Bippidee

Blog moved

2011-03-11T22:48:00.000Z

My blog is now entirely moved over to Wordpress and I will not be writing here anymore, and will possibly close it down. I have no idea which of those of you who emailed me asking to be added to my invite only list when I was planning to stay here have yet to find my new blog, but if you haven't stumbled across it and would like the URL then please email me: bippidee at hotmail dot co dot uk, and I will email you the address. Whilst I am aware some of the anonymous commenters who left hurtful comments may find the new address anyway, I don't really want to make it too easy by posting it here for people to see; sorry for any inconvenience.

Change of plan

2011-03-10T04:17:00.000Z

I am no longer going to be blogging here - I am making the move the WordPress. This is primarily so that I can just password protect certain posts if I feel the need to, rather than my entire blog being invite only. My Twitter and Facebook accounts will remain the same, as will my email address. I am currently finishing setting things up, and will let people know the link soon. Hopefully when I have finished setting it all up I will get back to blogging regularly, as I have found I have missed it, and I think perhaps not having that form of support contributed to a further slip in my mood, but to be honest I don't know that I could have written much anyway due to my mood. I will fill you in on what has been going on over on the new blog, hopefully later today.

Blog going invite only

2011-03-02T15:49:00.000Z

I need to blog. I am finding it hard not having it as an outlet and I miss it. But right now I can't do it in public in the way I always have done, as I am too paranoid about what people are thinking of me etc, so I have made the decision to make it invitation only. I am kind of upset about this, as to me it takes away one of the core things I like about blogging - that absolutely anyone can stumble onto your blog and start reading, and I have grown close to several people through this blog, who I obviously wouldn't know at all if my blog had always been private. But for the time being that is the plan, and hopefully at some point in the future I will go back to open blogging. If you would like to continue to read then please either send me a DM on Twitter, a message on Facebook, or an email, with the email address you want me to send the invitation to. Please do not ask for an invitation if you think I am attention seeking/crying wolf/give BPD a bad name, or any of the other things I have been accused of lately - I can't think why you would be reading my blog in the first place if you feel like that, but clearly people do. Thanks.

Break

2011-02-26T21:18:00.000Z

Just wanted to let you all know I am not intending to blog for a while. I may or may come back to it, I don't know. I have met some wonderful friends through this blog who I value enormously, but I feel too much like I am being judged by what I write here to continue. I have nothing to talk about except how I feel, and that is not changing, and I can't cope with being accused of crying wolf for talking about my feelings, so I feel a break is in order. The suicidal thoughts are incredibly strong, but since I am still alive that apparently proves I am just attention seeking, and the fact that the professionals and my family know how I am feeling but don't offer any more support makes me feel like they either also think I am attention seeking, or that they have accepted my decision - it doesn't really matter which. As I have said before, I have been having trust issues for a while, and they have just been exacerbated by things that have been going on on Facebook lately in relation to this blog, and I just can't deal with it. I had been considering taking a break anyway, and events tonight have made up my mind. If I am around, those of you who want to keep in touch with me know how to. Thank you very much for all of the support over the past 15 months or so. I appreciate it enormously and wish you all the best. xxxx

Karita

2011-02-26T03:47:00.000Z

I was lucky enough today to be visited by the lovely Karita. I can honestly say that she is one of the most caring, supportive people I have ever met. It was really good to have someone there, in 'real life' who I didn't need to pretend with, and who was completely non judgemental and made me feel cared about. Despite having never met her before, I felt able to be completely honest with her, which although I do when writing on this blog, I find incredibly hard to do when actually speaking to someone, but I just felt completely at ease with her. She spent hours listening to me and cuddling me and letting me cry, and just being completely wonderful. I can't say how much I appreciated her visit. Her husband, who is also lovely, drove her up here, and then left us to it for a few hours, and then I had my appointment with Dr O, which she came to with me, and then we came back home and they both came in for several hours, and left at about 9pm. They don't live close to me, and so it really did mean such a lot that they had made so much effort to come and visit me. I am always amazed that anyone could care about me at all, let alone someone who had never even met me, and had to travel hours to come and see me, just because I am struggling so much. I am immensely grateful that she did though, and just for the record, she gives great hugs! I really can't thank her enough.

My GP appointment was fairly uneventful I think. Karita may remember more if than I do - I don't have a great memory about appointments. My mum had spoken to L at some point today, and told me that L had said to ask for blood tests to be done, which she did suggest to me a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot about, and that if my GP was happy to then she could prescribe an anti depressant. How kind! I have only been saying for about nine months that I thought I was better on medication, even if it was only slightly. My GP said that since I have problems sleeping as well then Mirtazapine might be a good one. I can't remember if I actually laughed out loud at that or just in my head, but I said there was no way I was taking it, and she asked why, and I said because of the weight gain. She said that I knew too much, and that she wouldn't have told me about that. Suggestion number two was Seroxat. Since I had no actual intention of taking anything that was prescribed due to the whole suicidal thing, I did let her give me a script for that, but it is not a medication I have ever wanted to take, primarily because of the controversy over it regarding stopping taking it, and also the fact that it increases suicidal thoughts in some people. I mentioned the Panorama programme and got told off for knowing too much again. I am sure Karita won't mind me saying that my favourite part of the appointment was when Dr O was talking to her and asking where she had come from and if she worked etc, and then asked if she had taken time off work, ie meaning today to come and see me, and Karita was clearly thinking in mental health terms and replied 'no, not recently'. My second favourite bit in the appointment was after telling my GP how suicidal I was feeling, she asked what my parents were doing tomorrow, and said (quite excitedly I thought) that there was point to pointing on, and seemed to be presenting that as a reason to stay alive. My GP is sweet, she is very well meaning, and she cares, but I think Karita would probably agree that mental health is not her speciality, and she does come out with some comments that are either very random, like the point to pointing suggestion, or quite unhelpful, like trying to guilt trip me into staying alive by telling me how it would destroy people's lives if I killed myself etc. I never find comments like that at all helpful, as of course I think about it - I think about it non stop, and I hate myself for it, and I wish there was an alternative, which is why I continue to seek help even when I no longer want it for myself, but there does come a time when your pain is just too immense, and even knowing how much you will upset the people you care about just isn't enough, but I think that is probably something that is incredibly difficult for anyone to understand unless they have actually felt that level of desperation themselves. I tried to be honest with Dr O. I think I was, although I did find I was getting more and more frustrated as the appointment went on, and so remembered less and less of what was being said. She just kept telling me that I could keep going, and that I could see the nurse for blood tests next week and then her again the following week, and I was getting more and more worked up as the suicidal thoughts are just so overwhelming. She told me to book the appointments for the blood test and to see her again, and also told Karita to talk to me about things or something when we got home (I'm not really sure - I think she was telling her to persuade me not to kill myself?) and then to phone and speak to her later, but I didn't book the appointments, as it seemed entirely pointless, and I didn't phone her, as I had seen her an hour before - I had nothing else to say. She did phone and spoke to my mum, but I have no idea what was said.

The suicidal thoughts are very strong and very overwhelming. I truly wish there was a way out of all of this without hurting people, but there isn't. I can't cope, I am completely desperate, and yet again I am in the position where I am next due to see someone in nearly two week's time. I am out of options. I have told everyone how I feel. I have tried to get help, even when I haven't wanted it. I have tried to keep going. I have tried doing the things I am supposed to be doing, like going to bed early the other night, going for a walk etc etc, but I still feel the same. It was really great to see Karita - she really was an absolute star, and I love her to pieces, and all of the support I get online is invaluable, but nobody can take away the thoughts, and at times like these when I am alone with them it is just all too much. I have no hope for the future, I have no fight left in me - I have nothing but desperation.

