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.

13:53 – Tired, emotional and (still) wanting to cut…

As you may have guessed from the title this post contains talk of self harm

I’ve not posted in a few days as I’ve had very little to say for myself. Following on from my previous post in the early hours of Friday morning I still have very strong urges to self harm. But as yet I am still hanging on and still haven’t done it.

I was awake again most of the night between Thursday and Friday. I have taken to going onto a free site (www.king.com) and playing free puzzle games all night in an attempt to make the screen brightness give me tired eyes… and with the hope the last of my brain battery juice would be sucked out. Alas, it doesn’t work. Just like lying in a dark room all wrapped up in my cosy bed doesn’t work. Nor does reading a book/having a milky drink/taking extra medication. It’s as if my body doesn’t want to rest even though I badly need to.

Due to the extreme tiredness and shitty weather combination I’ve spent all weekend indoors (besides a few short walks each day with the dogs). Friday night I watched Comic Relief all night and despite having fuck all money in the bank I did do the donate £10 by text so it can just get added onto my next bill. It was a good mix of entertainment as well as some utterly heartbreaking stories of kids all over the world living in poverty, dying from such preventable diseases. I did shed a tear or two

Saturday morning I woke up with really bad pains in my tummy. Don’t know what the fuck they were but they hurt a lot. Located some strong 30/500 co-codamols in the cupboard and they did the trick to get rid of it. But they left me sleepy and not wanting to move so I sent a text to my Mum and cancelled meeting her for lunch. That’s the parents away on holiday for the next week which for some reason leaves me feeling quite vulnerable and alone. I might only see them once a week at times when I’m hiding from the world, but I do feel safer when I know they are close by if I need them.

Then last night or was it Saturday night? (I can’t even remember what I did less than 24 hours ago my brain is so pickled) I decided to traumatise myself a bit further and watch the catch up of One Born Every Minute. In this week’s episode one of the labouring mothers-to-be delivers a beautiful baby boy. Then her Mum (baby’s grandmother) comes in the room once the baby is born and as she cuddles him she says “welcome to the world Lewis” … cue the lump in throat… followed by tears rolling down my cheeks… followed by giant heaving snotty sobs and crying into a pillow… **flashback** me holding my little Lewis (he was stillborn for those who don’t read here often) … me wondering did I welcome my little Lewis to the world??… **flashback** my mum holding me as I sat between her and my (ex) fiancé with my little Lewis in a tiny moses basket on my knee and the hospital chaplain reading out a blessing… wishing my Mum had been able to hold our Lewis and welcome him to the world as a proud grandmother… **flashback** the confusion.. it didn’t make sense.. why had it happened.. why wasn’t my baby alive????

I wanted to cut so badly at that moment. I was angry with myself for letting myself watch the program, why do I do it to myself pretty much every week? Why do I sit and trigger myself watching programmes and documentaries about things that leave me so upset? It’s bloody ridiculous. Why can’t I ever just learn to change the channel… argh! I was also hurting really badly with memories and flashbacks. I was over tired and very emotional. I was mixed up with too many emotions running around so I decided to go to bed and try playing some mindfulness tracks on my iPod to see if it would help me to calm down a bit. The first couple of tracks I sat and cried through, but by the third track I was starting to breathe a bit slower and the tears were drying up. By the fourth one I was actually listening to what the woman was saying and trying to follow her instructions. By the last track I felt OK again and ready to sleep. And amazingly I did fall asleep soon after but unfortunately I woke up at 2.20am and have been up ever since. So yep.. still shattered.

Today I had planned to be a study day but I don’t know if I’ll be able to focus on it. I need to have a shower as we are back in ‘personal hygiene fail’ territory again. It’s just after 1.30pm and I need to find some motivation to do something.. anything.. to distract from those little fucking head crazies that keep on at me to just get hold of a blade, slice it through my flesh and just get it fucking over with. They know, I know, we know, you know, everyone fucking knows it’s going to happen… why not just do it??!! I need that outlet, I need to be able to release all the emotional headfuckery, the sadness, the hurt, the anger, the frustration, the confusion, the… everything. I need to let it all out and unfortunately the only way of getting it all out at once tends to mean I seek that rush and calmness that self harming gives me. If only for a moment.

And that’s what the problem is… like I said in my last post, as time passes and more years go by I now tend to regret self harming pretty much immediately after doing it. I am aware of the consequences. I don’t want the consequences. I want the ‘quick fix’ feeling but I don’t want the aftermath of it. It’s like medication vs talking therapy – you know certain medications work quickly and provide a temporary plaster over the wound…. talking therapy on the other hand is a slow drawn out process that takes ages to see results but is the one that is going to help you most long term. Do I want the long term answer or the quick fix? Am I prepared to deal/live with the consequences? I think this is the first time I’ve actually stopped and thought about self harm wounds before just diving in there with a sharp blade cutting mindlessly lost in my little trance then returning to find myself back in the moment and in a total mess.

Everything just feels pretty blah right now. Scared of the consequences yet scared to ignore what feels like the ‘natural’ thing to do. All of my thoughts and feelings and emotions are rolling into one and bringing back the pressure cooker feeling of everything getting so close to just blowing the pressure cooker lid. Last time the lid eventually blew… will this time be the same? Who knows…

02:27 – Spontaneous purchase

Since my last post on Saturday night the insomnia has continued. Again it is past 2am and again I am sitting here wide awake and I know I’ll stay awake until about 5am then will finally fall asleep for 3 or 4 hours and be up again by 9am to do it all again. So what’s been happening the past few days? Not a great deal to be honest. It was Mother’s Day yesterday (well Sunday seeing as it’s now Tuesday morning) and I found it quite a bit harder than I thought I would. I guess it’s sort of like the sadness I feel at anniversaries – a day for Mummy’s and another club I don’t feel part of

Sunday went by very slowly in the daytime and it was the daytime that was getting me all worked up and when I was feeling the most anxious. By the time I was due to go to my parents house for dinner (and to give Mum her Mother’s Day present) I was starting to feel tired and the thoughts that had earlier been whizzing around my head finally slowed down. So I actually managed to enjoy the meal and my brother and his girlfriend were there as well so the time went past quite quickly as there was lots of conversation going on. Thankfully I didn’t need to participate too much as they were all talking about their upcoming holidays. My parents go to Lanzarote next weekend for a week then the day they come back my brother and his girlfriend are off to Paris. Usually even having or listening to conversations about travelling are enough to start off the anxiety and agoraphobic fears, but I actually quite enjoyed listening to holiday stories and quietly remembering the times when I could do all that stuff too.

