Sunday 24 August 2008

Misdiagnosis?

ortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela.  She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.  "Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie.  She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked--how it did smoke!--and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester.  Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place.  I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf.  And Mademoiselle--what is your name?"  "Eyre--Jane Eyre."  "Aire?  Bah!  I cannot say it.  Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel.  We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."  "Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.  I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.  "I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?"  "Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?"  "I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.  Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses.  A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it.  Shall I let you hear me sing now?"

2 comments:

  1. Hallucinations can be immensely unnerving, and I know how it feels to feel depressed and hyper at the same time. I hope you're feeling more anchored now.

    When you get to talk to your psychologist and your doctors, make sure you articulate as best as you can what you're going through. You're the only one who clearly grasps the depths of things you're experiencing, and the more they know, the better they'll be able to help you. I'm fairly convinced that everyone (at least everyone I know) falls somewhere on the manic-depressive spectrum, and you don't want them unnecessarily drugging you in either direction. I know both states can be troublesome. (Though having a sense of effortless creativity and boundless energy sometimes does have its perks!)

    The trouble is, many of the symptoms of bipolar disorder (or psychological disorders in general) are also similar to the symptoms of everyday life---unbidden emotions that don't have a rational explanation, unexplained mood swings, highs, lows, crashes and euphoria. Each of these are valid parts of human emotional experience. It's the intensity and the level of debilitation that draw a blurred line between "normal" and "something's wrong." I guess what I am trying to say is, try be clear about what you're going through, and be circumspect when accepting a diagnosis.

    (I don't know why, but I keep coming back to the fundamental helpfulness of just talking about things. I'm guessing putting things down on your journal is a little therapeutic for you too.)

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  2. Still feeling a bit jittery and not quite my usual depressed state but I'm better than before thanks.
    My doctor told me last week to make an appointment for the coming week if I still wasn't feeling any better so I guess I should make one and try to get what I feel through to him - always difficult with medical professionals!

    I just keep coming back to the fact I've been being treated for depression for three years yet the treatment isn't doing any good, making me think that perhaps the diagnosis isn't right, or that there's something my psychiatrist is missing.

    I'm definitely going to try to talk to my doctor about this if I can get him to listen. And yes I do find writing about all this stuff therapeutic, also I have no-one else to talk about it to so it all comes out here.

    I'm just very confused about it all and I'm not sure I can get anyone to listen to me anyway but I need things to change because I know I can't stay like this. And thank you for responding again, you're giving me a lot to think about. Plus I think you're right - talking about things does help.

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