New Year, same old…?

I’m sad today. Really, really sad. The sort of sad that makes me worry that I’m heading into a deep depression again.

I promised myself that this year, I would stay out of hospital. Is that even realistic? I just don’t know.

Maybe it’s a blip. I have a cold and I’m tired. Maybe once I feel physically better, my mind will feel better, too.

Right now, though, the sad is eating away at me from the inside. The only thing to do is sleep, and yet I can’t because I have my children to look after.

I don’t want to tell anyone, for fear of being thought an attention seeker. But my head isn’t right and I hate this feeling that I’m losing control.

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.

Holiday worries

In under 48 hours’ time, we fly to Italy for two weeks, and I’m genuinely terrified.

Over the past week, my mood has plummeted from pretty much okay to the point where I know that, if I were honest, people would be talking about hospital again.

And it’s not just worrying about going on holiday. All the warning signs are there: I’m exhausted, even if I’ve slept for 12 hours straight. I have no appetite and can’t be bothered to eat anything. I feel panicky and tearful and sure that I’m being a huge burden on everyone.

The thought of going away feeling like this is frightening. What if my mood continues to drop? What if I end up in crisis while I’m miles away from my mental health team?

I’m trying very hard to practise what I’ve learnt in psychology: mindful breaths, reminding myself that these are just thoughts, and so on. But the thing is, they’re NOT just thoughts. This is not just my mind thinking, ‘Meh, I feel a bit crap.’ This is overwhelming, physical as well as mental. Thinking I can put the brakes on just by thinking differently seems as ridiculous to me right now as thinking away a broken leg. No one would expect me to cure that with PMA, and my brain feels just as broken.

On top of everything else, I haven’t got adequate travel insurance because no one will cover me with my psychiatric history. So if I get ill enough to need hospital, who knows what will happen?

I really want to enjoy the holiday, to be present for it, to spend time with Ian and the kids, but the idea of enjoying it seems so far-fetched right now.

But I am going to promise myself something. I’m going to promise myself that whatever happens, I am NOT going to do anything that would potentially land me in hospital.

That might mean that I spend two weeks doing next to nothing. That I spend the time hiding in a dark bedroom. That I take lorazepam every single day. None of these situations are ideal, but if that’s what it takes to keep my head above the water, so be it.

It’s not ideal. Not ideal at all. But I need to make this promise for my family. I just hope I have enough control over this hideous illness to keep it.

I will not…

I will not end up in hospital this time.

I will not harm myself.

I will not isolate myself from friends who can help.

I will not be stubborn about taking extra meds.

I will not get myself referred to the crisis team – and if I do, I will not lose my temper with them.

I will not skip my therapy appointments.

I will not drink myself into a stupor just so I don’t feel any more.

I will not beat myself up if I can’t stay on top of the housework.

I will not sabotage my self-care rituals: reading, colouring, relaxing in the hot tub.

I will not cancel my commitments.

I will not succumb yet again to this hateful illness.

I will not.

The fear of a PD diagnosis

I’m beating myself up at the moment about the possibility of my diagnosis being changed to emotionally unstable personality disorder (or having it added to my existing diagnosis). It’s been on my mind almost constantly since last week’s psychology session.

The first time this possibility was suggested to me, it was by Dr Lee. In her report from a meeting at the end of 2016, she had me ‘under review’ for EUPD ‘traits.’ Her view was that my depression – severe at the time – was exacerbating these traits.

When I was admitted to hospital, the psych who sectioned me was very clear that he didn’t think I had a personality disorder, and my discharge summary made no mention of it. But since it cropped up in last week’s appointment, I’ve been beating myself up about the possibility of it becoming my official diagnosis.

I don’t deny that I have some EUPD traits, and I know that, as Dr Lee said, they’re more pronounced when I’m unwell. There are plenty of traits that I don’t think I have, but I have to admit that I do tick some of the boxes. And I’m genuinely terrified that I’m going to be diagnosed.

I know that a diagnosis is just words, and that no one need know what I’m actually diagnosed with unless I tell them (which I most definitely wouldn’t if I did get saddled with the EUPD label). But I’m seriously struggling with the possibility, because it confirms everything that I think about myself.

It confirms that I’m not unwell, but that there is something fundamentally wrong with me; that I have a ‘bad’ personality. It confirms that I’m right to dislike myself so intensely. It confirms that I’m attention-seeking, immature, manipulative, melodramatic, unreasonable, difficult, burdensome, exhausting, evil. Bad, bad, BAD. And if that’s the case, suicide starts to feel like the only option, because it’s not fair for my husband, children, family and friends to suffer because of me.

