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

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

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

Nothing.

Nada.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPDATED – 11.30pm Saturday 20th

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

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

I will have another scar or two.

I will have to face A&E.

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

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

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

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

UPDATED – 4.22am Sunday morning

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

UPDATED – 1.55pm Sunday afternoon

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

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

UPDATED – 7.30PM SUNDAY EVENING

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

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

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

UPDATE – 9.10pm Sunday night

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

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

00:50 – Feeling seriously low tonight

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

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

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

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

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

19:01 – And it’s all fucked up again

Mood: Shit

Thoughts: Paranoid (I believe a new neighbour has moved in next door, I heard a lot of commotion all day that sounded like someone moving in – who are they?)

Feeling: Anxious and Ill. Have run to toilet at least fifteen times in the past twelve hours thinking I’m going to vomit. Actual Vomiting: Once.

Personal Hygiene: Fail

Studying: Not Completed

Essay Writing: Not Started

Accomplishments Today: None

Times I’ve Thought About Self Harm: 1000000+++

Times I’ve Actually Self Harmed: To Be Confirmed…

What I Should Be Doing Tonight: Writing A Very Important Essay

What I’ll Actually Be Doing Tonight: Failing. At What? At Everything…

 

 

23:37 – Trying to catch up on… life

Well I don’t seem to have changed much mood-wise since I last posted a week ago. The self harm urges are still extremely strong but something inside me is keeping me from acting on them, I always seem to calm down at that very last second, before I do more damage to myself.

I had my first appointment arranged for Friday to see the new CPN for my first session alone with her. I didn’t go. I didn’t phone to let them know. I just ignored it. Pretty much the same way I am dealing with everything in life.

I had to get an essay in by tomorrow morning but I threw some crap together and managed to rattle off a page that is pretty much just full of quotations but hopefully it will scrape a pass mark. We have our final and most important end of module exam in a few weeks time then it’s on to modules 2 and 3 – I do 3 a year part time instead of 6 a year like the full timers.

I still have no concentration. I didn’t do any proper study for this essay that I’ve just submitted, I haven’t been able to take in the words in the chapters over the past few weeks but when it got right to the last minute I knew I had to submit something… anything… to try not to fail on any of my assignments. I’ve passed 2 out of 4, this is 3 of 4 and coming up is the big one in 2-3 weeks time. Even though I have the ‘what’s the point?’ attitude something inside me again steps forward at that vital moment and makes me get my work submitted on time.

I couldn’t even tell you what I wrote about. Although I did discover whilst going through poverty statistics and premature and infant death stats, the region that I live in has one of the highest infant death rates in Scotland. So that made me pretty sad. But then I got thinking that when I lost the little man there were only maybe 2 or 3 other headstones for babies in the cemetery – now – there’s around 10 and this is approaching my little one’s 6th anniversary. It makes me sad.

I am suffering badly with anxiety again, I don’t want to leave the house, the times I do leave are when it’s dark, quiet and feels safer. I have barely had any contact with anyone over the past week. I’ve missed my last 3 or 4 gym sessions, my diet has gone to fuck. The only person I saw last week was the woman from rape crisis and then I missed the one with the new CPN. I don’t know why, I just didn’t get a good vibe off her and something is telling me instinctively that I don’t know if I will get on with her and maybe it’s better just to give it all a miss.

So yeah, trying to catch up on life, I have an assessment submitted on time (albeit a crappy one), I have refrained from self harming, I have stayed away from misusing substances, I am very anxious and very dependant on my anxiety medication right now. I don’t think I want to work with my new CPN but haven’t even given her a chance yet, maybe part of it is the anxiety just creating an excuse for me so I didn’t need to go out at lunch time and be around a lot of people.

I guess I wait and see if she sends me out a letter with a new appointment.

The anxiety is horrible, lots of physical symptoms, heart feels like it’s palpitating, I feel quite hot and flushed, I have a strange nervous feeling in my stomach, I have thoughts telling me it’s only going to get worse the more attention I give it. But I can’t seem to distract myself from it all.

I want to sleep for a long time. I’m very tired.

20:57 – Well I went to a&e

I have just got back home from a&e, I was in there for ages and best friend came with me. First of all I only mentioned my leg wound from a week or two ago and said I needed a wound check, so she took the dressing off and cleaned it up again and put another one on with a tubigrip bandage to add some pressure to help it close up a bit more.

Then I admit I have cut again. She took the bandage off my arm that I’d put on earlier and one of the cuts just would not stop bleeding, it was bleeding with such a constant thick flow that she couldn’t tell if it was a couple of capillaries I’d cut through or the side of a vein. We tried pressure… didn’t work… we tried pressure and glue but it was bleeding so fast that it bled right through the glue and the glue literally takes a second to dry… then I had to sit with my arm up in the air applying pressure but it still wouldn’t stop. In the end she used a caustic pencil (had to google it there to see what it was called). It looks like a long matchstick and the little bit on the end of it burns the bit that’s bleeding to cauterize it. I have never had to have one of them before and I never want it again – she used two of them to get it to stop and it seriously felt like someone was sticking a red hot poker stick right into the wound. When best friend and the nurse saw my face (trying to fight back the tears as it was so sore) best friend said to me “the next time you go to cut I want you to remember this moment”…. Hmm….

It was the senior charge nurse who was on, she has been at my CPA meeting before and when I very first met her I really wasn’t sure if I liked her as she is quite serious and matron like… but as time has gone on I’ve realised she’s actually really nice and seems like she genuinely wants to help me when I attend a&e. She was the one who phoned me the other week to request my permission to inform the mental health team of every time I attend there. So yeah, that’s going to be fun, I have CPN and social worker tomorrow (if social worker shows up) and I’m going to be in a crappy mood and they are going to have a message that I have attended a&e again with self harm wounds.

So anyway… I got medical attention… my leg is cleaned and has a new dressing on it… my arm is glued and steri-stripped and the wound dressed. If I wake up in the morning and the dressing is soaked with blood I have to go straight back up and have that horrible thing to cauterize the bleeding again, if it looks OK then I can wait til Thursday and go up just to have it checked and the dressings changed.

My head is thumping because I’m doing this low carb eating thing again, my body is crying out for some sugar. Today I have eaten a handful of prawns with iceberg lettuce – no dressing, and a tin of tuna with iceberg lettuce – no dressing. And all I can drink at the moment is water. But it will be worth it when I start seeing some weight come off I guess. It’s going to be super hard to stick to right enough.

So I am back home, the dogs have had a quick walk, I’m just about to take my medication even though it’s only coming on 9pm and I’m about to turn the lights out and just lie on the sofa as the light is making my headache even worse.

I guess it hasn’t been a very great day and I’m not overly optimistic that tomorrow’s appointment is going to be much fun either.

Protected: 23:25 – Missing you (so much)

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: 17:17 – Can’t even think of a title

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: 02:33 – Just very confused

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: 16:32 – overdose #2 that did fuck all

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: 18:23 – Confessions of a Cutter

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password: