Cut adrift

It’s funny how things change.

I took an overdose on September 5^th.

After four days in hospital, I was discharged with the promise that I would be seen urgently by the community mental health team.

That ‘urgent’ appointment came through for September 22^nd.

Those closest to me were outraged. ‘That’s ages!’ ‘Is that what they call urgent care?’

Anyway. I survived until that appointment, and on the heels of that came many more. Over the following six weeks or so, I had appointment after appointment. Psychiatry assessments. Psychology assessments. GP reviews. Etc etc.

Then, at the beginning of December, ‘they’ decided that I was a suitable candidate for long-term psychotherapy.

As much as that was a difficult and scary concept to embrace, it was a relief, in some ways, to know that something was happening.

The problem is, it’s not.

Two months on, give or take a few days, I am in limbo. I’m on this waiting list – but no one will tell me how long it is. And in the interim, it seems I’m completely on my own.

I don’t feel equipped to be on my own.

I am fully aware of how precarious my mental health is at the moment. I’m enjoying more good days than I was six months ago, but there are still many, many days that end with very dark thoughts. I still wake in the night and have to talk myself down from the edge. It was only a few days ago that I was having cuts dressed by the practice nurse.

It just feels strange that a few months ago, I was in hospital after taking an overdose. Supposedly a crisis case. And now? Now no one wants to know. Even the GP, having summoned me for a review, metaphorically shrugged and told me to wait it out.

What has changed? Nothing. If anything has changed, if I’m feeling in any way better, it’s purely down to hormones, seasonal variations, chance. But as far as the NHS is concerned, nothing has changed. They haven’t done anything to make things better, and yet it’s fine for them to let me to wait. And wait. Maybe they’re hoping that if I wait long enough, I will decide not to bother any more, and withdraw from their lists, and reduce their client load. Maybe they’re hoping I’ll disappear from their lists in a different way altogether. It’s something I think about often.

I guess it’s good, in some ways, that they don’t consider me critical. But I still feel so far from better.

No one would let me go untreated with a life-limiting physical condition for this long. Is it really unreasonable to expect someone to help?

Tuesday

I should be at the O2 this evening watching Tom perform in the Young Voices concert. Logistics, however, have meant that Ian is going instead.

I feel really guilty about it.

I know that all that really matters is that Tom has someone there for him, and I know that chances are I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of the crowd anyway. But I never miss school stuff. It feels really wrong not to be there, to the point that when I saw the kids all leaving school at lunchtime, when I went to collect Katie, it made me all tearful.

I feel guilty that I’m not there to see the end product of all Lindsey’s hard work, too. Rubbish friend for not being there to support her.

There’s another reason that I feel guilty, and that’s because part of me is very relieved not to be going. Everything feels like an enormous effort at the moment, and I’ll admit that I was beginning to panic about it: how I was going to get there, how I’d find my way from tube to venue, who I’d have to sit next to, how I would cope with that odd-one-out feeling I always get when I’m around school people, etc etc. It just feels safer and easier to stay home, albeit a massive cop-out.

I feel like I’m having a crisis of confidence in general at the moment. I have loads of work on, and while I should be pleased that people are trusting me to do a good job, I am absolutely terrified of not measuring up. Usually, writing is one of the few things I feel okay about, so this has come out of the blue. I’m panicking about missing deadlines, not finding the right interviewees, getting to the point where I actually just can’t do what has been asked of me. Yesterday, I seriously contemplated emailing everyone I’m working for and saying, ‘Sorry, you need to find someone else.’ That is the first time I have ever, ever felt like that – even when I was in hospital and had to beg for deadline extensions.

I’m supposed to be praying in church on Sunday, and that too is scaring me. I feel like the worst possible person to be standing in front of the congregation and praying publicly. My own prayers right now are so scrambled, inarticulate and desperate; how can I possibly do it on anyone else’s behalf? And yet I know I have to; I have bailed out of reading and praying so many times over the past few months. I know that I am failing quite spectacularly to be a part of the corporate whole. Even when I’m singing about joy, joy, joy at Hotshots, I feel like a complete hypocrite – God is with me, I know, but the joy I’m meant to be feeling is elusive just now.

All in all, I just wish I could hibernate, hide away. When I was at the doctor’s on Monday, he asked if there was anything else I felt he could be doing for me. In some ways, it feels as if there must be something, but what? If he’s run out of ideas, how am I supposed to have any better ones?

It’s a horrible empty feeling and disguising it and fighting it is just making me so tired.

Wednesday. Waiting.

One step at a time.

Minute by minute.

You’ve got through it before; you can get through it again.

Focus on the good things.

Trust in the Lord.

Seems my brain isn’t responding all that well to positive affirmations at the moment. All these things I know are true, and yet they aren’t doing anything to stop the slide.

