To start off with Dave told me in February of 2016 that he wanted “space” and asked for a separation for a while whilst he tried to work out what he wanted. I was completely devastated that he even wanted to leave the house. I didn’t get angry or fight with him about it as I knew that once Dave had a made a decision about something, there was absolutely no changing his mind. This was something I just had to accept, for the time being. Dave left that evening with enough clothes for a couple of days and his toiletries.

The shock started to lessen and the enormity of this started to sink in fairly quickly. I phoned Mum and told her what had happened I asked her not to be angry or judgmental of Dave (at this point) because we could get back together. I think part of me, deep down, knew that this wouldn’t happen but I didn’t want my Mum getting angry at him and then if we did get back together she would have to see him again. I just asked her to accept the fact that we were having a little break for the moment and I was very sad but I was okay. Understandably, this was difficult for Mum especially considering her initial reaction was “I’m going to kill the bastard next time I see him”. Go Mum!

I wasn’t okay though. I sent Jill and Alexis the same text message: “My marriage is over”. Jill called me straight away. Jill and Jack had literally just got back from the Far East, were totally jet lagged and both were suffering with colds. Within 30 minutes of me putting the phone down to Jill, they were on my doorstep wanting to make sure I was okay. Alexis was surprisingly absent.

In the days immediately following, I saw Alexis and Dave together which Alexis dismissed as coincidence and basically accused me of going mad. I found out that they had spent more time together and had not told me about it. It was when Dave would say he was meeting his mates down the pub and surprisingly, Alexis would join them. I believe that her then boyfriend also joined them but it was the fact that nobody told me and they were keeping secrets from me. At this point I was still defending Dave to everybody, even Jill.

When I finally got to see and speak to Alexis, I did ask her outright if there was anything going in between her and Dave and she was absolutely mortified that I would even think that. I didn’t apologise to her for thinking that. I just tried to make her understand why I would now even be thinking that. Up to the point that Dave and I separated, I never for one moment thought that anything would be going on between them. I genuinely believed that I could trust my Husband and my best friend with my life and was actually pleased that they got on so well. At least we weren’t in the situation where my best friend just had to tolerate my Husband because she genuinely didn’t like him, but would tolerate him for the benefit of our friendship. Looking back, that would have been preferable!

We had been separated for a couple of weeks when I went to see my GP. I was cutting, I was over eating and I was spending a lot of time in bed, hiding. Mum had been down to check on me. Jill was contacting me every day to see how I was and trying to encourage me to go and spend time with them but I knew I wasn’t coping very well. I initially went to see my GP to see what my options were for getting back into the Oxleas system. Unfortunately, he wasn’t particularly helpful in that he said that the reactions I was having to my separation were “normal”. What? What’s normal about self-harming? I understand the comfort eating and the hiding can be considered normal reactions but taking chunks out of my arms and legs? Really? He wouldn’t increase my medication because, even at that point, I was on such a high dosage that it can only be regulated by a psychiatrist. Not the news I was looking for.

If you ever find yourself in this position where you don’t feel as if your GP is fully understanding your mental health concerns, I found an alternative route. I went on the “Mind” website and found my local branch of “Time to Talk”. I filled out an online assessment, was brutally honest with myself and submitted it. I had a telephone assessment literally a couple of days later. They go through the online submission and have a chat with you about what has been happening and how you are feeling. They were fantastic and let me talk at my own pace and if there were things that I wasn’t yet totally comfortable talking about on the phone to a stranger, they didn’t push me.

The assessor who I spoke with confirmed that I was in “crisis” and wanted to speak to her Supervisor about me because there were genuine concerns for my safety. I explained to her that I was currently resisting the suicidal thoughts but I wasn’t sure how long that would go on for. Well, the process between Time To Talk and my GP took another couple of weeks but I was onwardly referred to Oxleas to meet the Emergency Assistance Team. This is their version of Emergency Assistance: taking 3-4 weeks before even being formally assessed! To be honest, I didn’t expect anything else. I was already very much aware of how slow the system is. Thankfully I had my parents and Jill looking after me in the interim.

The other thing that I have found incredibly helpful is to keep a log of things that I do during the day. This may seem futile to some but I find it reassuring. One of the biggest feelings I have is that of failure, especially compared to life before the breakdown. I note the smallest things to really big things. I note if I have managed a shower; if I’ve done any washing up; any household chores; paid any bills all the way to big things like sorting out Dave’s paperwork and starting to go through his belongings in the house. It’s a way of me being able to look back on the day and, even though I may be feeling that I’ve achieved absolutely nothing, if I’ve kept myself clean and done something else, then that’s a “good” day and it reassures me that I’m not a total failure. I do also note the bad stuff, i.e. if I’ve cut, if I’ve ordered a pizza or eaten a huge bar of chocolate. It’s a very accurate account of my day. I still keep my daily log to this day. It’s now become a habit. It’s not a diary in that I don’t write down my feelings, it is purely an account of what I’ve been doing.

I will be totally honest here that all the useful tips I had learned in the Mindfulness Group sessions went straight out of the window. I had reverted back to my usual coping strategies. I just didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t even think of trying anything else. The only thing that I was using more and more was music. I am a classically trained pianist and I love rock music. My piano is electric so I could plug in my headphones, turn the volume right up and I played a couple of times for hours and hours until my hands cramped up. I found that very soothing and distracting. What kept me going aswell was the rock music. I stayed away from anything that was remotely ballad-like and went hell for leather into the big stadium anthems. Def Leppard’s “Undefeated” became an anthem and still is to this day. FM, Thunder and Whitesnake were on repeat. Since I was 13 years old, “Animal” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me” by Def Leppard have never failed to lift my spirits so they got an absolute pounding. My poor iPod, my poor CD stereo, my poor ears; my poor neighbours!!

