It’s been a rough few weeks with a lot of things happening. I’m still here but not sure if that’s something to celebrate. I feel I’ve been emotionally skinned alive. I’ve put my trust in the psychiatric services and they’ve turned me down repeatedly. I don’t know where to go from here. Suicide is still a definite option, but sometimes I also want to live. But becoming well is scary. It takes a lot of hard work and I don’t know if I’m strong enough anymore.

The CMHT turned me down because I mentioned during my assessment that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get well. I had a med review yesterday and the doctor halved my antidepressant because he said that raising it a month ago had made no difference. His hands seemed tied when it came to altering the quetiapine because NICE guidelines don’t let you medicate for BPD, only for it’s comorbidities. Presumably I was showing no signs of psychosis. He said that BPD is a lifelong disabling condition and I have to expect bad times.

He dismissed the possibility that my gastric bypass is causing my pills to not be absorbed properly. I overdosed a couple of days ago. The second time in the last month. I made them aware of that at my med review and they didn’t even suggest a blood test. I also slashed my wrist that night. It bled a lot and the pills knocked me out but I woke up the next day in the bath with the bleeding having stopped. Couldn’t face going to a&e again because I was too embarrassed.

I talked to the doctor about how every suicide attempt and bad episode of self harm has occured in the days before my period. His suggestion was evening primrose oil and a healthier diet, although at present I can’t even make myself a sandwich. I am currently getting about two hours sleep each night. He said he was sure I knew about sleep hygiene and he wasn’t about to prescribe me any sleeping pills.

So there we have it. No help from secondary services. A gp I don’t get along with. Oh there is apparantly the possiblity of DBT in the next couple of years where I live. They were very enthusiastic about that. I can’t see past today let alone two years.

 

If my diagnosis was bipolar rather than borderline personality disorder would I be refused treatment like this?

 

Today in the news a BPD woman has been sentanced to 37 years in prison for killing a random stranger in the street. Before she did so she had rung the emergency services 5 times, saying that she was about to hurt someone. She’d even gone to her local hospital to ask to be sectioned because she knew she wasn’t safe. The judge dismissed her mental state as manipulative behaviour and sent her to a normal prison. The psychiatrist stated that she ”only had bpd”. If someone like her can’t get help then what hope is there for the rest of us?

 

I’m trying to take each day as it comes. My friends want me to be here. I can’t make them understand that much as I value their friendship, it alone is not a good enough reason for me to stay alive. I have to be doing that for myself. And I’m struggling a lot with that now.

ESA Transfer. I knew it had to happen eventually but they don’t half pick their moments.

So the dreaded brown envelope dropped through the letter box today. I am to be assessed for transfer from the old Incapacity Benefit, Income Support and Severe Disablement Allowance, to see if I qualify for the new Employment and Support Allowance. An advisor will phone me in the next two weeks to make an appointment. I won’t answer the phone because I have major problems with that at present, due to anxiety, so they will probably just send me an assessment form out shortly.

I still haven’t heard back from the CMHT to see if they will put me on their books. Of course they will now think that I just manipulated them because I didn’t want to lose benefits.

I’m more fortunate than most benefit claimant in that I receive quite a large amount each month. But even so, I’ve struggled to cope financially in recent months, what with ever increasing gas and electric bills. There is absolutely no way I could cope on basic benefits.

I thought that when the letter finally arrived I would be distraught and scared. But it didn’t bother me at all. I just can’t get worried about it because I suppose I’m still not planning to be around for much longer anyway. I read so many horror stories about the ATOS medicals that I know it won’t matter if I tell them the truth or not. If they need to meet their quota they will declare me fit to work. I am never going back into the workplace again. It pushes every single button for me and makes me ill. I’ve tried repeatedly and lost each job to this BPD. I finally had some semblance of a normal life when my doctor told me not to work anymore. Doing a bit of housework and walking the dog is about my limit for the day. When I used to have a job I would exhaust myself from pretending to be normal all day, then come home to a house where the curtains were closed for years on end and you couldn’t see the floor for the mess. I fell out with all my colleagues because my paranoia affects all personal relationships. I had frequent thoughts of going postal. Now I am able to pick and choose my social interactions and it takes so much of the pressure off. I would be incapable of even walking into the job centre every two weeks to sign on, let alone go on one of their ridiculous job seekers courses. One way or another It’s just not going to happen.

