23:45 – Put simply, I feel like shit

It’s been almost a week since I last had anything to say for myself. Since I last posted the desperation and the urgency and unpredictability of my destructive thoughts has all quietened down somewhat. I’m not really sure why. What has replaced those thoughts is a feeling of numbness, I feel almost detached from everything and I don’t want to be around anyone and I don’t want to do anything. My brain feels sluggish. I can’t think properly so I give up trying. My ability to concentrate or focus on anything is shot to shit at the moment.

If I could, I would just lie in bed all day and all night, not bothering to get dressed or go outside. The only thing that prevents me from just doing exactly that is knowing the dogs need to go out for walks, they don’t need to suffer because of my state of misery. So I scrape back my hair and I put on the same clothes that I wore yesterday (and probably the day before that as well) and we go out. They get a walk and to do the toilet, I stay hidden with my hood pulled up and stare at the ground. And this repeats itself several times a day.

In between times I pull my pyjamas back on and lie in bed or on the sofa staring into space, not even thinking about anything really, just lying there feeling numb and empty. I found a box of stanley knife blades in the drawer yesterday and had a very brief urge to self harm but you know what? I couldn’t even be bothered. It was too much effort and too much energy to do it. The blades got thrown back in the drawer and the drawer closed.

I’ve gone from barely being able to sleep at all to just wanting to sleep all the time. I can’t sleep all the time, my body won’t allow me that privilege. My GP was off on holiday last week and I needed a repeat prescription but because my last prescription was the first month long one in years the other GP said he wasn’t comfortable to give me another monthly and so he put me back on weekly dispense until I can get an appointment to see my normal GP. Then she can decide whether she is happy for me to get monthlies or whether she wants me to remain on weeklies. I think it was probably because the other GP had seen all the A&E trips from self harming episodes over the past month and probably wasn’t sure if I was a bit of a risk. Maybe it’s for the best that I’m on weeklies at the moment as it means I tend to take my medication properly as I don’t have enough tablets to mess around and do a bit of self medicating here and there. At least I’m doing one thing properly.

This week I have an appointment on Wednesday with my support worker from Rape Crisis and an appointment with CPN#2 on Friday. Other than going to them I expect this is going to be another week of hiding from the world and living in my pyjamas. It’s not as if I haven’t got things to be doing – I have a washing machine to order and I have an essay due in at the end of the week if I want to have any chance of passing this module… but I just can’t seem to do it. I keep putting everything off and delaying everything, telling myself I’ll ‘do it tomorrow’ then tomorrow comes and again I do absolutely nothing. If I don’t meet this essay deadline and pass it with a pretty decent grade then I will have to re-sit and I just want this module over and done with. I’m going to try and take an early Summer break and try and get my head back together for the increased workload that September will bring. Hopefully by September I will have done a fair bit of work with the psychologist and be armed with some better coping tools than cutting myself to shreds.

I just feel this complete sense of misery, a big black cloud right above my head threatening to start pissing down on me at any time. Numbness and emptiness and a sense of detachment from everyone and everything. Quiet and in full hibernation mode. Self harm is too much of an effort even though I know I deserve to be covered in more cuts. Thoughts of ending my life have passed through my mind a few times, but they are just that, thoughts. I don’t have a clear enough head to do anything. I don’t have the energy either. I don’t even know if I have the energy to go to my couple of appointments this week – I’ll see how I feel at the time.

I hate myself for writing such a depressing post especially after writing about all the sad news I’d learned last week and how it had put life into perspective a bit. It made me feel like I shouldn’t take life for granted so much and that I should be doing something happy and something positive every day. And I hate that I can’t adapt into that mindset even when I try. Any time I’ve tried to laugh or smile this sense of darkness begins to loom again. So I don’t try. I just sit and be miserable and wait to see what is going to happen next.

I’m shit. I deserve to feel this way. Honestly, if you really knew me you would say the same. The people who tell me nice things about myself like my Mum or best friend just say it to try and cheer me up, they are biased… If people could hear the stuff in my head they would have no hesitation to tell me that yes, I am shit and deserve nothing more than to feel like the piece of crap I am.

