Your Day

Two Seroquel before bed because you have to get up early and can’t afford to wait four hours for sleep to come naturally, plus your anxiety picks up as soon as the lights go out and your throat closes up, your muscles spasm and your limbs go numb. Sleep doesn’t come even with the drugs, the drugs you’re only supposed to take a couple of times a week because last time you took a lot of them they made you put on 40 kilos, you’ve gained two kilos since starting them again but you don’t know if it’s the drugs or laziness because you really aren’t being selective with what you allow to pass your lips, plus you’re grieving, maybe it’s normal to give in to your every desire when you’ve just lost your father. Sleep comes but it’s hot and someone has turned off the air-conditioning because they can’t sleep with it on, but you can’t sleep when your body temperature is 800 degrees. You fall asleep again and this time you stay there until the alarm chimes at 7, you turn it off and it sounds again at 7:05 and again at 7:07. Therapy starts at 9:30 in an inner city suburb. You live near three schools which congest the roads in an industrial outer suburb, the drive is long and slow in the morning traffic. You roll over deciding not to go this week. At 9 you wake up with a reasonable amount of energy and think it’s 11 or so, realizing you are wrong and can still make it to therapy, albeit a little late you call and inform the coordinator that you’ll be there at 10. Rush to get ready, don’t forget to check the pets’ water supplies, it’s going to be a hot day. Drive drive drive. No spots in the car park, damn it, but you get a two hour park around the corner. Walk into the conference room and the air-conditioner hasn’t been fixed, they said it would be done by last Thursday. There are 12 sweaty bodies emitting extra heat, great. They’re reviewing all the modes – this is Schema Therapy, right now they’re discussing the happy child, one you haven’t got to yet but you are only at week three. Someone spends half an hour sharing about a traumatic experience from her week and half the group tries to help her deal with it while the rest of you slip in to the detached protector mode and stare at the floor, well you play with your necklace instead but you’re just as detached as the rest of them. Break time, get out of that hot room and move the car so you don’t get a ticket, there’s room in the car park now so you won’t have to move again at lunch. Eat a lamington because all you had for breakfast was yoghurt, which you eat in the car, perhaps that was a little dangerous. Back to group. The coordinators have been able to negotiate a move to the art room, which has a functioning air-conditioner. Now comes a blank, people talk about something, referring to the various modes they tend to slip into. There are a few small pieces of wood on the table – art supplies - you start playing with them, you feel more at ease when your hands are busy. Looking for something to do you start to scratch at your wrist faster harder faster harder faster until there’s blood on your nails. No one has noticed so it’s alright. You go back to playing with the wood but it’s not enough so you scratch pinch pull at the skin on your arm. Somehow there’s now a sheet of paper in front of you, it’s a safety plan contract you’re supposed to fill out and sign. They’re now talking about self-harm and how with this contract we’re committing to taking a set course of action before we do anything to ourselves. You think it’s a little funny that as they’re discussing this you’re bleeding right in front of them. The urge to scratch more is overwhelming, you want more blood but surrounded by people that’s not a good idea so you get up and walk out thinking you can scratch away in the empty dining room. No. You are followed by one of the facilitators, he makes you talk to him, you show him your red wrist and he asks questions you answer with I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know, he’s sick of this but you tell him you really don’t know what to say. He has to go back into the room because he’s leading this section, the other leader who you feel a little more comfortable around takes his place trying to comfort you and figure out what’s going on in your head. You tell her about your disconnect with God and failed attempt at seeking help, she has some advice but can’t understand the situation with its spiritual nature and the complexities you haven’t told her. Back to the group for 10 minutes and it’s time for lunch. This time next week you’ll be heading off to uni, missing the afternoon session. You eat a bad sandwich taking off the cucumber and cringing as you eat ham – something you don’t like to eat because of the use of sow stalls and a general aversion to the meat. Coffee, another coffee. Go next door to change an appointment with your psychiatrist. Two Seroquel, group facilitator sees you taking them and asks what can be done to help you feel better, you suggest euthanasia and walk back to the art room where the rest of the group are waiting, seems you took a little too long getting your caffeine hit. It has been decided to leave the safety contracts to our one on one sessions on Friday as some group members feel a little uneasy about them, you just feel cynical. Game time, two truths one lie. As the name implies it is a game where you tell the group three things about yourself, one of which is a lie, they guess the lie. You get them all right but one and feel quite proud. Home time, you check your phone, nothing from friends, a voicemail from next door wanting to change the appointment you just made an hour and a half ago. Drive drive drive. The neighbours are having a party – yes on a Monday afternoon and a car is in your spot. In anger you print a note in a large font size to place under the wiper blades informing the driver that this is not their house and not to park there again. Mum comes home as you are doing this and removes the note fearing that the driver will become enraged and do something violent, she calls the council instead, they are delighted at the prospect of the 70 parking infringements they can issue on this clogged street. The Seroquel taken at lunch is still active, you’re tired, very tired. Time for bed, but you won’t sleep tonight if you nap now, best to stay up, cut your arm, it’s only bleeding a little from the scratches, you want more. You’re about to start a DipEd and think fresh scars on your arm during teaching rounds might be a little inappropriate and raise questions from curious kids. You write instead thinking you might add to the cuts on your thigh later, no one sees your thighs because they are fat you wear long dresses, skirts, shorts that will cover from the knee up. You started swimming regularly last week to improve fitness and hopefully weight you don’t know if you need to wait until the wounds are fully healed before going again, you hope not because you think you’re going to start cutting regularly again, the compulsion is strong. Something to look up – swimming in a public pool with open wounds.