As I was leaving my parents house to come home Mum gave me a little gift bag with chocolates and a little bottle of rosy wine – she always gets me a little something on Mother’s Day which I am glad of – it’s nice to know that I’m still considered a Mummy by her even if my little man isn’t here with us. And rather than depress me or leave me sitting thinking about how much I miss my little boy, I actually came home feeling OK. Which is possibly why I’m a little bit confused by what I did today.

Today my Dad was here all afternoon laying the last of the flooring in the bathroom. Mid afternoon I started to feel very anxious completely out of the blue and I didn’t want my Dad to see me like that so I decided to take the dogs for a walk. While we were out walking I stopped outside a little DIY store, tied the dogs to the railing for a minute and went in as if on auto-pilot and bought a pack of stanley knife blades/box cutter blades. I don’t know why I bought them like that, like without even having any thoughts about self harming, just this overwhelming urge came out of nowhere and so I shoved them to the bottom of my bag and then came back home. After my Dad went home I took them out my bag and put them away somewhere ‘safe’. I have no immediate urge to use them but I wonder what made me just buy them like that. I do know that after I bought them and once I was home and knew I had them I did then start to feel less anxious, maybe it’s a kind of safety blanket thing. Who knows.

Anyways I am really hungry so I’m going to make a little something to eat. Hope you’re all OK.

 

22:25 – Insomnia. Grr.

I am really tired as I didn’t go to bed last night and it’s now nearly bed time 24 hours later and I’m still awake. I was having real problems getting to sleep despite taking medication to help so after a couple of hours of tossing and turning I got up frustrated and decided that at 2.30am I was going to force myself to study. I sort of had the hope that I’d get so bored with not being able to concentrate and bored by reading the course materials that are making no sense to me right now… and that my eyes would get tired looking at the screen… but no… my body wanted to stay awake.

I sat up until around 7am studying and got last week’s work finished and one report (80 pages long) read with notes taken. Haven’t got a bloody clue what half of it means but it’s now ticked off the list. Around 7am I stopped to take the dogs out nice and early then we all had breakfast. I sat and watched some utter crap on TV and the yawning started so I tried to go to bed again after taking my morning meds but again there was no sleep happening. Frustrated I got back up about 9am and went to the shops to buy a Mothers Day card for my Mum and one for my best friend (from her two little boys in case no one else remembers to get her one) and a bouquet of flowers for Mum. I’m going to my parents house tomorrow night for dinner as it’s Mothers Day… another day that is another sad reminder that my little man is way up in Heaven.

Anyways… I opened up the course materials again about lunch time and sat for another five hours studying. I have now got all of last week’s work done and all of this week’s work done and am ready to start the new week on Monday. I still have to go and make the first of my debate posts but to be quite honest I still haven’t got a bloody clue what half the stuff I’ve been learning is about. Me and sociology really aren’t getting along at all. However, I realised today that there are only another six weeks and then this module is over and done with so now that I have caught up a good bit it is looking slightly more realistic that I might be able to see it through for the last stretch. Whether or not it will make enough sense by then for me to write (and pass) an essay on it remains to be seen.

This evening I had a late dinner, took the dogs a long walk, came home freezing cold and finally had a shower. Personal hygiene win at last! I hoped cuddling up in fleecy pyjama’s (that had sat on the radiator getting all cosy and warm) would start to make me sleepy but my head just doesn’t feel ready to switch off yet. I’ve taken my bedtime meds and feel tired yet awake. Maybe if I put a DVD on I’ll start to fall asleep on the sofa and then drag myself through to bed. Or maybe I’ll still be sitting here wide awake come the early hours… who knows… since being awake since Friday morning (just from my prescribed meds) I’ve had 1500mg of Quetiapine, 60mg of Mirtazapine and around 40mg of Diazepam – and here I am still awake…

There was some drama today mid afternoon. Whilst I was sitting here studying I heard a loud crash outside and went over to the window. Two cars had somehow smashed into each other and one of the cars had come right through the metal railings and was literally inches away from my downstairs neighbour’s window. Luckily no one appeared to be hurt – an ambulance came but didn’t take anyone away – I have no idea how it happened because the car that had come right through the railings was on the wrong side of the road AND facing the wrong direction. So yeah, a lucky escape for those people today and two pretty wrecked cars. And a lucky escape for the elderly man in the ground floor flat, he must have got some fright if he was in at the time seeing a car flying towards his window!

Right I think it’s time to put a DVD on and see if any sleep is going to happen tonight. Hope you’re all having a nice weekend.

 

 

19:53 – A good day ’til the voices fucked it all up

[edited to add - sorry this post goes on forever, rambles, is all mixed up and probably makes very little sense so I apologise in advance]

This afternoon I met up with lovely social worker and we went for a bite to eat and to have a chat. Whilst I was standing outside waiting for her to pick me up a guy walked past me and the way he looked at me made me feel so uncomfortable. He was pretty much looking me right in the eye from across the street and kept on staring as he reached the other side of the road. While he stopped to let a car past he started looking at me up and down in what felt like a really leering sort of way. Initially it gave me the creeps but a few seconds later as he was crossing the road and about to walk right past me I saw these violent images quickly play out in my head of me pushing him right into a moving car.