21:09 – CPN appointment and a ramble

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

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

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

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

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

Goodnight folks xx

 

00:02 – Truth be known, I’m struggling… a lot

[Warning - there is a graphic description of sexual violence in this post]

Since my last post in the early hours of Friday morning I have been quite busy but also, if I’m honest, struggling. On Friday afternoon I went to see my Mum for a little while and to see best friend. We were all going out on the Saturday night for best friend’s birthday and I was trying on my outfit I was planning to wear out up at Mum’s. Seeing their eyes quickly scanning the extent of the scarring on my body felt horrible but then they both started telling me how proud of me they were that I was now being trusted with a month of medication again and how proud they were that I’d stayed out of hospital for so long. They were nice about the scars but I felt utterly hideous and very uncomfortable with them on show so quickly got covered up again.

Saturday night we all went out. All the girls had short tight dresses on – I on the other hand had my legs fully covered and my arms fully covered. I felt a bit out of place so took just a couple of diazepam whilst we were all getting ready at best friend’s house followed by at least four pretty strong vodkas. By the time we got to the first pub around 10.30pm I was feeling a little tipsy… by the time we left the last pub and began to head home at 2am I was very drunk. But it was a strange kind of drunk, I just couldn’t seem to relax properly all night. I couldn’t get hyper-alert-suspicious-paranoid-brain to shut up. I didn’t join in on the dancefloor, I didn’t let a single person buy me a drink, every guy who got within a couple of feet of me I quickly walked away from. I tried to join in with the laughs but my head was somewhere else all night and all I seemed to do was watch the clock and count down the minutes until I could get the hell out of there and back to my safe little house.

Sunday I felt absolutely awful all day. It seems I’m at that age where hangovers don’t feel too bad when you first wake up but as the hours pass you feel worse and worse, not any better. So yeah, Sunday was pretty much spent lazing around doing nothing. I know alcohol is a depressant but this weird state of mind has been on the go since Wednesday when lovely GP decided to trust me with a month’s worth of medication. Every time I open my cupboard door I hear ‘male voice’ telling me I’ve got them there for a reason and it’s not to prove how responsible I can be with them. But then I hear Mum and best friend in my head, telling me how proud they are of me and I hate myself for even giving the tiniest bit of attention to ‘male voice’.

But ‘male voice’ has been very much present over the past week mostly being insulting telling me things like I’m a dirty whore who deserves to be raped again… a stream of laughter by him every time someone said I looked nice on Saturday night… telling me it would be a good idea to take all of those Diazepam and just fucking knock myself out… telling me me I’ve not made my body ugly enough for him yet and to get a blade back to my skin. He’s angry with me that I walked past the DIY store today and didn’t go in and replace my empty box of blades and it is all I keep hearing from him tonight that I WILL go buy more tomorrow or else I’m going to make him so mad that he will have me [insert warning here to very graphic horrible instructions] “cut my tits off” or his other favourite is “someone’s gonna rape you [between the legs] with the sharpest knife I can find” . Pretty fucked up I know but that is the way he speaks, that’s his vocabulary, that’s his way of showing me he is in control, not me. He is particularly violent in his threats and comments and I am not a violent person, but he says things in ways that flash images in front of my eyes of either me mutilating my body badly or hurting someone else. I’ve never really hurt someone else, I’ve had a few bitch fights, hair pulling and that kinda shit… I’ve punched a couple of people in anger… but I’ve never really properly hurt someone to the point where I could do them permanent damage. And I can’t imagine me ever doing something like that but the things he is saying to me scare me, I can’t deny it.

So with all this going on in my head and his voice talking far too much I haven’t been able to sleep again. I stayed up all of Sunday night, all day yesterday until I finally took a handful (not an overdose) of diazepam this morning around 11am and at finally around 1pm I fell asleep until 4pm. I had promised best friend and her kids that I would go out and see them today now they are back from their dad’s, I promised Mum I would go for a walk with the dogs with her and maybe go for some lunch or coffee or something. Neither of those things happened and other than going out a few times today with the dogs I have done absolutely nothing.

I am very very much at crunch time with regards to my part time university course. I have failed the 20% part of the module. The essay part makes up the other 80%. Normally the lowest pass mark of an essay is 40% but because this is only making up 80% the pass mark is 60%. If I was able to spend the remainder of the week studying like crazy there’s a chance I could throw some sort of an essay together but I have an appointment with my rape crisis support worker tomorrow and then it’s best friend’s actual birthday on Thursday. And to be completely honest I have lost all motivation. I’ve lost interest. But then I’ve lost interest in everything over these past few days.

