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.

Luck

I wasn't going to blog tonight as William is out and Alfie asleep, I was going to have some 'me' time and watch a film whilst staring at the christmas lights.

But then I read an article about pregnancy and bipolar, in it I read of all the risks to mother and baby when you factor in a bipolar mother.

The choice I made, to continue my meds whilst pregnant, was a risky one and it made me afraid at every scan, every check-up, everyday... But I felt that the risk would be even higher if I stopped medication all together. I didn't have all too much of a choice anyway because I didn't find out I was pregnant until the 2nd trimester.

Still I continued with my medication - there were no defects to be found but I was still scared.

When I eventually went into labour it was long and scary - of course! But I may be the first woman to fall asleep in labour. Anyway I had been in labour for 8 hours and I thought that nothing was happening. But all of a sudden my room was full of nurses and doctors and before I knew it I was getting a spinal block and it was all over!

I had never been so happy as when I saw William holding his son, and then... I got to hold him. I can't even describe how it felt - there is a picture of our first cuddle and despite me looking absolutely revolting, it is my favourite ever photo.

Alfie had to be monitored for two days to see if my medication had affected him - so that was another 48 hours of agonising wait. Plus I was stuck in bed and Alfie seemed so far away in his clear plastic crib. I never stopped ringing the buzzer for the nurse - to ask her to check he was breathing or needed his nappy changed or if he was hungry!

When we were discharged as healthy - that was when I felt that we had done it. We were both okay.

William tells me that everytime I had a contraction, Alfie's heart-rate dropped and the doctors decided to perform a caesarean as a matter of urgency. This coupled with the risks make me wonder what kind of person I am.

Was there any way out? I think so. If I had stopped the medication then perhaps I would have come to harm but there was more of a chance that Alfie would have been okay. Continuing it meant that Alfie had to be monitored throughout and kept William and I worrying for months.

I know now that me and Alfie are healthy but I was just thinking about what leads us, as humans, to make decisions. Did I even make the decision or was I coerced into it by my doctors? I'm not sure I even remember a point when it was decided that I would potentially poison my baby before he was even born - but I never stopped it, did I?

I'm not sure what I'm saying but I was just wondering, dear readers, whether there is any way of analysing a decision, if in fact there is such thing as an autonomous decision.

From the back of beyond

Hello there readers, I hope that you are all well and have been finding your way through the world without my ramblings of wisdom!

So what's happened since June? Well Alfie has grown and grown, he is 3 weeks off his 1st birthday and I just can't believe it. It really seems like just a few weeks since I was pregnant with him. Looking forward to it and scared out of my mind - one year on I'm still scared out of my mind but now I have a beautiful and clever little boy to 'prove' to myself that I can't be doing that badly.

Christmas this year will be the best yet, our tree is up and although it might seem stupid I sit every evening and just stare at our tree. It's the best I've ever had - 7ft and really full, we realised that we put 113 decorations and 200 lights on it! I'm not sure why but it seems to me that it is full of hope, the 'spirit' of Christmas. It's Alfie's first experience and he loves it! I just can't wait to fill our lounge with presents for him - though I'm sure he'll be more interested in the wrappings and boxes, I don't care because the look on his face will be enough for me. It'll probably make me cry - but then, what doesn't?

What else? Well I started at university - again! I'm doing english and creative writing and so far, I am really enjoying it. I'm keeping up with the work and attending as many classes as humanly possible! I met with my new mentor today and she was lovely, she's going to help me with my planning and time management - keeping my diary organised and prioritising what work needs doing and for when. I'm hoping I'll get a little further this time.

And how about the alternate universe that is my mind? Not so simple! I had - foolishly - stopped taking my anti-psychotic medication before uni started because it made me extremely lethargic and generally slow. It all went well until last month when Alfie was very ill and had to go to hospital. I started to get obsessed with numbers, I add up every number I see - from digital clocks to telephone numbers. I look for patterns and do everything in groups of three - I began to get paranoid about the prevalence of the numbers 666 and 999. On top of that I have developed a severe twitch in my fingers. I don't realise when I start doing it but when someone alerts me then I have to finish - in my favourite fashion, groups of three...

Long story short, I'm back on the anti-p's. I didn't want to but my CPN convinced me that they (with my other medications) are the only way to cling onto the wellness I have worked so hard to maintain. Already they are making me hungry for junk and extremely sleepy. There are moments - especially mid morning when I can't really string a sentence together, so if I'm at home I join Alfie in nap-time. William has had to drive me to uni this week because I don't trust myself to stay awake. I am hoping that it'll all settle down and after Christmas I'll be back on track.

