What is attention seeking?

I hate the phrase attention seeker almost as much as the label of self harmer, both are very negative labels and normally if you are branded as a self harmer then the label of attention seeker normally follows fairly quickly afterwards. I have personally been branded with the self harmer label and very rarely the attention seeker label. What exactly is an attention seeker? You may not like this but every single one of us is an attention seeker in one form or another. Unless we are completely socially isolated then we spend most of our lives seeking attention in some form or another. The list of ways we seek attention goes on and on. Even with this we still label certain people 'attention seekers' I know I go out of my way to avoid being labelled with it again.

Yes I resort to self injury at times but I would argue that I am not an attention seeker. I certainly don't go shouting it around after I have injured myself. I don't do self pity as I consider it a sign of weakness and a failure on my part. I certainly don't go looking for sympathy or pity from others, for me to try something like that after injuring myself would border on offensive so that just doesn't happen, never have and never will do. On the rare occasion I do anything serious I will carry on as normal afterwards and only get medical help if I am unable to cope with my injuries. I currently have fairly extensive bruising on my arm after a major blip at the weekend and yet I haven't told anyone outside of this blog the extent of my injuries, the reason it happened or anything else. My arm is covered so it doesn't attract attention, I have told those who have asked that I had a bad weekend and nothing else. I will treat my arm myself, deal with the issues that caused it on my own and move on. Yet even with all of this, some people would assume to brand me as an attention seeker.

If anyone could explain that to me I would appreciate it.

A message for people who think they know me better than I know myself.

Asking for a hug.
Extreme fun.
My personal pain.
My weekly focus.
The letter.


If you think that you are close to me then please read the above. They are in order of how personal they are to me and how much I protect them. If you are really close to me then you will know what I am talking about here. There are people who think they are really close to me and that they know me better than I know myself. This is to prove them wrong! Just because I open up and let you closer to me doesn't mean you know me better than I know myself.

Rant over!

Inner strength?

I have been told that Depression is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign that you have been trying to be strong for too long. I am not sure wether I would be classed as being depressed, the one thing I do know is that I have been using a huge amount of strength for a very long time now. I have made a huge amount of progress and done it on my own. Looking at the situation I am in at the moment I think opening up and talking about what is going on wouldn’t be a weakness more of a failure to protect myself. I don’t think there is anyone around me that I can trust enough to talk about it anyway and no it isn’t meant as an insult.

I have a problem that I am prepared to talk about though. My inner strength which is something I heavily rely on has completely collapsed. The little bit of peace I had is wavering badly. It doesn’t help that my usual weekly routine has now been thrown out for nearly a month now. Once a week when in the city I visit one place where I can practice the central part of my faith, get my focus back and reinforce the peace I have. This is vital for me, the benefits are huge for the time and effort involved. Today I really needed to do this as when I am feeling like this, it gives me the help I need. Yet again I was prevented due to the noise, people working and not being able to fully do what I need. There isn’t a plan b for me with this as nothing else works as well. I haven’t got a clue how to get this back under control now.

I am now at the point where I think my only option now is to travel out of Norwich to London. Apart from Dublin it is the one location where I will be able to do what I need to do to get this under control and my strength back. Going to London for the day is expensive even for a few hours, especially when money is very tight so that isn’t really an option. Please forgive me but I need to go now and have a mini melt down. I need to release some of the pain.

In a bad mood

On days like this I believe me only purpose in life is to serve others, to be a punch bag when necessary, to be a shoulder to cry on and finally to be the one who clears up the mess when things go really wrong. I am required to consider others regardless of my feelings. I must then deal with myself in private and never openly talk about me and the mess I maybe in.

This is actually my second go at writing my blog today, I had to delete the first version as publishing it may have upset someone. Never mind that I was being very open and honest I am required to consider their feelings first. It annoys me as this is my blog with my own views and opinions, it has and continues to help me. If I can’t be fully open then what is the point of me spending time writing this blog?

Quite frankly I don’t care how much trouble I get in for talking about this anymore. We all have our limits and yesterday I was sent beyond what I can normally cope with. Even more since I am in the middle of quite a harsh blip. Last night I ended up being quite evil with myself, unusually I ended up in tears as a result. I inflicted a large amount of pain on myself, I was punishing myself so what was I supposed to do? Today I am still in pain, my body is kicking off, I now have the urges to really let rip and really make myself suffer. Nothing unusual there then. I have been fighting the usual epic mood crash, I haven’t cut myself and I am hoping that I don’t end up with a huge amount of bruising.