Dave and I had very minimal contact during our separation. It was merely to discuss letters that had come to the house and if he had made any decisions. It took him eight weeks to finally have the balls basically to tell me that our marriage was over and he wanted a divorce. He actually met Jack that day for a drink and basically wanted him to tell me that he wasn’t coming back! Jack told him, quite literally, to “fuck off” and that he had to do it himself. So, he did. Outside Jill’s house on a Monday afternoon, eight weeks to the day that he had first said he wanted to separate. I stayed incredibly calm, told him that I would file for a divorce, that he would be paying for it and from a totally selfish perspective, I hoped that his Birthday had absolutely sucked.

I walked back into Jill’s house, took my wedding ring off and burst into tears. It all came flooding out at once. I was so sad. I was completely devastated. This was the man who I loved, was in love with and wanted to spend the rest of my life with and he had just completely destroyed my world. How was I going to cope? How was I going to get through this? Why hadn’t I seen or heard more from Alexis? Where had she been over the past eight weeks? Why had she become so angry with me when I asked her outright if there was something going on between her and Dave? That actual day I had seen one of those inspirational quotes on Facebook that you get from time to time and it said “what happens in the darkness always comes to the light”. I didn’t realise how true that was until later on.

Once I’d spent some time with Jill and Jack and had managed to stop crying, I went home. I had to phone Mum. Bizarrely, I wanted to get angry. I didn’t want to feel this heartbroken. I thought that if I felt angry instead then I could handle that in my usual way. I could eat, I could cut. At least I knew what I was doing with that. To be in the pain that I was in at that moment, I just didn’t have a clue what to do with it. I had to get constructive, distracted and to a certain degree, angry. The only thing I did know was that under no circumstances was I going back into Nutlins. There was absolutely no way that the end of my marriage was going to cause another breakdown or lead me down that incredibly dark path back into the psychiatric hospital. I had to somehow find a way to make it through without being back in that place.

Short answer: I don’t know for sure. I know full well it didn’t help but, at the same time, I am not going to take all the blame for the end of my marriage. I didn’t form an attachment and a subsequent relationship with someone else, certainly not a best friend.

So, what did happen?

For argument’s sake, we’ll assume that I had formed a stable relationship with Dave prior to the breakdown. Dave was aware that I had previously been given a tentative diagnosis of Bipolar and was also aware that I self-harmed. I was honest with him fairly quickly once we started seeing each other because I felt differently about him than I had about previous relationships. I wanted to be honest with him about it; I didn’t want to hide it. It also gave him the opportunity to run for the hills before I got too deeply involved with him. He didn’t run away. It didn’t seem to trouble him at all. Very quickly, he knew more about my mental state than my family and even, to a certain degree, Alexis (my former best friend) did at the time.

When I was admitted the first time into Nutlins in September 2010, Dave did seem genuinely worried about me. He knew that I had deteriorated quite considerably over the Summer and had been with me every time the Home Treatment Team came to visit. If he knew I hadn’t made it into work, he would phone me several times during the day to make sure I was coping okay. In between the days that I didn’t make it into work, I was working hard and sometimes working really late and even through the night. Dave didn’t like that I worked late. I don’t think he understood that was how the clients worked. He worked 8am to 4pm and was sometimes on call at the weekends. There wasn’t much call for him to work overtime during the week. Things could wait with his work. They couldn’t wait with my work. If a client said jump, we pretty much had to say “how high”? Anybody that’s worked in the Investment Banking or Corporate Law sectors will know exactly what I’m on about regarding that little clause in your contract stating that “flexibility regarding working hours will be required dependent upon the requirements of the Businses”. Sound familiar?

Mum came with us when I first went to Nutlins. Mum has since told me that after they had left me there and were on their way home, Dave promised her that he would look after me. That first admission into the hospital gave me the Venlafaxine and the diagnosis of BPD with a side order of Bipolar. I came out after just over two weeks. I came out on the Thursday and was back to work on the following Monday. I figured that now I had medication and a formal and possibly complete diagnosis, I could just carry on. I didn’t realise at the time the extent of the breakdown and how much time my brain needed to recover and mend itself.

I dived straight back into work but I wasn’t coping at all. I was hiding at work again and then not going to work at all. Dave, at that time, was incredibly supportive. He had bought some books on Borderline Personality Disorder and was reading them. However, he did say that reading them had left him with more questions than answers. I was awaiting a long-term talking therapy treatment but was effectively back in the real world on my own until the treatment came through.

I struggled for that year after my first admission and in the end, I had to go back for a second admission. This time it was for longer and I knew that I couldn’t go back to work straight away after I came out. I needed time to recover and recuperate fully. The extent of the breakdown had hit me during that year. I needed to get my self-confidence back. I needed to get my mojo back. I needed to feel better about myself. I needed to stop crying. I needed to stop eating. I jut needed to concentrate on getting my shit together. Dave was by my side all the way. He was having to see me in so much pain but unable to do anything to help and not truly understanding what it was all about in the first place. The level of frustration must have been almost unbearable for him.

The Venlafaxine dosage was massively increased to the point where it can only be altered by a psychiatrist now. My GP can’t amend the dosage. The biggest side effect of the Venlafaxine was the complete obliteration of my libido. I had absolutely no desire to have sex whatsoever. Don’t get me wrong, I was very much in love with Dave and fancied him. I just could not have been fussed about having sex any less if I’d tried. He’d always said he didn’t want me to “lie back and think of England” so I didn’t. He said he wanted me to be into it as much as he would be. I’ll be honest, I did try the “lie back and think of England” approach to keep him happy but I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t care less about sex.

