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.

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

02:27 – Spontaneous purchase

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

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

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

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

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

 

22:25 – Insomnia. Grr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

16:25 – A bit of a messed up day so far

Well I messed up. I had planned to go to Church this morning for the service at 10.30am to say thank you to God for helping me in my prayers and also to see what that Church is like as I go through my “trying to find the right faith for me” thingy.

But last night best friend phoned and asked me if I was going out for some drinks with a little group of them. I went to say no and before I got the chance she said “you promised you would come out this weekend, you’ve not had a night out since like Christmas time”. Then I remembered that I did indeed promise I would go for a night out with her. So I said that I would go.

Everyone went to her house to get ready to go out, there was the usual commotion of clothes and make up everywhere, mirrors propped up on tables, music blaring, the air a mix of hairspray, perfume and cigarette smoke. Oh and a nice big litre bottle of Russian vodka and a bottle of Limoncello (to do shots with) were both sitting on the kitchen worktop waiting to be drunk. Before I’d even got my clothes changed I’d already had 2 shots of Limoncello and a large vodka and coke. When I was doing my make up I knocked back another few shots. When I was straightening my hair another large vodka and coke went down the hatch. And by the time we left to get our lift into town I was a little bit tipsy and looking forward to a good night out.

It was around 11pm when we got to the first pub – the norm here is to get at least a little bit drunk before even going out because the pubs don’t really get busy until around midnight, then they get so busy you can hardly move by the time they close at 2am. So yeah the first pub was shit, it was just full of guys playing pool so we had one drink and one shot and then left.

Pub number two was busier and had some decent music playing so we had quite a few drinks in there and some shots and then onto the obligatory jaeger-bombs. Around 12.30 we left and went onto pub three as everyone (apart from me) wanted to go dancing – I don’t do dancing these days – I hide in corners and drink and keep my eye on everything going on around me. Paranoia? No self confidence? Scared of being ‘spiked’ and hurt again? I think all three are correct. So I stood in my corner and watched them all dance and have fun and I started feeling really out of place, like I just didn’t fit in. So about 1.30am I called it a night and came home to walk the dogs and get into bed. I felt pretty drunk but managed to avoid the usual vomiting that follows any time I drink these days. Then again I suppose that much alcohol combined with all the medications I take makes vomiting a pretty likely scenario!

This morning I didn’t wake up until 11.15am as I’d forgotten to set my alarm to 8am to get up and do Charlie dog’s medication. So I quickly got up and got his first one done, threw some clothes on and took them a short walk. By the time I’d done his third morning medication and given them some food my head was absolutely pounding and my hangover was in full swing.

After I’d walked the dogs and fed them and sorted medications and all that stuff I realised it was almost noon and I had missed Church. I felt so bad and before the head chitter chatter even kicked off I immediately started to pray and apologised for failing this morning and promised I would do better next week. But that wasn’t enough and by about 1.30pm the chitter chatter was noisy. Very noisy and very unimpressed with me. Told me to try harder, to do better, to prove myself before things would turn very nasty for me. Reminding me of the powers that God has and how they could make him use those powers to cause me complete and utter misery. I tried searching the web to see if there were any churches that do a live streaming service so you can watch/attend it from home and I did find one, a morning service just about to start that was in a church somewhere in America – it was 9am there and 2pm here so I sang the hymns and listened to the readings and turned the laptop volume up full to try and prove to ‘them’ that I was genuinely sorry for not going to a church today.

But they just kept on getting more and more noisy and in the end I was searching the web for all sorts of things – prayers, how to apologise to God properly, more church services to watch, videos on youtube of bible readings, etc. Then I saw a prayer telephone service and started searching for more of them. I could find a couple in America and one in Australia but nothing in the UK. So I phoned the one in America (no idea how much that’s going to cost me as I’ve not got any international call allowance) but anyway a man answered who introduced himself as Jeff and he asked how he could help me today. I was trying to speak slowly and clearly so he could understand my accent but I was getting close to hysterical with all the voices bouncing around my head telling me what I should beg forgiveness for. Jeff said he could hear I was upset and told me it was OK, to take my time, to allow myself to calm down. If only!