Did I need to do that to myself? Probably not no but it happened. With everything else that is happening the chances are that something would have happened. I am not super human even with all the experience I have. I am not looking for sympathy, I am not even sure if I am looking for understanding to be honest. My priority is me and I need to repair the damage that has been done. To me the important thing is what happens next. Self pity doesn’t even enter the equation. I plan to take it easy for the next couple of days. I will be regaining my focus and some inner calm which will include focusing on my spiritual side. This will include treating myself, treating my injuries, accepting what has happened and then moving on. I will be doing in a way that means the vast majority will never know what has happened.

On a side note I don’t think it is helping that I am unable to tell people that I am struggling over Amy’s death. To be honest I really doubt people would care.

Using memories to focus

If there is emotional turmoil inside then putting on a happy act will only cover it up so much. Anyone who knows you well will see right through a happy act. You have to be careful when putting on a happy act as it can end up looking very false. Using self injury is only a temporary measure which can badly go wrong, from personal experience the epic mood drop is worse than anything that is going on internally.

I am really hurting inside at the moment and whilst I have acknowledged it and doing my best to cope with it I need my focus back. I need to concentrate on the normal life things like my job, friends and life in general. I decided today to use one of the most powerful distraction methods that I have, it is probably the best method that I have that doesn’t involve pain or risk.

There is a pond near where I work and I go there when I am having a bad day or today I need my focus back. As I sat there watching the ducks I took myself back to a walk that I had one lunch time several years ago. That walk was perfect! I used as many of my senses as possible to focus on the tiny things from that walk like the weather, what we were wearing and the trees rustling. When doing this my aim is to completely remove myself back to that point, clearing my mind of everything but that point in time. It worked for me so when I returned back to work I was able to give 100 percent.

We all have the really good points in life and those memories can help you get through difficult times and get your focus back. Now I am in the privacy of my own home I can deal with the internal mess.

lobbying

Maybe this isn't the best way of putting this, as I am not a politician or the like I can't dress up a failure as something it is not. Since the run up to the last general election I have been lobbying to protect neonatal services, increase funding for research and the support of parents who have lost babies. I have pushed quite hard and been very persistent over the subject to the apparent irritation of some. Firstly I started with the Conservative party then my MP and finally a member of the house of Lords.

I shall start with the House of Lords, I did my research to find out the most appropriate person to write to. I then made sure I addressed him properly, I gave a brief history followed by what I was looking for. There wasn't any emotion or political arguments. It seems I wasn't worthy enough for an actual response from the Lord I wrote to. My letter was forwarded on to someone else and down the chain until they found someone to reply to me. I wasn't even worth a letter, what I got was an attachment on an e mail that I couldn't reply to. Perhaps next time I will use my title and then see if I am more worthy of a reply.

Moving onto my MP, credit where credit is deserved and I have to give her some. Obviously being a Conservative whip she is going to follow policy to the letter. However she was as helpful as she could be, she did her job, replied to my letters, forwarded my letters onto the relevant people and clarified answers. Finally and refreshingly she was and has been straight to the point with her answers. Much I would like to say my work made a tiny difference but it seems not.

I am a frustrated as it seems that governments do not like mass protests, they don't want to get into reasonable debates about things and yet they are supposed to serve us. They have now said that they are using a natural pause in legislation to listen to views about NHS reforms. My question is why couldn't they have listened at the start rather than waiting until now. It did take me some time to find out if the little people like me could make their views known and where I should make them. As an individual you can give your opinion even though on the website it appears that they are only looking for organisations, frontline staff and patient representatives.

I have yet to be convinced that this new process will make a difference or result in any changes to the legislation that is currently in Parliament. The message I got was that the decisions had been made, that very little would change and that they were only interested in views from a limited group of people. You have to bear in mind though that as a service user I am at the very bottom of a long food chain.

Even though my persistence has resulted in complete failure I would encourage others to contact their MP to make their views known. The more people that do contact their MP, the higher the chances that the government might actually listen.

Amy

I am hoping that this will be the last post for a while at least about my friend. I am hoping this will finally ease things for me and when I go to work on Monday I will be able to give a hundred percent. Don't get me wrong I miss Amy, this is not about forgetting her. Please forgive my frustration but I am having to deal with huge amounts on my own and I am not super human.