Dave thought it was him and it didn’t matter how much I tried to explain it to him that it wasn’t, he couldn’t accept that it was predominantly the medication. Even when I was finally in long-term therapy and he attended a couple of the sessions with me, the psychiatrist explained to him that it was a side effect but he wouldn’t accept it even then. I did not care about being intimate at all. Quite frankly, Kiefer Sutherland could have turned up on my doorstep in full “Jack Bauer” mode and I’d have still rolled my eyes, said “no thanks” and shut the door. That is how disinterested I was.

Looking back now, that was the point at which Dave started checking out of our marriage but I was so numb from the medication and still so much in love with him that I didn’t see it.

What I really didn’t see was Alexis’s part in the whole thing.

She knew everything about me and had taken every little piece of information and used it against me. I have to hand it to her, that’s quite an impressive bit of scheming. We’re talking Alexis Colby in “Dynasty” (for anybody old enough to remember that TV Show) level of scheming and duplicity. We’re talking double-crossing on the scale of Nina in Season 1 of “24”. Sorry but it’s about the only modern reference I’ve got as I don’t watch soap operas so can’t give you an up to date bitch reference! She knew that Dave and I weren’t being intimate. She knew that Dave was starting to resent me for it. He was starting to make digs about it on a daily basis. My personal favourite being “it will take more than a microwave to thaw my wife out”. Lovely. That’s supposed to be the person who loves me unconditionally and wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I was so used to it; none of them really registered anymore. That one did though, but primarily because Alexis repeated it from time to time.

So, between my numbness, Dave’s animal needs shall we say and Alexis deciding she wanted what I had, I suppose it was inevitable that my marriage would come to an end. Now, Dave and Alexis will swear blind to you and on everything that they hold dear that nothing was going on between them. They were spending more and more time together in the few months prior to Dave and I separating. Again, looking back, there was no need for them to be spending that time together without an ulterior motive. Within a year of Dave and I separating they were engaged and only one year after the divorce being finalised they were married. It’s all a little convenient. Maybe they didn’t sleep with each other until after Dave and I separated. However, feelings were clearly there and Alexis knew exactly what she was doing. Dave wasn’t happy and she could lure him away and give him what he apparently wanted.

The answer to my original question? I would say No. When I took my marriage vows, I meant them and I was in it for the long haul. In sickness and in health, the whole works. Dave clearly couldn’t live up to those vows and chose to move on. Having a mental health illness is an unbelievable stressor on a relationship for both parties. I would always try to listen to Dave and answer his questions as best as I could. Dave was just totally unaccepting of my explanation as to why I didn’t want to be intimate.

I will never allow my having a mental health illness to be an excuse for any sort of bad or wrong behaviour. It goes some way to explaining why I’ve done some of the things that I’ve done but nobody has ever had a gun to my head to do those things. I still know the difference between right and wrong. I never looked outside of the marriage for comfort and support. Dave did.

So whilst having a breakdown put an unbelievable strain on us as a couple, I didn’t sleep with anyone else.

The other day I had a ticket to go to a sports-based night out over in Wimbledon. It was basically an evening with the current captains from the UK TV show “A Question of Sport” with stories from their career and also silly games, all being hosted by Nick Hancock who used to host “They Think It’s All Over”. For a keen sports fan (to say the least) like me, this would be a really funny, good night out.

I came across the advert for it purely by accident about a week before the event and I made enquiries and secured a decent priced ticket in the VIP section no less! A Meet and Greet would you believe! The two captains I have actually met before at other charity events so this did not worry me about coming face to face with two sportsmen who I hold in high regard. I was really excited about going out for the evening and being thoroughly entertained for a couple of hours and basically having a really good laugh. I told my parents, Jack and Jill and a couple of other chums that I was going. I really couldn’t wait.

The day arrived and I was actually feeling really good during the day. I was getting more and more excited about going out that evening. I got through having a shower and getting ready and even managed to put some make up on and put a brush through my hair. I could hear my Mum saying, “you should make an effort because you never know who you might meet at this sort of event”. I was, what I would say, on “top form”. I was buzzing.

Getting to my house from Wimbledon would require going into the City on the overground train and then catching the underground (tube train) to my final destination. I have struggled using public transport before so I made sure that I had my iPod with me. On my iPod, I have downloaded the CD that I was given during my Mindfulness Group Therapy so that I could be reminded of the “breathing” and “safe place” if I found myself getting worried. I was good to go. I was prepared. This was going to be easy.

Leaving the house was, for a change, very easy. I was buoyed by the fact that I was having a good day in myself. I’d given myself plenty of time and, after letting two trains pass, I got on the train into town. Thankfully it was quite empty and I tucked myself into a corner seat and put my iPod on with the Mindfulness training and I was on my way. I got off the train and literally, as I walked through the gates at the train station, everything changed.

I started to feel uncomfortable at first. Pretty much immediately I was super aware of everyone around me. I felt as if everyone was staring at me. Nothing to really worry about, just put the Mindfulness program on the iPod and I’ll be fine. I just needed to push through this. This was going to be a great evening.

I couldn’t get on the underground train. I let the first train pass. The second train pulled in. I got to the doors, I let everyone off first but I just couldn’t make that first step into the carriage. I stepped back as the doors were closing, closed my eyes and regulated my breathing. I’d get on the next train. The next train passed. The fourth train pulled in. Again, the doors opened, everybody got off and I didn’t even try to get a foot on the carriage. I think someone actually asked me if I was getting on the train but by this point I was starting to feel as if I wasn’t in my own body. I went and sat down on one of the benches away from the platform edge.

Again, I closed my eyes, regulated my breathing and started trying to give myself a very stiff talking to. There was nothing to worry about here. It was 20 minutes maximum to Wimbledon. I could listen to my iPod, I wouldn’t have to engage with anybody on the train. To be fair, commuters are the most miserable bunch of people on the planet so it’s not like anybody would be talking to a stranger anyway.

