23:06 – Just the most perfect song right now

Every time I see,
My eyes,
In my reflection…
I can’t help but be disappointed,
At who I am…

And every time I feel,
My skin,
Breaking on metal…
It helps me be quiet,
And quiet’s where I need to be…

Scars on my skin…
Scars on my heart…
Scars on my soul…
Reminding me of myself…

Scars on my skin…
Scars on my heart…
Scars on my soul…
Reminding me of myself…

And if I let you in,
You’ll tear me apart…

Every time I feel alone,
And left forgotten,
I have to believe in something…
Like angels,
To breathe…

And every time I see,
My pain,
Beating in rhythm…
I need to be silenced,
In silence where I hide my fear…

Scars on my skin…
Scars on my heart…
Scars on my soul…
Reminding me of myself…

Scars on my skin…
Scars on my heart…
Scars on my soul…
Reminding me of myself…

And if I let you in,
You’ll tear me apart…

So just hold me,
Wrap me in your arms,
Don’t let me fall again…
Teach me,
So I don’t have to learn anything more from you…

Isn’t my pain good enough for faith,
In you?
Isn’t my pain good enough for faith,
In you?

So just hold me,
Wrap me in your arms,
Don’t let me fall again…
Teach me,
So I don’t have to learn anything more from you…

Isn’t my pain good enough for faith,
In you?
Isn’t my pain good enough for faith,
In you?

17:37 – I don’t deserve a compassionate mind

I thought I better write a little post as a few people have sent me emails and dm’s on twitter to check I was still alive. I am, although there have been a few occasions over the past couple of weeks where I have wished that wasn’t the case.

Since I last posted I have got my new washing machine, seen very little of best friend as she’s all loved up with a new man in her life, gone to my appointment with the dietician, gone to one appointment with CPN#2 (but then didn’t turn up to my appointments with CPN#2 or support worker this week).

Where to start? Hmm… Well I have taken a lot of advice on board that the dietician gave me. She told me she had gone and done some reading about my medications and their side effects and I was pleased that she said she wouldn’t be expecting me to lose weight as fast as other people as the combination of 750mg Quetiapine (Seroquel) each day, the Mirtazapine and the Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) would all slow my weight loss down. She weighed me and said I am about 3 and a half stone overweight (around 50lbs for my friends across the pond) but she is only expecting me to lose at around 1lb a week, normally she’d aim for 2-3lbs a week. So it’s going to be slow and steady. I have another appointment with her on June 14th and hoping to have lost a few lbs by then.

I have completely changed my eating habits over the past week and have been eating only fresh fruit, vegetables, salads and wholegrain breads and cereals. I haven’t had one single chocolate bar or packet of crisps since I saw her which has been hard going at times especially on the days I’ve been feeling crappy because I don’t feel like I deserve to make myself nice foods, I deserve to eat junk and be fat and disgusting and it’s very very hard to fight back against that. I think that is another reason why I didn’t go to my appointments this week, because when I did see CPN#2 last she had spoken to the psychologist (that I’m on the waiting list to go back and see) and psychologist wants to try the Paul Gilbert ‘Compassionate Mind’ program with me again, now that my life isn’t so chaotic that I’m a psych hospital revolving door patient.

The idea of being compassionate towards myself is so fucking alien. It is natural for me to think negatively towards myself and I really don’t know if I’ll be able to do this compassionate mind stuff. Deep down I know that no matter what treatment we try or what help I get I’m still going to be the same ugly horrible person who deserves nothing good. And in a way I sometimes think I don’t even want any help just in case I do get caught letting my guard down and for a tiny moment think that maybe I am worth something. Nobody seems to understand that it is instinctive to punish myself and make myself suffer, thinking of being nice to myself makes me feel anxious and horribly uncomfortable.

My mood states seem to be changing between seriously depressed and feeling ‘ok’ every few days if not every few hours. Sometimes I just find myself sitting here and for no obvious reason bursting into tears. I’ve been really quite emotional for a good couple of months now, never in front of people, but the smallest thing on the television or even reading a friend’s Facebook status will set me off. Then I get frustrated with myself because I don’t even know what I’m crying about and angry at myself for thinking it is OK to cry. It’s not OK, I don’t deserve to express my feelings that way, I deserve to express my sad feelings by dragging a blade through my flesh. To be honest it is actually easier to cut than to cry, cutting just doesn’t seem to have as many emotions attached to it yet it seems to clear my mind for a while, whereas crying just leaves me even more of a mess than when I started.

Anyway… moving on…

I got some good news this morning. I got my essay results back for my university module that I have been struggling so massively with. They weren’t due until the first week of June so it came as a bit of a surprise. I passed with 65% which is a good grade B, although because I didn’t take part in the other assessed part of the module it pulled my overall pass mark down to 52% which is a C. I’m just relieved it is over and that I am now on my Summer break. When we start back at the end of August I have opted to try and do two modules per semester so I still get my six first year modules completed within two years. I don’t know if I’ll manage to cope with that workload but I guess I can only try it and see how I get on. I think it helps if the modules are about something you find interesting and enjoy learning about, the first module I did I really enjoyed so it made it a lot easier to understand but this module I’ve just finished I wasn’t remotely interested in, so it all felt like it just went over my head most of the time.

I was going to start talking about something else that’s been going on lately but I’m already rambling and it probably needs a blog post all of it’s own, the short version is that I have been thinking a lot about finding a faith again. I know it wasn’t that long ago that I was talking about going to church and finding God but I keep on coming back to the same point again. I decided to speak to a devoted Christian a few days ago and the first thing she asked me was why I wanted God in my life. My answer was simple, I want to believe my baby son is in Heaven which means that to believe in a Heaven I have to believe in a God. She answered just as simply back -

“your baby boy will be in Heaven, there is no doubt about it because he was pure and innocent and never sinned – if you want to have any chance that you will be reunited with him then you have to live your life as God would want you to and only then will He decide where you will go when you die – but make no mistakes, if you don’t live your life for God then you have no chance of getting into Heaven”.

