18:44 – It’s over (and I survived it!)

I went to the CPA meeting. At the meeting there was:

• Me
• My Mum
• CPN guy from last week
• Addictions nurse
• Social Worker
• A&E Senior Charge Nurse (bitchy one from Tuesday)
• Psychiatrist via video link

Whilst people were arriving I heard my social worker ask my Mum how she was doing. I mentioned a while back that my Mum was being made redundant from the company she has worked for, for about 16 years. Then the company decided she could work from home on a part time basis until April and it would be reviewed again. This morning she found out that her redundancy was definitely going ahead and that’s it all final now. She finishes up in a couple of weeks. I just sat there and stared at the floor, I had no idea and I suddenly felt incredibly guilty that she had just lost her job that morning and was still there, by my side, at this bloody meeting about me being mental. That I still needed my Mum there for me when she is going through her own shit but is still more concerned about me. In the car on the way home she told me she wasn’t going to tell me until after the meeting because ‘she should be worrying about me and I shouldn’t worry about her’. Fucking hell, I’m such a bloody burden. I don’t deserve her worrying about me! Argh!

So for the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the meeting I barely said a word. I couldn’t really concentrate on what was being said because my head kept thinking about my poor Mum and how rubbish she must be feeling knowing she has to say good bye to all her colleagues of so many years. And my Mum was damn good at her job. I felt angry and sad for her. The voices were making everything sound a bit mumbled as well. My leg kept shaking and I felt sick with anxiety.

The CPN guy then started to go through the minutes from the last meeting then I pushed my bit of paper in front of him where I’d written that I felt totally unsupported at the moment. This is because I have not met my new CPN yet and had been told to use the duty system in a crisis as my social worker was no longer part of my care team. So I found my voice and said that I didn’t want my social worker out my care team because she is the only person (other than the psychiatrist) who has been there consistently. I told them I find all these staff changes stressful and uncomfortable, like I just start getting to know someone and then they leave for one reason or another. I also said I find the duty system hard because I find it hard having to explain why I feel the way I do over and over again to different people. So it was agreed that my social worker would remain part of my care team with appointments on a monthly basis (which is what I asked for) so I’m glad that for now I’m going to be able to keep the only therapeutic relationship I’ve got. Who knows, maybe once I get to know my new CPN and if I work well with her then maybe I will be OK just with CPN support.

We talked a little about how much I’ve been struggling lately, I apologised for not attending my appointments in the past month and explained it was mostly due to anxiety. So the CPN guy said he would speak to the support worker boss guy and ask if I could get a little bit of help with getting to appointments when they are at the CMHT. That brought up the subject of paying to see a support worker now, which the psychiatrist commented was “ridiculous” interestingly. So I will wait and see if they are going to let me get support from a support worker until my new CPN starts. My social worker also said she would come in for my first meeting with my new CPN so that should make it slightly less anxiety fuelled.

Hmm what else did they talk about?… The addictions nurse said that although she hadn’t seen me for a while she had no concerns of me using heroin again and was sure it really was just a two week mistake so that was good. The A&E nurse took a copy of my crisis plan and we mentioned the self harming over the past couple of weeks. I told my Mum about it in the car on the way there so she wasn’t shocked. The A&E nurse didn’t say much, just that she thought it would be helpful for them to have a copy of my crisis plan and she said thank you to me as she was leaving for ‘being so honest’ about the stuff in my head. She still remains the bitchy nurse though compared to the rest of the A&E staff!

I told them about the voices and about Satan controlling me. I asked for an increase in Quetiapine which the psychiatrist agreed to so I can put my dose up  by 50mg a fortnight and hopefully the voices will start to subside again in a while. I only hope I can last that time without doing something crazy if they start to command me!

