Snow Chaos: How The Smallest Flake Creates A Standstill In London

Unless you’re on another planet then you will have realised that it is snowing all across the UK. Some places are cut off, some have inches of snow and others, like London, cannot cope with about an inch of the white stuff.

I was meant to meet my new CPN yesterday but she couldn’t make it in so we rearranged for tomorrow but I got a phone call about an hour ago to say she still wouldn’t be able to make it in. I don’t know where she is coming from, Outer Mongolia from the fuss she is making, but the buses are still running, the Tube is still running. It is only a small amount of snow.

The snow is annoying me because it is cooping me up inside as I’m not meant to go out in the cold air as it exacerbates my cough and threatens my increasingly knackered immune system. I have been stuck in now since Tuesday really. I saw my GP on Tuesday morning where she increased me back up to fortnightly prescriptions and we had a bit of a chat and then since coming home at 11am on Tuesday I haven’t been outside since.

I have cabin fever, really bad and am getting irritable and tetchy. I don’t know if this is because I haven’t been outside or if the mixed episode is heading northwards to a (hypo)manic one. I am allegedly going to meet the team psychiatrist on Tuesday (I say allegedly as the forecast is for snow all weekend). At present I don’t feel very supported by the NHS but then I guess I have just been switched over so am still in limbo land.

Am praying it doesn’t snow again tonight.

Ruth x

Creature Comforts: Back Home In My Own Surroundings

I am finally back at home after pleading with Dr Mc that I was safe to be discharged today and didn’t need to be kept in over the weekend. I was going to be discharged earlier this week but after an overnight leave, and ignoring everyone’s advice about not driving whilst in this state, I drove my car and crashed it. Luckily I didn’t cause anyone or anything else any damage, as apparently my insurance is invalidated as I am driving whilst having a medical condition (mania) that I have not informed the DVLA about. If I do inform the DVLA, then my licence will be revoked and not reissued for eithe r3 or 6 months, depending on when I am stable, and then it will probably be assessed annually. Luckily no one has informed the DVLA, and as my car isn’t exactly in a good state at the moment, I won’t be driving for a while.

The valproate has been increased again, but although it has taken the top edge off my mood it hasn’t capped it like everyone had hoped it would. My thoughts are now racing around my head at about 200mph rather than 500mph, I can sit in a chair and only move my feet and hands, rather than jiggling my whole body around. It is little differences like that which have enabled me to be discharged though, so I guess I should be grateful.

This post isn’t going to make any sense, I can’t keep my thought process on writing it for long enough. I guess the basics are that I’m home, I’m now classed as hypomanic, I crashed my car, I self-harmed and ended up in A&E again on Saturday, I have made myself turn over a new leaf and be accepting and welcoming of the help the Priory are giving me as I do not know how much longer my parents can fund it, I see Allison on Monday and Dr Mc again on Tuesday and I only have to keep myself on the straight and narrow for the next couple of days.

Ruth

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

Bounce, Bounce, Cry, Bounce: The Un-Medicated Manic Depressive

I have been up.

I have been down.

I have cried, laughed hysterically and sat paralysed staring into space in a one hour period.

I have found childlike jokes and conversations overly funny. I have found TV soaps and docu-dramas overly depressing.

I have been talking about nice, good things with people I care about and trust and have sounded on the brink of tears.

I have had a psychiatrist’s appointment in the morning and been threatened with hospital to curb the suicidal, overwhelming hallucinations I have been having and then seen my therapist in the afternoon who asks how many cups of coffee I have had because I appear that wired.

I have been deliberately making myself manic by drinking M&S’s version of Lucozade, which has added ‘high strength’ caffeine.

I have been taking pro-plus to make me higher, and large quantities of diazepam, codeine, tramadol and other opiates to calm me down.

I’ve been into A&E after self-harming feeling suicidal and skipped back out 2 hours or so later having cheerily told the medic the list of drugs I should be on and smiling when telling her I have bone cancer that has metastatised to my lung. When she gives me a concerned look, I tell her to cheer up.

In short, I’m still not taking my tablets and I am feeling the results. I am swinging from suicidal depressions and aching manias from week to week and from mild depression to hypomania within the course of the day. I haven’t told my care team that I’m off the tablets. My parents definitely don’t know; they’d flip if they thought they were paying the Priory’s prices for therapy and psychiatrists appointments only for me to be pissing it all up the wallpaper.

The thing is, in my head I am conducting a mini social experiment. I am not convinced I am bipolar. I think Dr Mc has got it wrong. I think Allison and Jane (therapist) and my GP and the crisis team all believe him because he has the reputation around here of being the Priory Psychistrist aka God, and therefore couldn’t be wrong. So I stop taking the tablets and nothing happens because I don’t need them to lift my mood, to keep my mood stable, to relieve me of the psychotic symptoms, because if I don’t have bipolar and I am just a personality disorder scum of the Earth patient then the drugs won’t be working because they’re treating the wrong thing.

