20:08 – Another day closer and in a real mess

I’m sitting here crying my eyes out, tears rolling down my cheeks. I have been feeling like I was about to break down at any second all day long but trying so hard to hide it. I managed to spend a couple of hours with best friend and the kids again this afternoon but just felt like I was a bit detached the whole time. I was there in person but my mind was somewhere else altogether.

Since I got home I’ve felt the anxiety building up inside me but did my best to ignore it. But then the tears started to well up in my eyes until I couldn’t see any more and with every blink they spill out down my face. Part of me wishes there was someone here to give me a hug and the other part just wants to be completely alone.

My head is a total mess. I am terrified beyond words of the HIV test results on Tuesday. I want to know and for it to be over with yet when I realise I’m another day closer I begin to completely freak out. Three more sleeps until I know. Utterly utterly terrified.

I don’t know if this emotional state I’m in just now is out of fear, I can’t really explain it as my thoughts aren’t very clear, they are all jumbled up, they are racing around too fast and I feel completely on edge. I’m chain smoking one cigarette after another and I feel sick to the very pit of my stomach. The only thing that makes things feel a little more bearable is pulling my knees up to my chest, cuddling them into me and rocking myself. The last time I remember feeling like this was in November 2010 when I was detained for the first time, sitting rocking on my bed, terrified that I had lost control and someone else would be deciding when I could leave the hospital again. Feeling so trapped and the agoraphobia sending the anxiety to crazy levels. That’s how I’m feeling again now.

Scared, terrified, anxious, emotional and all alone.

 

 

 

15:19 – Tougher than I thought

I have been really trying to keep myself busy since I last posted as the past few days have been tougher than I thought. I’m noticing that as soon as I don’t have something to do my head keeps wandering off to thoughts about the blood test results this coming Tuesday. I keep running through all the if’s, but’s and maybe’s, I keep imagining all sorts of things like how the doctors face would look and what she would say if the test came back positive. I wonder whether I should go on my own or take someone with me. I just seem to think think think, constantly running through every possible outcome and scenario in my head.

Yesterday I went to my appointment with my rape crisis support worker and she offered to come with me to get the results but then when I said it was Tuesday I had to go she realised she would be in another area at the time so she can’t come after all. I got a good bit off my chest in our appointment though and whilst I’m still terrified of getting the results, I think I’m probably also trying to mentally prepare myself for bad news. I just can’t allow myself to think “it will probably be negative” instead it’s like I have to prepare myself for the worst so that if I do get bad news I don’t fall to pieces.

So after my appointment I went to meet best friend and the kids and we decided to spend the afternoon together and go for some lunch. We went to a really nice place that felt like it was in the middle of nowhere, it was an old barn on a farm converted into a little restaurant with a kids play corner to keep them busy. After we had finished eating we got to pick some fresh rhubarb and collect the eggs the hens had been laying so it was a nice stress-free couple of hours as the kids were occupied and best friend could relax and chat without constantly having to tell them to behave. I decided to tell her about the HIV test on our way back home as the kids had fallen asleep in their car seats. She instantly offered to come with me and when I told her how worried I’ve been/still am she said I should have told her and not kept it bottled up. Anyway, at least I know now that she will come with me on Tuesday if I decide I can’t face going on my own and it helped again to get some of the worries off my chest.

We decided to take the ‘scenic route’ home and it took forever! Thankfully I had taken some diazepam in my bag because the road seemed never ending and consisted of a single track road that went on for about 20 miles but we couldn’t go faster than 30mph the whole time we were on it, plus the drop into a ditch on one side and the drop down into the water on the other side didn’t help lessen my anxiety. As we decided to stop off at a couple of places on the way home and we popped in to see best friend’s aunt for a while it ended up being 7pm by the time I finally got back home. Then of course I spent all of last night sitting here worrying myself stupid again.

This morning I had an appointment with the dietician but I didn’t hear my alarm going off and missed it so I’ll need to phone and get another one. I can’t remember if I already said this in my last post but I got a letter at the start of the week from CPN#2 asking me to make contact with her as I haven’t attended the last couple of appointments she’s given me. In fact I think that’s a good 3 or 4 weeks now since I last saw her. Needless to say I still haven’t contacted her.