Anyway it all came tumbling out about how I’d failed this morning and broken my promise after God being so good to me and answering my prayers for me. I told him I didn’t know yet which faith/religion I wanted to follow but I was definitely a believer that there is ‘a’ God. He said that was OK, that some people who phone them to pray together don’t even believe in God at all, they just want someone to pray for them at a time of crisis. I went on to tell Jeff a little bit about my mental health problems and how all I really wanted in my life was a sense of happiness. If not happiness then contentment would do just fine. I told him what I was hearing inside my head about how God would never forgive me especially not for going out and getting drunk and then missing church. In my head ‘they’ were hissing at me that I was despicable, telling me I should be ashamed of myself for repaying God in this way after he had helped me so much recently. But Jeff told me that was not true, that God would love me and protect me even if I make mistakes along the way. Because life doesn’t come with an instruction manual and we all make mistakes and through those mistakes we learn from them. He just told me to do the best I could in whatever situation I found myself in and so long as I did that then God would be there to protect me.

In the end I was on the phone for about 30 minutes to him and at the end he said a long prayer for me which he made very personal and I began to cry as he spoke. He asked God to watch over me and give me strength, he asked God to watch over my little boy who is up there in Heaven, he asked God to help me find the strength to recover my mental health and to help give me a brighter future. And despite Jeff saying to me that it didn’t matter if I missed Church so long as I prayed at home he could obviously sense how much ‘they’ were tormenting me for not going, so he added in a line about that in the prayer as well.

It’s now around 4pm and I feel a little calmer again. They seem happy with me that I phoned across the world to have someone pray with me and that I have prayed a lot myself today and that I watched the bible reading videos and ‘attended’ the online church service. So I am being rewarded with some peace and quiet at the moment although my hangover seems to be getting worse as the day goes on. Now I remember why I avoid nights out these days. Although it was nice to go out and have a change of scenery it really wasn’t worth feeling this ill for!

I’m going to my parents house for a Sunday roast dinner in an hour so hopefully that will help me to feel less sick and a bit brighter. I don’t know whether to take the dogs with me or not. They love going to see my parents and probably enjoy the change of environment for a couple of hours, but they are going to be in for a shock as they won’t be getting their own little Sunday roast dinner any more, not now that Charlie dog is on specialist food and for the moment that means strictly no human food! Plus they won’t be able to get their usual treat of a few little dog biscuits because it’s not fair to give to one of them and not the other. They probably think I’m being so mean to them at the moment by not giving them little bits of my food or any treats but getting Charlie dog back to good health is the important thing for now. So yeah, I don’t know whether to take them with me or just leave them here for a couple of hours then go for a nice walk when I get back. I think that might be the best thing to do, it also means Charlie won’t start jumping around with manic excitement.

Well, I guess I had better go and do some more of Charlie’s medicines. Then after I’ve been to the parents house for dinner I must get some studying done, I am still sitting about a full week behind and if I have not completely caught up by this time next week then I have no chance of passing this module as we start getting assessments then and know I wouldn’t be able to pass them. I only have one appointment this week but that’s not til Thursday so I should be able to get a good bit of studying done if I can just find my concentration again. I’m hoping that lovely social worker might get in touch and offer me an appointment sometime next week as even though crappy CPN has now left I’d still like someone to be able to touch base with once a week or something. Anyways, enough rambling from me… I hope you’re all having a happy/contented/peaceful weekend.

22:47 – Seeing the family… and stuff…

It’s been a few days since I last posted. On Thursday my Aunt and Uncle and my cousin and his girlfriend and my Grandma all went to my parents house for a little visit. Obviously my parents were also there as was my brother and his girlfriend. I  was feeling a mix of emotions on Thursday morning, I was anxious about being around people, having to stay for dinner and stay for at least a couple of hours and behave ‘normally’ so I took a couple of Diazepam as I was getting ready to go and kept half a strip in my bag (just in case).

It was nice to see them all again – especially to my Aunt who I haven’t seen since her cancer diagnosis, she looked exactly the same so that was nice, and the wig she was wearing, wow it was 100% real hair and styled exactly like my Aunt styles her hair – it was also lovely to see my little Gran again – but with the more time that passed the more the anxiety was starting to build up again and it came coupled with a nice dose of paranoia because I was hearing that constant giggling inside my head again.