Trouble is my own experiment has blown up in my face. I have boxes of tablets that I have collected from the pharmacy sitting in my room, which are very tempting when I feel suicidal. I have a plastic bag and ligature ready tied to asphyxiate myself. I have lied to Allison and said I am not suicidal because last time she threatened to inform my parents about how I was feeling because she was so concerned for my safety, as it was Dr Mc admitted me over Easter anyway, but I don’t trust her now. I have a crippling headache from thinking, non stop about everything, so fast that it hurts. And from laughing and being noisy.

I feel I may have to admit to myself that I do have bipolar. That Dr Mc, the Priory Psychiatrist aka God is right, that his 5 years at medical school and 24 years in practice have taught him how to recognise the right symptoms. And I feel I should do it soon, but being off the psych tablets is liberating. I’d forgotten how to laugh so hard tears fell. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be so upset it hurt, rather than just feeling numb. I’d forgotten how much I can get done when I’m manic and how much, on a certain level I enjoy being manic.

I don’t want to go back to being drugged up into a fog of numbness and blunted edges. I like my edges nice and sharp (and yes, there was meant to be a pun there). I don’t like being a cancer patient, and for fuck’s sake who would? Being unmedicated makes me forget that lung cancer is BAD, with capital letters. That I am ILL, with capital letters. That in essence I may just be prolonging my life, because unmedicated life seems worth prolonging.

I am still overweight. In fact I am obese. My BMI has hit 28. I am shocked so I cut words deep into my skin to remind me that fat is ugly and I should be thinner. I should be back down to the weight I was before Christmas, 4 stone lighter than I am now. I am debating the new OTC fat-drug Alli (Orlistat). I wonder if I could order amphetamine diet pills over the Internet without people noticing.

I know right now I am manic and in 2, 3, possibly even 24 hours I may be suicidally depressed again but this life is fun. The drugged, prescribed life of stable flat mood is predictable and boring and I hate predictable and boring.

A friend once said the words to Ace of Spades by Motorhead reminded him of me. For those of you who are not familiar here are the lyrics

If you like to gamble, I tell you I’m your man
You win some, lose some, it’s -all- the same to me
The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say
I don’t share your greed, the only card I need is
The Ace Of Spades
The Ace Of Spades
Alright

Playing for the high one, dancing with the devil,
Going with the flow, it’s all a game to me,
Seven or Eleven, snake eyes watching you,
Double up or quit, double stakes or splits,
The Ace Of Spades
The Ace Of Spades

You know I’m born to lose, and gambling’s for fools,
But that’s the way I like it baby,
I don’t wanna live forever,
And Don’t Forget The Joker

Pushing up the ante, I know you’ve got to see me,
Read ’em and weep, the dead man’s hand again,
I see it in your eyes, take one look and die,
The only thing you see, you know it’s gonna be,
The Ace Of Spades
The Ace Of Spades

I leave you with that thought.

Ruth

Victim, Sufferer, Survivor, Genius: The Worries of Mania

First of all an apology for not updating earlier. What with being in hospital for 8 weeks and then cancer op I have sort of hidden myself away and become a recluse. I have also been living downstairs where the WiFi access is shit.

Anyway, I’ve been in hospital again. Friday and Saturday night for being manic. My Mum rang my psych on Thursday after I had applied for another debit and credit card, spent £250 on clothes (it was in Selfridges) and crashed my car after my reckless driving. My psych saw me on Friday and admitted me.

Since Friday I have had my anti-depressant level cut as it was recently raised, and they think might have been the trigger. I have had the anti-psychotic increased after seeing my dead cat walk around for most of the week and I am on haliperidol to try and quieten me down.

Being back in hospital was odd. I saw people who were still there. I saw the people who had been in years and ones who had been in months and then new people. I felt a fraud as if I didn’t deserve to be in there despite the fact I was flying around the ceiling and bouncing off the walls. I had to be sedated on Friday night as at 5am I was still awake. Last night I spent the entire night awake, talking to one of the HCAs who was lovely when I was in. In some ways I wanted to be back in there all nicely cocooned and protected from the outside world, not having to face up to what damage I have caused, but then I knew that was wishful thinking.

Thanks to the full blown mania and psychotic symptoms I have now been elevated to Bipolar I. I’m not happy about this as hypomania was bad enough but if they’re going to hospitalise for both mania and depression, I don’t know how I’ll get anything done. I see Allison, my CPN on Tuesday. Although I was in a private hospital (The Priory) I still kept in touch with the CMHT at my psychiatrist’s request. Indeed the weekend after I was discharged the crisis team rang to check how I was. I think they are feeling guilty after I told the duty CPN I saw in December that I was suicidal and what my plan was and she just said I didn’t mean it and she’d see me tomorrow. 5 hours later I was unconscious and in A&E because I’d put the plan into place. What I didn’t realise what the nurse I was speaking to was the one who told me I wasn’t unwell after my first 2 suicide attempts. I didn’t put Catherine on the end of the phone and Catherine at the end of the dining room table together fast enough.

I have the beginnings of a cold which means I probably won’t be able to start the final chemo regime on Thursday, but then my consultant did mention something about 2 sessions of radiography which is less painful and has fewer side effects, apparently. I don’t know but I’ll be glad when I’m out of plaster and in remission and all this head and body is sorted.

Ruth