Yesterday…

… All my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as if there here to stay.

Thanks to Paul, John, George and Ringo for those very accurate lyrics.

Actually, they aren’t all that accurate though. My problems were as bad yesteday as they are today, if not worse. I did a lot of things yesterday which hurt, upset, scared, worried and angered me yesterday.

As promised to myself, by myself, I went on a nice long walk yesterday morning. I caught the tube and got off at Embankment whereupon I crossed the Thames and walked all the way along the South Bank to London Bridge. Past the OXO Tower (where I always wanted to live as a kid), past Tate Modern, through a closed up Borough Market up the steps by Guys Hospital and back on the tube at London Bridge. I lied when I said it was a nice walk, it would have been lovely if it hadn’t been so busy, but then what did I expect on a Sunday morning? It was full of the energetic, fitness freaks running and French/American/Japanese tourists taking photos of everything from St. Paul’s Cathedral to the book market underneath Southwark Bridge. All in all I enjoyed it, for the fresh air and peace to myself, but it wasn’t as nice as I thought it would be.

So I decided to go to another one of my old haunts. I have a lot of old haunts stored in my brain for places in the city I can escape to and have time to myself (South Bank, Little Venice, Regent’s Park, Alexandra Palace… to name a few. They may be obvious and quite stereotypical but they are places I love) and I decided this was the time to search out a second one. I went up to Little Venice. I got off the tube at Camden and walked along the canal towpath, past Regent’s Park Zoo (where I haven’t been for years), past Paddington and Maida Vale and ended up in Little Venice, which equally wasn’t as nice as I thought it would be so I decided to walk back to Paddington station and go home.

Whereupon my depressed, quite melancholy mood, for no apparent reason, just plunged. I ended up walking into Superdrug and buying blades, bandages and gauze; which I haven’t done for ages and promised myself when I came out of hospital I wouldn’t. I then thought I needed to go somewhere quiet to cut myself so wandered off to find a public toilet but happened upon St. Mary’s Hospital, where I walked in through the main entrance and into the toilets. I suddenly came to and thought “what am I doing?”, so I packed all my stuff up, ended up walking up the stairs in a daze, looking through the main doors to A&E, realising that it was stupid and came back down the main ramp.

And I stood there for a good 15 minutes, trying to cry. Wanting to cry. Wanting to burst into floods of tears and break down and have someone ask me if I was OK, but I couldn’t. I then realised I was outside the mental health unit, which is run by the same trust (Central & North West London) as the one that runs the CMHT I am a patient of, and I know they have an out of hours service based there. I walked in, went up to reception, started to stutter, couldnt’ make myself understood, apologised and ran all the way up the back road to Paddington station, down the platform and onto the tube.

I stood, waiting for a Bakerloo train to come and stared at the electronic display… and then it dawned on me. I could throw myself under a tube train and foget all this shit in my life. The self-harm, the bipolar/BPD/they can’t decide, the bulimia, the substance dependency, the self-loathing, the constant perfectionism; it could all be over as soon as the electronic display said “Caution. Stand Back. Train Approaching”. I put my bag on the seats and stood close to the platform edge. The train whistled in, and I stayed standing there, cursing myself when it came to a stop. I did the same for the next train, and the next, and the next. I don’t know how long I was there, it seemed ages, and quite a few trains went through, until I was approached by a member of London Underground staff who asked me if I was OK. I said I was, and he asked why I wasn’t getting on a train, to which I mumbled “I didn’t know”. He said it was silly to stand so close to the platform edge because I might end up a “one-under” (LU collaquialism for person under train) and walked me off the platform.

I got a bus home and pretended everything was absolutely fine to the parents. I breezed in, showed my Mum the photos I had taken along South Bank and came up to my room. Then it hit me… I had been so close to suicide, closer than I had for a while. Part of me hated myself for (as I saw it) chickening out and not jumping, and part of me was so scared by my actions and thoughts and the fact that I knew one step off that platform would have been the end and I wouldn’t have even known why I was ending it really. I tried ringing the CMHT, where I got an answerphone saying that no one would be in the office until Wednesday but to contact the South Kensington & Chelsea Mental Health Unit in an emergency, so I hung up. Then I rang the Samaritans and got a lovely, lovely woman, who didn’t patronise me or think I was melodramatic, or making it up. She just listened andasked the right questions, and didn’t mind me howling down the phone at her and sbbing my heart out. She supported me for a good hour whilst I spilled out all of the above and more, but she didn’t butt in or anything. She was supportive in a quiet, meaningful yet sincere way, which was what I needed. After that I was shattered and had that horrible post-crying headache and stuffy nose. I didn’t fancy seeing or speaking to my parents so I took a zolpidem (which my Mum had left on my desk for me) and some Nytol and went to sleep, where I had a very odd dream, but not bad odd, more bizarre in terms of the people who were in it (none of those people would ever be together in the same room).

Today I’m feeling a bit better. The blades etc. are still in their packets, I don’t have the same urges and I’ve stopped crying. I have to pick myself up and be the life and soul of the party later as I’m going out for New Year’s Eve. A group of friends, Rich and some of his friends and I are all going out in Central London, and intend to make the best use of the free public transport!

Happy New Year everyone!

Ruth

Belated Merry Christmas

I have come out of hiding now that Christmas is over. I quite like New Year, well I like drinking and partying ’till the wee small hours, but I don’t like Christmas.

 It was even worse this year as I ended back in hospital again just before Christmas. I collapsed and ended up being admitted overnight, the doctors’ think it was a combination of adverse side effects of the beta-blocker my psych started me on and a very low potassium level (due to vomiting). I’m OK now though.