So the meeting came to an end. We went through the keypoints which were something like:

• Medication to be increased
• Monthly appointments with social worker
• Start seeing new CPN
• Stick to crisis plan
• Resume sessions with addictions nurse to do relapse prevention work
• Appointment with addictions nurse on Tuesday 2pm
• Sometimes I might need help to get to appointments
• Possible support worker until new CPN starts
• See psychiatrist in May
• Another CPA meeting on July 5th at 4pm

I can’t believe I just remembered all of that. I must have been listening to more than I thought! Which is really strange because when I was in there it was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, some parts seemed blurred, some parts I’d suddenly notice Mum’s hand on mine and her whispering to see if I was OK. With the anxiety there were a couple of times I did that thing where you are like holding your breath without realising it then suddenly you exhale and it seems really loud, the CPN guy picked up on that and checked I was OK.

I guess all in all I’m glad I went. It was horribly anxious and yet at the same time it was productive. I just hope all the things we talked about actually happen and don’t just end up as words on a couple of sheets of paper somewhere. Things are still pretty fucking rocky and I’d really like to be able to try this approach out before things hit the next crisis point, I’d like to avoid there being another crisis point, but Satan is the one in control and all I can do is walk quietly alongside and try to steer things in the right direction.

00:19 – Trying to find the right path

I’m scared about tomorrow. I’m supposed to be going to two appointments, one with my CPN and one with my psychiatrist. I think I need my Quetiapine increased, my head is in a strange place right now, mostly a pretty scary place. I know my Mum is off work tomorrow and said she would come with me if it would help me get there but I just don’t think I can face it. I don’t even know what times they are at as I threw the letters in the bin as soon as I got them.

I went to my parents for dinner last night and Mum said she had received a letter inviting her to my next Care Plan Approach meeting which is on the 5th of April. I told her I didn’t think I would be going to it, I can’t really see myself attending any further appointments now. I know my Mum was getting annoyed with me saying I needed the help that’s being offered to me but it’s just not going to happen.

There are a lot of things that don’t make a great deal of sense right now, all I know for sure is that I have to keep on trying to walk the right path and that path is the one to be at war with the devil and only allow Jesus and the Angels to guide me. They are the only ones who can guide me to safety and away from this paranoid hell hole the devil has created.

15:36 – Missing home & ear acupuncture

I’ve been staying at my parents house since Sunday because of all the work they are doing on my flat. I went up yesterday after they had left and felt like crying; there was no floor just boards to jump across with lots of pipes running across the rooms. Every socket just had wires hanging from it, there was no kitchen, it looked like a bomb had hit it. I don’t know how I’m going to find the money to replace all my flooring It was my own fault; when I first moved in six years ago I had to request permission to lay wooden flooring and to be fair they did say in the letter back that should anything happen where it would have to be lifted then it would be my own responsibility to replace it. Some of it wasn’t in a very great condition so they have just thrown it out so I can’t re-lay it.

Staying at the parents is weird. This was my home and bedroom for many years but it feels strange being in someone else’s house. It’s nice not having to cook and getting all my meals made for me but weird that I have to tell someone where I’m going and when I’ll be home and stuff. I do just come and go as I please but… I don’t know… I just want to go home really.

Today I went for ear acupuncture for the first time. It is supposed to help with mental wellbeing and clarity. It was an interesting experience where we sat with our eyes closed listening to relaxation music with five little needles in each ear. It was very relaxing but far too early to tell if it works. It’s run three times a week and it’s free of charge, the guy running it said if I go two or three times a week I’ll start to notice the benefit of it fairly quickly. I think I will go back on Friday and give it another shot.

It’s been a busy day for me, it’s felt like one appointment after another. Tomorrow I might go along to a little group called the women’s support group where you get a chance just to chill out with other women who have been affected by drugs or alcohol and have a chat and a cuppa. The other girl who was at ear acupuncture said if I go along then she’ll go along so I might as well give it a try. It’s always nice when you know you have somewhere to go where you don’t feel so alone with your cravings and urges. I should really start going to the little club for people with mental health problems but I guess I kinda get sick of talking about my craziness.

