I have a new blog URL !
http://paniceas.blogspot.dk
http://paniceas.blogspot.co.uk
http://paniceas.blogspot.com
I don’t really like WordPress. I find Blogger far preferable given that my blog has no discernible theme other than “things that interest me” and one of the main attractions of blogging is the ability to share music. I am not prepared to pay WordPress for the ‘privilege’ of doing this. From now on, find me at the URL above.
I’ve been thinking about the concept of mental wellbeing in different arenas – anthropology, philosophy, art, whatever else… and as it turns out, philosophy seems the most welcoming. There’s a market for madness here. Following this train of thought, as I lay on my side trying not to vomit, there are 5 questions bothering me today:
Is it possible to philosophise over one’s own mental state ?
Is it possible to do this when you have a mental illness ?
Is it potentially more interesting than reflections of “sanity” ?
Is it a coincidence that some of the most revered philosophers in modern thought have been (at least) retroactively diagnosed with some form of mental illness ?
Is a certain degree of instability a prerequisite to philosophising ?
As a new postgraduate, I often wonder about the opportunities available to me as an aspiring anthropologist interested in the visual, medical and existential sub-fields of the discipline. During the final year of my undergraduate studies, the ethnographic work that resonated with me most were those of Holmes, Fadiman and Farmer. It was in these works, ethnographies I consider best described as “intersectional medical anthropology”, that I located a gap: medical auto-ethnography. Given that mental illness is quite poorly understood by biomedicine; even more so by the average person, I wondered how much scope there was for auto-ethnographic works on mental illness. This was compounded by ethical dilemmas encountered within my Masters degree and a new found disdain for what I consider the vainest of ethnographic projects, the “auto ethnography”.
Image author: unknown
I have a mental illness and it is complex but manageable – rapid cycling bipolar disorder and panic disorder. I have little faith in my ability to transcribe these experiences to someone accurately, even less so in anyone that may attempt to produce an ethnographic study of it. This produces a dilemma. Would it be a service to anyone at all if I were to combine first-hand experience of my mental illness with an anthropological project ? Would it be unethical not to attempt something that could potentially better our understanding of mental illness, the pain of such made worse by precisely a lack of understanding ? Or, would such an endeavour be little more than a vanity project ? I do, after all, have my reservations about projects that overwhelmingly look inwards. At the same time, were it not for Rabinow’s Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco then perhaps we would still be lacking a “reflexive turn”. I could even go further and suggest that auto-ethnography could democratise the discipline and open up possibilities for research that collaborates with, rather than storifies, the lives of others.
While I wrestle with these ideas, this blog is both a means to explore, trial and reflect upon auto-ethnography precisely by doing auto-ethnography. Quite evidently I use this phrase in the loosest possible sense given that a personal blog is itself an exercise in pure vanity. I wonder how many new (and old) graduates are too grappling with the experimental-traditional dichotomy and I also wonder – how would you even reach out to one another ?
I am someone who looks up their symptoms online knowing full well I will be confronted with a list of illnesses I do not have (but will shortly believe I do). Sometimes, when I’m feeling anxious and on the verge of a panic attack, I research symptoms on WebMD or any random link that appears on the first page of Google results. I knowingly enter this arena of torture because I get desperate – and it never, ever helps. Well-meaning blog posts about “what to expect during a panic attack” do little to quell the creeping dread because they seem to entail either pseudo-scientific advocation of mindfulness, or a sterilised, dehumanised list of biomedical descriptors.
Between PornHub, Facebook and Youtube, the Internet is also home to a constellation of blogs, websites and forums dedicated to educating people on, and supporting people with, mental illness. There too exist endless lists and descriptions of “things you may feel during a panic attack”. Such lists tend to be the convenient go-to for those of us in the throes of poor mental health – but unfortunately, they also tend to be least useful. Not only are such lists rarely exhaustive and thus leave you convinced you have “something else” that is far more foreboding, few real-life scenarios are included on these lists. If there’s one thing I’ve found comforting mid-panic attack, it’s someone I thought had their shit together telling me “I had that once. I thought I was going to die. You might faint in a minute too, but you’ll be cool after that”. Such is the nature of us as humans – we wouldn’t necessarily wish this on anyone else, but it still soothes the soul when we learn that someone else has gone through it already and their world didn’t end. With this in mind, I thought it may be useful to describe a particularly bad panic attack I experienced and all the symptoms and sensations that accompanied that terrifying, humiliating, ridiculous experience.