Anyway, a few minutes later lovely social worker arrived and it was nice to see her again but from the moment of that guy staring at me my head started playing funny buggers which made me feel like I couldn’t talk properly about stuff. It’s hard to explain, I would start up sentences and find it hard to say anything that actually had any proper meaning to it, like when you go to say something that has a point to it but I’d never get to the point because as soon as I’d start talking ‘they’ would start as well. I felt very anxious when I got in her car (I really don’t know why) but I was trying not to show it and tried to relax. But ‘they’ didn’t want me to relax and during the ten or fifteen minutes it took to get to the cafe I kept hearing instructions to do bad things inside the car. I couldn’t tell lovely social worker this because she’d probably have kicked me out her car and made me walk, but the stuff I was hearing was bad, really quite disturbing, for example when she was on the faster bit of road they were telling me to open the door and throw myself out because I couldn’t be trusted not to say too much to her. So yeah, that was pretty unpleasant however since I got home ‘they’ have actually been happy with me for not revealing too much today.

So we got to the cafe and it was full of people, not one single table free so we had to sit outside. But while we were in the queue the anxiety began creeping in, there were too many people and it was making me feel not good at all, especially not when all I could hear was one direct instruction that I had not to let any of these strangers look me in the eye. I went outside and got a table and once out in the fresh air the anxiety did begin to calm a little.

I didn’t want to risk talking about the content of the chitter chatter and I have been really good and not written on here for a few days and actually really tried my best not to mention to anyone or anywhere what ‘they’ want me to do next. So we chatted about more general things and I told lovely social worker the bits of my uni course I’m struggling to get my head around and she did try to explain what some of the bits meant but my head was like mush and unable to fully concentrate, as is the norm for me at the moment.

In the car on the way back we stopped for a moment so I could get out and have a cigarette. I remember telling her that I feel like I have no sense of belonging at the moment, like everyone I know is either married or has kids. At the age of 31 I feel like they are all in some club that I am not a part of. And all these mental health symptoms and diagnoses and medications make me part of another world but I don’t want to connect with other people in that world in ‘real life’ – I prefer to not go to support groups because I know that any time I am in the psychiatric hospital it drives me mad being around so many other mentalists. Don’t get me wrong I love the online friends I have met through blogging and almost all of them are fellow mentalists but I’ve always had this thing about wanting to surround myself with what I perceived to be the norm but by doing that it only makes things even harder because they don’t understand what it’s like to live a life with mental health problems.

I think that is probably where the desires to find a faith have recently stemmed from – a desire to be amongst people who I can connect with and have something in common with. Where I could sit in an environment and feel as though I belong. Because I don’t feel as though I belong here on Earth with this as my life, I am always aware of being different from everyone else. Do I want to be the same as the people I think of as normal? In a lot of ways yes. But I can’t help but feel like I have too many issues to ever be ‘normal’ again.

Most of my life I have felt different from everyone else probably because by the time of reaching my teens I had already been abused for a number of years, starting self harming and had no fears of walking into an adult world and start smoking and drinking and experimenting with drugs. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with being 14 and having sex with my first proper boyfriend because I’d known for years what intercourse felt like. And I thought it was expected of me, afterall it was what ‘good girls’ did to make guys happy wasn’t it?

I’ve always been different in one way or another from those around me and the one and only time I felt ‘normal’ was when I was around 24 and I had lost a hell of a lot of weight, I was slim and felt pretty. For the first time in my life I could walk into a clothes shop and know I could wear the fitted clothes and pretty dresses. And then just to add the cherry to the top of the cake I also had a man who loved me. I worked full time and earned my money every month, then soon after I was pregnant, then engaged and planning a wedding. And before it all fell apart that was normal, that was the first and only time in my life where I felt like I was the same as all of my friends. Perhaps it was a little bit too good as it was also during this period that I had a (undiagnosed at the time) manic episode.

Like all good things that have happened in my life that normality soon fell apart and I became the girl who lost her baby and had to bury her son, then I got fat again, I lost all my confidence when I became the girl whose “fiancé cheated on her but like an idiot she’s taken him back” … only to be cheated on by him again. I felt like everyone was laughing at me and my agoraphobia got worse and worse. My depression that I’d struggled with for a little while in my very early 20′s came back with a vengeance, I was barely functioning and the last thing that detached me from the world of normal people was losing my job because my attendance had become so awful.

And from there that was it, I was catapulted into this world of mental ill health. Thoughts plagued with ideas of suicide, of self destruction and self loathing. I felt disgusting and grew to hate myself a little more day by day. Less than a year after my Bipolar Disorder diagnosis I began to hear voices, I became paranoid, I was suicidal and scarring my body a little more with every day that went by. Soon followed my first experience of being detained and shortly after that I was detained again and then had several more suicide attempts and some voluntary admissions to the psychiatric hospital. Everything was too chaotic to ever do any proper work with the psychologist and lovely social worker just rolled with the crises.

The last time I was in the psychiatric hospital I hated the feeling of being trapped so much that I think I managed to develop a bit of a phobia about it and to be honest I think that’s what has kept me out of that place, because whenever I think about it I think of the nurses who don’t give a shit… the boredom of every minute feeling like an hour… the days that pass so slowly… the place where there is absolutely nothing to do other than walking in and out of the smoking area and chain smoking 40 cigarettes a day… slowly driving yourself more and more mental. And for just over a year now I have managed to stay at home, no more hospital admissions but feeling completely alien from all the seemingly normal people around me every single day.

That brings me back to where I was before I went off on that little ramble – having a sense of belonging or a sense of ‘fitting in’. The whole finding a faith thing may have started with the chitter chatter telling me I had to ‘bare my soul and declare my sins’ when Charlie dog was so ill and them instructing me to pray repeatedly in order for Charlie to get better, but now it’s become about more than that. It’s become a search for me to find somewhere that I do fit in and am accepted for just being me. But you see that is impossible, to say I want to feel accepted for just being me when I am unable to accept who I am myself. If I can’t accept me then how can I expect anyone else to? I can’t.

[Sorry this post seems to have gone off at a bit of a tangent - I've completely forgotten what the point of this entire post was...]

