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.
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