It all kicked off when my Aunt mentioned my (female) cousin’s upcoming wedding on 9th February (the one that is hours away that I can’t get to) and just sitting listening to them all talking about what hotels they were staying in and how many guests were attending and even what the menu had on it… And I’m looking round thinking that even my brother’s girlfriend of a year is going to be part of a pretty huge family event for our small family and I’m missing my chance of being a bridesmaid as well as just being there to share in their day. At least they all seem to understand my agoraphobia and just accept that it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to overcome it, I wish my fucking psychiatrist would accept how much it affects my life grr.

So that put me into “escape mode” and I started making my excuses as to why I had to go. I was working myself into such a state internally that I completely forgot I had a few Diazepam in my bag that could have helped. I think I managed just short of three hours there which is pretty good going for me.

I haven’t answered the phone and have barely responded to text messages this past week. The only time I’ve really gone out the house (besides walking the dogs) was on Thursday to see the family. The rest of the time I’ve just been sitting in the house with the TV on that I don’t even watch, it’s just for background noise.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with new CPN at 10am. It feels like ages since I last saw her and I do still feel a bit let down over the whole lack of support over Xmas and New Year even after they had identified that I’m likely to need more support over that time. I don’t know if I will mention it to her or not, I’ll see if it’s something on my mind during the appointment. I know she is going to give me the “well done” speech for getting through a hard time of year without any crises but she doesn’t have a clue how hard it’s been deep down. And I don’t know if I have the words to tell her how hard it has been so I will no doubt end up just sitting there nodding my head and trying to remember to smile once every so often.

The main mind battle this weekend has been all of those self harm urges again. I keep getting so close and then something stops me at the last minute. I know I’ve said it a million times before but I truly don’t want to end up even in the local A&E department needing stitches because that will make the crumbling walls around me crumble even faster and give them the chance to see what sort of a fucked up place my head is really in.

And I just don’t want to talk to anyone about it at all. I just don’t want to talk to anyone at the moment full stop. I think best friend has given up on trying to call me as I have ignored every single call for about a week now. I still haven’t even said happy new year to her.

The pressure cooker lid is getting very very close to blowing off and I find it all a bit scary. The one thing that I have always believed that I was in control of (self harming) is fast becoming something that I have no control over at all and I can’t do it when I’m losing control because it escalates into a truly horrible place and usually does so pretty rapidly.

The longer I can keep the lid closed and keep everything tightly inside of me the better, I don’t even want to think about opening up to new CPN tomorrow, I actually feel like since I’ve just been left to get through the past few weeks by myself that I have now decided it’s best just to keep everything close to my chest, but like I say, we’ll see how things go during the appointment tomorrow.

Time to go and walk the dogs before bed. Hope you’ve all had a nice weekend.

Post 700 – Happy Christmas to you all!

This is my 700th blog post (wow that’s a lot of ramblings!), so what better than to use it to wish you all a happy Christmas

Today has been a mix of emotions for me, I woke up at 8am and went through waves of anxiety and panic through until 2pm when I finally decided to put myself into a shower. I put some nice clothes on, straightened my hair, even put some make up on then got all my presents and the dogs and went to my parents for 4pm.

I took some Diazepam in the morning but they were wearing off by this point. Thankfully I always have a spare strip in my bag so after taking another couple on arrival at my parents house I began to calm down a little again and enjoy the giving and receiving of presents. I’ve already had more than enough from them (a new jacket a few weeks ago and all the help with my new flooring and helping me get my flat looking like a home again) so I really wasn’t expecting anything else! But I got some new pyjamas (fleecey ones that are sooo warm and snug!) and some chocolates. My brother got me a beautiful silver bracelet with angel wings on it His girlfriend got me a hand made purple cushion to sit on my bed with a little felt dog on it that’s so cute! And the dogs were spoiled rotten, I have enough treats in the cupboard to last them about a month!

