Ooops

I don’t think ooops even begins to cover it.

I ended up in A&E this morning have stitches. I should have been in a lab session but I couldn’t cope with the hassle and grief the seminar leader was giving me so I started to cry. He then sent me out “to pull myself together” and I went to the toilets and cut my leg open twice, on my thigh. I then realised that it was pretty serious and texted a friend to say that I’d been stupid and did she know any excuses to get out of a seminar? This friend is on a very similar course at the same uni.

I packed the wounds with toilet roll and some sticky tape I had in my bag. Slipped into the lab and told one of the girls on the course to tell the seminar leader I felt ill and was going to go home as I didn’t think it appropriate to work amongst pathogens and viruses when I felt sick. I then went to A&E in lab coat and all.

They stitched my wounds up – 6 stitches in each and ster-strips inbetween – and have sent a referral off to the ‘liaison psychiatry team’ aka the Deliberate Self Harm Team at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington and I have an appointment at 9.30am on Tuesday (I also have a lecture at 9am but hey… never mind!). They did ask if I was seeking treatment solely for my wounds, or for the psychological side of things as well, and I said just the wounds – which was true. They then let me go with some prophylaxis antibiotics because of the environment I study in.

Actually I don’t think I’ve ever told you what I study. I’m at the London School of Hygeine and Tropical Medicine completing an MSc in Immunology with a special interest in malarial prophylaxis and treatment. My BSc is in Biochemistry & Immunology.

I feel just as bad now, if not even worse. I have a bizarre thing going on with myself whenever I have to seek hospital treatment and get stitches for my self-harm. I know in some people that having to do this stops them for a while as they see it almost as a final cut off point. However, with me it just encourages me to want to cut more and receive more stitches and see if I can do it worse next time. It’s almost like a game – then again I mentioned to a friend about a week ago that I treated my entire life like a game. I do things for the hell of it, or as a dare to myself, or to see how much I can get away with, or to see how far I can get with people before they suss me out. It’s stupid really.

I have the MRI scan on my ankle tomorrow morning and then a follow up appointment to go through the scan with the orthopaedic consultant on Friday morning. This scares me as it is all running far too smoothly and fast for the NHS and leads me to suspect that there is something wrong, which the orthopaedic has suspected but wants clarifying with diagnostic tests, but no one is telling me yet.

I’ll just have to wait and see, but as you may have gathered, I’m not the world’s most patient patient!

Ruth