Part of me actually feels like disengaging with the mental health team and just doing it alone as CPN#2 and my old psychologist (who I’m supposed to be seeing again in the near future) both want me to do this Compassionate Mind program. They both really believe that learning the skills that program teaches will help me live with less anxiety and be able to be kind to myself and soothe myself as opposed to harming myself. But I just don’t think it’s right for me, I have a really hard time in grasping the very basics and it doesn’t help matters that I have this deep seated belief that I do not deserve any compassion. So the combination of not wanting to do that work with them and the recent disaster of an appointment with the new psychiatrist last week both just leave me thinking I don’t want to work with these people, I don’t really want to see them, I don’t think I’m going to find any benefit from seeing them or from doing this whole being compassionate towards yourself shit. I am still planning on sending a letter to new psychiatrist to explain all of my concerns from our appointment but I want my support worker to help me write it (which we were going to do at yesterday’s appointment but then it was spent with me freaking about the blood test results).

Talking of the blood test results (again) I don’t know if I’m more pleased or scared that I have got through Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and now we’re on Friday so I really just need to get through the weekend now. Halfway through a long seven days. As soon as I’m finished rambling on here I need to go and get some food shopping done as my fridge and cupboards are empty. I don’t have anything planned for tonight so I’ll need to find something to do to keep me distracted and then tomorrow I need to get a card and present seeing as it’s father’s day here in the UK on Sunday. So at least I have some things to do to try and pass some more time. Hopefully the weekend will fly by for as much as I’m terrified about the results I really just want to know now one way or the other so I can deal with whatever outcome I’m given.

Right… ramble over…

Have a nice weekend folks xx

17:08 – So the appointment was a complete disaster

I know I only wrote three hours ago but I’ve been back home from the appointment for quite a while and I’m an anxious mess all over again and can’t seem to calm things down. So the hope is that I write it all down and maybe I calm down…

Everything was a disaster. I was almost 15 minutes late in getting there because when I tried to leave my flat I started feeling all dizzy walking down the stairs so I turned round and ran back inside. I then stood inside my front door trying to breathe properly and calm myself down a bit. My appointment was for 2.30pm and it was 2.35 by the time I finally left. Needless to say when I finally got there at 2.45 I was panicking again because I was so late.

I stood outside the room I knew he was in and tried to discreetly listen through the door to see if I could hear any voices. I was hoping he was running late so that he wouldn’t realise how late I was but no such luck. I couldn’t hear any voices at the door so took a deep breath and knocked on it. He opened the door and I apologised for being late muttered something about anxiety and took a seat. He looked at his watch a couple of times obviously trying to work out how long he could see me for which clearly wasn’t very long as I think I was in there for all of 15-20 minutes. So yes, I took a seat and he introduced himself to me telling me his name and that he would be my new psychiatrist. I asked him if he was temporary or permanent and he replied “hopefully permanent!” with a smile. The smile made me a little tiny bit calmer and I thought he seemed OK.

He asked how I was doing and how my moods were at the moment. I told him things were OK and I felt things were quite well at the moment. Something about his watch checking made me think he had only allocated me a 30 minute appointment space and that he had someone else to see at 3pm so I didn’t see the point in getting into a ramble about all the crazy shit in my head. Telling him things were OK was the easier option to take.

And then it all started to go wrong.

He said he just wanted to check he had the correct details for the medications I’m taking and the doses of each. He read out the little list “Quetiapine 750mg?” I nodded. “Mirtazapine 30mg?” I nod again. “Diazepam 16mg?” I nod again. He made an unimpressed ‘hmm’ sound then asked me how long I’d been on daily Diazepam for and I tell him at least two years. He immediately replies telling me that Diazepam is a “very very bad drug” and that I must come off of it. Cue another massive wave of anxiety. I feel myself start to shake a little and my stomach starting to go into knots. I tell him that things have only just started to settle down over the past few weeks and that I really didn’t want to take the risk of everything getting seriously bad again by playing around with my medications. He responded to this by telling me I’d only need to reduce by 2mg a fortnight and that I wouldn’t even notice because I’m on 750mg of Quetiapine. I butt in and say that the Quetiapine is to try and shut the voices up and the Diazepam is to help with the agoraphobic symptoms – it isn’t even to do with the Bipolar really. By this point I am becoming noticeably anxious and can’t sit still in my chair. He goes on to tell me that Diazepam is an addictive drug and that after being on it so long I will now be dependent on it and it’s because I’m dependent on it that I’m reacting that way at the thought of it being taken away.