So that feels like a massive pressure on me now. There are so many things I do which would be classed as sinning. I definitely don’t live my life in the way that God would be pleased with. If he is real and his son Jesus died on the cross for us then what must he think when I cut up the body He created or even try to kill that body? What must He think when I’ve been in times where I can’t cope and have turned to drink or drugs to block it out? What must He think when I’ve been a bit manic and spending money recklessly or having sex with some random person? There are sooo many things I do wrongly, in God’s eyes and I have found myself on more than one occasion asking for His forgiveness. But again I come back to ‘what I deserve’, and I deserve to hurt and be punished. I deserve to suffer. I don’t think I even deserve God but the idea that I may never be reunited with my beautiful little boy is too painful to bear, it really is (oh here we go, tears running down my face again).

Anyway… I guess I have rambled on long enough and also I’m finding it hard to stick to a point I just seem to be blabbering on all over the place. My head’s a bit pickled, it’s up then down, up and down. I don’t know what I’m going to feel from one moment to the next. The fact that I’m self isolating again is a sign things aren’t great, the constant thoughts of self harming probably also show things aren’t great. But I am keeping it very superficial purely because I cannot face A&E right now. I barely leave the house apart from to walk the dogs and I try to see people the smallest amount possible. I’m making excuses up all the time as to why I can’t do this or go there and it’s funny because the less texts I reply to and the more times I ignore calls, the less and less those texts and calls come through. It’s as if people can see I just cannot be bothered so they are just leaving me alone. Which is good and it is what I want, yet it does make me feel even more isolated and lonely. And that feeds the ‘I don’t deserve it anyway’ thoughts more and more.

So it looks like it’s going to be a quiet bank holiday weekend for me. At least we have some sunshine at the moment and I can go and hide sitting on the beach while the dogs play around and have no one bothering me… Speaking of the doggys it is time for them to get their dinner and go another little walk soon so I’ll stop rambling now and and wish you all a nice weekend instead…

00:21 – Terrified of the wrong side winning

“Do you know what I’m really terrified of? The wrong side winning. It’s as though my mind has split in two and I have no control over it. And the thing is, I’m beginning to get confused about which side is right and which is wrong.”

(Victoria Leatham)

 

That quote above couldn’t be more true right now. My mind is split in two and it is driving me mad, it’s tormenting me constantly, it’s trying so hard to pull me backwards and make me fall with an almighty bang. I have two things going on inside my head right now and the voices keep cropping up as well, making sure that my head is constantly busy.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been finding it incredibly difficult to watch television. I feel as though everything I watch is trying to trigger me, like the programmes are being deliberately controlled by someone to make sure just about anything I try to watch either leaves me feeling panicky or in floods of tears. There are two reasons for this, one is that I can’t seem to watch anything even a tiny bit upsetting or I end up in these moments of intense sadness and tears. The other is because there have been so many alleged cases of historical sexual abuse by soap stars and TV presenters reported recently that I feel as though every time I see a news report it is trying to fuck my head up. I start to wonder if this is a deliberate attempt to see if watching TV could send me properly bonkers.

I don’t know if this will make any sense, but some of the men accused I associate with happy childhood memories of seeing them in kids TV programs and others I have kind of grown up with as TV soap stars. And because my childhood wasn’t always happy as I was abused myself for a large part of it, when I see these news reports this noise starts up in my head just of laughter, a sick laughter that goes on and on until I switch the TV off. It’s not good enough just to put it on standby, it must be switched off at the wall. When I see/hear these reports I feel as though the evil laughter in my head is just one final way of reminding me that even the innocent happy memories of my childhood can be tarnished so easily.

One part of me reacts to it all angrily – very angrily – and I find myself sitting here thinking that all men are complete wankers, that I will never have another relationship because at the age of 31 I’ve had so many bad experiences with men that I genuinely do not believe I could ever trust one again. Even in the last week I have seen yet again just how much they can leave me feeling dirty and ashamed. I got talking to a guy online and after a few nights talking online he asked if he could have my number. Like a fucking idiot I gave it to him and he called me for a chat. It was pretty awkward at first as I sort of clammed up and didn’t feel like I had much to say for myself – I fucking hate phone conversations, they make me feel really anxious when it’s someone I don’t know. But I stuck with it as I’d had my medication and waited to see if I would calm down a bit and be able to chat away to him. Eventually I did start to calm and we talked about loads of different things. It was him who said he had just seen someone posting one of those stupid sick jokes that always go round when the media report that well known people have been arrested on rape or abuse charges. He asked me what I thought of it and as I’d already been honest about my mental health problems I figured I’d try telling him the truth. So I told him I hated hearing about it all as it triggered a lot of memories from times I had been abused. He sounded a bit sad when I said that and asked me what had happened. I didn’t go into great detail about the adult experiences but told him I’d been abused by an older cousin throughout my childhood. He began to ask a lot of questions and I thought it was just his way of asking to understand what I’d gone through, he sounded like he was asking it in a caring sort of way, and even though it felt a bit weird to be having such a deep conversation with someone who was still a stranger it also felt nice to be able to be open from the start with someone. He began to ask more details – how old was I when it first happened? What did he make me do to him? What did he do to me? How did he get me to keep it a secret? I answered the first couple of questions feeling OK but the more questions he asked the more I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. I could hear his breathing going funny when I was talking. At one point I thought he had fallen asleep as the breathing became so loud. And then it dawned on me what he was doing on the other end of the phone. I didn’t want to believe it but I couldn’t ignore it, I had to ask him what he was doing? Why was he breathing like that? Had he fallen asleep? How I wish he had fallen asleep because I was completely unprepared for his upfront answer that he was “getting off”, what did I think he’d do if I started “talking like that”?