In limbo

The CMHT team will have sat and decided what to do with me today. Presumably they will either phone or write to me in the next few days to tell me to feck off and manage on my own. It will probably be a letter, in order to avoid any confrontation. Had a nice half hour today planning which train line to sit on, but then had a nap and felt more together. I run out of meds tonight and can’t find my prescription anywhere in this tip of a flat. Was contemplating coming off them completely as a kind of self harm thing, by giving myself some horrible withdrawals. But I’m not sure I could cope with a week of no sleep.

Am watching old episodes of Blackadder as a distraction technique tonight, and eating some M&S hot cross loaf which is the yummiest thing I’ve eaten in a long time. No money now for another 3 days and only £3 left in the gas meter but I still shopped for food at M&S today lol. Sod sense and eat cake!

CMHT assessment

Well I made it there for 9am which was an acheivement in itself. Whether there was any point is another matter. The assessment was done by a trainee social worker, with her boss sat in with us. They basically just went through stuff which is all on my notes anyway, a brief history of my madness through the ages. A lot of the questions seemed to be leaning towards a way of offloading me onto someone else, such as ”have you ever thought of doing any courses at Mind?”, ”have you ever thought of doing any nightcourses anywhere else?”, ”so you have two friends who are a good support?”. No I don’t want to go to Mind as all their courses here are based at getting back into employment which I don’t want to do. No I can’t currently do any nightcourses because I don’t have the confidence or money and don’t like going out at night into town. And yes I have two fantastic friends but they don’t live anywhere near me and also have mental health issues of their own, which I don’t want to trigger by offloading my problems onto them.

They will discuss me at their team meeting on Tuesday and then will get back to me within the week. I’m pretty certain I will be referred back to my gp and will perhaps be given a medication review by a psychiatrist over at Bootham, our local hospital.

I probably came across as far too aware and together. The only time I showed emotion was when they asked about childhood, which is a difficult subject for me, and my leg betrayed me by shaking throughout. I didn’t tell them about my urges to selfharm and I didn’t really say how bad the suicidal thoughts are right now. It’s hard to be truthful when you are expecting to be rejected though.

So we’ll wait and see.

Why does feeling better feel wrong?

The last couple of days have been so much better. I’ve managed to complete some housework, walk the dog, read a book. I feel calm and relaxed. I don’t like it and I don’t trust it. How can I enjoy feeling well when it simply negates the maelstrom of emotions I felt last week? How can I be suicidal one day and considering home improvements the next? How can I present myself at the assessment with the community mental health team next week and ask for their help, when I don’t need or want it?

I still think about suicide but dispassionately. The urge has gone. But the thoughts are there because I feel I need to complete what I started. I feel guilt for having put my friends through so much worry. I am a manipulator, attention seeker. The only way I can prove those feelings were genuine is if I end my life. The only way I can prevent putting them through that again in the future is to end my life. Yes, people will grieve, but only in the short term. Better to put them through that than to keep coming back every few years demanding attention when I can’t cope on my own.

I think the main problem is that whilst not feeling down anymore, I am unable to see a good future. All I can envisage is being sat in some nursing home 40 years from now, looking back and knowing that my life had absolutely no meaning. I acheived nothing. What’s the point in that?

