May

For once I’m not writing from hospital, or straight after an OD, or freshly stitched. This is just a few little updates and thoughts.

I had a meeting with one of my church’s ministers a few weeks ago to discuss the many things about church and Christianity I’m struggling with. One of his suggestions was to arrive at church late so I miss the big chunk of worship right at the beginning. Worship makes me feel very isolated, I feel separate to the congregation, like they’re having this two-way conversation with God and actually feeling Him and I’m just standing there watching people sway, raise their hands (not much of that in my church) and I’m just reading words off a screen, analysing them for their scriptural accuracy and then sometimes repeating them in my head as a prayer if I think I might mean it. I can listen to a sermon, my concentration doesn’t always hold out, but it doesn’t get me distressed; worship has me wanting to run away, it really highlights to me how numb I am. I arrived 25 minutes late last night and I’d missed the Bible reading at the start of the sermon, so I might try 22 minutes next time. There’s still the three songs at the end, I could leave early but then I wouldn’t get to talk to anyone.

I had about eight weeks on Dexamphetamine, I’m still on it but reducing the dose by half a pill a week until I’m off it; it’s an ADHD drug, but with some people it helps with mood and energy, both of which it did for me. I felt the best I have for a very long time, I cut down the amount I was sleeping to about that of a normal person and was starting to look for a little bit of paid work. Then it stopped. My doctor told me it may not last, so I wasn’t really surprised, but I think I wish I didn’t have that good period because it’s made the come-down really hard, I had that glimpse of what things could be like and now it’s gone. All of last week I was in emotional distress, I woke up holding back tears every morning (I can’t actually cry even if I want to, so only metaphorically holding them back) and got through the days in a zombie like state. Since Saturday it’s just been numbness with a touch of distress here or there, but that wishing for death, crushing sort of feeling has eased. I can’t keep this up, it’s been about seven years now that feeling numb is akin to most people’s feeling good, there is no good, it’s numb or feeling like I have to die or tear off my skin.

Just to add another great thing to my life, I’m having minor surgery on Thursday to remove a giant cell tumour from my right middle finger. The surgeon said it’s 95% likely to be benign. I sometimes get a little bit worried, but it’s a tiny percentage. I’m totally fine about dying, but there are better ways to go than cancer and the horrible treatments that come with it. I won’t have much use of my right hand for a week after the surgery as my finger will be bandaged and I won’t be able to get it wet. My left hand is stupid; I’m not looking forward to brushing my teeth left-handed.

A Few Words on Trust

Yesterday I awoke feeling like I needed to die. I wasn’t upset about anything, everything just felt wrong.

I argued with myself for a while before giving in and going to a pharmacy to grab a huge box of Seroquel. That box took my collection up to 4. I can get two more off that same script but they have to be 21 days apart.

Knowing that I might have had enough for suicide but only borderline, I instead decided to use just under half a box (40 pills) to make myself unconscious. I’ve taken that exact amount of pills 4 years ago and it had me unconscious for 20 hours in the Emergency Department; this time I went straight there after taking them. I was attended to quickly. Sadly because I got there so fast they were able to give me activated charcoal – awful stuff. They monitored my heart all night as it shot up to 157bpm at one stage. My Lithium levels came back a little low too, so I’ll be talking with my psychiatrist on Friday about that – and also what the hell made me do this –

I appreciate my housemates, they care for me and I should do better for them than a single half-baked message saying, “I’m in ED due to another OD, might be a night or two.” I didn’t even try to soothe her worries, I’m not sure though how I could have at that moment as I could hardly move to pick my phone up. I’d prefer not to tell anyone about these single night trips as they’re always after an OD and it worries people. I want my friends to enjoy my company and not to sigh when they see my name popping up on their phones. I don’t know how to ask for help before doing something stupid. People have jobs, jobs and kids or study. This makes them hard to contact last minute when I may be distressed.

As I just said, I appreciate my housemates, and I trust them enough to tell them when I've done something stupid. But I’ve overdosed 3-4 times while I’ve been living with them and it makes them worry. I don’t know if I can be as blunt as to say “Don’t worry, if I ever do kill my self it will be at xxxxx, you won’t be the ones finding the body." I do wonder if they fear finding me dead, so I want to allay those fears. I will die somewhere quiet with lots of trees and maybe a lake. I have a good place in mind.

