Discharge Today

So the plan is to discharge me today. I am nervous. It's not as though I want to be in hospital, I really don't. But I'm scared of leaving. What if I can't cope?

I've practically been in one year now. And I don't see how that much has changed. That scares me. I still get intrusive thoughts and struggle to deal with them on my own. Being here there is more stopping me from acting on them and I can access support from staff I know if I need it. Ok, there will be the crisis team I can call. But it will be an unknown person who I have never met before and don't have a trusting relationship with. I have gotten to know some staff really well and when I struggle I can talk to them. If they're not around I'll ask for PRN to take the edge off and I'm going to have to leave all that behind.

I'll still have a CPN and fortnightly sessions with the psychologist who I've got a really good relationship with. I've never trusted someone as much as I trust him. I suppose one thing being in here has taught me is I can be open and honest with staff as they won't judge me. I will be getting a lot of support when I'm out but it's not there all the time and I'm scared of losing that. If I'm struggling It's notas though I can just leave my room and have a chat with a professional which is what I've become used to in the last year.

Things are going to change and they're going to be difficult I know that. I'm terrified of ending up back in hospital as there's talk of low secure if that happens. I have things planned for the next year which should keep me positive and can hopefully bring me out of low points if I start working on it. I need to keep myself active, see friends and make sure I fill my days up. I'm going to enrol on a couple of courses to keep me going and see where that gets me. I'm doing it different this time. I'm more positive about discharge as I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and I feel as though I'm in control of it.
But it's not stopping me feeling anxious about it all. Is that a normal feeling? I'd love for people to comment their own experiences or opinions please.

Thanks

Xxx

Moved Wards

I’ve moved wards. I am now off the intensive care unit. After 6 and half months they have moved me to the acute/treatment ward. Can’t say I am actually that happy about it as the ward they have moved me to is one I worked on quite regularly before I went travelling a couple of years back.

But, I am trying to see the positives. It is a lot quieter and I have left some right dickheads behind from the other ward. The negatives are that I will miss some of the staff quite a lot as I got on really well with some of them and will miss their company. With some of them there was more than that patient/nurse relationship. Well, I felt there was anyway. Some of them even said that they didn’t see me as a patient and they saw me more as one of them. Probably why they took me to the pub. I suppose most of the time, in terms of a PICU patient I was an easy person. OK, this last month hasn’t been the best and they restrained me and a self-harmed a number of times. But the majority of the time I didn’t cause any problems.

So hopefully I should only be in hospital a few more weeks. Then I can get on with some serious planning of my around Asia travels for next April time. Planning on 3 months around Asia. I want to go to China for sure but not decided on where else. I have done Thailand a couple of times and quite recently as well as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos so I am not sure where else to go. Any one got any ideas? I was thinking of Tokyo for maybe 4-5 nights but the rest of Japan doesn’t really interest me, and it is too expensive. I am doing the trip on a budget of about £170 per week so I need to be careful and plan it well.

GOOD NEWS ALERT: -

Just had review with doctor and have planned a discharge date of 2 weeks today on the 31 st of July. I was told 4-6 weeks by PICU doctor but it seemed as though I managed to talk the talk and get what I wanted today. I should get leave also before getting out so I’ll be able to go home before the discharge date. I’m buzzing, but I am also really nervous about it all. I mean, I have now been in hospital 8 months, by the time I am discharged it will practically be a year bar the 4 weeks I was out in October last year. I need to think how I am going to do things differently. If I end up in hospital again, I am likely to end up in a low secure place. Not what I want and I have been told it’s not what would be best for me either but that they would have no other choice.

So my plans are to take a year out from uni (again), but this time, it’s a positive year out. It’s my decision. I have plans for the year. Well, 3 months of it. But before I go I have the motivation of going to keep me well and focussed and after I get back I will be going to uni quite soon after I get back and will have my dissertation to be working on. I’ll start work on it before I go and I will need to look at doing some volunteering or courses that I would enjoy doing to keep me busy so I don’t get into a bad routine. I need to ensure I keep a routine. I know that not doing causes problems for me. The last thing I want is to have planned a trip, have booked flights and paid for them to end up in hospital again. I have my worries. I am not sure if I can do it. But I am going to give it my best shot. I really am. That's all I can do really!
Xxx

I'm not doing that great.

Short post as writing from my phone.

Things are getting worse and worse. I keep self harming and making half arsed attempts but it's not getting me anywhere. So now it's 10pm and they're doing the most thorough room search ever and taking everything out. I have got something hidden and it's going to get found but I'm not owning up to it on off chance she doesn't check where it is.

She's about to find it! She will. Omg she didn't. She didn't say if she did it looked like she just chucked it in with the rest of my stuff.

Anyway. Feeling shit. The feelings of wanting to end it all are back and I think of ways in which I can. I don't really know what to do about it. Over the past few weeks I've made some as what they class pretty serious self harm suicide attempts. I've been forced to go to hospital which was horrible but all I was bothered about was what would happen if my parents found out. Not at all bothered what would happen to me. I couldn't care if I'd caused myself harm. What does that say about everything? I don't know what to do with myself. It's just engulfing me at the moment. Xxx

Full Circle

I feel as though I have come full circle. Things were going really well, great even. I had loads of leave, I hadn’t self-harmed in over 2 months and they were starting to plan my discharge. And now, I have messed it all up. The past 3-4 weeks I have self-harmed, been so distressed that they have had to restrain and jab me in the bum with meds.