No job, no kids, no partner, no home of my own. Can’t drive a car, failed exams, repeated depressions and suicide attempts, self harm, lifelong eating disorder, personality disorder. I am defective. They’ve tried to break me down and put me together again and it failed. I failed. Don’t worry, I’m not going to top myself tonight. But knowing that is an option, that it is my fate, gives me comfort.

parasuicidal thoughts

I am inundated with these every day at the moment. the plans used to be more abstract and almost a comfort but lately they seem so much more real and demanding. They are worst in the afternoon when I try to have a nap and can’t. I get really tired during the day and a couple of hours sleep on the sofa used to be something I looked forward to.

But they are mostly thoughts of attempting suicide and being rescued and hospitalised. My overdose last weekend didn’t result in this. I fell asleep and woke up the next day. My first thought that I was lucky so that must show I don’t want to die.

But I have this urge to increase the seriousness of the attempts and to take more risks and am fairly ambivelent about the possibility of death.

Today I thought about going down to the railway line, drinking some alcohol and taking enough quetiapine to knock me out, then lay next to rather than on the line and wait for someone to notice and come get me. the risk being of course that I’ll get confused and stumble onto the tracks anyway.

Then I thought that perhaps that would be a good thing if it happened. I know I wouldn’t have the guts to do it unless I was able to pass out and go to sleep on the tracks.

I think about going down to the local park and hanging myself and seeing if anyone will notice in time to cut me down and rescuscitate me. Or sitting on the bridge over the river in the middle of the city and falling off and seeing if the police boat finds me in time.

Common theme is of course being rescued. Of putting my life in someone elses hands.

but on top of this is a feeling of inevitability. Of knowing that at sometime in the future, maybe years from now, a suicide attempt will kill me. And of feeling that it’s ok, that I want it to, that it is my fate.

A BPD translation tool for the Mental Health Professional

You say: You have great insightI think: Don’t patronise me!

You say: What do you want us to do for you? I think: I want you to listen and be kind to me and say you care and tell me it’s not fair. I need you to come to my house and help me open my mail and hold my hand whilst I listen to 3 months worth of voicemails, but I can’t possibly tell you that or you’ll think I’m needy so I’ll need to make some stuff up about needing help with setting goals or creating a crisis management plan.

You say: Did you know you can phone in for a repeat prescription to save you coming to the surgery? I think: He hates me. He doesn’t want me here. He wishes I would go away and die. Everybody hates me.

You say: You show no signs of mental illness I think: Why does nobody beleive me anymore? Why are my low moods less real than a depressives? Why did you tell me I was mentally ill for 20 years then suddenly tell me I was just badly behaved? Where do I fit? How do I hope to get better if I’m not sick in the first place? Try spending one day as me and then tell me this isn’t mental illness. What do I have to do to prove to you that I hurt inside? Do I have to cut or overdose again to make you see I’m in pain?

You say: Hospitalisation is no good for you I hear: We don’t care if you kill yourself.

You say: Do you feel like hurting yourself tonight?I think: I don’t know how I’m going to feel 5 minutes from now, but if I say yes you’ll think I’m lying and send me home anyway, and if I say no, you’ll be pleased with me for sticking to the script and letting you off the hook, so I’ll say no and just not let anyone know if I injure myself.

You say: Have you thought of getting a job?I hear: Why are you living off the state. There’s nothing wrong with you and I’m going to say as much for your next ATOS medical.

You say: I’ve had a good read of your notes I think: I may as well go home now.

You say: I feel you’re at low risk of completed suicide I think: Next time I need to do it properly and you will lose your job for not beleiving me. And I know that’s fucked up but I don’t care about risking my life I just want to prove to you that I am serious about not wanting to be here anymore.

You say: This is all just part of your condition. I feel: It’s my fault for being a bad person.

You say: We can offer you some short term helpI feel: You think I’ve manipulated you into doing this. It’s a token gesture. You’re going to dump me like everyone else because you don’t think I’m genuine. You don’t care. Nobody cares. there’s no point in me taking the help because I can’ open up to someone who doesn’t want to hear.

 

 

I might as well just cut and paste from 3 years ago.