My head feels like it’s going a bit mental again and I am lacking in strength to fight back. All I seem able to do is lie on the sofa or in bed and battle back and forth with the intrusive voices and crazy thoughts. I feel like I have all this invisible pressure around me: be responsible with the medication, prove to them all I can do this, keeping mum and best friend proud of me, keeping ‘male voice’ happy, knowing I’m probably going to be kicked off the uni course and fail at yet another thing.

I am shattered right now. It’s midnight and I pray I can sleep through the night. I need a little bit of energy back, it all feels like it’s been zapped out of me. I am so scared I’m going to let everyone down… things feel slippery yet I don’t know why. I have no plans to take the medication to hurt myself but the self harm urges (cutting) seem to be getting stronger again. If only to shut him up. And not even the remembrance of the major regrets I had after doing it a few weeks ago are enough to keep me certain I won’t do it again… I think in all likeliness I will give in… because I’m weak… pathetic and weak.

Why oh why can life never just be straightforward? Why does it always have to end up mental again in the end?

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

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…

20:52 – Meeting with support worker and social worker

Well today I went along as planned to an appointment with my social worker and support worker. I was very anxious beforehand, I don’t know why, but taking a small amount of Diazepam helped a little. It was good for them to meet each other and we chatted about a few things like what they should do if they have concerns and what I should do in situations where my crisis plan would be useful and the possible triggers that doing this work with my rape crisis support worker could have and if they did trigger me then making sure it didn’t destabilise me too much mentally. There was nothing too heavy talked about and it was all over and done with in about 45 minutes so it was easier to sit through than I expected it to be. We pretty much ended it with a verbal agreement that I’d see my social worker every couple of weeks until the psychologist returns and I can start more ‘structured work’ and I’ll carry on seeing my support worker every 1-2 weeks and I gave permission for them to share information if needed so we can all work together.

There was only one thing which was said at the meeting which *searches for the right word* … surprised? me. My social worker said at one point that I have attachment issues. I’ve never heard her say that before, well not in those words anyway. And it didn’t as such annoy me but it played on my mind for a while afterwards because, in my head, someone who has attachment issues is needy and possessive and jealous and has turbulent relationships. And whilst I can admit that the first year I worked with my social worker I probably did feel quite dependent on her in a lot of ways… since not seeing her so much over the past couple of years and since having a string of people starting to work with me and then leaving I now have the opposite problem. I find it harder and harder to trust people so in general I spend a lot more time on my own and have done for some time now. I make excuses to leave friends and family’s houses early. I don’t like people being in my house for too long, it starts making me feel agitated. So yeah, I’m left a little bit confused by what she meant by me having attachment issues, I’m not overly bothered about it just confused as right now I feel like the most unattached person on the planet!

I’ve arranged another appointment with my support worker for next Thursday and hope to touch base again with my social worker the following week. That’s all I need, just someone I know and trust and who knows my mental health to touch base with until the psychologist starts back. I’m really trying just to ask for the bare minimum so that my social worker can see that I know seeing her is just a temporary thing until the psychologist is able to work with me again. That way it means she doesn’t have to make any commitments to me that she might not be able to stick to, I know I have someone to touch base with and I have the support of my support worker for the ‘other’ stuff that I’m trying to work through.

So yeah, we’ll see how things go.

I’ve been taking my medication properly again for a few days now and am happy to say that the constant stream of chitter chatter has actually been very quiet today. I am still hearing the occasional sentence which is usually telling me to do something but it doesn’t have the same weight to it so it’s easier to ignore. I am still having huge problems with my concentration and am still no further forward with my studying, just adding more and more days onto me getting further and further behind. My tutor emailed me on Tuesday asking if I was OK and I still haven’t replied to her, because I don’t know what to say. I think I’m somehow still hanging onto the hope that I will suddenly get my concentration back and get myself back up to speed and everything will turn out OK. But with the more days that pass the more unrealistic that is starting to become. I will try and compose a reply to her tomorrow.

