Ready or not…

I had my last CATT visit this morning. On Wednesday, I’m being discharged and will be back under the community mental health team.

I’m not sure how I feel about it.

By Wednesday, I’ll have been under their care for four weeks. That’s pretty much the maximum time allowed; it’s a short-term intervention, intended to bridge the gap between hospital and home, and I always knew that.

But I’m not sure I feel ready.

It’s not so much that I’m gaining anything in particular from the visits; there’s nothing they’ve been able to say or suggest to make me feel any better. But it’s been reassuring to know that someone was looking out for me. Someone was taking me seriously. Someone was acknowledging that I’m still unwell.

When they discharge me, I’m on my own.

Okay, that’s not strictly true. There’s my care co-ordinator, although, having been let down her on many occasions, I don’t feel at all certain that I could pick up the phone and say ‘help’ if I needed to. There’s the duty number and the mental health helpline. But there won’t be anyone checking in on me, making sure I’m keeping going, getting better rather than worse.

It’s a pretty lonely and isolating feeling, especially as it’s so hard for me to tell Ian, friends or family how I’m feeling, now that the crisis situation is over and everyone assumes I’m on the mend.

Am I on the mend? Well, the CATT nurse this morning asked whether I feel any better than when I was first out of hospital, and when I reflect on it, I know I must be.

Four weeks ago, I couldn’t have spent a day at Legoland. I couldn’t have gone to Sainsbury’s to buy a birthday card. I couldn’t even sit through church.

But on the other hand, I still feel there’s a long way to go before I’m anywhere near back to normal. I’m still using PRN meds every day, still exhausted, still going to bed before Tom, still getting into a state about the simplest things like cooking dinner.

And I’m still finding it very hard to feel glad that I was found on the riverbank that day, not even two months ago.

At my psychology appointment on Thursday, I was challenged to write a letter to myself listing all the reasons I mustn’t take my own life.

It’s something I don’t feel able to do yet, because if I do, I’ll have to face up to the fact that there WOULD be consequences of me not being here any more.

I don’t feel I’m in a place where I’m ready to let go of that possibility.

But despite those thoughts, despite the fact that every day feels like a mountain that has to be climbed, despite the ongoing urges to self-harm and worse, on Wednesday, I’ll be discharged.

It’s another step, the next step. And it’s coming, ready or not.