21:09 – CPN appointment and a ramble

Today has been pretty busy and it’s only 8.30pm but I’m already thinking about going to bed. My sleep last night was ridiculously bad again and I felt like a zombie when I got to my appointment with CPN#2 at 1pm. I can’t even remember what we spoke about as my brain was like mush. I do remember her filling out a sheet for the front of my file with details of allergies and stuff on it. And she said something about meeting with my psychologist before we next meet to find out from the psychologist what kind of therapy she will be planning to do with me and then use the sessions with CPN#2 to get me into the right headspace for the more structured psychological therapy. Also she mentioned arranging another CPA meeting for me as I’m well overdue one but right now half the people who should attend it are off for one reason or another so I think we’ll probably wait until June or July before the next one, which is fine by me as I don’t particularly enjoy them.

After my appointment with CPN#2 I met my Mum and we went for a look at washing machines. I’ve narrowed it down to three, they are all pretty expensive so I’m now just trying to work out what the best payment method for me would be. My Mum said she will put it on her credit card and I can pay her in instalments until the balance is cleared. The alternative is that I could buy it from my catalogue and pay it off over 52 weeks interest free or the third possibility is getting it from a local electrical store who offer the same 52 weeks interest free for payment. There are a couple of offers I saw that were quite good as they included the cost of delivery, disconnecting and removing your old appliance then connecting up your new one so it saves a lot of hassle – especially when you live two floors up. Mum said I should have a think about which one I want tonight and we can meet up at some point tomorrow to get it ordered.

Tomorrow is going to be another busy day as I have to go to a&e to have the rest of my stitches taken out (which as usual I am dreading), attempt to get a repeat prescription when my normal GP is off on holiday and as this was my first time in years getting a monthly prescription instead of a weekly one I don’t know if I’ll get put back on weeklies until my GP is back. I also have an hour of tattooing booked in the afternoon and have to buy a birthday card for my Dad then go to my parents as we’re having a little birthday dinner for him. I’m not sure how he’s going to react to his present – usually it’s a boring bottle of aftershave or something like that – but this year my brother decided it would be fun to get him a flying lesson – yes – to fly a small plane! It was pretty expensive so I hope he likes it! I wasn’t planning to get him a big present this year as next year it’s his 60th but before I could have much input into it my brother had already gone and booked it!

Anyway, I don’t really have much more to say for myself, I really am trying not to write about all the bad thoughts in my head. I told CPN#2 today that I just feel numb at the moment, I don’t feel happy or sad, I don’t feel quite as desperate about hitting the self destruct button but still want to hit it. I told her I’d pulled a couple of my stitches out myself in some sort of anger/frustration the other day – she asked what stopped me from pulling them all out and I’m not sure of the answer – probably because I knew if I pulled them all out I’d be back at a&e again and I just don’t think I could face going in there for more treatment – just going to get my stitches out tomorrow makes me feel anxious enough. Why? Because I don’t know how long I’m going to go before my next trip for more stitches. I don’t know if it will be days, weeks or months. The urge to self harm again is extremely strong but with having an hour’s tattooing done on Friday, another hour tomorrow and another hour booked for this coming Friday I’m trying my hardest to somehow trick my head into believing that the pain that comes with tattooing will be enough to stave off the urges to cut for another little while.

Well it’s now gone 9pm and I’m going to watch a little television, take the dogs a walk then medication and bed. I’m totally shattered and need some proper sleep tonight. I can’t even do a bit of self medicating as I only have one night’s medication left. So hopefully the sleep fairy will come along and be nice to me tonight.

Goodnight folks xx

 

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.

00:34 – Just back from A&E

It’s just after midnight and I’ve just got home. I text a friend and asked if they could come to A&E with me. I was hugely anxious and couldn’t stop shaking, I couldn’t even write my name on the form, my friend had to fill it out for me.

The nurse on duty was really nice and the doctor was one I hadn’t seen before. He asked me the 101 questions to determine how crazy I was then once he was satisfied I wasn’t suicidal they took a look at the damage. By this point the blood had soaked through all of the bandages and through my jeans, it was everywhere. Thankfully they kept the curtain round me so my friend didn’t see the actual damage.

