It's Not Getting Better

It’s not improving. I’ve had a few shitty days. Well it’s been a couple of shitty weeks. I can’t seem to shift this low mood. I can feel it spiralling. I have no tolerance for people around me so find it’s best to just stay in my room on my bed all day so I don’t have to talk to anyone. If I talk to people then they will know I am not right and I will end up snapping at them. I snapped at a member of staff today. To be fair she had a bit of attitude but I am struggling and do not want people on top of me all the time. Every time I moved she was on her feet following me and it was getting to me. Then I asked her to close the door to while I was showering so I could have some dignity and she just said “the shower curtain is your dignity and if I was following your care plan you wouldn’t even be getting that”. So, I ended up snapping at her. To be fair she was right, it’s me who just can’t take it at the moment.

This low mood, I can feel it eating away at me from the inside. I’ve not had any leave from the ward in over 2 weeks and I think that this may be some of the reason. Before I swallowed the items I had a decent amount of leave, I could go to OT when I wanted, had grounds leave when I wanted and was able to have locality leave twice a day. So I could get off the ward quite a bit. Also one of my key workers has left and I gelled with him quite well and was able to talk to him quite a bit. I suppose I should try and get that with other people and build up more therapeutic relationships with people. There are only a couple of people who work on the ward who I will talk to and then that’s if they initiate it. I didn’t even really get to talk to the Psychologist today about it as he wanted to work on mindfulness exercises. Which, in all honesty, I find a load of crap. Not for me. Maybe my mind needs to be more on it to learn new skills but I don’t think blowing bubbles and having a smint/chocolate is going to stop me from self-harming. I can see the point of it, the whole thinking and being aware of the present and focussing on the present feelings i.e. the feeling of the smint in your mouth if it tingles etc., but it just wasn’t for me today. I got a chocolate bar out of it though. Thanks Gary.

I’ve been thinking about friends today. There is this one friend; I’ll call her Jane who at one time would have classed as my best friend. I would have classed her as this even though she was crap at keeping in touch and replying to messages. I realised today I had not heard anything of her since October. She doesn’t know anything of the hospital admissions as I hadn’t told her. I was thinking about why I hadn’t told her if I would have classed her as my best friend. And I realised that I didn’t want her to know. So, how can I class her as my best friend? I’ve not seen her since last April and she is never the one to make initial contact. She obviously doesn’t class me as a very good friend. I’ve had my good friends come here to see me as I have felt I can tell them without fear of disappointment or being judged by them. OK, so it’s only 4 friends who I have told, but those are all I need. I used to have a great night out with Jane and when we do see each other we don’t stop laughing, but there is more to friendship than that. So today, I text Jane as realised I hadn’t heard from her since October when the last message was one that I sent saying I needed to see her as I had lots to talk about with her (I was going to tell her about hospital and talk about my parents split with her). So I sent one half expecting not to get a reply as she is useless at replying to messages. But she does reply. We have a text conversation and she tells me she got engaged last week. OK, I’m happy for her, but really upset she didn’t let me know. It’s kind of massive news. Am I pathetic for being upset by it? If it was me I would go out of my way to share my news with people, getting engaged is kind of massive. I think maybe a lot of it is the feeling she has moved on and left me behind.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things that’s pretty small, but I can’t help the way I am feeling about it. My emotions are all over the place and I am getting upset by small things at the moment. It’s all part of being on a downer for me. Little things have a big effect.

I’m seeing the Psychologist again on Thursday and see the doctor on Friday. I am hoping I will be given some leave on Friday. Wish me luck!

Lost Tolerance

I’ve lost everything. I really screwed everything up. I had ward round on Friday and since then they have been in my room and taken everything away from me. All my clothes and belongings are now in a communal cupboard where I have to have someone go with me and document what I take out of it.

It came about because of what I did on Thursday. I swallowed a Kirby Grip. I spent the night in hospital after arguing with them that I wasn’t going to go. In the end they called the doctor in to assess my capacity as I said that they couldn’t force me into going if I had the capacity to refuse treatment. I wasn’t sure on that but turns out I was right in what I was saying. The doctor didn’t force me in the end but what made me go was she said they were going to have to wake me every hour to get a set of physical obs. I like my sleep too much so thought “fine, I’ll go, have them tell me it’s fine and go back to the unit”. I didn’t count on them keeping me in overnight and spending it all on a trolley in the ED bar 2-3 hours where I was on a chair in a waiting room in the ward. I should have just stayed put as I could have got more sleep being woken every hour than being there.