What really makes me angry is that I did the right thing unlike some people. I had spent years practicing and perfecting my resuscitation techniques whilst volunteering. I had been through numerous first aid courses, although none covered the specific emergency that I dealt with that night. I had never been trained to deal with a resuscitation of a person with a suspected broken neck. I took the decision to use those skills I had with assistance. I also took the decision to protect others, namely my other half from certain things about that night. She had questions about Amy and I chose to protect her from the full horror. Both decisions were the right ones and I would do the same again.

Where I believe I went wrong was my decision to keep completely quiet about what had happened and what I had done that night. My priority was others above and beyond myself. The thing is that even with the overwhelming evidence including statements from others, no one would have believed a word of what I said. People chose to believe the lies of one particular person and decided that I would have to pay. They made me suffer and my life very miserable, they made me doubt. The damage that had been done that night with Amy's death was made a thousand times worse by these people. My trust in certain people was finally completely destroyed and a system designed to protect me failed me. My other half Michaela suffered after what she went through that night, she took a decision that I didn’t find out about until after her death. It changed us both in massive ways both of us wanted the other to do drastic things to each other. I am not prepared to take on a victim status but the loss has been huge. Even with all of this I have kept quiet, not that anyone has offered me any help or support. I believe this made matters worse as it seemed to justify what people were doing. I am not 100 percent convinced that people have stopped even though it is now public knowledge.

As we head towards six years my priority is me, it has to be me! I don’t think I will ever be able to work as a first aider again. I am not sure if I will be ever be able to fully restore my trust in certain people. I haven’t got a clue how to restore my trust in a system that so badly failed me. Time has already eased the pain of loosing Amy. Time and some very limited assistance has given me a bit of peace. I have methods in place to deal with the memories. The rest I will work on as and when I am in a place to deal with it.

I wish however people would recognise what I am dealing with, my loss and the pain I feel over Amy’s death. Time I am afraid doesn’t cure everything.


Just a side note, I am being very proactive in trying to protect myself so have not and will not go into any more detail than what I have already written. I have deliberately not named any names or gone into any more specific detail about events for this reason. I hope you will forgive me for this but it feels like I am still being punished for doing the right thing

Thanks

Around 10 o'clock this morning I finally lost patience with myself over the way things were constantly kicking off. As far as I was concerned I had done more than enough to ease the stress and memories. I had been very proactive in trying to bring the wobble I have been having, I even gave myself a few days grace after last weekend. As far as I am concerned if I have done everything to deal with a problem then I am left with one last option and that is to stamp on it. It is extreme but I have to function, I have to move forward and to be honest I only have so much patience with things I have no idea how to fix.

Stamping on the problem can only be described as the nuclear option for me. It is direct, very targeted and evil. Using this method involves taking the extreme stuff I do to the very limit. It hurts like hell, wrecks me emotionally, is physically exhausting and has the possibility of leaving permanent damage.

By the time I left work at 5pm today I was calmer, focused and happier. The wobble I was having seems to have eased. I have to say I am grateful to everyone.

Sleep

Sleep is a wonderful thing isn't it? For some reason my body clock is now completely screwed up and I am now normally awake before the dawn chorus. I would rather not be awake before the birds kick off in the morning or to be woken up by them but sleep seems to elude me. I think I am now getting to my limit which is why I seem to be having a fairly major wobble.

I am looking forward to the weekend when hopefully I will be able to catch up on my sleep and be able to get my focus back.

Pushing forward

I have been pondering for a while if I should write this blog and say exactly what is going on and why I am doing it. I have now come to the point where I believe that openly talking about things may help me and possibly help people understand why I am pushing as hard as possible.

I started the year with a clean slate which was very unusual for me, I specifically decided that this was the only way I could start the year. No targets, no pressure and certainly no room for failure as there wasn’t anything to fail. Within a few weeks and looking back at last year I decided that this year was about moving forward. By the end of the year I want to see very big steps forward with my life.

It is no secret that I have been completely let down by people, hurt by others, had some go way over the line, had irreparable damage done by some and been given no support by people I was hoping and relying on. Finally it feels like the system has let me down in some cases. On the flip side there have been some fantastic brilliant people who have given me their support and assistance which I am beyond grateful for.

