19:57 – Just, why?

** Trigger warning for talk of self harm **

Today has not been a good day at all. It started off with a battle with royal mail as I have paid to have my mail redirected for 3 months to give me enough time to work my way through all the companies I have dealings with to change my address with them. For some reason when you enter my old postcode into any address checking system on a computer it lists the flats as flat 1 to flat 12. But that isn’t how they are labeled on the doors of the flats, instead it runs like flat 0/1, 0/2, 1/1, 1/2 etc. So even after taking ID into the post office last week to prove my address does exist and asking them to enter the address manually I still got a letter from royal mail this morning with the wrong address details. Argh! So I phone them and they say they can’t override it on the system nor can the guy’s supervisor. Frustrating? Very!

So in the end I went into my local sorting office and explained it all to them and they think they have sorted it out now but can’t promise I won’t miss the odd bit of mail here and there. . . Most annoying when I’ve paid for it to be done!

That was the point where I should have known it was going to be a bad day. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before but a couple of months ago my parents agreed to take out a bank loan for me and bought me a new car. It’s not brand new or anything but I have to admit I do love it, even though it’s going to take me 3 years to pay off. I haven’t even driven it that much because I’m very aware these days of not getting behind the wheel if I know I’m not in a good frame of mind but it has helped a lot with getting to a couple of new places that the agoraphobia has previously prevented me to because I trust the car to keep me safe. So today around lunchtime I decided to head out early, I had an appointment with lovely support worker at 3 so I left around 2pm so that I could get her a xmas card and some bits from the shops. But then all of a sudden I seemed to go into this weird autopilot mode and found myself standing in a paint and decorating shop. My mouth was moving and sound was coming out, I heard myself asking for a pack of the strongest stanley knife blades they had. Then I went to the pharmacy and bought some bandages yet still really didn’t know why I was doing it.

I went back to the car park and sat thinking for a little while trying to make sense of my actions. The only conclusion that I could come to was that I needed them as a safety blanket, like even though I want this new house to have all these good memories in it and to be this blank canvas, now that all of the stress of having to hold it together over the past few weeks has gone I can finally let all my crazy mixed up emotions out. I sat and smoked a cigarette and tried to get my head together, felt calmer, drove along in the direction of my appointment then realised I’d forgotten to get something at the shops. I spotted a space and slowly reversed into it but there was a stupid metal bollard in my blind spot and I reversed right into it. Heard a bit of a thud and stopped immediately, got out the car and there was glass everywhere 😦 My whole back light unit where the brake light and reverse light and an indicator are were smashed to pieces and a deep scratch on the bumper. As everyone stood and stared at me I fought back the tears and drove to the garage, all the way believing that this was my punishment for buying the blades to self harm with.

At the garage I was told the damage was too bad for them to allow me to drive it and I had to leave it there. They are going to try and get it back to me by the end of the week. Now I don’t know whether to make an insurance claim and have my premiums go up or somehow find the money to pay it myself. For the parts and labour it’s going to be around £200 so I think I’m just going to pay it although it’s going to take a while to save that much up 😦 I could really have done without this especially so close to xmas even though I think it’s xmas I’m dreading so much.

The only good part of my day was seeing lovely support worker and getting a good long chat with her as I haven’t seen her in a while. I told her about buying the blades and said I knew I would act on the urges I just didn’t know when. She tried to talk to me about how bad I always feel in the aftermath of self harming but in the end just asked me to try and be careful when I do it. I don’t know when it will happen, maybe it’ll be tonight or maybe not til next week or even longer than that…

All I know is that the urges to do it and do it bad have been very strong over these past few weeks but I couldn’t let myself give in to them when I had so much else going on and now. . . well now it feels like all that has gone and I can finally give in to them. Part of me wants to go and run a hot bath and do it there, watch all of the water turn red before pulling the plug and seeing it all disappear. Part of me wants to leave them at the back of the drawer where I’ve hidden them and try to keep plodding on until things REALLY get too much. . . cos they will, I know that much. I sit here just now looking at the mess of my arms and legs from previous self harming, so many scars I can’t even count them. One part of my head says don’t add to the mess, the other part of my head tells me “do it and do it fucking bad like you deserve”.

