A few photographs from the latest Horatio James gig.
Visiting a friend who is staying at the same place I did for a few weeks quite a while ago, during the period of my transient psychosis that I cannot define from start to finish or ever quite grasp the chronology of, but remember otherwise so clearly. He has to remain there for a lot longer than I did and it's not voluntary whereas I volunteered to be there for the time that I was, due to being unable to trust myself and realising that I was 'disappearing', amongst doctors referred to as 'dissociating' or 'fugue states', and while I was 'gone', wherever I was 'gone', I was a threat to myself- the deciding incident was 'reappearing' into the present having very badly cut into my wrists with a razor blade, blood soaking my bed, my flatmate having to hold me down and use his hands to stop the bleeding while my other called an ambulance, and having no memory of doing it at all- not knowing why, not knowing how it happened, and worst of all, coming back in a 'flashback' mentality, which was very disturbing, leaving me unable to recognise my flatmate and ending up screaming and crying and thinking some horror of the past was being re-lived. It was traumatic for everyone and so I was safer being watched, and it turned out that being under the care of psychiatrists who were not focusing on my food behaviours and my weight was the best thing that could have happened- it was not the first time someone had suggested BPD, but it was the first time it was written in my notes as a serious consideration, which turned into a diagnosis, which in turn actually improved my quality of life- it gave me the opportunity for the right treatment, it gave me an education about the maladaptive ways my brain had been working or not working for as long as I could remember but had never been able to understand, and it gave me the support and insight and guidance I needed to improve. Inherent in the diagnosis is the idea that one can never recover, or 'get well', but I think this just means I'll possibly have to work alongside these dysfunctional cognitions and symptomatic proclivities every day for the rest of my life being aware of them and managing them. The difference is between now and then is that I'm not suffering anymore.
Visiting my friend was a lot of fun. I got to walk back through Dartmouth Park again. Perhaps next time I'll see if I can revisit Highgate Cemetary.