The first time I went to stay with my boyfriends parents in Denmark, I had a panic attack about three days into my visit. Unfortunately, I mistook this for an asthma attack which meant all four of us driving to the local hospital at 2 am. As much as this is, one year later, an amusing anecdote and perpetual source of embarrassment it was also a really fucking scary experience.
Having gone to bed at about 1 am after spending the evening drinking, smoking, and trying meat for the first time in years, my chest felt tight. Over the course of the next hour this worsened to a near-unbearable level and with it my breathing quickened and shallowed. My inhaler was empty, it was the middle of winter in Scandinavia, the house was over 30 minutes from the closest hospital, I spoke absolutely no Danish and neither my boyfriend or I can drive. I was kind of freaked out and the more I tried to calm down the worse I felt. In the end, his parents had to drive all of us to the hospital at some stupid time in the morning, on a weeknight, during the first extended period of time we’d all spent together. As ridiculous as this sounds is as ridiculous as I felt. On the way, I inevitably began to calm down knowing we were going somewhere with the medicines and equipment I needed to not asphyxiate (because that’s how the mind of someone with panic disorder works).
Once there, walking to the entrance I was hit by an intense wave of nausea. Everything in my vision appeared to shift to one side and I ended up on the floor. I cannot remember if this was voluntary but I know that I couldn’t walk, talk or breathe. Fortunately my boyfriends step-father is Danish and so was able to describe my symptoms to the receptionist while a nurse helped me to a private room. Laid out on a stretcher and trying to describe my symptoms to an English-speaking nurse myself, I felt my heart rate climb what felt about 100 bpm and with that came the most intense pins and needles in my hands which felt not too dissimilar to migraines with complex aura that I’ve experienced in the past. This freaked me out even more, made everything way worse, and so the pins and needles crept up my arms and into my face. Still no thinking, speaking or breathing; shivering but burning hot. I tried to drink some water but my hands had seized up to such a degree that my boyfriends Mum had to hold the glass for me while my own useless hands were bent into claws on my lap. When the nurse returned with an inhaler, she took my oxygen levels it turned out they were at 100. I was having a panic attack, not an asthma attack, and needed to calm down. I felt so pathetic. Knowing this, I was better able to stabilise my breathing and eventually the symptoms subsided. Afterwards I just felt exhausted and a little nauseated but ultimately better. And, even though everyone was lovely both during and after, I felt so stupid: all this drama, this fear and resources… for a panic attack. But that’s precisely the point.
During a panic attack you believe something awful is about to happen. You might worry that you’re having a heart attack, a stroke, an asthma attack. You might worry you have a brain tumour or worse – some unheard of affliction that doctors wouldn’t even know to look for. You might imagine similarities between how you feel and a documentary you saw about ME or delayed allergic reactions. As these thoughts persist, your cortisol levels rocket and your body goes into ‘survival’ mode. Your heart rate increases as does your breathing but initially you probably won’t notice these changes. How many times a day do we consciously breathe, or consciously in/decrease our heart rates ? As a result, these changes only become noticeable once we’re in a full-on panic or anxiety attack. We’re hyperventilating, and this increased oxygen flow causes pins and needles, muscle tightness, compromised dexterity and contributes to already racing thoughts. Sometimes, you forget things that you thought were instinctive knowledge: the name of a friend or a simple adjective. “Is this a sign of a brain tumour” you wonder, “or maybe this is what happens just before you die”. Neither are true, both feel real. Adaptive behaviours cannot always help either. Like many others, my panic attacks are variable: sometimes I feel hot and clammy, sometimes I feel faint, sometimes I feel nauseated, sometimes I feel claustrophobic. Sometimes I feel something different and indescribable. There are times I can recognise growing anxiety swiftly and calm down before it becomes a full-blown panic attack and of course there are times I cannot. The human body and the trajectory of its experiences are not uniform and thus lists that depict anxiety and panic as such are often, for all their good intentions, somewhat unhelpful.