So I sit and stare at the floor while he runs through other questions about mood states and asks how my physical health is, if I’m attending my appointments with CPN#2, if I’m getting out of the house and seeing people all of which I continue to stare at the floor and without looking at him making small nods or shakes of the head to answer his questions. He finished off by asking me if I had any questions for him and I looked up briefly to shake my head then started getting up to leave. He said that I looked like I was unhappy and asked if it was because of the Diazepam. I knew then I had two choices – I could continue staring at the floor and achieve nothing or I could tell him what I felt about it. I decided to speak.

“I understand that I can’t stay on Diazepam forever and I understand that at some point it’s going to have to be reduced and stopped, but I found it really hard dropping down from 20mg a day to 18 and then to 16mg. Right now things are bearable, although I’m not really seeing anyone I am managing to get out of the house. I’m scared that messing with my medications is going to knock me off balance again when they have only just settled a bit. I can’t help but feel like if something isn’t broken then why fix it? Can’t we just leave things how they are for the moment please?” I rambled…

He then went on to say that I am only scared to stop it because I’m dependent on it even if I don’t think I am, after all if I wasn’t “addicted to it” then I wouldn’t be scared about not taking it. I wanted to say that wasn’t true, maybe I am dependent on it to some degree but it helps defuse some of my anxiety which in turn enables me to get out and do more things rather than lock myself away 24/7 in turn benefiting my moods. It can also help sometimes with stopping a self harm episode or at least reducing the severity of it. Also it can be helpful with sleeping from time to time. The next thought that came into my mind was that for all the things I use Diazepam for I don’t have any alternative coping mechanisms learned, surely I need to learn other ways of controlling my anxiety and self harming rather than just whipping the safety net away and leaving me to crack on with things. I so wanted to tell him all of this in a calm manner but I was back to shaking on the chair and staring at the floor with no words coming out my mouth. He said he would be willing do compromise with me and make it be reduced by 2mg every four weeks instead of every two weeks to start off with and asked me what I thought about that. Before I could answer he carried on saying that 750mg of Quetiapine was also quite a high dose in his opinion and over time he’d be looking to reduce it down as well to see how I would manage with a lower dose… With hearing that I cleared the frog from my throat and my voice suddenly appeared back in my mouth.

“Look, I want to be honest with you” I said to him (knowing another ramble was about to spill out). “I really didn’t want to come to this appointment, I have spent the full morning having horrible anxiety about it and I sat thinking to myself earlier about what the worst thing that could possibly happen by coming here today would be. The thing that scared me the most was the idea that I’d come to this appointment and the new doctor I’d only just met deciding that they were going to change things about. I find it really hard to deal with things when I feel like someone is taking control away from me and I can’t do anything about it. And that exact scenario that was up there with ‘the worst things that could happen at my appointment’ has now just happened. You don’t know anything about me other than some bits you’ve read about me that another doctor wrote and you are telling me you are going to change my medications around when things are only just starting to calm down? Please can you just leave things how they are?!”

He looks at his watch again and agrees to leave things alone for now then said I had to reduce by 2mg but then says when I see him again on the 1st of August that I will be reducing the Diazepam by 2mg and I “have to understand that it is going to happen that way” whether I like it or not because the Diazepam “is a very very bad drug” for me to take. So I’m not actually too sure if I’m supposed to be reducing from now or from the 1st of August.

I decide then that there is no point in saying anything else, and that whether I like it or not he is going to take my safety blanket away from me regardless of how I feel about it.

It was a horrible 20 minutes and now I just wish I had listened to the anxiety earlier on and not bothered attending it but it doesn’t matter now anyway does it? He isn’t going to change his mind and I have to get used to the idea that he is the one in control of my medications, not me. So in case you couldn’t guess the appointment was horrible, I have taken an instant dislike to new psychiatrist as I’m sure he himself guessed when I stood up and left at the end without even saying bye. I’m not so much angry as scared that I might be more dependent on the Diazepam than I think and that I might have to face some horrible withdrawal symptoms – the main worry I have is going through rebound anxiety. I have a slight amount of anger that someone who has only met me for a matter of minutes and who knows nothing about me really can come along and just decide what I can and what I can’t take without taking into account how those changes in medication might destabilise my mood.

Well I guess I’ve rambled on long enough but I had to get all of that out while it was still fresh in my head to try and make sense of it all. Despite the appointment only lasting 20 minutes there was a lot to take in in that time. Maybe now it’s all out the anxiety will step down a notch or two. Well I can but hope.

