the worst month of my life.

I wrote this in October 2013, so it’s a bit backdated, but I guess it gives a quick overview of where I’ve been and, my mental health history for anyone that might read this and not want to track back and starts to show how I got where I am I guess. Hopefully it’s not too self indulgent.

Ok so maybe this isn’t quite the worst month of my life, but it’s definitely top five. I think it’s actually quite hard to tell sometimes just what was the worst thing ever, especially in the moment. Loads of things are awful. Bereavement sucks. Being dumped sucks. Not having enough money to buy the shower gel you really wanted sucks. Maybe when you’re really old and looking back at your life you work it out. All I know is that this month has been monumentally tragic, even in comparison to a lot of my other awful times. It’s almost laughable, if it wasn’t me, In this post, I’m going to explain why.

Within the month of October 2013, I’ve been dumped by a boy I loved (who had the emotional maturity of a grapefruit), who I then got back together with for a total of four days, only to be dumped again and have him steal my pitiful amount of money. I then made that fantastic choice of fucking him, just to let him tell me how much I suck and how crazy and sad I am. Followed by him leaving the country. My housing situation is tenuous I think. Some major disagreements with the family led to me living with said boy, which has now left me living half with my family, which is difficult for them as much as for me, and living half with a drug dealer who can set me up with some tasks when I’m more than my average broke. Being broke should go on this list, but that’s pretty much a permanent. My treatment has increased – I’m now, I’m in treatment for mental health problems almost every day and I’m being offered NHS funded private rehab for at least three months. All of which means I have to face the highly likely prospect of taking yet another year out of finishing the one year masters degree I’m already in my fourth year of. Even so, I’m still barely coming to terms with the fact that I have something labelled “complex needs” by essentially all health and social care workers. This is not exactly how I imagined my life would be at 24.

Getting where I am right now has been a painfully long process. In reality, everyone’s life is just a painfully long process from birth to wherever they are now I guess. I could start my story in childhood, which my therapist says probably was invalidating and hindered my emotional development or some next drama, but it’s not important. I had a nothing but lovely childhood. My conscious awareness of some sort of emotional issue probably started in my teens. At around 13, I started drinking, smoking, getting high, liking boys and self-harming. Self-harm at that point wasn’t weird. My friends all did it too, I just took it further, and never really stopped. I think looking back, I probably was a little more nervous and a little unhappier than my peers, but at the time I wasn’t emotionally capable of looking outside my own world and hindsight is often a fallacy. I got good at self-harming, and even better at hiding it.

By 15, no one talked about it, but I still did. I also started having panic attacks all the time. I went to my GP and got my first mental health diagnosis – depression and panic disorder. Off I went to some fairly dull and pointless counselling, which may have been great if I’d engaged with it, but at 15, how many people can be fucked?

I got through college with a lot of cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, self-harm and boys. I got through it well and did really quite good considering, but that life had its toll. Too many nights of too much excess in clubs I was definitely too young to be in led to me completely crashing emotionally. Just before my exams. I spent weeks in bed, ran away to Yorkshire, spent more weeks in bed and was dragged to my GP again. Again, the diagnosis was depression. This time I was prescribed Prozac (and later citalopram), told to go to the surgery counsellor and sent on my way.

I didn’t go to the counsellor. Instead, I ran off to Bristol for university. My first year of uni was properly batshit cray. Antidepressants, a change in contraceptive pill, dropping all my hobbies and friends and family to enter the horror of finding new hobbies and friends was all a little much. My self-harm and generally crazy behaviours went into overdrive and behind closed doors (but in front of my unfortunate, but ultimately a prick new boyfriend), I became the most dramatic crazy person ever. Inefficiently executed suicide attempts, blood and sharpie markers all over me and my dorm, running away, cold showers with all my clothes still on, half a litre of vodka each night, drugs wherever I could find them. It was messy, but with no follow up from my GP, it all went unnoticed. 

When I finally cold turkey gave up the antidepressants at the end of summer, I was fucking miserable and doing seriously terrible at uni. I hated myself, I felt like a failure and I didn’t know what to do. Lucky for me, I quickly found losing weight. I focused myself on to eating healthy and going to the gym and found something I was good at. I was bloody fantastic at losing weight. It made me feel good. It made me feel proud. It made me feel in control (finally). So I did that, and I dropped self-harm, got substantially less trashed, was able to focus on university and slowly became more and more focused on losing weight. That went on for the next three years and I ended up seriously underweight and trapped in anorexia, obsessing over food and exercise. Still, I did good at uni and I graduated well, so started and MA.