Anyway…. back to today and seeing lovely social worker… on the drive back home I said something about the chitter chatter and she asked me was it definitely voices and not just my thoughts getting out of control? I couldn’t really explain myself properly to her but did say I know the male voice is definitely a voice because my thoughts are in ‘my’ voice if that makes sense, a female tone like how I talk… not an angry male tone… like the way any of us hear our own thoughts in our head. But the way that I really know what is chitter chatter voices and what is my own crazy thoughts is I try and talk inside my head/think thoughts in my head whilst the chitter chatter is talking and if it stops then I know it’s my thoughts because I can’t talk about two different things at the exact same time. Does that make sense? Like if it was actually my thoughts and not a voice then I wouldn’t be able to have two completely different thoughts at the exact same moment running parallel. That’s the best I can explain it.

So lovely social worker dropped me back home and literally just as I was stepping out of the car I looked at her to say bye and even though I saw her mouth form the shape of the word ‘bye’ what I heard was something different and something I don’t want to write here. Then since I got back in the house I’ve had the TV on and every so often I don’t hear a sentence the person on TV says, I hear the chitter chatter say a random line instead. I know it was the chitter chatter talking over her and that she didn’t really say anything bad but over the past few hours that I’ve been home all I keep hearing is that it would make her happy if she never had to see me again. And it gets louder and faster and it’s trying so very hard to make me believe it is telling me the truth, that I’ve not to refer to her as lovely social worker because she secretly hates me and it’s all spiralling out of control round and round inside my head. Then not only am I being told she hates me but people on the TV hate me too. I argue back if she hates me then why didn’t I pick up on it until the very last second when I was getting out the car, surely I would have picked up on it from the moment I first got in the car?…

I tell the chitter chatter that it is talking shit to me and I won’t believe what they are saying, but for some reason they won’t back down which is crappy because she is a lovely social worker even though I don’t see much of her these days. I don’t want to think she has feelings of hate towards me, that genuinely upsets me and while my head is so confused the only thing I know for sure is that the only hate that is truly real is mine towards the voices for fucking my head up so much. I don’t know how much longer I can realistically live this way… being controlled by something I can’t even see… that I can only hear… why does it terrify me so much to go against what they tell me to do? Why am I so scared of, what is at the end of the day, just a bunch of sounds? Why are they so convincing and believable that the consequences of ignoring or disobeying them feel too much to bear?

Sorry I know half of the stuff I’ve wrote probably doesn’t make a great deal of sense and I really didn’t mean to ramble on for this long, I guess I had a lot of stuff to get off my chest. I feel like such an awful person for even giving these horrible voices a second thought, but they are so real that no matter what I do I just can’t hide from them…at all…ever. And maybe that’s what I need to accept – that they are here to stay and always will be. It’s pretty clear that realistically there is only one way left to get rid of them now.

22:03 – Feel like my head is about to explode

Today has been one hard day and my head is a mess. I didn’t get to bed til gone 2am then was up again just before 8am to start off Charlie dog’s medication for the day (and to take my own). I was pretty emotional and just sat here going through my little one’s memory box, crying into his little blanket, looking at my scan photos and my photos of my baby. Really can’t quite believe that six years have passed. People say time heals but I really don’t think it does.

I went and bought some flowers and met my Mum to go to the cemetery. On the way there I asked her how my cousin’s wedding had been and could feel my eyes welling up as she told me all the emotional moments: the father of the bride speech, the wedding vows, describing my cousin’s dress… I wished I hadn’t asked because it made me feel so sad I wasn’t there to see it all for myself.

We got to the cemetery and tried to make his headstone all pretty with nice flowers. There may be more now if his Dad went up later in the afternoon. I hope he did.

My little man’s headstone

After we had put our flowers into the little pots Mum started to talk about how different life would be if little Lewis was here, how she didn’t think my mental health would ever have got so bad if things had just turned out differently. And I kind of think she might be right. I’ve been so empty and lost over the past six years. Even more so in the past four years since my relationship with his Dad ended and my Bipolar diagnosis being made. On the one hand I really hope my little boy looks over me from Heaven and on the other I hope he never sees me when I’m doing bad things to myself and feeling so depressed and traumatised all the time.

Mum took me for a hot chocolate after we left the cemetery and most of the talk was again about my cousin’s wedding. Don’t get me wrong it was nice to hear how happy my cousin was and hear how family members I haven’t seen in years are doing. It just hurt because I felt so left out from it all even though it’s all my own fault for not having the strength to fight this fucking agoraphobia. Even after it ruining my quality of life for so many years I’m still too pathetic and weak to overcome it. That’s what really felt shitty.

Once I got back home I got the dogs and headed off to the vets so Charlie could get a check up and have the cannula taken out his paw. He was jumping about with what looked like excitement as we went in and all the staff started making a fuss of him and saying how he had certainly sprung back to life. But when we went into the consultation room I asked the vet if she could just check his stomach because it had looked pretty flat on Saturday and seemed a little bit swollen again. But I wasn’t too concerned because he’d been going to the toilet normally and not passed any blood or anything so it seemed that everything inside him was working properly. But she took his temperature and I could see her face starting to look a little worried, it was sky high again after being back to normal on Saturday. So she did an ultrasound over his tummy and could see pockets of fluid everywhere. It looked like his tummy was full of bubbles.

She said she couldn’t tell on the ultrasound what the fluid was, it could be that because he just wouldn’t rest yesterday and kept running around at his usual crazy speed that he’s burst a couple of internal stitches again and something is leaking or it could be that he’s started to bleed into his gut again. As she spoke she must have seen the worry on my face as the vet nurse who was also in the room started to give me a cuddle. The vet said he would need to stay with them tonight and would be operated on first thing tomorrow morning. That’s going to be three operations in seven days, major surgery that we didn’t know if he’d survive on Tuesday then reopened to repair burst stitches and a hernia on Friday and now reopened again tomorrow to see what this fluid is. I was really fighting back the tears and they asked if I was OK. I mumbled that it was my little boy’s anniversary today and my head was feeling pretty pickled and now I was so worried about Charlie again. Is he strong enough to get through all of these operations? Are they going to be able to repair the affected gastro-intestinal organs that are so damaged? The answer is that no one knows. So of course I am terrified all over again that I’m going to lose him. It really does feel like one step forwards and two steps back.