It is the experiential element of anxiety and panic disorder that render anxiety and panic as disorders in the first place. Were we able rationalise our experiences into a logical set of processes, there would be no disorder to speak of. It is neither useful nor reassuring to tell a person with anxiety or panic disorder that the things they are feeling are normal. They are not normal. That’s why these experiences are scary: they are not dangerous and they will not kill you, but it feels like they will at the time. No state of being that leaves one in a perpetual cycle of dread/terror/exhaustion is ‘normal’. Anxiety and panic disorder are terrible and further discussion is needed. Given current estimates expect 1 in 3 people will experience mental illness during their lifetime, everybody should be encouraged to participate in such discussion but uninformed or unsolicited advice should be restricted. In the words of Boorstin, “the greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge”.
This is an update following a post I wrote about my hideous experiences on Cerelle and then Nexplanon. You can find my original post here.
I think I’m finally stabilising – at the time of writing, I’ve had minor anxiety on a few occasions over the last couple of weeks but no panic attacks since September 29th. This is the longest ‘panic-free’ timeframe I’ve experienced in over two years.
Other good news: my period FINALLY returned on October 5th, albeit in a completely different form to what I was used to pre-Cerelle. A friend who had a similar bad experience on Cerelle informed me it took 3 months after stopping the pill for her periods to return to normal (and even now they’re not totally back to how they were) so no need to panic yet. The good news is I am sans embryo and on my way back to health and normality.
And, finally, my weight is also back to where it was and my skin is looking fantastic. Fuck synthetic hormones.
If only Brexiteers would refrain from calling Remain voters “undemocratic” or “bitter” on the basis that these same Brexiteers don’t understand the difference between an election and a referendum. The former is legally binding, the latter is advisory. The government in power as a result of the former has a moral duty to overrule the latter if the outcome of said referendum will have detrimental consequences, or was chosen on the basis of misinformation. The rest speaks for itself.
This entry is pretty sparse to be honest – not only have we been grossly busy trying to finalise everything before we move to Denmark, I’ve caught some hideous death plague. There’s a special place in hell reserved for whichever cunt gave it to me.
Instagram: kaateflood
Slaves new album arrived yesterday – finally – but we can’t actually listen to it for another week because the record player has already been moved to Denmark. If you’ve heard it already, let me know how it is (I’m pretty certain it’s going to be excellent).
View from a train.
Commemoration of the last time England is going to see sun for another 10 months.
Instagram: kaateflood
This is a post about hormonal contraception, or what I have affectionately termed ’embodied hell’. How I came to opt for this piece of shit begins with my first foray into hormonal contraceptives with the Cerelle mini-pill in October 2014 followed by the Nexplanon hormonal implant in August 2016. Bear in mind I have panic disorder, rapid cycling bipolar disorder and a lowwww BMI. At the end of this entry I’ve summarised the side effects I experienced personally, if that’s all you’re here for.
Despite being sexually active for years beforehand, it wasn’t until I was 24 that I entertained the idea of hormonal contraception. Filling my body with synthetic hormones in a bid to suppress natural, healthy bodily responses seemed bizarre to me. I understand the pill is useful, particularly for women with heavy or uncomfortable periods, temperamental skin, hormonal imbalances or a desire for convenience. None of this was relevant to my own circumstances. I’d had long-term relationships, one-night stands and weird pseudo-relationships between, and condoms were always fine. I can’t take oestrogen anyway and the non-hormonal coil would make my periods too heavy for any nurse to consider fitting me with one. Aside from the fact I really do not want to deal with an abortion, with only the consolation prize options available to me why bother ? And yet in 2014 I threw caution to the wind, ignored my instincts, and decided to trial hormonal contraception – a decision that conveniently coincided with beginning my now two-year long relationship.
