So I said I’d try to do blog posts from the past and from now. The last one was a now one, and this one is about inpatient. I’ve had a pretty bad little while so have put of posting this. It’s a kinda sad post, and I didn’t want to think about the sad. Re-reading it, it’s ridiculous how emotionally detached I become when trying to explain how I’ve felt. Everything is a load of facts and logic. I was told by a social worker that it’s actually a problem for me. Emotionally connecting to events. I emotionally feel things and think other things. The emotions and the facts don’t connect. I duno if that’s true, but this is from early December 2013. It’s probably not that enjoyable, but it’s there to read if you want.
So I tried to kill myself. A shit load of diazepam and a shit load of alcohol. I wound up in A&E, in and out of consciousness. When I was medically stable, I talked to the psych staff in the majors ward and was asked to go to an inpatient mental health ward.
After 13 hours in A&E and several instances of self harm (some requiring stitches), I was put in an ambulance and moved to a mental hospital. There was another girl there with her Mum, but I didn’t want anyone to come with me. I wanted to be alone. She looked scared though, so I’m glad she had someone. I was scared too.
I’d already hidden razor blades in places where no one found them. And lighters. When they searched me, they found nothing. I gave them one one blade to look genuine, but kept the other eight. I’m not going to go into hiding places because it might give ideas, but I had them on me, as well as a stocks of first aid stuff from A&E, so I could still self harm there, and I did. Even though I was on every fifteen minutes, then moved up to twenty four hour supervision after I spoke with a consultant. They tried to take my shoe laces and the strings out of my hoodies, but I convinced them style was too important to me, even though I knew it kept me the option of killing myself.
It was terrifying to start with. Being searched. Being made to wait with people you’ve never met. I met this great BPD girl though whom I’m starting to make friends with. She made me feel safe. I respect her for that, regardless of her issues, but I guess that’s because they are basically mine. She’s safe though. And made me feel safer.
The first ward I was on was the first with a bed, although technically I shouldn’t have been there due to me not fitting into its catchment area. The ward itself wasn’t so bad. The beds were a bit uncomfy, but it was clean and you had your own en suite bathroom. You could still have electronic devices like phones and laptops, though the chargers were kept in a locked office and everything had to be charged in there so you had no access to cords. The lack of music was depressing, especially as it’s one of my main self soothe techniques and I was seriously distressed. My allocated nurse was lovely and really helped me with my orientation and said she’d work to keep me on that ward as I’d find it distressing to move. She also told me that if they did move me, she’d put on my notes that I’d need access to music for soothing anxiety and my macbook for uni purposes. Although we weren’t allowed lighters, we could smoke every hour, and often in between because the nurses were pretty safe. I began to feel I could be ok spending a week in that ward.
Then on my second night, whilst I was sleeping, a nurse came in and told me a bed had become available in the ward that took in those from my catchment area and I had five minutes to pack up and move. I was distressed, tired and crying. My lovely allocated nurse had gone home so I couldn’t even look to her for help. Luckily, the girl I arrived with and the girl I’d made friends with had to be moved too, so I wasn’t alone in my shock and distress.
Once I got down to the other ward, everything got worse. They took my phone, my iPad, my macbook, my 3DS. All because they had cameras. They also took my make up because most of it had mirrors in it, and my perfumes because they came in glass bottles. They wanted my shoe laces and hoodie chords. All the time I was crying because I though my original nurse was supposed to help me in this scenario and I was tired and confused. I can admit my behaviour was quite extreme, but still, what do you expect from someone in an inpatient mental health ward. I asked to see the consultant because I couldn’t comprehend what was going on, but he just shouted at me “Rules are rules. You are causing too much distress. Either you discharge yourself right now, or I’ll discharge you right now.” So I got my shit together and left.
Having no where to go, I sat in the hospital courtyard crying. I ended up self harming to try and make it better, but it didn’t help. I just wanted to die. I watched the blood pool on the pavement and felt the release, but still just craved for it all to be over. I can honestly say I was on the cusp of running away. Getting out of London, maybe to the sea.
Luckily, I saw someone I knew from the Home Treatment Team (HTT) who’d always been safe to me. I called him over and he gave me a big hug and took me to A&E. I was hardly there any time, but this great guy had made some calls and got my family to agree to take me home and to be under HTT care whilst I was still in “crisis”. My Daddy came and got me. My family had tidied my room and bought me comfy pjs and tried to make me feel homely. I just wanted to go to sleep. It’s hard to sleep on a Valium detox though. It’s three thirty am right one and I’m still going.
Since being home, I’ve been seeing the HTT and they’ve been giving me the appropriate detox for my addiction so I can’t hoard tablets. They still don’t seem to have picked up on the fact I have enough aspirin to kill myself. I’ve gone back to self harming once or twice a day and am plagued by suicidal thoughts. No hope. No belief. Each day is a challenge to not just do it and get this all over with, but as I’ve said before, I have my thread of logic. I just don’t know how long that thread can last before it snaps.
The HTT are beginning to worry about not being able to keep me safe, especially as my self harm is escalating in severity and quantity and I am still actively suicidal. For now, they think it’s best to keep me in the community, but they are definitely considering putting me back into the inpatient ward from hell. It’s talked about most times they visit.
I don’t know what tomorrow holds. Maybe it’ll be great, but it’ll probably just be more of the same. I don’t believe it can be better.