Day Four of Visit Nine

Today I touched some dirty things and then ate a biscuit without washing my hands first. I didn’t like it.

This hospital is reasonably nice, private room and bathroom, it’s comfortable. The dining room is being renovated, so our meals are brought up to the ward, this means cold toast in the morning! Visitors are welcome, the hours are limited, but we can make it work.

I withdrew from my uni subject a few days ago, I feel like my creative ability has been stolen and there’s no way I can write a full length (good) play at the moment.

Could someone let me know if the facebook status “new post” I leave about this blog shows up on the ticker? I can’t post the link anymore because I’m afraid anyone can see it in the ticker, but if I don’t post the link people will stop coming.

Admission # 9

On Sunday I went for an interview at the hospital running the OCD program, I was told that I might get in the one starting at the end of October, but definitely the December one failing that. Then yesterday I got a call saying “We’ve had someone pull out of the next group, can you come in on Saturday!” So with little time to prepare myself for it I’m off to hospital for my 9^th admission. This time is different, it’s not a crisis admission, but rather a course to teach me (and 7 others) CBT skills for eight hours a day. I don’t really feel like my OCD is bad enough to be doing this program, Lovan takes care of it very well, and I wonder if I should have come off it before the admission so they can see me at my worst. Then I can learn skills to help with the worst, but maybe it will be easier to learn if I’m not distressed. Rico has been amazing lately, the drugs and routine have worked well, I can now leave him inside when I go out without worrying, he doesn’t pound on the window as I walk away and he isn’t so enthusiastic when I get home that he could knock me over. I hope the two week holiday at my parents’ doesn’t send him back to square one.

Waste

The man with the energy vacuum has been to visit, he took everything and I have to go out soon, I can hardly walk from the lounge to the kitchen! I love the clarity in my mind at the moment, it’s what I imagine most people have going on in there, but the amount of drugs it takes to keep me there is really quite high. Some of the side effects are getting too much to handle, and I worry that I’ll need to come off or reduce some drugs, there ending my brief encounter with sanity. In October I’m doing a two week inpatient CBT program, which if successful will mean I can start coming down on the antidepressants, which should mean I won’t need the others. There are a lot of maybes, but at least there’s a plan. I fear losing what I have now because in the bad times I can’t remember that this is possible. I hope these more positive posts will help me when things do go bad, I won’t have to trust my Dr; I can trust my own words that sanity exists, even for me.

Thanks for your comments last week, they were helpful and encouraging. Thanks also to my non Christian readers for not encouraging me to quit, and for one even telling me to persevere.

One last thing... I DON’T HAVE MS! My symptoms have been put down to anxiety, you wouldn’t believe how much the mind can affect the body.