My Mum loved her little Radley bag and her perfume that I got her. My Dad got aftershave and chocolates. My brother just wanted cash and I got his girlfriend a toy Husky dog (she loves them!) and it’s so adorable, she loved it! I also got her a little set of lipglosses in her favourite colours and she seemed really happy with them so the presents giving and receiving bit was nice and was probably the only part of the day where I felt genuinely calm for a little while.

We had a quiet but lovely Christmas dinner, pulled a cracker each, wore our paper hats and had a glass of champagne. Even the dogs each got a bowl of turkey and roast potatoes (told you they get spoiled!) But after a couple of hours the anxiety was back again and I excused myself while I went outside for a cigarette and popped out another couple of Diazepam. But the thoughts kept telling me to leave and by 7.30pm I couldn’t relax at all and was starting to feel paranoid that people were noticing so I just said I was tired out and wanted to come home and snuggle up in my new pj’s and watch some TV. I said my goodbye’s and came home and got curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine. I feel less anxious now I’m back home and I know that the big build up to Christmas day is now all over and done with for another year.

So yeah I’m finally beginning to relax a little, I’m so glad the day is nearly over with. Now just to get through New Year when all my head can think about is the complete negativity of it all: entering yet another new year where my head is still a mess, where I’m still not particularly stable, when I’m still on medication, when I’m still single. The thought of another year like this one or the one before or the one before that just makes me want to give up on everything and say enough is enough.

I want to keep on living but I don’t want to keep on fighting. It gets so tiring. I went to the cemetery just for ten minutes after leaving my parents house tonight. It was so dark but I couldn’t come home knowing I hadn’t visited my angel, I got so choked up and could barely say ‘happy christmas little man’ through the tears.

I just need to get myself through tonight. Tomorrow is a new day. Next week is a new week. One day at a time. Baby steps.

Happy Christmas everyone, I hope your day’s have all passed gently and maybe even with some smiles or laughs along the way. I’ll end my 700th post with my joke from my cracker: ‘Where do you send a sick elf? …. To the Elf Centre!’ I’m sure you’re laughing as much as I was *rolls eyes*!

* cheers everyone *

xxx

16:08 – Struggling. Again.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I shouldn’t be so stressed about Christmas as things had changed around a bit for this year. For the past couple of years I have spent Christmas morning with best friend and my little ‘nephews’ so she didn’t need to give them their presents alone and so I didn’t have to spend Christmas morning alone. This has proved to be both a good and bad thing. Good because I do enjoy watching the little ones opening all their presents and the big smiles on their faces; bad because it’s like I’m being tortured minute-by-minute as each present they unwrap just makes me all the more aware that I am never going to get these moments as a Mummy to my little boy… Never going to see his little face all excited seeing Santa had come… And it hurts a lot that I will never ever be able to change that.

In February it will be six years since my little boy was born an angel and went off to Heaven, I truly thought it would get easier, but it just doesn’t. And Christmas is supposed to be that time of year when families all get together and it’s like every family event that takes place reminds me that someone very special is always going to be missing

Anyway, best friend phoned on Wednesday to tell me that her ex had phoned and asked if he could have the boys for Christmas this year. She was reluctant at first but in the end decided to agree. So the plan was for the boys to go to their Dad’s on Thursday and stay until the 26th, so they will love it as they will get all their presents from Santa on Christmas Day at their Dad’s then the next day will be back home and get all the presents that Santa has left there – so two Christmas Day’s in a row – I’m sure they will be spoiled rotten from everyone! So as it was all a bit sudden as the boys Dad was getting them the very next day and then when they come back their grandparents want to spend the day with them opening their presents back home so I decided I would just take mine out to them on Wednesday night. They both loved their toys and gave me big cuddles and kisses which was nice In a way I’m glad it all turned out this way because it is one less thing to stress about on Christmas Day, although it also means that I’ll be waking up and spending Christmas morning alone which isn’t so nice…