My other housemates know of my situation and are not happy – more scared than angry – and I don’t know what to do; a few years ago my two housemates left because if it. I don’t want to get kicked out of here or asked not to join them in the new house. I think we just need to have a frank discussion.

Shocking Title #1

I didn’t think this will be a long one, but it grew. I just wanted to explain how things are at the moment.

I’m in hospital at the moment; I’m on day 15. I was due for an admission next week but I had to come in early because I was extremely depressed, not suicidal, but considering another overdose for the purpose of being unconscious for a while. Sometimes it’s just so unbearable that it seems like a perfectly logical “treatment”. At the same time I was experiencing a kind of delusion (not technically a delusion because I knew it wasn’t true) that my skin wasn’t my own and it needed to be removed. I wanted to take a vegetable peeler and peel off all my skin; I could never actually do that because my pain tolerance is quite low. Along with the skin thing my blood felt wrong, I didn’t feel hot but the best way I could describe it to my doctor was that my blood was on the verge of boiling, again I knew this wasn’t true, it was just the best way I could describe how I was feeling.

So these are the reasons my admission was brought forward, but I’ve also started a new medication, Dexamphetamine. The scheduled admission was to introduce me to that drug, so we’ve brought that forward. At the moment I’m on 7.5mg daily, but tomorrow that will be increased to 10mg. Dex is an ADHD drug, but there is some evidence of it lifting the mood somewhat.

Throughout the admission I’ve had the feelings I was admitted with, along with random, usually short lived suicidal urges and very low mood, which comes in waves. Today was bad, which is why I’m writing. I woke with minor low mood but it worsened very quickly after breakfast. By late morning I was feeling urges to purge (vomit) as a means of self-harm and I asked my nurse for an emesis bag, which she kindly gave me. I don’t think I have ever vomited in a toilet. I dislike the idea of holding my head above somewhere people have defecated and the sinks in these bathrooms would be clogged by vomit. Psych nurses are quite manipulative, she talked me out of using it right then and got me distracted but I kept the bag. I couldn’t eat much lunch but my new friend convinced me to get half a sandwich made and take it to my room incase I got hungry later – I ate it around 4. I then went into a depressive state in which I couldn’t move much and just lay in my bed listening to Triple J. By 5:30 I had binged on confectionary, was feeling suicidal and felt the only way I could get rid of the feeling was by purging, just to kind of remove something from my body. I’m in a shared room and didn’t want my roommate hear me from our bathroom, so I used one of the bathrooms in the hall. I hate the act of purging but I feel so much better afterward. It was close to dinner time and I felt I couldn’t put anything in my body so soon after ridding it but I talked to my nurse about it because I was worried about taking my mountain of medication on a very empty stomach, she convinced me to eat a little, little enough that I still feel empty, but enough that my meds shouldn’t cause any harm.

Right now writing this and having had a little chat to my roommate have helped. It’s also been nice to have a new friend in here. I don’t usually talk to people in hospitals beyond general greetings but we hit it off over breakfast and in art, and it kinda grew from there.

8 Stitches and Conquering Urges

I’d like to suggest that if you struggle with self-harm not to read this post, I know I’d find it triggering.

So, I know I said in my last post that my Neulactil reduction wasn’t going to happen until my next admission, but DR decided to give my morning dose a very tiny reduction. I felt fine for the first six days, and then on Sunday I decided it would be a great idea to slice my arm open, requiring eight stitches, a first for me. I have wounds which should have been stitched and are now just a big gaping scar, but this is the first time I’ve actually had stitches for self-harm. I know this is an example of my screwed up thinking, but I’m proud of them. When I was at my back-up clinic (as it was Sunday) waiting for the GP I sat there hoping the cuts were bad enough to get stitches and I was (quietly) thrilled when he said they needed them. I had to go to my usual clinic today for a psych consult and a dressing change and it was great to see the cuts and all the bruising. I haven’t been able to look at it because it’s got a dressing and bandage on it.

