The one I picked had a 'business school' and my destiny was settled. My parents chose my subjects and I did a secretarial certificate while completing year 11 and 12 so when I finished my Victorian Certificate of Education I was qualified to work as a junior secretary.

In the first ten years of my career I moved around a lot. Working in small businesses, I had to move out to move up. I was trained very well in my first role by the senior who worked with me in a tiny office. I had loved working on computers since we got our first Mac in 1985 and I excelled at the IT subjects I studied through high school. So by the end of my first couple of years of employment I was doing pretty well.

I loved doing all the tasks that required me to use the computer but I still hated dealing with other people, especially on the phone. I stuttered and ummed and I always felt like I didn't know what I was talking about. I felt inferior and stupid and small. That feeling was replayed when I started working again last week for the first time after an absence of five years which is why I find myself here, writing about the one subject I hate to talk about.

Socially I was still very awkward well into my 20s. At work drinks I always drank too much in an effort to overcome my anxiety. I said silly things and behaved inappropriately and then woke up in the morning hungover and depressed and dying inside at the memory of the night before. There were many, many days that I woke up and just couldn't bear the thought of fronting up to work. Hungover or not, the thought of talking to people, putting on my work face and being the person I thought I had to be in order to be liked was just too difficult.

I got sick a lot. From my first job through to my last I had many an illness that would keep me away from the office for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Bronchitis, tonsillitis, ear infections, flu, migraines, repetitive strain injury, chest pain. But some days the alarm would go off and I just couldn't get out of bed. I just couldn't get on the rollercoaster of life and face the world.

I'd call in sick and huddle under my doona wishing there was a better way. In retrospect, after all the therapy I've done over the last five years, I was suffering depression on and off all through my working life. I self medicated with booze and drugs. They gave me the escape from the shy, defective person that I believed I was.

Strangely though I was actually very good at what I did. When I felt confident and happy I was brilliant at most office administration and I was an extremely fast operator. I can't tell you how many temp jobs I've worked my way out of because I've completed the project in half the budgeted time.

It only took a personality clash, or on a few occasions I was bullied, and my confidence would go crashing down and I'd be sick again and unable to get out of bed.

In 2000 I got a job working for a large international firm. I had only just recently broken up with a man I'd lived with for yearly three years and I was hugely overweight. My new boss was a lazy narcissist who did nothing all day but delegate all his work to the team and then take all the credit for it. He got a thrill over asking people do to things. For instance, he would get me to print out every single one of his emails. Or he'd ask me to answer his phone because he couldn't be bothered to when I was sitting at my desk having lunch. Seriously. I can't remember many other details but I remember the morale in the office was extremely low. Everyone bitched all day about this guy and it became increasingly harder for me to hold it together.

By mid 2001 I was in a full blown depression which once again was untreated. I was referred to a psychiatrist who told me I had serious mental health issues that would require two sessions of therapy a week for possibly years. The sessions were $230 a go and I didn't know you could get a Medicare rebate on it so after the first couple of appointments I told the doctor I couldn't afford to come any more. Yolanda was sending me money from the UK to pay for it which just made me feel worse.

I took some time off work but when I returned it was clear the situation there wasn't going to improve. I remember yelling at that boss about something. He was pushing me and I snapped. I stormed out of that open plan office screaming and shouting in tears. Another time he was horrible I went to the toilet and refused to come out until 5pm. I stayed in there for hours.

I resigned not long after and accepted a role at the large financial services firm I ended up being employed by until 2009. My confidence had been absolutely shattered by my previous employer yet I started a job at this company that is famous for its ruthlessly hard work ethic.

All the while I loved doing PowerPoint presentations and designing leaflets and newsletters and the like and wished I pursued my high school interest in graphic design instead of secretarial work. I always went for roles that were in the marketing departments or had a desktop publishing focus because this was my area of interest.