After that I came home shattered and wrote my last blog post which was all about whether or not I would manage to sleep in my bed for the first time in ten months due to this huge psychological barrier I have built around my bedroom. And well, the sleeping in a bed thing is slowly beginning to happen. The first night I took my laptop through with me and lay on the bed and watched a film. When it finished I decided I was going to try to get into the bed properly and close my eyes, but as I was getting undressed I started to feel the anxiety building up inside of me. I didn’t want to feel the anxiety and I was so tired after a few days of moving every item of furniture in my flat back and forth between rooms. So the first night resulted in me coming back through to the living room and lying on the sofa, trying to just breathe my way through the panicking feelings and after a while I calmed down and fell asleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night freezing cold as I had no blanket and realised both my little dogs were lying on top of my blanket, curled up and sound asleep. So I got up and went through to the bedroom, tried to make no big deal of it and just climb in and get snuggled up. I hoped I would go straight back to sleep but it was as if someone suddenly flicked a switch and I found myself wide awake and thoughts beginning to race through my head. Short but fast flashes went through my head of all the bad moments that had taken place in that room and after about an hour of this I was just getting myself into a mess so I got back up and went back to the sofa.

At this point I decided to take some Diazepam to try and just calm myself down. I couldn’t get back to sleep so decided to put another film on with the hope that if I picked one that you really need to concentrate on, that my brain would just give up and let me sleep instead. I got about ten minutes into the film and was yawning again so I made one last attempt at going and lying on the bed and watching the film. At some point I fell asleep although it was only for a couple of hours until the postman knocked the door and woke me up at 8.30am. So the first night wasn’t a very great success.

The second night (Thursday night) was very similar to the first night except I decided to take some Diazepam about half an hour before I wanted to try and sleep to see if I could take the edge off the anxiety a little. I thought this was working as again I lay on the bed and began watching a film and I felt OK. But as soon as the film finished and there was silence again I felt the overwhelming urge to escape out of the bedroom and run back to the sofa where I sat up most of the night watching crap on TV until finally being so exhausted around 4 or 5am and deciding I would just go and lie on the bed and put yet another film on. And again I didn’t manage to get into the bed but did get 3 or 4 hours sleep laying on top of it before hearing the post come through and that was me back up again for the day.

Yesterday (Friday) I was getting very tired after only having about 6-8 hours sleep in the previous 48 hours and my lovely Mum came to help me make the little finishing touches to my bedroom – hanging my new curtains and new light-shade – then she took me to the supermarket and bought me some food in after noticing my fridge was empty. The supermarket was a nightmare with so many people in doing Christmas shopping. I could feel myself becoming so irritable as it was taking forever to dodge trolleys and having people banging in to me and then the queues at the checkout’s were just crazy. It took the best part of an hour just to get two bags of shopping and I left the supermarket feeling so stressed out there was probably steam coming out my ears!!

Finally around 7pm I sat down and had some dinner, watched some TV for a few hours and then before I knew it it was midnight so I took my medication and then took the dogs out for their bedtime walk. When I got back home I tucked the dogs up in their big blanket. They have been so good and seem quite happy to sleep in a different room to me, I think so long as they’re together and nice and warm they are happy

Then I took my laptop through to the bedroom to put yet another film on. When it finished I was really struggling to keep my eyes open so I closed them and just laid there. I remembered something that the lovely social worker I used to work with often said to me, it was about letting the thoughts run through your head and not fighting them, not trying to stop them, just being aware of them and letting them run until they pass. I guess in a kind of mindful manner. And I tried very very hard to do this but the thoughts got me into such an anxious mess again and for the third night in a row they won and I was up and down all night long.

Today (Saturday) I am getting really exhausted now but I’m going to keep trying to sleep in my bed. Eventually the exhaustion will take over and when that point comes I will be like a small child on the program Supernanny who has to be taken repeatedly back to their own bed until that point finally comes where they fall asleep in it and remain asleep all night. I am determined not to let myself lay down at all on the sofa just in case I fall asleep. I know any sleep is probably better than none but I am adamant that when that severe exhaustion takes over it will be my bed that I sleep in, not the sofa. I have to overcome this and keep fighting it.