As for life in general, I am attending the local day hospital on weekdays in the mornings to have an assessment over a longer period that can be sent to the substance misuse people in the new year. I am still taking my meds and I haven’t self-harmed in a while. I am sticking to only taking 4 sleeping tablets a week (mainly because my Mum dishes them out to me) but what she (and the professionals) don’t know is the amount of OTC sleeping aids I take on the other 3 nights a week. My codeine use has decreased but not gone away. In fact it seems to be a lot more sporadic and impulsive, which I’m not sure is a good or bad thing.

London is grey, wet and miserable. I’ve already vowed to myself to go on a long walk tomorrow and take some photos of the city. I love taking photos, I’m not particularly good at it, but I love it and it dawned on me that I have hardly any photos of the city I have lived in for all of my life (exclusing my under-graduate years) so I hope to remedy that one.

Ruth

Peeling Mushrooms

Is very therapeutic as an alternative to picking at yourself!

Don’t ask how I discovered it, just think of it as a diversionary tactic for compulsive hair pulling, compulsive skin picking, picking at scabs and the such like.

I always said Kensington was a weird place, and this revelation (in a mental health unit) has proved me right.

Ruth

Discharge & A Treat

I am being discharged on Wednesday!!!!!

I get to meet my CPN tomorrow afternoon as he’s coming into the unit and we’ll arrange a time to meet when I’m discharged tomorrow. Scared about meeting yet another new person though, I’m not good with introductions.

My psychiatrist thinks I am bipolar with borderline traits. I apparently still exhibit symptoms that can be classified as bulimia (damnit!) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (trichotillomania and dermatotillomania – compulsive hair and skin pulling/picking respectively). I am to keep on with the new medication routine for the foreseeable future.

As a treat my Mum has booked tickets for me to see the Terracotta Army at the British Museum on Thursday. She did this as soon as I told her I was being discharged, which is so sweet. She knew how much I wanted to go and see it.

More soon,

Ruth

I Think I Can Honestly Say “I’m Doing OK”

And it’s the first time in weeks I’ve been able to say, or even think that.

I am at home, with the parents (who are, possibly quite rightly, being incredibly over-protective). I am staying here until 9am tomorrow morning, when I return to the mental health unit. I have been on leave since midday on Saturday and have loved and hated being away from the unit. Part of me is scared of being in the outside world again, there is a part of me that still wants to flee to far-flung places and start a new life, or that wants to curl up under the duvet with a bottle of cheap gin/vodka/whiskey/rum (delete as applicable), or wants to slice myself to pieces. But then there is a part of me that wants to go back to university in January (I originally deferred for a year, but after talking to my tutor and explaining everything he is offering the opportunity to return to studies in January, if I want to).

They are thinking of discharging me sometime early next week. The operation on my arm went well, although it will take some time to see if the nerve is beginnning to knit back together and fix itself. My new psychiatrist is trying me on new medication. I am off the lithium and onto lamotrigine (I have taken it in the past and it worked well). I am on a new dose of venlafaxine (150mg b.d.) which is an increase, but should take it into more of a therapeutic range for the noradrenaline reuptake. I am off the temazepam and zopiclone and onto zolpidem (as a short term fix). I am also being referred to the substance misuse people within the trust, who apparently run a women’s only service as outpatients, and am due to have a meeting with someone about that soon. I am getting a CPN, as it has been decided that I will live with my parents in West London for the foreseeable future, even if I return to uni, and will be meeting them sometime after I am discharged. Plus, when I am discharged I will be under the care of the crisis team daily for the first week.

This all feels very strange, but it is nice to know that there is support in place.

Ruth

New Psychiatrist

I met my new psychiatrist today. I am in the local psych hospital to my parents in West London, not where I live so I have a new psych. She is lovely and very, very helpful.

Still on constant observations and had the usage of my laptop limited to 3 hours use a day as according to my named nurse it is making me anti-social. Might be moved onto half-hourly obs when I get back from the surgery tomorrow.

Scared about tomorrow. Leave here at 11am to go to the plastics ward, have the op, stay in overnight and then back here again by 12pm on Wednesday. Should be a nice little break.

Ruth

The wonders of modern technology

I can now be online. My lovely parents brought my laptop in about an hour ago and I am connecting via my mobile. ‘Twill cost a fair bit of money but I’m not spending it on a lot else at the moment.

They are thinking that I may not be BPD after all. I mentioned this to a friend earlier and he said that he had never assumed me to be BPD, bipolar yes, but not BPD. I have to admit I hate the BPD diagnosis, because of all the horrible images in conjures up, but I have for a long time thought that it was not wholly accurate. I have always thought I was more likely to be bipolar.

The only evidence for my being BPD are these diagnostic criteria (the one’s relating to me in bold):

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. [Not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5]
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). [Again, not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5]
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

So yes, I have more than 5 criteria so bingo, I have BPD. But then a lot of those criteria can be covered by depression, and bipolar, and bulimia, and having an addictive personality.

I don’t know anymore. I am having my surgery on Tuesday so am spending Tuesday night in a medical ward (plastic surgery) and then back to the psych ward. They are talking about me being in here for at least another week, though I hope to be out by Christmas.

Ruth

phone post

sorry this will be a short post but it is coming from my mobile phone.

i came back to london and the beginning of the week after a disasterous time away involving an o/d and cutting myself and ending up in a&e, i stayed in overnight for both.

i rang my mum who bought me my train ticket home and arranged an emergency appointment with my psych at the end of the week. i am now in a psych unit – voluntarily – and don’t know how long i’ll be in for. i have leave next week as i need surgery to repair the nerve in my arm after i cut it, but after that i’ll be back in hospital.

am quite scared and un-nerved by the whole event.

ruth