Another day

2011-02-24T23:18:00.000Z

It isn't getting any easier. Last night was horrible. I literally was unable to keep my eyes open, and fell asleep, crying because I needed to stay awake longer so that I could wait for my parents to go to bed and kill myself but just couldn't do it. I slept for a few hours, and then woke at about 2:30am I think. I was still feeling utterly exhausted, but not sleepy. I needed the toilet but I didn't have the energy to move, so I held it in for about three hours before I finally reached the point where it was moving or wetting the bed. When I woke up I was questioning whether or not it was too late in the night to go ahead with my plan. I don't do things on impulse, and I will not attempt suicide unless I think there is at least some chance of it working, and obviously the higher the better, and for my first choice plan this means leaving as much time as possible before anyone will find me. My second choice plan isn't time limited, but is very much a last resort plan as far as I am concerned. I knew that the man from the DWP could arrive any time after 9:30am, which meant that potentially I didn't have that long, or at least not in comparison to the length of time I would sometimes have, and I was yet to write the note I wanted to leave, which would have taken some time, and so ultimately I decided I couldn't do anything. I decided I would prefer to wait one or two more days and have a higher chance of it being successful. I was still very upset about it all though, and once I had woken up I couldn't get back to sleep for at least four hours. I came online and talked to Danni on Facebook chat for a long time, who was very supportive. I found I was getting increasingly worked up about everything, and so in the end decided to call out of hours, and ended up speaking to the same woman I had spoken to the previous night. She seemed different last night - I suspect she had looked at my notes and seen the BPD diagnosis, as she was certainly less supportive than she had been the night before, and started going on about doing a part time college course and moving out and various other things that feel beyond me when I am doing better, let alone at the moment, whereas the previous night she had been surprised by the lack of support and was telling me I needed to fight to get suitable help. Of course I can't prove anything, but her attitude was definitely different last night. It didn't really help talking to her, as the things she was talking about were just so far out of my realm of possibilities that it was more frustrating than anything else. After I spoke to her I came back online for a little while, but was feeling really quite upset, and decided I would go and invade my mum's bed and sleep in there, which I sometimes do when I feel shit.

Today my mum woke me up at around midday, as the DWP man arrived. It was pretty ridiculous really - he had been sent around because the Inland Revenue had a query about the amount of interest my savings account had made in 06/07. They thought it seemed too high. I said that since I have always had to send off bank statements to the DWP, they have always known how much money I have, and so I don't see how there can be a query about the interest, when they had a statement to go with it. He said it clearly hadn't been entered on the system properly or he wouldn't have been sent around. It seems ridiculous that they will send someone around about something from five years ago, that would have been unnecessary if people had done their jobs properly. He then had to go through all of his form and ask if I had had any changes in circumstances, if I was still unable to work, etc etc. I have got to dig out all of my bank statements since November '09 and send them to him - that will be a mission. He was very friendly though, not remotely confrontational or pushy, and if I hadn't been feeling so awful and exhausted it wouldn't have been remotely stressful.

This afternoon my mum dragged me (pretty much literally) out on a walk with the dog with her. I didn't want to go - I felt ridiculously tired, my head was feeling like it was going to explode, and my legs felt like lead. I can't say it was remotely enjoyable, in fact I loathed it, but at least they can't say I am not trying. She has also been making sure I have some food, although I have absolutely no appetite. I am not eating three meals a day, or anything even approaching it, but I am having something every day. The suicidal thoughts have been very intense again today. I got very upset earlier and just kept telling my mum I wanted to die. Today I felt like I reached a point where I no longer wanted help, I didn't care that L wasn't doing anything, or that I couldn't see the crisis team, or anything else. I just don't care anymore. I am too drained and too exhausted, and too sick of fighting. I have given up on trying to get help, as it clearly doesn't work, and I feel fine about that. I just don't want to be here.

Today I have felt very undecided about whether I was going to act on the thoughts tonight or not. It is actually another blogger who has made me decide not to do anything tonight. I desperately want to, but another day can't hurt right?? A couple of days ago the lovely Karita offered to come and visit me tomorrow. At the time I was planning to kill myself last night, but since I am still here today, I have decided that I can get through one more night. It amazes me how kind and caring people can be - I am so grateful to all of you out there who have been so supportive of me. It means so much. Lovely Frankie phoned earlier and we had a nice chat. I feel very lucky to have such caring people around me, albeit online rather than in person (except for tomorrow of course). I also have my GP appointment tomorrow, which again, I wasn't planning to be here for, but the combination of that and Karita visiting are making me think I must get through tonight. I know there is nothing my GP can do, and as I said, I am past the point where I want help to be honest, but she was very caring and supportive when I spoke to her yesterday, and she said repeatedly that she really wanted me to go and see her tomorrow, so I will. There really is nothing she can do - L has effectively blocked both the crisis team and hospital, and I don't even think that seeing the crisis team would be enough anymore anyway, and I don't want to be in hospital. I think this is the worst depression I have ever been in. It isn't lifting at all, and there is usually at least some part of me that wants help, but trying so hard to get it and getting nowhere has just taken the last of my fight out of me, and I have nothing left. I have been trying to do what I am told - I went to bed early last night, and it was a disaster, I went for a walk and hated it, and it exhausted me to the point that I had to go back to bed and just lie down in the dark when I got back - I didn't even have the energy to have my laptop on. At least nobody will be able to say I haven't tried everything. But I will get through tonight, and tomorrow I will spend some time with Karita, who is lovely (and I am sure spending time with friends must be another approved thing to do - they always seem to ask if I have friends I can see), and I will see my GP, and hopefully that will be the end of my involvement with any professionals. I did feel like it was unfair of me to let Karita come all this way to see me when I am such a mess and will probably be really shit company, but she has assured me that she doesn't mind. I don't care what anyone says - the internet is really really great. (Any musical theatre fans can carry on with the lyrics from there!)

This evening

2011-02-23T22:33:00.000Z

I am absolutely exhausted, to the point where I don't think I can keep my eyes open any more. I got very little sleep last night, and it has been a really draining day. I feel gutted. I was really determined to kill myself tonight, but my parents will still be up for another hour/hour and a half, and I don't think I can say awake that long. I feel immensely frustrated. My GP rung me earlier, after afternoon surgery. Actually she rung the landline and spoke to my mum first, but I don't know what she said to her. Then she spoke to me and said that things were really tough at the moment weren't they, and I said yes. She said how it seemed a particularly bad period, and I said it is. I talked to her for quite a while. I got quite upset several times. She said she wanted me to go and see her Friday - I said I couldn't cope and I intended to be dead by then. She said that she had spoken to L, and L had very clearly told her not to refer me to the crisis team under any circumstances. She kept saying she really wanted to see me on Friday and we could talk about things then. I said there was no point, as there was nothing she could do, and I wanted to die today, but she said she was putting it in her diary anyway and would expect to see me. She said I sounded too exhausted to act on my thoughts. I said I was absolutely shattered but that I would find the energy. And yet now I don't seem to be able to, and it is upsetting me. I can't remember what else my GP said. She was very supportive, but it was also very clear she had been told by L not to suggest admission or crisis team input, as she responded different to how she usually would, and did make a point a couple of times of saying she had spoken to L. I said how pissed off and upset I was that I felt like I was being treated like a typical Borderline, and given no support or help, when this was quite clearly a depressive episode, and that if I didn't have a BPD diagnosis there was no way on earth that I would just be left to get on with things like this with no support, and people knowing I was planning to kill myself. She didn't disagree.

