Saturday, 3 April 2010

Welcome

Welcome to this new blog, a personal reflection on mental health (mine), perceptions of the world (mine) and the constant work that I'm doing to try to keep my head above water in terms of sanity. Not for nothing am I writing this at 0014 on a Sunday morning.

As with many bloggers, I've tried writing a blog before and it always come to a grinding halt when life gets in the way. Not this time - this time in keeping with my new perception of life and all therein (heard that one before?) I've decided to make this a priority - I've always found structure in my life to be useful.

Dramatis personae in this blog are as follows - if planning to be a regular reader, you might want to get to know these people over time:

G = ex-wife, who I remain truly madly deeply in love with, although I'd never be so bold (or dumb) as to tell her this. PhD-holding physicist, all of my most recent non-familial happy thoughts and memories are of her and our all-too-brief marriage.

J = Dad (Jim), currently unwell, with whom I've only recently restarted a relationship, going to the Calcutta Cup game at Murrayfield this year: in his old age he's become a much more tempered and tolerant man, for which I am immensely grateful

M = dog (Millie), who I live with - a 10-year old golden retriever, a former (briefly) Battersea inhabitant who has been my confidante since 2008. Has reinforced my view that if reincarnation is real then I'll be back as a GR - sleeping, eating all day and going for occasional walks? Bliss.

F = shrink (Femi), @Oxleas NHS trust in London - despite having paid a small fortune to go private for many years, he seems to be the most insightful shrink I've ever met with a diagnosis of atypical Aspergers that I'd never previously considered

W = work, an amorphous mass of clients who I build (mathematical and statistical) predictive models for using tools such as SAS, SPSS, SQL and R

X = me. Hello. I build models for various banks (etc, see above) - insomnia cures, in the main

Turning to the question of diagnoses, here's a few of the labels I've had over the years:

  • PTSD (a near constant - associated with service as a very young soldier on Op GRANBY (Google it))
  • Depression (again, a constant)
  • Personality disorders, including:
  • Narcissitic
  • Dependent
  • Anti-social
  • Atypical Aspergers (most recent) or other ASD

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