Hormonal

I'm not sure how or what to write in this blog, because I haven't decided who can read it yet. Do I let Facebook know? Or Twitter? Or both? Maybe I should just write for me, for a change. Get it all out.

There have been a few changes in my life since I last wrote, namely an unexpected problem with my physical health. I had a routine blood test to check the levels of my medication in my blood, and it came back with abnormally low levels of a hormone. This was in August. Due to a slight screw-up on the part of my GP I didn't find out until I saw my CPN in November, so she advised I had them checked again, soon.

So off I trot to the phlebotomy clinic at DRI and then off I go to wait for a week for the results. It turns out that the levels have gotten even lower, and so I ask my GP for advice. She is vague and quite unhelpful, she says that with my symptoms and blood work the only thing she can suggest is a tumour in my pituitary gland. She says she'll write to an endocrinologist for advice and that I should call in 3 weeks to check.

All through this I have the support of a brilliant friend, so I try to put it to the back of my mind. I reason that if it was serious, she would have referred me straight away. I reason that the statistics are good, from what she has told me (only 30% chance of cancerous growth).

But on Friday I received a letter, a referral for the endocrinologist in 10 days time. It says on the letter that the referral has been so speedy because cancer is suspected.

So I panic. My sister-in-law-to-be was there so I kept it together. I repressed it. I didn't talk about it to William. Last night though I had a crushing pain in my chest, a dull ache that felt just like an overwhelming sadness. I'd felt the same the day before but managed to fight it. Last night though, I couldn't fight it. I cried and shook.

I know the chances are good, brilliant even. But it doesn't get rid of that word, the dreaded word.

I need to keep my mental health together, so have been diligent in taking my medication. I need to make sure that, just in case, I don't completely fall apart.

I'll be fine, I'm sure.

Woah

Can't believe that it's been over a month since I have blogged and also since I was discharged from crisis, attempted suicide and all that other junk.
Since then I worked on getting better, I really did. But also I got a little idea. That something was wrong with my medication. I thought it was being tampered with to drug me up more than I already felt.
So I stopped taking it, clever me.
I got angry and shouty and had horrible urges to just burst out at anyone and everyone who tried to help me.
I ran away after an argument, then I came back. I made my apologies and I swallowed my pills.
I will have to do this for the rest of my life.
Why the hell my little family and my few friends still associate themselves with me, I shall never know.
Some days I wish I were in hospital again, or the respite house at least. For some peace, and some sleep.

I didn't know what to name this post, so I have left it without a title.

Today I had felt better, had nothing but good things on my mind. Until this evening that is.

We were watching a medical drama and suddenly my mind was full of thoughts of hospitals, and my last visit. Why was I there? Because I wanted to die. Why did I leave early? Because I wanted to live. How can that be? How can emotions change so quickly and suddenly? Did I really want to live or did I just feel the need to apologise for what I had wanted to do?

I've seen the effect that attempted suicide can have, I've caused it. More than once. I've never done it properly - obviously. So I've seen the aftermath. The shouts and the tears. I've seen pain that I have caused and it must match the pain I feel inside.

Not entirely sure where this post is going, so please forgive me for my incomprehensibility.

I wonder what would've happened to me if I had stayed to go up to the MAU, am I still dying inside? Is that a gross over-exaggeration? I've spoken to, and been reassured by, a psychiatrist, that I'm not in fact dying and whilst bipolar disorder slightly lowers the morbidity age amongst its sufferers it is not likely that my death is imminent.

Sometimes I wish I had stayed in hospital. That's selfish because my family needed reassurance and I needed to provide that. But it was calm in hospital, laying on a trolley connected to monitors and drips. Would they have helped me more? Would the crisis team have come? What would they have done?

These are all questions that I will never know the answers to. All I know is that I have caused pain, because I felt pain. Pain for pain? That's not something I ever want to be responsible for again.

Dr D

There is a new man in my life. Dr D, the psychiatrist.
I visited him this afternoon and basically, poured my messed-up little heart out. He seemed to listen more than any other health professional since the infamous Dr H of 2005-2007.
I went to him full of ideas that bipolar was an incorrect diagnosis and that I didn't really need 6 pills a day just to keep me functioning.

But, very gently, he crushed my dreams.

I do have Bipolar Disorder/Manic Depression. I also have what was referred to as a Non-Organic Psychotic Disorder - I've yet to find out what that exactly is.
And just to top it all off, those pills have been increased.

How do I feel about this 'bombshell'? Well it's almost a relief. I have a definite diagnosis and treatment plan all designed to help me navigate this particular period of illness and guard against such severe ones in the future. All of this from a psychiatrist that I actually trust.

That tiny sliver of hope is growing, it's fragile, but I am trying desperately to nurture it.

Here goes...

...it's been a while, but now I'm ready.
A little poem for you all, based on self-harm.

To tear away
To work at my skin
Peel back the layers
Now I can finally begin.
To feel the pain
To gain some control
Not to die
But to save my soul.
To kill and maim
To rip it apart
Feel it slipping away
The blood from my heart.
To wake each day
A tear drips down
To sleep each night
I'll try not to drown.

Now that's out of my system, thank you for listening.