My mum then wanted to talk to me. I explained to her the same BPD/Depression frustrations, and how I don't understand why when I meet every criteria without exception for one illness, and just about manage to get the 5 criteria needed for diagnosis for the other, that is seen as my primary diagnosis and I am treated based on that. She asked to see the diagnostic criteria and printed it off and said she would call L tomorrow. I also told her how much L had changed - that she used to be really supportive and caring and how she is just totally unhelpful and I think she hates me, and I think she has been taken over or replaced or something, because it is genuinely like she is a different person - based on the way she speaks to me now compared with six months ago I wouldn't recognise her as the same person. I am worried about my mum talked to L. L can clearly force her way of thinking onto others, in the way that she has with my GP (although I believe it was somehow forced onto L in the first place, but I am not sure how) and so she will make my mum think she is right about everything. All of this was probably about a ten minute conversation and then she seemed to get bored of the wanting to talk thing and went off downstairs, and then later when I said I thought she wanted to talk, she first of all said that I wouldn't ever talk to her, then remembered I had and said that we had already talked and that she wanted to go downstairs and drink her wine. I can't trust anyone. Nobody is reliable. I was prepared to tell my mum everything, including my suicidal intent, but she was more interested in going and having a glass of wine. My GP has been restricted so she is as good as useless, as she can't even refer me to someone, and it doesn't matter how sympathetic she is, if she can't do anything it doesn't help. And L has changed beyond recognition.

I can't keep my eyes open. I suppose I am going to have to sleep. Maybe I will be able to wake up in the night. I don't know. I don't want to sleep. I don't want to get through tonight. I want to die. But it appears that my GP was right and I am too bloody exhausted to even do that. I feel thoroughly useless.

Horrible day

2011-02-23T17:27:00.001Z

I called the out of hours number again last night. I felt awkward doing so - I didn't know what to say, and it felt wrong as I wasn't intending to kill myself then, as today was the funeral of my mum's boss who died last week, and she was obviously going to that, and I was supposed to be as well, and something about his funeral today made me feel like it would be disrespectful and unfair to try and kill myself the night before. But I got to a point where I was feeling really tense and desperate, and although I didn't plan to kill myself then, I really needed to talk to someone, so I rung them. I spoke to a different woman to the other night, but again, she was very nice. She asked what was going on, and so I told her I had been struggling a lot and that things had been bad for several weeks, but were getting even worse. She asked when I had last been seen by the CMHT, and I said that day, and she asked if plans had been put in place to support me and I said no. I said how suicidal I was feeling, and she asked if I had a plan, and I said yes, and explained about not being able to act on it that night. She asked if I had told L I had a plan and I said she hadn't asked - that she knew I was feeling suicidal but that she says it is pointless talking about suicide and there is no mileage in it. The out of hours woman sounded a bit baffled by the whole thing to be honest. She asked if I had been honest and actually told her how bad I was feeling, and not just said I was a bit low or something, and I told her I had definitely been honest, and there was nothing I had told her that I haven't told other professionals over the last few weeks. She said they couldn't just leave me like this and that I clearly needed help, and it was urgent, and that I had to try again today. She said to speak to my GP and ask for a crisis team referral at the very least, and also to make sure L knows just how bad I feel. She was very supportive, but seemed kind of bemused by the fact that I was getting no support other than fortnightly appointments.

Following that I sent L an email, saying I had spoken to out of hours, and saying I had been advised to contact GP and ask for a crisis team referral etc, and went on to tell her how strong the thoughts were etc, and the reasons why I hadn't acted on them last night, and basically everything I had spoken to the out of hours woman about. I got a reply saying it wasn't appropriate to email those thoughts and she would prefer if I rung next time. She also said that the crisis team wouldn't get involved as I have a care coordinator, which I know is not true - they might not get involved because she tells them not to, but the fact that I have a care coordinator is completely irrelevant. I replied saying that I thought perhaps the crisis team could help, and certainly if I was to try and do the things she was suggesting then it could help, and that I thought they were there for when you are in crisis regardless of whether or not you had a care coordinator. I got a reply this afternoon saying that if I needed support to do things we could discuss a support worker next time I saw her (I had said months ago that I wished I still had a support worker but she didn't mention anything about it being a possibility then) and that the crisis team do sometimes get involved when you have a care coordinator but only in certain situations. I replied that I couldn't cope, that I couldn't even put into words how desperate I was feeling, and that I know things could improve or that things might help in the future, but that right now I just can't cope, that this is as bad as I have ever felt, if not worse, and that I have kept going for as long as I can, but I didn't get a reply to that.

I tried calling my GP this morning. She was in morning surgery, which I knew she would be, but they said they would get her to phone me when she was finished. They did the usual of asking if I could say what it was about, and I said that I was suicidal and had been told to phone her - I don't usually tell them things like that but I am just totally desperate. Morning surgery finishes at 12:30pm, although she often runs over, but I still hadn't heard anything by 2pm so I rung back and asked if they had any idea what time she might be able to ring me, and they checked that the note to call me was on the system, which it was, and said she was out at the moment but shouldn't be long and they would ask her again when she got back. Afternoon surgery starts at 4pm, and I still hadn't heard anything, and it is now 5:15. I suppose there is still a small chance my GP will call me back after afternoon surgery, but I am not holding my breath, and I don't think there is much she can do anyway. I was just calling her because the out of hours woman made me promise to.

I don't know what I am supposed to do. I have done absolutely everything I have been told to do. I have been completely honest about how bad things are. I have asked for help. I have done what the woman from the out of hours number said and tried to contact my GP, and I have made sure L knows how bad things are. But I cannot get any support at all, and I can't cope. I have tried so, so hard, and it is just hopeless. It is so clear that they either don't give a shit whether I kill myself or not, or they don't believe me. But either way there is nothing more that I can do. I have spent the last three weeks desperately trying to keep going, and get some support, but I can't get anything more than a fortnightly appointment, and my mood has just been getting lower and lower, and I just can't cope. I really wish I knew what they expected me to do. I am completely exhausted, and feel utterly hopeless.

And yes, I am sure this is all self pitying drivel and I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. But the fact is I have been trying incredibly hard to get the support I need to keep going, and it just isn't there for me. And I can't do this alone.