It was the worst self harming I have ever done. Including Wednesday’s stitches I now have a total of 24 stitches in which is more than I ever have had in before. The A&E experience was one of the more positive ones, they were non-judgemental and friendly but also professional. I did accidentally almost hit the nurse at one point as she was trying to control the bleeding whilst the doctor was putting the stitches in but he went to put a stitch into a bit that he hadn’t injected with lidocaine and I almost shot off the bed, hands flapping. He was really apologetic though. After being stitched up and cleaned up and dressings and bandages on the doctor could see I was still really anxious and still really shaky. He checked my pulse and then asked to get the machine through that does the pulse, sats and blood pressure. My pulse was 126, BP 153/103 and o2 sats 97. So they could see I was really genuinely very anxious and the doctor went and got me 2mg of Lorazepam. [That same lorazepam that the doctor who stitched me up on Wednesday told me they didn't give out to people, despite me having had it on multiple occasions there before - so that confirmed he was talking shit].

I was treated really well, gentle and empathic. I have to go back to A&E on Tuesday for a wound check and dressing change, then back on Wednesday back for the last week’s stitches out and these new stitches have to be in for a minimum of 10 days due to the depth of the wounds.

I did tell a little lie to the doctor that my friend was going to stay with me tonight – anything to avoid being kept in hospital – and I am now home alone and the lorazepam combined with all my other nightly meds are all starting to kick in. I’m starting to feel quite drowsy so I think I’ll get a good sleep tonight.

At last I feel regret again. I do feel better for doing it but I wish I hadn’t done it so badly. I regret knowing they are going to be quite nasty scars. But it’s done now. I’ve been to hospital, it was horrible, I felt hugely anxious despite them being really nice to me, I’m ready to sleep but not looking forward to the pain I’m going to be in tomorrow. I can already feel the lidocaine local anaesthetic wearing off and the pain starting.

Do I have any more plans to do it again? No. Not at the moment anyway. Not even if it’s given to me as a command. I am bandaged from ankle to knee on each leg so I’m kind of running out of places to cut as well. I think the urge might finally be out my system.

Goodnight folks x

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.

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…

15:15 – Last appt with Mr Psychiatrist and a trip to A&E

Trigger Warning – graphic talk of self harm in this post

All I have been able to think about for days now is cutting. Cutting, cutting and more cutting. The more I try to distract myself the more graphic the images in my head become. The more I try to ignore, the louder male voice gets and that triggers him to start spewing out vile evil instructions in my head. What hasn’t been helping is the lack of sleep. What also hasn’t been helping is all the pressure I feel that everyone thinks I’m doing so well and coping so well and I am shitting myself that everything is going to fall apart and I am going to let down every person I care about. I’m terrified of being back in that place where you feel so worthless and then can’t even manage to take your own life properly… got to fail at that too just to rub that extra bit of salt into the wounds.

Last night I fell asleep on the sofa around 1am. I quickly woke back up just after 2am as it was freezing. But instead of putting the heating on or getting into bed I just covered myself in a blanket and lay on the sofa thinking about things. Wondering why my life turned out this way. I had a bit of a cry for a while, they were sad tears, tears of all the times in my life where things actually looked like they were going well then ultimately they all fell apart. Why do they all fall apart? Why can’t something nice just remain consistent in my life? I don’t want this life. I wanted to try and better it by doing the part time uni course and not even a year into it and I don’t think I can do it any more. I have no belief in myself whatsoever. I want to run and hide and curl away. I don’t want to speak to anyone. I don’t want anyone to see me… but this morning I had no choice.

Around 6am I was still awake and was starting to feel very anxious and sort of like I wasn’t fully in control. My thoughts felt like they had been taken over, I was so tired I just went with it. The voices told me to cut, told me it would fix things… male voice told me to just “fucking make yourself uglier you fat slag”… again I tried distraction techniques but just got nowhere.

