No Room At The Inn: How The Psych Bed Crisis Is Ironic At This Time Of Year

I saw Allison on Tuesday and told her how I had spent all of Saturday  in bed practising tying knots to hang myself with. On Sunday I tried to hang myself but a combination of my hideous attempt at knot tying, the fact that I only had partial suspension and that meant the drop/weight wasn’t enough meant that I just ended up with a killer headache and tinnitis. She seemed genuinely concerned. She seemed even more concerned when I broke down into tears and stated that I just couldn’t cope anymore. However, despite her ringing the bed manager at the mental health unit and pleading for a bed, even for a few days respite, there are no beds.

I went home and continued in the way I have been living recently. Get up, get dressed, forget to brush teeth, don’t do much, lie in bed, go out of house, get panicky, come back, take diazepam, feel chilled out, go to bed, spend entire night awake.

Yesterday I saw my GP about the pain/tingling/numbness in my hand. I have definite neuropathy of the ulnar nerve and some motor dysfunction in my little finger, meaning it is weaker than the rest and I cannot bend it properly. I have been referred baclk to the orthopaedic consultant who did the operation as an urgent referral so he can assess what is going on with it and whether it will heal fully or need more intervention.

I saw Allison again this morning who seemed worried about my state of mind and the fact I am severely sleep deprived. She spoke with my Mum, who drove me to the appointment and explained that ever since the end of November when I first tried to kill myself she has wanted me admitting but the NHS doesn’t have the resources and beds at present. My Mum rang my Dad and my Dad took the view that he always takes which is “we’ll pay for it”. So I am now sitting in a private psych unit which is very lovely with a planned admission until Wednesday with the promise that I will not lose my NHS support (i.e. the psychiatrist and Allison) just by having a private admission. In fact Allison admitted that given the current bed crisis, it was probably the only way forwards.

I get some zopiclone tonight so hopefully the sleep deprivation will be resolved. At present I am calming down from all the admission stuff; masses of paperwork to sign, assessment by the psychiatrist, medical assessment by the resident medical officer, meeting my named nurse and the other patients etc etc etc.

I think I may go and ask for the zopiclone now and have an early night. It feels like it has been an exceptionally long day.

Ruth

Biting The Bullet: I Rang The Crisis Team & They Helped

At about 7pm last night I went out for a walk. It was hard for me to only take my phone and keys and to leave my purse and oyster card behind so I had no feasible way of running away. As soon as I walked out of the house I burst into tears and decided that I needed to talk to the crisis team after all.

It took me a good 5 minutes of staring at my phone with the number displayed to actually hit the call button, and the first time the woman answered I hung up. Being stubborn though, and it an absolute state in the pouring rain, I tried again. I spoke with the CPN there for about 20 minutes (which if anyone who has ever rung a crisis team will know this is about twice the time they usually spend on you). The CPN said she was worried about me being out, and the thoughts I was having and that I needed to get back in the warm and dry and write things down to show Allison on Tuesday. We spoke about the nightmares and the fact that I spent a grand total of 2 hours out of bed yesterday and most of the hours I was in bed was spent staring at the wall and crying. I told her how I had found the diazepam and just wanted to take them all with a large bottle of vodka and sleep, and go into respiratory depression and stop living. I told her how all my thoughts yesterday were preoccupied with suicide and I had spent a good hour and a half practising how to tie a hangman’s knot.

I could hear her typing all of this down as I was talking to her, which is a relief as Allison will read the notes from the system prior to our appointment and I won’t have to drag it all up again. The CPN I spoke with didn’t patronise me, or tell me to pull myself together and find something constructive to do, or that I was just having a bad day and would be in a better mood today. She asked what has helped in the past, to which I replied I couldn’t remember, which is true. I’m having an issue with remembering things, I couldn’t remember how to spell my surname on Friday, I forgot to brush my teeth on Thursday and yesterday I went out for a walk with no shoes on until I stepped outside and realised the pavement was wet.