It was at this time I was approached by a lady who I would find out later was called Rachel. It turned out that she is an Accident & Emergency Nurse who had experience of working with mental health issues. She had seen that I was struggling to get on the train and had (correctly) assessed that I was having an anxiety episode. She sat with me on the bench. I have no idea what she was saying to me at all. I don’t remember it. I just about remember saying to her that I was supposed to be going to Wimbledon and that I have BPD. It was at this point that I became completely disassociated and have absolutely zero recollection of what happened next.

Genuinely, the next thing I remember is being outside and it felt like I was returning to my own body and I started to hear what Rachel was saying to me. She was telling me to breathe deeply and that I was safe and nobody was going to hurt me. She was also saying that she wanted to call an ambulance. Apparently, she was concerned about my heart rate, blood pressure and the fact that, for the most part, I was non-responsive.

I finally returned to clarity and Rachel told me her name and that she had escorted me out of the station and was not leaving me until she knew that I was going to be okay. I have absolutely no idea how this tiny little thing (she couldn’t have been anything more than 5 feet, 3 inches) had got this lumbering mass out of a train station but she did. Then, it hit me. Where was she going? Was she going home? Was she late for something important? She was on her way to work. Oh, Hell No. The UK’s National Health Service is at breaking point as it is and now I’ve made a much-needed A&E nurse late for work because I can’t get my shit together enough to get on a tube train. I got angry with myself. I didn’t show it. Rachel said that she had already contacted work and told them the situation and that there may be a need for an ambulance if I remained non-responsive.

Eventually I was calm enough to reassure Rachel that I was absolutely fine and that I was just going to go home. I believe that it took, from the time Rachel first approached me to her being satisfied that I was okay, approximately 1 hour. I apologised profusely to her that she was now late for work and she could not have been more helpful, understanding or caring. There are some people who are just destined to work in that environment and Rachel is one of them. What an absolutely beautiful soul. I never got her surname but I hope that one day she reaps the rewards of her incredible act of kindness last week.

I made it back home after another hour or so and curled upon the sofa and cried for what seemed like hours. How could I have not made it to an event that I was so looking forward to?

I woke up the following morning completely exhausted and angry. It would take me that whole day to calm down enough to try to find any positives at all out of the situation and to try to understand where it all went wrong. I did.

I don’t have cause to go to Wimbledon much at all. I was going to somewhere I didn’t really know. I was on my own. I was going to be surrounded by people I didn’t know. I had tried to do too much, too soon. I hadn’t been on my own going to something like that since the breakdown. I figured it wouldn’t be a problem, I need to re-assess that now. I know that the overground train is troublesome to say the least but, for the time being, I need to avoid the underground. It’s not from the perspective of being claustrophobic because I’m not. I don’t know what triggered that anxiety but for now, I cannot put myself in that position when I am on my own. The underground should be tackled for the time being with someone. Do you know what, that’s okay. I got home, I was safe and I’ve taken the lessons learned from that experience and I will use them in the future.

Please note that this is just an account of my personal experience of an anxiety attack. I know full well that anxiety and panic attacks can take many different forms (which I will talk about more in the future) but this was just my particular experience last week.

I got a little sidetracked on Friday by another post but here’s how I got on for two weeks in Northern Cyprus:

Well I didn’t realise exactly how hard it was going to be to enjoy two weeks of pure enjoyment. It was bloody hard work.

Now, don’t get me wrong on the whole I had a fantastic holiday. I didn’t realise quite how much I needed a holiday until I was out there. I realised that I had been running on adrenaline throughout the divorce process and after the divorce was finalised, I was just “getting through” to the holiday. Immediately prior to the holiday, I’d had to deal with the insurance company via my (now former) employer and the cat had been poorly too so by the time I got to the holiday I was thoroughly exhausted mentally.

The first couple of days I think I was just so pleased to be away; to be away from everything that was going on at home with the insurance company; to finally have a break basically from life after getting divorced and finding out that Dave and Alexis were engaged. Although, at the time, I had no idea about when they were getting married. My Grandma had been diagnosed with cancer, my Dad wasn’t having the best of time health-wise as was my Sister. It was a tough time so I should have had two blissful weeks of relaxation.

By the third day, I had started to relax properly. Unfortunately, I am well aware that you can run to the other side of the world but your problems and your mental health issues will come with you! You can’t just pack them off on their holidays. If only.

The sun was out and I was wearing swimsuits. My insecurities about my body were in full swing. I was wearing a t-shirt over the top of my swimsuit whilst lying on the sunbed but I wanted to get in the pool for a swim. I had to take the t-shirt off and walk to the pool exposing my swimsuited body to all those around. I hated it. I wanted to get in the pool as quickly as possible so I could hide under the water. As I was approaching the pool and actually walking down the steps into the pool, one of Jill’s sisters told me that it looked like I’d lost more weight. It was the perfect comment at the right time for me. It boosted my confidence enough to get me into the pool. Once I was in the pool, I felt safer because I was hidden under the water. This became a pattern throughout the holiday of wearing a t-shirt whilst lying on the sunbed but feeling safer once I was in the pool because I was hidden.

I was starting to get a colour from sunbathing so the self-harming scars were starting to glow like beacons in the dark! It felt to me like they were fluorescent. I was utterly convinced that everyone was looking at my scars and judging me. I couldn’t do anything about that. I’ve always been ashamed of the scars but the shame of the scars has never been able to stop me from cutting in the first place. That compulsion far overrides any sensible thoughts of what it will be like after I’ve cut.