By 8am I was pacing, anxious, heart racing, feeling sick, tired, emotional, feeling really bonkers crazy, seeing flashes of me going outside and just attacking any random object or any random person. THAT IS NOT ME. I DO NOT DO THAT! EVER! I don’t know where all these violent urges are coming from but they are so fucking terrifying. It’s not even as though I’m angry at anyone or about anything… angry with myself that I can’t bounce back to being the fun person I once was once upon a time… but that’s more of a sad angry than a violent one. Needless to say I ended up getting out everything required for self harming – a pack of clean stanley knife blades, a towel, some dressings and sat down cross-legged on the bathroom floor. I made a deal with myself that I could cut once then I would clean it up, cover it up and go no further. But of course that didn’t happen… those little cuts looked too much like scratches… those visuals flashed in front of my eyes again wanting to see gaping wounds… I felt like I couldn’t even do that right. In the end I got a fresh blade from the packet, closed my eyes and just pressed down and dragged it through my skin. It felt like my skin was burning from the pain and I expected to see a much worse wound than what I did see… however it was pretty gaping so I decided it would be OK to stop cutting then. I got myself patched up and tried to stay distracted through til 10.30am when I had to leave to go to my last ever appointment with Mr Psychiatrist.

The reason it’s my last appointment is that he is retiring and he explained he didn’t know who would be taking over from him yet but there would be a locum in place for a while until someone permanent takes over. I swear no one with a professional mental health background seems to want to work for our NHS trust, all these permanent positions never seem to get filled for what seems like forever. I told Mr Psychiatrist about self harming this morning and told him that when I left my appointment with him that I would go along to the A&E department and have them check me over. He asked what had led to me cutting and I told him all the shit I rambled about at the start of this post – these feelings of pressure and these horrible horrendous images I keep seeing. He knows it is a coping mechanism of mine and he’s told me a million times it isn’t a helpful one but I think he’s come to realise there is no point in telling me that any more.

We didn’t talk about a lot of things in detail today, I think when he realised I was sitting there with a wound needing medical attention he tried to just whizz through everything as quickly as possible. He said that he still feels that even though male voice is male (and I am female) that the things male voice says to me are things which I actually feel about myself deep down. Almost like it’s my thoughts and beliefs but being heard in a male tone. I kinda see his point but I also know it’s not as simple as that, male voice can come out with things that have never even crossed my mind before. Plus there is a big difference between a voice and a thought (even racing horrible thoughts) and I think you can only know this and understand this if you have actually experienced it.

What else did we talk about… cutting – voices – male voice – pressure – images – violence – lack of support – and a referral which I requested to another psychiatrist, one who specialises in trauma therapy and who told me a couple of years ago that he believed the EMDR treatment could be beneficial to me but at that time I was considered too unwell and too unstable to try it out. Mr Psychiatrist said he didn’t want me working with lots of different people and lots of different approaches (he said this because psychologist is supposed to be coming back at some point over the next few weeks and she is likely to want to do the compassionate mind and mindfulness program with me). However he agreed to write to the other psychiatrist and see if he would be willing to give me an appointment to assess my suitability for EMDR.

Before I left the appointment he asked me what help I was getting through the CMHT (mental health team) at the moment and I told him pretty much none. That I had 3 CPN’s who have all left now and that I was supposed to have lovely social worker as someone to see until psychologist returns back to work but that we’ve only met up once, so that bit isn’t going so great. In fairness I haven’t tried to make a great deal of contact with her but I had hoped we would have been able to stick out the once a fortnight meetings just for a month or two until psychologist returns… but it hasn’t worked out that way. Instead I’ve just been seeing my support worker through rape crisis pretty much on a weekly basis but at least I am actually trying to deal with some of my issues with her – the childhood abuse/the assault/the self harming/the feelings of worthlessness. But she shouldn’t have to deal with all my mentalness stuff as well, that should be someone from the CMHT but it never seems to work out that way.

God this post is getting long…

I said my goodbyes to Mr Psychiatrist and muttered thank you to him for the support he’s given me over the past 4 years or so (even though he’s also been a total wanker to me in that time!) but it’s just what you do isn’t it? Say thanks, smile, make them think they have helped you get a bit better when really what they have done is remove power and control from you, detain you, make you like a human guinea pig with all the varieties of medications they insist will make you better, tell you that even voices are still a product of your own mind, try to make you believe things will get better if you just have good sleep patterns and distract yourself 24/7. But still, I was brought up to be polite and so it was only right to just say thank you to him as I left.

