Shoulders. (its a longish one)

Today has been brilliant.

At 12.30 I had an appointment with a psychiatrist to review my anti depressants, and if I'm honest I was pretty nervous. It went better than I could have hoped. The doctor was a lovely woman who, despite having never met me before, was able to tell me things about myself that made me smile, as well as challenge some of my perceptions. She helped put me at ease, and made me feel that finally someone was taking me seriously.
We've agreed to change my medication as Citalopram clearly isn't the right drug for me; the strange, vivid, movie-length dreams nigh on every night are exhausting. I have enough trouble getting to sleep as it is, but then when I am asleep my mind doesn't get a chance to switch off and rest. Admittedly, a part of me will probably miss these dreams when I'm not having them everynight, but hey, who wouldn't want to be a superhero after dark? But mainly it will be a welcome release, to be able to get a good nights sleep where my brain actually gets a rest.
It's not going to happen instantly I know that; I'm going down from 20mg a day to 10mg a day for 2 weeks, then 10mg every other day for two weeks to wean me off of them. I've been told to prepare myself for withdrawal symptoms such as mild fever, swinging temperature (yay, early menopause!) and changing moods, and being generally more irritable, though I've been told to watch the changes in temperature changes and fever and see the doctor if they get too bad as they'll need to keep an eye on my blood pressure. But then again, I might not experience any of these side effects. After the Citalopram is out of my system, we'll review how I'm doing and see whether or not I'll need to go on another different anti depressant. I have a feeling I will quite frankly. Some of the moods and feelings I've been experiencing recently, I've thought to myself, "Jesus, imagine how much worse I'd be handling this without the anti depressants buoying me up and helping me find a way to cope."

After my appointment my brother picked me up and I went back to his lovely house to play Resident Evil 5 on the XBox 360. I want one. Bless him, he's getting a bit bored of RE5 but I'm a gaming newbie and he's the typical older brother and wants to make me happy. Naww.

Mum came and picked me up later and we went to Wagamamas as dad had a meeting thingy or something or other, so we decided to have some mother-daughter time. To be honest, we couldn't talk too much in there as it was so busy and loud we could barely hear ourselves think! I did manage to tell her about my appointment and how it had gone though.
After Wagas we decided to go to the Beefeater to get a pudding and talk a bit more. Quite frankly, it was lovely. Mum and I opened up to each other a lot more, and really talked again for the first time in ages. Admittedly, a lot of it was about the situation with L, though not the whole 'relationship' (ha!) situation, there's no way I'm telling her about that! But about her wanting to press charges against her ex. I told mum how I felt and she understood. We both agreed that L and I need to talk properly about it, so I did text her suggesting we go out for a meal tomorrow evening and talk, but not heard back yet. Ah well.
Then we talked about me some more. More specifically, about my self harming. Give 'em their dues, my folks ain't stupid. They'd guessed I'd done it again, but tonight I was able to admit it to mum. I had more of a conversation about it with her than I ever have, down to the fact that as she told me, she understands a bit more about it now, so finds it easier to talk about. I'll be honest, it felt good to talk about it with my mum. No secrets anymore. Well, apart from one, but I think until I myself actually know what the fuck is going on with L in that respect, I think it's best if I leave it for now!

Eventually we both got a bit uncomfortable in the chairs in the Beefeater so went back home.
When we got there, mum started reading over something she'd written. Now, she'd told me that she'd written what was basically a long rant that she wished she could show the jury, on the weekend in between the trial, and I'd asked if she'd let me read it. She wasn't sure. She didn't want it to upset me, or make me angry, or bring it up again. So she gave it to me to take to bed and decide if there if I wanted to read it.

I'm in bed now.

I read it.

I've never loved my mum more.

What she wrote... I don't want to use the phrase 'heartwarming' because it's too clichéd, but I don't know how else to out it. Heart swelling? Mine certainly did. Part of why I wanted to read it was because I needed to know how she was feeling, though she's said herself and it's obvious that she's got more to say in light of the verdict, but she didn't feel able to sit and write that at the time. I think she would have punched through the keyboard quite frankly.
What she wrote... I just wanted to run downstairs, wake her up and tell her I love her. But I don't think that would go down too well, as we all three of us hadn't long actually been in bed as we'd been up talking. I guess that'll have to wait til tomorrow.

Anyway, I've jumped the chronological-ness. After she gave me what she'd written, dad came home not long after, and although he was tired mum and I kept him up talking for an hour or two, because we're nice like that.
I asked him what he thought of my feelings towards the L situation, and he also understood, as well as helping me realise a few more things that I'll want to say to her. He talks a lot of sense does my dad, when he's not playing silly beggars and messing around to amuse me.
Then I managed to take a huge step. That's not arrogance, it's the fucking truth.
Not only was I able to talk to mum AND dad, in the SAME room at the SAME time about my self harm, but eventually, after a lot of dithering and conflab, managed to show them.
When I was talking to mum while we were out she told me I shouldn't feel like I have to hide them, but as I told her, it's not quite as easy as that. I was worried for them, how they'd feel seeing it.
They did remind me that they have seen it before, but whenever they'd seen them in the pas they were a lot more healed and not as nasty looking. One arm currently is worse than the other, due to the one being more recent and, if I'm honest, deeper than I've ever gone before.
As I say, it took a while, but eventually I was able to show them. I had to close my eyes while I did, which gave them a minute to take it in. They both said that in a way they were relieved; they'd been expecting worse. Obviously they'd rather I didn't do it at all, but as we all agree if it's what I need to do from time to time, and as long as it doesn't get as bad as it was a few years ago when I was doing it more or leas every day, then they'd rather know when I've done it so they can help me.

So all in all, to be really rather honest, today has been a good day. I haven't had one of those in a while, and it's strange that such a good day has happened around what are some tricky topics. It shows though how much stronger this family has gotten over the past year, and shows me yet again, as if I needed another reminder, just how fantastic my family is. Sure we have our bad days, and we even have our REALLY, really bad days, and even the occaisional MEGA SHIT day, but overall, we're getting by, together.

H.x