In The Words Of Simon & Garfunkel: I Wish I Was Homeward Bound

After my not so little escapade last weekend I didn’t manage to get discharged on Tuesday, despite my pleadings and grovelling to Dr Mc. I was kept as an inpatient and had my CPA meeting on Wednesday. This was a, well, interesting affair.

Around the little table, in a room that I never even knew existed, was Dr Mc, G (the assistant psychologist who was covering for Jane who was off on annual leave), me, my Mum, K (my named nurse) and Allison. Dr Mc, K and Allison seemed mainly concerned with my lack of insight, risk taking behaviour, clear elevation in mood and compliance with medication. G wanted to know if I was stable enough to be engaging in therapies or if I should wait until the meds had worked into my system so that I was mentally stable and less likely to do something stupid following a particularly bad group/session. My Mum, having been somewhat kept out of the loop, wanted to know what the bloody hell was going on and I just wanted to know when I was going to be discharged.

Dr Mc suggested that the antidepressant be stopped immediately, that I was to be weaned off the lamotrigine and onto a higher, but more in the range of therapeutic, dose of valproate. K suggested that I would benefit from having more one-to-one time with a member of the nursing staff in order to prevent repeats of the weekends behaviour by engaging me in discussion about my mood and behaviour. Allison seemed to be in agreement with this but was also concerned as to what the input from the Priory would be upon my discharge as she said that she couldn’t shoulder all the responsibility of me in the community. G said that she would incorporate me into certain groups but not groups where my energy and somewhat tactless remarks would be unhelpful, and she would find me more active groups, such as art therapy, to help me channel my energies. My Mum sat there and said she couldn’t cope with me for much longer, she didn’t know how much longer they could keep funding me and kept saying it was all so unfair. And me? Well little me sat in the corner, fidgeting and every time I was asked a question suffixing it with ’so when will I be discharged?’.

I am still in the Priory. I am still manic and bordering on the completely insane. My Mum took me out for a coffee earlier this afternoon, only I wasn’t allowed a coffee, or a Coke, or anything sugary or caffeinated, so I had a fizzy water. All I can see ahead of me is a random section of time with me being in here, the funding clock ticking (as the NHS trust won’t fund the Priory, despite the fact they have had to admit that the care they offered me at the end of last year was ‘unacceptable’ and they have handled the situations leading to my admissions ‘to an unsatisfactory standard’) and Dr Mc trying different drugs out on me like a guinea pig until one sticks. Jane assured me that valproate doesn’t cause weight gain, as she has had patients treated with it in the past and they haven’t noticed any significant change. I think they are all saying this just to make me take the sodding tablets. It’s a ploy. Tell Ruth they won’t make her gain weight and she’ll take them. Well I’m not that flipping gullible, I mean there is a reason for the fact my mood hasn’t entirely calmed down yet, and it might have a large part to do with refusing to take olanzapine, risperidone or quetiapine as an anti-psychotic.

I’ve self-harmed again as well. This time, on Bank Holiday morning, the on call medical officer decided it was too severe for him to deal with so I ended up in the local A&E with a nurse from the Priory who didn’t take her namebadge off for the whole time. You can imagine that a lot of people were giving me strange looks. The triage nurse applied a wet dressing to both arms so this made the wounds look worse than they were because the blood seeped through and went all over them. Imagine slightly demented, lunatic, fidgeting, impatient patient with both arms in bandages with blood seeping through with Priory mental health nurse calmly sitting beside aforementioned lunatic trying to get her to sit down, quieten down and stop fidgeting. Get the picture? Well the other patients in A&E didn’t like it.

The SHO I saw dealt with the wounds and suggested I needed to see the crisis team. Bearing in mind that the Priory nurse wouldn’t leave me unattended at any point throughout my admission, she was there for triage, the suturing, mental state assessment by the SHO, I found this hilarious, and decided to laugh at the idea. The SHO was adamant that I needed to have a psychiatric evaluation, despite Priory nurse saying I was currently a Priory inpatient and that she was an RMN and that my psych was assessing me on the Tuesday morning. Baby SHO went off to speak to his consultant and returned, tail between legs, to say that this time he thought I could get away with being discharged without an assessment. I have to give Priory nurse some credit, she kept a straight face throughout and didn’t laugh until we were back into the car!