Anyways it’s getting close to 9pm now and I’ve some washing to hang up then there’s a program on TV I wanted to watch and then it will be medication and dog walking time. I’m going to try and get some studying done tomorrow but it’s just so hard to focus at the moment. I’m not even writing proper notes when I try and study, I just write word for word what is on the screen onto my notepad. None of it goes in, half the stuff I’ve written down I have no clue what it actually means. So yeah, not so good. And this is an important week as it is the start of our online sociology debates and we have to contribute to the debate forum boards over the next four weeks as 20% of the module mark comes from these posts and then the other 80% comes from an essay due in May. How can I debate what I don’t understand? Argh.

Right I guess it’s time to say goodnight, fingers crossed for a good day tomorrow.

20:44 – Same old… same old…

Today I’ve been hiding away from the world most of the day. I got up early to phone for an appointment to see lovely GP – we have a stupid system where you have to phone on the morning and you get an appointment that day but there are hardly any appointments and they all go within ten minutes. I did actually phone a fortnight ago to book an appointment for today but there were none available. So as all I really needed was my repeat prescription I just asked if they could sort that out and I’d collect it later.

I spent most of the day doing nothing. No concentration again meant I got nowhere with studying and gave up after about an hour. I really could be doing with having a shower as we are now on Wednesday night and the last time I had one was Sunday I think. I did plan on having one this afternoon but it didn’t materialise. I’ll have one tomorrow morning before going to an appointment with lovely support worker from Rape Crisis and with lovely social worker. I always seem to freeze up at appointments where there is more of them than me and find them hard to talk in; but I keep reminding myself it’s just an informal chat about where I’m at just now and I think support worker would just like to meet someone who has worked with me with mental health stuff – maybe she has questions, I don’t know. I know she is pretty clued up on self harming but maybe I worry her sometimes when I talk about the voices. I’m not too sure yet what’s going to happen with regards to seeing social worker again until the psychologist starts back in a month or two but even if she could see me fortnightly or something that would be good. Just someone to touch base with and know there is someone there if I need it. So, little bit worried about the three of us meeting up tomorrow but I’m sure it will all be ok.

So yeah the only thing I did today was collect my weekly prescription. They made a little mistake and for some reason gave me a month’s worth of Mirtazapine instead of a week’s worth – lovely GP must have forgot to mark it as a weekly dispensed med. I think I can be trusted though.

Well after that enormously long rambling post yesterday I don’t really have much else to say for myself today. All the other stuff is just same old, same old.

And so I shall leave you on this cheery note, a poem I rather like.

The Age Demanded

BY ERNEST M. HEMINGWAY

The age demanded that we sing

And cut away our tongue.

The age demanded that we flow

And hammered in the bung.

The age demanded that we dance

And jammed us into iron pants.

And in the end the age was handed

The sort of shit that it demanded.

 ©

19:25 – It’s all muddled up

Voices, thoughts and ideas have all been racing through my head since I woke up this morning. I didn’t sleep very well last night even though I took my medication properly. I’ve been feeling pretty messed up all day today and because my head has been all over the place I’ve just stayed in using the excuse of having to do some studying so I didn’t need to go out anywhere other than to walk the dogs. Of course I didn’t actually get any studying done at all because my concentration is completely gone and I don’t know how to get it back.

My head feels very muddled at the moment. I don’t know how to describe it but it’s kind of like I know something is going to happen but I don’t know when or what. I have this sensation of some kind of impending doom but I don’t have specific details of what it is that I’m afraid is going to happen. But it feels like something bad. Taking my medication last night and again this morning has quietened the direct commands and instructions but my thoughts are still racing around really fast, jumping from one thing to the next and then onto something else like I can’t seem to stay focused on just one thing. So as everything chops and changes I get nothing done, the voices make no sense because they aren’t speaking in full sentences just a few words then stopping. Things aren’t connecting properly and I’m left with a completely pickled brain.

I don’t know if I prefer it more the way things have been over the past few days when I wasn’t taking my meds properly but was seeing and hearing things much more clearly or if I prefer this slowed down speed but all totally mixed up. I think (well I know because they told me) that the chitter chatter voices are angry with me for saying too much on here and for saying too much to lovely support worker yesterday. I try to make a deal with them that I won’t say anything more about what they ask of me on here or to anyone. I promise them I will keep it all private then after some amount of mocking and warnings and telling me I’m a failure and how I betrayed them until they finally quieten down again. Then as soon as my head quietens with voices my thoughts and all these ideas start whirling round one after the other after the other.

So needless to say today I have achieved nothing. Zero. Zilch.