We went out for dinner every evening. The food was absolutely amazing but I felt like such a hippo and so unworthy whilst we were out of an evening. That wasn’t just being around the incredibly glamorous ladies I was on holiday with but also seeing other people whilst we were out and about. I just felt like a sack of potatoes tied up in the middle. It didn’t help that the bungalow I was staying in had a full length mirror in the bedroom so I could really see the full extent of how bad I looked before I even walked out of the door.

I was making sure that I was taking my medication every day and one of the medications that I take has quite a sedative effect. Given how exhausted I was and the sedative effect medication, I think I made breakfast maybe half a dozen times during the whole holiday. I started not appearing in the mornings. I was hiding. Yes, the medication was making me sleepy but I just didn’t want to be seen in public by anybody. A couple of times, Jill would come to my room to check I was okay. I was just isolating and hiding. I felt dreadful. It would take so much for me to come out of my bungalow.

At the end of the first week, it all got too much for me. Everyone was getting ready to go out for dinner and I knew that I just couldn’t go. I just wanted to be by myself and hide. Everyone was trying to get me to go out and I burst into tears in the bar where we would meet before dinner. Jill’s Aunt offered to stay behind with me but I wanted to be on my own so I worked hard to reassure everyone that I would be okay. I think everything had just caught up with me. I was so tired, my insecurities were in overdrive and the BPD was just doing its own thing! Eventually, everyone went off for dinner and I took the time to myself to try to compose myself and use the mindfulness techniques to get myself back on track.

I was pretty quiet for the remainder of the holiday but I was just making sure that I made the most of the time I had. There were still days where I struggled to leave the bungalow. I did a couple of day trips with the rest of the London Family but I was quite happy just pottering around the hotel and the complex. It was my version of isolating. It was what I needed to do. Don’t get me wrong, I was still involved with what the London Family were doing and I was going out for dinners and enjoying our return to the hotel bar for after dinner drinks. Well, in my case it was after dinner coffee although I did have a couple of cocktails whilst I was away. I was having a laugh and enjoying the sunshine and everyone’s company. I just had to do it on my timescale and in my own BPD-infused way.

All in all, I really did have a wonderful holiday. I enjoyed the sunshine, fabulous food and great company. I had to do what I needed to regarding the BPD. There were times I isolated, there were times I wanted to be in company. I do genuinely believe that for the first post-divorce holiday with a lot of people who I care about, I coped pretty well. It may have seemed from the outside that I was quiet and withdrawn but I had to do what was best for my mental health and to only have one public episode of bursting into tears, I think was pretty good going.

Well, it couldn’t have been too bad as I’ve signed up for next year’s trip! It’s Jill’s Sister’s 60th and we’re all going back for another round! I genuinely believe that next year’s trip will be a little easier for me. Don’t get me wrong, the insecurities and the issues will still be there but having already done it once, I know for sure that I can do it again. Oh, and do you know what? I only used the hair straighteners once and never bothered with the make-up bag!!

After writing about dipping my toe back into the dating pond earlier this week, I came across the below online.  It’s quite fitting for a sufferer of BPD.  Some of the symptoms used to fully diagnose BPD include engaging in risky sexual behaviours.  Also, our alleged inability to engage in and maintain stable relationships.

I freely admit that in the past I have probably taken a shine to the wrong person, maybe subconsciously knowing that nothing would ever come long-term from my fascination with that person at the time.  I have never wanted to be a one night stand.  I did have a “friend with benefits” for a while.  However, after meeting Dave, post-breakdown and post-divorce I can genuinely tell you that I would really like to be in a committed relationship.  I’m not interested in a fling; I’m not going to jump into bed with the first person that shows me any sort of affection.  I might not necessarily know exactly what I want but I damn sure know what I DON’T want and the below sums it up perfectly for me!

If, as a BPD sufferer, you have been engaging in any risky behaviours or even just a succession of one night stands or “friends with benefits”, let me tell you right now that you are worth so much more than that.  I know all too well that one of our biggest problems is our lack of self-worth and at times it does feel that if anyone shows any sort of sign of being attracted to us, we can pounce on it with everything we’ve got.  Don’t do it.  Somewhere out there is the right person for you.  As I was once told “for every Jack, there’s a Jill”.

I signed up for the holiday to Northern Cyprus. My initial reaction was that this was going to be a much-needed, fabulous two-week getaway. There would be sunshine, laughter, swimming, lots of eating and being surrounded by people who I hold very dear, my “London family”.

About two months before we were due to leave, the first wave of panic set in. I’m overweight, I look like crap in everything I wear. How can I even dream of wearing a swimsuit in front of all those people I know? It’s not like when you go on holiday on your own or with your partner. You may meet people and chat with other people but let’s face it, you’ll probably never see them again. These are people who I spend a lot of time with socially and are a massive part of my life.

Then, the second wave of panic. My scars from self-harming. When I start to get a sun tan, they start glowing bright white. Literally they glow like beacons on my arms and legs and the ones on my back are just horrific. I researched all these different oils and creams that were supposedly helpful in covering up scars, stretch marks and other things. They had either had bad reviews or were ridiculously expensive. A level of fear and paranoia set in like I hadn’t felt for quite a while. Was this a rational reaction or was this a BPD reaction? To be honest, it didn’t matter because I was scared and I couldn’t process the emotion. I ate. I self-harmed and then came the guilt that I had eaten and cut myself. It’s a vicious cycle.

Then came the packing. What do I take? What do I wear? I have to look presentable in the evenings as we would be going out for dinner. I don’t have dresses. I don’t have girly shoes. I bought some plain, floaty tops but when I put them on with the cropped trousers that I had bought, they just looked dreadful. I left it a couple of days and tried them on again in the hope that I was just having a “fat” day but no joy. So, the tops went back. That left me with tents for t-shirts, cropped trousers and shorts that are two sizes too big and just the hope that I could make them look reasonable. Then there are the hair products. When I used to travel with my ex-Husband or on my own, I would pretty much just take a hair brush and some hair bands. Not for this holiday. These are all glamorous ladies. Without question, the hair straighteners were getting packed. Even worse, I would have to take make-up.