So I get back to the unit and have to see the doctor here as was my ward review. She has taken everything away from me. No leave, I can’t do anything myself and they have stripped my room. I also have someone right next to me at all times. It’s awful. No privacy at all. I was hysterically crying after this. No one has ever seen me cry like it before. They were trying to be nice to me about saying just see it as a blip in your progress but it’s pretty damn big when the doctor is now saying she wants assessments from low secure places as she thinks I need to be somewhere more long term. Before it was possibly an option along with Mac Close but now she thinks I need to be in low secure. I’ve already said I don’t like her!

Going to low secure would just screw up my whole life. There is no way I’d be able to continue on my course if I had to go somewhere like that. It would ruin me. It really would ruin my life. I think they just think I am saying that, but it would.

I feel so irritated and the urges are strong today. I think some of it is because tomorrow it will be 2 years since Gom and I finally finished. It doesn’t seem that long ago and I still hold a lot of emotion over him. And then I feel bad and stupid for doing so as it’s 2 years ago. I should be over him/it all now. I can’t believe how fast those two years have gone and how shit they have been for me and I equate him with me feeling so bad, well for a lot of it anyway. I still dream about him a hell of a lot. Most of the dreams are where he is saying he has made the wrong decision and he wants me back and I am saying no. I have more pride than that, it would be the wrong thing to do even though part of me wants to. Enough of him, he takes up enough of my unconscious thought without him taking up conscious thinking also.

But, yeah, the urges and thoughts are pretty strong today. I am easily irritated and snapped at someone at lunch time telling them to shut up. He never stops talking and he made a comment about the noise coming from the servery and I couldn’t help myself. I am also getting pissed at the people on my obs and they annoy me so easily. I usually have quite a good tolerance for people but today that has gone. The urges are there and tolerance has gone. Not a good mixture. Also I've just been told if I hadn't have self harmed then at my tribunal I'd have probably got off the section. So I'm not a happy bunny!

Why I Feel My Life Is One Big Screw Up

I really screwed up. I should have kept my mouth shut about the self-harm as now I have lost everything. Everything. I am being followed and watched constantly and am not allowed to do anything for myself. I have someone watching me at arms length when I am in the bathroom. It’s absolutely mortifying when you are on the loo and there is someone standing at the door watching you. I am not allowed to make my own drinks, I have to be with 2 members of staff when in the clinic room and I am not allowed off the ward. I have ward round tomorrow but I can’t see anything changing. This doctor doesn’t like to make changes.

I have had to lie to my parents about why I can’t go off the ward. I told them the leave had run out and there was no one around to do the new paperwork for it. I have also had my CPN/CCO on the phone having a go at me saying she needed to tell my Mum exactly what I had done and when. I had a bit of a go at her telling her how she was always so negative and I didn’t find her supportive. I didn’t say much about the phone call but ward staff are aware and they are on my side with it. They said they didn’t feel that her making my Mum aware was right as I was an adult and had capacity. So they are going to do what they can. But, I don’t think they will be able to do anything as once Beth’s mind is made up I don’t think there is any changing it.

So, this whole thing is making me depressed again. I am sinking really low. I am not waking up until gone 1pm and I am not doing anything as I don’t want to. TV doesn’t hold my interest and the thought of starting a book or watching a film fill me with dread. I recognise the symptoms and I know what has caused it. It’s my own fault. If I hadn’t have told anyone I swallowed the glass I wouldn’t be in this position that I am in now. If I had kept my mouth shut no one would have known any different and I would be able to shut my bathroom door, I would be able to leave the ward; I would be able to do activities that I want to do such as baking. I would have been happier. And now I am in a position where they are more likely to send me to a low secure unit as of the self-harm. I will lose even more if I go there. I won’t be able to write, I won’t have my phone, I won’t have anything. The deeper I am getting in to this depression the more I can see low secure happening and me not having any future. And then this makes me feel worse. It’s a spiral of negativity and I can’t get out of it. How can I get out of it? I have tried speaking to staff but this does not make much difference. There are only certain members of staff whom I would/could speak to anyway. I am finding it so difficult. I should have held out until I had pain so bad I couldn’t contain it anymore. Not just because I had a couple of twinges. The worst thing is now I want to do it again. I am really struggling to contain the urges.

