What is schizoaffective disorder (bipolar type)? & writing.

This is what my therapist wrote. Explains it well.

Kalyan has a diagnosis of Schizoaffective disorder (bipolar type) which is a severe, complex mental health disorder combining aspects of a mood disorder and schizophrenia. The symptoms of schizoaffective disorder include: psychotic symptoms; losing touch with reality, hallucinations, delusions, disorganised thoughts, chaotic speech and behaviour, anxiety, apathy, blank facial expression, inability to move. Manic symptoms such as: increased social, sexual and work activity, rapid thoughts and speech, exaggerated self-esteem, reduced need for sleep, risky behaviours, impulsive behaviours such as spending sprees, quick changes between mood states such as happiness to anger. The depressive symptoms can include: loss of motivation and interest, fatigue, concentration difficulties, physical complaints such as headache or stomach-ache, low self-esteem suicidal thoughts, loss of appetite, insomnia.

I’ve read quite a bit about people’s experiences and how some past actions come back to haunt you. This is true in my case, especially in instances of extremely poor judgement and its ramifications. I’ve done a few things I regret but I’ve been told that you need to be able to forgive yourself as it wasn’t you in the sense that it was your mental health – your brain not wiring itself properly. But it still affects me greatly.

I’m living well now and things are less chaotic and I’m gradually patching up all the damage now. Sometimes it is overwhelming but it’s at least stable. I’m writing about this topic, not a memoir but a novel with the working title Eye on the silenced. My life was too chaotic to be told in a readable way, nor can I remember parts of it and I want to create an epic journey for the protagonist.

Here’s the beginning:

It began with a poem written on a piece of parchment, her small hands gripping the ink pen gently. He was hanging off the tree branch, brushing his fingers against the long grass as she wrote. The sound of the nearby stream was like a melody soothing them. It was a quiet time, a peaceful time.

And then the wind changed.

Mother mother Poem

Full version of Mother Mother poem I read at British Ambassador’s residence during Kampot Writers & Readers Festival opening last year in 2016. It’s about her sacrifice and how she keeps me going from strength to strength. How I love her. She use to tell me how she would sleep on tree branches to hide from militia during the protracted civil war whilst still pregnant with me. During the 80s there was stll a civil war between the two main forces after the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. Have a listen.

A new perspective – Living with Schizoaffective disorder bipolar type.

Living with schizoaffective disorder bipolar type hasn’t been easy. You alienate everyone around you and lose control of yourself. When you’re manic, you start projects and can’t complete them properly. You think everything achievable although it’s impossible. You find yourself in problematic situations. When you’re depressed, you close yourself off to the world. Sometimes all you just want to do is survive. Then sometimes you are just delusional and paranoid. Yet not many people will understand this. They’ll just see the mess you’ve created and comment on that as if you’re a tornado ripping everything out in your path. Even you won’t understand it yourself until you’ve come out the other end all stable.

Why is it that you feel cursed or create trouble everywhere you go? Those are the questions that follow you around.

I’ve been stable now for a few times and cannot believe the whirlwind life I was living all those years when I wasn’t fully treated. I did feel like a tornado and didn’t fully comprehend the destruction I left behind during my moments of mania. There were times when I felt like this was the end, and wanted to end it all. Life was truly a roller coaster ride – a ride that I couldn’t get off until lately.

Sometimes I read my old Facebook post and they are incoherent, much like a muddled thinking I had. Sometimes I laugh at them. You have to have a sense of humour about it. Life was disorganised and that showed.

Sometimes I feel guilt over what’s has transpired but there’s not much you can do about the past. People will still have their reservations and there will always be gossip and rumours however misinterpreted they are. You can’t explain your mental condition to everyone you meet especially when you weren’t fully diagnosed and treated.

I feel sadness over moments I miss in my children’s life because I wasn’t fully there mentally but there’s still a lot of love.

All I can do now is educate myself and others to understand more and to intervene if required.

Keep moving forward I guess.

Living with schizoaffective bipolar type disorder

Life has been relatively stable the last couple of years thanks to the right treatment but before that life hasn’t been easy.

Before I was properly diagnosed I would go through these phases where at times I had no idea what I was saying or doing. I was out of my mind, so to say, then when I returned to relative normal, some people would coerce me to keep to what I had said which I’d try to relative failure. How could I have kept to something which was said while I was relatively delusional. This often cost me a lot. Fractured relations and disappointment, monetary loss and so forth.

There were periods of disorganised thinking where I had difficulties organising life and tried hard to help everyone and took onto much on. It crippled me and I had trouble prioritising and focusing on what’s important.

There were periods of mania where I found myself in constant reckless actions again and again. I found some conversations I’ve had with people comical and situations or scenarios I found myself in somewhat embarrassing. I thought I was in positions and in the company of which I simply wasn’t. Or that people were bestowing on me special powers or which they weren’t. I was simply just ordinary but in my own unique way.

When I was depressed, I couldn’t take to anyone properly and was hospitalised a few times. It felt like, as cliche as it may, a roller coaster ride that was never ending. The pain of reliving the mania, the delusions and hallucinations and the depression which made living difficult.