Turmoil

So since you last heard from me I... took an overdose.
Tuesday afternoon, a silly argument and the rest of my medication was down the hatch, as they say. The paramedics were lovely, the nurses were lovely but my mind was not. I discharged myself against medical advice after 5 hours of blood tests and ECGs and an IV drip. I had a splitting headache and felt violently sick - but I wanted to be home.
I had some apologising to do, to friends and to family and most of all to my boys. I will never be able to apologise enough, because I tore our family apart. I was selfish and I know it now.
The voices are back - telling me I should be dead, even that I might still die because I left hospital early. But I do have an appointment with a lovely psychiatrist on Monday and hopefully he will help me.
Also I got a tattoo, a beautiful butterfly. It's on my last scar-free patch of skin under my wrist and I hope its beauty and the difficult times I got it in, along with the beautiful man who gave me the confidence to do something for myself, will help me to positively see my way through future patches of depression and despair.

Dan Saff

So I've been 'Down South' for the weekend, it wasn't a planned trip - I just realised about 40 miles outside Southampton that it was my Grandad's birthday today. (Later to be discovered, his 80th...)

Me and my boys spent the evening in the city, had dinner and snuggled into a big bed for the evening. We woke up to a sunny morning and spent it in Winchester - shopping and eating and generally enjoying ourselves.

Then we took Grandad to lunch and the garden centre. It was all going so well until we were just leaving....

A killer blow from my Grandma on behalf of my beloved sister. The whole damn family have an obsession around preventing my happiness.

So I cried on the way home and here I am back to where I started a few weeks ago. Feeling on the edge, with an unhealthy attraction to sharp implements.

Isn't crisis supposed to be short term?

So this time last week I was in the crisis house, affectionately named 'Haven'. It was calm and peaceful and I had no responsibilities and even avoided the TV all night. I sat and read my book and messaged my heart out to William and friends. I made noodles and a cup of tea.

I breathed.

The next morning I woke up panicked. I wanted to leave, I had to get out. I met Gary on the way to the kitchen and he was so drugged up I couldn't understand what he was saying to me - he had been comprehensible the night before in the reading room.

So I ran. I booked a taxi and ran. I got home in full-blown panic mode convinced that the crisis team were coming back to get me.

Needless to say my escape did not go down well with the staff at Haven, but crisis team reminded me that I wasn't under section so could have left any time I wanted. Maybe my distressed, panic-stricken self could have been told that one earlier!

I didn't get on well with the Doctor they sent, she commented on how low my anti-depressant level was and how I needed anti-anxiety medication - then crushed me with a comment of 'oh well never mind'...

So since then I have been on daily visits. Trying to get meds adjusted. Trying to stop crying.

I'm told that I look better - I've showered and done my nails and everything. But I still want to hurt myself. Still feel I shouldn't be here.

But hey, I'm alive - right?

Crisis Status: To be Confirmed

Crisis team came and were lovely. They are getting me a bed in a crisis house for the short-term and sending a psych out to adjust meds first thing in the morning.

Feeling very bad this evening. Have hurt myself again.

Give up? Why not

5 hours

I want to be pretty and slim like my friend. I want to be happy and positive.

But I can't be those things - I've really tried. For years.

It feels like this is the end of the road. Maybe I do need hospital. I'm clinging on but not sure what daylight will bring.

Listening to dawn chorus sounds like the last memory I'm making. I want Alfie to wake up so I can say goodbye just in case. William is asleep too. Everyone is I think.

So much pain.

T minus 6.5 hours

That's how long it is until my crisis assessment.

Feel rather a waste of resources as they're coming to my house and everything.

I've been bad. Voices and suicidal. So I called and they're coming...

Will they adjust my meds? Dose me up on Valium? Or just cart me away?

Watch this space

Hindsight

I was talking to a friend last night about my little accident and he asked if it could have been prevented. This question really made me think. In the heat of the moment can self-harm be prevented? Or is it something which once you've made your mind up, it's going to happen no matter what?

For me the other day it wasn't an idea which popped into my head and then I thought it over, it was a 'spur of the moment' thing. I saw an implement, I felt disgustingly bad and so I did it. I did it more than once, in a rather stupid place for the upcoming summer season, and for the moment I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the punishment and the hurting because once it was happening I realised that it had been building up for quite some time.

Maybe I'm kidding myself and saying that it was inevitable because once a cutter, always a cutter. But really it did feel like something I should have done to myself. I'm full of self-loathing most of the time that to actually feel that was almost a relief.

Until afterwards of course. When I was disgusted. When I took Alfie to the park and his cousin and my mother and sister-in-law were there. All I wanted to do then was go back to being a good mum and fiance, or at least my daily struggle to be both of those things!

Everything has settled down now. Dressings are off but sleeves still firmly on. I still feel like a gaping black hole of nothingness, but y'know, who doesn't?

In Remission

Things had been going so well. I made the transition from one anti-psychotic to another with limitless finesse - you'd think I'd done it before or something - and I was even more awake, losing weight and generally being a poster girl for "Bipolar: In Remission"

Then I got ill, well not drastically, I got tonsillitis. Anyway it knocked me and made me sleep and sleep and sleep. It made me snappy and grumpy. Nobody knew where they stood around me. I didn't know where I stood about myself.

So then today we argued, William and I, about something silly. It had been brewing all day but just culminated with a few choice words and slammed doors. Mainly my words and doors.

And that was it; the closest pocket-knife was mine as soon as I laid eyes on it. And I did it. Again and again. I'm not even sure how many times because I ran to the bathroom for toilet paper and then put a black cardigan on.

Then we made up, cried and took Alfie to the park. Later William dressed it for me and I haven't looked. I can't look. I'm dreading the shower tomorrow morning.

And there we have it.