2016 on reflection

This year was supposed to be the year I sorted myself out.

It hasn’t quite worked out like that.

Although I started 2016 in a pretty dark place, I had no idea 12 months ago that it was going to push me further into the abyss than I had ever been.

Reflecting on the year that’s passed stirs up a lot of emotions.

There have been great times spent with friends and family, particularly our trip to Australia: something I was in total denial about at the beginning of the year.

But there have also been the worst of times, worse by far – even though that felt unimaginable this time last year – than anything I’ve been through before.

I came back from Australia on a high, with so many great memories, and feeling strong and sorted as we headed into the new school year.

Two weeks later, I tried to end my life.

The events of the past four months – the suicide attempt, the hospitalisation, the social services assessment, the loss of so many things I held dear – have left me totally shell-shocked.

I didn’t intend or expect, four months ago, to be seeing in another new year.

But I am, and despite the fact that I’m still patching things back together – and despite the fact that some of the cracks will never heal – I’m glad, now, to be here.

As I think about the year ahead, I know I’m standing on unstable ground.

I know I can’t make promises about what’s going to happen with my mental health. I’m not making resolutions that I may not be able to keep.

But even though I’m still reeling from the experiences I’ve been through, I feel I’m ending 2016 in a better place than I was 12 months ago.

I’m changed, without a doubt. I’ve lived through things I never expected to. I’m still rocked by the trauma of it all.

I have a new diagnosis, and another potential secondary diagnosis. I have new medication and an intensive programme of therapy helping me make sense of the mess.

I’m not where I hoped to be at the end of 2016: slim, content, confident, together, healed.

I’m still overweight, still wrestling with the demons of mental illness, bearing new scars on the inside and the outside. In other words, I’m far from healed.

But I’m not where I was, either.

With the help of my family, the NHS and the very best friends anyone could have, I’ve lived through the worst time of my life and survived. And I’m looking ahead to a new year with something I was lacking this time last year: hope.

 

 

What it looks like

Cameras were banned from the psych ward where I spent two weeks earlier this year. But my phone has a camera, and I took photos.

Why? I don’t actually know. I guess it was a way of documenting a part of my life that I knew then would shape me forever.

This is what a mental hospital looks like.

Grilled windows that can’t be broken.

Hours spent colouring to try to keep a grip on sanity.

Writing on my arm in red pen when everything was kicking off around me and no one noticed me shrinking into myself.

The pleasure of a new pair of socks.

The photos I stuck on my wall to remind me of the life outside.

It was hell. But it led to healing.

For that reason alone, I’m glad I have evidence.

Wishing for a happy Christmas

Today I was discharged by the CAT team.

It seems hard to believe that only three weeks ago, I was referred to them in a desperate, suicidal state, following on from serious self-harm.

It also feels a million miles from the previous time I was discharged from CATT, when I felt no better than when I was referred to them, and was seriously scared about how I was going to manage on my own.

Today, before I went in, I sat in the waiting room with Eleanor, the mental health nurse who’s visited me numerous times over the past few months, and we chatted about our holiday plans, laughed about our various present disasters, told each other what our kids have asked for from Father Christmas.

The handover meeting itself was only 10 minutes long.

Unlike last time, when it involved crisis plans and follow-up appointments, all we needed to do was sort out my prescription and book in a check-up in the New Year.

The best thing of all was seeing how pleased Eleanor was to see me feeling so much better.

It was more than words; I could tell she was genuinely happy for me.

I felt quite emotional, leaving the appointment. Going back out into the real world feeling well and happy. Looking forward to picking the kids up from school and bringing them home for the holidays.

It’s probably not the done thing, but I gave Eleanor a hug and kiss as we said goodbye.

I know this isn’t the end of my mental health issues.

I’m still massively dependent on medication, still going to weekly psychology, still – if I’m completely honest – not 100 per cent well.

But it does feel like the end of a particularly black period in my life, and a new beginning to what I hope and pray will be an ongoing time of stability and health.

I never thought, a few weeks ago, that I’d be looking forward to Christmas.

I’m so very, very thankful.