When I left the vets I went to best friend’s house for a couple of hours. I couldn’t come home because I was having really bad thoughts going round in my head, I felt that same pressure cooker feeling that I felt a few weeks ago when I ended up self harming pretty badly. And I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to tarnish my little one’s anniversary by cutting over and over until I needed stitches again. So even though I am now 8 days behind with my university work I tried to do the sensible thing and go somewhere I could talk, somewhere I knew the kids would distract me for a little while and somewhere where I couldn’t start hurting myself. I came home around 7pm and for the past two and a half hours I’ve just sat here staring blankly into space, my thoughts racing around too fast and to be honest it feels like my head is about to explode. I feel so stressed and worried and emotional. I keep bursting into tears and I’m not even sure exactly what I’m crying about.

I guess it’s about everything. Today has been extremely hard and I am shattered but I know I’m not going to sleep tonight. I still have two Nitrazepam left that lovely GP gave me last week and could take them and see if they help me get off to sleep. I doubt they will though, it doesn’t matter how much I try to medicate myself, everything in my head is just going way too fast and too erratically for medication to do much good. I have to try and prepare myself for another tough few days ahead but I am truly struggling to know where I’m going to get the strength from. I find it hard enough to function properly on the various medications that I take and when you throw in sleep deprivation and racing thoughts and worries (the outcome of which I have absolutely no control over) it makes it very very hard to keep on going.

I know that self harming isn’t the answer and yet I keep thinking over and over of that feeling of everything starting to release… that moment when I have finished cutting and just sit with my eyes closed for a few minutes feeling like all of the worries have rushed out of my system… it’s hard to describe it in words… I guess if you do it then you’ll know what I mean.

I can’t lie. My head is absolutely pickled tonight. I can’t slow my thoughts down so I have no choice but to let them race around until sheer exhaustion kicks in and I can get some rest. I guess it’s going to be another long night.

01:24 – Six years since you grew your wings

It is just coming on for 1am and as I sit here writing this my mind transports me back to this exact time six years ago. I had been in hospital since around 3pm with contractions and heavy bleeding. But I wasn’t even six months pregnant and because the bleeding was so heavy they couldn’t give me the medication they would use to try and stop the contractions. The doctor had spoken to me gently and told me if I carried on contracting my baby would be too small to survive outside the womb. If the contractions stopped even just for one or two weeks then he would at least have a tiny chance of survival at 24 weeks gestation. I had been in so much pain all day, by the evening when the doctor told me this I was so doped up on diamorphine I had no idea what was going on.

The pain calmed down when my waters broke, I think that was around 9pm. I had an ultrasound scan straight after which confirmed my waters had gone (they didn’t want to irritate my cervix by doing an internal exam) but even though my waters had gone my little man was still happy inside of me, not showing any signs of distress, heartbeat still in normal range. And as the diamorphine kicked in the pain pretty much disappeared. I really thought things were going to turn out OK, it seemed like the contractions had stopped. I couldn’t believe that losing a baby would really happen to me, we all tried to stay positive that the labour had stopped by itself and for the next few hours it really looked like it had.

I remember trying to sleep then opening my eyes as the most severe shooting pains started going down my back and around my bump. I couldn’t lie still, I couldn’t sit up, I was throwing myself all over the bed in panic and agony. They gave me another injection of diamorphine and tried to calm me down but I could feel my body starting to push and there was nothing I could do to make it stop. I looked at the clock and it was right on 1am. I tried so so hard not to push and I pulled my (ex) fiancé in close to me so he was facing my face and not looking down. I cried and cried as I begged them to do something to stop me needing to push but something just takes over and you begin to push involuntarily, you cannot control it. With my fiancé still holding me close I let my body push and after about ten minutes of pushing my beautiful baby boy came into the world.

1.24am on the 11th of February 2007 and my life changed forever. You were born an angel. The most beautiful little angel. Forever sleeping. A perfectly formed tiny little person just too small to survive outside of my womb. How we cried for our loss… we cried for not being able to keep you safe… for not being able to give you the gift of life… for our dreams of being a little family completely shattered.

The few hours I spent with you were the most precious few hours of my life. I remember studying you all over, looking at your perfectly formed little face, your lips, your little button nose, your feet and little toes. Complete perfection. I have never felt such emotional pain as I did during those few hours. It was so terribly unfair, you were so loved and so wanted by so many people and everyone shared in our devastation that you had grown your wings. Through the confusion, grief and pain we tried to do the ‘right’ things for you. We had you blessed by the hospital chaplain. Your grandparents came to meet you. We all wanted you so very much. And we all cried so many tears for you on the day of your funeral a few weeks later.

Six years on and it still hurts so much. I think my love for you has grown stronger with every day that has passed. I promise you that I will keep your memory alive every single day until the time comes where we meet again and you get to show me your angels playground up in Heaven. I can’t wait until the day comes when you are in my arms eternally.

It’s 1.23am… right now I was taking my final push… instead I hold a flame to these candles and light them as I mark the moment where you were born. I have a little tiny sleeping baby angel that sits next to those candles, it reminds me of you…

 

 

 

 

And finally as the clock ticks onto 1.24am I remember the moment when I pushed you into the world.

I read through two of my favourite poems. One of them someone sent to me and the other I wrote for you just a few months after you were gone.

I wish I knew where you were, I wish I knew if you look over me. I wish I knew who was looking after you up there. My only comfort is that all you ever knew was love. And my love for you will last forever.

Happy 6th angel-versary Lewis.

I love you always,

From Mummy xxx

 

I think of you with love today 
But that is nothing new. 
I thought about you yesterday 
and days before that too. 

I think of you in silence 
I often speak your name. 
All I have now are memories 
and your picture in a frame. 

