I can has money!!!
I got the letter through today saying i will receive ESA throughout the appeal process. Coolness.
I went to the housing benefit office to start my housing benefit up again, and was pleasantly surprised to find that their "internal system" (i never knew the benefits had a system..?!) had updated their records so i needn't have visited!

I spoke to a nice lady at Catch22 and she's sorting me out some voluntary work feeding homeless people. She also says that the police roleplay work is recruiting for February so i'll reapply for that too.

My new annoying housemate is corrupting the other boys-next-door (who are young) and turning them into arseholes. The three of them are picking on my other housemate, and she can't get away from it because she's agoraphobic and simply can't leave, and so is tearful and self-harming in her room alot. I've flat-out asked our support worker if the new housemate can leave, but it's not looking promising.

Last night i set myself a challenge. I challenge myself quite often to do something that confronts my anxiety problems, cos i get a huge kick out of beating it. Unfortunately last night i didn't meet my challenge, and am feeling rather sad about it, because usually i succeed. I'll try again though.

I got asked out today. Said no obviously. But rather flattering to be wanted all thesame.

Tags: benefits, friends

Everything irritates me. The slightest little thing and it makes me want to kick something. A bigger thing - like my new housemate - that's enough to make me want to throw sharp objects at his face. On weds night i did ALL the washing up and cleaned the kitchen. I've eaten fuck all so in theory i should be able to cook my dinner tonight easy-peasy. Uh, no. Last night i came home to find approximately half my stuff out my cupboards and scattered around the place dirty. Every DAMN TIME i want to prepare even the simplest snack or meal i have to go on a hunt through the house to find my stuf, THEN washing it up, and THEN dry it. And then try not to panic about my stuff being 'infected' with 'unsafe' food like meat juices etc. And to be honest the motivation involved in eating anything is so low anyway that all this just pushes me over the edge into not being able to even face thinking about food.
He's also sticking his nose into my personal life. He can fuck right off.

I feel strained. I have a constant headache from the tension around my head. I find myself frowning all the time.

Everything makes me cry too. I'm tempted to just lie here and cry for hours.

I was quite productive today. Went to the jobcentre to try and FINALLY get my address changed (6th time lucky?!). DLA was easy as pie, ESA however involves a great fat form. Ironic considering i'm not even receiving ESA. I also collected my last (ever?) anti-depressant prescription. And i went to the volunteer centre to make an appointment, but that didn't work out so i'll do that next week, hopefully armed with a list of potential ideas. And i joined the library. Having a whole big library for me to access that's only 5-10 mins walk from home is very cool. I got some leaflets there - it appears the community centre down the road does tai chi classes and stuff, and i'm going to look into what free courses i can do. The bad thing about joining the library is that it's made me realise how bad my concentration is and how difficult it is to read atm.

I'm trying to decide at what point i admit defeat and phone the crisis team. I've not been this bad for a long time.

Simon saying he never wanted to see me again didn't really last long, as he's here right now.

My carpet needs hoovering and it's REALLY bugging me. The effort involved in finding a hoover and actually doing it seems huge though. I don't know if we even have a working one.

Tags: depression, psych

Turns out 'my' beautiful cat has fleas. I've been pondering over why i've been itching like crazy for the past few weeks, especially on my neck and round my hairline (the cat likes to climb up and sit round my neck and pur in my ear).
Can/do cat fleas live on humans, or just bite you? And is it possible the fleas could have transferred onto my bed (the cat sleeps on there)?

Tags: pets

So the government have decided to give the unemployed therapy to help them get back to work. Right. A psychiatrist is sceptical, as am I. The reason there's a hell of a lot of people unemployed is because there's no jobs, DUH. It also seems ridiculus that they're considering offering therapy to the unemployed when people with serious mental illnesses have to wait months or years for therapy. And finally the reasons for long-term unemployment are complex and won't be solved by CBT.

"When two snails meet during the breeding season (late spring or early summer), mating is initiated by one snail piercing the skin of the other snail with a calcified 'love dart'. The exact purpose of the 'love dart' is not fully understood but it seems to stimulate the other snail into exchanging small packets of sperm."
Two of my snails (Little Joe and Turnip) just mated and i've found the love dart. It's about 8mm long and white.

I've lived with my new housemate for 3 days and he's already pissed me off completely.
The following is housemate behaviour that i don't think is reasonable:
- leaving the front and back doors wide open (especially considering we've had so much stuff stolen and how people can be nasty round here)
- helping himself to ALL the cakes in the kitchen
- shouting loudly, rudely and aggressively at my housemate (even worse considering she's come out an abusive relationship)
- smoking weed in the house (especially considering his housemates don't smoke it, plus two of us have MH problems and the other is technically a child)
- helping himself to my cutlery and crockery. And then not washing it up. And then leaving it all over the place, including next door.
- whilst borrowing my laptop to go on facebook talking to SIMON on msn PRETENDING TO BE ME.
I'm trying to decide if he's gone far enough over the line for me to speak to our support worker about it.