Halfway through my MA, I became so critically ill that, after being shipped around various primary care therapy services, I was referred to a specialist eating disorders unit (EDU) and started actually getting treatment. I was so unwell, my uni boyfriend from Bristol wound up dumping me and we spent the next year and a half breaking up. Turns out he was an abusive bastard and I couldn’t see it. Years of domestic from someone I loved is pretty hard to deal with if you don’t have an eating disorder to escape from it.

For a while, I was still too unwell with anorexia to really noticed what it was providing me, so I was still focused and obsessed enough to complete all my taught units in my MA, but by my last assignment (two years after starting my MA), I was almost out of treatment with my EDU, emotionally disastrous, self-harming everyday, on and off of antipsychotics and mood stabilisers, back on antidepressants and in and out of hospital for stitches, glue and lethal overdoses (I’d got smarter since I was last like this, so way more efficient. Intelligence isn’t always a good thing). It was around this time my EDU diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder and referred me to my local Community Mental Health Team (CMHT). By this point, I was too ill to even contemplate a dissertation so decided to defer my assessment.

This last year, I’ve been in dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT – specialist therapy for people with borderline), but I’ve also been honing my alcohol and Valium misuse to block out all my difficult thoughts and emotions, and topping them off with whatever other substances head my way. I went into another relationship with yet another person who doesn’t know how to treat their partner and wound up homeless, scarred, broke and an addict. I hadn’t realised I was an addict until a few weeks ago when I was told. I thought I was going to be able to finish my degree this year, have some time off and hopefully start a PGCE and I was finally letting myself get some hope that I might be able to catch up to my peers and actually set up some sort of life I can be proud of. That’s suddenly looking less likely right now. I’m now in a drug and alcohol treatment program 3-4 days a week, individual DBT once a week, group. DBT once a week, my day programme key worker once a fortnight, my Community Drug and Alcohol Team (CDAT) case worker once a fortnight, my Community Recovery Team (CRT – previously my CMHT) psychiatrist once a month and my CRT social worker at some point and some amount. And you know I might be in rehab in a few months.

So here I am. Worst. Month. Ever. I’m actually pretty fucking unhappy right now, but I’m sure that’s not exactly hard to guess. Apparently (according to mental health workers), I suffer ‘severe and enduring’ mental health problems, I’m ‘high risk’ of serious injury, physical illness or death, I’m ‘low functioning’ and have a limited ability to independently thrive within mainstream society and I have ‘complex needs.’ I guess I have got a kinda complex case – you can tell by the amount of people involved in my care (it’s got to the point where it’s overwhelming and confusing).

Still, I’m smart, articulate and jokes, plus try so hard to be nice to people. For some unknown reason, I fully believe this pessimist shit sells me short. I don’t want to be in treatment or care or whatever all my life. I think I’ve got potential. I’ve got through a lot and still have a load more to do, but maybe I can be more then all these unhelpful labels.

Anyway, I’ve blogged before, mostly about my recovery from anorexia. I didn’t realise it’d get more complicated after that and I let a lot of my real life friends read it. I’m not all that sure about sharing addiction and self harm problems with my real life friends yet is a good idea, but I don’t like hiding away. I found it really helpful blogging though, and I think maybe blogging more would be useful still. It might not be though. Or maybe I’ll be too high to look at it. We’ll see I guess.

If you got this far, thank you for reading. Wish me luck.

differences and change.

So it’s been a while since I last posted and a lot has gone on. I’ve written a lot of posts and I’ve written, lots of diary entrances when I haven’t had access to computers, but like, after being kicked out, evicted, sponging off my best friend, being dumped, gaining a social worker, a suicide attempt, hospitalisation, running away from hospital, a lot of time under the HTT, losing a social worker and gaining a new one, graduating DBT group and finishing individual therapy, completing level one addiction treatment at Turning Point, more time under the HTT, completing an Intuitive Recovery course with Turning Point (getting me a level one qualification in health and social care as well!), finally getting my own flat at the end of March (all be it through the council and it’s medium mental health supported) and yesterday I finally got internet! It’s been really bloody hectic but I have some posts. I don’t know whether I should even post them as it’d be backdating so much. Or if anyone would read this. Or if I should start a new blog. This began as an eating disorder recovery blog and has definitely changed direction quite a lot, but I’m trying really hard to build up a life outside of my mental health problems, and maybe this would tie me to them, or maybe this could help me see how far I’ve really come. I duno. Maybe it could help others who have gone through similar stuff. Maybe that’s just arrogance.