I have an appointment soon with my GP for more medication. I am increasing my dose of Quetiapine (Seroquel) today and decreasing my Lamotrigine (Lamictal) again. In another month or so I should be completely off the Lamotrigine and then we’ll need to look at another mood stabiliser I guess.

So that’s where I’m at at the moment. Hopefully my flat will be finished either on Friday or Monday, I just really hope they tidy it up a bit before they go, it’s completely non habitable at the moment. Everyone keeps saying think how nice it will be when it’s all done – eventually it will be yes. But first it’s going to need redecorated from all the holes in the walls and re-floored. I think if I’m going to lose my driving license anyway then I might as well sell my car and use the money to sort my flat out. We’ll see how it looks when it’s finished. Hurry up and let me home workmen!!

20:58 – Time for some honesty

It’s been a while since I last posted, so this is probably going to be a super long one. I have really been trying hard to keep myself distracted and that’s also meant a bit of a break from the internet. My moods have been a bit unpredictable lately and somewhere deep down I knew I’d go into another suicide research phase if I allowed myself to open the laptop and switch it on. So I figured just keep myself busy in the day times and then come home and watch TV then sleep. My sleep is pretty poor at the moment but that could be due to a number of things.

There has been quite a lot happening. I was really ill for a week or so with bronchitis but I’m feeling better now. I was reading back on my blog posts and although I hinted at the drugs I was taking I think now is the time to just write truthfully. Christmas was hard, I played it down but it fucked my head. The next few days I was like a zombie, all I could think about was suicide. It got to New Year and I made a choice that I deeply regret – I asked someone about heroin – why she took it… her answer… it makes everything OK again. And that’s what I needed – everything to be OK again, my head to stop being fucked up and mental, the voices to stop screaming, my thoughts to slow the fuck down. So I made an extremely stupid decision – I tried smoking heroin. What did it feel like? I felt medicated and then I vomited for about the next three hours. That was it. No high, no low, no buzz, just feeling completely ill.

So why the fuck did I go and buy it again the next day?? I have no idea. And what makes it all the worse is that I went to the drug and alcohol place and got needles. I felt more comfortable watching it going into my bad blood. There was something about the whole process of opening the wrap, sprinkling it into the little sterile metal holder, adding in the citric acid, cooking it up, putting in the filter, sucking it up into the needle, finding a vein then slowly feeling it run through my body. The first few days it would make me sick but it wasn’t an unpleasant sickness, it actually felt good getting bad stuff inside of me out. I would lie on the sofa and nod off, still aware of everything around me but enjoying the feeling of medicated sleepiness and that girl – she was right – nothing mattered, nothing could hurt me, nothing was there apart from pleasant nods and bursts of daydreams.

I continued using every day until I went into hospital. One wrap costs £10, by the time I had been using for two weeks I was up to 4-5 wraps a day. That’s how addictive it is. You need more and more every day to get that same zoned out medicated feeling. So when I went to my GP completely suicidal I broke down and told her what I’d been using. I told the psychiatrist and I just needed a break away from it all. I was becoming dependent, if not physically then psychologically. So I had my week away from it all, they increased my dose of Diazepam and gave me Lorazepam as well. They gave me anti-sickness tablets and tablets for the stomach cramps. The first few days I felt like shit and I was craving so badly but by the time I came home a week later I was feeling a different sort of shit – that of the haloperidol. So I stopped taking the haloperidol two days after I came out of hospital and haven’t taken it since.

I have been to see a drugs counsellor and she was really nice. She is very well trained in lots of areas of counselling and listened to my whole story. I told her about how trapped I still feel, stuck somewhere in the bereavement process, still stuck in that day five years ago. She was so nice and told me she really believes she can help me understand grief better and hopefully start to move forwards with my life. She knows the drug use was due to both my mentalness and my inner pain. For the first time in a long time I actually feel more positive about the future, like maybe there is a chance I can move forwards without feeling guilty for living my life.