Response and appointment

2011-02-22T21:29:00.000Z

I am not sure what to say or where to start. Actually, I think I will begin by addressing the comments regarding the previous post. I was going to reply in the comments, but it would have ended up ridiculously long. Firstly, I did not intend to cause the kind of tension that I have done. As usual, I was just writing what I was thinking, because that is what I do. I should point out that the original comments I quoted in my post were not made anonymously - I just didn't name any names as I didn't wish to cause that person to receive messages from people defending me. Thank you for all of the comments, regardless of what you said. I have never tried to censor the comments I receive on my blog, or deleted comments I dislike, because I believe everyone is entitled to express their opinion. For those of you who said you don't find me self pitying, thank you. I don't mean to be. And actually I don't consider that I am particularly. Yes, I feel shit, and I will write about that, but I don't think of it in a 'poor me, I feel worse than anyone else' way in the least. I feel shit, that is a fact, and I will write about the feelings I have, because I have been told it is good for me to express how I am feeling in writing, but I don't actually feel sorry for myself - I am actually more likely to assume that things are my fault, for example that if I am not receiving as much support as I feel I need, that it is my fault for not asking properly or something. I do try and take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings when I can. But I can also see that talking about how I feel all the time can come across as self indulgent etc. But surely that is what blogs are for? This is a place for me to express how I feel and what I am thinking, and by nature that is self indulgent, but that is why this blog exists. But I do appreciate all of those of you who showed concern and cared enough to post. Lexie, thank you for your comments. I just wanted to say regarding the second, although I have a BPD diagnosis in that I meet the criteria, I have been told by multiple professionals that I am not a 'typical' Borderline - I am not attention seeking - if I wanted attention I know exactly how I could get it, and I do not do those things. This is very much a depressive episode, and L agrees with that, and I believe that overall the depression is the primary problem rather than the BPD. I am not saying anything for attention. I don't feel like I get ignored when things are going well, and in terms of treatment from professionals, I actually get less support when I am feeling like this than when I am able to work more productively towards recovery, so feeling like this is certainly not a way of trying to get attention, and is not a trait of BPD that any professional has ever claimed I display. I am not sure if there are one or two anonymous posters, so I will reply to the actual comments. First anonymous comment, I want to address a couple of points you made. You said 'This you can’t go out for a walk or eat is crap. You are fucking depressed not dying of a serious illness. You have a pair of legs, arms and the ability to get up and go for a walk.' At no point did I say I was physically unable to eat or walk. But actually, you can be stopped from doing things as a result of mental health problems just as you can be stopped from doing things as a result of physical health problems. As I explained, I have problems with anxiety, which makes going for walks very difficult. And I have an eating disorder, which makes eating regularly very difficult. You said you have been reading for a long time, but I am slightly confused by that, as several things you said would imply you know very little about me. My parents do not, to my knowledge, know about this blog. The disclaimer at the top is there in case they happen to find it. If you read back a couple of weeks you will see I talked to them about how bad I am feeling, so they are aware of that though. If you think what I write is garbage and attention seeking though, please just don't read. And please, please don't be rude to other commenters on my blog. My Black Fog is a lovely, caring person, and I thought your comments to her were rude and upsetting - she is struggling enough with her own problems, and I appreciate that she even takes the time to comment on my blog, but calling her a 'jumped up little turd' was rude and uncalled for. To both the first and second anonymous comments, hospital is not an option, because my care coordinator does not believe it is helpful. That is not my decision. I do not have the option of having myself admitted to hospital because I am feeling suicidal, as it doesn't work like that. I have told literally everyone - my GP, the crisis team when they would see me, and L how I feel. It makes no difference. For some reason I am unable to get any help. I am not writing here in the hope that someone who knows me will contact anyone on my behalf, as I have already told all the professionals involved in my care exactly how I feel, and it has made no difference. Friends have in fact offered to do so, but if the professionals aren't taking any notice of me, I very much doubt they will take any notice of my friends either. I have tried so, so hard over the last few weeks to get help, and it hasn't happened, and that has left me feeling utterly alone and hopeless. Some see that as being self pitying evidently, but I have been fighting as hard as I can, to get through the thoughts, and to speak to someone who may be able to help me, but it hasn't made any difference. But if you read my posts over the last few weeks you will see that I have tried desperately hard to get help, despite not always feeling like I want it.

If you find my writing self pitying, irritating, garbage, etc etc, I am now going to go on and write more of what you will probably consider drivel, so I would probably suggest you stop reading now.

My appointment this afternoon felt really quite hideous. I don't know what to say about it. It was much as I expected it to be really. L started by asking how I was, although obviously she knew from speaking to her yesterday that things are not good. She asked me to rate my mood from 1 - 10, which was interesting, as although many people have asked me to do that before, she never has. She said based on how I was feeling right then, if 1 was feeling normal, ok, etc, and 10 was the worst I have ever felt, how was I feeling. I said a 9 or a 10, and she said to pick one, and so I said 9, as although I was feeling hideous, there have been points in the last few days and weeks when I have felt even more desperate, so they would be the 10s. But overall I would rate this whole episode as a 10 - it is equally as bad as I have ever felt, possibly more so. She asked what I wanted, and I said not to feel like this. She agreed with that, and asked how I thought that could happen. I knew it would frustrate her so I was hesitant about answering, but I said that it felt like the only way I could stop feeling like this was by killing myself. She said that she didn't want to talk about suicidal thoughts as there was no mileage in it and it wouldn't help or get me anywhere. She said their job is not about preventing suicide, and that it is very rare they will actually take any steps to try and stop someone killing themselves, and that there was no point in talking about it. I said that I knew that, but she had asked me, and so I was just telling her my honest response. She said she is finding it difficult because she feels like I want to die more than I want to get better at the moment, which I explained is certainly true some of the time, but at other times I really want to get better but just don't feel able to. She talked again about what she had said on the phone yesterday - that I needed to get some routine in my life, and work on getting my sleep pattern sorted, and eating regularly, and finding things to occupy me and that I could look forward to. I said that I agreed I needed more structure, and that if I was in a slightly better place than I am now then I definitely think that would be the way forward, but at the moment I was finding such small things, like getting up to go to the toilet, and getting dressed, enormous mountains, that just took all my energy. I also explained that I was finding it impossible to distract myself at the moment - that I had tried everything I could think of, but nothing helped, but she said she didn't believe nothing helped. She asked if I was saying I couldn't do it, and I said that at the moment I didn't see how I could, when such small things were so exhausting, but that I could see that was what was needed. I can't remember exactly what was said - she talked a lot, but essentially what she was saying was that I needed to make a decision between doing what she was saying, and being discharged, and if I couldn't do what she was saying then she would discharge me. She sat talking about planning activities and I just had sheer panic going through my head, and I honestly don't feel able to do what I am being asked to do at the moment without any support, but I couldn't say that because it would result in me being kicked out of mental health services, which she reminded me would also mean I would no longer be on the waiting list to see the psychologist, which she thought would be a 'shame' as that could help. I found during my appointment that the suicidal thoughts were getting stronger and stronger, as I am feeling so awful, and feel desperately like I need help, but am being told that the only way I can continue to receive help (fortnightly sessions) is by doing things that I just can't do whilst I am feeling this bad. I couldn't be feeling more desperate or hopeless - I have tried so hard to get help, but it is not forthcoming, and I can't do this on my own at the moment. L spent about 45 minutes with me, rather than the hour to hour and a half that she normally spends with me, made an appointment to see me in a fortnight, and said she expected me to have made a decision and thought about what I could do by then. After feeling very numb and blank all session, I burst into tears at the end, and she opened the door and said goodbye. I went and sat in the most private place in the waiting room, where nobody would see me, and just cried for a while, as I couldn't face leaving the building so upset, and I was just feeling so desperate. I have tried so hard to get help, as I really feel like that is the only way I can get through this, but it hasn't worked. I genuinely do understand what she is saying I need to do, but I do not understand how she is expecting me to do it, feeling like this, with no help or support. If she had said I needed to do that, helped me come up with exactly what I needed to do, and arranged some type of support to help me do it, for example seeing the crisis team for a little while to help get things on track, then that would have been an entirely different matter. But just to be told I have to structure my days, on my own, with no help, and with no support for another two weeks, when I am feeling so exhausted and depressed that just getting out of bed is an immense struggle just feels impossible. To be honest I wish that I had listened to my instincts yesterday and not gone to the appointment today. I didn't think it could make me feel worse or more desperate, but it has.

