23:38 – Being trusted by GP for the first time in over 3 years

For over 3 years now I have received my medication on a weekly basis. Every Wednesday I have to go to the chemist and pick up my weekly script. Every four weeks when I get a new prescription I have to sit for ages whilst the pharmacist splits it all up into 4 separate weekly bags. For pretty much all of this time (apart from when I’ve had medication changes) my meds cupboard has looked the same every week:

14 x 25mg Quetiapine

14 x 200mg Quetiapine

7 x 300mg Quetiapine

7 x 30mg Mirtazapine

56 x 2mg Diazepam

All the tablets precisely counted out so I take 750mg of Quetiapine each day, 30mg of Mirtazapine and 16mg of Diazepam (4mg 4xday).

Getting meds weekly is never something I’ve argued about. I understand that when things are quite unstable it is not a good idea to have loads of tablets in the house. And it also helps keep track of what I’ve taken each day when there is only a small amount of medication to start with. However, it has now been quite a long time that I have gone with no hospital admissions and whilst I may still be struggling with the self harm I would choose cutting rather than overdosing 9.9 times out of 10 if I wanted/needed to hurt myself. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – that last overdose I took, the one which almost killed me, scared the utter shit out of me. No more overdoses for me – if I ever reach a point of being that suicidal again it will be a quick and definite ending – not shovelling pills down my throat.

Sorry… I’m going off at a bit of a tangent here… Back to the point!

This morning I had an appointment with lovely GP. She asked how things have been going and said she had seen a copy of the letter after my recent trip to A&E. I told her the thoughts and images and urges to do it had just got too bad that day and I’d given in, but that I also regretted it very soon afterwards. She asked what support I was receiving at the moment and I told her I’m on the waiting list to see the psychologist again once she returns to work (hopefully at the end of this month) and I told her I was trying to work on some of my issues surrounding both the childhood and adult sexual abuse/sexual assault I have suffered. She said that sounded like hard work to do and I agreed it is, but it’s something I’ve never properly dealt with and it’s something I need to do before I end up with a genuine phobia of even being in the same street as a man. She asked how my university course is going and I told her the truth – shit – due to my total inability to concentrate or focus on the course work. To be honest I think I’m going to get kicked off the course which is pretty bad given that I’m only being expected to do the absolute minimal level of work this semester… but it would seem that even the minimum is just too much for my mind to process and understand So overall I was open and honest with lovely GP, I admitted there are some days that are pretty challenging especially when my sleep is crap like at the moment; but also told her that whilst my head might feel a bit bonkers at times I have no thoughts of ending my life at all and still regret cutting.

After we had a chat for ten minutes or so I decided it was time to brave it and ask the question that I’ve been wanting to ask for a while now but kept thinking she would say no so I hadn’t bothered before now. But today I felt like we had a rational chat and identified the good and bad things going on and I felt quite calm so out came the big question…

“Doctor, as I haven’t been in hospital for quite some time and as I don’t have any urges to harm myself, would you consider trusting me to have more than one week’s medication at a time?”

And to my surprise she said she was confident that if I did have any suicidal type thoughts that I would ask for help and not take an overdose. She asked me if we could have a mutual trust agreement that if she gave me a chance to prove I could be responsible with a lot more medication in the house that I would agree that if I did feel particularly low at any time I would contact someone…anyone…and get help. I agreed to this and so she agreed to give me a chance with the medication. I expected her to give me two week’s worth to start with but she gave me all four week’s worth which sort of shocked me a little bit. I know I can be trusted and I want so much not to let lovely GP down but fuck it is a bit scary having so many tablets in the cupboard. It’s probably just because it’s so unfamiliar to be given so much trust, but if it continues to feel weird I will do the right thing and take some of it to my Mum’s house or something.

So I now have in my cupboard:

56 x 25mg Quetiapine

56 x 200mg Quetiapine

28 x 300mg Quetiapine

28 x 30mg Mirtazapine

226 x 2mg Diazepam

Wow. It feels so weird to be trusted again. So weird that my head feels so utterly crazy at moments and yet it’s like I’m determined to see this as some sort of a challenge – a test if you like – that I can have these crazy moments but somehow deal with them in a way that doesn’t involve abusing medication in any way. I am determined in 28 days time that I will have taken my medication properly and at the correct times and the correct dosages every single day. I’m not going to let myself down and I’m not going to let lovely GP down. If that’s the only one thing I manage to do over the next 4 weeks then I will be happy. Happy they can trust me and happy that I can trust myself.