As you can see below, one of the effects of Neulactil is to help control impulsiveness. Self-harm, for me, is often an impulsive activity. On Sunday it popped into my head and within a couple of minutes I’d done it. Other times I can dwell on it for a full day and successfully fight off the urge. On Monday I wanted to cut my throat, my leg wouldn’t have satisfied the urge, it had to be my throat. I could feel it without doing it, that’s how it often works. I can feel the cut, I can feel the blood trickling away from the wound and I anticipate the release from the urge. But cutting my throat, if it didn’t kill me (which I think would be pretty hard to achieve) would have left me with a scar I’d have to either explain to people or have them make assumptions about me, neither of which I’d be keen on.

I have to get through to Friday when I see my DR (psychiatrist) again, in the meantime I’ve got another appointment with my regular GP tomorrow and plenty of Xanax to take, maybe not two pills together though, that made me sleep 14 hours two nights ago. It’s completely shitty living with these urges and the anxiety that builds from resisting them but I really want to get off the Neulactil, I want my mind back.

From http://www.mydr.com.au/medicines/cmis/neulactil-tablets

The active ingredient of Neulactil is pericyazine, one of a group of medicines called phenothiazines.

Neulactil is used to treat patients who feel very anxious and/or tense.

It is used in patients to control symptoms such as impulsiveness and aggression.

It is also used in patients with severe mental conditions when a person loses contact with reality and is unable to think and judge clearly.

Drugs, Hospital, Cognition and Writing

I know the year isn’t so new anymore, but I’m just building up the motivation to write this now…

I ended last year badly, spending the end of November until mid-December in hospital and then after being home for six days I took an overdose of Stilnox, had a night in Emergency, got sectioned and admitted to the public psych ward only to be discharged after about two hours because my psychiatrist arranged for me to have a private admission instead. I then spent 10 days in the private hospital I used to go to, including Christmas day. I was given 12 hours leave for Christmas day, so at least I got to spend it with my Mum and brother. I’ve actually been pretty good since leaving hospital, with the exception of some nightmares and anxiety I’d say things are going well.

So a new year begins and my life remains pretty much the same. Instead of weekly 30-minute appointments with my psychiatrist I’m having twice-weekly 45-minute appointments with the intention of practicing schema therapy during those times. I’m not going to explain what schema therapy is because I don’t have a strong grasp on it my self, if you’re curious a simple Google search will help. I have few childhood memories and these are important for schema work, I’m worried I’m just going to unintentionally make things up. I have a lot of false memories from looking at photos, I look at it and think I remember the moment but I’m just inventing something from what the photo looks like.

I’ve started the painful task of reducing my medication. I’m thinking very slowly and can’t comprehend or remember well; the likely culprits being Neulactil and Stilnox. Last Monday night I took one-and-a-half Stilnox instead of the usual two and kept that up for the whole week. Last night I cut down to just one and had a very interrupted night of rest, still I’ll do it again tonight and see how I go. I’m going to reduce Neulactil too but not until my next hospital admission, last time I tried I became very suicidal very quickly so my DR wants to wait until I’m in a safe environment. I hope by going through the pain of reducing, with an aim to ending the use of these two meds I’ll get back the use of my mind.

I’ve started work on a novel, well just character development so far, and I’m terrified. Even whilst reading I can’t follow a plot. I’m reading Sense and Sensibility for the first time at the moment and I’ve had to look up characters and check how they relate to each other because I forget where they came from and why they matter to the story. If reading is so hard I can’t imagine how I’m going to keep track of the plot of something I’m writing and successfully make it interesting. I guess just keep a lot of notes. I’m working on the characters first. When writing in the past I’ve made solid characters and then kind of thrown them in a situation together to see what happens. My main character in this novel will be alone most of the time but there will be scenes from her past and the future with others in them.

Maybe those of you reading this can ask me when you see me how the writing’s going, and keep me accountable. I’m scared of getting confused by it, of writing something awful and of just giving up when I need something productive to do with my life; I’m not up to working and I’ve studied (a little) writing so why not give it a try.