This Is Me

Sometimes it’s as if you can’t hear what I'm saying, as though my words have no real meaning to you. I am serious about what little I can allow you to know of what goes on in my mind. It is as if my thoughts are once thought then re-echoed a thousand times, a repeat of a repeat of a repeat…..

Endlessly I fumble with the same transactions which spring up and haunt me. Thoughts of plans and preparations, endless lists of jobs to do, places to go, people to see, futures to arrange. I try to sleep, but a thousand words get in my way. And when I dream a million images fight for attention, crowding in on each other, all semi-connected, yet separate. When I speak, what comes out of my mouth is not the same as the thoughts in my head. I have to concentrate to stay on track, all the while fighting with deadlines, priorities, decisions which I am in no fit state to make. I think of big issues, such as harm coming upon my family, the children of Cernavoda, the victims of terrorist attacks, my fear of travelling. I think of minor inconsistencies  which others scold me for even considering, yet weigh heavily and threaten to overpower me. I write shopping lists in the air, plan meals, book events, write greetings cards; devise lists for housework, pay bills, I know exactly what I am doing next week, next month, next year. Yet I am unable to face all the challenges, so I panic, I retreat, I blank off. If I try to tell you I can’t cope, you laugh. You remind me of small past achievements and scoff at the idea of me not managing my future. Yet you can’t see the jumble of nightmares intertwined with shopping lists, filling up the car with petrol, living another hour…..

You only see the positive things that come out of this shell. You can’t understand my fear of failure when it seems to you that I have succeeded. You can’t see the million tears hovering on the edge of reason. You can’t feel the churning in the pit of my stomach, how I have to remind myself to breath sometimes, how my head feels like exploding with the myriad problems I am trying, and failing, to deal with. You think I want to feel like this? That I have a choice? How I would love to cease this endless ramble into insanity, to be still and not think, not dream, not be.

I know I'm crazy, mad, insane, stupid, pessimistic, but this is me.

I really can’t help it.

Inside a Canister

I feel like I am in a canister, where no light gets in, and I can't get out, but inside I am fragmenting, disintegrating into a million pieces, yet no one can actually see me breaking up. I can't remember what it feels like any more to be happy and not broken, yet another part of my brain knows this is not how I always am. I want to feel happy, to laugh spontaneously and to not keep fighting the complicated algorithms in my brain...if I do this, then the consequence is this...

I feel paranoid, that I am being watched and listened to. I even feel responsible for the A & E crisis, as I know if I do anything then I will only add to the long lists that really ill people are on. So then I plot and plan to make sure I get it right; until I picture my granddaughter and feel her arms around my waist...

I am like a hamster on a wheel that I can't get off. I am booked to see a psychiatrist and I am expected to have phone calls from CPN...when I can hardly bring myself to speak to the people I want to talk to. How did I get back here? I almost don't remember. But I don't want to carry on this trajectory. I almost want to yearn myself better. I am sure I can do it, and then I can cancel all this nonsense; get back to normal life. If there is such a thing.

How does one get help?

So, I wake up to the same old thought over and over and over. It impedes my ability to converse or engage in any decent way. It stops me being able to think clearly, to make decisions or to make any headway in my working life.

I also have a problem that I can't really tell anyone. To put this onto one person would be unfair. But I look over each day wondering when I can carry out my plan. How much time alone can I glean out of the day? I have prepared a pack- blade, 6 x 100mg Quetiapine, 6 x 10mg Diazepam and a navy towel. I have thought hard about this, and a light coloured towel would be too traumatic for the person who finds me.  A letter to my loved ones is enclosed.I test the soft skin across my wrist.

It is such a comforting thought that I run to it again and again and again. This to me would be a gentle end to the constant torment in my head and this vast, fathomless depression which has swept me up and carried me away from reason and life.

So if I get to that point, do I ring my GP? But what if she's not working that day? Do I ring my friend E? No, that's too cruel to do to a friend, who's been such a support. It's almost like throwing all that support back at the people who have been so good to listen to my endless jumbled ramblings.

Then the whole A & E business hits me in the face. If I tried (and failed) I would be looked on with contempt....a time waster, a bed blocker, when there are people who are REALLY ill.

So I will do it silently, and in the peace and quiet of my own home.

Then the pictures come fast and furious again...the grandchildren; how on earth do you ever explain this to a child who loves you unconditionally? You can't. Even my grown up children would never in a million years understand how they weren't enough to keep me alive. I would be a traitor to all their love and compassion. And M, M, M, who would probably have to find me, if I didn't call out before then.