 

Silver linings

If I’m going to accept that my depression is part of God’s plan for me, that means finding the silver linings in the clouds that have engulfed me over the past few months.

It’s not always easy, but one of them is impossible to miss, and that’s the fact that I truly have the best friends in the world.

It’s no exaggeration to say that I couldn’t have survived this experience without them.

They have sat by hospital beds, and literally scooped me up off the floor.

They’ve visited me in a mental hospital: not the sort of place anyone would ever choose to spend time.

They’ve turned up on my doorstep to check I’m okay.

They’ve put up with me veering between desperately clingy and pushing them away.

They’ve tolerated me changing plans and letting them down.

They’ve held my hand through church services that I wouldn’t have made it through otherwise.

They’ve looked after my kids and my husband.

They’ve sent me flowers, books and other little treats to let me know they’re thinking of me.

They’ve mopped up my tears a thousand times and never told me they’ve had enough of me, even though I know at times, they must have dreaded seeing or speaking to me.

They’ve loved me at my most unlovable.

I am truly blessed.

Learning to accept the downs

There’s something pretty amazing at starting a new medication that has a huge impact.

There’s also something utterly dispiriting about then having a few days where it doesn’t seem to be quite the wonder drug it first appeared to be.

After a couple of weeks of feeling really good, I’ve dipped a bit in the past couple of days.

A lot of tears – an awful lot – have been shed about the church situation and the sense that I’ve been rejected by my ‘family.’

And my anxiety has ramped up to the point of needing PRN medication to bring it back under some sort of control.

It’s hard not to start to panic about feeling less great than I did.

I feel like all my eggs are in one basket with this treatment, and if it doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I’m already starting to think, ‘what if?’ I’m starting to think that maybe my dosage needs increasing.

But I know that objectively, I can’t expect to have all the ups and none of the downs, especially so soon after beginning a new medication.

I also know that there are good reasons why I’m feeling on edge and unsettled and just not quite right.

As part of my psychology sessions, we’ve discussed the need to accept that I’m going to have difficult and painful feelings, and will have to live through triggering situations.

What I need to learn to do is sit with these feelings, be willing to experience them, and not let them dictate the direction I want to go in.

It’s easier said than done, but I know it’s something I need to practise if I’m going to be able to weather the storm of depression, now and in the future.

Deep breaths.

 

It’s not okay

The past weekend has been lovely: a perfect time of friends and family and food and drink and getting Christmassy. I’m so thankful to be feeling better.

But one thing is not better, and I don’t know if it’s ever going to be better.

And that’s the stigma and discrimination that I’m still facing because of my illness.

No one would consider me a risk if I had diabetes or ME.

If I had a physical illness, I would be in charge of deciding when I felt well enough to get back to my usual routines, activities and duties – not someone else.

But because my illness is a brain illness, not a body illness, I’m fair game.

I was told I had to take time off to get better. But now I am better (please God), I’m still not allowed back.

So it wasn’t – as I was told – motivated by concern for my wellbeing, but by the perception that I’m a threat to the church, someone they want hidden away, active behind the scenes but not as a public face.

And no one will tell me when I’m allowed back, or what I have to do to be considered ‘safe’ again.

Will it be three months, six months, twelve, never? Has someone somewhere got a checklist of things I have to do to prove that I’m no longer a danger – not that I ever was?

I’ve looked into what the diocese says about safeguarding, as that’s apparently what’s behind the way I’m being treated. There’s nothing specifically about people with mental health problems being banned from church work. The policy says that if a person has caused harm to a member of the church community, they should have a formal risk assessment with timescales about when their ban would end. Does that mean they think I’m harmful just by my very presence?

Despite all the reassurances that I can keep coming to church activities ‘as a parent’ (but absolutely NOT as a part of the team), it’s easier said than done when I know my very presence is a complication. It makes me just want to stay away so no one has the inconvenience of messed-up me.

I feel guilty that I’m causing problems. I feel rejected by the church that has, until recently, felt like family. And I feel really angry that it’s okay for them to treat me like this purely because I have a mental illness – a mental illness that now seems to be under control.