I hung up immediately and burst into tears, went over to the wall and stood there banging my head against it over and over until the tears stopped. I had allowed it to happen. I was to blame. I made him aroused by telling him about some of my most painful experiences. I felt so stupid. So fucking stupid. But it is just another incident to remind me that apart from my Dad and my brother, I must look at every man like he has the potential to hurt me even if it starts making my head go crazy. I’ve been getting these rushes of ideas going through my head, things that could land me in serious trouble if I were to act on them, like carrying some kind of weapon so that if I ever get caught off guard I’d be protected. But obviously that is highly illegal in this country. Usually when I am in some type of depressive or paranoid episode I prefer to go out during the night when nobody is around. The dark makes me feel safe and protected, the day time busy-ness makes me paranoid and anxious. But this time it’s different, the daytime busy-ness protects me and keeps me safe. At night time I am vulnerable and terrified. I might not be allowed to carry any type of weapon to protect myself but I do let one of the dogs off his lead and walk with it wrapped tightly around my hand, I hold the thick metal end tightly as images rush through my head telling me to make sure I’m ‘ready’ if anyone tries to hurt me in any way. Thankfully there is only one walk a day that I have to do when it’s dark but it is getting harder and harder because I have to stay so alert to anyone else whose around. I can’t relax, my heart beats so fast I can hear it in my chest and I keep one of the dogs next to me at all times because I know they will bark like mad if anyone approaches us, especially in the dark.

When I’m not thinking of all possible scenarios whereby a man could hurt me I am thinking about all the possible ways I could hurt myself. It’s not enough just having these violent thoughts towards potential ‘abusers’ – my thoughts race off in another direction telling me that I clearly deserve to be hurt and abused because it’s happened to me by so many men at various ages throughout my life. I must attract it somehow. They must be able to tell just by looking at me that by slipping something into a drink or by acting all caring and sweet to get me into a conversation with them that they’ll be able to make me do things for their perverted pleasures. They must just be able to tell by looking at me that they’ll be able to use me for what they want then fuck off and leave me to pick up the pieces. I told my support worker at Rape Crisis all of this on Wednesday and she told me it’s not uncommon for women who have been abused in some way to go on to have a string of abusive relationships or experiences. I think the sick fuckers can smell vulnerability and just have to try their luck. So yeah, along with the thoughts of wanting to castrate every man who has ever hurt me there are also a lot of thoughts and urges to self harm. I want to see the rivers of blood trickling out of me, I want to grab a blade and cut and cut and cut. But I don’t want to go to A&E, my legs are still in an absolute mess from the last self harm episode, I’ve got an area on one of the cuts where I think I’ve done some kind of nerve damage as there is a bit about the size of a 50p which is completely numb, I can’t feel a thing when I press down on it, even with something sharp.

It terrifies me to have thoughts about hurting other people and I have to keep telling myself over and over that I’m just being overly alert and that it IS safe to keep going outside. I know I would never act on them unless I was put into an extremely threatening position by someone. But then one part of my head screams so loudly that I deserve for another man to hurt me, I deserve to be used and abused and left even more broken than I am just now. And that just feeds the images and the urges to self harm again, because I believe I deserve to be cut, scarred and to look as disgusting as I do. I should look even more disgusting than I do now, I should be covered from head to toe in self mutilated wounds. Then no-one would ever want to come near me again. By making myself less and less attractive I can protect myself, or so the racing thoughts and occasional voices blurt out to me.

What was the quote I started with again?

“Do you know what I’m really terrified of? The wrong side winning. It’s as though my mind has split in two and I have no control over it. And the thing is, I’m beginning to get confused about which side is right and which is wrong.”

Which is the wrong side? I guess it’s the thoughts of hurting someone. I can’t control the thoughts, but I can control my actions. I think. And like the quote says, I truly am terrified of this side winning.

So which is the right side? I wish there was a side which believed that one day I will recover from all of this and achieve some things with my life. I wish I could believe there is a right side and it is going to be a place where if not happy, I’m at least content. But I don’t believe that is going to happen so instead I have to wonder if the right side is actually all these thoughts and encouraging voices telling me to hurt myself? Hurting myself feels right. It’s what I do. It makes me focus on a different kind of pain, a physical ache feels so much better than an emotional one. After all, I can see what is causing my pain when I can see that I’m covered in stitches and the variety of wounds all at various stages of healing.

I simply do not believe that I am ever going to escape these intrusive thoughts or escape from the self harming behaviours. I have been self harming for 17/18 years now. The voices have come and gone so many times I’ve lost count over the past 4 years or so. Feeling different in every way from every one I know has been a part of my life for too long now, and whilst I may have avoided any psych hospital admissions for over a year, my head is still very messed up. I don’t feel in control, I feel like something dark and sinister is controlling me, something that only gives me very occasional glimpses of feeling normal or even the tiniest glimpse of happiness, and then snatches them away from me… coming back every single time to ensure they can torment me a little bit more.

I still have so much more to say but I think I better end this post now, it’s got pretty long and the more I write the more messed up my head gets. I was also going to mention that whilst I did go to see my support worker on Wednesday, I phoned up with an excuse not to see CPN#2 on Friday. I think I just didn’t want to take the chance of opening up and all of the above pouring out because I already know what her response will be. It will be the usual bollocks about how I “will get better” and “will get through this” I just need to “learn coping techniques” that will work for me and then my life will somehow miraculously be cured of any mentalness. Plus there is the risk if you mention even having violent thoughts towards others – even if you know you wouldn’t act on them – that they still might get concerned enough to start assessing if you could really be a risk to others. And I’m not… well so long as no one tries to hurt me I’m not. Isn’t that a complete contradiction? I don’t want anyone to hurt me yet the only way I know to cope is to hurt myself? It might not make a great deal of sense to anyone apart from me.

On that note I think it is time for bed. I might try and write some more tomorrow if I feel like I can write something that makes a bit more sense. I don’t know if any of the 2500 words I’ve just written even make any sense at all. But my medication is kicking in and I need to try and sleep… I’m sure I’ve been writing this for over an hour now.

Goodnight folks, and I hope you’re all having a good weekend xx

23:45 – Put simply, I feel like shit

It’s been almost a week since I last had anything to say for myself. Since I last posted the desperation and the urgency and unpredictability of my destructive thoughts has all quietened down somewhat. I’m not really sure why. What has replaced those thoughts is a feeling of numbness, I feel almost detached from everything and I don’t want to be around anyone and I don’t want to do anything. My brain feels sluggish. I can’t think properly so I give up trying. My ability to concentrate or focus on anything is shot to shit at the moment.

