Earlier this week I had a bit of a blip. Following on from the appointment with the CMHT, being admitted to their services, being started on lithium by the psych, having a referral sent off to the substance misuse people and having a risk assessment with the CPN, I decided to scarper.
In short, I ran away. Away from London, away from Camden, away from uni and lectures and research, away from my GP and newly found CPN and psych, away from Rich, away from my parents. In essence I thought I could escape my life so I ran away to the city I did my under-grad degree at. I told the university I am ill, they said if I was still off next week (i.e. tomorrow) then I need to post a sick note, I said not a problem.
I’m crashing on a friend’s sofa. She is worried about me and wants me to go to A&E/GP and explain everything. The lithium is making me feel terrible and I can’t hack it so I swear to myself every morning that I won’t take it and then half an hour later my moods are so bizarre that I take the tablet, just to hope that the stabilising effect kicks in. The venlafaxine is still keeping my weight in check and every so often I up the dose to lose more weight and then decrease it again. I am running out of temazepam and tramadol but I don’t care, well I do care but I’m telling myself I don’t care. I need another prescription for the venlafaxine and a blood test for the lithium and a script for zopiclone but I don’t wat to go to a GP as a temporary patient and explain everything and set the alarm bells off.
My parents know that I am not at home in London, but they think I am at a friend’s in London – they don’t know I’m skipping uni. Rich knows I am in a different city but thinks I am coming back on Wednesday. In truth, I don’t know when I am coming back, if I ever will go back to London.
I don’t know what to do. I feel like running again, maybe to Scotland, maybe abroad on a cheap flight (I have my passport). I feel like changing my identity, but then I can’t change me or my history. I don’t know what is happening anymore and I don’t feel in control.
And trust me, a self-harming, bulimic, drug addict control-freak who feels out of control is not a good bloody feeling.
Ruth
November 26, 2007 at 11:17 am
You need to get yourself home and sort things out.I do know how you feel, many times I have thought about dropping everything and running away, but you can’t get away from yourself. If everything is too much at Uni can’t you take some time out or something and go back home? You need looking after, you need to be properly monitored on those meds. You’re mum and Dad would be crazy with worry over you if they knew what was happening. None of this is your fault – you are ill. Please take care of yourelf and give your family and the professionals a chance to take care of you too. xx
November 26, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Take care Ruth, I know the feeling there is many of times when I just want to escape and run away – I’ve done it once back when I was 17 I went to France.
Your parents will be worried about you, please at least contact them.
November 28, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I hope that you’re OK.
I had many of the problems you describe, when I was younger. (Plus I got HIV when I was 18.) So I’m on meds on meds on meds. I never could keep it together long enough to finish a degree at all which I still am going back to try, again. I am smart, but want to prove that to make up for all the concentration, memory, and communication problems.
My self injury and really “sharpened” emotions are more evened out with age – most of the time. The ONLY reason I didn’t run away from everything this year, was I need the specific AIDS health-care in San Francisco I moved here for. My violent turbulence eased mostly, but I get too isolated. I hope this blog helps you with that when you need it.
I really, really hope for you that time will smooth things for you in a good way. (And that you do not self-harm yourself with HIV – that one doesn’t get better).
One other thing – It’s sometimes annoying to me when people trying to help ask if I’ve tried taking this or that when I have taken everything – but Gabapentin (Neurontin) at high doses has worked as a mood stabilizer in a way nothing else has. Without flattening affect, or being sedating, or causing weight gain.
Take care of yourself. And best of luck and support wherever you are or go.
November 28, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Playing with the pills like that is not a good idea… the Lithium isn’t instantaneous, it doesn’t flip a magic switch and stabilize your mood just because you swallow it. It takes, roughly, two weeks for Lithium to build up in your system and about two to three days for your body to get rid of it. After a few months your body will stop reacting badly to the Lithium, the side effects will lessen. You should be drinking a lot (LOT) of water while taking the Lithium. But you probably knew all of that before I got here…
Running away from university and, basically, home can be a necessary evil… occasionally. Camping out on a friends couch is something I did from basically 1987 until 1997 — different couches and different friends. Your primary job, the one thing which you absolutely must do before everything else, is get better. It’s taking the pills properly and getting treatment — blood tests, doctor appointments included. You’re recovering, just like any addict and any mentally ill person. Your brain is adjusting every day you’re in recovery… whatever gets in the way of your recovery is something you have to put aside.
It’s not just alcohol an alcoholic has to avoid, it’s the situations which remind her of alcohol and the places which serve alcohol and the friends and people who enable her addiction. There are people in your life, there are situations you face every day, which act as enablers for your disease and your addiction. If leaving them for a time is necessary for your recovery, then those people and places have to be cut loose until you’re able to think clearly enough where your recovery isn’t at risk.
You are in control, it’s the disease which wants you to think you’re out of control. It’s your addictions which want you out of control. But it’s you who have taken the steps to gain and maintain control. You’re taking responsibility for your recovery. You’re taking the pills. You’re fighting against the disease. If you continue in your recovery you’ll be stronger each and every day… one step at a time. Keep moving forward, Ruth… one foot in front of the other.
November 29, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Two things I’d be feel remiss not to say. Tell you parents you are safe even if not were you are and lithum: take it get, get stabilised don’t fall into a trap of thinking you can then drop it out and add it back as easily as other drugs – and you shouldn’t be playing with them either, but you knew that already.
I used to runaway a lots, I ran to Edinburgh mostly, it is an hour or so on the train but it is the the other side of the country. I would sleep in Princess St Gardens, I say sleep but really I stayed up all night – usually with a bottle of Jack.
The need to run has settled as my med regime settled. I reacted horribly to lithium to begin with, the first two months were tough but the side effects subsided to manageable.
I keep forgetting that this wellness thing is a choice. That I need to take decisions to keep me well, sometimes in the past that meant going to a place were I was nobody, now it means taking the pills and going to blood tests and appointments. I am still adjusting but like Gabriel says one foot then the next.
If I only manage to take one step in a month, it is still a step. The more you take the more confident you will get about future ones.
Take Care
March 7, 2008 at 3:01 pm
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