Hurt

2011-02-22T06:35:00.000Z

So I have my appointment with L later. I am not feeling remotely positive about it. I can't see an outcome that could improve things or make me feel any more positive about anything. I feel like it is going to be a difficult appointment for both of us - she is going to be frustrated by me because I don't feel able to do simple things like get dressed and go out for walks daily, and eat regular meals, and improve my sleep, and I am going to feel useless because I can't do any of those things, and frustrated with myself for being so pathetic, and with her for not being able to do more, which I know is unfair, but I just feel so horrible. I seriously considered not going to the appointment. Not just not turning up, because I don't do that, but cancelling - I am not sure whether for her sake or mine, or both. I did actually send her an email in the afternoon to that effect, saying that I was concerned it would be frustrating as she would want me to do things that I don't feel able to do, and I didn't want to make things tense, or to frustrate her, or make me feel worse. She replied that she thought we should talk about the options, and so would be happier if I kept the appointment, so I will go. I am worried, and I think not without reason, that she is going to stop seeing me. She talked last time about how if I am feeling this bad she obviously isn't helping, and maybe she is either taking a wrong approach, or she is the wrong person to be working with me at the moment. I have a strong suspicion that she may suggest we either take a break from sessions, or that she will pass me to another member of the team. I know I must be immensely frustrating at the moment, and based on the last time I saw her I just wouldn't be surprised if something like that happens. I will just have to see what happens I suppose, but I really won't be shocked if something along those lines does come up, particularly given what she said about talking about the options, as I am unsure as to what else she could mean by that. I feel like I am letting her down at the moment by not being able to do the things she wants me to.

It has been yet another difficult night. It begun by me getting a bit upset by some comments I received regarding this blog. I was told amongst other things "Sorry Bip but your self-pity and self indulgence is starting to grate. And, 'Madospherites', i do know what I'm talking about (more than most of you cyan imagine) don't come back at me with self-indulgent drivel." I was quite hurt to be honest. I suppose it touched too close to home to what I worry people will think of me, and what I think the professionals might be thinking of me. The thing with this blog is that although I do really appreciate all of the comments and support I receive through it, I write it for me. I write it because I am encouraged to write about my feelings and thoughts, as it helps me, and I like using blogging to do that because it allows me to connect with others. I don't write in order to garner sympathy or pity. I write whatever I am thinking at the time. But to be honest this has made me consider taking a blogging hiatus, at least whilst this particularly bad episode persists. Although I would continue to write, as I need to do that for me, I may not publish anything for a while, although I will see how I feel. I never wanted my blog to turn into one long moan, and essentially it has, and I don't want people to think of me as a continuously negative person who just whines non stop. I do not want people to reassure me regarding this because they don't want to hurt my feelings by telling me how dull and whiny I am, I honestly don't. So I am considering a blogging break. I will post later to say what happens with L, but I will see how I feel after that. If I continue to write, and you do think I am whiny and need to get over myself, please just stop reading. I don't want anyone to read out of a sense of obligation. If you are a friend and feel like you should read so you know what is going on in my life, but find my writing grates, then just stop - I honestly don't mind. This is primarily for me, and whilst I have met some fantastic people through this blog, who I now consider friends, I don't want anyone to read if they don't want to.

I really am fully aware that I am difficult and frustrating at the moment, probably to professionals and friends alike. I appear to be in an incredibly deep depression, that is certainly amongst the worst I have ever experienced, if not the worst, and despite time passing, it isn't easing at all. If anything, I seem to be feeling increasingly hopeless. I suppose it could be seen as fortunate that things have been as bad as they have. I have had so little energy and felt so terrible that the vast majority of my time seems to be spent either asleep (although I am not getting much sleep), just lying in bed feeling paralysed and so completely unable to do anything, or just somehow disappearing without me even really realising it - I suppose through dissociation. It literally sometimes takes me an hour or two to manage to get myself out of bed when I need the toilet (although I was also told "No-one is literally unable to get out of bed unless they are physically disabled"). I have no appetite most of the time, although I am forcing myself to eat anyway, although not regularly. To be honest, I feel almost certain that if I had slightly more energy I would have attempted to kill myself by now, but despite the thoughts constantly churning around in my head, I just feel too exhausted to act on them. It always strikes me as somewhat ironic that you can be too depressed to kill yourself. Plus I have genuinely been trying to get by for the sake of those who care about me, despite not wanting to, and so I have been putting whatever energy I have been able to find into asking for help when I feel like I need it, although it has proven to be fairly futile on the whole, writing here to try and clear my head, and trying not to cut myself off from people completely, which is certainly tempting when I feel like this. I have been making a lot of effort, although it evidently doesn't appear that way to some people, but I know how I feel, I know the thoughts I am having to contend with on a daily basis, and I know how desperate I am, and how strongly I feel I don't want to be here, and although that may mean I am coming across as self pitying and self indulgent, (and perhaps I am these things) I am doing absolutely everything I feel able to do at the moment. I am still alive, and although I think that is largely due to the extent of my depression, I suppose I have to view it as an achievement, despite it not feeling like one.

So where from here? I don't know right now. I suppose I go to my appointment this afternoon with L, and try to be honest about my feelings, despite knowing it isn't what she wants to hear. And then, who knows? I will blog following my appointment, which to be perfectly honest I am already dreading, and after that I will make a decision about whether I want to continue to blog at the moment or not. And life generally I guess. Que sera, sera.

Can't do it

2011-02-21T14:29:00.000Z

I am feeling really shit. I don't know what to do with myself. I can't keep going on like this. I spoke to L but it didn't make me feel any better. I know that the things she is saying make sense but I can't do it. She talked about going out for walks every day and things like that. Even when I am doing better I hate walks - they really scare me as I always think I am being followed and end up having a panic attack. At the moment leaving the house for anything at all feels overwhelming, so going for a walk feels totally out of the question. She also said about eating regular meals and sorting out my sleep pattern and making sure I get up and dressed every day. I know all of this stuff makes sense. But I can't do it. Every single ounce of energy I have is going on staying alive. Getting dressed feels like the most monumental task that I can only do when I absolutely have to, ie if I am going somewhere. It leaves me feeling drained. Sorting out my sleep is so much easier said than done, and I don't actually feel will achieve anything anyway. But even days when I have to wake up in the morning for some reason, I still can't sleep until really late. My sleep quality is atrocious, and I am rarely getting more than 5 or 6 hours a night. I am constantly exhausted. I have no appetite, and although I do force myself to eat something every day, it is really hard to try and get my head around the concept of regular meals, as my eating disorder is loving the fact that I'm not hungry, and every time I have a day where I make myself eat more, I gain weight and feel even worse about myself. I know all the things she is saying I need to do are right and sensible, but I can't do it. And that probably sounds stubborn and like I am deliberately being awkward and not trying to get better, but it really isn't that. It is just too much.

My mum is out at the moment and I have spent the time googling how to tie a noose and trying to make one with a dressing gown belt. Not to kill myself right now, although that is incredibly tempting, but so that I know I can do it and it will work when I need to. I am feeling totally overwhelmed. I am due to see L tomorrow, but I actually don't want to. I keep thinking about last time I saw her. I know I must have been incredibly frustrating because I said I wanted to die more than I wanted to get better. And it all felt tense and I felt like I was wasting her time because I just wanted to die, and I left feeling even more desperate than I had when I went in. I am feeling even worse now if anything, and I think I will just end up really frustrating her, which will make me feel like shit. It feels like there are no answers to where I am right now. I don't have the energy or the motivation to do the things that will apparently help me and I can see that I will get nowhere if I don't do those things, but that doesn't help. I still can't do it. If I see her when I feel like this I am just going to be wasting her time, and feeling more and more hopeless myself. I just want to die.