It’s not okay to be discriminated against because of an illness that is not my fault and certainly not something I chose, or because of the consequences of that illness.

It’s not okay that while social services have been through my personal life with a fine toothed comb and decided that I don’t pose a risk to children, the church apparently knows better.

It’s not okay that I’m not a proper part of the church family any more. It’s not okay that on the one hand, I’m being told that there’s nothing I can do to make God love me less than he does, while on the other, it’s very clear that the church doesn’t love me one bit.

It’s not okay that I’m basically having to suck up treatment that, in a workplace, would be seen as outright discrimination, because what else can I do?

It’s not okay that my experience means my face doesn’t fit any more.

This is not depression speaking. This is not me seeing a situation in a negative light. This is not disordered thinking. This is how it feels to have been marginalised by the church purely because of my mental illness.

I’m sad. I’m hurt. I’m angry. I feel rejected and unwelcome and let down.

And it’s not okay.

Which way now?

I seem to have been prescribed a wonder drug. The meds are doing an amazing job at stabilising my mood, and I feel better than I have for a long, long time.

It’s an enormous relief and a huge reason to give thanks.

I had got to the point where I seriously didn’t think I was ever going to feel okay again, so it feels pretty miraculous to have gone from suicidal to content in the space of a week.

Now, though, I have to work out what I do now in terms of getting my life back on track.

The biggest thing is church.

I feel really torn about what to do.

Our church has been such a big part of my life over the past eight years, and until recently, I never thought I’d be in the position of wondering if I had a future there.

But that’s exactly where I find myself. Because I know I can go back now, and no doubt in a few months – if, God willing, I’m still feeling well – will be allowed to get back to doing the things I was before: Hotshots, Sunday school and so on.

But I can’t shake the hurt I feel at being rejected because of my mental health.

I had more or less resigned myself to being a Sunday-mornings-only person from now on, but when I said that in psychology today, I was pulled up short and told that I was letting my thoughts dictate the direction I’m taking.

It’s true. I’m grappling with so many difficult thoughts around what’s happened.

What happens if I get depressed again in the future?

Will I be kicked off the team again?

Am I only welcome there if I’m well, healthy and useful?

Does everyone think I’m a freak?

Are they secretly relieved that I’ve withdrawn from everything?

Am I just a big problem that everyone wishes would disappear?

I was told not to pay any attention to whether these thoughts are true or not, but to put them to one side and focus on the direction I want my life to take.

Church has been a massive part of that direction, for so many reasons: my faith, my friendships, service, my children, my place in the community, the structure and routine of my life.

I’ve felt totally bereft without it.

But I just don’t know that I’ve got the guts to plough my way back in as if nothing has happened.

It *has* happened. I *do* feel hurt and unwelcome. I feel incredibly insecure about what – if any – my role is within the church.

I agreed in psychology today that my goal for the week would be to go to Bible study tomorrow.

It’s a small step, I know. Hotshots still feels way more than I can handle.

It’s small enough that it should be manageable.

But is it?

I just don’t know.

A day of victories

Yesterday, I didn’t think I could do today.

It was our annual work Christmas lunch in London, and I’d arranged to meet my editor for a catch-up beforehand.

Even though I’ve been feeling so much better with the new meds, yesterday, it all felt too much. I was formulating my escape plans; should I be honest and flake out of yet another work get-together because of my mental health? Should I invent a sick child?

But this morning, I woke up feeling okay enough to decide I would give it a go.

And I did it.

I am so damned proud and pleased with myself that I did it, even if it *was* purely down to medication.

I had a brief ‘can I?’ moment early morning, when I realised I didn’t have any lorazepam; Ian is keeping all of my meds locked away, giving me just a small supply of each at a time, and I hadn’t realised I needed topping up.

I stuck some promethazine in my bag in case, but I didn’t need it.

I didn’t even come close.

I know that going into London shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s less than an hour door to door. I spent a good few years doing it every day before I had the kids. I know my way around and am not flummoxed by tubes and Oyster cards and the like. And I love London, I really do.

But it’s the sort of thing that *has* been a big deal lately.

