Here I go again

Yesterday’s cathartic writing proved not to be so cathartic after all. Instead I spent all night wondering whether the ‘blast from the past’ would have read the post and what they would have made of it. So now I’ve given myself something extra to worry about. Well done girl. Well done. What I thought might be an end to the guilt I felt has instead turned into concern about what they think of me now, when I am a completely different person to who I was all those years ago. Why should I care? I honestly don’t know. But for some stupid reason I do.

Maybe that’s the reason I’m so tired today. I just got out of bed at 3pm and still feel like I could fall asleep over my keyboard. My mind and body just don’t want to play. I’m also starting to experience the dreaded ‘head-shocks” that anyone who has withdrawn from psychoactive drugs will know all about. My brain feel like it is being smacked around inside of my skull and is juddering every time I move my eyes. Which is nice. I decided to go and sit outside in the garden for five minutes while the dog was mooching around out there but despite the sunshine and blue sky it didn’t make me feel any better.

Nothing’s going to make me feel any better today

So here I am, worrying about what I post incase ‘blast from the past’ sees it, even though I highly doubt that they would be bothered to look anyway. Despite the fact I can’t imagine them actually reading my profile I can’t bring myself to set them to restricted incase they realise and are hurt or offended. I’m caught in a no-mans-land. I can’t see an answer at the moment, I’m trying to just post as I usually would but I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider what they might think. What a fucked up situation this has turned out to be. Damn you social media. Damn you to hell.

Ditching the drugs

I’m writing tonight in the hope that I’ll be able to expel whatever it is that is tormenting me. I feel so unsettled, I don’t know what to do with myself but I’m too tired to do anything anyway. I haven’t left the house for 10 days except to call at the local pub for a couple of hours on Friday and nip into the shop. I managed to drag my bones into the bath this afternoon after spending hours psyching myself up and not having washed, brushed my hair or changed my pyjamas since Friday. This is the reality of how my weeks are spent, grubby and smelly but not caring enough to do anything about it. If I do actually go out I can make myself so presentable that no-one would know the ‘real’ me. Seems like I’m just lazy and can’t be bothered getting ready unless it’s for something I like? I wish that were the case. Many many times I want to do things but the thought of showering, drying my hair and choosing clothes to wear causes me so much panic that I simply can’t do it. Even if I do get to the point of trying to choose clothes it’s likely I’ll end up in tears as nothing fits/looks right/doesn’t look stupid. Add this to the fear of being in busy places, having to speak to people I don’t know and generalised anxiety about everything else actually getting out of the house is a pretty massive achievement, even if it is only once a week.

I think I might be feeling a bit more delicate recently as I’ve started to decrease my antipsychotic medication as I’m sick to death of being such a fat cow. This could be a tricky period, the last couple of times I tried to reduce my dose I ended up in hospital after attempting suicide and I know hubby is anxious about it. These tablets have completely screwed up my metabolism and in the 28 months that I’ve been taking them I’ve put on over 2 stone in weight. That might not sound like loads but considering I’m only 5’’ 2’ and I was 8 stone before taking them it’s a hefty amount and I feel like a blob. I’ve tried low calorie diets and exercising but nothing works because the meds change the way the body metabolises and stores fat which basically means it’s impossible to lose weight. I’ve had to start taking Metformin which is usually given to overweight diabetic people but all that has done is stopped the scales from creeping up any further. So I’ve decided enough is enough and I’m coming off the bloody things. I reckon I can deal with a few hallucinations here and there if I’m back to my post-med weight. Obviously I’ll still be taking the Lithium, antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds so it’s not like I’m going to be flying completely solo.

So at the same time as tapering off the devil drug I’m starting to count my calories again and be more mindful about what I eat. Unfortunately because I’m only short I only have a small daily calorie allowance but although I’ll be hungry I should lose at least 2lbs a week. I know it’s worked for me in the past anyway so I’m hoping and praying that once the antipsychotics are completely out of my system I can get back to being me or, to be exact, less of me.

The past has been concerning me again and I can’t help but be paranoid. The ‘blast from the past’ I’ve spoken out before is now my friend on Facebook and we follow each other on Instagram. I’m starting to think that maybe this isn’t such a good idea. They said that they were happy to keep in contact but I haven’t heard anything from them for weeks and I don’t feel like it’s my place to get back in touch, I don’t want them to think I’m harassing them. I know last time (a couple of years ago) I tried to write to them my message was shared around all of their friends who found it hilarious and discussed it all over Facebook including one mocking the fact that I self-harmed. To be honest if I thought that anything like this was happening now it would break me completely and utterly. I try to be a good person, I made some shitty mistakes when I was younger and reckless (thanks undiagnosed bipolar for that) but I have never set out to hurt anyone intentionally. I suppose I’m just overly concerned because I’m insecure and what people think really does matter to me.