Your memory is my keepsake 
with which I’ll never part. 
God has you in his keeping 
we all have you in our hearts. 

A thousand times I cried. 
If love alone could have saved you 
you never would have died. 

In life we loved you dearly 
in death we love you still. 
In my heart you hold a place 
that no one can ever fill. 

It broke my heart to lose you 
but you didn’t go alone. 
For a part of me went with you 
the day God took you home.

-Author unknown

 

Ten tiny fingers

Ten tiny toes

Strong shoulders just like Daddy’s

And the cutest button nose

In short you were perfect

Not one single flaw

But your eyes, they were sleeping

And will forever more

I held you in my arms that day

And felt so honoured to

For I’ve held the smallest Angel

And Lewis, that was you

I’ve shed a million tears for you

My little ray of joy

Born to me in stillness

You looked just like a toy

Your little doll-like features

Your tiny rosebud mouth

The only thing that was missing

Was that my toy made no sound

The silence it was deafening

And your eyes, they did not see

I held you tight within my arms

Daddy was there with me

I try and cope the best I can

But I still miss you so much

If only I could see you

And once more feel your touch

A little flower sent from Heaven

Too perfect here to bloom

So God took you home again

Albeit far too soon

Lewis my little angel

With wings as white as snow

I’m so glad I got to meet you

Before God took you home

You’re missed but not forgotten

Mummy needs you still

Look down on me from Heaven

I know you always will

I have a very special place

Deep within my heart

I’ll hold you there forever

So we’ll never be apart

You’ve just walked on ahead of me

Don’t worry, I’ll be fine

But now and then, I swear I feel

Your hand slip into mine.

-Angel Wings

A poem  I wrote in memory of my little boy in 2007

 

12:17 – Look who’s home!

Charlie Dog

 

Look who’s home! This is my tough little cookie who has had us all so worried over the past week. As you can see his stomach is very bruised, it also has staples all the way down. And he still has a cannula in under his paw bandage. But I got to bring him home about 6pm yesterday and whilst we’re taking things slowly and gently he is doing really well. He’s on a strict special diet and medication schedule which starts at 8am each day and finishes at midnight and he’s on five different medications which have to be given at specific times throughout the day, so the next couple of weeks are going to be hard work. But it will all be worth it

He’s pretty good at taking his medication but the one thing he’s not happy about is having to wear a basket muzzle but he will have to get used to it as he will be wearing one for the rest of his life when we are out for walks. I hate the way people already have been looking at him like he must be a bad or dangerous dog, I want to put a big badge on him saying “I’m not a bad doggy, I’ve got to wear this so I don’t eat anything off the ground again!”

So he’s not completely out of the woods yet but after a week of living at the vets he seems happy to be home and he’s managed to pass two bowel movements (sorry TMI!) since he got home last night which was the next goal for him so when the vet phoned late last night to see how he was doing she was delighted to hear that as it means everything is working properly inside I’ve to take him in just to be checked over tomorrow and he’ll need his staples out in about a week’s time.

Having so much going on with Charlie dog meant I stayed busy all night and didn’t have too much time to dwell on the fact I was missing my cousin’s wedding. But a couple of people uploaded some photo’s to Facebook and I must admit I did have a little bit of a cry, but every time I looked and saw both my fur babies snuggled up it made me feel a bit better.

Tomorrow is my little boy’s 6th anniversary. I will stay up late tonight until it gets to 1.24am when I will light a candle to mark the moment he was born. I dare say there will be some tears but I guess that’s to be expected. I will go up to the cemetery with some pretty flowers between 2 and 4pm tomorrow as that’s the only two hour period where Charlie doesn’t need any medication. It’s going to be a bit of a tough day as it’s obviously extremely emotional for me but I need to try and hold it together whilst I go to the vets and then go and see my brother with his birthday present and I need to try and put a smile on my face for that.

Back to today… It is a new week of university work starting tomorrow and I haven’t even looked at this current week’s work so I’m going to have to spend all day today trying to catch up. I just can’t seem to concentrate but if I don’t catch up now then I’ll end up falling further and further behind so somehow I’m going to have to force myself to sit and do it. It doesn’t help that one of the psychology modules I’ve just started is all about stuff I find really hard to get my head around – like this week is all about historical theories and how they have developed over time and to be honest I’ve got no interest in that stuff whatsoever. But I guess I need to learn it so I can understand how we got to the more modern theories.

It’s going to be a challenge to care for Charlie round the clock, to try and get through the emotions that tomorrow will bring, trying to keep my head from getting too noisy and/or crazy and catch up and stay on track with my studying. Maybe I should try and take some inspiration from Charlie dog – he was fighting for his little life over Tuesday and Wednesday and has had such a tough time but he’s fighting as hard as he can to get through it all one day at a time. And perhaps that’s what I need to do – try and catch up a bit then take everything one day at a time – stop worrying about the if’s, but’s and maybe’s and just do the best I can. So on that note I guess it’s time to open up my notebook and try to get some reading done.

Hope you’re all having a good weekend

22:02 – Busy day, absolutely shattered

I started writing this post this morning but had to go and meet my Mum for lunch before I got the chance to finish it so there’s a few [updates] added in!

Firstly a Charlie dog update: his condition is still “critical” and he is still extremely unwell but yesterday late afternoon when I went into the vets to see him he tried to pull himself forwards to cuddle into me and licked a tiny bit of food from the vets finger so things were looking as good as what could be expected so soon after such massive surgery. But then when I phoned this morning the vet said he’d had a bit of a dip during the night and been sick so that wasn’t such good news that he didn’t manage to keep even that tiny little bit of food down. So today is going to be another long day of hoping and praying he hangs on in there and I’ll go and see him about 5pm again so I can give him a cuddle and see how he’s doing.