So yeah. . .

Shit day? Yep.

Danger to myself? Possibly.

Will it go further than cutting? Who fucking knows. . .

21:27 – I gave in… I’m so pathetic… Argh!!

Just to let you know this post has a lot of talk about self harm

Well I think I lasted about half an hour after my random shizzle post before I got up, started pacing around, went to my ‘hiding place’ and retrieved the blades I bought last week. Before I knew it I was sitting cross legged on the bathroom floor and feeling that rush of everything leaving my system, every time I pressed down on the blade and sliced through my skin I felt calmer and calmer and calmer. I sat with my back against the wall and closed my eyes for a couple of minutes before looking down to see what the damage was.

The one thing I’ve written about on here over my past couple of ramblings has been about the regret I feel in the aftermath of self harming. The regret didn’t flood in straight away because I thought the two cuts were reasonably shallow. I had only made two cuts but just kept cutting into them so I was expecting to be greeted with two big gaping wounds but the damage didn’t look too bad. I didn’t feel glad that I’d done it but I didn’t feel regret either. I think this is because at that point I felt like I’d actually cut but managed to keep in control of it. And on initial inspection the wounds didn’t look too bad. But then once I started to clean myself up I realised that one of the cuts was actually a bit deeper than I’d first thought and straight away the feelings of regret started to flow through me… because I knew I hadn’t got away with some shallow cuts after all… and then started the debate in my head over whether or not to go to A&E.

At that point it was probably around 2pm and as I sat there trying to decide what I should do I got severely anxious. I put a bandage around the wounds and began pacing again. Every time I sat down I’d feel restless and irritated and anxious and had to continue to pace around the room. I had an appointment with my support worker from Rape Crisis at 3.30pm so I decided I would go to the hospital and get the wound treated and then go to my appointment. But every time I went to walk out of the door I’d get a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach that stopped me in my tracks and again the anxiety would kick in bad so I continued to pace around until 3.20pm then left for my appointment.

I had initially decided that I wasn’t going to tell anyone I had done it. I kept thinking that OK the cut probably did need glued, possibly a couple of stitches, but also that it wasn’t the worst of cuts I’ve ever done and whilst the scar would probably have been extra nasty I’m pretty sure I could have just put some steri-strips on it and a dressing and it would have healed in time itself.

So when I got to my appointment my head was all over the place. Support worker asked me what was wrong as I told her I needed to pace around because I was very anxious. I didn’t want to tell her but I did. We sat for about half an hour and debated the pro’s and con’s of going to A&E to have the cuts checked and treated. She could see that I really didn’t want to go and was making up any excuse I could think of to prevent having to go but I then began to calm down a little bit when she said she wasn’t going to force me to go. I relaxed a bit knowing that and then I was more able to talk rationally. I told her I regretted it and didn’t have any urges to do it again and I think she believed me. It was/is the truth, I do regret it.

My support worker asked me if she was to come with me would it make it easier for me to go? At first I said I didn’t mind either way but then she said to me that we could go in and if I changed my mind then we could just keep walking and I wouldn’t need to speak to any of the nurses if I didn’t want to. So I agreed to this and decided it was probably best just to go and get it over and done with. I was fairly confident I wouldn’t need any stitches so just kept thinking to myself that in half an hour it would all be over and done with and I could be on my way home. With a deep breath I got in her car and off we went.

On arrival at A&E the nurse who saw me was someone I’ve seen before (also for self harming) so that helped to calm me down a little bit. I still found it really hard to speak but did tell her I regretted it and had no urges to do anything else to myself. She asked if I wanted her to contact the mental health team but I said no thank you. It’s not like they ever turn up or call anyway!! The nurse got me up on the bed thing and had a look at the wounds. She agreed one just needed some steri strips but the other she said could do with a couple of stitches in it. I asked if she could just glue and steri strip it but because of where the cut is means that every time I move my leg walking I’d be pretty likely to burst the glue. I said I’d prefer not to have stitches so I have ended up with about 20 steri strips all going in different directions to hold the cut closed nice and securely. I think it will heal just as well as it would have had I had the stitches as it wasn’t too deep but it’s deep enough to leave another scar. Pfft.