If there are any readers out there, lemme know what you think.

Lovelove x.

(ps. Sorry I haven’t been keeping up with everyone. I’ve not had internet access and I’ve gone through a lot the past few months. I feel rubbish. I hope you’re all ok x.)

best of the worst.

So I had a kinda eventful weekend. It was really bad, but also pretty hilarious.

I think I finally shook the Ex. Too much drama, too much baggage, too much of a cunt. Ok so I did lose my cool quite a bit. I was mean and spiteful and a bit of a cunt, but to be fair, when someone else has been such a persistent cunt to you, sometimes it’s called for. Ok so I raged, but I also apologised for raging. And to be fair, raging was better than the original option which involved crying on the grass after I left therapy in the hospital grounds then deciding to kill myself whilst crying all the way home. Then curling up in a ball on my floor crying some more. Eventually I found the Ma, called the HTT and ended up calling him to rage. I threw things, told him I hated him and that he’s a son of a bitch and that I’m brilliant and he’ll fucking regret how he’s treated me and in a few weeks he’ll realise just how much he’s lost and he’ll feel alone and I’ll be glad because I have people who love me and he has no one and should fuck off and die. Not my proudest moment. To be fair though, I don’t generally bitch about him on this blog so now at least I feel like I can be more honest because I don’t have much to lose.

Then my friends who I’d said vague words to whilst in tears turned up and made it better. By making it better I mean sit with me and make me laugh and tell me I’m loved then convince me the pub was a good idea and I got far far too drunk. Drunk enough for there to be information which cannot even be blogged. Some of it can be blogged though. I don’t remember all of it but there were a few boys, some let downs, others I’m texting and planning drinks with. I think the best way to feel good about finally cutting a boy lose is to get with someone new so that’s the plan. Rebound is always fun.

So for the past couple of days I’ve been distracting myself from one drama by creating new levels of drama and lolz around me. In a few days it’ll hit me that I’ve actually really ended something, but hopefully this next* man I’m texting will be a decent enough distraction to get me through the week. Plus I think he might be pretty. I can’t entirely remember. He had piercings I think. Maybe…? Worst possible scenario – whole thing falls through or he’s a dick, but I don’t lose anything from that seeing as I don’t know him. Except maybe my self-esteem, but to be fair that’s pretty battered already so I can’t see how I could lose that much. I also have the crazy prang part of me which constantly believes everyone is planning some horrible joke against me and that’s always scary in situations you’re not in 100% control of. I duno. Possibly stupid, possibly brilliant idea. I often walk the fine like between awful and amazing. Best of the worst = motto of my life. I am bad people.

I did apologise to the Ex and told him I didn’t want him to die or be alone forever, but I still hate him and never want to speak to him again and he will regret being a dick forever because he won’t find anyone better than me. That might not be nice, but it’s an improvement and I lose the guilt of being such a bitch whilst having another chance to be a bit of an avenging angel. Ok so I might still be a bitch, but a little less bad. I don’t want to be a horrible person, but I do want to be horrible in this scenario and I kinda have the right to be. There is a line between being horrible and being a horrible person though. Have to stay on the right side of that line though. I don’t have any urge to be close to that line though.

So basically, I’m a terrible, entirely hilarious, awful person. So goes my life. Comedy, tragedy and a distinct lack of learning from history.

I just need to keep myself together for a little while. If I can keep myself significantly distracted then I’ll be ok. To be fair, it hasn’t really hit me yet that I think I actually might never speak to the Ex again. It’s really hard for me to process, but that’ll settle in a few weeks as I get used to it I hope. I hate hate hate it when people go and it’s going to be amazingly hard once it really sinks in, but it’s been coming for ages. We’ve been half-broken up since February, getting more distant, then closer, then more distant over and over. I can’t keep myself in that situation because a) he’s a bit of a prick and b) it’s such an unstable relationship that it makes me more unstable, which puts me at higher risk to myself. I make it sound like it was all me, but it wasn’t. I was just so much of a dick afterwards that I made it as impossible as I could to keep anything up. Else I probably would. This is what the Psychologist likes to say is “frantic efforts to avoid abandonment” but I’m not sure I believe him. I just don’t like it when people go to the extent I find it impossible to rid myself of dickheads like the Ex. Right now I’m just trying to purge my life of rubbish people. Hard fucking work.