I have seen and been through some really fucked up things, some of the memories and knowledge I now have is even more fucked up. Seriously just trying to process one of the event results in me doing very extreme things like I have recently done. These events are part of who I am but they do not define me, however I have to deal with them. I need to be in a better place, I need to remove the pain and make things easier to deal with. I need to ease the suffering. I also need to accept the cost and finally accept that people aren’t going to change.

To put it simply I am trying to move forward, get on with my life and find peace. I am doing this with extremely limited support. There are times that I am going to use whatever methods I need to get things back under control until I work out a way to deal with what is going on. I believe the phrase is to use a sledge hammer to crack a nut. I have very little choice on the matter as I have to also maintain a normal life. I have already started, once I have identified what I need to do then I can really push forward. Finally the reason I am doing this on my own is that I have given up on people over what has happened, I am not planning on having my faith in humanity damaged anymore.

The long term benefits of what I am doing far out weighs the costs. I believe it is a positive step forward for me.

Monday morning and it hits me.

By the end of last week I knew I was heading for a bit of relapse with my self injuring, well when I say bit of a relapse I mean a full on nose dive towards oblivion. The urges to do damage to myself had become overwhelming. I decided during the day on Saturday that I was going to have to do something extreme to get things back under control and me levelled out.

I have written in detail about the self injuring, the methods I use and the measures I have in place to prevent it happening and aid my recovery. There is a seperate side to what I do which really can't be defined as self injuring as it isn't something I can do on my own. It is partly about sex and I do get some kicks out of it initially but it would be impossible to get anything out of the extremes that I go to. The method I used at the weekend resulted in me passing out. What I did doesn't particularly hurt but it does leave me a bit of a wreck emotionally.

The positive thing is that it worked, I have managed to stop myself taking the nose dive. I have prevented ending up in the mess that was going to happen and the focus has been moved onto more manageable things.

Today it has really hit me hard.

Today

When I woken up at silly o’clock apart from being miffed at waking up so early on my day off I could see it was going to be a beautiful sunny day. My mood was great and I was feeling very positive, even positive about the future. It was a great walk into the city and some very full on flirting at one point. Shopping was done and a visit to Starbucks. There has been some online tweeting as well. I did miss out on my usual stop for cake but I will make up for it next week. So for someone who had no plans it has been quite a good day.

I know that I have a huge amount of anger inside of me and that reared its ugly head today. The only way I can describe it is a pure anger, a vile ugly thing that whilst being very justified is something that I can’t normally express. I tend to feel it when I have been particularly nasty to myself or done some of the more extreme stuff that I have done and still do on occasion.

It is unusual for the anger to kick off when I haven’t provoked it in the normal way. As I have previously written I now at the point where I am able to to deal with my friends death which was nearly six years ago now. I have a huge amount of anger over what happened, the knowledge I will have to carry and the deep personal cost above and beyond loosing a friend. This I believe is why the anger kicked off suddenly today. Unlike with my family, especially my daughters with my friend is isn’t about the loss. It is about everything around it.

Don’t get me wrong this didn’t ruin my day! However it did prevent me from doing one thing that is really important to me. It is the one thing that normally regardless of what is happening I will specifically make time for each week. I am reasonably pleased that even with this failure I haven’t turned on myself or punished myself. To me not performing this task each week is a failure regardless of the reasons why and would normally result in me being quite evil to myself. I am even ignoring the urges that are kicking off now.

I started the day very positively and I hope you can see that I am finishing the day in a similar way.

Changes to first aid courses

I have previously written that I believe first aid should be taught in schools and colleges and to all students. I still stand by that belief but I would suggest a change in how first aid is taught to people who are first aiders or have a significant chance of actually having to adminsiter first aid to a casuality.

The part I would change is to when a first aider has to deal with the aftermath of an incident. I know for the vast majority of the time, the most a first aider is going to deal with is cuts, broken bones and perhaps an unconscious person. However there are occasions where an incident is far more serious such as a serious car crash, suicide, or a major incident. Obviously in these cases the emergency services take over but even as a first aider you have your part to play in dealing with the aftermath. With adrenaline running and your focus is on other people there is a chance that you will miss the most important person which is you.

Anyone who has adminsitered CPR (resuscitation) on a casuality will tell you that it is completely different. There is also a high chance that you will not be able to successfully resusciate a person. To put it bluntly you would have to be a hard emotionless bastard for something like that not to effect you. This is precisley why on top of safety they should make specific point of dealing with and taking care of yourself after you have dealt with a serious incident.