Speaking of the little one it’s his 5th anniversary on Saturday. It’s going to be a hard and sad day as it is every year and seeing the ex is never easy either. I have ordered a beautiful basket of flowers from the florist which cost a bomb but he is worth it. I’m worried Saturday is going to be a very triggering day for me. I will admit I have used heroin once since coming out of hospital but all it did was make me sick as a dog like the first time I tried it and I haven’t touched it again but psychologically I still crave that medicated feeling where nothing can hurt me. And what can hurt me? Life. Everything about it hurts especially with the anniversary just two days away. But I am determined I will not tarnish his memory by putting that shit into my body on his special day. No matter how much pain I am in, I won’t ever touch that stuff again. I don’t want to be some sort of junkie I want it to just be what it was – a two week mistake, a very stupid one, but one which has actually had a positive outcome as now I am going to get the counselling which I so badly need.

I am getting on with my CPN a bit better now, I still don’t especially like her but have decided I need to work with her whether I like it or not. We met on Monday and updated my crisis plan. Today I had a CPA meeting which consisted of myself, my CPN, psychologist and social worker with the psychiatrist via video link which was quite weird but better than being in the same room as him! We really just talked about where I was at and what work I had been doing with CPN woman. I also told them about the counselling I’d been offered through the drug centre and how I was going to start that because I believe I need it regardless of what the psychiatrist said while I was in hospital about not needing it right now. I explained I knew my safety had been their priority but that I felt the counselling would help me a lot and if it became too painful or started to affect my moods then I would be honest and say it was too much for me right now. Also that’s my psychologist off on maternity leave for the next year now and I need some emotional support while she is gone. It was hard seeing her big bump today, it was hard that the video conferencing room in the hospital happened to be right next to the maternity department. I had been asked to take my Mum or Dad along to the meeting but as they both had work commitments I took my best friend instead. The psychiatrist asked me if I was still using drugs and I said no. He then said that CPN woman had told him I had used once since coming out. Of course best friend didn’t know this and I had to completely deny it. He asked if I was smoking cannabis and I admitted that yes I do still have a smoke at night because it feels like the only thing that is keeping me calm. He gave me the speech on how one smoke could destabilize me and make my mental health worse which I don’t dispute, but right now it truly is the only thing that chills my crazy head out.

I told him I want to start Quetiapine (Seroquel) again. I know I reached the maximum dose of it before and was still experiencing psychosis but it was the only anti-psychotic which kept me stable for a decent period of time and didn’t come with a shit load of side effects. We have also decided to stop my Lamotrigine (Lamictal) so I’m stepping that down by 25mg a week, it doesn’t seem to have helped stabilise my mood and I’ve been on it almost two years and I think it’s making my psoriasis worse as well. It’s known to cause a lot of skin problems, rashes and stuff in some people. It’s a shame because it was another medication which didn’t give me nasty side effects but hopefully there will be another mood stabiliser I can try which won’t be too harsh.

So that’s where I’m at. Time for some honesty and hoping people won’t judge me for my stupid actions. Feeling a bit fragile about my little angel’s anniversary on Saturday and there not being anywhere open if I need support. Knowing I need to be strong and not sure if I’m going to manage. My best friend wants me to go and spend the night at hers so I’m not alone, she said in the meeting today how it would be good for me as her kids would be a distraction, sometimes she forgets that watching her two babies is really hard for me.

It’s going to be a difficult weekend I just hope I can do my angel proud.

15:27 – Nice GP soon and nice phone man

I have an appointment with my GP soon. The nice one, not the sour faced bitch one I had to see on Friday. Anyway, it’s for nothing exciting, just to get my prescription changed to give me these lovely new Amisulpride’s instead of the Quetiapine’s. I don’t like the new amisulpride, yes I know I’m still on a baby dose but I’m getting spots and I don’t get spots and I can’t sleep during the times I usually can and blah… it’s going to get increased today up to 400mg. I’m not sure what sort of mg Mr Psychiatrist is aiming for but the dose range seemed very wide on the patient information leaflet. I could be wrong, but around the 6 or 800mg mark looks to be a normal-ish dose for my mentalist symptoms.