Because I’m back there again. I don’t usually re-read old diary or blog entries. Why learn from the past when it’s so much more interesting to make lots of fresh new exciting mistakes? But today I came home from a&e and did a google search on CMHT’s and borderlines (more on that later) and up popped my old friends at Crazy Nurse, which in turn led me to this old blog.

So, A&E. In a bpd nutshell: decline, isolation, low moods,shaved head,worried mental friends,  intervention, a&e visit, sent home, overdose, long lovely day of sleep, mental health support line, emergency doctor on phone, narky GP receptionist, forced trip to a&e, bloods, ecg, Dougie Howser MD lookalike, psych consult, tears, home again, upcoming assessment with CMHT (shitting myself) Emmerdale on TV, new hazlenut chunky kitkat (yum), emotionally drained.

anyway that’s my week.

nice to be back. more to follow from tomorrow i promise. hope a few of my old friends are still about xx

Shhh! don’t let anyone know I’m mental!

Haven’t been here for a very long time unfortunately. I tend to be like that with projects. Start them off then get bored, then a few years later I come across the remnants of some art and craft stuff in a box, usually worth a small fortune, and remember that I was going to be the next big thing in knitting / card making / painting / sculpture with fymo etc etc. The most recent was fairy cakes. I bought tons of stuff for them, including several recipe books, ten different colours of icing etc, then made some buns which came out tasting something like suet.
So anyway, the blog. I guess the reason I haven’t been here is that bpd has just taken a backseat for a while now. I’ve been stable.
I don’t know if that’s down to the meds or simply because I’ve done everything I can to destress my life, but things have just been ok.
Don’t get me wrong I still have my moments. Occasional low moods, big shopping sprees, compulsive eating (more on that to come) and general feelings of grumpiness. But I’ve tended to find that when shit happens, it doesn’t bother me like it used to.
to be honest I’m pretty certain it’s down to the quetiapine. It’s hard to get stressed when you’re doped up to your eyeballs. It still takes my tongue several hours to wake up each morning. I call that the kerry katona effect.

I have however found the cure for depression! His name is Baxter and he is an 11 month old beautiful red boxer dog, who came to live with me as a little puppy and changed my life completely. I actually leave the house three times per day now, or two when it’s raining, because I have to take him down to the field for his walks. I actually have to talk to other dog walkers on there, and guess what? I enjoy it.
Of course Chloe the cat took umbrage and left home shortly after Baxter’s arrival. She still turns up occasionally for food and even came indoors when it was snowing, but she appears to have relocated to another home. I’ve tried everything to entice her in and even forked out for an outdoor cat kennel (deluxe version bought during a manic spree) which is used by most of the cat population on our street.
So Baxter is curled up next to me snoring away, no doubt dreaming of his dalmation girlfriend or the sausages in my fridge.
The sausages are his, not mine. I’m on the slimfast plan. Only occasionally I supplement it with Haagen Daz icecream. The reason for the diet? I’m on the waiting list to have a gastric bypass. Yes I’m taking the ‘easy way out’ hahah. Major and life threatening surgery in a last ditch attempt to look normal. It’s taken a year to get onto the list and I had to pay for private cbt before tptb would accept that I was sane enough to deal with the post op diet.
So that’s another reason why bpd has taken a back seat. I CANNOT BE SEEN TO BE ILL. So I can’t phone the helpline or let my gp know things aren’t great. I can’t self harm and I can’t be hospitalised. And you know what? Having the operation as a goal seems to have really helped me to stay on track. The cbt didn’t help at all. £90 per hour got me a lovely decorated room to sit in and spill my guts, but homework has never really been my thing. Maybe it’s the exercise I’ve been doing which has kept me well. Who knows?
but the upshot is that I’m doing really well for now, I should be much thinner soon, and I’ve postponed my next relapse until after the surgery lol.