Since then I’ve attended some groups, walked round the grounds supervised, gone out with my Mum a couple of times, been isolated from the patient who got me involved in the alcohol scandal of Sunday (as of Wednesday he had disappeared and no one would say where to – I suspect the more acute, acute ward if you get my drift – they don’t like to call it an intensive care unit here) and been a complete nutcase. The patients who were in before, when I was last in, are back off leave, and the day patients are back; most of whom I know, fairly well and we are creating slight mayhem.

Together the lunatics will conquer the asylum!

Ruth

The Crazy Girl Is At It Again: Only This Time She Got Caught

I am in trouble with the nurse in charge, and I mean BIG trouble. As is another patient, although I do not accept all responsibility as it was not my idea, I just stupidly went along with it all.

I was having a weird day to start with. Early-ish this morning I wanted to go outside and walk around the grounds. The grounds here are beautiful and it’s been a glorious day, all sunny and everything. I knew a walk in the sunshine would do me good and burn off some excess energy. I asked one of the nurses if I could go for a walk and she said that she would love to let me go but I would have to be accompanied and unfortunately they were short staffed today as one of the nursing assistants was off ill. In essence I was told that I couldn’t go. That didn’t stop me though and about half an hour later I walked out of the front door.

The Priory has always amazed me in the fact that they always keep the front door open from 8am until 8pm. I can see the logic in this on weekdays as there is a receptionist present and it is the door in which day and outpatients use to arrive, but I never could understand the logic of it at weekends. If you want a cigarette after 8pm then you have to be let out of the door that leads up to the therapy department, which is coded, however, pre-8pm? Go ahead, walk out, no one at the weekend will see you go.

That was the philosophy I took and so I walked out figuring that as they were short staffed no one would really miss me. There have been 2 full-time RMNs, one agency RMN and 2 NAs on today. One patient has been on one-to-one obs so that means there has really only been 1 NA to complete the obs, the nurses never really do it, they tend to sit in the office and fill in paperwork or walk around every so often to ensure no one is kicking off or sit in the lounge and make it look as if they are working and being sociable whilst watching repeats of the Jeremy Kyle show on Freeview. I thought I could go out, have a brisk walk round and be back before anyone noticed, despite the fact I am on 15 minute obs.

So I open the front door, walk outside and smell the freedom of fresh air. I walk past the smoking hut and go onto the grass where the next thing I know is the male full-time RMN and the male agency RMN bundling on top of me and rugby tackling me to the ground. What do I do? Well, instead of being sensible and giving in whilst being frogmarched back to the ward I decide to fight back. It’s laughable, me at all of my 5′ 4″ trying to wrestle with two blokes restraining me! Anyway, they got me back to the ward where the nurse in charge gave me a bollocking as she had already told me I couldn’t go out and so I sat in my room, and in a very mature fashion, sulked.

A few hours, and a lot of sulking later, my head was spinning with thoughts, so much so that I couldn’t really focus on anything. I was hearing command hallucinations telling me that my head would straighten out if I cut myself. That if I self-harmed then I would slow down, be in control, my head would feel normal again and I wouldn’t be feeling so charged up. I cut myself with a razor blade I had hidden in the back of my phone, the same place in which I had smuggled the one I used earlier this year, and the same place they never checked when I was admitted. The nurse in charge came to talk to me about my skipping lunch and found me with what I thought to be quite superficial wounds all over my arms. She called the doctor and spoke with me about it until he arrived. I told her about my head spinning and the voices and how I felt so out of control and that I thought if I cut then I would be back in control. The doctor arrived and sutured a couple of the cuts and put dressings on the rest.