I walked along to the A&E department and thankfully it was two of the nice nurses on, the female charge nurse who has come to a couple of my CPA meetings and a male nurse who is very gentle and non-judgemental. Even though I knew in my head that I had met the male nurse before and knew he was always nice and knew he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me it still felt weird being in a room alone with him. I was in a room alone with Mr Psychiatrist but the whole appointment kept my coat on and sat in the chair pointing the door (always got to have my escape route planned out as soon as I enter a room)… so yeah it had felt safe enough with Mr Psych. And I did feel safe with male nurse but more exposed and vulnerable I guess as the coat had to come off and the shoes off and one leg out of my trousers…. like I couldn’t just jump to my feet and leg it out the door if I wanted to… so that was making me pretty anxious.

He took a look at the wound and decided it definitely needed stitches so he went to get the doctor. It was a doctor I hadn’t seen before and I didn’t like him very much, he had a bit of a patronising tone and I just wanted him to fuck off back out the room. Plus having two men at either side of me while I lay on the trolley bed was making me very very uncomfortable. I asked the doctor if he could please get me some Lorazepam and he said “we don’t keep lorazepam at this hospital” – BULLSHIT!! – I have probably been given a couple of lorazepam on at least 20 occasions from that A&E either for anxiety that’s led to self harm or to get me into the ambulance if they have been moving me to another hospital or the psych hospital. So I asked again if I could have Lorazepam because I needed to calm down and he very firmly said “you cannot have Lorazepam” – argh I hate when I know people are lying to me. Had he said something like they didn’t have any left or something then I would’ve dealt with that, but I knew fine they had it and knew fine that if it was one of the doctors who have seen me before then they would have given it to me asap to calm me down so they could put the stitches in. He said I could have a Diazepam if I wanted (despite me telling him I’ve been on daily prescription Diazepam for years and it does FUCK ALL when I feel as anxious as I did then, but he went and got me one anyway and like a good mental I shut up and took it.

I got seven stitches put in and a little glue and steri-strips on the non-gaping cuts and have to go back in 2 days, so Friday, for a wound check and dressing change. I told male nurse that usually I would be feeling regret pretty much immediately after cutting but today I don’t. I don’t regret it, I don’t care that I’ve got more scars on my body now, I don’t care that the one bit of leg that I had kept scar free is now mutilated as well. He said to me if I felt like cutting again to go up and see them and they would try and get someone to sit and talk to me which I was very grateful for, but I don’t want to talk, I just don’t fucking care about anything. I feel so low and so emotional and so tired and all I want is to have a few hours of feeling normal…whatever the hell that is… and I would much rather not do anything which may leave me having to see that doctor again as I really didn’t like him much at all. It was something about the way he spoke to me… there was an obvious power balance thing going on and he spoke to me the way I speak to best friend’s four year old.

Anyways….

My Mum phoned me as I was leaving the hospital and said my Grandma is staying with them for a couple of days and they were all going out for dinner tonight so she was phoning to ask if I wanted to go. As the restaurant they are going to is directly opposite my flat I couldn’t really say no but I am so tired and am really not in the mood at all to sit through a long meal and listen to all the chitter chatter at the table… plus it’s a kinda posh restaurant and I hate trying to get dressed up when I feel so fucking ugly and awful. However, I love my little Gran and don’t see anywhere near enough of her so I will go. The table is booked for 7pm… ugh that’s less than 3 hours away… I just realised I started writing this at 15:15 and we are now on 16:18 … an hour of ramblings… no wonder this post is going on forever.

And on that note I suppose I had better go and find something to wear tonight. Hope you’re all having a bit of a better day than me xx

21:27 – I gave in… I’m so pathetic… Argh!!