If I could, I would just lie in bed all day and all night, not bothering to get dressed or go outside. The only thing that prevents me from just doing exactly that is knowing the dogs need to go out for walks, they don’t need to suffer because of my state of misery. So I scrape back my hair and I put on the same clothes that I wore yesterday (and probably the day before that as well) and we go out. They get a walk and to do the toilet, I stay hidden with my hood pulled up and stare at the ground. And this repeats itself several times a day.

In between times I pull my pyjamas back on and lie in bed or on the sofa staring into space, not even thinking about anything really, just lying there feeling numb and empty. I found a box of stanley knife blades in the drawer yesterday and had a very brief urge to self harm but you know what? I couldn’t even be bothered. It was too much effort and too much energy to do it. The blades got thrown back in the drawer and the drawer closed.

I’ve gone from barely being able to sleep at all to just wanting to sleep all the time. I can’t sleep all the time, my body won’t allow me that privilege. My GP was off on holiday last week and I needed a repeat prescription but because my last prescription was the first month long one in years the other GP said he wasn’t comfortable to give me another monthly and so he put me back on weekly dispense until I can get an appointment to see my normal GP. Then she can decide whether she is happy for me to get monthlies or whether she wants me to remain on weeklies. I think it was probably because the other GP had seen all the A&E trips from self harming episodes over the past month and probably wasn’t sure if I was a bit of a risk. Maybe it’s for the best that I’m on weeklies at the moment as it means I tend to take my medication properly as I don’t have enough tablets to mess around and do a bit of self medicating here and there. At least I’m doing one thing properly.

This week I have an appointment on Wednesday with my support worker from Rape Crisis and an appointment with CPN#2 on Friday. Other than going to them I expect this is going to be another week of hiding from the world and living in my pyjamas. It’s not as if I haven’t got things to be doing – I have a washing machine to order and I have an essay due in at the end of the week if I want to have any chance of passing this module… but I just can’t seem to do it. I keep putting everything off and delaying everything, telling myself I’ll ‘do it tomorrow’ then tomorrow comes and again I do absolutely nothing. If I don’t meet this essay deadline and pass it with a pretty decent grade then I will have to re-sit and I just want this module over and done with. I’m going to try and take an early Summer break and try and get my head back together for the increased workload that September will bring. Hopefully by September I will have done a fair bit of work with the psychologist and be armed with some better coping tools than cutting myself to shreds.

I just feel this complete sense of misery, a big black cloud right above my head threatening to start pissing down on me at any time. Numbness and emptiness and a sense of detachment from everyone and everything. Quiet and in full hibernation mode. Self harm is too much of an effort even though I know I deserve to be covered in more cuts. Thoughts of ending my life have passed through my mind a few times, but they are just that, thoughts. I don’t have a clear enough head to do anything. I don’t have the energy either. I don’t even know if I have the energy to go to my couple of appointments this week – I’ll see how I feel at the time.

I hate myself for writing such a depressing post especially after writing about all the sad news I’d learned last week and how it had put life into perspective a bit. It made me feel like I shouldn’t take life for granted so much and that I should be doing something happy and something positive every day. And I hate that I can’t adapt into that mindset even when I try. Any time I’ve tried to laugh or smile this sense of darkness begins to loom again. So I don’t try. I just sit and be miserable and wait to see what is going to happen next.

I’m shit. I deserve to feel this way. Honestly, if you really knew me you would say the same. The people who tell me nice things about myself like my Mum or best friend just say it to try and cheer me up, they are biased… If people could hear the stuff in my head they would have no hesitation to tell me that yes, I am shit and deserve nothing more than to feel like the piece of crap I am.

22:14 – Another pathetic ramble of self pity

Today has been a bit of a strange one. My sleeping was awful last night, I didn’t even go to bed, just grabbed a couple of hours on the sofa. My head was bouncing all over the place from one destructive idea to the next. Best friend phoned about 10am to ask if we could spend the afternoon together and I so so wanted to make up an excuse but I think I knew this afternoon could be the one where I completely lost it if I stayed in by myself all day just thinking and thinking. So I agreed to meet her at 12.

I have been kind of self medicating with some of my tablets. Not in any extreme kind of way, just adding an extra one here or taking one out at another time, but I do (99%) of the time take the prescribed dosage each day without going over it by much. It’s more like this – as an example – one of the medications I take is Quetiapine and I currently take 750mg a day. I am supposed to take it as a 250mg dose in the morning and 500mg at night. Well if I wake up and my head is fucking bonkers and there are voices present I might take it the other way around – 500mg in the morning and 250mg at bedtime. Or if I’ve had fuck all sleep and am absolutely shattered I’ll skip my morning dose so I have enough energy to keep on going throughout the day and then when it starts getting close to bedtime I’ll take the full 750mg as one dose to try and help with my sleeping.

And to a certain degree I do that with my diazepam as well. At the moment my daily dose is 16mg a day. This is to be taken as 4mg four times a day. But some mornings I feel massively anxious when I wake so I will take 8mg and then later in the day or in the evening another 8mg. Sometimes (although this is very rare) I don’t feel too anxious in the morning and my Quetiapine is enough so somedays I just wait and take the 16mg as one dose at bedtime. Sometimes it’s the opposite and I’ve taken my full 16mg by lunch time. So I don’t self medicate so much as play about a bit with the doses and the times I take them, but I feel that way works for me. Whenever I’m in the psych hospital I have no choice but to take my medication properly at 8am/12.30/6/10pm – and I hate not being able to tweak the doses to suit how I’m feeling at that time. I do understand the importance of taking medication properly and I do try to… it just sometimes is easier to do it ‘my way’.