If that wasn’t enough, one of the other patients, invited me out for a cigarette (even though I don’t smoke anymore) and we cleared it with the nursing staff. He then procured a bottle of vodka out of a bush and we sat outside for about 2 and a half hours getting slowly drunk with the staff thinking we were drinking orange squash. When we both went inside we went straight to our rooms. I don’t know what he did, slept it off I suppose, but I ended up having a phone conversation with someone telling me I have no insight, was being selfish (as in only thinking about myself and having some of the best care in the country and just feeling pissed off about it) and was stupid for getting drunk on the meds I am on. I threw up whilst on the phone and threw up twice after we stopped talking. The NA realised I was vomiting and called the nurse in charge to come and assess me, she instantly realised I was drunk, breathalised me and gave me a complete and utter dressing down. She also called Dr Mc to inform him of my actions today, so any plan I had of being discharged on Tuesday I think I have just blown.

I now have to sit in the lounge all evening until the night staff come on duty at 7:30pm and then until they give me my meds at 10pm whereupon I will be observed until I have fallen asleep and then on strict 15 minute obs. The only saving grace is that they haven’t rung my parents about it. I guess I am beginning to accept I am manic, especially after talking with the nurse in charge about an hour and a half ago when I said I was just having fun and she told me I was being utterly irresponsible, lacking in insight, convinced I am invincible and nothing will happen to me and ‘as high as a kite’.

The strange thing is, I quite like being manic, even if I have been bollocked more times then I care to recall today.

Ruth

Going Crazy In The Nut House: Maybe I Shouldn’t Be In Here

We all know I am crazy and that crazy people end up in loony bins at some point or another.

We also know that a lack of insight or medication incompliance is a more than likely reason to land yourself in hospital.

I also know that I have both of the above and am manic (although that does show some insight, I just don’t have insight into how I am manic, I just know I am because I have been told it by so many people).

The thing is, I don’t think I should be in here. I am pissing the staff off by asking to go out for a walk, or to go to the art room to do something or by constantly tidying up and annoying other patients into doing things. I am also annoying the depressed patients, who quite frankly are just lolling around in front of the TV, and I can’t blame them because 6 or so months ago I was one of them, because I want them to do something, anything with me.

I took the first dose of Epilim (sodium valproate) last night. Apparently it is slightly chemically different from Depakote, which is what I thought it was at first. I also got given haliperidol at about 9pm to shut me up and to calm me down. K, my named nurse, was working today and we had a chat and a wander around the grounds and she was telling me how different I was now from New Year and how she would be nursing/looking after me in a different way. She tried to get me to see that I should be in hospital, but I’m still not agreeing with her.

We made a pact that I will stay over the Bank Holiday weekend, mainly because Dr Mc isn’t back at work ’till Tuesday and then review the situation. I have a CPA meeting on Wednesday with Dr Mc, K, Allison, G (the assistant psychologist) and my Mum, but I see no reason why this cannot be conducted as an outpatient. In short, come 9am Tuesday morning when Dr Mc arrives into work I will be trying to self-discharge.

This place is driving me crazier than I was at home, mainly because of the lack of stimuli and the fact that everyone is annoyed by my incessant energy and eagerness to do things. If I get too high, like last night then I am deemed in a mood that is a danger to myself and others so am sedated.

I debated running away but I guess the fall out isn’t worth it, and I promised K I would stay until Monday.

Ruth

Gazing Into A Crystal Ball: How People Can Read Me Like A Book

I saw Allison and Dr Mc today. Both concluded I am manic. Allison was worried about the events of the weekend and that I appeared to believe I am invincible and cannot concentrate on anything. Dr Mc was concerned that I’m not taking the valproate (for fear of weight gain) and that I will come to a point where my mood gets me into trouble.

I didn’t say much in my appointments. Well, I said a lot but it was all pretty incoherent and rather off topic. However, they both managed to ascertain my mood without me even saying anything. I’m obviously easy to read.