Just to let you know this post has a lot of talk about self harm

Well I think I lasted about half an hour after my random shizzle post before I got up, started pacing around, went to my ‘hiding place’ and retrieved the blades I bought last week. Before I knew it I was sitting cross legged on the bathroom floor and feeling that rush of everything leaving my system, every time I pressed down on the blade and sliced through my skin I felt calmer and calmer and calmer. I sat with my back against the wall and closed my eyes for a couple of minutes before looking down to see what the damage was.

The one thing I’ve written about on here over my past couple of ramblings has been about the regret I feel in the aftermath of self harming. The regret didn’t flood in straight away because I thought the two cuts were reasonably shallow. I had only made two cuts but just kept cutting into them so I was expecting to be greeted with two big gaping wounds but the damage didn’t look too bad. I didn’t feel glad that I’d done it but I didn’t feel regret either. I think this is because at that point I felt like I’d actually cut but managed to keep in control of it. And on initial inspection the wounds didn’t look too bad. But then once I started to clean myself up I realised that one of the cuts was actually a bit deeper than I’d first thought and straight away the feelings of regret started to flow through me… because I knew I hadn’t got away with some shallow cuts after all… and then started the debate in my head over whether or not to go to A&E.

At that point it was probably around 2pm and as I sat there trying to decide what I should do I got severely anxious. I put a bandage around the wounds and began pacing again. Every time I sat down I’d feel restless and irritated and anxious and had to continue to pace around the room. I had an appointment with my support worker from Rape Crisis at 3.30pm so I decided I would go to the hospital and get the wound treated and then go to my appointment. But every time I went to walk out of the door I’d get a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach that stopped me in my tracks and again the anxiety would kick in bad so I continued to pace around until 3.20pm then left for my appointment.

I had initially decided that I wasn’t going to tell anyone I had done it. I kept thinking that OK the cut probably did need glued, possibly a couple of stitches, but also that it wasn’t the worst of cuts I’ve ever done and whilst the scar would probably have been extra nasty I’m pretty sure I could have just put some steri-strips on it and a dressing and it would have healed in time itself.

So when I got to my appointment my head was all over the place. Support worker asked me what was wrong as I told her I needed to pace around because I was very anxious. I didn’t want to tell her but I did. We sat for about half an hour and debated the pro’s and con’s of going to A&E to have the cuts checked and treated. She could see that I really didn’t want to go and was making up any excuse I could think of to prevent having to go but I then began to calm down a little bit when she said she wasn’t going to force me to go. I relaxed a bit knowing that and then I was more able to talk rationally. I told her I regretted it and didn’t have any urges to do it again and I think she believed me. It was/is the truth, I do regret it.

My support worker asked me if she was to come with me would it make it easier for me to go? At first I said I didn’t mind either way but then she said to me that we could go in and if I changed my mind then we could just keep walking and I wouldn’t need to speak to any of the nurses if I didn’t want to. So I agreed to this and decided it was probably best just to go and get it over and done with. I was fairly confident I wouldn’t need any stitches so just kept thinking to myself that in half an hour it would all be over and done with and I could be on my way home. With a deep breath I got in her car and off we went.

On arrival at A&E the nurse who saw me was someone I’ve seen before (also for self harming) so that helped to calm me down a little bit. I still found it really hard to speak but did tell her I regretted it and had no urges to do anything else to myself. She asked if I wanted her to contact the mental health team but I said no thank you. It’s not like they ever turn up or call anyway!! The nurse got me up on the bed thing and had a look at the wounds. She agreed one just needed some steri strips but the other she said could do with a couple of stitches in it. I asked if she could just glue and steri strip it but because of where the cut is means that every time I move my leg walking I’d be pretty likely to burst the glue. I said I’d prefer not to have stitches so I have ended up with about 20 steri strips all going in different directions to hold the cut closed nice and securely. I think it will heal just as well as it would have had I had the stitches as it wasn’t too deep but it’s deep enough to leave another scar. Pfft.

Why the fuck do I do these things to myself?! Argh!

