A long rave

Edit Feb 2018: This thread has evolved into a chat thread, which is fine by me. In addition, I encourage other members to feel free to post their own 'long raves' in here too if wished. I will continue to post my own longer raves from time to time, as well as chat with friends along the way.

Original post from May 2016:

First of all, a (very) long post alert. Please don't feel obliged to read or respond. Mainly I am writing today to clear my own head of some things. So, here goes...

Last week, I managed to get to all planned appointments and activities every day of the week except Sunday. That only amounts to one, maximum two, per day, but was an improvement on previous weeks and months. I've made all planned appointments in a week before, but there have not been so many appointments in so many days consecutively. Many of you will know that, prior to about mid last year, I spent years very rarely leaving the flat. This was since the last of my breakdowns from paid employment in 2008 (one of so many similar breakdowns from paid working, though none as devastating in consequence as this last one). With each of these breakdowns, the recovery time got longer and longer. It's taken eight years to recover much at all this time around.

This week, so far, I've made none of my appointments or activities. In fact, I've not showered for days. Embarrassing to admit but maybe helpful to own up to it. As I write I'm still in what I wore to bed, as I was all day yesterday and the day before. The weird thing is that I don't feel that bad in my emotions, just crashed out physically and lacking almost all motivation except to use the computer. In other words, my mind and fingertips are alert and active, in fact nervy and overactive as usual, but the rest of me is crashed out. Perhaps I have entered what some people call a bipolar 'mixed state'. Whatever the terminology, this is where I am and I've been here so many times before.

The way I see it, there are a number of possible reasons for the way I am after last week:

• inner conflict about how helpful my psychologist treatment is for me (saw her on Friday);
• trying to further reduce my tobacco intake (the struggle seems disproportionately huge and exhausting);
• needing recovery time from a big week (by my standards);
• simply another manifestation of bipolar disorder in me.

Regarding the psychologist. She is young compared to me and I have the feeling that she may not grasp the full extent of my situation, partly through lack of life experience. Perhaps she may particularly lack an understanding of the various physical ailments that complicate things with me, some age-related (menopause, musculo-skeletal problems), one of them a chronic illness (crohns disease). She is treating me with some techniques from Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, something I honestly have never liked the sound of when I've read about it. The main 'homework' I have for this four week period is a sheet I am meant to fill out every night covering various things including tobacco use, coffee intake, isolating, unbalance eating, sleep patterns, lack of exercise. The sheet also includes sections monitoring mood every day. The problem I find is that monitoring and (by implication) tackling all these things at once is just overwhelming. I am significantly depressed after filling out the form because it seems to highlight all the ways I am failing rather than the ways I am succeeding. The psychologist has given me this sheet as homework once before and it had the same effect on me then. A full month long slump into depression is what followed. This sheet makes me feel very pressured to recover quickly from all of these things at once, a message that contradicts the advice of my psychiatrist (who I trust much more). His advice is to take it slowly and steadily and not feel rushed. As of yesterday, I stopped using the DBT form altogether. I am even considering giving up on the therapy with this psychologist after my next (sixth) session instead of seeing it through to the ten sessions my GP is willing to refer me for.

With the difficulty of further tobacco reduction, I am succeeding in reducing this a little more but the effort is gargantuan and seems to be sapping all the strength I have for making it out the door to my activities and appointments (or even to get dressed and showered). Writing here is just about the only thing that is distracting me from smoking again or thinking about it obsessively.

I've run out of steam on writing about it all now (a huge sigh of relief from any readers at this point).

I wonder if anyone else can make any sense of this.