Best of Depression Blogs 2008 - Honourable Mention
Half an hour until Allison comes round.
I don’t know whether to be honest with her about everything. Some things have changed since last night.
I feel like a fraud though, especially when Seaneeen wrote that I am strong, which I am most definitely not.
Don’t feel well, and yet I know why. Not prepared to do anything about it though.
Ruth
Today I finally cleaned, tidied, dusted and vacuumed my room. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is the first time I have done it since I moved back home in July. It also means that my room hadn’t been cleaned since I moved away to Newcastle in February, and given the mood I was in then I doubt I had touched it since the beginning of the year.
11 months of dust, dead skin cells, and general dirt meant a lot of sneezing and tidying up had to be done. It is now done and I am prepared to take bets on how long it will stay in this pristine state. I had to do something today though to keep myself occupied. The overwhelming thoughts are back in a somewhat, well, overwhelming way.
I need to make a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to get some more duloxetine, but I am scared to. I have enough to last me until Thursday, and my parents get back on Friday. Somewhere not so far towards the front of my mind is a fear that if I get a whole new prescription for duloxetine then sometime during this week I’ll take all the tablets at once. I don’t want to mention my fears to the GP as that means I’ll be back on weekly prescriptions and to be honest I can’t cope with the hassle of picking the tablets up every 7 days, plus when my parents are back home there will be no need for fewer tablets. I know I could just ask for a week’s worth to tide me over until the parents get back but that would mean a whole lot of explaining and I can’t be bothered doing that.
I see Allison tomorrow afternoon and she’s coming round to my house. She got very excited by the prospect of seeing my house and where I live as I have only ever met her at the mental health unit, which I can’t really understand but I am wholly appreciating her visit. Earlier today I realised that I have been in A&E at least once a week for the last 11 weeks, which is a sobering thought. I guess I need to make the best use of Allison whilst I am feeling like this as after all it is what she is there for.
Ruth
I have been absent on here for too long, but nothing of real interest has happened in my life.
I eventually got the diazepam from the out-of-hours GP, took a dose, went to sleep and woke up the next morning to find a huge gash in my arm and a kitchen knife by my bed. I don’t remember cutting myself so I went to A&E and got patched up. This was on the Sunday. On the Tuesday I saw Allison for our appointment and she seemed concerned about me and organised for my GP to prescribe me more diazepam as my legs were physically shaking whilst I was talking with her.
The rest of the week dragged on very slowly until yesterday when I reopened the wound in my arm from Sunday and caused more damage. The self-harm team were called to assess me but didn’t bother as they had called Allison who promised them she would ring me later that day. The A&E staff were so concerned about me that they put me in a gown to lessen my absconding/suicide/self-harm risk and kept 10 minute obs on me in the clinical decision unit. I was so worked up that I was scratching at my wrist with a broken plastic cup until the nurse took it away from me, whereupon I used the ID bracelet they had put round my wrist, but eventually that was taken off me too. I now have superficial grazes on my wrist that hurt like hell from where I was doing that, and surprisingly they are more uncomfortable than the stitches that were put in, including internal sutures.
Last night I sat with probably a bit too much vodka and coke and watched Finding Nemo to try and liven my mood. I felt really bad and ended up ringing the crisis team in floods of tears. They ascertained that Allison had never contacted me and therefore I hadn’t been assessed so asked me to go to A&E where they could talk to me. I smoked a 10 pack of cigarettes on the walk there, which isn’t good as the first place the cancer could spread is my lungs. Smart move smoking then.
I am worried about next week as both my parents are away and it was that week I had put all the suicide plans in place for. In a fortnight I have another scan to see how the tumour is progressing/reducing and in 3 weeks I get the results. If life wasn’t bad enough, my Mum announced this morning that my parents aren’t divorcing after all. I shouted some home truths at her and am now shut away in my bedroom to save me being accused of being selfish and ungrateful anymore than I already have been.
Happy days.
Ruth
I am pretty certain that I am in what a psychiatrist would term a ‘mixed state’. Now I know that I am not diagnosed with bipolar and therefore I cannot theoretically be suffering from a mixed episode but all the symptoms that I have at present fit. I first noticed it coming on during Thursday and the only thing I can think is that it coincides perfectly with my starting to take duloxetine.
I mentioned to Allison on Friday when I saw her that I was feeling restless inside but my external demeanour was depressive. She said to ring her when I had those feelings so she could keep a track of them. When I saw her on Friday morning I didn’t feel too bad but the internal anxiety started to hit me again by lunchtime and I became increasingly irritable and aggressive towards people whilst wanting to pull my head under the duvet to escape the world but feeling unable to relax for a fidgety feeling.
