01:36 – A confused and messed up girl

My head is still pretty messed up and sadly the regrets over self harming so severely on Sunday night still haven’t kicked in. Last night was pretty horrendous,  I became extremely emotional and sat with my little angel’s memory box on the bed and cried for what seemed like hours. After putting his memory box away I became really angry, angry that this is my life, that the most precious thing in my life has been lost.

My behaviour after that became ridiculous. I started pulling all the bandages off my legs and sat with a blade in my hand, shaking and desperately wanting to cut out all twenty something stitches. I shook, I cried, I threw the blade angrily on the floor then picked up the TV remote control and began smacking it off my face, whacking my cheeks with it over and over again. Then I was down on the floor and  hitting my head off the wall like an angry child. Then the blade was back in my hand again and I was going to cut but I truly could not have faced more stitches. So I repeatedly lit my lighter until the metal was red hot then pushed it down deep onto my skin all round my ankle. And then ended up in tears again.

I was really starting to get quite terrified of where this was all heading. My thoughts were so negative that I began to feel quite suicidal. Then I cried some more when I remembered yet again I can’t commit suicide because I can’t put my parents through the pain I carry about every day of having to bury your child. So whether I like it or not I have to keep on going and that made me angry and upset and frustrated that I felt in the moment like I was only alive to spare others pain. But then of course there is always that little evil laugh inside my head saying “they wouldn’t care anyway, they’d be glad you were gone” even though rationally I know that is completely untrue and that my parents love me very much. I don’t deserve their love, sometimes I wish they loved me less so it would be easier to put an end to things 😦

Everything was just going bonkers. I couldn’t hold myself together any longer and ended up phoning the mental health helpline breathing space and spent the next hour on a non stop ramble about how I just want to completely self destruct, how much I deserved to be in this pain, I deserved to suffer, I was/am a bad person who doesn’t deserve good things in life. I told the call handler I wanted to rip all my stitches out, that I couldn’t stop thinking about hurting myself more and more. After about an hour I finally got so tired from everything and broke down in tears on the phone, I couldn’t keep talking and just hung up. I felt a bit bad for not even saying thank you or goodbye to the person who had sat and listened to me all that time but I was completely mentally exhausted. With a slight bit of self medicating I did finally manage to semi-sedate myself and fall asleep only to wake up every couple of hours in a state of panic. I think I was having nightmares, I’m not sure.

I sent lovely support worker from rape crisis a text message yesterday telling her I’d had a bad night on Sunday and she messaged me this morning to ask if I wanted to see her today instead of waiting until tomorrow. So I said yes and we had a long chat together. I was honest with her about everything I did over Sunday and Monday night, I was honest with her about feeling like I just want to make myself hurt and hurt and not stop hurting. I told her I was scared about where this was all heading and that I didn’t know when or how to make it stop. I don’t think it can stop until I do something really bad to myself. And that I was terrified I was going to end up in the psychiatric hospital again if I keep going like this. She asked if that might be a good place for me right now and I very firmly said no. There is no way I am ever going back to that place, it is awful, truly awful. It would make the sanest of people feel like they’d gone bonkers in just one week of being there. The thought of that place makes me feel anxious as hell and physically sick.

Oh I forgot to mention that for the first time since this whole arrangement was made with A&E a year ago that they would let the CMHT know when I had attended – well yesterday for the first time I actually got a phone call from the duty CPN (albeit it was just before they were closing) but yes someone did actually phone and ask if I was OK as she’d read the A&E notes. I told her I wasn’t sure how I felt and she asked if I thought I could keep myself safe. I said I’d try my best, I said the same when I was leaving my support appointment this afternoon.

I went to the A&E department this afternoon to have a wound check and dressing change done. I was supposed to be going back again tomorrow to get last Wednesday’s stitches out but I asked her if they could just come out a day early. That wound looked like it is starting to heal well so the nurse took those stitches out. Now I have to wait until a week tomorrow before I can get all these other ones out. I don’t honestly know if I can go through the next 8 days without doing it again. I don’t even know if I can go through the next 8 hours without doing it again at the moment. My head is well and truly pickled it really is.

Tomorrow I have promised to spend some time with best friend and her kids. I haven’t told her about Sunday’s self harming and don’t plan on telling her. I don’t know why, I just don’t want to talk about it with anyone close like friends or family. I haven’t mentioned it again to the friend who came with me to A&E either. It almost feels a bit like a can of worms being opened if I tell them, if I admit to those nearest and dearest to me that I’m not coping and constantly trying to hurt myself then it makes it that little bit more real that I really am falling apart. It’s easier for them not to know. For now anyway. Even with all these stitches in I still don’t feel like I’ve done enough damage and I have no idea how long that state of mind is going to continue for.

I haven’t felt this much of a mess in a long time and I can’t seem to make it stop. Maybe I don’t want it to stop. Maybe I need to feel this level of self loathing at the moment. I don’t know why… but maybe I just do. Nothing really makes a great deal of sense at the moment. I’m one very confused and messed up girl.

20:01 – The plotting and planning continues…

Yesterday I was supposed to go back to A&E to have my stitches removed but I couldn’t face it. I told myself one extra day wouldn’t matter and I would definitely go today as I had an appointment with new CPN this morning and the mental health team is in the same grounds as the hospital.

However I woke up this morning alarm beeping at 8am and just lay there thinking for the next hour or so. My appointment was for 10am and as the clock ticked on I continued just lying there, telling myself I would get up and start getting ready soon, but just like yesterday it didn’t happen. I didn’t go to the appointment and didn’t go to A&E to have the stitches out either. I can’t really see how an extra few days would cause any problems with the healing of the wounds…

To be honest I was thinking of just taking them out myself but they are very tight against the skin and I can’t really get into them properly even with tweezers and just a little blade, so I guess I’m going to have to go and have them taken out at some point.