[update - saw him at 5pm today and he managed to walk about for five minutes and ate a couple of spoonfuls of food - if he's still doing well around 5pm tomorrow (72 hours post op) then I *might* be able to bring him home for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and see how he is but I told them I'd be too scared to keep him here overnight, even though I desperately want him home and even though there is a 24 hour on call service I just feel safer knowing he is being checked every few hours by the vet. But yes, for now things are going as well as we could hope for and he's being such a little fighter]

Now… what’s been happening with me? Well I didn’t go to bed or get a wink of sleep on Tuesday night. I was extremely upset and couldn’t stop the tears. The voices were going on and on…

“you need to bare your soul to Christ”

“declare your sins!”

“pray for his forgiveness”

“lie on the floor and give yourself to God!”

And on it went. So when I went to my appointment with Mr Psychiatrist yesterday morning I was exhausted and functioning on auto-pilot. I asked him if CPN had been in contact about increasing my Quetiapine from 750mg to 800mg (she hadn’t surprise surprise) but he point blank refused anyway and said that in his eyes 750mg is the maximum dosage he ever prescribes. When I tried to argue back that 50mg more could just be the little bit extra I need he said I had to make a choice to either stick on the 750mg dose or come off the Quetiapine and try another anti-psychotic. I listed all the anti-psychotics he’d already tried and reminded him of the reasons as to why they hadn’t worked for me but there was no changing his mind so I gave up trying, I was too tired to argue.

I filled him in on how ill Charlie dog is, told him about how shit I feel that I can’t get to my cousin’s wedding this coming Saturday and the sadness I’m feeling as it’s my little man’s anniversary on Monday. He said that it’s because of these circumstances that I’m feeling low and not a mood fluctuation as part of the Bipolar. I said I agreed with him that circumstances were making me feel very low but that these circumstances weren’t here a few weeks ago when I self harmed badly enough to require stitches. In fact this depressive mood and these horrible voices have been going on since October and none of these circumstances were there then either. To be honest I was too tired to talk to him and the whole appointment felt like a total waste of time. I did however tell him about new CPN telling me I was selfish on Monday for talking about having suicidal thoughts, he didn’t comment on it and seemed to change the subject so it was a completely unproductive appointment and thankfully I don’t need to see him again until April.

I also had an appointment with lovely GP yesterday. When I went into the waiting room I had to really fight with myself not to run back out the door. There was a baby clinic on and at least six or seven small babies and everyone fussing over them and coo-ing and saying how beautiful they all were and my head felt like it was about to explode. I was absolutely shattered, desperately worried about my fur baby and it was making me so upset being surrounded by babies and proud parents and when I was called through to see lovely GP I was fighting back the tears. I hate it, I hate that almost six years on I still get so affected by being in an environment with lots of babies, I think that was the first thing I said to lovely GP as I went in. She said I looked really tired and asked what had been happening. I went on a five minute ramble about seeing Mr Psychiatrist and it being useless, about CPN calling me selfish and feeling like my appointments with her were making me feel worse not better, about Charlie dog, about the wedding I can’t get to, about the little one’s anniversary… it all poured out and I told her I was feeling so unsupported right now. I told her that the only two ‘professionals’ that I currently work with who I feel listen to me without judging are my support worker from Rape Crisis and herself, lovely GP. I rambled that this wasn’t right, I should feel supported most from the mental health professionals, especially from my CPN but I don’t and that doesn’t feel nice at all.

Lovely GP said she was a bit worried about how I was going to deal with the weekend especially knowing that I have no family around for support and the mental health team is closed at the weekends not that they are much use anyway and she said I really had to sleep. I told her I can’t sleep for worrying so she gave me a few days worth of Nitrazepam to take at bedtime. I took 10mg with my other meds last night and did manage to get some sleep but it was quite broken and I still feel shattered this morning. Before I left my appointment she said that if I needed someone to talk to on Monday I was welcome to give her a call and she’d have a little chat to me. I think she has quite a calming effect on me as I left the appointment feeling like I’d got stuff off my chest. New CPN could do with some lessons in empathy from her!

I don’t think I mentioned this before but I got a letter from the dreaded Atos and a work capability assessment questionnaire through a week or so ago. Am I the only one who sees the word Atos on a letter and just feels their entire body sinking? I hate the waiting time after you send it off where you worry yourself sick that they are going to send you a letter saying your benefits are going to be stopped or make you have one of their dreaded medical assessment’s. With everything that’s been happening with Charlie dog this week I haven’t had a chance to get someone to help me to fill it out and there was no way I was taking it for new CPN to fill out. So I’m going to phone the mental health team and see if lovely social worker who I used to work with is around and see if I could maybe get an appointment to go in and have her help me fill it out.

[update - spoke to lovely social worker and she is going to help me with the form]

I’ve got to go and meet my Mum shortly for lunch and then we’re going for a wander round the shops as I want to buy a wedding present for my cousin and my parents are driving down to England tomorrow so they will take it down for me. I have no idea what to buy for them, I’ve not got a lot of money and they didn’t want to have a wedding present list, they wrote on the invites that as most people would be travelling quite far and having to pay for hotels that all they wanted was their family and friends there and not to bother with gifts.

[update - couldn't concentrate properly whilst wandering round the shops, was experiencing a lot of head noise and was just getting frustrated so Mum suggested I just buy some nice crystal champagne glasses and a bottle of champagne (a bit boring I know, but at least they'll use them) and I also got a lovely card and wrote a little message apologising for not being there and wishing her a day as special as she is... aww that made me tear up a little bit there!]

I also did something this morning which I guess you could call empowering. I decided to write my ex an email and tell him I wanted to do my own thing this year for the little one’s anniversary on Monday. Towards the end of our relationship I felt like I had absolutely no control over things due to him having two affairs within the last six months of being together. And despite splitting up almost four years ago now I have always met with him on the little man’s anniversary because I had this belief that our little boy would be looking down over us and happy to see Mummy and Daddy both by his stone together. But you know what? I realise now that all my little one would want is for us both to remember him but for us to be happy. And meeting my ex doesn’t make me happy, it usually ends up fucking with my head and I now feel like I don’t need that headfuck any more. It was time to cut the final thread and I did it. Me. I took control and I feel like something has lifted, I don’t have the feeling of dread about Monday any more because I know I’m going to try my best to celebrate his anniversary, to remember him with the people I love – my Mum and my best friend. And whilst I know there will be tears I’m sure there will be some smiles as well.