Why the fuck do I do these things to myself?! Argh!

Anyway, the nurse was pleasant enough to me and didn’t make me feel judged or any of that stuff. She just cleaned me up, patched me up, reminded me of signs of infections and asked if I wanted to go back in a few days for a wound check. I declined the offer and said I’d just care for it myself and start removing the top layer of steri strips in about a weeks time. She seemed happy enough for me to do that and gave me some clean dressings and let me leave with support worker. Funnily enough the whole time my support worker was there the nurse didn’t even ask who she was. Guess she just assumed it was a friend or something.

When we left A&E we went back to the centre and had a chat for another half hour or so. We made an appointment for next Tuesday and I left a message for my social worker to see if I could get an appointment with her later this week as it’s been a couple of weeks since we met up and with my parents being away this week and not having them just a phone-call away I feel like I could do with being able to have another chat and little bit of support again in a few days.

Since I got home I’ve been feeling in a weird mood. I don’t know if it’s because of the self harming but I just feel a sort of numb sensation throughout my body… numb everywhere apart from where I cut which is pretty sore. And that’s like the only feeling I can feel… everything else is just blank.

Well I’m going to go and walk the dogs now and see if I can find something on TV to watch and distract myself for a while. My sleeping is still shit so it will probably be another long night, another long night of mentally beating myself up for giving in and cutting, for causing another scar, for not being strong enough to ignore those urges!!

Weak… Pathetic and weak…

Will I ever learn?????

20:55 – Cutting, voices, appointments and ramblings

It’s been a few days since I last posted mainly because I’ve been feeling absolutely shit and hiding away from the world again. Just me and the voices cut off and locked away in our own little world.

I was supposed to have an appointment with my support worker from Rape Crisis yesterday but I didn’t go. I don’t know why, my head was feeling too messed up and I spent most of the afternoon and evening yesterday cutting random words into my skin (more like scratches – no medical attention needed). Anyway, I regret not going now because I then remembered that she isn’t in the office for the rest of this week and now I won’t be able to see her until next week sometime, and I do actually find the appointments with her help, even though some of the stuff that comes out of my mouth in that room are pretty fucked up at times.

Today I had an appointment with new CPN. I’ve moaned about her a bit in recent posts but today she allowed me to talk about some of the bad things rather than making me only talk about good things. She asked me what the best thing was that has happened in the past week and I told her that I got my final semester one essay result today and passed the module with an overall 68% which isn’t too bad considering my concentration was absolutely fucked whilst I was trying to study for and write it. Now that the tutor’s have marked it, it gets sent to the Exam Board for them to confirm the mark. I’m kind of hoping they might find another 2% to award me as I believe anything above 70% is an A and that would of course be nice.

She asked me loads of questions about the module I’ve just finished and I wasn’t sure whether she was just trying to engage me in conversation or if she was trying to use up as much time as possible talking about the “positives” so that there wasn’t much time left when she finally asked what hadn’t been so good over the last week. I told her about going to see lovely GP last Wednesday and about my medication being increased. I told her about the fear and sadness I felt at hearing the mocking voice that makes all the derogatory comments becoming more male in tone and this scaring me that I wasn’t in control of that voice, not in the way I can deal with the giggle.

I told her that I’d become pretty upset last night, I was angry and emotional and tried to talk to the male voice, to ask what he wanted from me, to ask him to stop it. She said I have to try and laugh at it, disagree with it, ignore it, drown it out with loud music in my headphones… but… not talk to it as I was showing it respect that way and encouraging it to speak to me… in turn distressing me even more.