Dr Mc has admitted me, to ensure that I start taking the valproate and to try to get my mood stable. At present I should be discharged next Friday (I’m using my mobile to post this). I’m not happy about this, but it’s my own stupidity that has got me here.

Most of the people who were here when I was last in have gone, or are on Bank Holiday leave. I feel very isolated and bored. I keep trying to do things as I can’t sit still but all I get threatened with is being sedated unless I calm down. My named nurse is the same as last time, although she wasn’t on today but is here tomorrow.

All I seem to do is yo-yo in mood and in and out of hospital. I still haven’t got put on venlafaxine, in fact Dr Mc has reduced the dose of the reboxetine yet again, because of the mania. I want to lose weight. He didn’t seem to grasp that the reason I hadn’t taken the valproate was because of the weight gain. All I have heard since I arrived here is everyone telling me I look well. Well, no offence but if I look that well, why the fuck did people realise that I’m not well and put me in here.

A rather stroppy, beligerent and flying off the ceiling Ruth

I Am What I Am: Accepting My Diagnosis

I saw Dr Mc on Friday and he concluded that I was in a hypomanic state that he was concerned would escalate into pure, unadulterated mania. I told him I was just happy for once and cheerful. He told me that happy people don’t sit for half an hour constantly moving around, fiddling with their rings/bracelet, staring out of the window and saying “oh look a plane” and talking so much that he couldn’t get a word in edgeways. He has decided to cut the dose of the reboxetine in half as he thinks the increased dose caused the mood swing and has added sodium valproate into the cocktail.

I didn’t start taking the valproate until last night. Mainly because all the research I could find on it told me it would cause an increased appetite and weight gain, something which regular readers will know I am battling with already. However, I spoke with a good friend online yesterday and told him that I had been prescribed it and what could he tell me about it (this friend knows about these sorts of things). He told me this (and I quote as I can remember not as a paraphrase) “it is the second in line mood stabiliser used for bipolar” after questioning he concluded that lithium was the first line drug used.

This made me realise that I am actually bipolar. Before I just thought people were saying it as they knew how I’d react if they told me I was borderline. In fact, saying that, I probably would react in a borderline way if they told me I had BPD, but then I still do have borderline traits. I have for so long, since I was officially diagnosed in the Priory at Christmas, fought against the diagnosis. I have claimed it to be wrong, that there is nothing wrong with me, that I may be on the bipolar spectrum but don’t fit the criteria for full blown Bipolar 1, in short I have used many, many excuses to try and escape the reality of the truth.

I don’t know why I was trying to escape the truth. After all, I’d rather have an accurate diagnosis than some wishy-washy guesses of what might, or might not, be wrong with me. I jsut never thought I had a ‘proper’ mental illness. Not one that you can put under the ’severe’ category when the professionals categorise them. I always just thought I was a bit crazy, lost touch with reality a few times, self-harmed, had issues with eating and was terminally depressed. My Mum however, as soon as she read the criteria for bipolar told me that was my diagnosis, and this was before I was admitted.

I saw Jane today and told her about my horrendous spending over the past 10 days or so. I recently opened a new bank account, which is the main one I am now using, forgetting that my old current account was in the red, to the tune of £500. Now I know I should have paid this off before Christmas, when I had money and decided not to be using that account anymore, but me being me I didn’t. Anyway, last night I got a phonecall from said bank requesting I repaid the overdraft back, in full. They gave me two options; pay by monthly installments (with an interest rate) or pay the amount in full. I opted to pay the amont in full. Very sensible you might all think, and I put it on my debit card, where I thought there was £500 or so pounds. It would take me to the wire, but I thought I’d still be in the black. Of course, my life being my life, paying off one overdraft has taken me into the overdraft of my current account, so I am officially penniless. This didn’t stop me spending money like nothing on Earth today though, I just used my credit card instead. One of these days I’ll learn, or hopefully the mood stabilisers will kick in before my credit rating falls through the floor.