I cancelled my appointment with my support worker today as I got absolutely zero sleep last night then was up early to go see GP and by the time it got to 1pm I was like a total zombie. So we have rearranged for tomorrow.

I also got a new phone today and I’m such a happy bunny! (well besides the guilt trip I’m putting myself on)… I used to have the Samsung Galaxy S2 phone but it broke and for at least six months now I’ve been using this shitty little phone that doesn’t do much more than make calls and send texts. I’m not due a contract upgrade until September and really was trying to make do with the shitty phone until then, but then last night I got chatting to someone on Facebook who was selling their Galaxy S3 at a really good price (but still pretty expensive). I said I was really interested and would love to buy it but there was no way I could afford that much money, it would take me at least a month to save up for… Then about an hour later I got a message which basically said “look I know you pretty well, I’ve known you for years, I know you aren’t going to run off with the phone and disappear, I’m not desperate for the money so if you want to pay me in 4 weekly instalments then you can have the phone”… Of course I couldn’t resist that offer so this morning we met up and I handed over my first weekly instalment and got the phone and I’m so in love with it already! Plus I know that in six months it will still be worth a little bit of money so when I get my upgrade I can sell this one and get a bit of money back again.

In a way I feel a bit guilty for treating myself to something I didn’t actually need. I could have lived without it. But at the same time I very rarely go for nights out any more, I rarely buy myself new clothes or nice things for myself, the most extravagant treats I have are the occasional lunch out with best friend or my mum. At least this treat will last much longer than a bowl of pasta or something! But yeah I still have this niggling voice at the back of my mind telling me I didn’t need or deserve such a big treat and it makes it hard to truly enjoy something when you’re feeling guilty for allowing yourself to have it.

Anyways… after being up all day yesterday and all night during the night and then up all day again today I am starting to get extremely tired so it’s time for a quick dog walk, medication and furry pyjamas on and with any luck get some sleep tonight.

Goodnight folks xx

21:25 – Trying out sandplay/sandtray therapy

Today I actually dragged myself off the sofa and got some things done. I can now tick off my list:

• Bought Easter card for parents
• Bought and posted Easter card for my Gran
• Bought and took Easter eggs to best friends kids
• Returned book to best friend that I borrowed
• Paid a cheque into the bank
• Put clean clothes on
• Went to appointment with support worker
• Dogs have had 3 walks so far today in between all of the above

The only things left to tick off my list is:

• A shower
• Studying
• Read university emails
• Send email to personal tutor to explain how much I’m struggling

So I got a few things done today and I guess I feel glad. The only thing to write about today that is of any interest is my appointment with my support worker (that I see through Rape Crisis). We talked for a while and I told her about the continual urges to self harm despite the regrets I have about doing it last week. I told her I wished I’d just got the proper stitches put in because my wound is very painful where the deepest part is still healing. We talked about some other things – one which I will write about on here at some point soon but right now I’m still trying to make sense of it myself. The first half hour of the appointment we touched on quite a few things, but for some reason my eyes kept on diverting to a tray on the table that was full of sand. Also on the table were loads of little miniature toys like animals and people and scary looking things and happy looking things. Support worker told me it was for something called sandplay (or was it sand tray?) therapy and asked me if I’d like to try it. I told her I felt a bit silly as it looked like something for young children to play with but she encouraged me to try it so I did.

She left me alone in the room for about ten minutes and I sat there and stared at the sand. I didn’t know what type of “scene” or “picture” I wanted to create. I felt stupid and like I couldn’t do it properly because I don’t have the creative imagination of a young child. So I just sat there swirling my fingers in the sand for a couple of minutes then decided to have a look at all of the miniatures. I found some gates, like the kind a kid would use if they were playing with toy farm animals and created a gated in corner of one side of the tray. I picked up a miniature toy wolf but it had three heads and had an evil look about it, and at either side of the wolf I put lions which were roaring and also evil looking. They all went in behind the gate.