14:15 – Meet new psychiatrist today and an anxious mess

In just over an hour I have my first appointment with the new psychiatrist and I am sitting here with absolutely awful anxiety, my heart is pounding so fast in my chest that I can almost taste each beat in my mouth. I’ve tried to distract myself all morning but it isn’t working. I’ve tried taking some Diazepam which are also refusing to fully work. I’ve tried breathing slowly and mindfully (also didn’t help) so now I’m trying to work out what it is that’s making me get myself in such a mess. I know that part of it is because it’s a new and unfamiliar person which always causes me some degree of anxiety, and I know the fact it is an unfamiliar male that I will have to be in a room alone with is contributing quite a lot as well. I could take a friend with me and get them to sit in the waiting room so I know there is a ‘safe’ person just outside the door but I think I’ve left it a bit late to ask someone to come now.

Usually my answer at this point would be to take the easy option and just not go. But the new psychiatrist phoned and left me a voicemail a couple of weeks ago to say he needed to change my appointment time and the following day I called his secretary to confirm the new time was OK so now I would feel like I was messing them about if I didn’t turn up. I try to keep on telling myself that if I’m still in so much of an anxious mess when I get to the appointment then all I need to do is say so and tell the psychiatrist that I can’t stay for long. Even just writing that has sent another wave of panic through me.

I just had one of those lightbulb moments where I think I’ve worked out the answer – it’s the fear of the unknown isn’t it? Not knowing what this new psychiatrist’s attitude towards self harming will be, whether he will try and make any changes to my medications (which I don’t want), whether he will be understanding and seem like he’s interested or whether he’ll just sit asking questions and staring at a notepad writing shit down the full time. Will he give me as much time as I need whether that is ten minutes or an hour or will he just rush me in and out… I guess the only way I find out the answers is to go to the appointment.

Ugh less than an hour to go now…

I still haven’t seen CPN#2 so I’m guessing she is waiting on me to make contact but I’m still in self isolating mode and hiding from everyone. My rape crisis support worker sent me a message yesterday offering me an appointment with her for tomorrow (Thursday) but I haven’t replied. I have been going out and have been taking the dogs to the beach most days as the weather has been really nice but I just don’t want to see or talk to anyone I know. I can put up with other dog walkers that I meet as they generally just say hello in passing and if they do make conversation you can pretty much guarantee it’s going to be dog-related. Friends, family, professionals – they can all tell when I’m bullshitting them about being ‘okay’ and then they have to start pushing for ‘the truth’. Surely by now they should all know me well enough to know that this is just what I do. I hide away from everyone because I don’t want them to see the all of the mixed up moods I’m having and also because it’s too much hard work to keep up the ‘I’m OK’ front for long.

Ugh half an hour til I have to leave… why is time flying by so quickly… it needs to slow down…

One anxiety which has calmed down a bit is the anxiety over having so much medication in the house. I seem to be getting used to it and can open and close the cupboard door now without freaking out at the sight of it all and so far I am managing to take all meds correctly, I haven’t missed any or taken too much of anything.

One anxiety which has appeared out of nowhere is that something is going to happen to me which is going to kill me and I’m going to be all alone when it happens. Like I say I don’t know what started it off but the thoughts just appear from nowhere and then I’m sitting here getting really scared that every little niggle I feel (which are most likely anxiety feelings) are actually something a lot more sinister. Then before I know it I’m searching through all kinds of articles that Dr Google refers me too and convincing myself I have all manner of things wrong with me and all of them being things that are going to make me like a ticking time-bomb where I could die at any time. I wrote down a little list of things I need to go to the doctor and be tested for but I don’t want to sound like  a hypochondriac so I have very firmly had words with myself that we don’t need to develop any new phobias thank you very much. The thoughts are however still niggling away at me.

2.10pm… twenty minutes until appointment… ten minutes until I need to leave…

I guess I had better get myself ready to leave. Hopefully the appointment will go well and I’ll have been getting myself all in a panic for nothing. Just have to keep telling myself that I *can* escape, that I’m not trapped in the room, that it’s a psychiatrist that I’m going to see so if I just explain that I’m experiencing a lot of anxiety they should be understanding about it, and that even if it is awful it will all be over with within an hour.