So there it is, 6 months in my life - not too exciting was it?!

It's been a while since I ventured into the land of blogging, and up until now I haven't really missed it. I've missed the interaction with my followers but have enjoyed living life, and not just talking about it.

But tonight is different... William is away on a camping trip, Alfie is in bed and I am left to my own devices. I have no-one to talk to in person, so I shall witter along to you.

It's been a few months since the robbery and a whole month since we moved. Things have changed a lot and for a while I almost slipped into a full-blown episode. What happened was bad enough. I was having little episodes when I could see myself dying, each moment of stress or fear or worry catapulted me into a dark little world. I was afraid to do anything, for fear of something happening. I thought that because I could see these things happening, they would eventually happen.

I'm ashamed to say that I also had a self-harm slip-up and ever since then I have felt nothing more than blind luck that William and Alfie are still with me, because I know if it ever happens again they will have to leave.

Since the move though, those little dark moments have evaporated. Even in brief moments of stress I have been able to remain calm and try to escape my 'end of the world' mentality. I have attended a confidence and communication course at the local YWCA and since then I can definitely feel a growth in my confidence levels. I wouldn't go so far as to describe myself as outgoing or even confident, but perhaps I have managed to shrug off that shy persona... just a little.

Our little trip down south went very well. Alfie's great-grandparents absolutely adored him and it was lovely for me to see them again too. We spent some time at their house and some time in Southampton too, just a little wander around West Quay and IKEA - of course. We drove back to Doncaster laden with books of mine and gifts for Alfie and when we arrived home I tidied it all away into new homes.

Tonight Will is out at a school reunion so it's just me and Alfie, we've had a little fun and he's had some milk and is now out for the count - until he gets hungry again of course!

Before Alfie arrived I always felt that I had failed. Yes I had a wonderful man to fall in love with, but also I had scars, crap A-Levels and no degree. I felt jealous of all my friends still living the student life, gaining qualifications and life experience and basically doing everything that my illness made me give up.

But now, now I have Alfie I feel like I have a purpose. Before I lived for William but now I live for Alfie too, and through the love that the three of us share I have started to live for myself. I buy myself (too many) new clothes, I had my hair styled and I'm making the effort to start - and stick to - a new diet.

What I think I'm trying to say is that you don't always have to get it right first time. I will always have scars, and probably always take medication - but I won't always live in the past. There is such a thing as a second chance, and if you realise it in time then you can make it work - no matter what's happened before.

Well, my 'little' boy is 12lb12oz at 8 weeks old. In fact he's 8 weeks old today and doing fabulously.

Tomorrow we are taking a little journey down South to see my grandparents, and to show off the little man. It'll be our first trip away as a family so we are excited! We've bought sandwich-making ingredients and lots of bottles are ready to be sterilised. It turns out that babies need a lot of things!

Hope you're all well.

Hello everyone

My little boy is 7 weeks old today and I'm sorry to say that rather than spending the day celebrating we took delivery of a new couch and went on a mission to IKEA. We needed some drawers for the bedroom and also picked up some shelves and little bits and bobs. Bargain of the day was 36 scented tealights for 50p, courtesy of the 'Bargain Corner'.

Each day I wake up and I am happy. I know that no matter how stressed I may get when he cries, or how many times he pees on my trousers I still have a perfect little boy to love and to care for. I love him with all my heart and could never have imagined this level of love without him. AND as an added bonus I have a bigger boy whom I also love with all my heart - sometimes I even get to care for him too!

A few days ago I drove myself to the doctors for the very first time. I have never driven our new car on my own and I felt so good about it that as soon as I got home, I went out again to pick up my prescription! The best part of it all was that William said he was proud of me. I'm still buzzing from that.

Today baby and I went into town on our own as William went out to play paintball with some friends for the day. We caught the bus and had a good look around, baby was as good as gold and again I felt like my confidence is getting better and better. I was worried that I couldn't cope on my own but now I know I can it really makes me feel stronger.

Finally my life seems to have a point. I not only have a loving fiance whom I will love forever and a day, but a beautiful baby boy who is mine to treasure and love.

My beautiful little man is perfect. And all I want is for him to be happy and safe.

In light of this I pledge to always take my medication... no matter what the voices say.

I pledge to talk to William when I am down and struggling.

I pledge to believe and trust William over the voices.

Here's to life as a mummy!