I am not positive what has brought it all back on but what I do know is that the thoughts have all returned and the feeling of “what is the fucking point” has returned. The Psychologist and I have come up with a couple of reasons in what could be causing it and those relate back to my feelings of not being able to control what is going on around me.

First off, although it’s a positive move, I should be moving wards to a treatment/acute ward rather than the PICU which I have been on for just over 6 months now. I would rather be discharged from here as I know my previous experience of acute wards has not been good. I know I was a lot more ill at the time, but I still have that in the back of my mind. Also, having been here 6 months I know the staff really well, and they know me. They can tell what I am feeling just by looking at me. I am able to be more open with them and have some really good relationships with particular staff. Many of the staff don’t treat me like a patient and I am privy to some pretty good gossip. Some of the staff I will miss as people, and I would like to know what happens with them and what is going on in their lives. Obviously, I wouldn’t class them as friends as that feeling has to be reciprocated, but I am rather fond of them.

I went to look at the ward I am moving to last week and although it’s nicer than the other acute wards I have been on before, there is something about it which makes me uncomfortable. It’s really big; about 20 beds, where I am now is only 10. It is also all female, where as this one is mixed. Well it’s supposed to be but it’s changing to all male and there were only 2 female beds and I have been the only female for a couple of weeks now. I prefer being on a mixed ward though. I have my own female area so I can get away from the blokes and there has only been a couple of times where I have felt threatened, but because of the ratio of males to females I have been on high obs when I have been on the main ward.

I’ve not been told when I am going either. Just that they are waiting on a bed and when that comes it, that’s it I am being shipped out. It’s a horrible feeling not having any control over it and not knowing what and when it’s going to happen. I don’t want to go, but if they could just say “you’re going on Thursday” at least I would know and be able to prepare properly.

I also have major worries about going home. Will things have changed that much? If at all. People here keep going on about how well I have done, but I honestly can’t see it. I don’t see what the point of nearly 8 months so far in hospital has done. A year really as I was first admitted at the beginning of August last year and was only actually discharged for 4 weeks between admissions. I’ve struggled to articulate this to people as they don’t get where I am coming from with it. In a way I am saying I don’t feel particularly safe to be going home and that being here is probably the only thing that has stopped me self-harming. Not me. But being here. I am not saying I want to be in hospital. Far from it. I want to be at home. But, unfortunately some of those reasons for wanting to be at home are so that I can go back to self-harming unseen again. Wrong reasons really aren’t they. It’s not all like that. That’s not the only reason. But I don’t see what being here actually does for me and think it could make things worse.

I have made some good progress with the psychologist and I am very fond of him. He has agreed to see me once I am discharged for a while also which is good. I think I will need all the support I can get and I like I can just have a good moan at him. I have also cried in front of him, he makes me feel comfortable. But then recently, I have not really cared about who I have cried in front of and have just been blubbing to anyone who will listen. Not like me at all. I usually hate crying in front of people but something in me has changed and I’ll just start on one and be hysterical crying to anyone. Apparently that is a good thing. People will grow tired of it soon though!

I had an assessment from the forensic services for a referral to low secure. At the time it went well and they told me not to worry as I wouldn’t be going there. But since then I think I have self-harmed about 5 times in 2 weeks quite seriously as well. I also got really pissed (yes pissed on alcohol) on my birthday and then tried to do a runner. But jeans that are falling down, no shoes, staggering, no coordination, being unfit and heading in the wrong direction were no match for a fit 23 year old lad, then 2 more strong blokes. Queue more hysterical crying and being unceremoniously dragged back to the ward and being pinned down. Not my proudest moment. I am so embarrassed. I apologised to everyone involved as I was absolutely mortified. Got the piss taken out of me the next day when I had the world’s worst hangover.

I’ve got a meeting with my CPN, Beth, today. I am dreading it. Things were ok with her. I had a good chat with her about the issues I had in regards to how I felt she had been in the wrong in the past in regards to my confidentiality and things seemed better. But with recent events I am worried about what she is coming to see me about. There’s a couple of things which could happen to me if I am not moved over to the treatment ward of which I want neither. The first is being that they could transfer me back to the unit where Fingers works as that is becoming the female unit in the area. This will mean I will have to be near him again and also that I lose my psychologist. They run things so differently there and it is more like a prison. You can’t have anything and you don’t get leave or anything. And it would mean Fingers! And we know how I feel about him. Bastard! The other thing is being sent to a low secure place which would mean I would be in hospital a hell of a lot longer than 8 months. Were probably looking at another 18 minimum. Scary stuff. I just want to go home. But from here. Not another ward. But because it’s a PICU and the amount of time I have been on here Dr Witch Bitch Medusa has said I need to go to acute first and although people have before they were males and had different clinical needs to me. Annoying really.

I have made a decision all being well though. I am taking another year out of university. I think it would have probably been forced on me anyway as of my likely discharge date (4-6 weeks after being on acute ward). It’s a bit close to going back to uni and I am supposed to be working on my dissertation at the moment which I obviously can’t do. So I have decided I am going to take a couple of months out to go travelling again. I have decided on China but not where else yet. I can’t make up my mind. But, I have plently of time to decide as I probably wont even be looking at booking until November time. But we will have to wait and see what happens.

I probably have loads more news as I have not written in 2 months but I can’t be bothered to write anymore. My fingers ache!

I’ll try and keep more regular updates.
Xxx