Distraction is key. Incredibly so. I feel on the brink of falling apart, but as long as I keep myself as occupied as physically possible, I’ll be ok. Plus distraction can be pretty fun. I know distraction and avoidance might not be a way to work through an issue, but they are ways to put it off until it eventually goes away. Or you have therapy. Or you eventually crack. I don’t know what the outcome of this will happen, but it’ll be one of the other.

The line between brilliant and disgusting only gets progressively more blurred as you get older I think. At some point, I’m going to have to get wholesome. I still want a wholesome life with all the baking and stability and a-line dresses and flowers and calm nights, but instead, I seem to choose to be a mess. I’ll get wholesome soon though, just not today. Another day. It’s gonna happen just watch.

In total other news, I fell head first into a wall today. This happens to me twice a year at least. Also, even nice banks like Co-Op are totally rubbish at sorting out there lives. Valium withdrawal makes me feel horrific every day and finally, gingerbread muffins from Costa are so disgusting they made me and the Ma feel really sick. Such high hopes, but the biggest disappointment.

I’m adding this because in a pretty lolz way, it kinda describes my weekend. Too many in jokes in my life.

* I realised as I read through this that some people might not get this. It’s next as in “some next girl” or “any next man” – so basically a randomer. I really don’t know how far this particular bit of slang has spread and I don’t generally bother explaining my expressions, but I realised someone could read it and think next as in the one after the last one. Don’t mean that. I use far too much slang, but people do eventually get used to it or lived in east London as a teen.

things in the last few days.

Wednesday 14th November 2012

So I’ve been having a bit of a blog break. My world has been a moody, hectic and stressful. I withdraw from the blog world when things are rubbish. Things are a bit rubbish right now.

The biggest rubbish thing is that Juno is very, very unwell. She started vomiting everything she ate and got really weak and feeble. The Fam took her to the vets last night and she needed an emergency operation, which she had in the middle of the night last night. Turns out, she’d swallowed a peach stone and it’d got stuck in her intestine. It’d completely blocked her gut and her gut had started to grow around it, so it was becoming a part of her. If we’d left it any longer, her gut would have probably ruptured overnight and she would have died, but she’s healthy and young and got there in time so she looks like she’s going to be ok. They had to remove six inches of her gut, and they also spayed her so she’s pretty unwell right now. She’s still at the vets to be monitored, plus she’s super doped up on painkillers, but me and the Brother got to visit her today and she seemed pleased to see us. Her bat ears stuck up and she rested her head on us and ate a little food and drank a little water. Hopefully she’ll be home on Friday (if everything goes as smoothly as it seems right now), but we won’t know for sure if she’s fully healed till a weeks time. Luckily, they don’t think there’ll be any lasting complications. Fingers crossed.

Juno at the vets, snuggling the Brother

So yer, right now I have no dog and I’m worried and sad and have no one to look after me in that way that dogs look after you. They really do save you sometimes. I miss her and she’s only been gone a day. I hate not having a dog around. So much.

On top of this, our kitchen has just started being redecorated. This is stressful in an eating disorder way (obvs.), but also because my house is full of people and its loud and hard to feel comfortable. They turn up, bump into HTT, smash things and generally lead to me hiding away. I hate people in my house, especially when I’m meant to be home alone. I like my alone time. It’s important to me. I like empty space sometimes.

The £2,000 peach stone

There are good points to it though. In one of my more hyper moments, I decided to create an incredibly selfish Facebook event in which I invite myself to people’s houses for dinner so that they can cook me nice foods to make the transition a little easier. I’ve been struggling with food a bit recently and I’ve lost a couple of kilos, so I think it’s important to try keep my eating up regardless. I figured what better to kick an eating disorder sneaking back in than letting other people cook me normal people meals. I used to find other people cooking for me horrific, then uncomfortable, but now fine. I figure this way, I’m less in control and will probably at least maintain a vaguely healthy weight for a while. Maybe I’ll even gain some weight. That’d probably be a good thing if it does happen. It’s only two weeks. Plus I’ll get to spend a little more time with my friends, which is always fun. Yesterday I saw a couple of people and their aces gecko Ricardo and we ordered Thai and drunk wine and gin and I had a nice time. It was good to see people. Especially people I don’t see enough and actually really like.