My last role was as a research administration assistant. The first few months were excruciating because of the massive learning curve. The girl who was handing over the role to me was not leaving because she wanted to. She had built the position up in the direction that she enjoyed which was more of a junior analyst type role but the company wasn't going to pay her for that. They wanted an admin assistant. She loved spreadsheets and charts and analysing data which was an area of weakness for me. She did all she could to handover the role in a hostile manner, making it difficult for me to grasp. By the end of the first few weeks I was in tears with the manager and saying I was unqualified for the role.

Luckily, or maybe unluckily, the company stuck with me. After two years there I was doing the job really well (and fell in love with Excel - go figure!) but I had become sick and depressed again and once again didn't seek proper treatment. I did a self development course called the Landmark Forum which started me on the self development/therapy road but it wasn't enough.

The department I worked in was very male dominated. The team I worked for were young, fit and good looking men who earned huge amounts of money. They were arrogant and sexist and often spoke with one another without any acknowledgement that there was a woman in the room. They talked about their girlfriends and lovers and women in general with utter disrespect. I just sat there and did my work and listened while my blood boiled and what little self esteem I had was eroded, comment by comment.

I was drinking heavily from Friday night through Sunday night most weekends. I was promiscuous and showed myself as little respect as the men I heard talk about women all day did. Some days I was so self conscious, just walking from one end of the office to the other took every bit of strength I had. My body shook with embarrassment as I put one foot in front of the other to get from A to B.

At the time I was also sleeping with and in unrequited love with a man who I pursued relentlessly despite the fact that he treated me like shit. By the end of 2002 I was vomiting every time I had an alcoholic beverage. I didn't understand what was happening to me. The girl who could easily put away 10 schooners on a Sunday afternoon was throwing up after one drink.

I went to the doctor who ordered a whole stack of tests. The vomiting was accompanied by the most intense chest pain. A burning that started at the centre of my breasts and shot through to my back like I was being impaled by a hot poker. I had an endoscopy, ultrasounds, blood tests, breath tests, urine tests but the doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with me.

The only person who suggested I might have anxiety was my mother but I refused to believe it because I knew my head was much harder to fix than my body. I wanted so badly for them to find something, anything, that could be medicated or operated on to fix that horrible sickness.

In early 2003 I cut everyone but my family out of my life. To my family I was unbearable. I was rude and selfish and completely self obsessed. I went on a diet and I exercised. I became obsessed with every calorie I put in my mouth and when I wasn't at the gym I fantasised that I was running. Just running and burning that horrible person that was me away.

I thought if I could lose weight and be skinny then people would like me and respect me at work. After listening to those horrible conversations by my team day after day about girls being a 'moose' if they were slightly overweight or 'minging' if they weren't attractive enough I just thought if I made myself look better I'd be better.

I quit smoking and drinking and lost 12kg and got down to the lowest weight I'd been in six years. People noticed too. They said nice things to me at work. Even my family were more complimentary.  I felt more confident and started seeing my friends again. The guy I had been chasing for so long was giving me more time. And then I started to feel that need to make a change. A big change.

A position became available in our London office. One that I was extremely qualified for and I managed to convince my superiors to let me go. I could get away from the boy I'd loved for so long and I could push myself to try new things, to travel.



That's all I can write today. I want to tell you about London though. I've got to write about it. Maybe it will help me get over this fear of work I've got if I write it all down and analyse it.

I've got to find a way that I can work without having to go to an office. I've got the skills. I've got the equipment. I've just got to find the confidence.


Back soon.

V.

One week down!

Sunday morning

Well I'm on day 7. I'm still feeling very sore and uncomfortable but at least last night I slept through to 4.30am. I had the most vivid dreams all night about cakes and pastries! I must have been craving sweet food in my sleep. These cakes were so delicious in my dream. When I woke up I had an instant when I forgot about the band until I moved and reality hit.