Things that aren’t going so well:
dad’s cancer came back and is terminal. He suffers a lot of pain right now and we’re in the process of waiting to see if he can take part in a clinical trial to buy him some more time.
Also, I feel as though I’m waiting for the sword of damacles to fall. Yep, the welfare reforms. So is there anyone out there who would like to give me a job?
I can work afternoons providing I can have an hours nap during my shift. Or I could work mornings as long as speaking isn’t required. I’ll need an average of 3 months off per year to go cry into a pillow and I’m not great with people so a nice little booth of my own with a Leave Me Alone sign on it would be great.
Work history? Well nothing for the last 4 years or so. Let’s just say ‘travelling’ shall we? Prior to that, hmm lets see. I can spin on a chair very fast and you’ll see a huge increase in your office vending machine profits. I’m fantastic at debating, although i will require a week off if everyone doesn’t agree with me. I make great coffee too, and only spit in it for one week out of four.
Oh I’d need to bring the dog with me. He has abandonment issues.

Back from the darkside

Doesn’t time fly when you’re a depressive? I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last posted. Sorry to anyone I may have worried by being absent. I’ve been isolating myself from almost all who know me, both on the net and in the ‘real world’. That doesn’t mean that things have been particularly bad. I just started to feel like all I ever talk about or think about is mental health. I’ve begun to feel very bored of myself. Yet I can’t escape it. I think about mental health issues probably as often as a teenage boy thinks about sex. They govern my life. If it’s not anxiety, it’s low moods, or voices, or aggressive thoughts, or pictures of my death. I am scared of being by myself, of having so much free time to sit and ponder where I have failed in my life, to make plans for my early demise, to worry about going completely ga ga, or to look forward to going completely ga ga. In the last few weeks I haven’t been able to cope with downtime. At home I need the constant reassurance of the background noise from the tv, or a book to read, anything to occupy my brain. Because as soon as I don’t have that distraction, the thoughts come back.

Unfortunately I then go through days of not being able to bear the noise from the tv. People’s voices are too loud and irritating. When I try to read the text jumps around and I can’t manage more than a page. Sleep evades me, despite the medication. I feel wound up so tight I’m going to explode. But fortunately this temporary madness seems to disappear just before it gets so bad that I can’t cope with it anymore.

It has been an eventful few months. Dad recently received his all clear from cancer. He is physically very well again but it appears to have left him with Victor Meldrew Syndrome aka grumpy old fart disease.  I lost three stone on the lighter life diet, which is basically a starvation diet which brought on the symptoms of anorexia. Now I’m back to bingeing each day and regaining all the weight. My nuisance neighbour has calmed down after being threatened with court proceedings if he continued to harrass the rest of the street. I spent the summer watching Big Brother and staying up too late, which is probably what has caused my recent relapse. Now I’m looking forward (not) to that time of year where the days draw in again and I start to evaluate what I have acheived in the last year. Of course that makes me feel low again because I’ve done nothing but drift through the year, spending my days shopping, eating and sleeping.

I desperately need some structure in my life. A daily routine which involves more than just trying to get dressed and go out to buy cigarettes. I’m stuck in this rut and terrified of crawling out of it. I’m dreading the upcoming changes in the benefit system where I will most likely be told to get a job. Being around people, dealing with targets, just getting dressed and showering regularly is just too much right now. It’s been too much for several years. But that’s partly because when you don’t have to try anymore, you end up going backwards. I’m far less capable than I was three years ago. But is that because my mental health has deteriorated? Or is it because I have given up? A kick up the backside from the job centre might be good for me. But it might also send me into a BPD spin and end up with another trip to hospital. Now that Dad is better, I feel less inclined to hold on and stay well myself. If it wasn’t for the cat I’d probably have given up months ago. But I know I can combat those feelings by getting out and about and meeting friends etc. It’s just that the 5 yr old in me is screaming ”I DON’T WANNA”.

Oh and I finally got round to having Sky + installed and bought a nice big tv. I have become the stereotypical benefits scrounger. My goal for the next year should be to get pregnant and buy a Staffy.