Blah it’s all such a mess. And right now these feelings of some kind of impending doom that I’m having are actually quite unfamiliar to me because usually when I feel like something bad is going to happen it’s more like a pressure cooker that builds up over the hours, days and/or weeks until the lid finally blows. But it doesn’t feel like that, it feels massively confusing while everything is going fast and not making sense. Then things go slow but leave me depressed, tearful, filled with dread – about what I don’t know.

It’s just all muddled up and my mind is crazy. But the craziness begins to speak the truth, just a truth I’ve never realised before, but then people say that the truth is craziness and what does that do? Muddle me up even more. I am so confused and nothing is making much sense at the moment.

What I need is some proper quiet time for my brain to just relax, but I really think that is asking for the impossible at the moment.

10:58 – It’s ‘Interview Day’ – eek!

The day has finally come where I am having my interview today to join the Child Befrienders as a volunteer. The co-ordinator lady who runs it all is coming quite a distance to meet and interview me and I am soooo nervous! I don’t know why, as I proved to myself I could interview without turning into a rambling mess for the Uni course and just recently my CPN did a pretend interview with me in preparation for today and said I done really well.

I know that if I take a little Diazepam before she comes that should take the edge off the anxiety and help me appear more relaxed. I think deep down my worry is that she might ask when the last time was that I had any sort of depressive episode and to be honest I think I’m still in one, hence all the self harming lately. And I’m scared that if she asks something like that then I will stumble and it be obvious that things haven’t actually been too great recently.

The thing is that I don’t want to lie to her, I was open and honest from our first telephone conversation that I do suffer from Bipolar Disorder but that I was now doing this Uni course and wanted to do some voluntary work which would be in the area of things that I would eventually like to have a career in; and child befriending is an absolutely ideal opportunity for me. I really truly hope that I have got all the self harm urges out of my system and that I will begin to stabilise out a bit again over the next few months – I won’t be able to start working as a befriender for a few months anyway as I will have to do some training and it takes a while for the Disclosure Check to come back. I also need to supply two references, my CPN is going to write one for me and I am going to ask a friend to write the other one (this is of course providing that I am accepted onto the next stage of the application).

The co-ordinator phoned me this morning to check today was still suitable and I said yes, but also reminded her that my flat is kind of mid-renovation at the moment and that by the time I would be volunteering with them I’m very much hoping I won’t even be living in this flat any more, and will instead be in a little one bedroom house in a quieter area nearby. So she asked me if I wanted her just to pick me up outside my flat and we could go to a little tea room or something and have a chat there, I said that would be great, it makes it all feel a little less informal and a more relaxed style of interview. Though I did say to her that if we needed somewhere more private to talk she was more than welcome to come to my flat and talk here, so long as she didn’t mind that things were a bit of a mess at the moment!

Gosh, my Dad will be so annoyed with me, he told me to get the living room and kitchen cleaned up, to wash my windows and make the place look as best as I could despite there being no flooring and various other things at the moment. He spent all weekend painting the bathroom for me so now every room in the flat has been freshly repainted. I even picked up a pretty bunch of flowers last night to put on the table to brighten things up a bit. But I get such anxiety at the thought of people coming into my flat and even though I intend to spend the next hour cleaning up just in case she does come up here, I’m kind of hoping we can just sit in a quiet café or something.

Relaxed atmosphere = relaxed me. Well as relaxed as I can be when I’m meeting someone new for the first time and knowing I’m getting interviewed! But I have spoken to her a few times on the phone now and she sounds really lovely, she is so friendly and easy to talk to on the phone so I’m hoping she will be the exact same in person. I just have to keep going over all the reasons in my head why I want to join their organisation and volunteer with them and keep remembering this is an opportunity to work with vulnerable young people and not only will I enjoy it and find it challenging but rewarding – it will also be something really good to put on my CV when I complete my Uni course.

So I have just under 3 hours in which to have a shower, get dressed, tidy and clean the living room and kitchen, walk the dogs and calm the fuck down!

In other stuff… last night I went to take my meds and realised there was an empty diazepam strip in the cupboard but no 300mg Quetiapine tablets. Somehow I have manage to throw out my last couple of Quetiapine instead of the empty diazepam strip. So last night I had 3 x 200mg Quetiapine and had to take two of them and cut the 3rd one in half so I could take my 500mg dose, so I phoned the GP surgery this morning and tried to explain to the receptionist that I now have no Quetiapine left and don’t collect my weekly prescription until Wednesday and could she please ask GP to prescribe me 2 x 200mg Quetiapine and 2 x 300mg Quetiapine for today and tomorrow. That was 2 hours ago that I called and she said she’d phone back asap and let me know.

