This Is Me!

I’ve been questioning a lot of things recently. Should I have really been discharged back in August? Was I really ready? I mean, would all this be happening now? Would I have only cut and swallowed a needle and razor less than two weeks after being discharged? Also, am I receiving the right support?

Maybe when they wanted to refer me to low secure they were right in doing so. Maybe I would have been better there? Would I have been? Would they have been able to help me? If I wasn’t so “intelligent” (as I have been told many times by professionals, personally I don’t see it, or what that has to do with it, do intelligent people not get ill, errrr Stephen Fry anyone?) would I have not been able to just talk my way out of it. Which I kind of did. I just said I was more aware of triggers and when I am about to go into crisis point and can pin point it. But I’m not really. I don’t see any improvement. The only thing I can do is talk to staff about how I feel and that has gone from being 24/7 to an hour a week. Not even that.

I don’t have an honest open relationship with my CPN as I feel she breaks my confidentiality. And now as of this confidentiality thing, which I do get and I do understand I feel I can’t be honest with anyone. Even the psychologist who before when I was an inpatient I was. Well he knew as he would have read it in my notes as I felt I was able to tell staff if I had harmed without them reporting it to my parents. So I would be able to debrief with him about it. Now I don’t feel I can tell anyone or debrief with anyone about it without it getting back to my parents as they are my carers. When I was admitted last night I even lied to the doctor about when I had last seriously self harmed by swallowing. I told him it was about 3 weeks previous when in reality it was only a week, if that. And I told him that resus took an x-ray of my abdomen while I was there and nothing showed up. I told him that just so he wouldn’t follow it up by making me go back to hospital and then that getting back to my parents.

I have an OT worker and we kind of skirt around the issue of self harm but she is not someone I would disclose to anyway. I talk to her about how what I am doing affects my mood and what works and what doesn’t. Not urges and what increases and decreases them.

The psychologist I see every 2 weeks now. When I was first an inpatient I used to see him twice a week. He said he could see improvement as did some of the ward staff but personally I can’t see it. I feel so deflated that I have spent the last year in hospital and I am still in the same position if not a worse one as before at least my parents were a protective factor but the massive OD of tricylics I took on Tuesday shows that that isn’t the case anymore.

And that’s another thing that’s really bothering me. My memory of events. I remember being at the bridge. I remember hanging up on crisis team and driving home. I remember making myself a juice and the police arriving and them persuading me to go to the 136 voluntarily kind of. Well to voluntarily leave the house so they could put me on a 136. But I don’t remember the 136 experience or who was there. I had a sleeping pill while I was there. I do remember that. And I remember asking what time the assessment would be on the Tuesday and being told about 12pm. But I don’t remember waiting for the assessment, what was asked of me or what the outcome was. Well obviously it was to let me go but I don’t remember leaving or getting home. I do remember that the AMHP was the one who originally assessed me back in August 2011 and put me on a S.2. But that is it. I remember popping the pills. And my brother climbing on to my balcony to get to me as I wouldn’t answer to door. I was in bed with my iPod in so I claimed I didn’t hear the door or my phone. He didn’t believe me. I said I wasn’t going to talk and he said he wasn’t going anywhere and would be downstairs until my parents got back as they were on their way back from holiday as of what happened as the AMHP had contacted them (actually I remembered arguing about this with him saying he didn’t have to unless was application for S.3 he was putting in and if he had read my notes he would have seen how having my parents involved makes things worse for me). Then the next thing I know I am in the kitchen and the dog is looking at me weirdly like she does when she knows I have done something wrong. Then next thing I know I am outside on my hands and knees looking for my phone, bag, keys etc. The back door is locked I know that so somehow I know I have managed to lock the door after me. Then I am sitting between the car and van in the driveway thinking I’ll just stay there, in plain view of the whole street. Clever thinking there. Muppet!

Then I hear my Mum shout is anyone there? I say me. They ask if I have been drinking and I say no. I haven’t. But I feel like I have had a litre of vodka. I am spinning and I can’t see straight. They ask me to go sit in the lounge with them and tell me it’s 3am and did I hear them coming in my room to keep checking on me I said no. So they kept asking me if I had taken anything and I said no. Then I said yes. They kept asking how many paracetamol and I said none but it was as though they didn’t believe me. So they said they were going to call and ambulance and I begged them not to and they said they had to. My Mum asked me to go outside with her while she had a cigarette don’t know where my Dad went. All I wanted to do was go to sleep. They wouldn’t let me though. I put a pillow on my Mum’s lap and rest my head in it and then my Dad has lifted me on to the floor. The next thing I know I am in the back of an ambulance and there is a knock at the door and the paramedic said they are ready to go and was one of them coming and they said no! My next memory is them taking my watch off and I moaned about it. And they kept giving me sternum rubs to wake me up but I couldn’t wake up. I could feel the pain, and man they are painful, but my body would not respond. The next thing I know I am asked to move myself between the trolley and a bed on the ward so I must have been conscious at this point. I must have lost it again as woke to another sternum rub and them telling me they were going to put a tube down my throat as I wasn’t breathing properly. But that must have done something to me as they never did that.

The next day was a bit of a blur until the evening also. I remember waking up in the morning but couldn’t keep my eyes open. Every time I closed them I imagined something happening or someone but then opening them and nothing had happened. Then I saw my CPN and another lady and she smiled at me. I thought I imagined it. But then the nurse came back with them and said I had to get out of bed and go with them. I only had a gown on and just pulled the sheets off me and tried to get into my jogging bottoms not caring who saw my half naked body. So embarrassing. Especially as my legs are a mass of cuts. They quickly pulled the curtains round. I can’t really remember much of what they asked me but I do remember them saying either I go informally or it will go to a MHA and based on what I had done and already said I would be put on a S.2. So I agreed. I did keep falling asleep while they were assessing me and they kept shouting my name. I don’t think I was medically fit to be assessed really. I was still pretty out of it and being as though I can’t remember it clearly I think I was still drugged up.

It became clearer in the evening and this is where my memory is fully restored to full rather than just flashes.

I have been worrying about all of this and this is more just for my personal recollection of events. But I’ll post it anyway.

I spoke to my CPN today. I said to her I didn’t want to return home as I didn’t feel it was good for me but I don’t know if I can cope on my own on my own so maybe some supported living would be a good idea and she said she would look in to it. I don’t know if I will just use being alone as more of an opportunity to harm myself and not worry about being found if I make an attempt. I don’t want to live like this anymore and I can’t see a way out.

I want a husband, I want babies. One of my best friends told me yesterday she is pregnant, but not to tell anyone yet as she is only 10 weeks. She has only been with the guy since August time but he seems so nice and they seem so right together. But that’s a different matter. But it really got me thinking. Am I ever going to have any of that? I mean really I can’t inflict myself on someone else. What about my kids. What if they turn out like me? I couldn’t cope with that? Am I ever really going to get through this, whatever it is? This is not just a blip. Can’t remember who said that, think was a couple of the nurses on this ward. This is me. This is who I am. It defines me. It’s not a blip. This is the main event. I am going to see all my friends get married, have kids have the 2.4 children and then there will be me, Honorary Aunty who’s got many problems, eternally single, no kids but has seen the world. It’s not fair to inflict this on someone else. This is me. This is what I am!