Recuperating at home yesterday

I've felt kind of strange about it all over the last couple of days. Yesterday I woke up at about 5am after a particularly uncomfortable night. I'd been up several times with a terrible stabbing pain in my chest which was probably gas caught in my esophagus. It wasn't til I paced the apartment for a bit that I was able to shake it. The fitful sleep and the constant pain had kind of got to me by yesterday morning. I wasn't regretful or sad, just quite flat. I was really quiet, reflecting on the enormity of what I had done to my body in order to lose weight I struggled so many times to lose before.

Like I have talked about in a previous entry it has been a three year journey of self discovery that got me to where I am today. I have been lucky to have the help of my wonderful family and friends who have seen me through some really terrible bad times. I have also had the help of a lot of professionals, from psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and my general practitioner. They were all there to help me wade through the shit of a very deep hole known as Rock Bottom.

Even though I'm not completely healed (I still have severe anxiety attacks in certain situations), I'm a hell of a lot better from how I was. Now it stands to reason, after so much effort has been made on my heart and soul, that some serious work now commences on my body. And considering I've spent so much time, money and effort to heal the mind, why wouldn't I do the same for my body?

Sunday evening

What a difference a day makes! I am feeling 100% better than I was this morning. After having a full day out and about I finally think I've made a turnaround in my recovery. This morning Mum, Noo and I dropped my sister back to her house and then went to our local shopping centre to do a big shop. Noo had a lovely time running around, especially when he found there was a brand new Wiggles Big Red Car ride in the food court. He was so funny, spending half an hour looking over it back, front and centre, climbing and vigorously steering the little wheel. While we were walking around the shops I did find it quite uncomfortable still. Like an elephant was standing on my chest the whole time.

Later we went back to my sister's place for lunch. Her husband had made a delicious roast vegetable and cous cous salad. I was sorry not to be able to have any, but was satisfied with a cuppa soup instead... wow! What a statement. How long will this last I wonder?

On a not so good note, I've had a wicked headache all afternoon.  Could this be from not eating much? That's what it feels like, although I've managed quite a bit today:

6am 1/2 cup white tea

7.30am 1 cup banana smoothie

11am a couple of mouthfuls of a Boost Juice brekky to gogo smoothie

1pm 1/2 cuppa soup

3.30pm 1 cup berry smoothie

7pm 3/4 cup tomato soup

Maybe I haven't drunk enough water? Who knows. 

Random Noo Noo shot because he's so cute!

Its 9pm now and Iron Man is on telly so I think I'll wrap this up now. I hope everyone out there in Blogland has had a fantastic weekend.

V.

On the night before surgery...

Well, this is my "night before" blog. I've been thinking about what to write all day, as well as reading loads of other blogs, but I haven't been able to come up with any profound last words before I go under the knife, so I'm just going to type and see what comes out...

I've been quite consumed with anxiety about it all but not because I'm fearful of the surgery or the anesthetic. Quite the contrary, I don't mind being sedated and having that lovely dreamy feeling when you wake up. I'm not too scared about the pain either, I figure I endured a 39 hour labour when Noo was born, I can endure any pain that I might be inflicted with. What I'm really scared about is what losing weight means to me.

I am at the tail end of what has been a very long, very hard journey that started in 2007 when I had a massive breakdown.  One minute I was living and working in London, the next being admitted to a psychiatric and rehabilitation hospital in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Its been an incredibly hard and bumpy road that has found me here, typing this blog getting ready to be banded to help me shed the fat I've been hiding behind while I heal what have been some pretty heavy emotional scars.

Before 2007 I was a bubbly, funny and energetic party girl. I lived to party and have fun. Then something very bad happened and all that came crashing down. The year that followed was a living hell. I started to self medicate with drugs and alcohol and when I finally came back to Sydney it was to detox to save my life.

Getting sober at first was like being striped clean with bleach. I had nothing to help me hide from the thoughts in my mind and was forced to face what my life had become. I was 32 and I had nothing but a massive UK credit card debt and a serious drug and alcohol problem. I was not the cool party girl/rock chick, in control of her habits, as I had somehow managed to convince myself I was. In those three weeks in the hospital I began to realise I had no idea who I was. Since I was a shy teenager who discovered drinking alcohol gave me the confidence I could never have alone, I had made drinking and partying the central part of my personality. Now that it was gone I was left open like a raw weeping wound without a band aid. 