We also spoke about my eating and drinking. I got totally and utterly trashed over the weekend with a couple of friends. I went out late on Friday night and was at least 30 sheets to the wind when I crashed out on my friend’s floor having rung the parents at some ungodly hour to assure them that I was still alive and not in the morgue. I then sheepishly went home on Saturday to be invited out again Saturday night, whereupon I got very drunk again, and did some very silly things, which I am not proud of and at the moments am not sure I wish to divulge into (mainly because I don’t want to accept they happened).

My drinking of other fluids is atrocious though and she is concerned that I am neglecting myself by not eating (this is a conscious effort to lose the blubber I have acquired) and not drinking enough fluids. I’m not deliberately becoming dehydrated, it’s just I am so busy with other things and busy with being busy that I forget to drink. I’m constantly on the go at the moment and remembering to have a glass of water is not a top priority.

She is going to contact my GP and Allison about the ’self-neglect’ which I am disputing is self-neglect at all. I see Allison on Friday and I doubt she is going to be overly joyed at Jane’s news, but then she doesn’t seem overly joyed with anything I do at present. I see Dr Mc again on Friday as well, hopefully I can try and keep a lid on things this time and be a little less bouncy so he doesn’t think I’m hypomanic/manic. I am still trying to get put back on venlafaxine, but it’s not having much effect. I think maybe I’ll try appealing to his better nature this time (if he has one) rather than being ‘lippy’ (his words about how I was in the appointment) like I was last time.

Ruth

Round In Circles: I Can’t Get A Straight Answer

I saw Allison yesterday and I was in a very irritable yet agitated mood. It was lucky that we sat in the interview room as it has no windows I could stare out of, unlike when I saw my therapist and I was like “oh look, a plane” about every 5 minutes. Instead I just sat fiddling with my rings and twisting my foot round and round. She gave me a pen to fill in some stuff and a couldn’t stop clicking it. I’m wondering if I am on the way up, after all it is a week since I started taking the anti-depressants again (at the recommended higher dose) and the only anti-depressant that doesn’t send me sky-high when the dose is increased is venlafaxine. Unfortunately, despite the claim of weight loss as a side effect of reboxetine, I am not one of the ‘common people’ it affects. God damn it.

Allison and I talked about the case review at the GP’s surgery and how she became involved. She apparently is still worried about me as I still pose a high suicide risk. In fact, that reminds me that she still hasn’t given me my dressing gown cord back when she said she would in the following appointment from when she took it off me, and it must be over a month that she’s had it now. We spoke about the cancer and how I realise that I have no effect on the course it will take. I pointed out to her that although I haven’t been compliant with my mental health treatment I have been consistently compliant with the cancer treatment; going for chemo, radiotherapy, attending appointments etc. I am doing as much as I can to recover and to get into remission but unfortuantely it is an illness that will take it’s own course and no one can prevent it from doing what it feels like. It is curable and they can try and halt the spread, but ultimately it has the upper hand.

When I said this to her she looked shocked and asked if I had realised that it could kill me, and what my thoughts on that were. I explained the above to her and said it was miles apart from mental health where you can take some responsibility for your recovery in engaging with talking therapies and exercising etc. She said that I was taking an ostrich approach to it (i.e. sticking my head in the sand) and this is why there was a case review about me. Apparently I am a suicide/self-harm risk (which I proved by ending up in A&E just the other day), I am not necessarily entirely stable in my moods yet (could be because I have only just re-started taking the tablets – a fact she is aware of) and I am being flippant when it comes to serious matters.

I told her, in no uncertain terms, that they didn’t seem reasonable enough excuses to hold a meeting behind my back which I only found out about with a call from the crisis team (and every person in that room at that time knew my view on involving the crisis team in my life) and not being able to pick up a repeat prescription, whereupon I couldn’t get an answer out of my GP.

