Life is not good with me.
At present I am posting from the PatientLine system above my hospital bed. I have taken an overdose. The second one is 48 hours. I discharged myself against medical advice on Saturday morning whilst still tachycardic and then was readmitted last night after taking more tablets.
I cannot cope with my life anymore. The boyfriend and I are no longer. I don’t want to go into details as I know a lot of you know who he is, but suffice to say I haven’t taken it well. He was perfectly pleasant about it, I just turned into a borderline bitch. I feel once again as if I am on my own. We have agreed to stay friends, indeed I am going to go up and see him late next week, but I’m not sure how painful I will find that. I truly loved him. More than I have loved anyone in my life. And it’s hard to get over that, but I am sure I will.
I am scheduled for more chemo tomorrow but at present they’re not sure whether I’ll be well enough or not. Part of me hopes I’m not. They’re keeping me in ’till at least early afternoon and getting a psych SHO to assess me. I don’t need a psych assessment I know why I did it. I am a borderline cow who reacts badly to every situation and her response to everything bad that happens is to overdose or cut herself.
I am now resigned to being borderline all my life. I missed an appointment with my psych last week because I went out drinking after school. I was quite drunk when she rang me out of concern at half six. However, I sent her an email and decided to be honest with her. it’s copied under the cut.
I know I have already seen you today and that I probably should have be open and honest whilst I was in the appointment with you, but then I am not very good at telling people the entire truth at the right time. There are a number of things that I didn’t mention in our earlier session, mainly because I didn’t know how to phrase them but also because I was beginning to get worried about how much I had already said. As you well know, I have huge issues with being able to talk to people face to face and let them know the entire truth about what is going on. I prefer to have everyone in their own little boxes where I can manipulate what they know and how much they need to know. However, I have decided that since I have been an absolute hassle to you over the last week or so that you deserve to know everything that has been going on. After all, I should be working with you and not against you (by the way, just before you think I’ve gone all philosophical on you – that is a quote I’ve stolen from someone else).
Last week wasn’t a very good week for me. I spent most of it cycling up and down numerous times a day. There were no triggers for my mood changing. In fact it just happened whenever it felt like it. One minute I was up and happy, able to work and complete jobs; the next I was miserable and crying, desperately unhappy and unable to drag myself out of bed. I haven’t felt like that for quite a while and it scared me. I went through days which were unbearable. I debated quitting my job and even drafted my letter of resignation, which I never sent. I spent Thursday morning at home writing the letter not caring if I went into school or not because I didn’t see the point in my job. I only eventually went in because my Mum came home and decided it would be a better idea if I went into school.
I also spent a long time on Thursday morning on the phone to my boyfriend. We talked about numerous things including my chemotherapy. I was willing to give it up and accept that the cancer would be fatal. He told me that he couldn’t stand back and watch me do that to myself so I lied to hime. I told him that everything that had happened this year (the assault, hospital stays, constant self-harming) wasn’t true and that I was a bad person and he should just walk away. He didn’t believe me, but my logic behind it was that if I could push him away then I could quit the chemo and die without having to do anything myself. Needless to say I have now seen sense and am going to fully comply with the treatment.
I self-harmed a lot last week as well. I only admitted one incident to you in our appointment but there were numerous others. I probably should have gone to A&E because of them but I didn’t want to face the questions or the long wait or the DSH/CAT team being called out. I preferred just to sit at home and patch myself up. I am fed up of being regarded as an attention seeker in A&E so I stayed at home, because I couldn’t cope if the doctor I would have seen was snide or unsympathetic. The cutting wasn’t working as well as it should have done though and so on Wednesday night I took a small overdose of quetiapine, co-codamol and tramadol. I think this may have been one of the reasons I didn’t go into school on Thursday morning.
On Friday night I went out from school to the pub with some colleagues. I didn’t intentionally miss our appointment, I just forgot. I stayed out for the entire evening and met up with some acquaintances from my under-grad degree. We got drunk together and I took cocaine. I only did 2 lines and I have to say that it wasn’t my intention when I went out to take it. It just happened. I also debated taking a large amount of oramorph when I got home, but I was too drunk and fell asleep on my bed as soon as I sat down. I was proud of myself for the amount of time I had spent away from illegal substances but now I feel like I am back in that mindset and there is a part of me which is accepting of this and yet another part which hates me for it. I know that the substance misuse team at Plummer Court didn’t seem to think that I have problems, but I am fairly convinced that I do. Yet I don’t know what to do about it, because the only way I can access help is through them and they seem to think I am exaggerating it all.