When our hour was over and I left the appointment I felt a bit mixed up. On the one hand I didn’t feel quite so deflated as I felt after last week’s one. I felt she listened a bit more this week, but I still felt like I left the appointment with lots of crap swimming round my head and then actually wished I was still there in the appointment so that I had the opportunity to just get it all out. But by this point I was almost home and I came back feeling angry with myself that we had wasted about half an hour talking about my university course and that half an hour I could have used to tell her about my head crazies. But the thing is that when you’re actually in the room with her she very much leads the conversation and I don’t know why, but I find it very very hard to try and change the topic of conversation over to something that I actually need to talk about.

So on my way home I went into the chemist and picked up my weekly prescription, and when I got home and was putting all the little boxes in the cupboard I suddenly had a passing thought that I could just to swallow the lot of it. But I knew I didn’t want to overdose, I didn’t want the consequences of it, so I put the medications safely in the cupboard… And then I cried. A lot. I felt really confused over what I wanted, about the voices I’m hearing, about the massive intense self harm urges, about whether I was capable of carrying on with my university course even though it is only part time and from home I just didn’t have the belief in myself that I could do it and then began to doubt if I even wanted to keep on doing it. Stupid eh when I know I passed my essay with a semi decent grade.

I haven’t even told anyone that I passed. I haven’t phoned or text my Mum or best friend. I’ve known for two days now that I passed and yet my CPN is the only one who knows. Why? Because to tell my Mum or to tell best friend or to write it as a facebook status means people will all say “congrats” or “well done” and I don’t want to see messages saying I’ve done well at something!! And if I tell them then they will expect me to be all happy and smiling and I feel like I’m all out of fake smiles for the moment. I’ll tell them when I find the strength to smile (if only temporarily) again.

So that’s been my last few days. Nothing very exciting. No more appointments until next week and still a week to go before I start modules 2 & 3 for semester two of the course. My Mum is off work this week and has text me a couple of times to ask if I’d like to meet up and do something but I just don’t really want to see anyone, not even family at the moment 😦

Anyway. Time to go and try to find something to do with myself for the next few hours before bed. I might try and have a shower, it’s been a good few days since I last had one. Showers tend to feel pretty pointless… when you’re already feeling like a ‘dirty’ person yet you get in one because someone has said in a cheery voice that it’ll “make you feel better” but, in reality, you know that no matter how much you scrub and wash, you aren’t ever going to feel any cleaner or any less dirty.

My head feels very noisy tonight and to be honest I just want a break from it, just a little bit of peace for a while, please.

 

23:17 – An emotional rollercoaster today

Today has passed at a snail pace. Every time I thought another couple of hours must have passed I would check the clock and it would really only be about half an hour that had passed. The only times that time has moved so slowly have been when I’ve been in hospital.

My thoughts began to spin out of control mid afternoon. I became very irritable and my best friend kept phoning and I kept hitting the phone onto silent, I just couldn’t answer it. I’m not sure why, I think it was because I was sure she would know there was something wrong and then start insisting I go out and talk to her or play with the kids to distract myself.

And you know what was crazy? Right there in that moment I didn’t want to be distracted, I wanted to feel every single horrible emotion, I wanted to feel them one by one and see how much damage it would do to actually sit and listen to everything in my head rather than try and escape it. So I sat and cried. I paced the room. I flicked through TV programmes. I took the dogs several short walks. I washed some clothes. I hoovered. I smoked a ridiculous amount of cigarettes.

I tried to make food but realised the few items in my fridge had gone out of date yesterday so I called for some Chinese food as it was the only place open. Started eating it then thought I was going to be sick with each big wave of anxiety that overcame me. That reminds me, a psychologist I saw once upon a time once said to me the best thing you can do is start eating something when you feel anxiety coming on because one of the very first things that happens physiologically when we become anxious is our mouth’s become dry so if you start to eat something (even some chewing gum just to produce saliva) somehow tricked your body into a state of confusion: you can’t be relaxed enough to eat and in fight or flight panic mode, so theoretically you should start to calm down (or give into the anxiety and dump the plate of food like I did). I don’t know if it works or if it’s just some old wives tale, I do know when I’m very anxious the last thing on my mind is sitting eating a nice plate of food when my stomach is churning, when I’m having hot flushes and my heart is palpitating like crazy and I have the overwhelming urge to escape.

