I want to be a hedgehog

It could be reactive, it could be part of a cycle ...whatever is causing the slump doesn't alter how it is to be in one.

I keep waking up between 6 and 7 am. For some that is natural and comfortable but I need a lot of sleep and also waking up that early tends to mean I am either be lying in bed procrastinating for hours or finding chores to do about the house. I don't like housework, it does not fill me with a sense of achievement but it has been something to do.

Can't get motivation or any creative flow to make cards and the fear of going outside has become worse.

My Yin has gone beyond tong yiddle I po and I haven't been able to trace my yang for far too long.

I know that the only way I will get through this is to tread carefully but to keep treading in a forward direction. Setting myself mini targets to achieve. That is how I got through the worst times in acute care.

On the things that are actually happening front:

I have finally got an agreement with the local council to repay them at £5 per week. A progress of sorts.

I have also had a conversation with a welfare benefits officer who told me I am entitled to income support and I have applied for it through the DWP. Funny that I have never been informed of this before. How quickly government bodies are on the case when they want money off of people but how disinclined they are to inform people of what they are entitled to.

Apart from that, spent 3 hours with Dad the other day and came away and broke down in tears. Not good when stuck in the middle of a council estate and needing to get home. Trying to encourage him to do things, trying to work with where he is at to help him, when I am struggling to get through the day is difficult and rather soul destroying. I have managed to agree a meeting between him, his care co-ordinator and myself next week but I feel the owness will be on me to play devil's advocate and is not a roll I feel comfortable being in. Ho hum

My friend is coming round later. Not sure I am up to going over to stay at her place, particularly as yesterday afternoon I felt so physically and mentally sick I went to bed and slept. Will see how it goes. Perhaps it will do me good to see the goats again and keep her home fires burning. I don't know so will have to see how today takes me.

I have been getting paranoid. The other night I heard something outside and thought someone was going to break in and attack me and a horrible hysteria set in (quelled, eventually by a couple of lorazepam. I am also getting thoughts that people are trying to do damage to me. I have had them before...logical me (in with the CBT) challenges those thoughts but they keep coming back. I have even wondered if Dad is trying to give me a break down. Crying as I type this because I know he wouldn't intentionally but it is confusing being in my head. Trying to understand and trying to keep on holding on to some hope when there seems none.

Fucking illness, fucking life. I think it would not be unwise for me to be in a coma for a while. I don't want to die but to take some real time out from thinking and feeling is where I need to be.