But yer, the kitchen makes life more difficult. It’s annoying and makes eating hard. Especially with Valium withdrawal. Valium withdrawal symptoms come and go in varying intensities, but it basically sucks out. I occasionally break and end up taking more than I should, but it is so hard you have no idea. It’s like the worst flu ever – tremors run through your entire body, you’re exhausted but can’t sleep, you get extreme fluctuations in body temperature and mood, my brain is louder, my appetite is just gone, there’s dizziness and generally feeling like you could collapse at any point, your head gets foggy and everything gets less real, you shake and have that not sleep you get with a fever, nightmares, increased urges self-injurious thoughts, anger, irritability, feeling like you literally might be about to die because you can’t breathe, feel nauseous and so dizzy you literally cannot stand. It’s shit. Another reason blogging has been a little rubbish recently.

Another stress had been the major amount of life admin I’ve had to go through recently. Sorting out my freedom pass, upgrading my phone with O2 and Carphone Warehouse, sorting out the Ma’s new phone contract, switching banks, sorting out a new student bank account, trying to work out uni, sorting out deferring my Professional Careers Development Loan due to being in benefits, having no money. It basically means I’ve spent what feels like years on hold. On hold to O2, Carphone Warehouse, NatWest, Co-Operative Bank, Tesco Mobile, Job Centre Plus, university etc. Urgh. I actually feel like I’ve done so much, but it’s probably haven’t done all that much really. I still haven’t decided if I want to insure my iPhone and iPad, so that might be a little bit more admin, but it’s like the least important bit left.

Treatment is also really bringing me down. I’m hating on the HTT, arguing with CDAT, telling the Psychologist I hate him more than anyone else and how he can’t help me, telling everyone off, shouting at the IMPART group that I’m never coming back because they suck. I don’t even know if I need help, but everyone thinks I do and I don’t know what to do about it. Double urgh.

Thursday 15th November 2012

So I did my finish my post yesterday – I got too Valium ill. Sorry.

Things are a bit brighter today because I got to pick up Juno from the vet because the recovery has been going so well. She’s going to need special food and special medications and special walks for a week, but she’s doing well. She’s very confused from all the painkillers and I think they make life a little difficult, but she’s beautiful and home and the vets all really like her and she doesn’t even have to wear a cone on her head because she’s been so good and isn’t even touching her stitches because she’s so well-behaved. I love my puppy so much. I’ve been appointed supreme pup watcher for the next week so I’m going to be well on watching her to keep her safe. She makes me so happy. I’m still scared, but it looks like she’s going to be ok. I now have a purpose again – keep Juno safe and healthy and happy.

I also actually went to my IMPART group today. It wasn’t as bad as the past few weeks, but I think I’ve realised that I’m actually quite behind where a lot of others in the group are right now. I’m pretty sure I’m the youngest and I’m pretty sure that I’m not as good at managing my emotions and impulses as most of them. What they are showing us seems impossible right now. Today, it was anger and anxiety management, but it was all like “in between the trigger and the behaviour, you have all this time to intervene and stop your thought processes etc.”, but all I could think was “what time between trigger and behaviour? There is no time between trigger and behaviour.” It made me feel pretty useless. I don’t think I can stop my impulsive behaviours. I honestly don’t know how. In showing me how, I got to listen to what other people do and it was all like “exercise” which I can’t do without going overboard, or “learn to be assertive” or “step outside the situation.” I am really not good at being assertive and have pretty poor interpersonal skills. I do ok with the people who know me really well, but not so much with new people, and even when the people I’m in love with make me feel too much, I often react in the wrong ways. They deal with it though. I think there’s a general feeling within my friendship circle that I’m not actually the problems, which makes my friends super aces. I’m just realising I really don’t have any coping mechanisms for managing my emotions. Except self-harm, spending money, not eating and getting fucked. Way to go Ellie – fucking useless at self-regulation. Triple urgh.

I am actually complying with treatment though. Kinda. I struggle with the Valium thing a bit, and I drink too much and smoke too much, self-injure too much. I know this, but I’m not trying to fix it because I don’t have any other ways too. Still, I actually went to all my appointments. On most days, I do actually get dressed and out of bed, even if I haven’t slept much. I am really trying to be budget and to eat lots and to stay as safe as possible. I don’t call the HTT as much as I should, but I don’t like them as a whole unit. They can’t keep me safe from myself and I won’t let them really. Maybe I’m half complying.