In the hospital I was put on various medications to help with detoxing and with the deep depression I now found myself in. Over the last three years I have tried eight different anti-depressants and about five different anti-psychotic/mood stabilisers (which I don't need any more). Some of these medications really affect your appetite and by not being able to drink, I was seriously drawn to food - particularly chocolate and any other sweet food.

Chocolate is addictive and affects the same neuro pathways as drugs and alcohol do. With my increased appetite thanks to whatever meds the psychiatrists had me on I became obsessed with chocolate - it was my new cocaine! 

Finally, after four admissions and almost a year to the day of that terrible thing that happened, I found out I was pregnant with my son. It was make or break time. Get sober and live and raise a little baby out the ashes that was my old life or, well, the or just doesn't bear thinking about.

So I was preggers. The first 14 weeks I had horrific morning sickness and couldn't eat so actually lost 13 kg.  I got down to my lowest weight since giving up the booze, etc, and was 83 kg as I headed into the second trimester. By the end of my pregnancy I was completely infatuated with lollies and chocolates and fruit and ice cream and anything sweet I could get my hands on! Most importantly though, I found a new hope and could finally see a future for myself as I fell deeply in love with the little baby that was growing inside me.

By the time Noo was born I was 104kg. In the few weeks and months following his birth my weight never really dropped below 95 kg.  I was hungry all the time. Seriously starving 24 hours a day. I would eat whenever he needed a feed, even throughout the night. My appetite was bigger than it had even been on those horrible mood stabilisers! I complained about it to my doctor and it was just put down to the fact I was breast feeding. I also started to get other symptoms - profusive sweating, sleeplessness, and extreme anxiety. I began to feel like the world was going to end. I had this overwhelming feeling all time of impending doom.

Once again I went back to my GP and I was seeing a psychiatrist weekly but still my symptoms were put down to being a new mother who was breastfeeding. I was also on a massive dose of an anti-depressant which was giving me a strange side effect that my head would experience a buzzing sensation whenever I moved. Both my GP and the psych put it down to anxiety and kept increasing my dose.

By the time Noo was just over 3 months old, I was losing it and finally I was admitted to a psych hospital again to come off my meds to try another type of anti-depressant. As is routine when you get admitted to these places, the hospital's GP ordered a stack of blood tests. I was later called in to see the doctor and told that my thyroid was malfunctioning and was extremely hyperactive, to the point where he thought I might have Graves Disease. I had my laptop with me so was straight on to Google when I got back to my room. Symptoms included, anxiety, fast metabolism causing increased appetite, profusive sweating... I could not believe it! Here I was thinking I had regressed back to the depressed state I was in back in 2007 and what really was the issue was that I had a thyroid problem! 

I was furious to say the least.  I'm still not over it really, will never be, that my doctors did not test my thyroid function given my extreme symptoms. I suffered for about 4 months with a newborn who I was struggling to care for because I was losing my mind. When I finally got to see an endocrinologist I was diagnosed with postpartum thyroiditis. Phew! That was well over a year ago and my recent appointment with the specialist confirmed that the thyroid disease has righted itself and is functioning at normal levels now.

Wow, this has become a much longer entry than I expected but I suppose it goes to how I find myself here, on the eve of my gastric band surgery.

I tried many diets in an attempt to lose the weight I had gained including Weight Watchers (x2), Jenny Craig and two sessions a week with a personal trainer. Still nothing was working, or it would work for a couple of weeks to a month and next thing I knew I was falling into bad habits again.