There was something else that I wanted to talk about that was probably a lot more important than rambling on for about 500 words about where and when I’ve slept… my brain is a bit pickled just now… Anyway I wanted to talk/moan about the CMHT (community mental health team). Now they have recognised and identified that Christmas is a particularly hard time of year for me and new CPN said at our last appointment that she was going to give me an appointment for Monday (Christmas Eve) and the following Monday (New Year’s Eve) so I had weekly support and on the days before the ‘big’ days that are likely to be in some way triggering for me. But I got a phone call on Monday saying new CPN had phoned in sick and now no-one has called me back all week so I don’t have an appointment now on Monday and I’m worried about how I will cope if I have to get through the Christmas and New Year week’s with no support. I can’t even see my support worker from Rape Crisis because they are closed now til the 7th of January. The CMHT know this is the time of year I am most likely to harm myself or end up being admitted to hospital and they say they will help to make sure that doesn’t happen this year and then they don’t contact me to offer me any form of support. Even if new CPN is still off sick it would be nice if someone made contact with me even if it was just to ask me if I thought I would be OK over Christmas with no appointments. But of course that didn’t happen.

Anyway I have rambled on for long enough. I’m tired, my head is a little noisy, I’m feeling quite alone and unsupported from a ‘professional’ point of view but then my lovely Mum has been trying so hard to support me. And I am so extremely grateful to her, she has helped me so much and tried so hard these past couple of weeks to help me get my flat looking presentable again and make my environment a happier place to be… but it’s the ‘mental’ things I’m struggling with and find them hard to talk to my parents or friends about. Plus I feel massively guilty to talk about how much I still want to self harm badly when I’ve got someone who is doing everything they can to make things better and a little less stressful for me. How can I still want to do all these bad things when someone is trying so hard to make things good for me? It doesn’t make sense. I am still doing the blood letting stuff with syringes but I think it’s the pain I need to feel rather than the blood I need to see as it isn’t giving the same feelings of release as it was a week or two ago.

Fuck. I really wish I could be a better daughter to them.

I really do.

00:12 – Impossible

Why it’s called impossible – I can’t stop listening to the UK X Factor winner James Arthur’s song. Didn’t watch X Factor, Impossible isn’t his song, but something about it makes sense. I guess life feels pretty impossible right now.

‘Tell them I was happy,

And my heart is broken,

All my scars are open….’

Should you wish to listen to it whilst reading my ramblings of today here it is:

I woke up this morning and couldn’t remember if my appointment with new CPN was at 1pm or 2pm so thought I better phone the mental health team and find out. To my (pleasant) surprise it was my the social worker whom I was once very close to who answered the phone. We chatted for ten minutes and it was nice to hear her voice but it also made me feel a little bit sad afterwards.

I try not to think about it so much any more because I have accepted now that I am never going to get to work with her again. If I see or speak to her these days it’s more a case of bumping into her in the mental health place. I feel like I can’t ask her for anything any more, not even a chat and sometimes that feels really shit because she was still is the only professional who I’ve ever felt understood me. She totally understood why I hate Christmas so much, she came with me to my little man’s headstone up at the cemetery one time and put flowers down with me. She probably doesn’t remember that because she’s probably dealt with that many crises’ since then that little memories like that are likely to be long forgotten. But at least I can smile looking back on that, even if it also makes me a little sad to know that’s pretty unlikely to ever happen again.

If I think about it all now it just makes me angry. And sad. I still don’t properly understand why they couldn’t just leave me to work with the person I was comfortable with and trusted. I don’t understand why or when or who decided it should be a CPN I work with instead. I felt like I was making progress working with her and I don’t know who decided I’d make better progress with a CPN but I do feel that their decision was a wrong one. I’ve gone from working with someone who I felt like I could tell anything to and who I trusted enough to do graded exposure work with for my agoraphobia, to two temporary CPN’s and now a third but permanent one and I feel like I have achieved nothing by working with them. Besides starting the university course, the second temporary CPN gave me encouragement to apply for it, but mood-wise things have remained pretty unsettled.

Anyway I vowed the last time I wrote about the whole social worker situation that it would be the last time I wrote about it because reading my posts back made me feel a bit pathetic that I was getting so upset over one member of my care team being changed. But you know what, when you work with someone closely over a long period of time you build some form of relationship, you build a trust and that person feels like someone safe to you that you can confide in and be honest with, even when you’re telling them about the brain crazies you feel OK because you just know that they truly aren’t judging you. And when someone comes along one day and says ‘right you’re going to be working with person X from now onwards and not this nice social worker that you’ve built a relationship with any more’ it kinda does feel like a bit like you’re being rejected of a punch in the gut.