Right time to leave… I might write another little post later on about how it went… Deep breath and go, go, go…

01:10 – She is trusting me but can I trust myself

This week I have continued to hide from the world, I still haven’t phoned for another appointment with CPN#2 however I did go and see lovely GP on Wednesday. She was running late and I was in the waiting room for about 40 minutes until I was called through. For some reason the waiting room was making me really anxious and I wanted to get up and pace so badly but it was really busy so I had no choice but to sit where I was and try to distract myself playing games on my phone. Every time I thought I was feeling calmer again the anxiety would start back up leaving me squirming around uncomfortable and with hot flushes that kept coming and going. As soon as I heard my name I stood up and took a deep breath, reminded myself it was lovely GP and there was nothing to be anxious about.

I feel a bit bad because I feel as though I haven’t been completely honest with lovely GP. I had decided before I even made the appointment that I would go in and paint a smile on my face, tell her that I was feeling good and that everything was all going well, and ask if I could have a monthly prescription again. I have been on weekly dispense for a few years now but two months ago I asked if she would trust me with a month worth of all my tablets. She agreed to give me that chance and whilst I did self harm a few times in that month, I didn’t use any of my tablets to harm myself. I did however fuck about with my medication quite a lot, I also lost track constantly of what I had taken and what I still had to take meaning I regularly missed doses and my mood ended up all over the place. It wasn’t intentional and maybe it was because I was missing so many doses that I ended up back in the mindset of constant thoughts and urges to cut. Or maybe I’d have had those thoughts regardless, who knows.

Anyway.. I had to go back to see lovely GP when my monthly prescription ran out but she was on holiday that week and the other GP’s refused to prescribe me another monthly so I have been back on weekly dispense for the past month. I knew I would need to go back and see her if I had any chance of being put onto monthlies again and also appear like I was feeling well to be trusted again. So I painted on that fake smile and told her things were going good, she asked how the part-time university course that I study from home was going and was happy for me when I told her I’ve passed another module. She asked if I had thoughts of wanting to self harm and again I kept the smile on and told her I didn’t have any thoughts like that at the moment. So after a ten minute chat she said she was happy to give me another monthly prescription and officially changed my notes in case I need a prescription some time when she isn’t there to say “NO LONGER ON WEEKLY DISPENSE”.

So I should be happy right? I am, in a way. I don’t have any immediate plans or intentions of doing any harm to myself and I doubt very much I would use my medications if I did. I’d be far more likely to cut. But I just feel a bit bad for being dishonest, I made out like everything is good when that is far from the truth and I lied about bad thoughts not being present. Yet at the same time I know the anxieties I feel are probably also related to having so much medication back in my cupboard and this is all pretty unfamiliar to me so maybe it’s bound to carry some amount of anxiety. Maybe the bad thoughts that randomly pop into my head with no word of warning will all calm down a bit as I get used to this new situation. I don’t really want to talk about the bad thoughts tonight, they are all mixed up and will only spill out in a nonsensical ramble.

There were also two medical-type-things that I should have talked to lovely GP about but I was concentrating so hard on appearing happy(ish) that I couldn’t start talking about anything else. I told myself inside my head that I could go back another time if the medical thingy’s carried on annoying me. One of the things is that a self harm scar from a couple of months ago (which is still quite purple in colour but mostly healed) is incredibly painful. None of my other scars hurt at all, not in the slightest, in fact some of them are actually quite numb where I’ve probably done small amounts of nerve damage. But this particular scar is extremely sensitive to all sensations, it is like a burning feeling any time anything touches it. I don’t think that’s normal and I do want some advice from my GP but while I was in the appointment with her I kept thinking if I showed it to her and she saw the state my legs are in (absolutely covered in dark scars) then somehow she might start to think maybe I shouldn’t be trusted. So I just kept quiet about it for now. If it’s still bothering me in a few weeks time I’ll go back.

The other medical-thingy is that for the past couple of weeks I’ve been having pain in the back of my mouth, more in my right jaw right next to my ear. I had a temporary filling in my back tooth which fell out a couple of months ago and since then I haven’t been able to bite down properly. Like if I bite down with my back teeth my front teeth don’t meet properly. The pain isn’t intense, it’s more of a throbbing sensation that comes and goes, it gets worse when I’m eating, talking, yawning but it’s not too bad when my mouth is closed. I decided it might be an idea to go and get a dentist appointment to have them check if the pain is being caused by my teeth not being properly aligned. If they can’t find any mouth-type problems then I guess I have to go see lovely GP about that as well.

