Shell shocked

Five days since being discharged from hospital, I don’t know what to do with myself.

I’m telling everyone that I’m doing okay. Glad to be home. Don’t need any help.

The reality is that I’m really, really NOT doing okay.

What I can’t say to anyone is that I think I came out of hospital too soon. That as much as I hated being in there, I think I should probably still be there.

I’m barely functioning. Sleeping all the time. Eating nothing but chocolate.

People are visiting and I don’t want them to. I’m terrible company. I just want to be on my own, to hide away, to isolate myself so no one realises just how not-okay I am.

I can’t be bothered to shower. My hair is like straw, tangled and snagged.

I can’t summon the energy to cook for the children. I want to say yes to offers of meals, but I can’t because it’s so damned lazy. There’s nothing physically wrong with me, after all.

I’m shell shocked by the speed of my decline, by how quickly I went from okay to rock bottom.

I don’t want to leave the house. The world seems too big, too loud, too chaotic. We need milk but I can’t bring myself to go into the Co-Op to buy it. I’ve cancelled my psychology session tomorrow because I just don’t think I can get myself there.

I just don’t know what to do. What I should do is tell the CATT team that I’m not okay. That I don’t feel safe at home. That I need to be in hospital.

But I can’t do that to my family again. I can’t disrupt Ian’s work. I can’t leave him with the children.

The only option is to keep swimming, but I don’t know if I can resist the rip tide that’s pulling me under, pulling me down.

I’m scared. I’m exhausted. And I feel desperately unwell.

I don’t know what to do.