I had a nice conversation with a nice phone man this morning. Well afternoon actually. I am due an upgrade on my phone and much as I love my HTC, I wasn’t overly impressed with their new Sensation and then I saw a Samsung Galaxy S2 and fell in love with it instantly. So that’s what I’ve upgraded to and somehow managed to knock a bit off my bill every month as well. So smiles all round for nice phone man. However not so many smiles in that I was on hold for 1 hour 23 minutes. At least they were productive – I kept telling myself “oh they’ll pick up if I go and start hanging the washing up” etc and sure enough as I was about to start washing the dishes they answered!

Well that’s all I have to say for myself for just now. I better go and get showered so I can make it to GP in what is now only 45 minutes.

It’s 5.35am and I’m…..

…awake.

It would seem that taking my full prescribed dose of diazepam by 5pm yesterday meant that I had an utter nightmare in trying to get some sleep. I think it was around 1am that I dozed off, so four hours of sleep isn’t good. I’ve just taken a couple more diazepam to see if I’m still sleepy enough for them to work (just another few hours I beg!!)

I am up to 300mg a day of Amisulpride now. Still a baby dose I know, it was supposed to be being increased around about now to 400mg a day. But I haven’t been to see my GP for the prescription as she is on holiday and I don’t like any of the other GP’s who work there. So I’ll just wait until Monday, I have enough meds to see me through til then as I got a week’s discharge pack when I left hospital. With some interesting notes on my discharge sheet such as:

DIAGNOSIS: Psychosis not yet specified

PROGRESS IN HOSPITAL: Changed from Quetiapine to Amisulpride

OUTCOME: Symptoms 1st rank schizophrenic in nature rather than psychotic symptoms of bipolar disorder.

NEXT APPT: Next Wed 19th at 11am.

 

I’m really not sure how I feel about the changing of my diagnosis. Well I know it hasn’t been changed officially yet but lets face it, of all the ‘mentals’ to get schizophrenia is down there at the bottom of the pile of the ones you would want. Not that you would want any. I apologise, it’s 5:44am and I’m babbling. OK, so they haven’t actually changed my diagnosis yet but it looks like it’s heading that way. There has been quite some time now where scary words like psychosis and delusional and anti-psychotics have all been a part of my vocabulary and it’s a bit frightening really.

But then, Bipolar was really frightening to start with at well. Don’t get me wrong, there was a degree of relief for the name for my weird behaviour. But then so was ‘depression and anxiety’ at one point. And ‘agoraphobia’ and admitted to being a ‘self harmer’. There is a lot of shame still surrounding mental health and I know there are all these campaigns to try and make that change but it’s almost like “oh she only has a little bit of anxiety, don’t worry she’ll be fine” to “oh my god have you heard about that my crazy bipolar life well they think she’s schizo as well”. Does that make sense or am I being stupid? Lots of people will experience an episode of feeling depressed or anxious in their life, but proper full on hardcore mental health is when we are going down the Bipolar and Schizophrenic roads. And now they think I could have both or one or whatever.

One part of my brain says ‘nonsense – I’m totally fine’ – another part of my brain says ‘I can’t handle one more moment of not knowing what is real and what is not. I don’t know whose talking to me half the time. I don’t know if they really exist. I don’t know why they watch me and I don’t know how they read my thoughts, but somehow, they do’.

The Patty voice of last year – the commanding and insulting one who made me do some pretty fucked up things, well she is well and truly gone. I have three people living inside me just now. Four if I include myself. These people are nameless but huge when it comes to personality. One has very distinctive pink hair, she is a large lady and regularly taunts me over my appearance. But I don’t get it, I see her in the mirror next to me and initially I think I look pretty good compared to her but somehow she talks me down, insults me, swears at me, does everything in her power to make me believe that every word she says is gospel.