Hmm what was that word I started with again… oh yeah… impossible.

Anyway I’m not talking about this any more, I sound like a fucking broken record!

I went to see new CPN at 2pm. I couldn’t seem to express myself very well at all today. I’d start saying something then totally lose my train of thought. Then be sitting there aware that I was talking but with complete mind-blank about what I was saying. In the end we just talked a bit about the uni course, I told her I’d submitted a final assignment but that I was far from happy with it. I think I will pass but probably just scrape a pass and to be honest I’d rather fail and get to rewrite it completely than get a D.

We also talked a little about my appointment last week with Mr Psychiatrist and I told her about his little speech about my ‘negative thought patterns’ which I guess there is some truth in… and how he is still annoying me by asking at the last few appointments I’ve had with him for reasons why I’m feeling depressed. He is a consultant psychiatrist. He has been a psychiatrist for many years. He makes diagnoses and has the power to take all control away from a person and detain them. My point is he is an experienced and I dare say very intelligent man in his field… so why the fuck does he insist on asking someone with a mood disorder (that he diagnosed) what it is that’s going on in their life to be making them depressed? I don’t have one particular reason. There is not one particular thing in my life making me feel this way. Sometimes it’s just the fucking Bipolar Disorder that makes me this way – surely to God he can understand that?!

Again… Impossible…

New CPN agreed about the negative thought patterns and started saying something about mindfulness and being compassionate and I pretty much said straight out that I just can’t even begin to think about being compassionate to myself right now. I want to cut myself, hurt myself, bleed, drain out the bad blood in me, these little scratches are not helping, it needs to be done properly. But then I look at my arms and my legs where bad wounds and stitches have been before and some of the scars really are a pretty horrendous sight. More than anything the main reason I feel I need to do it is because (a) I deserve it and (b) I need the huge rush of release I get from it. The reason I haven’t acted on it properly yet is because I am terrified that if I do it then I’m going to completely lose control and start slipping down that spiral at a ridiculously fast rate. But the racing thoughts, the whispers and giggles racing around my brain make me want to explode at times… I need things to slow down…

My brain… impossible…

I came out of the session with new CPN actually feeling really quite confused for some reason. Conveniently right across the road from the mental health team is a DIY store and even though I knew I still had half a pack of blades in the house I wanted more. I began to head in that direction when my phone started ringing. It was my Dad wanting to know if I’d like him to come and measure the rooms in my flat and go to look at flooring again. He probably called at just the right time and I agreed to head back home. He came down shortly after that and measured up then we went to the carpet shop and I got a couple of cheaper off-cuts for the hallway and bathroom, a gorgeous carpet for the bedroom, wood effect vinyl flooring for the living room and a big shaggy rug. It came to almost £550 (that includes fitting) and Mum is putting it on her credit card for me to pay off bit by bit. So it looks like it might take two days because I’ll need to move all the furniture out one room and into the other and then vice versa but they are coming to definitely fit the first carpet on the 18th and I’ve been assured it will all be done by Christmas.

(Christmas in my bed… sleeping in my bedroom again… impossible?)

They are trying so hard to make me happy and get me safely through these upcoming tough couple of months and it makes me feel a little bit mixed up. I feel like I’m constantly putting on an act when I see them and when I smile it feels so fake and pretend. I don’t want them to worry about me so I’m keeping this bout of head crazies to myself as much as possible. I also feel a bit pathetic that at 31 years old I can’t finance my own ‘home improvements’. I feel thankful that I have such loving parents who are in a position to be able to help me. I feel emotional and sad that at 31 I haven’t achieved anything that I thought I would have achieved by this age. Well I have achieved some of them… they just tore my heart to pieces didn’t turn out as planned…

I really didn’t mean for this to turn into such a self pitying post. Sorry. Anyway that’s my ramblings over with for tonight, that’s been my day, as for tomorrow I have absolutely nothing planned. There is no studying for me to at least attempt, there are no appointments to attend, maybe it will be a day for lying around in my onesie doing nothing apart from over thinking no doubt.

Writing a happy blog post, that’s what’s fucking impossible…

Goodnight folks