The thing is, although I’m taking some action to get better, I’m not sure if I believe I’m ill or deserve help or need to get better or have the motivation to. Intense emotions suck out, but sometimes they are great because intense love and intense happiness and intense excitement are really fabz. However fleeting and uncontrollable these emotions may be, I honestly believe I feel them stronger than other people. I know black and white thinking can be bad – everything is all or nothing. However, I have a strong sense of right and wrong and I like that. When applied to myself, it sucks, when applied to outside circumstances, I have a strong opinion and without the grey, I gain passion. Sure, my identity and opinions can change rapidly depending on my surroundings, but I think it means I am more able to empathise with other people sometimes as I really do absorb their views so whole heartedly. My impulsivity around things like drugs and alcohol and shopping etc. make me more fun to be around sometimes. Sure, the dissociation, negative self-beliefs, parasuicidal behaviours, impulsivity when alone etc. suck, but there are positive things about the way I am now. And that’s the thing – this is who I am. I don’t know if I want to be anyone else. I’m taking action, yet I see the positives and don’t know if I’m ready for change.

Still, being unable to work and being unable to do the things I want to do and struggling every fucking day might make this all worth it. I just don’t like knowing what’ll be left of me when this is all done. Will I even be me? I hate not knowing.

But finally, some other great news – my uni have decided to waive my fees and make me a part-time student so I can access all the support I need. This makes me supez happy. It’s also scary as it means I’ll actually have to finish my degree this year, but I have a whole year to do a dissertation so hopefully it’ll be ok. I’m scared, but at least I’m able to access any support I need. Fingers crossed. Once my freedom pass shows up, I’ll be back at uni to try sort it all out.

So goods and bads and lots in between. This is some sort of update I guess. I hope you’re all well.

Juno having a nap – home again :)

angry.

I guess this could be a trigger. Sorry.

So last night I called the HTT crisis line because I was so worked up and distressed and I’d just got off the phone to the Ex and I felt out of control and fast and mean and basically the whole world sucked and I blamed treatment.

I literally have nothing normal left in my life anymore. Since starting treatment over a year ago I’ve only lost things. I’ve lost thing after thing till now I’ve got nothing nice left. The only thing I’ve gained is a bunch of professionals that are paid to pretend to care about me, but make it pretty fucking clear they don’t give a fuck. I didn’t feel safe.

I told them I never wanted anyone to come to my house again. The guy I was speaking to is actually nice and he got worried. I told him I’d lost everything and that having people barely conceal their contempt for me only hurt me more and I didn’t want any part of it ever again. I told him I wanted out of it all and I didn’t feel safe and they weren’t helping and everything in my life has just be getting worse and worse. This went on for a little while and he eventually agreed to the HTT calling me instead of visiting this morning and told me he cared and was worried and would listen and I should call him back if I needed to.

I didn’t call back. Instead I self harmed. It was quite severe, but I managed it with my now expert injury first aid and eventually felt better enough to fall asleep at about 4am.

I then get woken up by the HTT knocking on my door, and not just them, but also my new key worker from CDAT. I got so angry and told them over and over I didn’t want them there and had been told they wouldn’t come and they refused to leave because I had to talk to the CDAT woman and I hate her and I hate them and they lied and I wasn’t dressed and I hate every single part of my mental health treatment.

After they left, I called the HTT and asked them never to come back again and I didn’t want anymore treatment from them. They lied to me and didn’t care and they make me hurt more. Apparently they’re going to call me this afternoon, but I don’t even think they will seeing as they are full of lies and don’t give a shit. They talked about sectioning me if I didn’t comply with them, but I can’t even see how they have the power to do that. You need like two psychiatrists to section someone, and it’s not like any of them talk to each other. Like this morning I was told they’d come back this evening, then on the phone I was told they’d come back tomorrow morning. None of them have any fucking clue what the plan for my treatment is. I doubt they could get two psychiatrists in the same fucking room.

I then called the CMHT to asked to be discharged from them. The Psychiatrist is on leave so I can’t leave them till next week.

Following that, I called the Psychologist and left a message for him to call back. He didn’t, so I left a subsequent message saying I never wanted to see him again. He eventually called back and said he “hopes I turn up and he won’t discharge me yet” and said he’ll leave it in my hands to contact him if I don’t go. I’m most angry with him because he pretends better than everyone else. And if he didn’t tell me the Ex was a cunt, I’d probably still have someone to love me. If he hadn’t told me it was ok to take time out of uni, I’d probably have a fucking degree. If he hadn’t told me I needed further help, none of the other fucking teams would be involved. And he called my fucking parents. How am I supposed to trust him?