I also asked why the idea of consulting Dr Mc before my appointment was not mentioned to me earlier as I had a right to put my case forward before I have to see him in person (this afternoon). Yet again, she couldn’t think of a reasonable answer. I felt like I was going round in circles, trying to get a straight answer and being fobbed off with the same crap that everyone has been mentioning in a risk assessment since I was discharged in February.

I am still quite angry, yet can sort of see their viewpoint of me being a danger to myself and because I span the NHS and the private sector it is often difficult for the two to communicate (despite the advent of emails and fax machines they still are in their 2 little boxes and inevitably I act as the go-between telling my GP and Allison what Jane and Dr Mc have been suggesting/doing and vice versa).

I have to see Dr Mc this afternoon and I can feel myself going quite high. The hallucinations are back despite being on an anti-psychotic and I know he will suggest a different mood stabiliser. I am quite happy with the lamotrigine, the medication I want changing desperately in the reboxetine in favour of venlafaxine. Not because it is a better anti-depressant, although in some ways it is as it stopped the complete mood swings (it just left me in a complete depressed state, although I hasten to add that the suicide attempts took place whilst I was on duloxetine), but because when I was on it I weighed at least 2 stone less.

No matter what I try, staving myself, eating healthily, purging food after I have eaten it, taking as much exercise as I can (difficult with a leg that is just out of plaster and lungs that mean I get breathless easily) I cannot shift this weight. I cannot buy the OTC drug Alli (orlistat) because I have lost a little weight and my BMI isn’t 28 or above. I have toyed with the idea of amphetamine based diet pills, or ones that contain caffeine/guarana but then last time I ingested a lot of caffeine I went totally manic.I want venlafaxine and I want it now. I found an old prescription for it in my drawer but unfortunately it is nearly a year old so they won’t dispense anything from it now. I know it sounds like I am being petty but my weight means a lot to me and at the moment it is constantly praying on my mind, every second or every day.

I guess I just have to wait and see what Dr Mc says this afternoon. I bet he says that he wants to give the reboxetine a bit more of a chance to kick in and that the mood stabiliser needs reviewing. In fact if I was a monetary gambling girl then I would put money on it.

Ruth

Resigned To The Inevitable: How I Should Be A Hysterical Banshee

I am still angry at certain people for making decisions behind my back, over my head, whichever way you want to put it. In short without talking with me.

My oncology consultant contacted my GP informing her that he thought I was reacting badly to the treatment and that my mental state was clearly unstable. My GP then held a review meeting with Allison and another GP in the practice who I used to see (who is a partner in the practice). The minutes from this meeting were sent to Dr Mc and the crisis team. The crisis team then rang me requesting an appointment to assess me. I told them I didn’t need to see them.

I went to pick up my prescription yesterday to be told that a repeat hadn’t been issued as I needed to talk with my GP. I couldn’t get an appointment until today, meaning I had no tablets this morning. I asked my GP what had happened and she told me that the oncology consultant was worried I was obsessing with death and dying as from the conversations he has had with me I haven’t seemed that bothered about the ultimate consequence of the cancer.

This then sparked a case review at the surgery, in which the other GP was involved in as my GP isn’t a partner, whereupon they decided to drag Allison into it and ring Jane who suggested sending the minutes to Dr Mc as a matter of urgency as I see him on Friday.

Yes, the idea of dying from cancer doesn’t bother me. A year ago it did, but that was just when it was a tumour in my leg that they were going to treat with chemo and then operate on. Since then it spread to one lung and is now in both lungs, although it is very mild in one lung. I am now possibly facing the fact that I have terminal cancer as lung cancer is notoriously difficult to treat. I get the impression though that if I was breaking down hysterically then the oncology consultant would have still contacted my GP. Or maybe I should be acting like some hysterical banshee, screaming and shouting and crying all over the place. Trouble is, that isn’t going to cure the cancer and for once I am taking a pragmatic approach to it all.