I also phoned the local gym as it has now been over a week since I handed my form in and still haven’t got an induction session date and the receptionist said that she couldn’t find my referral form anywhere and the girl who I’d handed it into isn’t back until Wednesday. So she’s asked me to ask my GP for another copy of the form grr. Nothing can ever be straightforward can it!

Right I suppose I better get cleaning and stop messing around writing blog posts that has just wasted half an hour of cleaning time now that it’s almost 11.30am – she is coming at 2pm – I need to get a move on!

Wish me luck!

Little update – gp phoned me so got the medication situation sorted. She is also going to print off another copy of my gym referral form to hand in to them. Living room and kitchen half cleaned but already looking better. Nerves are really kicking in now so have taken a little break to gather my thoughts and have a couple diazepam. Only an hour and a half to go now and still to have a shower get dressed and walk dogs. Time to get moving again!

14:00 – Yo-yo moods and trying to stay safe [Edited to add...]

Today I feel neither up nor down. I decided not to go out last night with my friends. It just felt too risky to take the chance of coming home filled with alcohol and not act on any bad thoughts. So I tried to do the sensible thing that would keep me safe and stayed in, watched the X Factor on TV, took my medication and finally drifted off to sleep.

Oh, I know I’m going to talk about self harming somewhere in this post and I have a feeling it may be quite graphic so just to warn you in advance that you might not want to read any further.

There was a lot of commotion going on outside last night as I was trying to get to sleep. My flat is fairly town central in the little town I live in and I could hear a whole load of arguing and screaming so went for a look out the window. I swear there was around 20+ guys maybe aged between 18 and 25 all throwing punches at each other and fighting pretty bad. I tried to take a photo of it from my window because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing… they were all right in the middle of the road and no cars could get by or anything so all the cars were just sitting in a big queue waiting to get by. It only lasted for about 20 minutes and then 3 police cars appeared, I watched six officers breaking it all up and sending them all on their way. I didn’t see anyone getting arrested, I think it was all football related as there was a game on yesterday and unfortunately in the UK football can just send people into such violent outbursts, especially when they’re drunk. I can’t stand football for that very reason.

Anyway, back to yesterday afternoon. I met with my Mum around 3pm and we went for a cuppa in a little cake shop. I managed to resist the cakes though as I was being bad enough by having a hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows. Bad… but very tasty! So I ended up telling Mum everything that’s been happening over the past week. I told her about the self harming on Wednesday, about my frustrations with my CPN and social worker, about seeing my GP on Friday and having to hand over all the tablets. I told her I didn’t want her to worry about me and wanted her to go and have a nice relaxing holiday and that I felt as though all of the bad urges were out of my system. That was a slight lie but it made her feel more at ease. She told me she knew I wasn’t in a good place from last Thursday’s CPA meeting and had already asked my brother and his girlfriend to keep an eye on me whilst they were on holiday. It feels a bit weird having my little (well not so little he is 27!) brother having to look out for me, but he works with people with both mental health problems and learning difficulties and his girlfriend’s brother suffers from pretty bad depression so they are both pretty understanding.

Mum asked me if I would think about throwing away the blades I have. She said if I could throw away the tablets I could manage the blades as well but I said to her that I only had to walk two minutes out of my front door and could just pick up another packet. But I guess that is true for the tablets as well, I know that if I wanted to I could easily get around 8 boxes in the space of half an hour just going round all the local chemists and the couple of supermarkets. But I guess it’s a case of telling myself that I don’t want them or need them and doing my best to not get any more. As for the blades, I know I will hang onto them, I’m not sure if all the self harm urges/needs/desires are out of my system. The problem with the type of blades I have is that you really don’t need to press down very hard to do some really bad damage to yourself, it’s not like the razor blades you use to shave your legs with where you cut and it bleeds a lot but the cuts stay shallow, you end up cutting right down til your pretty much exposing a muscle with these ones. Mum was like, if you have to do it could you not do it with blades that will just leave shallow cuts so they will heal and not scar and again I said I’d think about it.