So who knows… maybe it does work…

This state of anxiety and irritability/restlessness carried on through to the early evening despite me taking some Diazepam to try and calm down a bit. By this point the repetitive voice in my head was “cut”… followed by the obligatory giggle. It made me feel really quite distressed because I couldn’t make it stop and when it won’t stop I start panicking that it’s not “my voice” or “my thought” it’s one that’s out of my control again. I decided to not even fight it and went to my little hiding place and took out two brand new stanley knife/box cutter blades. I sat pushing the flat side of the metal against various parts of my arms and legs, then I turned the blade on it’s side and ran it across my skin (but without applying any pressure at all) just to get the memories to rush into my head of how it feels when I do push down deep and actually cut. And the more time the blades spent in my hands the more the anxiety began to build up thinking about having to go to A&E if I allowed myself to cut to the my usual level.

I put the blades back and guess what? I cried again. AGAIN. I lay here on the sofa a snotty sobbing mess holding a cushion tightly against me then sat up and just rocked myself until all the intense emotions seemed like they were finally leaving.

So it has been a pretty rotten day but one that is now almost over. It’s about 10.45pm just now and I’ve taken my medication and night time Diazepam. I’ve just been out giving the dogs their last walk of the night and I am now sitting here feeling totally drained. My head hurts from all the crying, my eyes are puffy from all the crying and my mind is emotionally shattered from all the crying.

The only person I have spoken to all day was the delivery driver who dropped my Chinese food off and that was just to mutter the words “thank you”.

I don’t know what stopped me from cutting today, mostly it was the complete state of fear I seem to be experiencing whenever I think of anything hospital related at the moment, but also because I got a text message from my Mum saying that my Aunt and Uncle and Grandma are all coming to visit tomorrow and asking me if I’d like to join them for dinner. I eventually text back saying yes I would go. Some time ago I wrote a post saying that my Aunt had sadly been diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer, well that is her just finished 6 months (I think?) of Chemotherapy as well as having had surgery to do a complete hysterectomy and removal of various lymph nodes and things that are also in that area. And due to the fucking agoraphobia and not being able to get to Big Scary City where my Aunt lives this is actually going to be the first time I will have seen her since her diagnosis. So if she can have gone through all of that and feel well enough to travel the couple of hours to my parents house for the night then I’m sure I can battle my head demons for a couple of hours and try to enjoy a meal with them. Plus it’s been ages since I last saw my little Grandma and I do miss her a lot. And she’s getting old now, I think she’s about 88 bless her.

So, as I was saying, getting that message to say they were coming was another thing that seemed to stop me from cutting. Even though the wound would have been somewhere they would never have seen, this is the first year for quite a while where I’m actually going to have something that I can talk about during dinner. And I didn’t want to be sitting there with a sore arm or leg knowing that there were a load of stitches just under my clothes. One advantage of doing this University course is that it gives people something to talk to me about and takes the attention away from my mental health. Every time I have to see people that I haven’t seen in a while I always get asked what I’m doing with my life and this time I’ll be able to tell them about my course and what I’ve been learning and where I hope it will lead. Even if the voice in my head is laughing at every sentence that comes out my mouth and starts mocking me I am determined I will get through one meal and actually have my family thinking I’m not a completely lost cause after all. I want them to finally hear about something positive in my life and not be like “oh she’s STILL not well” even if I don’t entirely have much belief in myself about the course, I still want to be able to say the words that I’m doing something with my life.

The only bit I’m not looking forward to is hearing about all of my cousin’s wedding plans or all the little stories about her little toddler. Baby type talk is a big trigger. The wedding that is too far away for me to go to because of the stupid agoraphobia but one that every single member of our families will be at, apart from me. That topic of conversation is also likely to be one that would make me feel quite anxious and upset.