So to go today, and not just feel okay about it, but actively enjoy it, is a massive deal.

I feel like I’ve won a whole load of small victories.

I stood on the tube platform and didn’t contemplate throwing myself in front of the oncoming train. That may sound flippant, but believe me, it’s not.

I helped an elderly lady with very little English to get on the right tube.

I had a really good editorial catch-up over coffee and croissants, and some lovely chat as well.

I got fined for not having a ticket on the Abbey line – they always let you buy a ticket on the train, but apparently not any more – and didn’t beat myself up about it. Yes, it was annoying, but it was £20; not worth stressing about.

Most of all, I didn’t feel awkward or out of place or panicky for one moment during our lunch. I chatted and laughed and just felt normal.

I didn’t feel like I was having to fake being okay while wanting to be anywhere else.

That felt HUGE.

I know I’ve been here before with meds changes, and have sworn that I’ve finally been given the miracle drug or miracle dose.

I know there’s no guarantee that this will continue.

But I honestly feel like me again. Not trying too hard, not overcompensating, just me.

It’s a strange situation to be in, because when I was in hospital, I was basically told that my illness is NOT biochemical and is all due to my screwed up thought processes.

If that were the case, surely 200mg of quetiapine on a nightly basis shouldn’t have made this much difference?

I’m not about to ditch the psychology, though, despite the fact that it’s very tempting to assume that I’m ‘cured’ and don’t need to go any more.

I know there’s stuff I need to work through. At the very least, there’s still a lot I have to process around the trauma of suicide attempts and hospital and the shockwaves this episode has sent through my life: family, friends, church.

So I’ll keep my appointments and hope that the two-pronged attack of therapy and meds will, eventually, get me to a place where I’m as strong as I can possibly be.

But for now, I’m just thankful for today.

 

 

Sad

Today, I feel sad.

It’s different from feeling depressed; it’s something separate and rooted in reality rather than whatever chemical processes are going on within my brain.

I’m sad because I miss my ‘old’ life and I wish so much that I could get it back.

Depression has taken so much away from me.

It’s only now that the fog is beginning to clear that I realise just how much I’ve lost.

Maybe I’ll be able to get some things back in time.

But other things are never going to be the same again.

I’m sure in time I’ll come to terms with that, and I’ll carve out a new existence from what depression has left behind.

But for now, I’m just very, very sad.

 

 

Making sense of the mess

Four days into taking quetiapine, and getting towards a therapeutic dose, I’m daring to hope that I’m starting to feel better.

Things seem less bleak than they did last week.

I certainly don’t think I’m in danger of being hospitalised any more.

It feels a bit like I have all of my eggs in one basket, but I so want this to be the thing that makes a difference.

Admittedly, I don’t like the fact that I’m now not just on antidepressants but also antipsychotics, but it’s worth the stigma of the label if it lifts the fog.

But I know that the right meds – no matter how good they are – aren’t going to deal with the mess that the past four months has left me in.

Every episode of depression has changed me, but none more than this one.

I don’t know whether the difference was the sheer trauma of the suicide attempt, or the fact that I ended up as an inpatient, but it’s as if my life has been hit by a sledgehammer.

Everything has suffered: family, friends, work, church.

But above all, me; my very identity.

Even if I can get back to a place of absolute stability, even if I never go through a depressive episode again (oh please, God…), things are not the same and they never can be.

People now perceive me as crazy, a risk, a danger, someone to handle with kid gloves and walk on eggshells around.

I want to scream, THIS IS NOT ME!

But that wouldn’t be true. This IS me. I am a psychiatric patient. I’ve done things to myself that no sane person would ever dream of.

It’s no wonder people don’t know what on earth to do with me.

I know how incredibly lucky I am that a few special people have stood by me.

I honestly wouldn’t even have got to this point of trying a new medication – and it hopefully working – without their love and support.

But it still hurts that others see me as the resident freak, a problem, someone who makes them feel awkward and uncomfortable.

Nothing can ever change the fact that I tried to take my own life, or that I ended up on the psych ward.

Nothing can change the fact that it’s left everything in pieces.

I just wish it could be put back together.