I can’t get in touch with IMPART because I didn’t save their number and I’ve swapped phones. Imma try get their number from someone else, but I don’t know who yet. I fully intend to leave their services as well.

CDAT can go spin to be honest. I told her as much, but she made an appointment for me anyway. I’m not going to go. She said if I don’t go, she’ll call, but it’s not like I have to reply. Calls from mental health treatment places always come up as private numbers so its pretty easy to know which ones to ignore.

I then called uni to ask to formally drop out, but I have to talk to my personal tutor before I can do that and he’s not in so I emailed.

I want to be out of treatment now. Out for good. All I’ve got from treatment is a worse life. All I had left was my fucking degree and that’s gone now so fuck it. If I’d never started treatment, I probably could have aced a dissertation by now and be finished and not care that all my friends hate me and my family think I’m disgusting because I’d be pretty and small and that would be enough and I’d have a boy and future. Instead, I’ve complied with everything asked of me and have essentially lost everything. I make the Fam cry, the Brother always chooses others over me when I really need him, my friends all think I’m rubbish and weird, the Ex treats me rubbish and I hurt him and the DVIP people keep calling me to tell me how shit he is and he calls me to tell me how shit they are and now I’ve lost uni. The one fucking normal thing I had left.

So fuck them all. I did as I was told and tried and now I’m angry and alone and have horrendous withdrawal symptoms. I keep having panic attacks and can’t focus or sleep and get tremors all over and I fucking hate every part of ever having entered treatment. So I no longer have an eating disorder? It’s not like I have anything else.

It hurts me more to be surrounded by people who pretend they care then it does to be alone. It’s better to not have it rubbed in your face that the most important thing you do is provided by people who think you’re worthless. Fuck them all. Seriously.

explaining myself.

Sorry. That last post was a heat of the moment, crying on the overground, feeling suicidal and being overly dramatic in my statements. The statement is still true though. I realise I should probably elaborate, but it’s kinda long and boring and finance related.

I am pretty darn poor. My family has been lucky and worked hard in the past and we have a nice house and have paid off the mortgage and live in a nice area and have nice things, but as the recession started, the Ma (who was a very high paid head teacher) decided to spend the last years of her working life doing something fun, so chose to slice her paid to under half and work as a nursery teacher. At the same time, the Pa (who works for the local council on social worker pay) got a. Pay freeze and lots of additional financial job benefits (like car fuel allowance) removed, so his salary dropped too. With rising living costs, the Fam aren’t as wealthy as they were and don’t have a lot of disposable money. Saying that, the Ma just got a £6,000 tax refund, but that’s going towards having a new kitchen fitted.

Although they do pay for my food and I don’t pay rent, I’m still pretty poor as benefits really aren’t that much. I get enough to save up to buy nice things if I want to, but mostly it goes on extra groceries, socialising and cigarettes. I spend way beyond my means, and my parents can no longer afford to support my yoga classes, travel expenses or uni costs, so now I’m just getting poorer. I still think I’ll be ok. Yoga is a luxury I can drop if I need to (even though it’s good for my mental health), and if I get a freedom pass that’ll help. I didn’t really think uni costs would be an issue. Turns out they are.

I have to start paying off my Professional Careers Development Loan in a couple of weeks as I was meant to have graduated by now and that’s like £90 a month which is almost a quarter of my benefits. I was ok with that, but deferring my place at uni has had some previously unknown complications.

As you probably know, I deferred my dissertation and today I went into uni to re-enrol. I was actually really excited. I put on an actual dress and nice make up and perfume and was going into uni to start trying to get my study up and running again. I was excited. I love learning and wanted to start getting to everything I needed organised in order to actually get on top of studying. I mean, the main reason I brought an iPad was to help me with my students because of the real aloud software you can access and the fact that it’s so easy to make note and keep shit organised using tablet computers, plus way less printing money for PDFs of journal articles. Anyway, I digress. The important part was that I was excited. The HTT woman who came today told me how much brighter and cheerier I looked than usual. I felt really good.

Basically, as the only unit I deferred was my dissertation, I’ve been registered as a ‘non-attending’ student which costs £30. That was fine by me. I mean, I’m broke right now but it’s not too much. I got the cash out to pay for it as I’m trying to transfer bank accounts at the moment and know that outgoings from cash machines are registered quicker than card transactions in shops and stuff. Turns out I had to pay by card anyway, which pissed me off, but it only got worse.