Of course an 8 month hospital/EPARCs stay and 20Kgs gain later, those days are behind me for now. Keeping stable and sane on Abilify injection monthly.

From healthyplace.com

Missing photos

It’s mortifying when you find out you are missing some important photos. I always posted photos on Facebook so assume it won’t go missing but recently I went to look for my son’s birth photos and they had disappeared. I don’t remember deleting them. Unfortunately you can’t retrieve it from facebook. I tried the ways they said to online but it still wasn’t there. Thankfully I had sent some photos to my husband years ago. Not many though. Here they are for keepsake. My only son 🙂

6 years

It’s been almost 6 years since I last posted and much has happened since then. I had my third child Isabella and she’s a delight. Very inquisitive and talkative.

I did a community voice piece asking people to seek help.

I also did a couple of interviews about the corruption in Cambodia which you can probably find online.

Life has been extraordinary with its up and downs. I was diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar type which explains a lot of events and occurrences in my life. How out of control things were at times and how I felt in a daze at times. The mania really took its toll on my life. Now I’m stable on ability injection monthly and I find a lot of solace in writing and cooking. Sometimes I play music which helps.

I like to retain memories. A lot pre-Facebook in terms of photos and videos have been lost. I had a terrible car accident in 2017. The car burst into flames and I lost my hard drive and other items along with it. I was saved by a truck driver and it was in the paper. https://www.stawelltimes.com.au/story/4532378/my-vehicle-was-burnt-to-smithereens/ I am lucky to be alive but all my work was gone.

I am working on two novels at the moment and can’t wait to share it with people. I’m trudging along okay. Just the daily stress of looking after children but they’re fun. My middle child Charlie has autism but we get a lot of help for this so it’s not as challenging. He’s on the severe end of the spectrum.

When he was a year old

…the art of survival

I haven’t written in this blog since January 2014 and many things have happened since then. There was a dark cloud that swept over my life with my battle with depression, but it was swept away with a new form of hope that I never thought I would ever experience in my life. How can sum up 24 months in a single post?

In February 2014, I spent almost a month in the mother and baby unit at Monash Hospital. It was a valuable experience. I had been moving like lightning and needed to slow down. Whereas it occurred after my second baby, the weight of air seemed to be pushing against me stronger. And it wasn’t the best time to be involved in politics. As I was an active liberal member, there had been long-standing differences with labor members in the area, and politics plays to people’s weaknesses… Without going into details, the events bought me to my knees, but at the same time, I was dragged out of a condition which has plagued me for many years… and with that came a strong amount of clarity.

But through the darkness, I felt I persevered the most. I achieved what I had been working on for many years and finally broke through to that light… and turning all the negativity into something positive and life changing. The resources and opportunities were there, but to key is to connect them. I had always been vocal and was never afraid to raise my voice on an issue that concerned me… it’s what we were taught in suburban classrooms… and it worked wonders.

My passion has always been to help Cambodia, to discover ways in which we can lift people out of poverty. Trade has been very effective in many developing countries, and an address from Julie Bishop MP inspired me. She spoke about how reducing trade barriers and opening markets creates opportunities for people to grow their ideas and expand the marketplace. So I set about putting this notion into actuality. Whilst there were many organisations doing grassroots transformation, there weren’t any connecting the influencers, change-makers and the decision makers. There were no mechanisms for dialogue, for building bridges and links or for developing streamlined processes/promoting skills and knowledge transfer.

The organisation went through several transformations through various consultations but we have settled on the Angkor Agenda, our pilot project the Cambodia Australia NZ Exchange Mission. A mission very dear to me and a combination of all my professional, personal, academic and community life.

It was an interesting journey and we faced many challenges but I believe we’ve persevered. I met many wonderful people who’ve transformed my life and my thinking and open up many possibilities.

The thing is… all you have to do is ask. And it’s a wonderful feeling to know people are now talking and looking for solutions.

So far, we have achieved:

ASEAN-Australian Celebratory Dinner
Invitation to Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe Luncheon
Cambodia Mission – Presentation of our initative to Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Cambodia’s National Assembly, Meeting with Tourism Cambodia
Roundtable discussion with Cambodia Chamber of Commerce
Cambodia Business Year with over 12 missions from top Cambodian businessmen, enterprenuers and Government Officials – CBY is a mechanism for dialogue, and the means to discuss and provide solutions for problematic areas facing the private sector industry. It has been very effective in discovering ways to make trade between Cambodia and Australia simpler and more streamlined
Hosting His Excellency Hun Manet and delegation visit to Australia & New Zealand to discuss trade and build bridges between Cambodians in Australia & Cambodia
Formation of the Cambodia Australia Tourism Coalition

Http://www.canzem.com

We are now planning a Cambodia Australia Friendship Festival in July. Stay tuned!

I love birthday moments :)

Happy 2nd birthday my sweet Sophia Alexandria.

Two years ago, after almost a day of induced labor, I had an emergency Caesarian into which at 1.05am on Australia Day 2012, my beautiful daughter, who has bought so much joy and happiness into my life, was born. Happy 2nd birthday sweetie.

Strawberry Princess