I didn’t ring Allison back to tell her the feelings were back on Friday. I am hopelessly awful at ringing her unless it is prearranged as I don’t want to disturb her when she is busy with other caseloads. No matter how many times she reassures me that it is what she is there for, I don’t seem to take it on board. I told the crisis team when I spoke to them last night that I was feeling restless but increasingly depressed. The bloke I spoke to told me that I needed to concentrate on constructive things whilst feeling restless rather than being impulsive. At the time I didn’t understand what he meant but at 3am this morning I did. I am beginning to realise that being agitated whilst depressed is a dangerous combination. Having suicidal thoughts in your head and the physical energy to plan the means isn’t a good combination.
Last night I spent most of my time transferring music from long-lost and mainly forgotten CDs onto my computer to eventually transfer onto my mp3 player at a later date. I have a pile of ironing to occupy me for an hour or so later on and I am sure my bedroom could do with cleaning. The trouble is although my body wants to complete tasks and not be able to keep still my head is just wanting to switch off and sleep.
I have to ring the crisis team again later this evening and again tomorrow before talking to Allison on Monday. I have decided that I am going to tell Allison about the state I am in, even if it disappears by Monday I feel that I should tell her how the last 3 days have been. The confusion that I am in at present is making me want to self-harm, even though I haven’t cut mysef for 12 days. In fact, this is the first weekend in 7 weeks that I haven’t got any stitches in me. A part of me is proud of that and wants to make it 13 days and then 2 weeks but my brain is being pulled and twisted in so many ways that I want to cut.
It’s as if I am in a maze and every corner I turn means I hit a brick wall. I know that by self-harming it will mean that I will be able to turn a corner and find my way out of the maze. Finding my way out of the maze in a non-metaphor means being able to assess the situation rationally and without emotional interference. I still have to make a plan as to how I am going to keep myself safe for the week I was planning to instigate the suicide plan, and also how to dismantle the actual plan. At the moment I cannot even begin to think about the whole thing because I have a nasty feeling that if I start to think about it then the positives will get thrown out of the window and I will start to concentrate in the more negative suicidal thoughts, and that wouldn’t be good for me.
Ruth
Edited to add (6:15pm): Rang the crisis team and the very helpful and lovely CPN I spoke to suggested I called the out-of-hours GP to get some diazepam to try and take the edge off the feelings as I am feeling so close to self-harming. Rang the number and spoke to the switchboard who said that OOH GPs don’t prescribe benzodiazepines. I explained that I had spoken with the crisis team and gave the name of the nurse and told the switchboard woman to ring them, which she said she would. Rang the crisis team a few minutes ago to see what was happening and they haven’t heard from anyone. Think I’ll probably just have a couple of glasses of wine and an early night, I can’t be doing with arguments with OOH doctors and the crisis team at the moment.
I feel like such a useless blogger at present. I am stuck in the quagmire that is depression and unfortunately that isn’t much fun to write about. It saps your energy and thought process, it is melancholy and miserable, it is repetitive and boring.
I started the first dose of duloxetine yesterday, combined with a final week at 75mg/day of venlafaxine. I know that it won’t have any effect for at least 2 weeks, but I want to see some difference now. I want this to be the final magic wand I have been looking for all my life. The side-effects haven’t been too bad, I felt quite restless inside but lethargic physically yesterday, almost like an agitated depression, and my appetite has gone back down to zero (well beyond zero as thanks to the chemo it was already at zero). The tablets are quite a funky colour though, bright blue and green capsules. I know that colour has an effect on your mood and that yellow and green are meant to be uplifting (hence they are the colours used for Prozac) and blue is calming, so presumably duloxetine is meant to impart a sense of uplifting calm before you even swallow it.
I saw Allison today and explained about the events of the past week with meeting friends, calling the crisis team, having a friend admit to me that they think I am going to kill myself, and the ongoing chemo. She asked about my suicidal thoughts/feelings/ideation and I ended up spilling it all to her. The plans I had about how I would do it, the timescale which I had given myself to do it and how I have been spending every spare minute perfecting the plans so nothing goes wrong. She now wants me to dismantle the plans and before I see her next on Tuesday I have to come up with a step-by-step plan to how I can keep myself actively safe and ensure the plans aren’t going to be put to use for the week in which I was planning to do it. Apparently I can involve her, the crisis team, the day services at the unit and friends/relations in the plan. I need to make sure that I am in contact, either physically or by phone each day of the week in which I had planned the date.