The dental surgery gave me a next-day appointment because I also keep having little dizzy moments that just last for a few seconds and they coincide with the pain so hopefully they will be able to do something to calm the pain down a bit, even if they put another temporary filling in it might just help my bite to be a bit better. I did do a doctor google search earlier and it suggested that dizzy spells accompanying pain in the area I’m feeling it could be a jaw problem as opposed to a tooth one and the dizziness comes from being so close to the ear which obviously plays a part in controlling balance. I hope it’s just a simple case of slight misalignment with my teeth so it can be sorted locally, I know if it’s something I have to be referred to one of the big scary hospitals for that I’ll never go and get it dealt with. I’m still dealing with a stomach problem that I’ve had on and off for about 8 years because I just couldn’t face the agoraphobic panic of going for a CT scan and sinogram.

Anyways it’s passed 1am now so I guess I better take my meds and go to bed. If I don’t write again beforehand then I hope you all have a lovely weekend (and hopefully a sunny one too!). Goodnight folks x

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

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.

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

01:37 – A long but good day

It’s been a long but pretty good day today. I’m pretty tired and planning to head off to bed shortly but thought I’d have a little ramble about my day first. My day started when I woke up absolutely freezing cold on the sofa around 4am. I got up and put the heating on and then got into bed but couldn’t sleep even though I was totally shattered. I sat in bed playing about on my new phone until the room was nice and warm and then around 6am I finally fell back asleep. I woke up at 9.30am and decided I better get up and face the day.

Had a shower after entering personal hygiene fail status again, got dressed, took the dogs a walk, took my medication… seemed like the start of a good day but then I came back home to kill a couple of hours before my appointment with my rape crisis support worker and in those couple of hours I turned into an anxious mess. Anxious about quite a few things, some things there was no need to be anxious about but I began to realise that what I was really anxious about was the unknown. For example, we are all going out on Saturday night for best friend’s birthday and they are all wearing little skimpy short dresses whereas I have to keep my body completely covered up. Even though my outfit is nice I still can’t help but feel like the fat frumpy covered up one of the group. I don’t particularly want to go out drinking, I can’t enjoy a night out these days as I spend the whole time on hyper alert mode watching everyone and suspicious of everyone and I can’t ever seem to relax and join in when everyone is a bit drunk and hitting the dancefloor… instead I hide in a corner and if any man comes within a couple of feet of me the look I give them makes them quickly turn around and walk away. Sometimes I wish I could be fun and carefree and dance and laugh and drink and flirt but I just can’t. I am shit company on a night out these days and if it wasn’t best friend’s birthday I wouldn’t be going.

So yeah, by the time I was leaving the house to go to my appointment I was feeling panicky and anxious and was wanting to just cancel it and hide indoors all day but I fought back and went to the appointment. It took a while for the anxiety to calm down but it did and we got some good talking done. I left the appointment feeling a bit calmer and then went to meet best friend. I asked her a couple of weeks ago what she wanted for her birthday but she kept saying she didn’t know and then yesterday she said she would really like it if we could go somewhere nice for a meal and spend an evening just having a laugh and some adult conversation as her kids are staying at their dad’s this week and we NEVER get to go out for a lunch or dinner without the kids. And even though the kids are pretty well behaved you can’t completely relax as you always have to keep one eye on them and do the whole “if you don’t eat your food you aren’t getting any sweets afterwards” speech. So I’d asked her if she’d like me to pay for us to go somewhere and pay for a nice meal in a nice restaurant as a birthday present and she said that would be lovely.

It was really nice to spend the evening together with no kids and I’d left the dogs at home so it was just me and her talking about everything and anything. The restaurant we went to was lovely, quite expensive and we had a half hour wait for a table to come free but the food was so tasty it was worth it. We ended up having a really good laugh talking about lots of random things that have happened to us over the past seven years we have been friends. Reminiscing and stuff… it was good… and the hours just seemed to fly by

I’ve been home for about an hour and I am so so tired. Tonight has to be a proper full nights sleep, my body badly needs it. At the moment I don’t have anything planned for tomorrow although my Mum has the day off work so I might try and spend a couple of hours with her. I’m still feeling very nervous about going out on Saturday night but I’m trying to just think about the here and now and not think about Saturday until it is Saturday… easier said than done though!

And as it’s now 1.30am I think it’s time to watch a little half hour of TV then head off to bed. I can feel my medication starting to kick in and the yawns are starting now as well… so on that note I shall say goodnight.

Overall, a good (but long) day

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?????