Anyway, the nurse was pleasant enough to me and didn’t make me feel judged or any of that stuff. She just cleaned me up, patched me up, reminded me of signs of infections and asked if I wanted to go back in a few days for a wound check. I declined the offer and said I’d just care for it myself and start removing the top layer of steri strips in about a weeks time. She seemed happy enough for me to do that and gave me some clean dressings and let me leave with support worker. Funnily enough the whole time my support worker was there the nurse didn’t even ask who she was. Guess she just assumed it was a friend or something.

When we left A&E we went back to the centre and had a chat for another half hour or so. We made an appointment for next Tuesday and I left a message for my social worker to see if I could get an appointment with her later this week as it’s been a couple of weeks since we met up and with my parents being away this week and not having them just a phone-call away I feel like I could do with being able to have another chat and little bit of support again in a few days.

Since I got home I’ve been feeling in a weird mood. I don’t know if it’s because of the self harming but I just feel a sort of numb sensation throughout my body… numb everywhere apart from where I cut which is pretty sore. And that’s like the only feeling I can feel… everything else is just blank.

Well I’m going to go and walk the dogs now and see if I can find something on TV to watch and distract myself for a while. My sleeping is still shit so it will probably be another long night, another long night of mentally beating myself up for giving in and cutting, for causing another scar, for not being strong enough to ignore those urges!!

Weak… Pathetic and weak…

Will I ever learn?????

00:05 – Need sleep. Need to cut. But need no regrets?

Today I had an appointment with my support worker from Rape Crisis. I nearly didn’t go to it as my sleeping is still utterly shit and I seem to have well and truly fallen into a pattern of falling asleep somewhere between 3 and 5am then waking up again between 7 and 9am, leaving me feeling pretty shattered. But I decided to go along to it and we spent the hour talking about the self-harm-that-hasn’t-happened-yet-but-I-know-is-likely-to-happen-pretty-soon.

I should probably put a trigger warning in here, this post talks about self harm and is a little bit graphic in places.

I talked about my reasons why I don’t actually want to do it but how I know that the thoughts surrounding doing it are getting faster, more frequent, more graphic, more persuading. I could throw the blades in the bin, but it would only take me two minutes to acquire more. I talked through a typical self harm episode with my support worker, how the build up to doing it is so intense, there are so many thoughts and emotions all dancing around encouraging me, making me think of that feeling of complete numbness and total release, it’s almost like the feeling a junkie gets knowing the hit, the rush, is going to happen any time soon. In a way I can’t wait for it just to happen and for it to engulf me and submerge me all at once.

But then there is this little irritating thought that reminds me of the hatred that I feel towards my scars, the loathing I have for them and how much they affect my self confidence. That’s the long term consequences. Then there is the short term consequences which (usually) involves a trip to A&E. By the time I’ve got to A&E a couple of hours after self harming I am sitting there in shock at the damage I’ve done to myself. I find it really hard to go into the A&E department and be able to speak. The anxiety makes it very hard to get my words out and then there is the sitting in the waiting room knowing that you are going to be called through to the doctor and have to admit to self harming. Having to expose the old scars and the new wounds. Not knowing if you are going to be judged or treated kindly. The mixture of both hope and dread about seeing a nurse/doctor that you’ve see before (for the same reasons). In a way you want to see someone who you know has treated you before and done it nicely, on the other hand you don’t want them to see that you are still doing this same shit to your body.

And if I’m in a situation whereby I don’t know the nurse or doctor on duty (I live in a rural area with a small local hospital so have met most of the A&E staff) but if it’s someone I haven’t met before and I am in a room alone with one or two of them with them assessing my wounds I tend to clam up with anxiety. I can’t speak and I start looking frantically around the room making escape plans in my head. I get scared of the questions they ask me in case they think I am lying – for example – they ask me if I still want to hurt myself and I shake my head to say no but I’m also shaking with anxiety, not speaking, eyes searching all round the room, unable to have eye contact with them… well then I fear they are going to be looking at me and thinking I’m crazy and not be able to just walk straight back out the door. I don’t often feel like I’m in control of a lot of things in my life so the fear of losing my control scares me… a lot.

