Staring into the abyss …

I’m a mess.

For the last few weeks I have been so much more down than up. It’s strange, because there are occasional days/part days when I feel OK. I can carry on easy conversations with people, perhaps jokey, and even able to laugh. During those moments, I feel like a fraud – I feel I should go back to work, I want to ignore appointments, and that I should discharge myself from mental health services.

But then, within minutes, without warning or obvious trigger, I plummet. I become some puddle in the corner. I lose comprehension, I gain white noise. I lose spirit, I gain self-loathing. Confusion sets in, along with head-noise, stammering, memory lapses, agitation, irritability, anxiety and complete inability to function.

I become that crazy hunched over old woman who wanders the streets aimlessly, muttering to herself and pulling her world in a shopping trolley.

For fear of sounding “insightful” (“insight” seems to be synonymous with “there’s nothing wrong with you” in the mental health world) I think I know the reason I’ve deteriorated so drastically. Earlier this year, the Court ordered both a Psych report and a Social Services Parental Assessment in my son’s case. I have been grilled within an inch of my life by both parties in separate, yet very similar, multiple, marathon sessions (two x 3-hour sessions with the Psych, and four 2-hour sessions with Social Workers) asking me to dig through my own childhood memories, experiences of my own parents, education, school-life, travels, sex life, relationships issues, self-image, work history, travels, life choices, dubious decision-making, medical history, mistakes, guilt, addictions, mental dissolution, life in England, life in Germany, life in America, life back in England, and an inch-by-inch account of motherhood.

Like a complete twat, I convinced myself that refusal to cooperate would be viewed far more negatively than complete transparency. After all, everyone makes mistakes … it’s recognising them and moving forward that makes us bigger people, isn’t it? And like a complete twat, I still thought there was the slimmest chance that they would offer to help me get my son back.

It was only after the sessions were over I realised that they have no vested interest in my welfare whatsoever. They never intended for my boy to be returned to my care – they just wanted a reason for him being as misguided as he is. And I gave them all the ammunition they needed.

So here sit, having revisited memories from my past that I had long put behind me, often for good reason. Old wounds have been opened by “professionals” who had no other motive than to use the information against me, and no inclination to help me patch them back up. Instead, they fester and throb and infect me until my brain hurts.

Anyone got a spare plaster?

 © Alice through the Macro Lens [2014]