I know in my case I managed to successfully resuscitate her even with her other injuries. I did as much as I could to care for my friend, I did as much as I could for everyone else whilst completely ignoring myself. No one had taught me what to do. As I have written before that event changed me and my other half in huge ways, I am still paying the price nearly six years later. I have to be honest and say I am not sure if I will ever be able to fix what is broken.

Paying a high price

I am now in the process of dealing with the most difficult part of the death of my friend six years ago. On the whole I haven't discussed what happened that night apart from when legally being required to and in very limited way with other people. I am more than happy to talk to her friends in more detail about what happened and how I managed to resuscitate her. In normal first aid courses you will learn how to administer CPR, you may at a push learn about spinal injuries. The majority of the time the most you will be told to immobilise them and ensure they don't move until the paramedics arrive. To my knowledge there isn't any first aid course that deals with suicides or how to resuscitate someone with a suspected broken neck. First aid courses give you the skills to deal with certain situations on the basis that more qualified help is on it's way.

One thought that keeps on crossing my mind is that is there to much of a price to pay for doing the right thing? I have personally paid a huge price for my actions that night and six years later I am still paying in ways that shouldn't be happening.

Tuesday

I think for the first time in a very long time that I can say that I actually am starting to look forward to going to work. I am 100% confident that I will soon get to the point where I can say that I am love my job. I must admit I am feeling very cautious because it always seems that when things start to look up and things are going well there is always a fall. I am keeping my fingers and toes cross but I still have a nasty feeling something will go wrong.

I am still having problems getting my brain to switch off at times and I must admit I thought things were going to kick off today. For me it is always a combination of tiredness, pressure and a trigger. Believe it or not but it used to be ambulance sirens, now it is fire alarms. The last few weeks I have been getting really wound up when I know the fire alarms are going to be tested at work but again it seems that things are getting easier.

There are two major flashbacks that I still get with numerous different milder ones. There is one that I always seem to get at work at it scares me silly. It is always of me walking into my friends bedroom and finding her. It is always at that point, never whilst I am administering first aid or after I resuscitated her. The second one is with my eldest daughter at various points but recently it has been just after she had died. It is so bad for me that I find it difficult to type and talking about it is even worse. It hurts like hell and breaks my already broken heart even more.

I think finally tonight I want to admit just how far I have been to try and replace one pain with another. Using physical pain to remove emotional pain. There has been some days where I couldn’t lean back in my seat for the bruising, I have done things that have bordered on ridiculously dangerous. Some of it I asked to do, other things that have been forced on me.

The scary thing is that I think I need to go back down a dark, dangerous path to try any remove or ease some of the emotional pain that I am feeling.

Ramblings

I have been trying to write this blog on and off all day and the only way I can really do anything is by putting some random thoughts in the blog. The may not make sense but I need to vent and relieve some of the building frustration I am feeling.

Today I weep for a lady who is in my heart, she is the mother of my eldest daughter and someone who gave me so much in life.
I can define the exact moment I fell in love with my wife, the moment I bonded with my daughter and the moment that my lifetime of personal pain started.
I would go through all the pain, rejection, abandonment, hurt and suffering I have been through in my life ten times over to spend just a few minutes with my wife and daughters again.
If I talk about spending lots of money shopping then it means I am stressed and there is a problem. If I actually start it means I have lost control of the situation.
I have successfully resuscitated a friend who had a broken neck.
I have changed so much because of what has happened to me over the last few years. I still struggle to ask for simple things like a hug.
Listening to the violin can very quickly improve my mood.
I am a friend of an art academy in Ireland, I import tea and hot chocolate from Ireland.
I have a Vanity Fair print to remind me of my wife. It is the first purchase towards my eventual home.
I don’t believe in using prayer mats, the cold hard concrete helps me focus.
Contrary to popular belief I am neutral on the royal family.
I find accents very attractive and the wrong sort of accent can put me off someone.
I am trying to double the amount of money I give to charity this year.
I have found that the longer I am vegetarian the less appealing meat has become. I can watch a cookery programme and see some meat being cooked and it will mean nothing to me.
I still fear being back in a position where I am on the streets, no one for support, have lost everything and on the brink of sleeping rough.