I’m doing the packing with BPD and Bipolar. I’m not doing it with OCD. Now I’m not talking about the people who just say they’re OCD because they like to have the tins in the cupboard all facing forward. I am talking about the people with OCD who pack and unpack sixteen times before they are satisfied. The people with OCD who have to get in and out of a shower a dozen times before they even feel comfortable enough to take a shower. I was trying to distract myself from my own issues with packing by thinking of how much worse it would be if I suffered with OCD too.

The day of travel arrived. The flight was early morning so there wasn’t any point going to bed beforehand. Already, I know it’s going to be a challenge because I need to sleep. The medication I take in the evening has a sedative effect so that had to be avoided so I didn’t fall asleep and miss the flight. I now have to prepare myself for a very long day and probably without most of my medication and keep my emotions in check as much as possible.

I have a good distraction first thing in that I’m driving to the airport. Thankfully not on my own. I had two of the children in the car with me, albeit they are 19 and 21. Whenever I’m responsible for somebody else in the car, I never drive recklessly. One thing that I am absolutely sure of without question is that I am NEVER a danger to anyone else, only to myself. This is one of the questions that you get asked a lot by the Home Treatment Team and by a counsellor and given the treatments that I’ve been through, it is one of the absolutes in my life.

We all made it to the airport with minimal stress. We all met at check-in. Everyone was in very high spirits given that it was 6am on a Sunday. I even joined in the frivolities, laughing and joking even though I was surrounded by so many strangers at check-in. I was surrounded by my London family and felt safe.

We separated off as some were travelling Club Class and the rest, like me, were travelling cattle class. This is normally the point at which a panic attack could potentially start. Thankfully I was responsible for Jack and Jill’s three children, making sure they got through passport control, security and on to the boarding gate. They might all technically be adults but we’re not sure there’s one ounce of common sense between them! This was the perfect distraction. I was responsible again for somebody else and I couldn’t lose them! I got them through security and we were into the duty-free waiting area. They couldn’t get lost in amongst all that so I just had to keep an eye on what time we were boarding and they went off to get food and do some shopping. We all naturally migrated back to one of the screens and as much as I thought it would be like herding cats, I got them to the boarding gate and onto the plane without any trouble. My work here was done.

We were all in different seats and I had a window seat so dutifully tucked myself into the corner and was asleep before we took off. This is something I have always done on flights much to the annoyance of Dave when we travelled and to my Mum when we flew to New York many years ago and I was out for the count before we even taxied to the runway! That day I was so grateful that I could sleep on an aeroplane because sat next to me were a young family with a five month old baby on his first flight. This could be tricky. However, I think the baby slept more than I did! What an absolute result. I get sat next to the world’s first perfectly behaved baby on a flight. Someone, somewhere must have known I needed a little bit of good luck to get through a 5 hour flight.

By the time we landed and collected our bags, I still hadn’t had any medication and was starting to feel tetchy and on edge. I knew that this time would come and had to employ my mindfulness techniques of deep breathing (whilst waiting for my suitcase and also whilst queuing at passport control). The only time I let it slip out was when the entire party was together again and we were looking for our transfer taxis. With so many of us, we were all getting into different taxis and had to make sure everybody had a car. We had all pre-booked transfers before we left the UK but this bit was like herding cats. Now don’t get me wrong at this point, it had been around 8 hours or so since I’d had a cigarette. I was tired and nicotine deprived. This wasn’t going to be good. There were other smokers on this trip too and one of them decided that he was having a cigarette no matter what and he just wondered off. We were trying to keep everyone together and he just disappeared. I snapped. When he finally returned to the group, I called him a dick head and said that we would have plenty of time to have a cigarette whilst we were sorting out who was going into which transfer taxi. I was right. I had ample time to have a cigarette and employ yet more breathing techniques. I was incredibly grateful for my mindfulness training at the point.

After we had our transfers sorted, the actual drive to the hotel was stress free. We arrived and checked into our rooms. After a little re-arranging of who was staying where, I got to dump my bags and join the others at the bar for something to eat and drink. I knew more than anything, I needed to have my medication. My body clock for taking my medication was way out of tune and I could already feel the effects of not having the Venlafaxine in my system. It was now around 7pm local time so I had gone 24 hours without my medication. I could finally relax with the London family which I did. I lasted another couple of hours and knew that sleep was essential for me to recover to enjoy the holiday.

Now it was time to enjoy the upcoming two weeks of sunshine, laughter and good times. How hard could it be?

As previously noted, I have spent most of my adult life single. Prior to the breakdown, I’d had the privilege of being able to visit some of the most beautiful places both in the UK and around the World. I had never let being single get in the way of that either. I had absolutely no qualms in going away on my own. I have been on some amazing adventures in my life. I drove up the Pacific Coast Highway in the US. I drove from Orlando down to the Florida Keys. I even did a camel trek across the Sahara just so I could stay at the Star Wars Hotel in Tunisia! All of these were on my own. There’s a big wide world out there and I never wanted to miss an opportunity to go and check it out if I had the chance and the money.

In the run up to the breakdown, I was with Dave so we went on holiday together. We also saw some amazing places. Indeed, when we first got together, Dave didn’t have a Passport. I bought him a Passport as a present for our first Christmas together. He fell in love with Las Vegas, hated New York but loved Cancun. He wasn’t overly impressed with Paris (apart from Notre Dame) but enjoyed Fuerteventura. Safe to say, there was some travelling done when we were together. I felt safe and secure travelling with him even when my mental health was deteriorating because I was with the man I loved and we were together.