Anyway… what was I about to say? Oh yes… I agreed to meet best friend today and spend time with her and her kids (my little nephews). But I was incredibly anxious to the point where I couldn’t leave the house so I took a little extra Quetiapine and my full daily dose of Diazepam. I still felt quite anxious when we first met up but the medication did kick in and I went into this weird headspace of ‘I’m hurting so much there is nothing else that can make me feel any worse than this’ so I agreed to attempt to go to one of the places my agoraphobia considers a very scary place. I had three small panic attacks en route but we got there and I bought my first McDonald’s burger for about 7 or 8 years. I have had a McDonald’s meal in that time, I’ve had friends bring them back for me and had them reheated in the microwave but today I actually stepped foot in one and ate a burger that was freshly cooked.

Best friend was so proud of me. She was smiling and cuddling me and saying “well done, well done” but I just felt numb. I didn’t feel hugely anxious, I didn’t feel happy that I’d achieved something new, I just felt like I was in some sort of blur… my head was saying just order some food and then go home. I didn’t particularly enjoy the food, half of it is still sitting in a bag on the table.

So yeah, everything is still a bit blah really.

CPN#2 gave me a quick phone this afternoon to ask how I was as the duty CPN from Monday had left her a note telling her about Sunday night’s self harming. The phone call felt a bit pointless, she sounded pretty uninterested which made me pretty uninterested in telling her about what’s been going on. It was awkward to talk anyway in front of best friend as I still haven’t told her about the self harming.

The only other thing that happened today was that I got a phone call from my personal tutor for my part time university course. She was phoning because she had been notified by the module tutor that I hadn’t logged on to read any course work in weeks nor had I contributed to any of the online discussion postings that make up 20% of the overall module mark. I tried to explain my head was all over the place but that I was going to try and submit some sort of an essay in the next couple of weeks so even if I fail I have something to resit. We could apply for mitigating circumstances but I don’t think there’s much point. I’ll either be able to write something and move on to my next module or I’ll fail and be kicked off the course. Right now I don’t really care which one happens.

So that’s been my day. I wish I could feel happy and like I’d achieved something, I’d challenged the agoraphobia harder than ever before, but I just don’t care. I don’t feel like I care about anything. I still want to hurt/cut/die.

I don’t see CPN#2 until Tuesday. I have no support between now and then other than the duty system through the CMHT which I think I’ve used twice in about 6 years. My support worker through rape crisis is off on holiday next week.

So yeah… I guess I just plod on and see where I end up.

01:36 – A confused and messed up girl

My head is still pretty messed up and sadly the regrets over self harming so severely on Sunday night still haven’t kicked in. Last night was pretty horrendous,  I became extremely emotional and sat with my little angel’s memory box on the bed and cried for what seemed like hours. After putting his memory box away I became really angry, angry that this is my life, that the most precious thing in my life has been lost.

My behaviour after that became ridiculous. I started pulling all the bandages off my legs and sat with a blade in my hand, shaking and desperately wanting to cut out all twenty something stitches. I shook, I cried, I threw the blade angrily on the floor then picked up the TV remote control and began smacking it off my face, whacking my cheeks with it over and over again. Then I was down on the floor and  hitting my head off the wall like an angry child. Then the blade was back in my hand again and I was going to cut but I truly could not have faced more stitches. So I repeatedly lit my lighter until the metal was red hot then pushed it down deep onto my skin all round my ankle. And then ended up in tears again.

I was really starting to get quite terrified of where this was all heading. My thoughts were so negative that I began to feel quite suicidal. Then I cried some more when I remembered yet again I can’t commit suicide because I can’t put my parents through the pain I carry about every day of having to bury your child. So whether I like it or not I have to keep on going and that made me angry and upset and frustrated that I felt in the moment like I was only alive to spare others pain. But then of course there is always that little evil laugh inside my head saying “they wouldn’t care anyway, they’d be glad you were gone” even though rationally I know that is completely untrue and that my parents love me very much. I don’t deserve their love, sometimes I wish they loved me less so it would be easier to put an end to things

Everything was just going bonkers. I couldn’t hold myself together any longer and ended up phoning the mental health helpline breathing space and spent the next hour on a non stop ramble about how I just want to completely self destruct, how much I deserved to be in this pain, I deserved to suffer, I was/am a bad person who doesn’t deserve good things in life. I told the call handler I wanted to rip all my stitches out, that I couldn’t stop thinking about hurting myself more and more. After about an hour I finally got so tired from everything and broke down in tears on the phone, I couldn’t keep talking and just hung up. I felt a bit bad for not even saying thank you or goodbye to the person who had sat and listened to me all that time but I was completely mentally exhausted. With a slight bit of self medicating I did finally manage to semi-sedate myself and fall asleep only to wake up every couple of hours in a state of panic. I think I was having nightmares, I’m not sure.

I sent lovely support worker from rape crisis a text message yesterday telling her I’d had a bad night on Sunday and she messaged me this morning to ask if I wanted to see her today instead of waiting until tomorrow. So I said yes and we had a long chat together. I was honest with her about everything I did over Sunday and Monday night, I was honest with her about feeling like I just want to make myself hurt and hurt and not stop hurting. I told her I was scared about where this was all heading and that I didn’t know when or how to make it stop. I don’t think it can stop until I do something really bad to myself. And that I was terrified I was going to end up in the psychiatric hospital again if I keep going like this. She asked if that might be a good place for me right now and I very firmly said no. There is no way I am ever going back to that place, it is awful, truly awful. It would make the sanest of people feel like they’d gone bonkers in just one week of being there. The thought of that place makes me feel anxious as hell and physically sick.

Oh I forgot to mention that for the first time since this whole arrangement was made with A&E a year ago that they would let the CMHT know when I had attended – well yesterday for the first time I actually got a phone call from the duty CPN (albeit it was just before they were closing) but yes someone did actually phone and ask if I was OK as she’d read the A&E notes. I told her I wasn’t sure how I felt and she asked if I thought I could keep myself safe. I said I’d try my best, I said the same when I was leaving my support appointment this afternoon.