My periods have been hideous since I was 13, so it was something of a blessing when they stopped pretty much instantly after beginning Cerelle in October 2014. Less of a blessing: for the first few weeks I had water retention, mild nausea, mild acne and insomnia. Given that I’d just moved into a new place with new housemates, entered my final year of university, begun a new relationship and was taking too much MDMA, I didn’t really notice the beginning or end of these side effects. However, three months later in January, the panic attacks started. I’d only had two panic attacks in my life before this. The first during the onset of a migraine with complex aura and the second on my way to the opticians after taking the emergency contraceptive pill the day before, but I was now having panic attacks several times a day. These were those ultimate doom panic attacks, the kind that can take hours to recover from. I couldn’t speak, focus or walk; I had tingling in my lower face and ‘the claw’ in both of my hands.* Initially I put this down to getting wasted too often but after being sober for months at a time, the panic attacks continued. My doctors told me it wasn’t the pill. I called bullshit but persisted with it anyway – I needed time to let my body adjust and with my preexisting mental health conditions, it might just be a longer process than for most people.
*For the unfamiliar, ‘the claw’ happens when the muscles in your hands seize up due to an excessive amount of oxygen in the blood following hyperventilation.
By February 2015, I was having regular headaches and assumed my eye prescription had changed. I was right. I also assumed that getting new glasses and contact lenses would help. I was wrong. The panic attacks and headaches continued and my mood swings worsened. I put up with this for the next few months while I finished my final year dissertations, figuring that any change now would only disrupt my studies even further. If hormonal changes caused this psychological unrest, how would further disruption be useful right now ? This is a decision I don’t regret given that I did really well at university – somehow – and received a full scholarship for a Masters beginning that September. And, despite ongoing hideous side-effects, my mood was lifted by the prospect of good things to come: most of my favourite people were also staying at Sussex for another year, I was going on to postgraduate study and I was moving in with my boyfriend. I moved in with Julian and another friend in September 2015 and started the Masters. For the first few months, everything was fine – then, in early December, the panic attacks started again. Because my panic attacks had ceased temporarily but my pill taking hadn’t, I began to assume the two were actually unrelated. I must be drinking too much. I must be stressed. I must not be sleeping enough. I must have a poor diet. I must have lost weight. I must have put weight on. I must need my bipolar reviewed. Turns out: fucking none of it.
I continued having daily panic attacks. I was made redundant in February 2016 and started a new job in a bar in March 2016, which became the newest focus of my ongoing blame game. My colleagues are fantastic but the hours and environment not conducive to decent mental health: poor sleep, taking other people’s shit, getting abused just for being on the wrong side of a bar, and drinking more than I’m used to. Alongside an intensified study schedule, it’s no wonder my mental health isn’t great ! It cannot be the pill ! And, predictably, by April the headaches had started again. The panic attacks continued. Then I had three migraines in the space of a couple of months which for me is completely abnormal. In June I went to see a doctor and ended up being tested for a brain tumour. There were no more lifestyle changes I could make: I wasn’t drinking or taking drugs, I couldn’t quit my course else I’d lose my scholarship, and I needed a job to pay the rent. Contraceptive review it was. While I wasn’t quite ready to abandon hormonal contraception entirely now that I’d grown accustomed to the convenience, from both friends and the Internet I’d heard the implant was pretty good and according to my doctor, only the equivalent of 2.5 pills a week. Even if the unpleasant side effects didn’t go away completely, surely less hormone can only make me feel better ? Nah.
At the beginning of August, I had the Nexplanon contraceptive implant put in my arm. Insertion was super easy and although my arm ached for the first couple of days, I didn’t require painkillers at any point. However, rather than taking my pill for the first week (Nexplanon is not effective for the first 7 days), I stopped taking the pill and went celibate for a week. During this week my panic attacks worsened and I felt like I had flu the whole time. I felt nauseated, dizzy and spaced. I was having hot flushes and shivering spells and assumed this was due to a sudden shift in my hormone levels and nothing to worry about. Of course my body needs to adjust. However, after the first week, I felt worse than I had at any time while on the mini-pill. Extreme water retention meant my weight rocketed – I wasn’t gaining fat but I was getting heavier and my self-esteem fell to absolute zero. I had acne everywhere that I hadn’t also developed terrible, repulsive eczema. I was exhausted everyday and wide awake at night. My sex drive dwindled into nothing and my moods were awful. I’d wake up in the morning completely furious: everything and everyone annoyed me to psychopathic proportions. After three weeks, I was desperately unhappy and a nightmare to be around but stuck with advice to ‘let everything settle down’ before having the implant removed. Then I found out it can take up to a year to feel ‘normal’ again and there’s no guarantee you’ll feel as you did prior to beginning hormonal contraception anyway. After four and a half weeks, I had a series of panic attacks in my sleep (yes, that’s possible) and woke up eleven times in one night. Each time covered in sweat, each time with my heart racing, each time more freaked out than the last. I made an appointment at the university clinic the next day. After five weeks on it, I had the implant removed because fuck. that.