Emotional

2011-02-21T06:09:00.000Z

I am feeling really emotional tonight. The suicidal thoughts are very strong and everything is just feeling really overwhelming. I am frustrated and upset that I have been feeling so low and desperate for so long now - I thought that if I did keep going things would have started to lift by now, but every day seems to be as hard, or harder than the one before, and it isn't getting any easier at all.

I just phoned the out of hours number that goes through to the local psych ward. I find that incredibly hard to do, so I have to be really quite desperate to phone them, and therefore it happens very rarely. But it was 3am and I was desperate and lonely and I didn't know what else to do, so I called them. The woman I spoke to was actually really lovely. She was really sweet and caring and although she obviously couldn't suggest anything earth shattering, because there isn't anything, she was very supportive and understanding and she talked to me for about half an hour. She told me multiple times that I must call L in the morning and tell her how bad I am feeling and about the suicidal thoughts, and that I had to ring the ward tonight because things felt so hard. L already knows how I am feeling of course, and I did tell her that, but she was very insistent that I call her, and made me promise that I would, so I guess I will do that. She also said she would be contacting the crisis team to let them know I had phoned. I told her they probably wouldn't want to know, and she said it was likely they would leave it to L, but that was the only thing that she could do. She kept telling me to just get through tonight and speak to L tomorrow, and if I was feeling really unsafe tonight then to wake my mum up etc. She was very sweet and kept telling me I mustn't give up and to keep hopeful, and that there was something out there that would help, because there is for everything apparently. She said she thought I needed a medication review (I wonder how many more people will say that before it actually happens?) and that seeing the psychologist might really help. I told her how hopeless I felt, and how I just get through one bad patch to go into another one a few months later, and how this time it just seemed to be getting worse and worse and harder and harder and how I had been trying so hard and being honest about how I felt but that it just felt so hopeless, and how things like medication and seeing the psychologist felt like such a long term thing compared to where I am now and how I am feeling, and that I wished I had killed myself weeks ago when the thoughts first started getting strong. She said again how I really needed to talk to L and tell her all of this. I tried to explain that she does know, but she said she needs to know that the suicidal thoughts were bad enough tonight that I had to call the ward etc. I will speak to L, because I promised I would, but I know there is nothing she can do. Nobody can take these thoughts or feelings away and I am just so exhausted.

But I am glad I rung. She was just so sweet. It made me cry, just because she was being so kind and supportive, and when I am really struggling, as soon as someone is nice to me I just fall to pieces. So I did get a bit upset and sniffled my way through half the conversation. She seemed genuinely concerned, and I hadn't even told her a quarter of what I have told L or the crisis team or my GP over the last few weeks. But just being listened to and feeling like I was being taken seriously just made me feel so emotional. She said she was sure there were a lot of people who cared about me and what happened to me, and that she didn't even know me, but that she cared about me. It just made a really nice change to speak to a professional who didn't seem to be against me, and who cared about what happened to me etc. It hasn't changed how I feel, because I don't think anyone can do that at the moment, but just speaking to someone who took the time to talk to me and listen and made me feel like I was worthy of their time etc meant a lot. And it is reassuring that there are mental health professionals out there who do care.

DWP and friendship

2011-02-20T03:29:00.001Z

I meant to blog earlier, but I didn't know what to say. I feel like I have said it all. Multiple times in fact. I think everyone has grasped that I feel like shit and want to die. For anyone new, or who hasn't picked up on the situation, that is it. I mostly write as a way of trying to get all of the thoughts out of my head, but they don't appear to be going anywhere even when I do write, so it seems quite pointless from that point of view, and I am just really lacking motivation. There are a couple of specific things I wanted to write about though, so I will try and write about those, rather than just generally rambling.

I got a letter yesterday, which stressed me out. From the DWP, wouldn't you know? It says, and I quote (anything in red is an addition by me),

'Dear Bippidee (of course addressed to my real name, or it would just be weird)

We need to see you in order to discuss the benefits we are currently paying you because a query has arisen on your claim. What the fuck?! We need to ensure your payments are correct and it is important that you are available so we can discuss the matter further. What matter? I see no matter to discuss. Please fuck off and leave me alone.

You should note that where there is doubt about whether the conditions for entitlement are met, we can suspend payment of your benefit. Thanks. Please fuck off, again.

A Customer Compliance Officer, Mr Nosy Fuckwit (not real name) will be calling on Thursday, 24 February 2011 between the times of 9:30AM and 3:30PM. Please note we will not be able to state a specific time. Helpful. Thanks for that.

Some irrelevant crap like stuff they want to see, none of which I know where to find etc etc.

Yours sincerely
Mr Nosy Fuckwit
Customer Compliance Officer'

This fairly naturally sent me into a complete tailspin. Firstly, what on earth is there to query about my benefits?! The only thing I am claiming is old Incapacity, although due to lack of NI contributions it has always been paid as Income Support with illness/disability premium. I live at home with my parents, which they know, I have some savings that are within permitted amounts, which they know, I don't work, I am not going out partying every day and claiming under false pretences. I don't claim Housing/Council Tax benefit as I live with my parents. I am not even claiming DLA, which I have been told by multiple people I am eligible for. So what is there to discuss? What can possibly have been queried? I asked on Twitter yesterday, and also did some Google research, and it seems like they are essentially the overspill of the fraud department, and are generally sent around when someone has said you are making a fraudulent claim, or if they suspect you are living with a partner and have claimed you are living alone etc etc. A few people have said they occasionally make random checks, but I would seem a bad person to make a random check on, given that my claim is so straightforward to most people's - I claim one benefit. I am not at all happy about them sending a man around to my house. I don't want some strange man in my house making accusations that I am a benefit fraud. I don't want some strange man in my house full stop. And them not being able to give a time is completely shit. I wasn't planning to go anywhere, but it is very rare at the moment that I get to sleep before 6am. I will have to be awake by 9:15am in case they do come in the morning. And then what if they don't come until 3pm. I am meant to stay awake all day having probably had 2 or 3 hours sleep, waiting for them? That won't happen. And what if I wanted to arrange for someone to be here with me for support - are they supposed to stay for six hours?? It seems totally unreasonable. I tried phoning the number on the letter that it says to contact immediately if you are unavailable etc to a) find out what the hell it is about, and b) try to pin them down to a more precise time, for example morning or afternoon, but I got no reply. And it didn't even go to answerphone. This stress was absolutely the last thing that I needed right now with how I was feeling. It actually made me even more determined to kill myself before then so I didn't have to deal with it. I don't know where my driving licence or passport are, I have no utility bills, I have no rent agreement - all of which they want to see. I have a bank statement. But I have two bank accounts and only have a statement for one of them. They will hate me. I just really didn't need this stress. I know I have done nothing wrong and so I have nothing to be worried about, but my experience with the DWP has shown me that you have to be worried even if you haven't done anything wrong, as they will treat you like a criminal regardless. Fuckwits.

