This time a year ago

This time a year ago, I was waking up in AAU.

The previous day had seen me being picked up from the riverbank by the police, and rushed to A&E with blue lights on.

Those days in hospital are a mixture of a blur, and of moments of stark remembrance.

I remember things like the policewoman urging me to stay awake in the back of the car.

Like vomiting into a plastic bag, and being surprised that the police didn’t have more substantial receptacles for vomit.

Like being ashamed of my feet, which were caked in mud from standing in the river.

I remember Ian and Lindsey coming in, both of them holding my hands, holding my hair back while I threw up.

My suicide attempt last September was not impulsive. I wanted to die, and I had planned out how to make it happen.

A year on, I’m still here, and I’m glad I’m still here.

It has been the most horrendous 12 months: a year of deep, deep, inescapable depression, of suicide attempts and self-harm, of being sectioned and confined to hospital.

It’s hard to look back on it. I think it always will be. And it scares me to think that I could become that unwell again.

But I’m still here, and I intend to be for many more years yet.

Another September

I’m not really feeling the need to write at the moment, but it seems important to do so, nonetheless, if this blog is to be an accurate reflection of how I’m feeling.

And how am I feeling? Well, okay.

Septembers have been difficult times for me over the past few years. Times when I’ve felt suicidal, attempted suicide, ended up in hospital.

This September, I’m feeling alright – so far.

What’s made the difference? I’m not sure. Most likely, a combination of medication and therapy.

I dread my psychology sessions and am longing for them to draw to a close, but I can recognise that I’ve learned some helpful strategies and am trying to put them into practice, even if it’s simply by taking a deep breath when anxiety threatens to overwhelm me, or by telling myself that my thoughts are just that: thoughts, which can’t in themselves harm me.

And I dislike my medication for how overweight and sedated it has made me, but I know that stopping it really could (would) be a matter of life or death.

Anyway. There’s a certain amount of faking it that’s going into the way I am at the moment, but I’m coming to realise that that’s okay. I’m pushing myself to do things that I’d usually shy away from, like going to music practice and out with friends, and more often than not I’m enjoying them, even if it takes a lot of anxiety to get there.

That’s what I’ve been working on in psychology: doing things even if it involves feeling uncomfortable.

Katie is back at school and Tom starts secondary school tomorrow. We have a busy calendar of activities taking up the next few weeks. And from where I’m standing right now, I’m okay with that.

I don’t have the confidence (arrogance?) of last September, when I wrote about how strong I was feeling and promptly had a breakdown, but I’m hoping I can just keep going quietly, doing what I need to do, and holding my head above the water.

We’ll see.