I don’t know what Allison will say tomorrow when I see her, or Dr Mc when I see him on Friday. I do know however, that I will be consulting Allison as to why I wasn’t involved in any of this and the first thing I knew about it was the crisis team ringing me and my prescription not being dispensed. I’m sure that as a mental patient I’m not meant to question things or doubt professionals but this issue has annoyed me so much. In fact it has annoyed me more than some stupid overly stressed A&E registrar saying he’ll refuse to treat me again.

I did self-harm today and I ended up in A&E whereupon they did treat me. I got a lovely SHO who had only just rotated into A&E at the beginning of the month and she chatted to me whilst she spent ages carefully suturing me back together. Turns out she has already completed rotations this year in elderly medicine and plastic surgery so her sewing skills are amazing. She accepted I didn’t need to see the self-harm or crisis team, and I explained to her, in brief what had happened and why I definitely didn’t need to involve the crisis team. She told me that she had a friend at medical school who self-harmed but is now perfectly happy in her job and has stopped. She said she wished that one day I could stop and look back on the times as a learning curve. I ended up crying whilst talking to her and she didn’t patronise me or tell me that I was unstable or force me into a psych assessment, she just sat for an extra 15 minutes after she had finished suturing to make sure I was OK enough to leave the department and wasn’t going to go home and do it again.

It’s professionals like that who restore my faith in the medical profession when all the others at the moment have left me out of discussions about my care, one girl not much older than me involved me in decisions about treatment and took time to care.

Ruth

Angry At Life: How People Screw You Over

I am angry.

Actually that is an understatement.

I am fucking furious.

People who hold positions of responsibility and seniority have decided to make decisions about me without consulting me first.

They have gone right over the top of my head to discuss me with other people and the first I know of it is the other person happening to mention it in passing.

I can’t be arsed to go into details, and no one is probably interested, but it has seriously pissed me off.

I want to hit self-destruct and hit the button so hard that it explodes. Maybe I want to self-implode. I know I have just taken it all out on my Mum who commented that “if you’ve had the attitude you’ve had at home over the past few weeks I can completely understand why you’ve been kept out of any consultations”. I needed support and sympathy from her. A helping hand, not someone else to stab me in the back. I know my Dad will be equally, if not more, unsupportive when my Mum tells him.

I feel like no one in the world wants to actually help and support me anymore. They all just make executive decisions about me as if I was a pawn ina game of chess.

It’s at times like these I wish the serious suicide attempts of late last year had worked. I really wish I could go back 6 months and do it all again, but properly this time.

Ruth

Curtain Twitchers: The Disturbances in SW7 Strike Again

I am still alive.

I did think as I went to bed last night that the pile of tablets I own and the plastic bag looked very tempting but my Mum realised something was up and made me promise not to “do anything stupid” as she couldn’t cope, particularly at the moment.

She is suffering from really bad venlafaxine withdrawal as she changes over to sertraline and I can sympathise. Her GP is being good and weaning her off them slowly. I can remember in my first year of uni when my psych took me off them after a particularly bad overdose (I was in hospital for 10 days and facing renal failure) she just stopped them, there and then. One day I was on 300mg/day the next nothing. She figured I had put enough in my system to last me a lifetime.

My father is being a bastard as usual. The neighbours called the police last night because of the shouting between my parents. I hid upstairs in my bedroom with my iPod turned up to maximum. I wanted to get involved, to make sure my Mum was safe and to ensure that nothing bad was happening but I wasn’t in a good state of mind. In fact I was so irritable yesterday I would have probably ended up thumping my father one, and we all know that he would have just retaliated. Anyway, 3 police officers turned up on our doorstep and the curtains twitched, as per usual. Honestly, I would have thought the neighbours would be used to the police turning up so often at our house by now.