Right, onto a nicer subject. Today the most beautiful bouquet of flowers arrived for me. It was from La Reve and I can't say how much it meant to me that she had done that for me. It was completely unexpected, and nearly made me cry. I can't believe that someone whom I have never met, and have only known a relatively short time, would want to do something so sweet and generous for me. The madosphere is a wonderful reminder of how many fabulous people there are out there, who really do care for others, and will do things to try and help. She knew she couldn't stop me feeling like this, but she showed me she cared, and that meant so much. And does every time I get a supportive comment or email or tweet. It reminds me that people care, which is a really big deal when you don't feel you are getting any care from the professionals, whose job it is to care. There will always be people who say it is a bad idea to talk to people you have met on the Internet, that you don't know who they are, that you should never meet anyone you meet online, that talking to other people with mental health problems is a bad idea etc etc, but I have never found any of this to be remotely true. I started meeting up with people I met online, on theatre and dance messageboards, when I was 16, and have since met others from all sorts of sites, and whilst I haven't kept in touch with everyone I have met from the Internet, I have met some of my closest friends online, and I can quite honestly say that I think it would be very unlikely that I would still be alive if it weren't for people I have met online - both those in person, and those who have supported me on here. The support is absolutely invaluable, and I wish more people would realise how wonderfully supportive the Internet can be. Here is a picture of my beautiful flowers;

Unbearable

2011-02-18T05:36:00.000Z

Tonight has been really really horrible again. I feel so awful and I just can't keep going like this and I am just so desperate. I really can't do this. I have been trying so hard but it just feels harder and harder and I honestly have no idea at all what I can do. I just don't see carrying on like this as an option. It feels too hideous. And I know there is nothing anyone can do because they can't stop me feeling like this but I just feel so horrible and desperate and I just don't know what to do. I know people will say I can get through this, but I can't. I just can't do it. I don't want to keep going because I can't cope with these feelings, they are just too overwhelming. And it's just not getting any easier at all. I either need help or I need to die, and to be quite honest right now I don't care which, but it has to be something, I just can't cope like this. It feels too awful and I feel too desperate. It's just impossible. I know I have said all of this sort of thing before and somehow coped, but this time I just can't. This is the worst I have ever felt, and the last couple of weeks have just been hell, and I can't keep going like this anymore, and it's getting worse not better. I don't know what to say. I don't think there is any way that I can express how horrible I feel and just how strong and overwhelming the thoughts are. I am just completely desperate. I keep wanting to beg, but I don't know what for, because I just want all of this to stop and I know nobody can take the feelings away and I don't think anyone is going to condone suicide. I feel like I am being tortured and I just can't cope anymore. I really can't. I can't go through another night like tonight. I wish I had killed myself a couple of weeks ago when things first started getting so bad. Or better still I wish one of my previous attempts had worked. I wish that when the first attempt didn't work I had just kept trying until one had. People sometimes talk about being glad afterwards that suicide attempts didn't work, or that they got through awful periods. I have never felt that. Ever. There has never been a point since I first tried to kill myself five and a half years ago when I felt glad that it hadn't worked and I was still alive. I should have killed myself tonight and I didn't and now it is too late. I should have killed myself weeks ago. This is just unbearable. L was supportive when I spoke to her earlier, but she can't stop me feeling like this. There is nothing that she, or anyone else, can say that is going to change how I feel. And I can't cope with it.

I'm sorry. I just needed to vent. Please know that I am not about to hurt myself in any way - there is no imminent risk. I just needed to try and get out how awful I am feeling, but I have realised there is no way of explaining it. I wish I had some hope left but I don't. There is none, because nobody can help me. Nobody can do anything. I have no options. This is it. And this isn't an option. I just haven't got any fight left. I have no motivation to keep going, particularly as things just keep getting worse rather than better. I'm sorry. I will stop now and try and write something more coherent later.

Diagnonsense

2011-02-17T21:20:00.001Z

I have grown increasingly frustrated regarding diagnosis the last couple of weeks. I feel quite sure that if I didn't have a BPD diagnosis, I would have received more support than I have done. I am totally convinced. What my GP said to my mum about having BPD, not depression, really clinched it for me. She had said nothing like that when she spoke to me on Wednesday and thought the crisis team should be seeing me, so either the crisis team or the CMHT manager must have told her that. And the only reason they would have told her that would be as justification for why I wasn't getting more help. The frustrating thing is, I don't even see it as relevant. I don't actually think diagnosis should ever be relevant - I think symptoms should be treated/given support for, rather than the diagnosis. But I am particularly pissed off because actually I don't even feel like BPD is relevant at the moment even in terms of treating diagnoses. I am not disputing that I meet the diagnostic criteria for BPD. However, if I look at the diagnostic criteria for Depression I literally meet every single criteria at the moment. Therefore surely that is the current problem rather than BPD, and should be treated accordingly. The diagnostic criteria for BPD relating to mood is 'Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).' That is not me. My mood is not reactive, and it has lasted weeks, not hours or days. The only time that applies is when I have episodes when I am particularly irritable or hyper for a few hours. It never applies to my depressed or suicidal periods, and I would not consider my mood unstable - it is consistantly very low, and has been for weeks. It makes me so angry that there is still so much prejudice surrounding BPD, which there absolutely is. I don't self harm or take small overdoses and then turn up at A&E - I have never, ever done that. I don't make threats regarding suicide - I only talk about feeling suicidal if I am feeling genuinely suicidal and unable to keep myself safe. And the times I have attempted suicide have not been impulsive - it has been at times like this when I have been feeling desperate and reach a point where I can no longer cope - they have been planned. But I feel like I am being treated as though I am the 'stereotypical' borderline who takes overdoses for attention and that giving me support would be encouraging attention seeking etc. I know I meet the BPD criteria. But I also meet the criteria for Depression, and more closely in my opinion, and that is what is making me feel like this at the moment. And I honestly feel that if Depression was my only diagnosis, I would be receiving different treatment at the moment. I am sure that would be denied by the crisis team or any other professionals, but I have seen from the experiences of friends the difference in the support given to people with a BPD diagnosis, and the support given to people with mood disorder diagnoses, even if presenting with the same symptoms, and except in a few exceptional cases, those with mood disorders virtually always seem to get given more support in crisis. I know the medications I have tried have seemed to have little effect, but I am sure that if Depression was my only diagnosis then medicaations would continue to be tried until something helped. I would not just be left, when feeling suicidal, and expected to get on with things. The crisis team would have arranged the appointment with the psychiatrist that they talked about, and they would probably have continued to visit, and although they aren't always helpful, when I am feeling like this I do find it helpful to know that I have some form of support, and knowing there will be daily visits etc does make a difference. It doesn't change how I feel, but I know from past experience that it makes it easier to take things one day at a time, which is something I am struggling with at the moment, and various other things. As I said, I am sure it would be denied, but I am convinced that had my diagnosis been different, I would have received different treatment these last few weeks, and that makes me angry.

I spoke to L earlier. I can't remember what we talked about. It was only a few hours ago, but my brain just isn't working. I remember that she was supportive though, and I didn't feel like she didn't care about me. I trust her a bit more than I did. It all feels rather irrelevant though. Nobody can change how I feel, and I still have the same level of help. Or lack of.

Collapsed brain

2011-02-17T02:33:00.000Z

I am really determined to get an earlier night tonight. It was 7am again last night/this morning, and I just find that so hideous. I hate being awake still when I hear my parents getting up. If I lived on my own I don't think I would care, but I just hate hearing other people getting up when I haven't been to sleep yet. So I am really hoping for an earlier night tonight.