So what have I done for the last two days? More planning. More plotting. Pretty much every minute I’ve been awake in the last couple of days I’ve either been completely caught up in dealing with voices – comments, instructions, filling up my head with the crazy laughter – and when the voices haven’t been distracting me I’ve still been gathering ideas “just in case”.

I’m supposed to be starting my next two university modules on Monday. I’ve received confirmation that I’m enrolled onto them but I just don’t see how I’m going to manage to do the work. My head is so so busy, fast moving thoughts, disruptions to my thoughts when the chitter chatter starts up… how the fuck am I supposed to find the concentration to study? But at the same time I don’t want to drop out of something again or fail at something again. But I can’t lie, things aren’t good just now. In fact they’re very very hard. And I am struggling a lot.

Sorry for such a negative post, I’m away to see if a couple of bottles of wine are enough to let me escape, at least for this evening. I just can’t help but wonder if this is always going to be it, if I’m just going to be this mess for the rest of my life. The periods of stability vs instability are so unpredictable, I hate never knowing how long a depressive episode is going to last or how many different medications I will need to swallow down to try and have a head free from hearing voices.

I refuse point blank to even consider a hospital admission because it doesn’t provide any form of therapy that might help me to feel better, the shocking lack of compassion of the nurses in our acute psychiatric ward is enough to make anyone go from feeling low to full blown suicidal. And don’t even get me started on the boredom, the fellow patients, the arguments, the way you can walk in voluntarily and told it’s just to keep you safe for a few days then as soon as you want to leave you are suddenly detained under the mental health act.

No. Hospital is a definite no no. Never again. And I can’t even go and have some stitches taken out at the hospital because I’m so convinced they will see right through my lies when I say I’m OK and I don’t trust them not to take control away from me. So I have to just hang on and hang on until I get a moment where I feel like I can paint on a fake smile, breathe calmly and just go in and get the bloody things out.

Hmmz. I’m confused. Very confused. I keep hearing the words “choose this path” and I’m not sure where “that” path will take me. Anyway, I’m sure whatever path I’m destined to walk along will be the one I’ll take. For now I need to drink think long and hard about what direction to start walking in and pray for some strength to get through this or find a way to make it all go away… permanently.

12:42 – So, CPN phoned and…

She phoned to tell me she had tried to chase up my housing transfer application again. It wasn’t good news or bad really. Just that the couple of houses that are empty where I’m trying to get moved to aren’t being permanently given to anyone at the moment and there is still a chance I will get one of them but it’s just going to be a bit of a waiting game.

After she told me that I told her I was still not coping. That the self harm thoughts were intense and I didn’t feel safe. But equally I was trying to look at the consequences and I really don’t want to fuck up my uni course or the voluntary work that starts in a few months and if I were to go ahead and cut myself badly enough to need a&e then I would end up being assessed by the doctor there as to whether or not I needed to be admitted to hospital. I can’t lie to them though, I am very suicidal and very much having my brain attacked my urges/needs/desires to self harm and to do it badly. I’m in so much emotional pain and I’m so over tired and not sleeping that I am just breaking down into a complete mess.

CPN’s response was that if I cut or attempt suicide only I am the one who can stop myself from doing that. Not really the most helpful response. She said I needed to sleep. But I can’t. Then she said she was going to phone my GP and try to get me an appointment today to see her. The GP receptionist called me back not long ago to say I’ve to go in at 4pm. What will it achieve? I have no idea. I have no idea why I have to go there. It is an appointment with lovely GP so at least I will be able to try and explain things but I don’t see what she can do for me that CPN can’t. Other than medicate me. She doesn’t like prescribing me benzo’s because I’ve been on diazepam for so long so when I’m not sleeping she tries things like promethazine, which worked the first couple of times but do bugger all now. Zopiclone has never really worked for me either. Lorazepam works for anxiety but does bugger all for sleep. The only thing I can think of that I was ever prescribed for a few days which worked was Nitrazepam but I can’t see her giving me a prescription for that to be honest.

So I guess I just go to the appointment and tell her, I don’t know why I’m there, CPN made the appointment, I don’t know if CPN has spoken to her or only to the receptionist. I don’t know if the aim is just to get me some sleep over the weekend so I can maybe cope with things a bit better or if GP is going to suggest a hospital admission because of the level of the self harming and suicidal thoughts. I will tell her what I told Mr Psychiatrist and CPN at the CPA meeting yesterday that the only thing stopping me from acting on these thoughts is that I don’t want to risk jeopardising my place on my uni course – even if I do still feel a lot like I’m doing it for others rather than myself – but I really don’t want to end up back at square one. I don’t want to walk the path of hospital admissions, assessments, sections, suicide attempts but I’m scared that if I can’t stop these feelings then I will act on them and that’s exactly where I will end back up.

I can’t go backwards, if not for me then for my family. I can’t put them through all of that again. I know they love me and want what’s best for me. I wish I could just somehow feel stable again and be able to function. But I can’t function, my head is going too fast with too many bad thoughts, I don’t know if I’ll get through the weekend in one piece, the likelihood of me acting on the thoughts is very high (I have already self harmed today just not deeply so don’t need hospital attention).

I am not coping. GP isn’t a magician, she can’t take it all away. I don’t know what to do with the feelings, I don’t know how to let them out and make them go away. I am just a complete and utter mess right now.

I will go and see GP at 4pm and see what she says and what the outcome is and providing I’m not whisked off by the men in white coats then I will update later with what happened.