About
Who am I?
I’m 23, living in the North West of England with my partner, two guinea pigs and a dog.
I am currently not working in consultancy, having been on sick leave since June 2008. I work within IT & Management consultancy, my last role focusing on internal communications and employee engagement. I loved my job and hope to return to work as soon as possible; being a workaholic but not being allowed to work is not easy!
Why intothesystem…? What is this blog about?
I was trying to think about what to call my blog and this phrase stuck in my mind. It comes from a doctor that I saw through my company’s occupational health service. He said, “I want you to see your GP. I think we need to get you into the system” and I guess that is where all this has come from. The system he was referring to, incase you hadn’t already guessed from my blogroll, was the mental health system.
So that is what I write about – entering and navigating the mental health system and dealing with the idea that I might in fact not be as well as I’ve been pretending to be for so long. I started this blog back in June 2008 when I was starting to finally accept and seek treatment for enduring mental illness. Since then I have been through a couple of hospitalisations, a serious suicide attempt and finally a diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder. I hope that my blog will eventually see me getting out of the system too, but that is still a distant goal, almost incomprehensible at the moment.
When I started my blog I made it clear that I was writing for myself. I’m someone that struggles to express myself through speech, so I often resort to writing. I wanted to write and try and order some of the thoughts that raced through my mind. In the past I’d always stored my thoughts in word documents, hidden within the depths of my hard drive, disguised under obscure file names. I wondered if it would be helpful to put these words out into the wider world. I soon discovered it was. There is a fantastic community of mental health bloggers and I was happy to be a part of that. The empathy and support is something which is hard to find in the wider world.
Unfortunately, in August 2008 my partner discovered my hidden blog and I was forced to stop writing. I left the madosphere reluctantly, finding it hard to give up the community which had offered me some support. After a difficult few months, I returned to my blog.
Last Edit: 23rd August 2009
North west of england- at last i know where abouts 5 boroughs trust is, I had no idea at all, thought it might be in london. Looking forward to seeing your blog develop. x
colouredmind
Thursday, 19th June 2008 at 9:07 pm
Hi from someone else who struggles to express herself through speech so blogs instead :)
Looking forward to see what you do write… (and please don’t let the prospect of an audience put you off…)
Chouette
Friday, 20th June 2008 at 12:24 pm
Thanks for the comments – looking forward to what follows and returning the helpful insights (if I can).
The Chuckle
Friday, 20th June 2008 at 4:11 pm
Hehehe… what a revealing blogroll. :P From the sections showing, I think it’s only my mention of hallucinations, and maybe the ‘mind’ of colouredmind and the ‘defect’ of perfectdefect that would give a clue.
Unless, of course, you happen to be familiar with all those sites already! In which case, you are correct, ’tis obvious. :)
Suzy x
dumpedbyahallucination
Friday, 4th July 2008 at 6:49 pm
Hello, I found your blog today and I’ve just been reading over your new posts – I like how you write. A lot of what I read sounds like you are describing me! Anyway just wanted to say hello, I am in the North West as well and have been blogging for as long as I can remember, I am in the system also! Apt blog name by the way!
Alison
Sunday, 27th July 2008 at 8:37 pm
Hi! Just found your blog and I’m really enjoying it. Your writing is rather good.
It’s interesting you talk about finding talking difficult. I have that issue too, especially around emotions. But writing is easy as 1, 2, 3. Maybe having difficulty in the one area makes the other form stronger – we overcompensate a bit? I think it’s probably more common than you’d think with writers.
Catatonic Kid
Friday, 1st August 2008 at 10:38 am
[...] here would have a hard time understanding what was going on unless they read my archives. The About page doesn’t give much away. I thought it would be useful for me to have a list of key posts [...]
My story… « Into the system…
Monday, 24th August 2009 at 12:28 am