So that’s major travelling. What about getting around town? I live in London, I was working in the City. I would have no problems getting on the train to go to work, being in the hustle and bustle of the City during rush hour. I would go out at the weekends using public transport. I would go to concerts at big venues, being surrounded by thousands of other people enjoying some great music. I would go to Twickenham to watch the rugby. I would go to Wembley to watch the football. I would go to Lord’s to watch the cricket and I most definitely went to Alexandra Palace to watch the darts. All of these were attended using public transport and surrounded by significant numbers of other people. There wasn’t a problem.

Then my mental health started to deteriorate. I started to suffer panic attacks when walking to the train station before work. I started to hate the thought of getting on a train with people looking at me, judging me. I had concerts and sporting events booked but wouldn’t go because I became so anxious about being surrounded by so many people. I wouldn’t get on the bus. I was playing darts locally a couple of times per week and started missing those nights. I didn’t even want to be in a pub with a small number of other people, even though I knew them all. I started isolating.

It got so bad that I had to make sure that I had chums at the train station to commute into the City with me and to basically, make sure that I got to the office. Once I was in the office, I would just try to hide at my desk. However, I was just bursting into tears for no apparent reason and work was no longer becoming my sanctuary.

Driving was becoming more of an issue aswell. I have always loved driving and because I live in London and my family are spread around the country, I’m well used to just jumping in the car and driving off somewhere. I started not wanting to visit my parents. It would take a huge amount of effort for me to drive for two hours to my parents or the three hours to my sister’s.

Even whilst with Dave in the immediate run up to my breakdown, it was blatantly obvious that things were not good. Dave and I had tickets for a concert at The Dome in Greenwich. We were both looking forward to it. We got there and as soon as we started walking towards The Dome, I started to feel anxious and very uncomfortable. I kept it from Dave. We entered the venue and took our seats. I hated how I was feeling. My breathing was shallow. My palms were sweating. My heart rate was through the roof. We had to leave before the concert even started. I felt so bad for Dave because he had been looking forward to it but I just couldn’t stay there. I was in pieces. We walked out of the venue and I burst into tears. We had to go home. It took more than two hours for me to feel as if I was returning to a “normal” state. I hated it.

Immediately post-breakdown any travelling that I did was with Dave.
However, after we separated and the divorce process was underway I knew I wanted a holiday. Initially, I just assumed that I would be absolutely okay to travel on my own again and was researching my options for driving around Cuba. As I was doing the research, it became obvious to me that my first holiday post-Dave should not and could not be a solo trip. I was not ready. I am a work in progress.

Thankfully, my “London family”, i.e. Jack and Jill, their children along with Jill’s family came to my rescue with a cunning plan! Jack turned 50 this year and wanted to go to Northern Cyprus to celebrate his Birthday with his family. Jack and Jill count me as family and wanted me to go with them. There would be a nice, small group of about 15-20 of us going out there to celebrate his Birthday.

I signed up for it. Then panic started setting in again. How will I get through two weeks without really showing these people (as much as I love and respect them) what my life is really like on a day-to-day basis? How am I going to get through two weeks without showing them how much I really do eat and how secretly I eat and how much I binge eat? Will I get through the two weeks without self-harming? I will be away from my home for two weeks where I feel safe and can isolate. I would be opening myself up to these people who I adore, completely. Maybe more so than I do with even my own family. This was going to be really hard but I desperately needed a holiday after the divorce was finalised and I had finally put that Chapter behind me.

But, hey, I’d made it through the divorce process of well over a year without being admitted back into Nutlins and with very minimal self-harming, so how hard could two weeks on holiday really be?

More on how I coped with the trip coming up.

About a year after my ex-Husband left, I decided to join a dating website. This was after some considerable encouragement from some dear girlfriends and the loss of quite a bit of weight. I was feeling pretty good about myself and had a couple of decent photographs taken at a friend’s wedding so I thought it was time to take the plunge.

Obviously, an initial concern was that at what point does it become acceptable to tell a new man about being a high functioning nutter but I thought I had to get to that stage first so decided to dip my toe into the pond. More on that later.

I joined a site, uploaded the best photos of me I could find and filled out my profile. I was out there in the mad world of internet dating inevitably going to be judged and ready to put all my insecurities on the line to have them tapped into to within an inch of my life! Quite frankly, I thought it was pretty ballsy of me just to complete the profile and give it a go.

Initially I was inundated with profile views and “winks”. Straight away, my self-confidence was boosted and then I thought to myself well, I’m bound to get a reaction to start off with because I’m technically fresh meat out there. I checked out some of the profiles of people who had checked me out and winked at me. I filtered a lot of them out straight away. They were honest on their profiles in saying they were just looking for fun and friendship whereas I want the whole package. It doesn’t have to end in marriage (been there, done that) but I do want a committed relationship. There were a few left (even though some I’d filtered out were seriously cute) so I grabbed the bull by the horns and messaged them. That is where the real fun began.

I had read their profiles and it appeared that we had similar interests, even down to the favourite films being Star Wars and action films. We appeared to share a love of sports. Obviously, being a Luton Town Supporter, some were filtered out straight away if they were either Millwall or Watford fans! I’d never live that down in my family. So, the first tentative messages were sent out. It was all very basic stuff to start off with, “how are you finding this crazy world of internet dating?” “what do you do for a living?” “how do you like spending your free time?” All very normal. After a little while of messaging each other via the website, I dipped my toe in a little further and gave a couple of them my mobile number so that we could chat on WhatsApp.

There was one named Dean. We had done the messaging via the site and moved onto WhatsApp. Literally, within five minutes of giving him my mobile number to message on WhatsApp, Dean sent me a picture of genitals! He is now forever known as “Dick Pic Dean”. Getting that picture shocked the living daylights out of me. I was not expecting that at all. I was completely caught off guard. It can really put a girl off her toast and Marmite in the morning.