Then at the other side of the sand tray I put a miniature Church minister holding a Bible and lying by his feet a little baby with a blue nappy on. But I started burying the baby into the sand until only his head was visible. I surrounded him with pretty things, little crystals and pretty buttons.

I thought that was all I could do. There were no other miniatures that I wanted to put in my scene but where the two empty corners were I dug all the sand out of them to make a big hill in the middle so one side of the tray miniatures wouldn’t be able to see the other sides miniatures. But then in the empty space I found three miniatures that were just little heads with faces on and hands held up. The first head I left sitting up properly, the second falling down into the sand, the third face deep and underneath the sand.

Then I told support worker I was finished and she came back in. We talked a little about why I picked each object – the wolf felt like inside my head – the three different heads on it, like me with my head but the voices as well. It looked angry – a lot of the time the voices are angry. I wanted them gated in because I feel like I have to hold things back all the time and constantly try to prevent those I’m close too seeing me interact with the voices and look totally bonkers.

The church minister looked kind and I believe in Heaven and believe my little boy is there. The baby figure I guess was representative of my little one, why I buried him under the sand (apart from his head) I don’t really know. Maybe because we had him buried. I don’t know.

The falling faces – guess they reflect how I feel – like I’m constantly falling downwards and it is so difficult to lift my head up high when inside I feel as though I’m trapped in some sort of cycle of always ending up falling flat on my face, head first, head deeply buried in some sort of shit that I don’t want to be buried in.

So yeah it felt a bit weird doing it and I don’t know if I’ll ask to do it again but I can see how it would be helpful if someone was having trouble saying the words out loud or expressing their feelings and emotions or experiences through creating visual scenes rather than talking. This evening I have been thinking that maybe there are some memories that I have suppressed so much that maybe expressing my memories of them in a sand play session would be easier. I don’t know. Even though some things are incredibly painful to think about there are some specific details of some memories that I don’t seem to want to share with anyone. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to from the wide range of professionals I’ve seen over the past few years but some little details I have always kept to myself. Shame maybe. I don’t know.

I have another appointment with my support worker next Wednesday. I also need to try and see lovely GP next Wednesday rather than just handing in a prescription request again but it’s a case of waiting until Wednesday morning then seeing if I can get an appointment on the day and that might be a bit hard as they are closed for a couple of days over the Easter bank holiday weekend so there will probably be loads of people trying to get same day appointments on Wednesday. Maybe I’ll just hand in a prescription request again this month but see if I can make an appointment to see her next month. Surely she can’t be completely booked up for the next month.

I also need to get an appointment with my social worker but I’m guessing she will be off tomorrow and Monday so will try and contact her next week sometime.

So that’s been my day. Best friend said she is going to pop by tomorrow morning and that I’ve to be up and showered and dressed for 10.30am and meet her for a cuppa, but the way my sleep is at the moment I have no idea what time I’ll end up falling asleep then waking back up. I could fall asleep at 12 and be awake again by 3am and that will be me up all day and night. I could fall asleep at 3am and be awake again a few hours later. I could be up until 6 or 7am and asleep when she calls at 10.30. I have absolutely no regular sleep patterns at all just now but I won’t start moaning about that again…

If I don’t post back before then I hope you all enjoy your Easter bank holiday weekend and get lots of choccy eggs

15:33 – Just a little moan about life

In the last five days since I last posted nothing much has changed.

I still feel miserable, I still want to self harm again, I’m too tired to actually do it though. Also I’m beginning to wish I had just let them put proper sutures in last week, but because I was so anxious and wanted out of the hospital asap I asked them just to use lots of skin closures. And they have closed the wounds quite well but because one of them was pretty deep it is so painful where it is obviously still healing under the actual cut. I’ve never had pain in a self harm wound 8 days after doing it when I’ve had prope stitches in, but I don’t think it’s infected or anything, I think it’s just taking a good bit longer to start healing.

Anyway… what else can I moan about…

My sleeping. It remains completely shit and I am absolutely exhausted.

I still haven’t done any of my course work for this university module, in fact I haven’t even looked at my uni emails in about two weeks now.

So yeah… I just plod on through each day, doing very little, making sure the dogs are fed, walked and happy… other than that I’ve been caring about very little else.