God I could really do with a fag and a good cry right now. I’m having to make do with an alcohol free beer. I was so tempted to go to the pub this afternoon and just drink to make all of this go away but I couldn’t be bothered to get showered and by the time I’d finally had a bath hubby was home and there was no way he was going to let me go. Sometimes I feel so alone even when other people are around. My mind is so full of stuff it almost doesn’t have any room to deal with anyone else. It’s lonely and it’s cold and somehow it feels good to be left to manage my thoughts on my own.

A year in the life

A year ago today I tried to kill myself for the second time in two weeks. I wasn’t messing around, I wanted out and that was the outcome I expected. Obviously it wasn’t the actual outcome as I’m sitting here writing this but my intention at that time was to die. After a few days in hospital and the joy of having the home treatment team looking after me (which you can read about in This is what mental illness looks like) I spent a long time recovering, getting used to a different medication regime and basically trying to be glad about being alive. I think I’m more or less there. There are days when it all gets a bit too much and there are times when the suicidal thoughts are more intrusive but on the whole I’m glad to be here.

So now that I’m here the next question is what to do with the time that I have. I feel pretty useless to be honest. I can get massively stressed out in seconds over the slightest thing and concentrating for any meaningful length of time is exhausting. I’ve managed over the last few months to build up to going to a yoga class and although I try to go every week it’s still not guaranteed that I’ll get there. As far as going out on my own goes, that’s about it. My comfort zone doesn’t extend much further than the house or car (and sometimes doesn’t even make it to the car) but I’m much better than I was at going out with hubby and can even do the weekly food shop with him now. Believe me, I know this sounds really lame but if you’d told me that I could go into a supermarket on a Saturday twelve months ago I’d have laughed in your face. Lol lol lol. I’m pretty sure that most people don’t realise this about me from social media or if they happen to see me when I am actually out and about. My mask is good. It’s soooo good. But it’s heavy and I’m too tired to wear it as often as I’d like. Anyway, despite being a general waste of space I’ve recently started drawing again at the suggestion of my yoga teacher. I got some new sketchbooks and pencils and things started to pour out of my brain and fill the pages. I’ve nearly finished one of the books and half-filled the other and the ideas keep coming. Some are abstract although I can see what they are, some are obvious and these tend to be darker images. When once I kept my drawings just for me now I share them in the hope that somehow they give an insight into how I see the world. So here are a few of this year’s doodles. Hopefully I’ll still be around to mark this strange anniversary again next year.

 

Sleeping with the enemy

I’m tired. I am so bloody tired. I’m not talking need-an-early-night tired. This is full on can’t-keep-my-eyes-open who-drugged-my-tea tired. Opening my laptop and attempting to write this is probably as much as I am going to manage to achieve today but that’s ok, it’s something and something is better than nothing. Last week featured lots of nothingness beginning with a weekend where I basically lay on the sofa watching films and tv shows. The rest of the week I still didn’t leave the house except to see my Psychiatrist on Thursday morning and the only productive thing (if you could call it that) that I managed was to do some drawing.

My mood has taken a bit of a bashing and things have seemed darker than they did a couple of weeks ago. Every night is filled with dreams of things that I don’t want to remember and every day is filled with thoughts of those dreams. They don’t leave me when I wake up but follow me around and seep into my daily life, contaminating everything they touch and leaving me feeling every emotion as strongly as if they were real. I’m exhausted and it’s as though I’m fighting a losing battle with my subconscious. When I’m not dreaming I can’t get to sleep, or if I do I wake in the middle of the night or the early morning. I suppose it’s no wonder I’m tired.

After a week of going nowhere I managed to pull myself together this weekend. I don’t mean ‘pull myself together’ as in I just decided I’d do some stuff instead of being lazy. I literally mean I dragged my arse out of bed kicking and screaming after saving up my energy for days knowing I would need every ounce of it to do so. It’s hard and I get frustrated when I want to do things and I just don’t have enough spoons. Anyway after a trip to Worcester to buy vegan cake we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon mooching around and finished with dinner at a Mexican restaurant that does amazing vegan options. Sunday was not so much fun but I managed to walk the dog, pick some blackberries, take some stuff to the tip, tidy up the garden a bit, cook a roast dinner and make a blackberry and apple pie for desert. That is A LOT of stuff for me to achieve in two days and now I’m paying the price. The tiredness is consuming me and I’m going to go and have a nap in a minute. Fingers crossed I don’t dream.