I'm pissed off with things politically - particularly our governments complete failure when it comes to tackling poverty. I've mentioned that my best-friend-at-home has moved into a council flat. He's on JSA which brings in £100 a fortnight. £10 is deducted immediately to pay off the crisis loan he used to get the absolute basics for his flat - a microwave, a table, a mattress (he's still living without a fridge, cooker, washing machine - anything like that). Another £75 goes straight out in bills - water, electricity, gas and TV license. So he basically has £15 for a fortnight, so £1 a day. For him to go anywhere he needs the bus (otherwise it's 1 1/2 hours to walk to the city centre), and that's £3.40 a day. Add to this is an alcohol and drug problem, which can add up.
Now seriously - how is someone supposed to survive on £1 a day...? And with no cooker, no fridge, no washing machine? WHAT THE FUCK IS A PERSON MEANT TO DO?! The obvious answer for him is crime. No damn decent government should be forcing their people to resort to such measures just so they can put food on the table.
Fortunately he's got signed up with a support worker and a drug/alcohol counsellor who are both looking at his finances for him to help with budgeting. Maybe they can come up with a way to reduce the bills and/or find more money.
Frankly the prospect of moving out of here and me being in the same position scares the crap out of me.

Tags: accomodation, news, pets, politics, psych, stupid world

I saw my CPN this morning. Not sure why i bother trudging all the way across town to see her because we just piss eachother off. She wants me to come up with suggestions of things she could do to help me - but as i see it if i knew what i needed to help me then i'd have come up with those suggestions myself and implemented them already, rendering her pointless. Am curious if anyone does have any good uses for their CPN??

She's come up with more annoying suggestions, such as:
"Why don't you go back to your dads?"
"Why don't you and Simon live together?"
"Why don't you attend a day centre?"
"Why don't we put you on [insert name of any psychoactive medication here]?

And i pissed her off with the following:
accidentally displaying my flawed/negative thinking (i don't think she likes depressives...)
the answer "i don't know"
saying that i don't believe anti-depressants work
saying that numbing my feelings with psychoactive drugs is not the way to solve my problems, and then really pissed her off with "that's just wimpish"
refusing to ask my dad for money and struggle on on my own
my general appearance (i do look like shit)

I was sent off for a quick medical after my appointment (ECG, BP, bloods double-check, etc) on the basis of how bad i look - weightloss, dark circles under eyes, bad bruises, etc. I hadn't realised i looked such a state until i actually got a mirror out to see. I've even got a bruise on my chin. Everything's fine except i was too cold so my blood decided to not come out.

Had enough of stuff so i'm going to go back to sleep.

simon never wants to see me ever agiain.

Everyone who's talked to Simon has advised him to keep the hell away from me. Within 15 minutes (not kidding) of my arrival home Simon was here, and he was here again today. It's so hard because his hurt just bubbles through by way of tears, questions, accusations, more questions, self-criticism, and yet more questions. The questions are the hardest, because i can't think clearly enough. I can't provide any decent answers, and i can't/shouldn't make any decisions. One of the first things i was told when i first got depression is to NEVER make any kindof important decision when you're down. But at the same time it's agony for Simon to be left hanging not knowing where he stands with me, and hence what to do with his feelings. The strain is just too much for me and i'm not coping. My mind is on self-harm/drink/starve/gorge/suicide=solution autopilot - i can't think of anything else. I'm exhausted, not eating right, not sleeping right, feel ill (coming down with a cold, oh joy), my mood swings like crazy, i keep suddenly crying, and i've been getting the paranoia/panic. I'm hesitant about telling my MH team - i'm halfway through my med withdrawal (my anti-D dose has now reached half what it was, and i'm off the anti-psychotics) and don't want to stop, and definitely not go backwards (there's a suggestion of me going on some kindof instant-calming med... have a bad feeling they're thinking benzos... unless there's something newer that's used now?? There's no way in hell i'm going on benzos).

Tags: depression, psych, relationships

I'm hurting so much.

I'm on Emmy's annoyingly tiny laptop. The journey was much easier than i thought. I made it on the underground and in London without breaking down and panicking, and i didn't get lost walking from one station to the other across Newark.
Emmy's room is so messy she's basically moved into Tom's (her boyfriends). She managed to clear her bed enough for me to sleep on though.
We did some xmas shopping this afternoon. Not easy while skint, but i'm used to it...Emmy's not! And this evening we went to the nearest campus bar where Emmy's a regular. She was hit on by a 24-year-old phD student; it was bizarre, cos i still see Em as my little baby sister with a snotty nose. i met Tom - he's much better-looking than in the pics i've seen of him, and nice. The uni and everyone here is much more like what i used to imagine uni to be (probably from all the stories from my mum and dad who met at Bath uni) - probably cos it's a Clever Person's Uni and it's on a traditional park campus. It's definitely a big contrast to home.
Talking of home i'm homesick again. It's part missing home, but also the people there. There's a group of 6 of us at the moment and we really stick together.