I’ve just been talking to the CMHT about when/if I’m ever going to be seen next. The answer? Who knows? I am on a waiting list; they’re waiting to allocate me to a therapist; they can’t say how long it will be; sorry it’s not better news. I’m not surprised, as I know mental health services are hideously underresourced, but that phone call has left me feeling completely flat. I am trying SO HARD to be positive and proactive and turn things around but I can’t do it on my own.

I hate this wits’ end feeling.

I’ve been summoned to see the GP on Monday; the sort of thing that happens when you go along for a smear test and ask the nurse to dress your wounds while you’re there. Maybe he can exert some influence and get things moved along a bit. I don’t know. It feels like I’m walking a tightrope: on the one hand, I want to play down how I feel because I’m scared of what will happen if I’m honest. On the other, I just want to tell him how scared and lost and out of control I feel, I want him to DO something that actually makes a difference. More meds, different meds, different referral, I don’t know.

In the mean time, I’m taking it minute by minute but it’s like wading through treacle. I am so tired. I’m finding it harder by the day to be normal, to speak to people normally, keep functioning. I am throwing myself headlong into work and housework in an attempt to keep busy, not dwell, but I don’t know how much more I can do.

Sunday

I am frightened by how fast I feel I’m falling. I honestly thought this episode was behind me, that I was as back to normal as I was ever going to be. And now, in the space of a week, it feels like I’ve slipped right back into the pit, beyond the point where I can try to pull myself out, and I am so scared. It is not right to have to get Ian to take my children out for the afternoon because I can do nothing but lie in bed. It is not right to have to leave the dinner table halfway through because I just cannot sit there and function as a part of this family. Nor is it right to have to hide from my husband when I go for a bath so he doesn’t see the new cuts. Or to feel so guilty about being a burden that I have cancelled plans to spend an hour with one of the few people I can just be with.

It is so frightening because I know how bad it can get and I know where it ended up last time. I feel so powerless to stop it. Already, I’m sitting here panicking about how I’m going to do the school run tomorrow. How I’m going to work. How I’m going to decide what to make for my children’s dinner, not to mention actually cooking it. Such tiny little ordinary things which just feel like enormous mountains just now. What sort of person am I that I can’t cope with even the smallest details of everyday life? I am making my husband’s life a living hell and setting up my children for all sorts of issues in the future, and yet I can’t seem to do anything about it.

How long?

Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
    heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in deep anguish.
    How long, Lord, how long?

I’m struggling. I don’t think anything could ever keep me from trusting in God, but I’m struggling to pray properly, to read the Bible, to be a good sister in Christ, to do anything apart from saying, ‘Helphelphelphelphelp.’

I hate myself for it. I do not want to be this person any more. I hate myself for saying that, too, because I know how wrong it is to hate what God has made. I know it’s right to hate my sin, but not to hate His creation or His plan for me.

I’m working really hard on the mask I put on when I get up every day, working on keeping it fixed there and not letting it slip. But just wearing it is exhausting. I want to take it off. To say, ‘No, I’m not okay.’ I want to cry, to scream, to hide, to sleep, to not be alone, to be held, to be loved.

I’ve been doing lots of reading in the Psalms, and borrowing their words to form my prayers. Psalm 6 seems, at the moment, to give me the liturgy that I need, the words I can’t say. I am weak. My bones ache. My soul is in despair.

How long, Lord, until you come to take me home? To that place where there will be no more tears or heartache or suffering or pain?

It’s numb and painful all at once.

And yet every rational part of me says, ‘stupid, stupid, stupid.’ How dare I feel like this? Other people have real issues, real problems. Here’s me, with everything perfect in my life, and yet still a mess.

If only there were a button to push.

2015 begins

I feel very wobbly about it.

I’ve never liked New Year. The arbitrary change in date that occasions a change in lifestyle, outlook, habits.

The dawn of 2015 feels even more pressured.

So many people have said, ‘2015 will be your year.’

But what if it isn’t?

If I had a physical illness, no one would expect me to wake up on January 1st cured.

Why is it different with a mental illness?

I will put things into perspective here. I do feel so, so much better. I am sleeping again, I’m having fun with my children, I’m keeping on top of work and the house, I have been keeping bad thoughts at bay.

But I still feel so vulnerable.

I know I have no right to expect pity or empathy or anything like that for trying to kill myself, but it happened, and it has changed me. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it. Sometimes I’m thanking God that he preserved my life; sometimes I’m wondering how I can do it better next time. But it’s always on my mind. Will this recede with time?

Then Ian sits down and tells me we need to Set Targets for 2015. Get fit, get healthy, lose weight, get our house in order, book a holiday, get our son’s probable learning difficulties assessed.

I really can’t do targets at the moment.

I am trying, I really am. I booked a course of klutzy mummy dance classes earlier. And then thought – hang on, I will have to do them in long sleeves.

I am okay. I’m praying, reading the Bible, exercising positive thinking.

I just feel so shaky.