Frustration

My mood, while not exactly brilliant, has been reasonably stable over the last few days, but sleep has been something else. I sleep well when I use medication to help, probably too well, but sleep badly when I don't.

I had a very successful day giving a presentation to GPs and Practice Managers for one of our Strategic Health Authorities last Wednesday, and then got roped in to talk to some high ranking people from most of the Strategic Health Authorities in England that evening. It made for a very long day, having left home at about 5.50am and not arriving back home again until 10.20pm, but I think it was worth it because they were all very interested in what I had to say about patients having access to their GP medical records online. I am due to give another presentation in a couple of weeks, this time to my local Primary Care Trust, and in September I will be making a presentation and taking part in a discussion at the Department of Health.

I am always very nervous and anxious for a couple of days before each of these events, but a bit like an old trouper on the stage, once the spotlight is on me I seem to be able to hold my own in front of the audience and I always get super feedback from those who attend the presentations. It seems that hearing things from a patient makes a big difference to their appreciation of the subject. After these events I then suffer a real adrenalin high that lasts for 24-48 hours, almost like a manic period, before crashing back down into depression. Fortunately, the collapse into depression has not been so severe this time, but neither has it been a bed of roses.

My knitting has been causing me some problems over the last week or so. After having had some problems that resulted in me having to unpick a few rows, I managed to get back on track and was progressing well. Then, on Sunday, I discovered an error which required me to have to unpick some rows again. Only one and a half rows this time but it was annoying all the same. I had only six more rows to knit until I got to the end of the main part of the shawl and could start on the edging (the pattern for which I still have to create). I decided to take a break from the knitting yesterday, but started work on the unpicking today, corrected the mistake and then was progressing well until I found that I had one stitch too many in a particular part of the pattern which was obvious and would require me to start unpicking again. This time it needs about five rows to be unpicked so this is going to be a long job.

Hence the frustration. It seems that this shawl is determined to cause me as many problems as it possibly can before I finish it. I'll see how I am feeling tomorrow before deciding to do any work on it. At times I feel like pulling the needle out and unravelling the lot but I know that this is silly and I would regret it the moment that I started doing it.

I may be feeling frustrated by it, even despairing a little, but I am not that desperate yet.