So then I realise that my love for them is too strong. I can't do it, can I? I am too passionate, too in love with them, and I cannot bear to look at the future for them, if I did what I really want to do.

So I am stuck in a kind of purgatory. I can't stay in this world, but I can't leave either. What a mess. And so the cycle of punishing thoughts continue on for another hellish 24 hours. I wish I could get off this train.

Howl in the Darkness

It’s dark inside these walls,

For there is no window of hope

To chase away the blackness.

And the wind, the wind

Howls through cracks in vulnerability,

Chasing down the corridors of fear,

Until you lie

Face down upon the ground,

Hands fastened to your ears

Attempting to drown out the silence of

All the pain you’ve endured,

But to no avail -

It’s got you again,

This time

Has to be the last

Goodbye.

February 23rd 2015

Care in the community...what does it mean to you? It is supposed to mean that folk with mental distress have access to professionals who can offer hope and help in their hour of need.

My last depressive episode started at the end of October after a period of mania. For the last few years, I have managed my mental health relatively well on my own, and with the help of a fantastic GP. This time, for whatever reason, I have been unable to pick up, and my mood has been so low, and my thoughts verging on the psychotic. I have also expressed suicidal thoughts many times, and written them down.

As the depression took hold, I lost my powers of coherent speech, and was unable to express myself, so withdrew even further. To even reach out and ask for help became more and more difficult. I cut myself off from friends and family.

With the help of a dogged, determined friend, who seemed to understand my difficulties communicating, I was able to get some limited help from my GP, as I wrote down everything, and she sat in the surgery with me, and helped me out when I became 'word stuck'.

My GP decided I needed urgent referral back to the Psych Team, but warned that with Christmas and the New Year approaching, this may not happen as quickly as she wished it would.

Finally, my 'urgent' referral came through for 28th January..yes, that's now a month ago. Once more, I took my sheets of paper explaining how low my mood was, how psychotic my thought patterns were, and how suicidal I felt. I sat and tried to communicate for nearly two hours to a stranger (My former psychiatrist had since left). 

All I really recall of that meeting was how tough it was, and how I was asked what help I wanted! I had gone hoping I would be offered help! I am not in a good place to sort myself out at present. I signed a form to say that I wanted a copy of the letter she would send to the GP.

I have waited, and waited, and waited....and heard nothing at all. I have phoned 5 times to ask to speak to the CPN who sat in with me (For I don't even know if I have been reassigned a care coordinator) and have heard nothing back. So I rang the secretary, who of course wasn't there. Another secretary looked into it for me, but could find nothing!

I saw my GP this morning, as I had loads of queries regarding my medication, but she also feels out of her depth, as she has had no word from psych team either.

So, as a suicidal 'urgent' case, it is now two months since my referral, and I am no nearer receiving any help whatsoever from the CMHT. What do you have to do to get help?? 

Too Many Words

How is it that I can hardly breath

When the room is full of air?

Where can I go?

How can I leave?

When I feel so low.

Nowhere.

Nowhere is good

With its vacuum of words,

And my thoughts-unheard

Have free rein.

And the pain

Can be released.

Into the void

Stillness, nothing, space,

Scream, slice.

But it seems that

Noise returns,

With its size 12 boots,

And leaves their tread

Upon the thoughts

Inside  my head.

I try to quieten the roaring hell,

But the voices scream, ‘Don’t tell! Don’t tell!’

Words cannot be endured,

Must be ceased.

Time to Talk! 5th February 2015

Today is Thursday 5th February and I thought it was about time to talk. It is all about ending the stigma of mental illness, and we can't do that if we keep quiet. I am still deeply in the midst of a long depressive episode, but I keep reminding myself it will end, as it always does. But oh! How I long for the high! I can't even manage five minutes talking today, so will try for five minutes of writing.

The Silent Scream

If these utterances could be clothed,

And made presentable,

Then is it at all possible

I may be understood?

But silence has a habit

Of closing in around

The scream,

Leaving it unheard.

Leaving me without a voice,

Without a choice.

Darkness falls,

But it's not still,

Only ill

Can come of this

Thick, cloying, velvet blackness.

Name it!

Shame it!

But you can't, can you?

The Life (and death) Cycle of the Bi-Polar Depressive

As I am starting a new blog, I am posting thought that I wrote down in date order, interspersed with poetry. This was written in November 2006, but still feels like my head today!