OK I think it’s time for bed now. Please let tomorrow be a better day and run smoothly with no embarrassing anxiety attacks or similar mentalisms. I just want to be able to cope for a couple of hours, take part in their conversation, enjoy a meal with them and then come home again.

Simple as that.

(Nothing is ever simple, I should know that by now)

Goodnight folks x

19:54 – Fucking nurses

I had to go up to the hospital A&E department today to have my stitches taken out. I had a friend with me at the hospital who knew I was getting stitches out because of self harm. So he sat in the waiting room while I went through. It was the same nurse that I saw on both Friday and Sunday. When she was taking the stitches out she saw I had cut some words on my skin, I did as Satan asked last night and wrote various phrases. It was only shallow, just scratches.

She asked me if the CMHT had been in touch with me and told me she definitely left an answer phone message on Sunday night. I told her that no they hadn’t phoned. She said she was going to get dressings for my leg and would be back in a minute. One minute turned to five, I started feeling anxiety sweep over me, my head started screaming “just put your jeans and shoes on and get the fuck out of here” but I felt physically frozen with fear. I got my phone out my bag and text my friend in the waiting room telling him I was scared as the nurse had been away for ages and I was beginning to panic as I didn’t know what was going on. Another five minutes passes and the nurse comes back. She tells me she has just phoned the CMHT, she hoped I didn’t mind but she was concerned about me, and a couple of people would be over shortly to see me. I felt myself completely tense up then asked her to get my friend and let him sit with me.

He came in and I quickly told him that someone was coming over to talk to me and that he had to tell them that he was going to stay with me tonight because I was terrified I wasn’t coming home but going up to the psych hospital again. Within minutes these two men appear and the nurse asks me if I want her to come in as well. I say yes please. I don’t think I have met these people before but one of the men tells me he has met me once before. The other tells me he is a nurse. A CPN I assume. They ask how I am feeling, I tell them fine. They ask my friend how he thinks I am. He says he thinks I am fine. My friend then tells them he is going to stay with me for the next few days to keep an eye on me. He isn’t, but these words seem to make them happy.

They bring out a copy of my crisis plan and ask me if I want a copy for tonight, I say no thank you. I know what is written on it. They tell me they are aware I haven’t attended any of my appointments for several weeks. I nod my head to confirm this is the case. They ask me if I will attend an appointment tomorrow with one of them and my social worker. And then they ask my friend if he will come as well. He agrees. I agree. The nurse asks if he has a commitment from me that I won’t put myself in any danger tonight. I nod my head. He says I can go. I leave the hospital and can breathe again.

My friend came back here for a little while and says he will come down at noon tomorrow so that gives us half an hour to get to the appointment. I apologised to him for dragging him into my mentalness but he said it was OK. He said several times that I had better open my door to him tomorrow and go to the appointment or I’m going to end myself back up in hospital. I told him I will never go back to that hospital.

Anyway, now my head is going a million miles an hour and I want to cut badly, I need to get all this pent up craziness out of me but I know I can’t cut deep because I can’t end up at the hospital again and arghhh it’s all just frying my brain.

I just want to be left alone, I feel intimidated and scared because I know if I put one foot wrong they will take control of things again and that cannot happen.

Completely off topic, I noticed this which was nice: http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/best-bipolar-blogs#3

The writer says:

Reading My Crazy Bipolar Life is like peeking into a private diary that holds the open-hearted tale of a rollercoaster life. Inside you discover the thoughts and feelings, successes and failures, and predicaments and positive experiences of a woman with bipolar disorder, winding her way through life with mental illness.

Readers with bipolar disorder no doubt find a kindred spirit here, along with the reassurance that comes with knowing they are not alone. For those without a diagnosis, reading this blog is an educational glimpse into the world of life with bipolar disorder.

🙂

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Protected: 19:15 – The hurt inside self injury

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