The good news of this week is I have now cleared the remaining £50 that was left on the balance of Charlie dog’s vet bill – so I’ve cleared all the excess and the insurance company paid all the rest of the rather large bill.

Hmm what else? Oh my parents have returned from their holiday now so knowing they are just a phone call away again helps a little bit.

Like I say I’m just too tired to feel any enthusiasm for anything. It’s been weeks of this nonsense now and it’s really starting to get to me. I feel on the edge of tears all the time because I just feel so drained.

Yesterday I met up with best friend and my two little ‘nephews’ which was nice as it had been weeks since I last saw them. We went about an hour away from home (even with a fair few Diazepam the anxiety was still pretty bad on the way there) but by the time we got to our destination and I saw it was nice and quiet I managed to stay relatively calm. The kids are of course a great distraction – every time my head would start going into crazy mode they would start asking for something and I’d be pulled back into the moment. First of all we let the kids burn off some energy in the soft play area for about an hour. They are only 2 and 4 so they loved playing in the ball pool and going up and down all the slides and stuff. After that we went for some lunch and then before heading home the kids wanted to play in the outdoor swing park for a while. It was so cold and the snow was on and off all day but I think it probably did me good to get out of the house for a 3 or 4 hours.

Well it’s almost 3.30pm and I need to go and collect my prescription. Not really got any plans for the next few days – just an appointment with my support worker tomorrow afternoon and that’s about it. Think I might go to the parents on Sunday seeing as it’s Easter and enjoy a nice home cooked meal there. That reminds me, I need to go buy my little ‘nephews’ (best friends kids) an Easter egg each. Also I have no food in the house. I think whether I like it or not I’m going to have to face a supermarket today. Blah… I’m just totally not in the mood to be going outside at all but I need my medication so I guess I don’t really have much choice.

Mood wise things are in the ‘crap’ category. Voices are ‘very vocal’. Thoughts are no longer racing, they are slow… too slow… so slow I can’t connect anything together right…

Sorry for all the moaning… hopefully next time I post will be a happier/more positive rambling… who knows…

16:09 – Tired and fed up

Ugh the weather today is so miserable… Snow, rain, wind… Blah

Then again I get to put my hood up to cover up my greasy mop of hair and don’t have to look at anyone… I really don’t want to go out today but I have no food in the house so I’m going to have to face it at some point. I’m so tired after being awake until almost 6am and waking back up at 10.30am. I have a missed call from my social worker who I was hoping to see today but I feel tired and my tummy hurts and I feel a bit mentally and physically blah today. Exhausted I think is the word.

Yesterday I took one of my little dogs to the vets for his annual vaccination and got some good news when I asked if my insurance company had been in touch with them. They have and the vets have received pretty much the full payment of around £1000 There is a little bit still remaining on the balance but it’s only £50 so I said I’d clear that with them early next week. That was quite a relief as the insurance company haven’t contacted me at all and in their terms and conditions there were a few things in the ‘small print’ that they stated they do not normally cover the costs of, unless a vet can say it would have put your pets life at significant risk had the vet not taken those actions. And then other silly things like not covering the cost of food for your pet if they need to be on a specialised diet as a result of their condition. So the little bit left on the balance is basically just for the specialised food he was on for a few weeks. Big weight off my shoulders knowing that has been dealt with and the vets have been paid.

I finally got in touch with best friend yesterday after about two weeks of hiding away from speaking to people so we have decided to spend the day together on Tuesday. We will probably just go for lunch or something and maybe take her kids to the soft play for a couple of hours, but maybe if the weather isn’t so crap and if I’m feeling brave I might try going somewhere different for the day. I shall see how the anxiety is when Tuesday arrives.

My parents return from their holiday on Monday so I’m looking forward to visiting them when they get back. Not so looking forward to my Dad subjecting me to a million photographs lol but looking forward to just seeing them and knowing they are back and nearby again should I need them. I think the weekend is going to be long and slow and I should really be trying to do some studying as I haven’t done any since I almost caught up… and am now over a week behind again and STILL haven’t posted onto the course debate forum so I think I’ll be failing that part of the module. In fact I have a rather large feeling that I’m going to have to resit the entire module.