I realise that this is probably a lot to comprehend and that it mostly likely is going to cause you some concern but I felt you had a right to know. I am also beginning to realise that the only way I can get my moods under control and thus everything else in my life, is to accept help and support from other people. I am terrified about the year ahead. I am facing chemotherapy, surgery to remove the tumour and then standing up in court against Liam in November. I have no plans for my future and at the moment I cannot really see a future. I know that probably sounds melancholy but it is the way I feel. I’m not going to throw myself off the Tyne Bridge or anything drastic like that. I just feel so numb, and then inbetween the numb is punctutated with periods of hypomania. Indeed, earlier today when I spoke on the phone to someone after our appointment, they suggested I was hypomanic. I am not sure if I managed to keep this hidden whilst I was with you, or if you just didn’t mention it to me.
I know I haven’t been the world’s easiest patient and I know that my ambivalence must be difficult to accept at times but I do want to get everything under control. I cannot say at the moment if I want to be fully better – because we both know that is a prospect which terrifies the life out of me – but I want to be able to function to a better degree than I am doing now.
Ruth
June 29, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
June 29, 2008 at 3:16 pm
You seem remind me of myself. I find it so hard to talk to people face to face, it’s so much easier to put things in writing than speak up and be heard, it’s more than likely why I have been unable to get an accurate diagnosis because of my need to hide so much of my life, but I finally open up a little more to my CPN a few weeks ago and things are about to change – it seems I will be joining you in the stakes of being a Borderline (although truthfully I knew, I just didn’t want to admit it…)
I am really sorry that you are going through such a rough patch now Ruth, it’s only to be understandable with the cancer and the fact you are a borderline, the fact you wanted the BF to finish with you was typical borderline behaviour pushing people away to test your own limits, I’ve done it all my life… not only are you dealing with a severe mental health condition you have cancer as well – I honestly don’t think I could deal with it anymore sanely that what you are doing. I think I can understand why you needed to overdose.
Remember Ruth you are a great person, you can fight the cancer and you can get better, it takes time but you will get there. (now if only I can take my own advice!)
Okay my guidance is probably crap, I am really shit when it comes to offering advice to others but I am thinking of you and although I am a stranger if you want to offload drop me a line, I do make a good listener.
Alison
x
June 30, 2008 at 1:27 am
I m sorry that all this has happened.
June 30, 2008 at 10:20 am
You made me cry. And I know it doesn’t help but I’m sending you best wishes, and I’m thinking of you, and it’s no good but I’m sorry.
Suzy x
June 30, 2008 at 10:20 pm
You are obviously going through hell. But you write a brilliant blog! I really do wish you all the best.
How do you manage to type so much on that patient line thing? I found it v v difficult to type when I was in a hospital bed.
All the best,
Tom
July 1, 2008 at 11:56 am
*hug*
That’s all I can really offer as I know nothing I say will make things better.
I often do the same – want to say something, but not know how and in the end resort to emailing people afterwards when I’m able to write.
Take care x
July 2, 2008 at 8:27 am
Well the first thing to do is to stop trying to kill yourself. Give that a try for the next few weeks. Then try not doing drugs and drinking.
When we get into situations where the pain is immediate we lose sight of the future. Once we lose the future we almost always decide the present is not worth living for. We look six months, two years and a decade into the future and we think there’s no way we could possibly survive the coming onslaught of Stuff and Shit. And, based on who we are today, we probably couldn’t. But everyday brings to us more wisdom and more knowledge which we can use to overcome whatever is thrown at us.
You can’t let this shit roll over you. People break up, that happens. People get cancer, the vast majority of whom do just fine. Funny enough it’s when “people do drugs” and “people don’t listen to their doctors” that people start to really fall apart.
You Can cope with your life. You write about how you’re “resigned to being borderline all my life”… because, like, you’ve tried a whole lot of nothing and you’re all out of ideas?
I know you’re trying, I know you’re stuck in neutral, I know the diseases won’t let you get out of bed or slow down or stop talking or stop thinking about every single last fucking embarrassing thing you’ve ever done but try not fucking drinking, try not doing drugs and take some fucking control over the diseases in your body.
Too many people believe that there’s just no fucking point in even trying to recover because the power of these diseases are too overwhelming, but that’s just bullshit we’re fed because no one has ever put into words or in film how to recover from mental illness honestly. In movies we’re lucky to make it to the second reel, or we see a doctor twice and suddenly we’re living in a Manhattan loft living the life of the totally fulfilled artist.
So we live the cliché. We live inside the stereotype. We swoon and let the disease fall over us like a warm, wet blanket. Then, ten years later, we wake up and wonder where everyone went.
You can cope with your life, and you can control the forces at work inside your body and your mind. You can be better. I know this. Just stop giving into the stereotypes and get angry at the things trying to kill you.