How to save a life

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I’m not sure what good having a specific day for this does in all honesty. Having my Facebook friends reading a post once a year didn’t help me on the occasions that I’ve attempted suicide. What saved me was being found in time and the emergency treatment I received. I’m not currently suicidal and for the majority of the time I’m glad that my attempts to end my life didn’t succeed. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think about suicide frequently. I plan ways to die, noticing specific places or items which I could use. I see myself lying dead and find the visions strangely comforting. This is a daily occurrence. I’m sure it’s hard to understand for anyone who has never experienced this kind of mental health problem but that’s just how things are. I’ve become able to spot when these thoughts are getting more frequent, vivid or disturbing and to increase my medication at these times. The main thing that I’ve learned though is that in order to prevent my own suicide I have to TALK ABOUT IT. I have to tell my husband, or my family how I’m feeling so that they can put my crisis plan in place and keep me safe. This in itself is the most difficult thing to do. I have to catch myself in the small window of opportunity where I recognise that my symptoms are increasing but before I reach the point where I lose all rational thought. If I do manage to catch myself in time then I have to endure being babysat. Anything that I could possibly use to hurt myself with is removed and I am watched like a hawk. By this point my mental health has sometimes deteriorated to the point that I am completely suicidal. Being stopped from ending my life is like being shut in a cage that is slowly getting smaller, crushing the life from me but without the release of death. It’s horrific and torturous. I hate everyone and everything for preventing me from dying. Death is the only thing that I can think about. It is everything. Eventually, after a few weeks or months, these thoughts reduce again and I’m glad to be alive.

The times when I have very nearly ended my own life were the times that I hadn’t told anyone about the thoughts, or had played them down, or had deliberately pretended everything was ok so that I could act on my urges. The theme here is talking. If I haven’t talked to anyone then there is no one to help me when psychosis takes over and logical thoughts are lost. If it wasn’t for my husband and my family there is no doubt that I wouldn’t be here today. Talking and being honest about having thoughts like this is scary. Believe me I know. Telling my parents the darkest parts of my mind was hard. Confessing to my Dad that I needed him to take the rope swing down from the tree because I was going to hang myself from it was definitely not easy. If I hadn’t talked about these things I wouldn’t be here now, I would have died on my living room floor or in my bed. No one would have thought to check on me because no one would have known the thoughts I was having. Talk to someone. Anyone. Phone Samaritans, call or text a friend and tell them what you are feeling. These thoughts and emotions aren’t rare, too many people die by suicide each year to believe that to be the case. Only by opening up and talking about suicidal thoughts and feelings can more help be made available and more lives saved.

 

This entry has been hard for me to write, not least because the content is close to my heart. I don’t feel that it covers everything or makes much sense which is probably because I don’t feel very present today and my mind is tired. For anyone who is on the opposite side of the coin, Samaritans have some great advice on how to listen which can be found here

Samaritans UK: call 116 123 free from any phone 24 hours a day or email jo@samaritans.org

 

 

Unwelcome Memories

I woke from a nightmare yesterday morning. The person who abused me physically and mentally when we were teenagers featured in my dream. In it I was still terrified of him, clinging onto my husband for protection before I emerged into the safe reality of the waking world. Because I’d woken so suddenly I immediately forgot about the dream and got on with feeding the dog, making tea and the usual morning stuff but it came back to me when I was in the shower. My stomach lurched at the memory of it, of him and what he did to me. I have no idea why I dreamt this now, I haven’t consciously thought about that time for years, in actual fact I’ve tried to forget about it as much as possible. But for some reason it came into my mind. Maybe it’s because someone else from my past came back into my life recently? Who knows? I thought I’d dealt with the issues he caused me and as far as I’m aware there isn’t any reason for them to come up again now. Perhaps my mind has just decided to torment me with something else. Thanks for that brain. Thanks a lot.

Back to Basics

It’s been a crappy couple of days and I feel in need of a fresh start. After about 4 months off the booze I ended up getting pissed on Friday night. It’s obvious that I’m all-or-nothing when it comes to beer, I can’t just have a few and then stop, it’s either stay sober or go on a bender. After Friday’s session I spent all of Saturday in bed feeling like death and I don’t feel much better today. Booze and my meds really aren’t a good combo so instead of drinking to avoid dealing with the crap in my head I’ll have to find better ways. Before I relapsed I was meditating and practicing yoga daily, reading and painting so I’ve got a toolkit of techniques I can use. My ‘I Am Sober’ app has been re-set to day one and I’m determined not to let myself down this time. It’s annoying because I’d been doing so well but with one thing and another over the last couple of weeks things started to slide. I’ve lost my motivation again and to be honest can’t be arsed to do anything that doesn’t involve being horizontal on the sofa or asleep. It’s at times like these it would be perfect to have a therapist available to chat about things but lets be honest, I’ve used my 12 allocated sessions so the NHS aren’t going to allow that. I was due to see my Psychiatrist last week but for the second time in a row it’s been cancelled at short notice and god knows when I’ll get rescheduled. So I’ll just have to sort myself out. Parity of Esteem my arse.

Going back to starting afresh, I’d decided to quit Facebook because of the amount of negativity I was finding on my newsfeed. What I wasn’t expecting was that I’d miss the positive interactions I have with family and friends so much. I think this more personal contact can tend to get over-shadowed by all of the sponsored pages etc which was why I had thought that closing my account wouldn’t matter to me. Anyway, after finding I had missed posts by family members and friends I’m back on the book but using it with more conscious thought and trying to make my feed as personal as possible.

So there we are. I have done jack shit all weekend and am enjoying the second day of a hangover that feels like the plague. My Instagram story revealed some totally embarrassing photo’s the day after the night before and the only good thing to come out of all of this is that I’m giving myself a shiny new start. Here’s to going back to basics.