The issue is that, in being a non-attending student is that it essentially means you can’t get any support. And I really do mean any. Using the library, getting a library card so I could access Senate House library, would get incredibly limited academic support, can’t get access to Disabled Student Allowance, so can’t get the funding needed for the disability team to offer me support at all. That would be fine if I didn’t need support or had enough money to access the library, but the problem is that I’m actually really unwell at the moment and have been for a long time. I need support and structure and help if I’m going to be able to do this. And I need to be able to access the library, though they as for a lump sum for the amount of time you’d be using it, which I can’t really afford. Plus the library isn’t that well stocked on anthropology so I’d need access to Senate House. And academic journals which Goldsmiths don’t have subscriptions too but Senate House do. Senate House costs a lot for an annual subscription, even if they’d allow me as a student. Dissertations are research based so I’d need access to actual academic literature. And support from the disability team. Completing my studies would be near impossible.

Problem is, if I were to be a part-time attending student, I’d have to pay the tuition fees for the percentage of my degree I’ve deferred. Being a dissertation, it’s worth a third of my degree, which is £1,500 even though it involves the least teaching and seminar time then any other aspects of my course. If it’d been one of my units, I would have been half that price. I aced all my units despite my illnesses, but the dissertation is the one part I couldn’t manage and it happens to be the most expensive part. I held it together through all the taught subjects, through anorexia and recovery from anorexia. I didn’t even know what support my university could offer me, so I got none and did it all on my own. I worked my arse off till I literally got too sick to keep going, and now I want to actually get this together, I can’t. I need the support I didn’t know I could have accessed and I need the fucking library.

It’s not even like I’d cost the uni that much because I’m pretty sure my department would support me regardless seeing as they’re quite nice, so that cost wouldn’t change. All I need is the ability to apply for government funding for DSA and access to academic literature. The cost to them would be fucking nothing really.

I can’t apply for a bursary or scholarship or anything because the deadline for applications for that kind of financial support is before the academic year starts, but I couldn’t have applied for that seeing as the exam board only decided upon my application for a deferral like two weeks ago. There is literally no financial support to help me pay my tuition fees available to me now.

Without being an attending student, I don’t think it’s likely I’ll be able to get enough support or research material needed to actually complete a decent dissertation within this next year. I’m too poor and too ill right now. I basically have three options:

1) try to complete my dissertation as it is and probably not do too well, but finish my degree.

2) take a year out and hope that in a year, I’ll be more able to complete my dissertation to a higher standard, but maybe not. Just wait it out and see. Plus if I drag out my degree any longer, I’ll probably just give up all together.

3) drop out entirely because I don’t see how I can complete this degree to any kind of acceptable standard or the standard I can achieve if I can get the same options as an attending student.

4) hope upon hope that the admin staff in my department can achieve what they are going to try to achieve. This lovely guy named Huw is going to try get my fees waived and get me attending student status, but this’ll take a week or two to find out. This is the number one option, but totally out of my control.

So anyway, by the time I got off the tube (half three ish), I felt so fucking awful it was ridiculous. I was cold and it was raining and I felt like death because I was coughing, had tear stained make up face, sniffling and miserable and I was hungry seeing as I’d last eaten a bowl of cereal for breakfast at 9am. I considered going to Primark to buy a jumper to make me feel better, but realised I was too poor very quickly. I had to go to NatWest to put my money back into my bank account and cried a bit because I was too stressed. I walked past this greasy spoon and they had a sign that said “homemade bolognese only £4.95” and I so badly wanted a warm meal I almost did it, then realised I was too poor. The I walked past Costa and almost got a gingerbread latte, but again, realised I was too poor for such a luxury. I still wanted to treat myself though, so I went to the 99p store and got 6 cans of Diet Coke for £1.98. I figured they’d last longer than one warm coffee. I then went home and had make and eat lunch (a cold meal :( ) and washed my face and took of all my nice jewellery and clothes and realised it was starting to get dark so I wouldn’t be able to walk my dog then just cried again. I contemplated killing myself. If I don’t have my intelligence, I’m nothing. When I was asked by the IMPART people to describe myself, I said “articulate, smart and academic… I honestly don’t know what else.” I got over it eventually and am now curled up in bed in leggings and a baggy jumper, waiting for today to end.

Urgh. If this gets fucked, I literally have nothing in my life but mental health treatment. All I’ll be doing is treatment. I so desperately need something else so I have a reason to actually bother to get better. I feel so horrible right now.

So there. An explanation.