It’s now nearly 4pm and I have wasted another day lying about doing nothing. I have absolutely zero motivation or focus or concentration right now, my eyes just want to close and sleep, my brain is so foggy I can’t think clearly, I need sleep so badly. Tonight surely has to be the night I fall asleep at a reasonable hour and stay asleep for the full night? This insomnia is leaving me totally shattered and unable to achieve anything in the daytimes.

I suppose I better go and face the wind and rain and take the dogs for a quick walk. Hood up, look at no one, let no one look at me and everything will be ok. Then I need to buy food, I don’t know if I can face the supermarket but I really can’t afford to treat myself to takeaway food tonight.

My brain feels like total mush right now. Maybe some fresh air or should I say storm winds will wake me up a bit. I think once the dogs have been walked and some food bought I will try and put myself in a shower, get into my fleecy pyjamas and curl up on the sofa until it’s bedtime walkies for the dogs.

I wish it was bedtime right now but then again even when bedtime comes my stupid head still won’t let me rest. Hmm. I’m so fed up.

 

 

 

00:31 – A little dose of the head crazies going on

Today I’ve had that same sense of ‘blah’ about me that I had yesterday. I have spent the day in my pyjamas and only changed into clothes to walk the dogs and to go and pick up my weekly prescription. I looked a right mess when I went into the chemist, hair not brushed and all hanging in a greasy mess. No make up. Wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday. Don’t even think I had brushed my teeth at that point. But I really didn’t care.

I finally dragged myself in for a shower this evening and ended up getting my dressings soaked so had to change them. One of the wounds started bleeding again but it stopped after a while and still seems to have stopped so I think it’ll be OK.

What is really annoying me is that I have a massive sense of regret about self harming yesterday and my leg is actually quite sore as well; and yet for some reason I keep thinking about doing it again. I actually threw out the rest of the blades in the box yesterday after I cut so there were none in the house but yeah, the urge to go and buy more tomorrow is there. I don’t think I will though, the feelings of regret outweigh the desires to do it again.

I had hoped that I would maybe get to meet up with my social worker either tomorrow or Friday but I still haven’t heard back from her so I have a feeling that isn’t going to happen which is a little bit annoying because I have a query about my benefits and I find it really difficult to phone and talk to these people so had hoped she could have called them for me. Maybe I’ll hear from her tomorrow and get to see her on Friday… be optimistic!

The only thing I have to do tomorrow is take one of my little dogs to the vets for his annual vaccination. I still haven’t heard anything from my insurance company about how much of Charlie dog’s bill they are going to pay, although they did say it takes about 3-4 weeks to process a claim. And I also wrote on the form for them to deal directly with the vets so maybe they won’t even write to me. I don’t know. I’ll ask the vets tomorrow if they have heard anything or received any payments.

I’m also getting pretty fed up with this stupid sleeping pattern that’s been going on for a good couple of weeks now. I’m not getting to sleep before 3am most nights then waking back up between 6am and 8am then I take my morning Quetiapine dose and spend the rest of the morning feeling like a total zombie because I feel so tired. Then I seem to wake up a bit as the day goes on and by this time of night – midnight – I should be ready to go straight to sleep but instead I’m wide awake. It sucks.

I guess I’ll go find a DVD to put on and see if I can get some sleep in a couple of hours and try to distract myself away from all these urges to do bad things to myself… it’s hard though… when you feel like you have a little demon sitting on your shoulder whispering in your ear “just one more time, just a little deeper, you know you deserve it”. It’s irritating, annoying and soothing all at once. I know that probably sounds a bit nonsensical but that’s how it feels.

Off topic, I have been having a somewhat mixed day with one of my voices. He has been talking quite a lot today about rainbows and rain puddles. It has made for some interesting (and occasionally quite funny) little rambles inside my head as he has been telling me absolutely everything he likes and dislikes – in very specific details – about the existence of both rainbows and puddles. Strange but mostly amusing. But then, the exact same voice would change his tone and start on at me again about how I’ve failed to start serving God properly, I have let my mission to find a faith slide away and he has made it quite clear he isn’t very happy about that and it is something that I must try harder with. So yeah, occasionally annoying but I suppose it’s helped a bit to distract from those little demon thoughts that just want me to hurt myself.

Definitely got a dose of the head crazies going on…

Goodnight folks x

 

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…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

 

 

00:13 – Stressed. Stressed. Stressed.

