Tears

I just want to cry.

That is all.

vCJD

I am developing an unnatural obsession with vCJD. I think part of it is just morbid fascination and a genuine interest in prions, but largely it just horrifies me that I could be harbouring a disease that there is no cure for.

I guess in a lot of ways it's very similar to my fear of HIV. I'm petrified of having something that isn't fixible, of my own body attacking itself. And the even more terrifying thing about vCJD is that it can reduce you to a vegetive state within months, leaving you paralysed and mute. Just writing about this is raising my pulse rate.

I know there's no point being scared of something you can't control, but I live in constant fear of something like this happening. It's times like this when I wish I was a vegetarian.

Reminder

Reading other blogs about hypochondria does NOT help

But it does make me smile

Counselling

I've turned full circle.

When I first started counselling, I was too afraid to have individual sessions. There's something very frightening about sitting in a room with a stranger talking about your innermost fears and emotions; it's so unnatural to allow someone you don't know to enter into something so private. There's also something very clinical about counselling: the waiting with strangers and the recognitition that you are imposing on their very private problems, the little rooms with artificially laid out seating patterns that are meant to be friendly, the taking of notes as you speak....

Email counselling is very different. There's no invasion of privacy - just me, my laptop and the words. I always found email counselling very theraputic; the process of purging my emotions was enough to help me through the week, to last that little bit longer. Knowing that someone is going to reply feels like an annonymous acceptance - someone out there sympathises and agrees.

It was so hard to admit I needed more help. Once it became clear that email counselling wasn't doing enough to help, it felt like the only choice was 'real' counselling. Even then I didn't give in lightly. I did everything else first. Sitting there and telling your doctor that you think you are crazy is somehow one step easier than talking to a stranger. But somehow I found the courage to go, and for a while, it helped. Once I'd hit rock bottom, it was the turning point I needed and I did start to recover.

So I stopped. I thought I was ready to stand on my own two feet. I thought I had already made that new beginning that I needed. And I was wrong, so spectacularly wrong. My hands are blistered, my breathing too rapid and my eyes once again too used to tears.

And now I've admitted defeat, and I'm starting again. I await an email from my new counsellor.

Trusting Yourself

I used to believe that I could trust my first impressions, but recently I have begun to question even the most basic assumptions. People I used to trust wholeheartedly have proven to not to be friends, while people I have previously judged have shown a completely different side to themselves.

I feel like I am becomming more self aware. For the first time in my life, I am able to recognise that many of my immediate thoughts are overly critical or pessimistic and this has left me somewhat more confused. Part of me feels that I should trust my initial instincts but another, newer part of me is aware that in doing so I am often someone that I don't like.

It can be a bitter circle of self hatred. I have been told so many times that my thoughts are overly negative and the more I become conscious of this, the more I hate the way that mind works, and the more I begin to believe these comments. Sometimes, I am right to question myself; sometimes I do criticise unnecessarily and project this very negative view which understandably has the potential to offend people. But then at the same time, if events and thoughts are provoking such negative reactions and feelings within me, should I just ignore them and pretend to be happy?

Learning to trust and like myself again has been a huge part of my recovery from my depressive self, and I don't think I have quite achieved it yet. I know my instincts are often wrong and yet at the same time I feel a need to recognise that the things that I feel are valid, and are an important part of me.

For the record, I'm trying. I'm trying to be fair. I'm trying to be happy. I'm trying to be me.

Diagnostics

Having spent three hours in the waiting room at the walk-in centre yesterday, it was finally concluded that my boyfriend "probably doesn't have meningitis."

As far as my boyfriend is concerned, a 'probably' diagnosis is perfectly acceptable. While it may not be a certainity, he is convinced that it is nothing serious and is sufficiently reassured that the likelihood of it being so is very slim. For me, on the other hand, a 'probably' diagnosis is a clear admission of doubt and this hestitation alone is enough to make me worry further. Until the word 'probably' was slipped into the conversation, I was happy to assume that this was just a fever but now I am preparing myself for it to develop into something else.

This difference in attitude got me thinking...should the health service rule out the lesser options before it assumes the worse or is the opposite approach more effective?

I am not an expert on clinical diagnosis and indeed I have a very limited knowledge of how the health service actually works, but as far as I'm concerned, I would like to know that my doctor has categorically ruled out the worst before they diagnose something else. If I am presenting symptoms that could be some sort of throat infection but could also be mengitits, I'd much rather they confirmed it wasn't the latter before being dismissed.

As far as I'm aware, different countries take a different approach to diagnosis in this matter, and I am reliably informed that Spain, for example, will rule out the worst possible conclusion first. This makes a lot of sense to me. If I have little more than a throat infection, a few more days without medication won't do me much more harm, but if I actually have cancer, delaying treatment could be fatal.

The problem with my view, of course, is that this would cost the health service an absoute fortune but for me, as a complete hypochondriac, this approach would be far more reassuring. In an ideal world, every patient could be tested for the most serious diseases without fail, but I'll admit this is unlikely to ever happen.

In the mean time, while my boyfriend is happily taking his antibiotics, I'll sit beside and look after him and all the time hope that he will fine.

Him

I don't know how I feel about this. I should be writing this in my diary but I haven't got the energy to hold the pen. I don't have anything to say but the tears keep streaming and the faster I type the stronger I feel again. I just don't know what to do anymore and all I do know is that I can't stop caring; this is never going to stop bothering me.

He thinks that I still love him, but those feelings are long gone. I just miss my friend. More than anything else I hurt because my friend has rejected me and made it quite clear that they no longer care how I feel. And I still care, and I want him to be okay.

He makes me question everything. He makes me sit there for hours and hours questioning myself. Am I that person that he says I am?

I've lost sight of the answers