Most of the time I regret self harming in the days afterwards, sometimes the regret starts within hours of doing it. Fucking hell sometimes within minutes I’m regretting it. But whilst I’m in the act of doing it it’s almost like being transported to a different world – a different headspace – where I feel no physical pain from it and become almost entranced by the blood, the depth, the severity. It’s like how can I be doing this yet not feel it? So in a sense it almost doesn’t even seem real because if I can’t feel any pain then how can I really be doing it?

After my appointment with my support worker I came home – still completely confused, still with these urges to cut, still with the same debate going on inside my head making me remember all the unwanted consequences that come along with doing it. And whilst there are loads more reasons for not doing it than doing it I still know that I will do it. It always wins in the end and the feelings of release it gives me is like an addiction that I must feed every few months (at the moment) – it builds and builds until I can’t take it any more and eventually it will become the only thought in my head until I can’t take stand hearing it one more time and so, I begin to cut. It’s been part of my life as a coping mechanism on and off over the past 17 years of my life. 17 out of my 31 years spent harming my body. That’s more than half my life. Hmm.

So that’s been my day. I am seeing my support worker again on Tuesday and am hoping to see my social worker towards the end of next week to touch base.

It’s after midnight now and despite taking my meds just after 10pm I don’t feel even slightly sleepy so it looks like another night of being awake til fuck knows when. I’ve just taken some extra Diazepam but I doubt they’ll do anything. Tomorrow I’m hoping to find some concentration as I still haven’t written a single post for my course’s weekly debates. But with a mind that is already in a constant debate with itself ‘to cut or not to cut?’ it’s hard to focus on anything else. Especially when you feel like a zombie from the lack of sleep and large doses of Quetiapine. Speaking of Quetiapine makes me think of the voices, I’ve heard snippets of some pretty funny conversations this week, one or two which have made me just roll my eyes in a kind of WTF confused sort of way… and another couple which have actually made me LOL. They are funny things voices; sometimes pure evil, sometimes pure genius, sometimes just hilarious.

Anyway… if I don’t sleep well tonight then I think I may treat myself to a bottle of wine tomorrow night, if I drink alone in the house where the heating is up full blast it is pretty much guaranteed that I’ll fall asleep in front of the TV. Then again alcohol would be something that would likely fuel the self harm thoughts and urges. It’s a no win situation, I should just get it bloody over and done with and hope the usual pattern follows where I don’t think about doing it again for another month or two. But it is impossible to do without the regrets that follow.

Oh well. I guess we’ll see what tomorrow brings. Come what may… (and all that jazz).

23:07 – You have to say hello before you can say goodbye

I heard a quote today which has been ringing in my ears ever since. The quote was “you have to say hello before you can say goodbye” and when I heard it my eyes instantly filled up.

Is that why it’s so incredibly difficult to accept the loss of my little boy? Is that why almost six years on I still can’t deal with it, and why every year as it approaches his anniversary I start to think constantly about ending my life here on Earth to go and be with him? Is it so impossible to even think about saying goodbye because I never properly got to say hello? And I’ve been thinking for hours and hours – did I say hello? I think that I did, I’m sure I remember saying those four words “hello my little man” through my tears as I cuddled him. But what if I didn’t? What if I never said hello?

This is making me feel so upset and anxious and emotional and yes I’m crying again. Because I can’t remember if those words came out my mouth and I have no idea why it matters so much to me but it’s just upsetting me so much.

I don’t have anything else to say. I just needed to write that down.

OK, take a breath. Stop the tears.

This weekend, what have I done? Nothing really. I’ve had a very boring weekend, although I did finally go back to A&E and got my stitches out after noticing one had actually gone completely under the skin so it was a bit uncomfortable getting that one out but the others were fine.

My Dad said he was going to come down to my flat tomorrow to start painting the skirting boards and lay the new flooring in my bathroom and hallway (or at least get the flooring cut properly to size then lay it next weekend. Tomorrow I officially start my next two university course modules but my thoughts are swinging between being completely blank and numb to racing fast and feeling completely unstable.

Sometimes I just don’t understand who I am, what I am or why I’m here. I really don’t. And it confuses the hell out of me. I wish life could make more sense. I just wish it could just be straightforward for once.