In one of my stints in rehab I met an alcoholic girl around my age who would eat very little food. I must have asked her about it and when she told me she had a gastric band I was completely intrigued. When my Jenny Craig diet failed last year, I started thinking more about that young woman and began researching all about laproscopic gastric band surgery. I have read everything, I think, there is to read about it, and I knew it was the thing for me.  I know I have a lower BMI than most people who have the procedure but for someone who has been in the overweight/obese category for most of my adult life, I really think its the right thing for me.

So I've been sober two and a bit years and I am the mother of the most wonderful little boy. Getting pregnant got me sober and being a parent keeps me sober.  I don't know if anyone would understand this but being obese also keeps me sober. I hardly ever go out at night and I haven't even thought about another relationship or men in general, since this whole saga began. At the beginning, I was too broken for a relationship, now I'm just too fat. But a healthy relationship is something that I want but it frightens me so much at the same time.

Will losing weight and feeling good about my body be enough to make me want to go out and meet people but also tempt me to drink again? Its a frightening thought but honestly, I don't think so (the drink party I mean, not the meeting people!). Writing this blog has made me realise that. I am so far away from that shell shocked girl that came back from London in June 2007. I am a strong and resilient woman who has come back from the brink of oblivion and I'm ready to let go of this mask, this armour, and let the new and fabulous me come out and shine!

Next time I post I will be banded! It is midnight so I must go to bed.

Vanessa

Thanks to all the brave bloggers!

COUNTDOWN: 9 sleeps to go.

Noo and I both have colds.  Boohoo!  It seems to be standard now he's in day care. We have sniffles all the time and then the colds get really bad and then subside and then get bad again, but they never fully disappear.  This seems to be the case with other families I know with small children.  I'm just desperately hoping my cold doesn't affect my surgery date.  I couldn't stand it if I had to postpone it because of an annoying cold! Must get some vitamin C and echinacea tomorrow.

Sick little Noo

Watching telly after an afternoon snooze

We were suppose to hang out with some mums and bubs we know up a Castle Hill today but I couldn't handle the drive with watery eyes and a monged out head.  Ended up hanging out with Yo locally, getting groceries at Broadway and letting Noo burn some excess energy in our favourite local playground.  Even when he has the worst cold, he always wants to go to the park.  All I wanted to do is lay in front of the telly but hey, you don't get those sorts of luxuries being a single mum.  It was a gorgeous day in the sun today so it wasn't so bad.

I finally have my first follower, which I'm stoked about.  I'm slowly getting the hang of this blogging business, following others and hoping people will be interested to follow me.  It really is amazing feeling like you're part of a community of people going through similar experiences to you.  It's less isolating.  I didn't tell anyone except my parents at first, that I was considering banding.  Then I told my doctor (who was overwhelmingly supportive and encouraging) and then my sister.  Slowly I've started telling my mates too.

Generally my life is an open book.  I don't like secrets and I'm terrible at keeping them so I just find openness and honesty works best for me.  Like I said in an earlier entry, I'm also in therapy and have been for three years, so I'm kind of used to spilling my guts everywhere, at any time.  I've had a pretty colourful life up until now, so I suppose there's a lot that people could use against me so I should be selective with what I write.  Although this blogging business so far seems so cathartic. Like I'm giving life to the chatter in my brain so it doesn't seem so suffocating.  Not that I've felt suffocated lately by my own internal voice, but somehow writing things down seems freeing.

Its so accepted now in our modern society to share so much of ourselves with the rest of the world via the internet.  But I'd hate to think a prospective employer, for instance, could sometime down the track, google me and find this and then perhaps use the fact that I am in recovery against me in my application for a job.  I don't want to have to censor myself too much so I'm willing take the risk.

So I've had mixed responses from my friends regarding getting a lap-band.  I think they will all understand more once I start seeing results.  After working over my brain these last three years, its now time to work over this body!

I'm getting so excited as each day passes.  I really think that this surgery is going to be massively life changing for me.  Reading all the wonderful blogs and also people's stories on the Yahoo message boards have been so instrumental in helping me make this decision.  So I thank all the other brave bloggers out there who share their life with people like me. 

V.