I went to the A&E department this afternoon to have a wound check and dressing change done. I was supposed to be going back again tomorrow to get last Wednesday’s stitches out but I asked her if they could just come out a day early. That wound looked like it is starting to heal well so the nurse took those stitches out. Now I have to wait until a week tomorrow before I can get all these other ones out. I don’t honestly know if I can go through the next 8 days without doing it again. I don’t even know if I can go through the next 8 hours without doing it again at the moment. My head is well and truly pickled it really is.

Tomorrow I have promised to spend some time with best friend and her kids. I haven’t told her about Sunday’s self harming and don’t plan on telling her. I don’t know why, I just don’t want to talk about it with anyone close like friends or family. I haven’t mentioned it again to the friend who came with me to A&E either. It almost feels a bit like a can of worms being opened if I tell them, if I admit to those nearest and dearest to me that I’m not coping and constantly trying to hurt myself then it makes it that little bit more real that I really am falling apart. It’s easier for them not to know. For now anyway. Even with all these stitches in I still don’t feel like I’ve done enough damage and I have no idea how long that state of mind is going to continue for.

I haven’t felt this much of a mess in a long time and I can’t seem to make it stop. Maybe I don’t want it to stop. Maybe I need to feel this level of self loathing at the moment. I don’t know why… but maybe I just do. Nothing really makes a great deal of sense at the moment. I’m one very confused and messed up girl.

21:20 – 24 hours in my crazy head – What do I do now?

This post was started around 9pm on Saturday night (the 20th) and goes on through to tonight – it’s very long – graphic in places – so *insert trigger warning here*

I don’t understand why I feel this way I am feeling at the moment. Or maybe it’s more that I don’t understand why it’s suddenly hit me with such force. All I can think about is hurting myself and I’m trying so fucking hard to fight it but I can’t. It’s winning. I’m trying so hard to distract myself, I’ve used just about every suggestion on my ‘distractions’ tab at the top of the page. Nothing works.

Nothing.

Nada.

I am completely stuck in this horribly miserable depressing state of mind. I feel so empty yet in so much pain. And now I’ve had to go and trigger myself haven’t I… my stitches from Wednesday were itching like mad because they had put layers of some special material between the stitches and the dressings. When the pressure bandage was on I didn’t notice the itchiness so much but since it got taken off yesterday all I’ve wanted to do it scratch and scratch. So the couple of extra dressings I had are now also gone because every time that material touches my skin I end up ripping it back off. And that was me fired straight into Trigger Time.

Seeing all the cuts, seeing the stitches, looking at both legs that are in a complete mess just makes me want to do more and more damage. At the back of my mind all I keep thinking now that I’ve made this much of a mess I might as well just keep on going. The usual regrets that come in the aftermath of a self harming episode have not come… it’s almost as though I didn’t do a good enough job to release everything on Wednesday and so I need to cut again to get back into that ‘regretful’ headspace. When I’m regretting what I’ve done then I generally don’t do it again for a while.

But this is getting bad, if things continue on this way I know I am going to cut badly again, what the fuck will A&E think of me/say to me if they need to put a second lot of stitches in so soon after me last doing it? How do I know how the doctor will react? In my head I think and feel and know that it’s all just about needing to cause more pain, it’s not really about wanting to die or anything remotely suicidal no matter how disgusted in myself that I am. I just want to be able to take a deep breath and feel calm again.

One minute I feel rational and think “well, if I cut and if I do need to get medical attention well they will just patch me up as usual and send me on my way”. I’m not psychotic, I’m not suicidal, it wouldn’t be a suicide attempt. I know if I can say those things to the nurse/doctor then everything should be OK regardless of how true that really is.

But I’m becoming more and more agitated and irritated and the only one thing stopping me from cutting is the fear that this time if I have to go to A&E they will say “fuck it’s the weekend we better put her in the bin”… OK so that has never happened to me, I have never been hospitalised for self harming but that new doctor on Wednesday seemed like the type who’d take no nonsense and not help with giving any meds to calm me down which is likely to get me more and more worked up until I start behaving in a less rational manner.

I don’t know how to stop these thoughts. I don’t know how to make the voices shut up. My iPod isn’t helping. TV isn’t helping. I can’t go for the long hot shower thing as I can’t get my stitches wet, especially now they have no dressing over them. I don’t even know what I feel. Emptiness? Numb? Messed up? Confused? Depressed? Scared? Like I’m about to lose it? Very very scared of ‘losing it’.

It’s 9.40pm now and I can’t even sit still to write this. I need to walk or pace or something. This is driving me mad. I’ll save this as a draft for the moment and come back to it later.

UPDATED – 11.30pm Saturday 20th

It’s now 11.30pm. Two hours have passed since I wrote the ramble above. I have taken my medication, a few extra diazepam included. I have half had a shower (I tied a plastic bag around my leg to cover my stitches) but feel cleaner now, my hair is clean, my leg isn’t itching so much either. I have also been out for a late night walk with the dogs and got some fresh air but there were a load of drunk people staggering between pubs so I didn’t stay out for long.

Where is my head at now? Still in the exact same frame of mind as it was earlier unfortunately. Perhaps the restlessness and irritability have calmed a little with the medication starting to kick in, and my thoughts are going at a slightly slower pace. It’s the exact same feelings of impending doom that I had for a couple of days at the beginning of the week before I cut. Knowing it will happen, just not knowing when it will happen. It could be tonight, it could be during the night, it could be tomorrow or I might even manage to fight for a few days but the longer it goes on for the more of those feelings of being in a pressure cooker with the lid about to blow go on for. Yet because that immediate desperation has calmed slightly it is giving me the space to reflect upon what the consequences of my actions will be if I do go ahead and cut myself:

I will have another scar or two.

I will have to face A&E.

There is the possibility of them being way too busy with drunken people who’ve been fighting and what not and me having to sit for a long period of time making me more and more anxious.

There is always the fear of being judged or someone not understanding that I’m either appearing completely silent or talking non stop due to anxiety, not just because I’m a bit mental.

OK it is now 11.45pm and I’m going to go and lie in bed and just see what happens. I have no idea how tonight is going to pan out, it really could swing either way. I’m so so so confused and messed up at the moment, I just want it all to stop. Will one more cut make it stop? I don’t know. I really don’t.