My thing with self harming is that sometimes I want to feel the pain and actually the razor blades that make shallow cuts are what I use in that situation, anyone who has ever accidentally made a little shaving cut or even had a paper cut knows how much it stings. So when I want to feel actual physical pain I will cover my arms in those kind of cuts until all the bad feelings are out and then I can stop.

However I also have another type of self harm that I do when I am angry, frustrated, not coping, etc and that is when I use the stanley knife blades. I know they will do a lot of damage and I know that I will almost certainly end up needing to go to a&e and get stitches but it’s about seeing the damage, seeing the pain externally, getting some relief from the craziness in my head.

One thing I don’t do, which I know a lot of self harmers do, is wound pick. Once I’ve cut and got that feeling of relief I want the wound closed as neatly as possible. I hate scars despite being covered in them and I want them to heal as neatly as possible. So I keep the dressings on and I generally don’t look at the damage again until I’m having the stitches removed, and even then I never seem to get the feelings to cut it back open or anything. If I need to cut again I move onto another part of my body, which I know makes no sense because that’s creating yet another scar, but it’s just the way I am.

Moving on from self harm talk, my parents leave later this afternoon for their holiday. I said I would go up and see them for an hour before they leave as Mum is giving me money for one of my textbooks I need for my uni course. I managed to buy all the other ones second hand on amazon but this one I can only find in the “new” section and it’s quite expensive so Mum said she would get that one for me. So I’ll pay the money into my bank tomorrow and order it then.

I just ordered myself some vitamins called Soy Isoflavones as I have been reading a lot of things about them being good for hormonal imbalances. I have a condition called PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and I don’t have periods by myself or ovulate (produce eggs). I have to take tablets every couple of months called Provera which brings on a bleed, similar to the bleed you get if you are taking the contraceptive pill. But these vitamins get really good reviews for helping your body start to have a menstrual cycle again, they are also used a lot by women going through the menopause, so I’m going to give them a try for a few months and see if I notice any difference and if it makes me have a period by myself again. When I conceived my little man who went to Heaven I conceived him naturally, but I had lost about 4 stone in weight beforehand and I think that helped jumpstart my body a bit. I have since put all of that weight back on and I really do need to start trying to do something about it. I don’t feel healthy at this weight, I hate never being able to buy the pretty tops and dresses and things that my slim friends can all buy. I am not massive but I should be around 9 stone for my height (that’s what I was when I conceived little man) and I’m now somewhere around the 13 stone mark which isn’t so good. So I’m hoping with the combination of some proper exercise, cutting back on the junk food and trying these vitamins that my body might start working again.

I have the joiner and plumber coming tomorrow morning at 8am to start ripping my old shower and shower cubicle out and put the new ones in. So I am going to have to get up about 7am and have a shower before they get here. I will have week two of my uni course to keep me occupied for a while and will maybe go out to see best friend in the afternoon (and so I can go for a pee!)

So that’s all from me for just now. Mood is up and down, up and down, like a yo-yo. Trying to continue to distract myself from the bad thoughts and replace them with positive ones, trying to think about the future every time I feel like I want to cut, trying to remind myself of all the consequences that could happen if I cut badly again so soon after the last time.

This mental illness stuff really is no fun at all. Sometimes I get quite upset that it happened to me when nobody else in my immediate or external family has any mental health issues. But then I get upset about a lot of things that have happened to me in my life that haven’t happened to anyone else close to me. Sometimes I just think I’ve been incredibly unlucky in life so far. But I want that to change and I know there are some things that are out of my control, but I can change the things that I can control and hopefully map out a decent future for myself.

Right now I really don’t know what direction I am heading in. It seems to change hour by hour, day by day. I’m using every bit of strength I have to keep myself from slipping backwards and it’s been bloody hard work this weekend. I’ve been listening to some of my mindfulness tracks on iTunes when things are starting to slip and trying that approach to bring me back “into the moment”. It does help but when the bad thoughts get really bad, sometimes there is just no stopping them.

Like yesterday, I will carry on today taking it hour by hour, minute by minute, and try to get through another day safely.

[EDITED to add]

I was just looking at some site stats and came across this on today’s stats. Not only are they a sick cunt (excuse my language) but they have now just thrown my mind back to thinking about the assault. So thanks for that you sick bastard.