Anyway I better go now as I have five minutes before I need to meet my Mum. I’m tired and my head is a little bit noisy and to be honest I could do with going back to bed for a few hours but I’ve got a busy afternoon – lunch, finding a wedding present, going to visit Charlie dog at the vets, hoping lovely social worker phones back and says she can help with the work capability questionnaire, facing the supermarket as I have absolutely no food in the house and ugh I really am not in the mood right now for being awake today… maybe some fresh air will do me good.

[update - It's now almost 10pm and I have just realised I forgot to post this earlier, oops! So I've added a few updates in for the things that have happened since this morning. It's been a long day and I am ready to take a couple of Nitrazepam and try and get a better sleep tonight. Even the vet gave me a telling off today for not sleeping - but then admitted she hadn't been doing much herself because she's been so worried about my Charlie dog. She really is an amazing vet she looks after all the animals in her care with such genuine love for them all which makes going in there and seeing your pet really poorly that little bit easier So I'm going to take my other little dog for his bedtime walk and get myself off to bed. Goodnight]  :)

00:41 – “I never thought you could be so selfish”

I’m just going to briefly mention how my poorly dog is doing. I took him to the vet first thing this morning and he was kept in until 5pm on IV fluids and some other medicines. She didn’t think he was ill enough to need to stay overnight but also wasn’t happy to just let him go so I’ve to take him back in at 10am tomorrow morning to be checked over and if needed, another day on the IV fluids and maybe start some proper tests. He is very lethargic and didn’t even want to come out for his bedtime walk (then again it’s like a snow blizzard outside just now). So he is still a poorly doggy and still hasn’t eaten, so I’m still a bit worried about him. It’s at times like this I really wish they could talk to you and let you know what was wrong

Whilst the vet tried to make him feel a little better I spent my day with a couple of appointments. The first was with new CPN which was a fucking joy as always (yes I am being sarcastic). I went in there not knowing what to say and she didn’t even mention the self harming or me missing my last appointment. We talked a bit about the voices and I told her that I do think the Quetiapine is trying to help a bit but it just doesn’t feel like I’m taking quite enough. Now my psychiatrist classes the maximum dose of Quetiapine as 750mg a day, but from the reading I’ve done 800mg seems to be prescribed quite often so I told her I’d like to try another increase but wasn’t too sure if Mr Psychiatrist would agree to it when I see him on Wednesday. She asked me if I wanted her to phone and mention to him so he’ll already know what I want to talk about before I go in.

So all that bit was fine. Until I started talking about my cousin’s wedding next weekend and talked about how many things I have missed out on for 7 years, SEVEN fucking years all due to this fucking stupid phobia about travelling away from my ‘safe place’. And this is where the appointment fell apart. Whilst she was rambling on about anxiety and phobias and all that scary stuff my head was bouncing the same thought round and round: to tell her about my plotting and planning or not to tell her?

Well… I figured I’m not going to gain anything by lying to her or by keeping things bottled up. So I told her. I started to tell her that I’ve been having thoughts racing round and round my head of what a perfect opportunity it would be next weekend to put an end to everything. Now, I wanted to continue to say that of course I wouldn’t actually do anything because:

1. I’ve realised that I’m actually pretty scared about dying (as well as living)
2. It’s my little man’s anniversary next Monday and I definitely would be here for that.

But I got interrupted as she cut in and said “I never ever would have thought that you could be so selfish. This is your cousin’s wedding day and just think how much you would ruin it when all the family returned home to find out what you’d done. Every single wedding anniversary your cousin would have would just be all about when you killed yourself. That is incredibly selfish. I can’t believe you could say something like that”.

(Not an exact quote but close enough)

Now I don’t dispute for one second that it would be an incredibly selfish thing for me to do and I’m not even that bothered that she went on a little rant about me being a selfish person. Well she could have picked slightly less harsh words but what really annoyed me was the way she just cut in when it was clear I was still in the middle of speaking to start calling me selfish… she didn’t even hear me out and I had to wait til she was finished her little rant before I could tell her the reasons why I wouldn’t act on the thoughts.

To be honest I think what I found hardest about the conversation was that it was the first time of really talking about suicidal feelings with her and I guess I hoped that even though I moan about her all the time I still hoped that when the time came to talk about serious and difficult things that she would actually display some empathy. Not sit and criticise me and call me selfish. By doing that all she has done is made me feel even less like I can open up to her and I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen if I ever experience a real crisis and really need her help.

When the appointment was over and she told me she was taking a couple of weeks holiday so wouldn’t be able to see me again until the 20th of Feb I was quite relieved. I did get to say to her in the end that I had no intentions of doing anything to myself this coming weekend and mentioned the little one’s anniversary was next Monday and she didn’t even comment on it. I had to ask her if it would be OK for me to phone and speak to whatever member of staff was on duty that day if things got too hard (I probably wouldn’t phone but it’s nice to know there is that option if needed) and she was just like yes you can call if you really need it.

So I left that appointment wondering what the point to it had been, as is becoming the norm for when I leave appointments with her. Thankfully I had an appointment straight after it with my support worker through Rape Crisis and managed to get it off my chest. Support worker agreed that she thought new CPN had been a bit harsh the way she had spoken to me so once I had spoke about that for a few minutes I stopped feeling so annoyed and managed to have a good chat with her about some other shit that’s been on my mind, just stuff about my feelings towards men and how completely convinced I now am that I won’t ever have another relationship with a guy – partly because of how they’ve treated me and partly because I couldn’t ever imagine exposing my scarred body to someone again.

Right, before I go off into another ramble about all of that stuff I think I’d better take myself off to bed seeing as it’s nearly 1am. Keeping my fingers crossed that my poorly dog is a bit better in the morning.

Goodnight.