The two blokes went off to speak with my Dad and the female officer spoke with my Mum and then eventually with me. I told her that I couldn’t say much as I was upstairs avoiding being dragged into the mess and was listening to music loudly. She gave me a totally sympathetic look and told me that it must be hard. At this point I burst into tears. It’s always the case that when someone is nice to you that you break down, isn’t it? She was totally professional and told me of organisations that could help me. I told her that I was receiving support etc. and she went back to speak with my Mum. As no crime had been committed they left, after all they couldn’t arrest my Dad for drinking too much, being a complete tosser and shouting the odds; even if they could my Mum would deny everything.

Today is marginally better. I am finding things to do that are keeping me occupied and busy. So far I have washed my car, by hand rather than taking it to the car wash, as Allison said in our last session that using gross motor movements i.e. walking, gardening etc. would make some difference on the serotonin levels. I’m not sure I feel any better but it has left me with an hour and a quarter less of the day to face and a clean car. I still can’t face going for a walk as the feeling to run is too great. I don’t know where I’d run too. The obvious place is Newcastle as I have friends up there who would let me stay a while, but then it is so obvious that it is the first place my parents would look.

I know I am being stupid with the whole ideation of running away. I tried it 10 years ago and got picked up by the Met Police, held in the station for a while (in an interview room not a cell) until my Mum picked me up and gave me a bollocking. The fall out of the consequences is too great. It’s the same thing that is preventing me from not killing myself. If I failed, and given my track record I invariably would, then the consequences would be too great.

I see my therapist on Tuesday where I will talk through the manic phase I have been in, even if it has been provoked by a lack of medication, and the current depressed state. I see Allison on Thursday who will state that I need to use the crisis team more as support out of hours. I tried ringing them last night but I didn’t have the courage or energy to talk things through so I hung up as soon as the guy answered. I can’t get through to her that I don’t find the crisis team particularly helpful. I find them judgmental, patronising and of little use. They suggest the most obvious things when I need help and support and when I ring them because I need to talk with someone through things they ignore my request that I don’t need to be assessed by anyone and turn up at home.

On Friday I see Dr Mc for the first time since recommencing my meds. I will have to be honest with him about not taking them for a while and I know he is going to be angry. Last time he suggested starting a different mood stabiliser as the lamotrigine is clearly not working. I am dreading that he will suggest lithium. I don’t know why I am scared of it so much, maybe the long list of side effects or maybe because it is the drug that proves you have ‘gold standard bipolar’ and I am still trying to convince myself I am not bipolar.

I don’t know why I am trying to ditch the bipolar diagnosis when it is so clearly true. If I was successful then I would be left with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorder NOS and borderline traits. I can guarantee the borderline traits would be re-escalated to full blown BPD and I don’t particularly want that.I want him to take me off the reboxetine and put me back onto venlafaxine. This is for two reasons, a) because venlafaxine is the only anti-depressant that hasn’t sent me sky-high every time the dose is increased and b) because one of the major side effects I suffer from with venlafaxine is loss of appetite and weight loss. When I restarted it last time I lost a stone and a half. I can’t tell Dr Mc the second reason though and he seems convinced that reboxetine is the way forwards.

Ruth

All By Myself: Coping Alone Is Tough

I feel atrocious.
Like I have been on a rollercoaster and plummeted down a huge ravine. I don’t like taking the tablets. Off them life was fun, now life is a drag.
I thought of suicide last night. Thought of it properly. Even sat with my chosen method. But I didn’t do it.
I am too fucking afraid of fucking up again that I can’t even kill myself.
I could have rung the crisis team, but what the fuck would they have suggested? Go for a walk? Have a bath? A walk last night would have meant me running away. A bath would have brought thoughts of drowning myself.
Everything I see relates to death. Everything I touch I look at as a suicide method. I daren’t drive; I don’t know what damage I’d do.
I’m scared if I do it I’ll fail and then I’ll just be an even bigger burden to my parents. I can’t break down or flip out like I want to because they don’t have the money or time to sort it anymore. They are fed up, everyone is fed up.
I’m angry and I keep taking it out on myself. Cutting myself open. Eating and throwing up until it hurts. Everything is irritating and irritating deserves punishment.
I’m on my own this time.
Ruth