Sometimes Coming up With a Heading is Really Hard

Tonight was the first time I’ve self-harmed since October, it didn’t fix anything, I still feel like shit. Church was awful tonight, I feel this huge disconnect to God and being in church surrounded by everyone who’s (on the outside at least) completely fine just amplifies the problem. I can’t sing because I don’t feel genuine about what I’m singing, I can’t seem to make my self pay attention to the sermon because by time we get there I’ve already spent 20 minutes feeling alienated. I tried to talk to one of the ministers after the service tonight but he had to do something else, maybe if I’d fallen on the floor and burst into tears he’d have had time for me, that’s how I feel but tears don’t come easy to me. I want to be closer to God, I want to fully participate in church life and feel something but there’s nothing there, I feel completely alone. I don’t know what the solution is, I just know that something has to change.

Dad

On the 24^th of January at 8:25am my dad passed away after four days on life support. We were assured that he was in no pain so at least there was that comfort. It wasn’t actually the prostate cancer that killed him; about two weeks prior to his death he had his first dose of chemotherapy, which, as chemotherapy does, wiped out his immune system, then while he was still in hospital he picked up Legionnaires’ disease, having no immune system he couldn’t fight it off. Usually Legionnaires’ is nasty, but with antibiotics you can recover.  We have no family in Australia, it was pure coincidence that my aunt and uncle (Dad’s brother) were here and such a blessing too. Dad and his brother were very close and it’s great that they got to spend some time together before the end and we had their help in the aftermath. They’re gone now and it’s just me, Mum and my brother in the country, kind of lonely if I think about it.

Grieving has been easy; I was distraught the day he died but that’s it. Mum has been keeping her-self very busy and is doing well and S (brother) seems fine too. I don’t know if we’ll all fall to pieces at a later date or if we’re genuinely okay. Friends have been a great support, a handful of women from my church made us meals and mum’s colleagues took up a collection and used the funds to buy a billion things from a catering company, filling our freezer to the brim. The house smelled beautiful for a few weeks from all the flowers we received and there were a lot of people at the funeral. We’ll all miss him and the house is certainly strange without his quirky presence, but we’re okay.

It took me two hours to write those two paragraphs, I think I need to find a way to reinvigorate my brain before uni starts in little over a week.