I saw Gary on Tuesday. The first time since I had told him everything and he just concentrated on the self-harm. We didn’t really talk about the past. I am seeing him tomorrow also and he is off next week. He asked me how I felt about him missing a session and then being off all of next week. I said I wasn’t bothered, but I don’t know how I feel. He was ill he couldn’t help that so I can’t be angry, I can’t really be disappointed, I wasn’t exactly fine about it like I said but I don’t know what I was. It may not seem it to him or to anyone but I do kind of like seeing him. I like talking to him. Yes, I find it really difficult, but, I do like him and for me to trust someone so quickly is quite unusual. But I don’t know what it is.

So now all I know is I am not going anywhere for a long time. The doc is not going to want to move me with the recent serious self-harm, the ward I came from aren’t going to want me back. So I am stuck here with nothing, feeling worse as I have nothing and getting caught up in a spiral. I feel like just giving up as I don’t feel as though I am going to get anywhere. I don’t really know how I am going to cope over the next few weeks.

Backwards

I feel as though I am going backwards and could be getting unwell again. I did self-harm twice. I swallowed two shards of mirror and I have not told anyone. I knew when I did it I was wrong in it and I know I shouldn’t have done it for the second time. I know I should have talked through my feelings with someone, yet I didn’t. I went ahead and did what the urges were telling me to do. And now I can’t tell anyone. I don’t want it to jeopardise my chances of moving on.

I have had a good report from the nursing staff on the ward stating I am doing well and had not self-harmed since being here. I have applied for a tribunal and want to get off the section and I feel that if there are incidents of self-harm that have been recent I am not likely to get off the section. Also there has been that referral to the continuing care panel and if they got wind of it they are more likely to choose the low secure route.

So my plan is to not tell anyone unless I feel unwell. They will only send me to the ED where they will x-ray me, not be able to see it because it’s glass, and, then tell me to go back if I have any pain. I can’t see the point in going really unless I feel it’s caused me internal damage.

So does this mean I am getting unwell again? Am I going backwards? The self-harm urges are massive and I still want to really badly. There’s not really anyone on shift I could talk to about it. I suppose I could hypothetically ask what would happen if I were to tell them I had self-harmed and how this would affect me. But I bet they would probably catch on. I suppose I could then deny it. I don’t want the ramifications of what would happen but I feel as though I want to talk about it with someone. I am not sure who though. I am worried that these acts mean I am slipping back and I am not getting well as I thought I was.

I see Gary on Tuesday and I suppose I could talk to him about how I feel. I feel as though a lot of the feelings have come on since seeing him last time and being open with him. The thoughts of my past really trouble me and I have been having flashbacks and nightmares about it all. It’s thrown me off my course. Everyone thinks I am still doing so well. But if I tell them I have so much to lose. I won’t be able to go on leave, they will go back to watching me in the bathroom and toilet, every bit of progress that I have made will be ruined. So that’s why I don’t want to tell anyone. But every twinge I have I wonder if it’s the start of something and although I swallowed them with the intent to cause internal damage, I don’t want to be in the kind of pain that I was when I swallowed the needle in September. It was horrendous. I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to be in hospital though, I don’t want my parents and family I have seriously self-harmed again. I should have thought of this before I did it, I know that now. But the urges were too strong. I don’t think when I feel like that. Something in me takes over. I don’t want to be this person. I don’t want this kind of life.

Another Review

I had another review today. I don’t really know how I feel about it. I talked about a few things with the doc.