I cautiously open my eyes. 7am. That's good. 8am. Very good. Well, a good deal better than 1am, 3am, 4.15am, 5am, 6am. By then my mind is screaming. It is very windy outside, so I get up and close the windows. That's better. It is still blustery, but I can't hear it. That's how it feels inside my head today. The last few days have felt like the terrible storms of '87, and I fully remember the damage that they wreaked.

How can I describe the rise and swell of a rapid cycle bi-polar experience? Only by describing the last one in full detail. Was it really only last Monday when I saw my consultant and told her that I was fine again? She was so pleased to hear me laugh and hold a coherent conversation. It is only by studying my mood diary that I can follow the drift upwards, the hopes and dreams of reclaiming a shattered life; of planning and looking forward to writing, caring and enjoying my family once again.

But then, overnight, my mood begins to tumble and go into free fall, even though I fight it with every inch of my free will, and every ounce of medication I can lay my hands on. Within days the dark had become blackest of black. I resort once more to self-harm in an attempt to stay with reality, but it's no good. I find myself cutting off from my family in an attempt to preserve their worries, although I know deep down this is a futile exercise. They only worry about the lack of contact.

Then I am at the heart of my own private tsunami. Random, unattached thoughts battle for top priority, but I cannot cope with them , and fear rises like bile. I lie down and try to sleep, but the voices become louder and louder. I want to kill myself, violently, passionately. Where are the pictures that offer me protection? The images of my partner ,children, grandchildren? My so-called 'protective factors'? I can't pull them into the front of the bloody battlefield, and I can only listen as the voices relentlessly battle for prime place in my wrecked mind. Who will win? I try to think of calming images, breathing techniques, scripture verses; try to find an 'inner place of stillness'....hell, I have studied the subject enough. I should know how to deal with this! But this just adds another condemning voice to the sick choir.

I plan to go and hang myself. Shut up! I can't do that; it would utterly destroy my beautiful family. Do it! Do it! No! I want to sleep. Stop thinking, stop talking, stop overriding each other! Get in the car and drive. Take as many tablets as you can, slash your wrists....do it! In my head I walk down to the garage, but another voice tells me to stop. Then I am repeating all these voices to myself, as I try to quiet my mind, but the torture continues, and more join in.

In a panic, I get out of bed, and take 10mg Diazepam. I save these only for the blackest periods, as I want them to work, and I am so worried about over-dependence. One tablet should be enough for any lesser mortal, but I have the constitution of a horse when it comes to medication. How come I am having such dreadful swings of mood, when I am on mood stabilisers? How can I have such wicked voices in my head when I am on heavy doses of anti-psychotics? God only knows I have tried every combination of drugs, fish oils, diet, prayer....

I sit with my partner and gradually the tranquillizer takes effect and I start to feel drowsy and the noise in my head subsides, but I know that it will only be for a short period. The following wakeful night is spent once more in bloody battle. Why is it these dramas always take place when help is unreachable? I can't phone the CRISIS team as I have little faith in them responding, probably because I cannot explain my predicament clearly to them, and I would just belittle the trauma I am suffering. I wait for 8.30am and keep my finger on redial, trying to get an appointment with my GP, whom I trust, but nothing until Wednesday. Today is Monday. Thank you very much, I utter politely. I run the bath calmly, and lay out the razor, reverently. Turn on the music, then cut, cut, finding absolution in pain, all the while feeling total shame and humiliation that I have reached this stage again. I can only do this as I know the days are cold. I can hide the damage under long sleeves, trousers, baggy tops. It sounds so pitiful and so planned. It is. Even at my very deepest point of depression, I somehow hold on to the fact that scars don't go away after the pleasure of the pain. How do I explain them to the lady in the supermarket, my grandkids, my dad?!

So another difficult day begins. I seal my wounds; try to ask hesitantly for help from friends, without making too much of a fuss, knowing they all have difficult lives....I open the garage, gaze at the beams and know that it would be useless trying to hang myself in here. I make my ultimate PLAN. I write to my wonderful family, tell them just how much I love them, and leave notes for my funeral. As the day moves on, so, hesitantly the mood begins to lift, like the slightest lightening of a thick, dank winter smog. Hope rolls in, although my busy, busy mind still battles with a thousand thoughts a minute, bringing one more obsessing hour to a close. The PLAN still holds the place  of honour, but hope begins to linger a little longer. How many voices? One still deeply depressed, one still planning, one hoping, one writing, another working out what to do with the day;where to go, who to see, what to order, what to read. I am working on a timeline to try and reinforce all the memories lost to the demon ECT. I am working on my grandchildren's diaries, my journal, blog, novel. And so life returns a little to its normal, cluttered self. Hope returns. For a while.