End Of An Era: Moving Into A New Part Of My Life

I am formally changing my address on Monday. As of Monday I will no longer reside in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I will no longer live in the house that was my childhood home. Live in the bedroom that still freaks me out because of events that have happened there. Not have to look at my carpet and try and remember where each stain came from. The stain that was from me throwing up on cheap schnapps at a friend’s 16th. The stains from cutting my arms/legs/any other part of my body a bit too deeply. The stain outside my door from where my Dad assaulted my Mum. Be able to look out of the window at the view that I have escaped into for many years. Apart from 5 years at uni I have lived in this house all my life. Apart from 4 and a half years in Newcastle and 6 months in Bloomsbury I have always lived in this part of London. I have always been a South Kensington girl, but only for one last weekend.

On Monday I move into my boyfriend’s flat in Battersea, in the rather less posh sounding (but very up and coming) Borough of Wandsworth. I am scared of moving in with someone. I am notoriously bad to live with and I know that although he is accepting of my faults and weird habits, living with someone day-in, day-out may prove to be a step too far. I already have a back up plan in the form of my friend who has offered her spare room out if it gets too much, but that is negativity. It will work. Why should it not work? I will be living in a lovely flat near Battersea Park where I can go for long walks and enjoy my surroundings. I am living with someone who cares about me and wants to protect me from all the evils that have been thrown at me at home. I am taking my lovely, lovely cat with me. I am worried about leaving my Mum to survive but I am 24, I have to move out of home and stop being responsible for her.

I had my last appointment with Allison today. From Monday my care will be transferred to South West London and St Georges’ Mental Health Trust. Allison has been sending the referral faxes off for the last week or so and has asked the Crisis Team to ring me on Monday when all my address changes have gone through, if only to make contact and to try and update me on a timescale for an appointment.I already have pre-registered with a GP practice so that is one hassle out of the way.

I will sort of miss Allison. I have been seeing her for a year and a lot of things have changed in that 12 months. When she first met me I had been an inpatient, firstly in Newcastle and then transferred to South Ken & Chelsea. I had been shifted onto her caseload from the Assertive Outreach Team who thought I was too nice and compliant to be involved with them. The first time I met her she frogmarched me to Minor Injuries to get some cuts looked at and explained it all to the woman on reception as I was incapable of talking, she even rang me later that day to check I was OK. She saw me in an emergency after I ended up in A&E near my brother’s, she saw me after 2 suicide attempts and even admitted she thought she’d lost me after she got news of the first one, she came and visited me in the Priory after the 3rd attempt in 4 weeks and brought me trashy magazines that she had finished reading. She has supported me through operations due to my self-harm, operations due to the cancer, chemotherapy, the start of radiotherapy, she has talked with me when I have been up most of the night supporting my Mum. She has seen me start a job in recent weeks back at my old school and hopefully find my feet in a world where I am certain (as it is my old stamping ground) but probably too eager to please (as members of staff are still there).

This has probably been one of the most turbulent years I have had and she has been my constant through it. I’m not going to go all borderline and say that I feel abandoned and rejected because I don’t. She has been brilliant in transferring my care over to SW London; I just hope they are as brilliant at picking up new referrals. Sure, there have been times where I have hated her and her actions. Where I have wished that she would give a little more support or take me a little more seriously, but I wasn’t really angry with her, I was angry with the system, with the NHS as a whole, with the lack of money and resources mental health gets within the NHS.

She wished me an easy Yom Kippur and we parted. Hopefully to never see each other again she said. I told her I had no plans to move back home in a hurry. She wished me good luck for the future and happiness with my new start. I got in my car and cried.

This is the start of a new chapter in my life.

Ruth

5 Ws And An H: Questioning My Existence

For anyone who is interested the 5 Ws and an H are as follows:

Who, what, where, when, why and how.

They seem to be all the prefixes to my questions now. Questions I have about my life, myself but most of all whether I deserve to be taking up a place on this Earth.

My life meanders on slowly, albeit with fits and starts. I have been in a job since the start of the academic term as a part-time lab technician back at my old school. I have finally started to move out of home and into the flat of my boyfriend (I’ve been with him a while – just haven’t mentioned him before). I’m also pressing assault charges against my Dad after I got caught in the crossfire and ended up in hospital overnight with quite bad injuries which are slowly healing.

As a result of this move in address, which will become formal at the end of the month I will have to move CMHTs and acquire a new CPN. Whilst this is not a huge issue in the fact that I will still see Dr Mc and Jane at the Priory, I would like to stop being supported by my Dad and break off all financial support from him. However, I realise that I will need to be referred to the NHS and receiving support from them before I can break off my relationship with the Priory. Also I am currently attending a bipolar group at the Priory which aims to focus on self-awareness of mood swings and triggers and combat relapses using a theory of medication compliance and CBT. It’s a bit wishy-washy at times but I think it is doing some good.

I witnessed a really bad road accident this afternoon. I was driving back from my brother’s house in Sussex and saw one car (silver) plunge into another car (red) at about 50mph. It was totally the red car driver’s fault, he tried to pull out across the incoming traffic when the silver car was approaching and misjudged the speed and distance but the fallout was massive. Red car completely crumpled and leaking diesel badly and silver car a write-off. Airbags in both cars had been deployed to the extent that the silver car’s windscreen was smashed with the impact of the airbag going off. The silver car’s driver had a badly broken knee from hitting the dashboard and bad contusions/lacerations to their head and the red car driver was unconscious at the scene with multiple injuries. The car behind me called the ambulance and as I was the only other person on scene at the time I put my, somewhat rusty, first aid skills into practice. Eventually the ambulances arrived, by this time red car’s driver had regained consciousness but was obviously seriously injured. The firecrews cut the red car driver out of the wreckage and he was blued into hospital whilst the rapid response paramedic dealt with the silver car’s driver. I gave a statement to the police and drove home.

I feel really bad about this but all the way home I kept wishing that I had been the driver of the red car. I don’t know how they are or what the lasting impact will be for them but I was jealous of them. Jealous for them being in a serious RTA which could have killed either of the people involved. Jealous for writing off their car.

I know I’m crazy, I have treatment for that – but how sick and twisted does that sound?

Ruth