First off we discussed my leave. I am allowed to go get my hair done tomorrow. They are giving me four hours to go get it done. I did say I had been struggling the past few days as of psychology and it was making me have thoughts. So they asked how I will cope if I struggle while I am out. I just said I would ride the feelings out as I have been doing the past few days and I am not planning on anything. Which is true. Kind of. My mirror in my eye shadows has broken and I did pull a piece of it out earlier. Not sure what I am going to do with it. I want to cut, I want to swallow it to cause internal damage. I am not telling anyone I have this glass as I don’t want it to affect the leave I have. But, it is worrying me that I have gone back a step. Also because I don’t want to go to low secure and serious self-harm is going to go against me. I am not even sure I will use it but knowing it’s there is a kind of security blanket. Anyway, they said because of my previous history of secreting items when I have come in to hospital, such as when I was admitted in November when I had all the medication hidden and razors hidden, that they are going to search me when I get back. So I must remember not to take out the mirror with me in case they find it on the way back in.

The next thing we discussed was the medication. Currently I am on Depakote (Sodium Valporate), Quetiapine and Lofepramine. I had a long conversation with one of the nurses in the week about the risks of taking Depakote and being a female of child bearing age. It really worried me. The chances of deformities in the foetus/baby are three times greater than other medication. It’s not a case of stopping it when you find out you are pregnant as these deformities happen in cell development and occur before you even know you are pregnant. What worries me here is when I have been unwell I have undertaken in risky behaviour and had unprotected sex. I am currently on the contraceptive pill but this is not 100% effective and if I am unwell I am less likely to take medication as I forget or don’t think I need it. Changing to a different contraception is not an option either as of my Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome/Disease. After many years of problems I finally found a combination of treatment that works which is Metformin and the contraceptive pill. I am not going through having a coil fitted again as it is horrendous and I don’t want the implant. So changing my contraception is not an option. I asked if I could change to lithium to which she said she didn’t want to. She asked me if I could consider coming off the mood stabiliser all together and see how things pan out and increase the Quetiapine. I said I didn’t want to do that as I felt that the Depakote did work and I really didn’t want to chance becoming unwell and having unstable moods again. I tried to argue my point on this but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I think a lot of the reasoning behind her decision was the toxicity of Lithium in OD and we all know my history there.

Another thing I thought when she said that was “oh good, something that would definitely work”. So it’s obvious I am still having suicidal thoughts. Not good. I had not really noticed them until now. Maybe this is one of the first, but, it was there and that makes me worry that I am going back.

The last thing we talked about was moving wards. I said at the moment because of psychology I felt unsettled and don’t feel as though I would be able to cope on an acute/treatment ward as of the type of environment they are. I said ultimately I do want to move back to the hospital I was originally in but at the moment I worry as I feel being on this PICU is doing some good and I haven’t self-harmed in a number of weeks. But, if I am moved I feel that at the moment I wouldn’t be able to cope and I may end up back on the PICU that is out of my area where Fingers is. The doc said she couldn’t make any guarantees on this and cannot block a bed if they feel I am ready to be moved. I also said I didn’t wish to remain on this site as of the amount of hours I have worked on one of the wards and also on another ward before it was relocated to this site. So I want to go back to the main hospital where there are psych wards and not remain in the specialist psych hospital (If La Reve is reading this you are probably thinking I am mad considering the comparisons of cleanliness between the two places).

So that is this week’s review. I don’t feel as though I have got anywhere. I have been told I have to go to acute ward first. And even then it’s not a sure thing that I will be going home as the continuing care panel may decide they want me to go to low secure, or go to Mac Close. Neither of which I want. I just really wanna go home.

I saw my solicitor yesterday and she was quite positive at least. She said it doesn’t matter that I am getting self-harm urges as long as I can talk to staff about them and not act on them. I need to talk to staff about it and not hide away and say I am not getting them as it won’t be believed. If I can show that I do have them but I can ride them out and not do anything then I am more likely to get out. I said to her I felt my CPN/CCO (Beth) was quite negative and explained how she had even turned what my Mum had said in to a negative; she asked my Mum if she was happy to have me at home and my Mum said yes, she then asked her if she had any worries and my Mum said yes. So Beth said “Oh I’ll put that you are not entirely happy to have GP at home then”. My Mum was quite annoyed as that was not what she said and she said she could see how I felt Beth was being negative.

Anyway, that’s the past couple of days what has happened. I think I may need some PRN to help with the self-harm urges and thoughts. I don’t like taking it in the day though as it makes me sleep. I’ll see how I feel after going for a walk.

Thanks for reading.
Xxx