A few days after the removal I felt a little spacey and weird but within two weeks I felt fine. My weight went back to normal more or less instantly, my libido is slowly recovering and my skin and moods are stabilising. Unfortunately, even though its now been 3.5 weeks my period still hasn’t returned. Despite advice from my doctor that I’m still within the normal timeframe for my menstruation returning and that my low BMI may be playing a part too, I’ve still taken the obligatory pregnancy tests out of fear. Thankfully they’ve all been negative.
I never thought I would actually look forward to getting my period again, particularly not when I’ve had the joy of not having to deal with it at all for two years – but aside from my menstrual cycle currently being M.I.A., I feel better than I have done since the beginning of 2014. The mini-pill wasn’t enjoyable but it was bearable, albeit an experience I wouldn’t choose to repeat. I stuck with it for two years, supported by a super cool boyfriend. Though the fact that the lesser hormone made me feel worse seems nonsensical, I can only assume that’s to do with the difference in how the body absorbs the hormone into the body. Or maybe I should have trusted my instincts from the beginning: hormonal contraception just isn’t for me. To summarise the side-effects of each…
Some of my friends have Nexplanon and love it – no negative side effects at all. Other friends have had terrible experiences and tried to warn me beforehand. I’d be interested to hear about other experiences of the implant too. If anyone wants to present another argument for or against either Cerelle or Nexplanaon, please do submit.
Finally, my experience has left me wondering – is there enough attention paid to the psychological effects of hormonal contraception ?
I definitely won’t remember to upload photos here every single day but in an attempt to appreciate my environment a little more, I’m challenging myself to take a photo everyday. The photos featured here won’t include people but rather things, textures or places. There are days when I wake up and everything is just gloom – colours are dull, people are irritating, the days are barren and seem fucking endless. By actively looking for things worthy of remembrance, those days will not be defined by negativity but the pursuit of beauty or intrigue. I take photos all the time anyway – by phone, SLR, polaroid or disposable – as an immediate response to something I revere or want to remember. I also use Instagram and my profile can be found here at @kaateflood.
To begin, some photos from throughout September:
When I first had the Nexplanon implant removed (read about this hell here), my moods were pretty volatile with a tendency to lean towards “generally feeling low”. To cheer me up, Julian made us an amazing breakfast of vegan pancakes and fresh fruit.
Some cool graffiti I came across in Kemp Town. Because of this I learned that there is no direct translation for ‘wayfarer’ in French #themoreyouknow
Close by, we found a secret park that’s great for playing Frisbee in. Turns out that secret park also has a secret lake…
The day I came off hormonal contraception for the first time I felt really strange, veering between feeling as if I was in a k-hole and then wanting to sleep and/or cry for hours… so on this day we decided to hang out at the Pavilion as the sun went down instead.
Does anyone else use the act of taking photos as an outlet or means of self help ?
“Paniceas” is like ‘panacea’ but with panic in the title. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I created this blog as a means to document the highs and lows that accompany having high-functioning panic disorder and rapid cycling bipolar disorder. After a particularly awful spate of panic attacks this summer I found myself looking through old diaries in the pursuit of a panacea; to find some tiny element of similarity between the past and the present with which to console myself that yes I have felt this way before and no, I did not die. Or have a stroke (which is the main, entirely irrational fear my panic attacks tend to hone in on). I’ve spent hours trawling old diaries and the Internet hoping to find my own experiences elsewhere. I never did. The immediacy of mental illness gets less than its fair share of attention, instead reduced to a standardised list of symptoms or a personal but retrospective and incomplete account of experience. By sharing transcripts, scans and entries that were all created ‘in the moment’, I hope to create a scrapbook of the experiential dimensions of mental illness. The immediacy of experience is always infinitely more informative (and interesting) than sterile biomedical explanations or worse, mawkish ‘things can only get better’ anecdotal rambling.
There’s a lot to be said for cynicism.
paniceas 