Firstly a Charlie dog update. This morning he had his third operation in the past seven days and they managed to drain all the fluid and blood that had shown up on the ultrasound scan yesterday. He now has what looks like a plaster cast all the way round his stomach which looks quite strange but it’s holding everything nice and tight to help things heal better. He was in a funny mood today, he didn’t want to have a little walk around the car park, he pulled me back towards the vet’s front door. So I took him back in but he didn’t want to go back into his bed at all and refused to walk so the vet just carried him back through. Then she had a chat to me for five or ten minutes and the whole time all I could hear was this high pitched howling and crying – I’ve never heard Charlie do that before and it was pretty upsetting. I’m now questioning whether I should go in every day and see him – am I just upsetting him by going and then leaving again or would he be more upset if I didn’t go in at all for a couple of days? I don’t know.

So he is back to being “critical” but we are very much hoping this is third time lucky and the last operation he’s going to need but they have told me there is a chance these pockets of fluid could happen again. So the goal for the moment is to get him to rest as much as possible for the rest of the week and to make sure his temperature stays down and carry on with all of his medications. I so hope this is the last of all his problems and he can finally start to heal.

My head has been pretty pickled again today – well it calmed down slightly after I got the call mid afternoon to say Charlie’s operation was over – but in general I’ve been feeling pretty mixed up. As I’m getting so behind with my part time university course I decided to send the student support woman an email explaining that I was having a bit of an unstable period at the moment and finding it impossible to concentrate and absorb the course material. I asked if there was any way I could just do one module this semester as that would really help me to catch up and make the reduced workload more manageable. She sent me a reply to say she was going to speak with my personal academic tutor and see if they can work out a way I can just do one of the two modules this semester and re-take the other one at a later date. I really hope I will be able to do it that way but she said I’ll need to give them a few days to work out if it would be possible for me to do the course one module at a time. She was really nice about things in her email so I’m glad I let her know how much I’m struggling and didn’t leave it for another couple of weeks when I may have ended up too far behind for it to be possible to catch up.

I spent a few hours with my Mum again this afternoon, I just couldn’t handle sitting in the house. Even though I knew I have so much studying to do I was just driving myself mad sitting about. So I went to the parents house and stayed there until it was almost 5pm and time to go and visit Charlie.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with my support worker at rape crisis and my Mum said she would take me supermarket shopping as my finances are in a real mess at the moment and I have hardly any food in the house. I don’t know what I’d do without my Mum sometimes, I’m so lucky to have someone who can help me out when I get stuck but at the same time I feel kind of bad that at the age of 31 I still need to ask for help from time to time.

Anyways… I’m not going to ramble on for too long tonight, I feel pretty tired and like it’s been another long stressful day. I wish I could just climb into bed and fall asleep quickly and remain asleep until my batteries have been completely recharged but that is truly impossible at the moment. I go to bed and lie there for a good couple of hours thinking, worrying, over-analysing everything. I eventually fall asleep stressed and exhausted and then a few hours later I’m awake again. Awake, stressed and still exhausted. More lying there awake until the darkness outside starts to disappear and the daylight takes it’s place. It almost feels like one continuous day with a few short naps here and there, I don’t feel like I’m getting any proper deep sleep at all. I took my last 10mg Nitrazepam last night but it didn’t do bugger all.

I just went to take my medication and realised I forgot to take my morning dose – I take 250mg Quetiapine and 4mg Diazepam in the morning then 4mg Diazepam at lunchtime another 4mg around 6pm and another 4mg at bedtime. Then at bedtime I also take 500mg Quetiapine and 30mg Mirtazapine. So as I forgot to take my morning meds I just took the whole 750mg Quetiapine all together so maybe it will help me get some sleep tonight. I doubt it, but you never know.

Right, on that note I’m going to watch some TV then take myself through to bed shortly. Can’t believe it’s midnight already, I swear all my days are just blending into one at the moment, it’s like a sense of Groundhog Day hanging over me. And I still have that pressure cooker feeling where I feel like I could explode at any time but I had a long chat to someone earlier and it did actually help. It left me feeling a bit calmer and more able to look at things in a more logical and less stressful way.

And on that slightly more positive note I shall say goodnight.