I’m not going to publish this post yet as I have a feeling it’s going to be a night of having difficulty sleeping so I’m going to keep adding and updating until my mood makes a real change or until the urges win and I collect another scar.

UPDATED – 4.22am Sunday morning

4.22am I’ve been awake for about half an hour I feel horrible and very emotional. I think I woke up crying or at least it felt that way. That urgent desperation to hurt myself has calmed but with the calm it’s like that big black cloud of doom is now sitting over me instead. I sort of wish I had just cut earlier and got it out my system but will one more cut get it all out this time? I don’t know. I feel all messed up, all I deserve is to lie here and completely absorb all this misery.

UPDATED – 1.55pm Sunday afternoon

I feel calmer. I have stopped looking at triggering things online. I have put all the blades back in the drawer. I am going to take the dogs for a walk and try to clear my head. I need to get out of here and away from sharp objects that I can’t stop thinking about using. The thing is that I don’t want to see anyone at all, I have already lied twice today and send two texts saying I wasn’t well and was staying in bed to avoid them asking to meet up.

I just want to be on my own even though it’s probably the worst thing I could be doing. I don’t care. I just want to be left on my own until these urges finally go away

UPDATED – 7.30PM SUNDAY EVENING

Ok I have fought and fought. I can’t fight any more. The blades are back out the drawer and my spot on the bathroom floor is ready and waiting for when the moment is right. The towels are there, the blades are there, the dressings are there. Maybe I could just do lots of little cuts to get that intense stinging sensation. That way I could avoid A&E completely. I don’t even have any skin closures at home though, just some bandages.

I think that I’ve fought against the head crazies for long enough now. It’s time to just give in, let them win and hope they fuck off. There is no certainty that they will though and I’m scared that I end up being right back in this very position within another few days. I’m supposed to be going back in to A&E tomorrow for another wound check and to have the dressings changed, I can’t go in tonight and tomorrow and then again on Wednesday to get these stitches out then possibly a few days after that again to get more out. They will think I am completely bonkers. I’m just so terrified of the unknown. The unknown being – which nurse/doctor will see me and how they will assess me. In a way it would help if I took someone with me, when someone is with you then they think you have support so are a lot happier to just treat you and let you go. But where I live we don’t have crisis teams or out of hours mental health people so the judgement on whether or not you are “a risk” lies with the A&E staff. And that is fine when it’s someone who knows me a bit, but is extremely scary when it’s someone I’ve never seen before.

I have to do it. I have to get it out of me. It is tormenting the hell out of me now and I want to shout and scream at the top of my lungs – I want to throw a tantrum the way a toddler would and just scream and throw things around for no real reason other than it feeling like the right thing to do. I am ridiculous. Pathetic. Weak. Ridiculous.

UPDATE – 9.10pm Sunday night

I did it. I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t cope with the urges and thoughts and voices all joining up and making me feel so mental. I had to get it out. I just had to. Three fairly nasty cuts. Three cuts that are all probably going to need stitches. My dilemma now? I honestly don’t think I can go to A&E. I can’t face it. Regret has finally kicked in. It’s a shame it took a bunch of new scars to get there. I don’t know what to do now, I don’t know where to turn, I don’t want to tell anyone and even though the cuts are all deep and gaping, the bleeding is under control. Best friend will be at home with the kids in bed, she can’t leave them so I can’t ask her to come to the hospital with me. My other friend who has come to the hospital a couple of times with me thinks I don’t self harm any more and I’d like it to stay that way. There is the option of my Mum but she has just finished a long shift at work and will be having dinner, probably enjoying a glass of wine and I don’t want to phone and tell her what I’ve done. So that leaves two options: go myself or don’t go at all. I’m scared that when this blurry trance like feeling passes and the physical pain starts kicking in that I will have no choice but to get medical help and I’m also aware that wounds not cleaned or dressed properly which are gaping open are far more likely to become infected. I feel sick with anxiety. I’ve never felt like this after self harming. I feel really really weird. I wish I had just fought on a bit longer. I could have won. I didn’t need to let it win. Why did I let it win? I’m so stupid.

I don’t have a fucking clue what to do.

14:37 – The pictures that tell my story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

00:50 – Feeling seriously low tonight

I went to my appointment this afternoon with CPN#2 (maybe I should think of a better name for her – but there has been 3 cpn’s I’ve worked with over the past year and she was number 2 so cpn#2 seems like the best suited name for her). It was actually nice to see her again and I managed to tell her most of the things I wanted to including not finding having a CPN helpful, the frustration about the lack of consistent appointments through the CMHT and the frustration of people coming and going and coming and going and never being able to move forwards with anyone. She told me she is there on a temporary basis but will be there for a minimum of three months and that she would like to work with me on a weekly basis alongside psychology when it re-starts.

I basically brought her up to date with where I’m at with everything in my life at the moment and told her about the self harming and how much I’ve fucked up my uni course. I told her I’ve been feeling pretty unsupported again lately apart from lovely support worker at rape crisis. She did tell me that lovely social worker who I was supposed to be seeing until psychologist returns is actually off on long term sick leave – it would have been nice if someone from the CMHT had decided to tell me that rather than me just sitting here thinking I’d been forgotten about. I hope she gets better soon.

After my appointment I went along to the A&E department to have my wound checked and a dressing change, everything looks like it’s healing well and the stitches are nice and neat. I almost felt OK for a little while when I got home – maybe because it had been lovely and sunny all afternoon and maybe because I’d got some of my frustrations out… but yeah I felt OK for a little while but as the afternoon went into evening my mood has taken a serious dip. I’m sitting here with a clean blade and really badly want to do some damage to myself. I don’t want to go to A&E though, so this time I really do need to be in control of it and keep it reasonably superficial, but sometimes that really is easier said than done.

