So basically, we started blogging about (at least) 10yrs back because we love writing, we love talking about ourselves and we love complaining, so a blog seemed like the logical next step!
We began the blogging journey as a “mummy blogger” as was the fad at the time, but as time passes and the kids grow up we started to focus less about Minecraft Cakes and tantrums and more about the struggles we face with our mental health.
We want to help raise awareness and reduce the stigma that surrounds mental illness so we started this website with a mental health focused information section that will hopefully grow with time and of course, the attached Blog which will be mostly about our personal mental health journey with a bit of ‘life’ stuff thrown in for fun.
A word of warning, a blog wide *Trigger Warning* is permanently in effect in case you were naughty and didn’t read the READ THIS FIRST section first.
We will be talking about topics that may trigger some people, we will be discussing trauma, eating disorders and suicide and you will need to use your own best judgement to decide whether or not the subject being discussed is something in your best interests to read or not.
There are times when we will write that we will be stable and well and there will be times when we won’t be, but in the spirit of ending the stigma, we are putting it all out there for everyone to see, dissociation, moods and all – and we’re not apologising for that.
Who are we anyway? Well… predominantly a middle aged mother of four from rural Australia. We also have a myriad of mental health issues, we were diagnosed with Bipolar Affective disorder ‘with psychotic features’ after a prolonged period of hypomania turned into full blown mania and we were hospitalised.
We have been placed on involuntarily holds twice thus far, the first time we were sectioned during a manic episode and the second time for suicidal ideation during a depressive episode where we tried to die by suicide while already in the hospital, this resulted in an ICU stay, a short coma, intense confusion and ended in being sectioned for a further two months – here is one story we wrote about that but we will try and do it properly at some point.
To add to the bipolar we have on going issues with EDNOS or “Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified” which began as text book Anorexia at age 14 with a bad relapse in 2014/15.
Nowa days thanks to much therapy we are considered ‘In recovery’, however the mindset never quite goes away completely and it’s something we continually have to keep tabs on especially since our cancer diagnosis and treatment has led to significant unintentional weight loss.
You may have noticed that we are saying “we” a lot rather than “I”. This is because we also have a trauma based dissociative disorder surrounding identity known as DID and actually identify as a ‘multiple’ or ‘plural’ system.
Our posts are written mostly by individuals within our “system” (that’s the generally accepted collective term for when a group of people who identify as individuals share a body) and the majority of posts here are written by Kate.
If we are discussing our system or several people/parts/alters within it we will use the term “we” but if we are speaking as individuals we will use the term “I”. Advance apologies for any confusion.
This is a topic we struggle with, we kind of knew we were multiple from a young age but we didn’t know why or what that meant for us except that we couldn’t tell anyone. We certainly didn’t know there were other people experiencing the same issues let alone an actual diagnosis that explained so much of our experience.
Learning we were not the only ones and gaining an official diagnosis has helped us understand ourselves so much better and we have slowly allowed ourselves to blog about it while we are attempting to come out of that particular closet, at this point though only online but not in our ‘real’ life.
We have made a Dissociative Identity Disorder page on this site that will probably help our experience make more sense for readers who are new to the topic.
Yes, we are married, and somewhat successfully at that! Yes all four of our children are from the same partner (you would be surprised how often we are asked this after someone finds out our age and how many kids we have!) To save you doing the math, we got knocked up at seventeen but luckily this was to the love of our life and apparent soulmate who for reasons we will never quite understand has stuck with us through all of our short comings, he is our rock in shining armor and a wonderful husband and father. We are very grateful!
Right now we are not working at all due to undergoing treatment for stage 4 Bowel Cancer and prior to that diagnosis we only worked part time as our past experience has taught us that we cannot maintain our mental health effectively while working full time.
We sometimes guest blog for other people and have written a few articles over at The Mighty Site, if you are interested in having us guest post or guest posting here yourself please let us know.
So, that’s enough about us for now – hey, this whole blog is about us so we have plenty of time for that! Feel free to comment (politely), We love comments they make us feel like people are actually listening to our rambles and while we are predominately writing this as a release for ourselves, its also nice to be heard.
Xoxo
THE COLOUR OF MADNESS 