Today I feel a bit brighter. Not better but with a little more energy. My arm is hurting where they operated. I can feel the nerve and tendon healing in the sense that I have a tingling sensation and prickling all the way down my arm and through to my little finger. I need to make a GP appointment on Tuesday anyway as I only have enough duloxetine to last ’till then so I may mention it. Trouble is I don’t want to create a fuss about it. It was an injury I caused that was treated, I then interfered with it and wasted more time and effort having to have it operated on so I should just deal with the consequences.

Ruth

Just Can’t Be Bothered

After seeing Allison yesterday and not being in a particularly good or safe mood we agreed that I would ring the crisis team daily over the weekend (including last night), ring Allison again on Monday and go ahead with our appointment as planned on Tuesday lunchtime.

The crisis team were informed that I had to ring them at least once a day and if I didn’t make contact with them then they were to make contact with me. I didn’t ring them last night and I haven’t rung them so far today. They haven’t rung me either. I’m quite glad, I can do without being patronised, or told to have a milky drink, or a hot bath, or to write things down. I know the crisis team probably serve a purpose to some people, but I haven’t found that person yet!

Fighting an uncontrollable feeling to just walk out of the house. I don’t know where I’d go and I don’t really care. My sister once said that London is a great place to be if you just want to disappear and be lost. I know what she means. I have my coat upstairs so I can walk out without suspicion. I have also found where my Mum has been hiding the stock of diazepam (it wasn’t intentional, I did just stumble upon them).

The two coincidences together are far too tempting at present.

Ruth

Selfish Spoilt Child: How I Want Everything I Cannot Have

I want to eat because I’m bored and depressed but then I’m terrified of gaining weight.

I want to sleep to escape how I’m feeling but then I’m having nightmares that make me wake up bolt upright in bed.

I want to self-harm but now my Mum is more aware of the situation I don’t want her knowing I’ve been in A&E or self-harming that badly.

I want to die but then I’m scared of not being able to even do that properly.

I want to stop taking all the meds but then I’m scared that if I feel this bad on them, how will I feel off them?

I want all of this crap to end. I tried ringing Allison today just for a bit of moral support to tell me I can get through this but she was out. Instead I got the duty CPN with a computer system that was down so he didn’t know anything about me. I know I see her on Friday and I only have to get through tonight and then tomorrow.

I guess I want doesn’t get though.

I just want an assurance that this will end.

Ruth

CDMT: The Therapy Of Cadburys’ Dairy Milk, Not Cognitive Behavioural Techniques

I have rediscovered Cadburys’ Whole Nut and it appears, along with 5mg tablets of diazepam to ease some of the stress I feel at the moment. I feel so restless inside, so much so that I can’t sit still for more than about 20 seconds and my Mum claims that me wandering aimlessly around is making her dizzy and given her a headache.

She dragged me out to the new Westfield shopping centre at Shepherd’s Bush earlier today. Usually I would jump at the chance of shopping, but I really couldn’t be bothered today. She got a nice shiny new red iPod Nano, of which I am sincerely jealous and I walked around slightly dosed up on co-codamol thanks to the pain in my arm not really looking at anything in particular, until I saw a pair of shoes which I happened to mention that I quite liked and the next thing I knew my Mum had bought them telling me the father could pay for them later.

I still feel suicidal. I rang the crisis team last night who suggested that I should clean the bathroom (with a right arm which I can barely lift anything with) to relieve some of the excess energy I have. I told them that I still have suicidal thoughts, feelings and plans in my head but I am scared. They asked if I was scared of dying, and I had to admit that it isn’t death that scares me, it’s the fact that if I try again and I fail then I will have failed spectacularly. I would have tried to kill myself 3 times in a fortnight and failed everytime. It would be fucking up on a magnificant scale, and I couldn’t cope with that sort of failure.

I feel enough like a failure in this world at the moment. I got good news yesterday in that the canacer hasn’t spread at all. Te tumour has actually shrunk slightly, not as much as they would have wanted it to but they think they can operate in the new year. It will be risky but they’re prepared to try it. Trouble is, I’m not sure if I’m prepared to struggle on with all the shit in my head for that long. My brain feels so messed up that it is almost like someone has attacked it with a food processor. I see Allison again on Friday and I am scared about her finding out about my revelations to the crisis team as I was trying to portray more of a ‘together’ picture on Monday.