The hospital psych said that a lot of the people on the ward had personality disorders. It was clear to see who they were; they were the ones throwing their phones across the room, kicking and punching walls, screaming at staff and visitors, having to be physically restrained in the throes of temper. It was also very clear that the staff thought these people were ‘crazies,’ basket cases, a laughing stock: ‘Oh look, there goes her phone again, haha!’ They were treated as mad people, not ill people.

Do I feel like those people in the hospital? Not really, no. I did everything I could to avoid attention while I was on the ward, not to attract it. I spent as much time as I could get away with on my own in my room. I tried to be polite and patient and not make a fuss about anything. If I had EUPD, wouldn’t I have been kicking off rather than trying to stay under the radar and be a ‘good patient?’

There are other symptoms that I don’t tick, as well. My mood doesn’t swing as it should with EUPD. I don’t dissociate or have psychotic episodes.

But I can’t stop thinking about the possibility of getting this diagnosis, a diagnosis that scares me so much. I don’t want to be a ‘crazy psycho bitch’ who’s constantly causing drama. Maybe I am, though. Maybe that’s how everyone sees me. I already feel that I’m essentially bad at heart. Getting a PD diagnosis would be the concrete evidence of that. And if that were the case, I would find it very, very difficult to live with myself.

 

Today I’m hurting

I’ve been referred to children’s services yet again. It may just be a formality but it hurts. It hurts to think that I’m not a good enough mother for my children. It hurts that they have to check up on me because I can’t be trusted to look after them. It hurts that I know they’re right: I’m not a fit mother. I’m screwing the poor kids up for life.

It hurts, too, to be so very lonely. Everyone’s telling me that I’m looking good/doing well/on good form, and I know they mean it as encouragement. But it means that no one is recognising or acknowledging that things are so very hard still. Even with the improved medication. It’s only two weeks since I came out of hospital; too soon to be back to normal. And yet that’s what everyone expects, and I’m afraid not to live up to their expectations.

I need a hug. Someone to listen. A shoulder to cry on. But I’m on my own. On my own and hurting.

Taking it slowly

It’s two weeks now since I came out of hospital. Two weeks; it feels much longer. Already, I can look back on that period and think, ‘My God, I was really, really unwell, wasn’t I?’

It’s a huge blessing that I seem to have bounced back a lot quicker than I did after my first inpatient admission. I guess the fact that my medications haven’t been changed – only the doses – made for a shorter settling-in period.

But this seemingly fast recovery comes with a caution, and that’s that I need to make a conscious effort to pace myself.

The temptation is to throw myself headlong into normal life again. Back to work, back to the school runs, back to cooking and cleaning and Hotshots and everything else I usually do. And that’s a good thing in some ways; in a ‘fake it till you make it’ way, getting back to my usual routine is helping me feel more like myself.

But I do need to remind myself that it IS only two weeks since I came out of hospital. If I do too much, too soon, I’m in danger of running myself into the ground.

Pacing myself is hard because after the best part of two months out of action, I feel guilty about the time I lost and the burden that placed on Ian and others, and am compelled to make up for it.

It’s also emotionally and physically exhausting to try to be the person I am when I’m well, when I’m still in recovery – and at the early stages of recovery, for that matter.

What makes it harder is when people tell me I’m looking well. It’s great to hear that encouragement, but it also makes me feel under pressure to act as well as I look. Already, pasting on that smile and forcing myself to be ‘up’ all the time is taking its toll. That’s why, after an afternoon talking to Nick and Cherry about my involvement in church life, I was completely drained and felt very fragile.

The fact is, I’m not very good at pacing myself. But I must try. Because I really want this to be the start of a long period of stability, not just a temporary good spell leading up to another burnt-out crash.

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.

What I know

I know now, with 100 per cent certainty, that I will end my own life.

Not necessarily now, but it will happen.

It’s not even what I want, but I know it to be true. Everything I am, everything I know, everything I feel, points towards it.

The thoughts are so overwhelming and overpowering that I know I will not be able to resist.

But I know I can’t tell anyone because then the wheels will come off in spectacular fashion.

I don’t want to be referred to the crisis team, or admitted, because I don’t need to be. And I don’t want that whole chain of events to be triggered. Social services, home visits, all that shit.

I don’t even want to do this. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave Ian without a wife, and my children without a mother. But it’s something I’m not strong enough to withstand. It’s bigger than me, more powerful than me. I don’t know when it’s going to get to the point that I can no longer stand against it. But I know it’s going to happen.