In the meantime though I have to contact the crisis team once a day over the weekend (including tonight) and ring Allison on Monday morning prior to our appointment on Tuesday lunchtime. She seemed to take everything I was telling her about my mood and suicidal feelings seriously and realises I am very close to reaching crisis point at present. I am so used to people being offhand about my suicidal thoughts because I am borderline and therefore suicidal ideation comes with the territory, that it shocks me somewhat as to how much support she is prepared to give me. I don’t know what has changed within the CMHT since I was last involved (at the beginning of the year) but whatever they have done is working and I am, luckily, reaping the benefits. Of course, being the ultimate pessimistic depressive, this doesn’t serve to improve my mood at all, but I think it makes the people around me feel a bit safer and at ease.
Ruth
I realise that I’ve been very quiet recently, but to be honest there hasn’t been a lot to say.
I went out with a friend and one of her friends to the pb on Friday night which ended rather abruptly and was followed with a somewhat triggering text from my friend about her friend (are you following?) that had me sitting on a wall sobbing into my phone to another friend for a very long time, and then after I had sobbed my heart out to my friend I sobbed my heart out to the Samaritans. I debated ringing the Crisis Team but I figured they would just annoy me with some patronisingly obvious suggestions and wouldn’t help the situation so some impartial and non-judgemental advice from someone who wasn’t going to tell me what to do (i.e. the Samaritans) was preferable.
In both the phonecalls I happened to mention something I have been thinking about for a while, and mentioned it in detail. Needless to say that I was meant to keep it to myself and now feel guilty (for letting people know), stupid (for not being able to keep my mouth shut) and annoyed (at blabbing). People knowing somewhat changes the dynamics of the whole situation and may involve a change of plan at some point, I don’t know at the moment.
Over the weekend I spent some time with a friend I haven’t seen for a long, long time and it was nice to see her. The only problem was that I felt a little overwhelmed all weekend as I didn’t have any time to myself. Having siblings that are so much older than me meant I was effectively an only child for a large period of my adolescence and therefore I need time just for me, on my own with no interference. I don’t think I had any time to myself all weekend, except driving to and from my friend’s, which doesn’t really count.
At the moment I’m undergoing chemotherapy and feel pretty rough because of it, which is why this is a short post. I’m in hospital until Wednesday afternoon and I doubt I’ll be posting again as I am only going to feel worse, not better, over the next 48 hours. On the plus side though I finally got round to buying a Nintendo DS on Sunday with my friend and it came with Big Brain Academy so I can spend the next few days depressing myself about how appalling my brain power really is.
Ruth
I saw the psychiatrist earlier today. I was quite cynical about seeing him as it was to be the same psych I saw at the beginning of this year who told me I wasn’t depressed and then promptly doubled the dose of the venlafaxine (an anti-depressant).
This time was a lot more refreshing. As I was sitting in the waiting room, Allison walked in, having been on a home visit, and offered me a cup of coffee. Sitting there, looking quite out of place as I was in a suit (I had a job interview this morning – didn’t get the job) another patient walked in and asked me how I’d managed to get a cup of coffee. I just shrugged and he said “but you work for the mental health don’t you? I mean you’re obviously not a patient” to which I told him that I was a patient, but a patient who had had a job interview that morning and who’s CPN walked through the door and offered me a cup of coffee.
The psych was very approachable and seemed to treat me much more like an adult. He accepted that the venlafaxine wasn’t working as effectively as it should and therefore we should try another anti-depressant. I am now to wean myself down to 150mg/day for a week, then 75mg/day after than whereupon I can start taking 60mg/day of duloxetine. After a week on that I am to stop taking the venlafaxine completely. He says he wants to see me again in 4 weeks to assess how the duloxetine is working.
Allison said that she still wants to see me tomorrow, despite briefly seeing me today. I really seem to have found a gem with her there. This weekend I am going to draft out a letter of complaint to the chief executive of the Chelsea & Westminster NHS over the registrar’s comments and treatment of me in A&E last weekend. I am then going to show it to Allison in the appointment I have with her a week tomorrow and then post it. I have decided that I’m not going to let him get away with the way he treated me, call it my stroppy side kicking in.
Ruth
I’m very good at putting myself in the same situation, time and time again even though I know that no good will come of it and occasionally even if I know that it will just cause total chaos and upset. People often say that we learn through experience and via our mistakes, if that is true then I am either a very slow learner or completely inept when it comes to learning.
I seem to be frequenting the A&E department at the Chelsea & Westminster a little too much frequently. It has now started to be picked up on by the staff, particularly the nurses who all recognise me and ask me how I am. Plus the doctors are now saying that they have had the chance to practice their suturing technique on me. The only saving grace is that they don’t know my name automatically at reception yet.