Someone commented on my last post about the amount of help and services I have access to. The self-harm team is based at St. Mary’s in Paddington which although run by the same mental health trust and does assess people in the Chelsea & Westminster is mainly based in the Bayswater/Paddington area of the trust ad therefore I can’t be referred on a long time basis. The mental health nurse I saw in hospital after the second suicide attempt was in the Conquest Hospital in Hastings and was standard procedure for a discharge after a self-harm/parasuicide. Allison is my CPN and I have a psychiatrist whome I have seen twice since moving back to London and on the whole he is approachable and helpful. The crisis team are there as a phone number for out of hours support as I am on the Enhanced Care Plan Approach (CPA) and therefore have to have a box filled in on crisis services and out of hours provision on my CPA.

There are a lot of services and I know I am luckier than most. I hae a star of a CPN and the self-harm team when they come over to the C&W are fantastic and I hate the fact I live outside of the referral area for them as I think they could be of some use. Just I feel at the moment I have dug myself in too deeper hole to be rescued by any number of mental health professionals. Just keep clinging on though, eh? Like I always do.

Ruth

Absenteeism: There Isn’t A Good Enough Excuse Unfortunately

It seems an eternity since I last posted here, that’s probably because it is.

A lot has happened in the fortnight or so since I was waiting for Allison to arrive. I had been taking an overdose all day and she commented I didn’t look very well but I lied and claimed it was because I didn’t have any make up on. When she left I continued to take tablets and a very good friend or mine rang. I ignored her first call but answered her second. She realised something was up and called an ambulance. I spent the night in A&E and the next 4 days in hospital on various drips and having my arms sutured back together. I was discharged on the Friday as there were no beds in the mental health unit, which is where Allison, the self-harm team and crisis team wanted to discharge me to.

I returned to hospital on the Saturday as a patient on the day surgery unit as one of the wounds on my arm needed debriding and resuturing after I pulled the stitches out in the early hours of the Friday morning. The operation never happened as I got pushed down the trauma list for various emergencies and an RTA. I self-discharged at 4:30pm as I knew that after 6:00pm they only conduct life or limb threatening surgery, and I didn’t qualify for either.

I got home and had an argument with my parents, who knew nothing of the week I had spent in hospital as both of them had been away during that week. On the Sunday morning I decided I needed some space and went to drive my car and go and find some time to myself. My Mum realised something was wrong and that I wasn’t fit to drive so she drove my car away so I didn’t have access to it. Instead I just got on the Tube and got the train to Eastbourne. I ended up at Beachy Head having taken yet more tablets and being rescued from the edge by the Beachy Head Chaplain Team. I was taken to hospital in Hastings having been detained by the police under a Section 136 holding power.

I eventually told my Mum what had been happening and she came down to Hastings to visit me. I spent 3 days in the Conquest Hospital until my blood results had returned to normal and I had been assessed by the mental health nurse who was prepared to discharge me back to the CMHT. I saw Allison and the crisis team on the Wednesday who wanted to admit me again to the mental health unit, but still there were no beds.

I have been in constant contact with Allison and the psychiatrist since I got home. The duloxetine has been restarted, as I wasn’t given any whilst I was in hospital, as has the lamotrigine. My Mum is in control of my tablets, which has been my choice as I don’t trust myself and the psychiatrist has given me some more diazepam for when I feel very restless.

I finally got the operation done on my arm on Saturday and reacted badly to the general anaesthetic. I had pseudoseizures when I came round and eventually they knocked me out with haloperidol, a drug I hadn’t had the chance to experience before. All I can say is that it knocked me out, totally. I came home Saturday night after being treated as a day patient and just slept all of Sunday.

Today I saw Allison again and we managed to talk a bit more about my mood and the diagnosis. Both Allison and the psychiatrist are not entirely convinced that I fit all the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder, but Allison isn’t sure what diagnostic criteria I fit. I am to see Allison again on Friday and then again next week. After that of course it is the week of Christmas, how it seems to have crept up on me this year!

I promise that updates will be more frequent from now on and I’m sorry if I scared or unnerved people.

Ruth