My head feels really fuzzy like I can’t think straight, I don’t know what I want, I’m irritable and restless, I took my medication about an hour ago and my thoughts seem to be getting worse and worse. Lots of images in my head of what I’d like to do to myself but genuinely fighting back simply because I’m too tired for one, and for two I *know* I won’t be able to keep the cutting under control. Yet I can’t put the blade away. I keep it sitting next to me and occasionally pick it up and do some scratches on my skin then put it back down again. I hate this, I hate this frame of mind when you so badly want to do something really bad… something worse than self harming but you don’t even know what’s making you feel that way. The voices are a constant source of negativity and keep the stream of negative thoughts flowing.

Head just feels a total mess. Need to take slightly more than normal amounts of medication to try and sedate myself. Really scared I’m going to do something stupid tonight if I can’t get myself off to sleep soon. This favourite quote of mine does a pretty good job of summing up how I feel right now…

19:09 – A surprise phone call

Today has actually been quite a busy day for me and I’m feeling pretty shattered after yet another crappy night’s sleep. I met my Mum and my Gran at 12.30 and we went for lunch as my Gran was going back home tonight. It was nice to have spent a bit of time with my Gran this time as I haven’t seen her since Christmas and didn’t get much time to talk to her as all the other family members were around and I was also really struggling with anxiety so didn’t really stay for that long.

However, I painted on the fake smile last night and went for dinner with them and done the same today for lunch. As I was saying my goodbyes my phone started ringing – private number – usually they get ignored… But something made me answer it and I was surprised to hear temporary CPN #2 from last year on the phone. She said she was back working in my area again (probably temporary again but I don’t know for sure yet) and asked me if I would like to meet up with her tomorrow. I’m not sure where the call came from – maybe lovely social worker who hasn’t been able to support me asked her, maybe Mr Psychiatrist contacted the CMHT to find out what was going on, maybe A&E contacted the CMHT, maybe it was just sheer coincidence… but yeah she called to offer me an appointment tomorrow which I agreed to go along to.

After lunch I had to head off to my appointment with lovely support worker from rape crisis and we had a good long session today. We talked about everything we possibly could regarding the self harming on Wednesday… I told her that I had no regrets this time and felt like I could potentially do it again quite easily. We spoke about my appointment with Mr Psychiatrist, about my trip to A&E and then about CPN #2 getting in touch. I have decided that whilst I will go to the appointment at the CMHT tomorrow I will also tell her the truth which is that I haven’t found working with any of the 3 cpn’s I’ve worked with over the past year helpful or beneficial. They don’t have the time to try and help me with graded exposure for the agoraphobia. They don’t care or get in touch if I’ve self harmed and gone to A&E as according to cpn #3 they know it’s a coping mechanism so they don’t need to get involved. They only ever seem to want to talk about “positive” things I could do with my life, they never seem to want to hear about the shit. And there is a lot of shit. And there is not much “positive” so it ends up just frustrating me.

I will ask her tomorrow what involvement she is going to have with me and will tell her that I would rather try and do structured work with the psychologist once she is back. I think that would be more beneficial in the long term if I could really properly learn coping skills for moments of intense anxiety or horrible flashbacks or evil voices. So maybe cpn #2 will just be someone to touch base with once a week or something to let them know I’m still alive. CPN #2 was the nicest out of the 3 cpn’s by far but she was also the one who kept trying to push all the positive things on me like starting the college course so that’s going to be fun tomorrow telling her I’ve fucked that up now. Part of me doesn’t even want to go to the appointment with her, I don’t think she can say anything I haven’t heard before, I don’t think she can offer me help in the times of crisis which is when I need help and well… I don’t want to start “working” with her and bringing up painful emotions if I’m only going to be seeing her for like a month or something. Anyway, I guess I wait and see what she says tomorrow. I must remember to go into A&E at some point whilst I’m at the hospital and have my wound check done.

So overall it was a good and productive session with support worker today but I felt pretty tired by the end of it, I’ve been feeling pretty drained all day from lack of sleep but we also did lots of talking. Then after that appointment I had to take Charlie dog to the vets for a vaccination and a little check up. Everything is fine with him, he is doing well and has put a bit of weight back on as well, he’s now 9.1kg and should be around 10kg so he’s getting there

After the vets I took the dogs a walk and then had to go to the supermarket. It seemed really noisy and everything sounded weird, like as though it was distorted somehow. I couldn’t concentrate and there were too many people and I started getting all anxious so I just grabbed dog food and then came home.

Mood wise I’m not entirely sure how I feel tonight. My head is noisy, male voice keeps offering “helpful” suggestions on how to next hurt myself. I’m trying to ignore it but quite simply I can’t. I don’t know if I’ll cut again tonight or not, if I do I will have to keep it superficial and not on my legs, I don’t want the A&E nurse tomorrow to see any fresh wounds. I find myself flicking my lighter a lot today…. heating the metal around the top of it then pressing it against my arms. It hurts a lot and yeah it leaves a sore mark for a while but it won’t lead to me needing more stitches and I can hide it easier. I have so many suggestions from male voice and ideas of my own on things I can do that will hurt but not require A&E and I feel as though I’m on a bit of a mission now to tick them all off the list one by one (and to see what other methods apart from cutting and burning give me that feeling of a release).

Before I start getting in to all that shit again I’m going to go and watch some TV. My head is properly pickled at the moment… just bursting full of ideas, thoughts and voices… all bad ones of course. But they seem like good ideas at the time, I guess that’s why we do them… we know we’ll regret it in the long term but when you’re in “that moment” you would pretty much do anything to make all those head crazies just leave you alone. I’m sad in a way that I don’t have any regrets over self harming yesterday but I also know that male voice is right, I haven’t done enough damage yet, I deserve much more pain and head fuckery before I’ll have done enough to make him happy. He’s right, I do deserve to hurt… I just wish he would fuck off with all these violent ideas and images… I am 99% sure I would never act on them if they involved hurting another person but there is that 1% of me that can’t help but wonder if this is all a build up to me totally losing the plot again. This little saying (below) very much reflects how I feel about everything right now… And I hope everything doesn’t keep going downhill but right now I have no idea what way I’m heading and I’m not even sure if I care…