He then proceeded to send further pictures telling me that was the result of him thinking about me. Really? Go away. I don’t need to see this. After nearly choking on my toast and Marmite, I sent him a message saying that I didn’t think that it was appropriate to send such pictures when we didn’t really know each other and we hadn’t even met. He then proceeded to get the hump with me because I wouldn’t send him intimate pictures of me! Jog on mate. I was married and Dave didn’t have an intimate picture of me so why would I send one to someone I don’t know! What a complete moron. I was absolutely mortified at first but now I find it very funny.

I find it funny because although Dick Pic Dean was the first, he certainly hasn’t been the last to send private pictures. This was an obstacle in the dating world that I was not expecting at all. There was me worrying about how to approach the subject of mental health issues with a potential new partner and I get presented with Dick Pic Dean! It certainly woke me up to 21st Century internet dating and the fact that I was certainly worrying too much about the mental health issues side. More importantly, I had to add an extra category into my filtering process that being sending and/or requesting intimate photographs. This dating lark was going to be and is a minefield!

There will be further stories on first date disasters and when is it appropriate to tell someone that you’re nuts!

Happy Friday!  The weekend is here.  I was writing the post for today and then I came across a picture on a friend’s Facebook page.  I’ve stolen it and it is now officially a Friday Funny!  It made me laugh out loud sitting at home on my own as even the cat had gone out.  A little nutter humour for you!  It perfectly sums up what it is like to get treatment, which is a topic to be discussed further down the line.  Have a good weekend everyone.

One of the biggest things that worried me about my breakdown becoming public knowledge was how people would react. Up to the point of my first admission into hospital, there was a very small, tight circle of people who were aware of the situation. Obviously, I’d had to tell my parents. Dave, Alexis, Jack, Jill and one or two other close friends were also aware. That was it. It wasn’t common knowledge by any stretch of the imagination. Making the decision to write this blog has also been peppered with fears of how it might be received by people who know me.

When it first became common knowledge that I’d had the breakdown and had mental health issues, the general reaction was disbelief. The common reaction was “f**k off, not you”. There are two ways to take that response. The first one is that people just didn’t believe me. That’s okay. People are entitled to believe what they want. They are perfectly entitled to form their own opinion of information that has been given to them. The alternative school of thought (and the one that I adhere to) is that with more than twenty years of practice of covering things up, burying emotions and just telling people “I’m just tired, I’ve been working long hours”, I’d clearly got really good at it so that when the real truth came out, it didn’t seem possible.

There are a lot of people in this world who don’t genuinely believe that mental health issues exist. Certainly, at the time I had the breakdown, I had a good job, I’d just got married and had a busy life so the general consensus was “what have you got to be depressed about?” This is a common question. You then get the follow-up comments of “there’s always somebody in the world worse off than you” or “you just need a holiday because of the hours you’ve been working” or “you just have to focus on the good things you have in your life” to quote but a few. That’s just the initial reaction to have had a breakdown.

Then there are the reactions to the details. I’m BPD with a side order of Bipolar. BPD isn’t as well known as Bipolar so people generally tend to disregard it and focus on the Bipolar. Unless you have Bipolar or have lived with someone with Bipolar or have direct experience of it, I think it is very easy to have what I would consider a slightly skewed perception of how Bipolar can manifest itself. Most people are aware that Bipolar comes with periods of mania followed by periods of depression. There are varying degrees of how long each episode can last which I think is where the mis-perceptions can happen.

My belief is that people can expect you to basically be running round at 100 miles per hour doing a cracking impression of Animal and Kermit’s love child from The Muppets and immediately straight after be curled up in the corner of the living room rocking backwards and forwards dribbling. That’s just not how it works. The UK Bipolar website: www.bipolaruk.org goes into detail about the different categories of bipolar should you wish to read further into it. It is almost as if I then have to justify myself in explaining what I’ve been diagnosed with.

The worst reaction is when I admitted that I self-harmed and had attempted suicide in the past. “Oh, that’s just attention seeking”. Just No. I am telling you now the fact that I kept all of it so secret for so long is the first line of proof that none of it was attention seeking. Secondly, and most importantly, the self-harming for me is what I call a controlled release of pain. At the point when I want to self-harm, it’s because I am feeling so much pain that I somehow need to get rid of it. I can’t process it and I want it gone. I feel that my emotions are out of control at that point. I don’t feel centred. I don’t feel calm. I feel that the only way I can regain control is to cut. Only on occasion have I needed stitches. Mostly, remaining in control extends to being able to keep the wounds clean afterwards and take care of them. I don’t want to cut deep enough that it would require stitches because that takes the control out of my hands further. I would then be subject to a whole series of questions if I was to go to Accident & Emergency requiring stitches and I don’t want anybody to know. It was my dirty little secret but it’s out there now.

I’m not very comfortable talking about it because I still feel a great deal of shame and guilt associated with it but I am getting better every day at managing the compulsion to self-harm and the incidents are becoming less frequent. It is still a problem and I hope to be able to one day be free of the compulsion.

Some might say that this whole blog is attention seeking. If getting the word out there is attention seeking, then, Yes. It’s not attention seeking for my own benefit. I’m in a position now where I feel stronger so I want to try to help others. Even if I reach just one person and they read this and gain some sort of support or at least the knowledge they are not alone, then my work here is done! If somebody reads this and then says to themselves “I get it a bit more now”, that’s a bonus in my book. I’m not a victim looking for sympathy. I have an illness and I’m working on my recovery one day at a time. I’m still the same person before the details became common knowledge. I still want to be treated as the same person but hope that any information that I convey is treated with acceptance and maybe one day, understanding.