The second female voice is the one who taunts me over my baby loss. When I think of her I think of leopard skin fur, I really don’t know why. She taunts me, tells me I deserved to lose him, makes scary things happen to him in my dreams and when I’m awake. I want to scream at her to leave us alone, I think there is a bit of Patty in her as she doesn’t speak that much directly to me, more in conversation with the others.

The last one I hear is a male voice which I find a bit disturbing. Well a lot disturbing really. He likes to talk about the abuse from my childhood and tell me that I enjoyed it. I know this type of voice is actually more common than I think. But fuck, it is scary. It turns me from a relatively sane adult into a crying mess curled up into the foetal position and terrified to let myself think in case it’s another thought like that. Dirty little slag that I am.

Living with people inside you and only having control over yourself is damn hard work. Except you have actually been controlled by these people that only you seem to be able to see for so long that you actually don’t have any control over yourself, you just think you do. You actually live by trying to shut them the fuck up. Overdosing for peace. Cutting to watch the bad poisonous blood inside me trickle out thick and fast and dark and know at least some of it has an outlet from my body.

It’s 6.07am and I don’t think the diazepam is working. The amisulpride doesn’t seem to have any sedative type effects whatsoever which is a shame really, even though I spent half my life feeling like a zombie, I quite liked that easier to sleep feeling that the Quetiapine/Seroquel gave me. Maybe once the amisulpride moves up a few notches it will calm my brain down slightly. Right now it’s causing me to lose sleep and that makes me like a bear with a sore head.

I hate this coming out of hospital thing, those initial days after it when you question if you did the right thing by leaving so abruptly and questioning if you really can cope with life in the outside world. I wanted to come out to be a help to my Mum not another burden and right now that’s exactly what my mind is telling me that I am.

Hmm well it’s 6.19am now and I am going to sit and watch morning news until the sun rises or I fall asleep.

Oh what a bad girl I am ffs

Oh dear what a bad girl I have been. M the fucking poisonous staff nurse has been doing my head in for the past 2 hours. I politely asked earlier if I could speak with a doctor due to concerns with my medication – they have dropped my quetiapine/seroquel from 750mg to 250mg in 2 days and started me on this amisulpride. Common side effects listed on patient info sheet for new amisulpride drug: insomnia, anxiety, agitation. I’m fucking bouncing from wall to wall I’m that hyped up. So I politely ask for something to calm me down a bit and she says no she will not be phoning a doctor to ask them. I was extremely rude to her, I believe my exact words were “why did you want to be a psychiatric nurse cos you’re a fucking useless one” which, in all fairness, she is.

Another side effect mentioned is a skin rash and what do you know my arm is coming out in a rash.

M the bitch nurse keeps saying I knew what the medication change entailed but not once did anyone tell me I’d be fucking bouncing off the walls by day 2. Yes the quetiapine wasn’t working, yes I was still hearing voices on it, yes I’m still having all of the above right now. But she quite categorically said she would not have a doctor come to see me, that I am rude and confrontational (agreed) and I could wait to see my own doctor tomorrow or Friday when he is next in.

Surely I have the right to a decent night sleep and not be on something causing insomnia and such a huge and fast drop to my withdrawing medication. She is a complete fucking cow. Argh.

Because my brain is scrambled and because I am using my phone I can’t remember if I wrote about this already but the short version is that they thought I had absconded when I’d gone a woodland walk tryin to clear my head. I was out sitting in the pitch black woodland from about 8pm til 11.30ish, four police officers and two ward staff finally found me. End of story really.

Also I won’t be working with my psychologist any longer as she is 19 weeks pregnant and I can’t deal with that shit, talking about my loss and watching her bump grow. Everything is a head fuck.

I think my social worker has joined the gang of hating me, she barely sees me anymore, I’ve now got no psychologist, the majority of staff in this hospital are quite simply crap.

Oh fuck it. End of rant.

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