I got through rehearsal ok. I had to go at 6:30 to work on my songs for an hour with the Musical Director. That was ok. He seemed happy enough, although he is very precise about what he wants, so is quite hard to please. And seems to think that I have lungs of steel and can hold a note for far longer than I actually can. But he seemed pleased. Although it was slightly embarrassing, as I have a tendency to not warm up very thoroughly before rehearsals - on Mondays I literally don't get a chance to as I go straight from ballet, and on Wednesdays I tend to do maybe 5 or 10 minutes, which is totally inadequate. Tonight I had probably warmed up for about 20 minutes, which is still fairly pathetic, but an improvement on usual, and he asked if I had just come from a singing lesson or had been warming up properly as it sounded much better than usual. Note to self: warm up properly - people can tell the difference unfortunately. I have got very lazy vocally - I haven't had a proper singing lesson since the summer, and I don't sing every day, which I really should be doing, and then I expect to be able to go into a rehearsal, without warming up properly, and sing four solos, a duet, and solo lines in a couple of other songs, plus ensemble singing. Doesn't work. It isn't fair on my voice. After that I spent an hour and a quarter getting increasingly fed up and desperate to get home, as I was just sitting around, as they were working on a number I am not in. Then finally they started work on the number we were scheduled to rehearse tonight, which is a big ensemble number, lead by me and three others, which has a big tap break in the middle. The tap is very fast - not difficult steps, but very fast, and with some tricky rhythms, which makes it difficult. Unfortunately I have already forgotten one section, which is indicative of my current inability to concentrate and retain information, as usually I just have to do a dance a couple of times and it is ingrained in my head, but I just can't remember some of it at all. I now have no rehearsals for a week and a half, which is the most enormous relief. It is half term next week, and as the MD is a music teacher, and the Director/Choreographer is a dance teacher, they both have the week off work, and so are going away (they are a couple), which means no rehearsals until Sunday 27th. I also don't have ballet next week for the same reason, so I basically have no commitments at all for the next week and a half, and that just feels so good. Although at the same time, it does make me feel more unsafe. When I have commitments, like rehearsals that I know I can't miss as it would mess things up for the rest of the cast, it makes me feel obliged to keep going however shit I feel, whereas now I am free from that, which makes the suicidal thoughts even stronger. Of course I realise it would be difficult for them after that week and a half if I were dead, but I can't think that far ahead, and all I can think at the moment is that I have no commitments at the moment, my mum's birthday is out of the way, and so there is nothing to stop me acting on my thoughts. To be honest I am feeling quite unsafe.

I tried to phone my GP earlier. I didn't have a clue what I would say to her. Saying 'I don't trust you because you have been taken over by them and now you have taken over my mum, but I need help' seemed somewhat inappropriate, but is the truth. I don't trust her any more - I don't trust anyone. But I am desperate, particularly as I knew I have been feeling increasingly unsafe. So I didn't really know what to do. In the end I did ring, at about 12:30, and the receptionist said they would get her to call me back as she was with a patient. She didn't ring all afternoon, and I know that she has afternoon surgery from 4 - 6, so I knew that if she did call me back it would be after that. I had left my mobile number as usual, but I had to leave for rehearsal at 6, and was rehearsing alone with the MD until nearly 7:30, so couldn't have taken any calls in that time even if she had rung. My GP tends to phone at strange times - I have had a call from her at 8:15pm before, so I kept my phone on vibrate in my pocket, so that I could answer it if she did ring, but I didn't hear anything. When I got home my dad said she had rung at 7:30 - I don't know why she had called the landline rather than my mobile, but obviously it meant I couldn't speak to her. That doesn't really feel like a bad thing - I didn't know what I could say anyway. I just feel like I need help from somewhere, and I would prefer to speak to her than whoever happened to be on duty at the CMHT. L is in work tomorrow, so I have sent an email asking if she could phone me. Again, I feel very unsure about what I can say, as I am still feeling really mistrustful of all professionals, and I know she can't change how I feel or what I am planning to do, but I just really need to talk to someone I know, and whom I have trusted in the past, even if I don't at the moment. It probably won't help or make any difference, but at least I will have tried. I really have absolutely no idea what I can say to her. I don't even know what I am scared of. I just don't trust anyone at the moment. I do wonder whether there is any point trying to get help. I have done that, it didn't work. Maybe I should just learn from that and not try and get help - just get on with it. But when I feel very suicidal and unsafe I just get this frustrating part of me that nags me to talk to someone, even if I know it will make no difference. I suppose knowing it will make no difference is why it feels safe to do so. I know nobody can stop me from acting on my thoughts if that is what I choose to do, or at least L wouldn't anyway, so despite feeling like she has been taken over and is against me, I know she wouldn't make me do something I wasn't happy with, like insisting I go to A&E, or having me assessed or anything like that, and my mum already knows so it isn't like she can threaten to speak to her. That's one of the reasons I couldn't call the CMHT whilst she was away - there was the possibility of fuckwit ex-care coordinator being on duty, and if he knew I was feeling like this then he would insist I went to A&E, or have me assessed under the MHA, and I am not having either of those things happen. But I still trust L not to do that, and I don't believe my trust in that respect is misplaced, because I know hospital is the last thing she wants for me. I feel confused. I don't know what to say to her if she calls. I don't know what I can tell her. I don't trust her because I know she is on their side, but she is also my only option. And she can't stop me. Suicide feels so appealing. It is like it is beckoning to me. I just feel like such a mess at the moment. I am beyond confused. My brain just feels like it has collapsed.

Just stop

2011-02-16T05:35:00.000Z

It is 5:15am and I am not remotely sleepy, and am feeling very tense, despite taking 10mg Diazepam. The suicidal thoughts are really in full swing, and although I am not intending to act on them tonight, it doesn't make them any weaker or easier to cope with. I think I might have to have another Diazepam, as when I feel like this my thoughts just go into overdrive and I have absolutely no chance of sleeping.

I am feeling so alone. I know I have support online, and I am truly grateful for that, but in real life I have absolutely nothing, and it is hard. Actually it is much worse than hard. I desperately feel like I need some support, but there is nowhere to turn. My GP works Wednesdays, but there is no point contacting her, as I have grasped exactly what she thinks from my mum speaking to her last week, and she has certainly been turned against me. I could phone and speak to whoever is on duty at the CMHT, but a) I don't trust that it won't be a fuckwit on duty, as there are several of them, b) they will all be against me too, and c) they will either suggest going for a walk, having a bath, or listening to music, and none of those are remotely helpful suggestions at the moment. I always find walking very anxiety provoking - I am always paranoid that someone is following me, and it really does scare me. I find baths the opposite of relaxing. I hate just lying there with my thoughts. I don't see how that is supposed to be relaxing or helpful. And I usually love music, but as I have explained on here before, I find it really difficult to listen to at the moment unless there is a particular song I need to hear - otherwise it just sounds like irritating noise that is drilling through my head, even if it is a CD I usually love. The TV is similar - I get a headache within about 5 minutes of turning it on as it just overwhelms me. And I can't concentrate to read. So essentially, anything they might suggest I do is useless, and therefore I am fucked.

I miss L. I know that sounds weird, given that she has been turned against me, and hasn't done anything to help me lately, but I do. I guess that is why attachment issues are such a bitch. Even when you know someone isn't helping, you can't get over them. I was thinking about it, and actually I don't think things have ever been quite the same with her since that time in November when I felt very let down by her. Things did get back on track and feel ok after that, but I suppose I never had quite the same level of trust in her following that, and now I feel like she doesn't care about me at all and doesn't care what happens to me, as she just left me with an appointment for a fortnight's time when she knew how awful I was feeling. And yet I still miss her. That is wrong, and it pisses me off. I am angry with myself for wanting to talk to her. I don't want to miss her. I want to be angry with her. But every time I am feeling desperate I just get this overwhelming desire to talk to her. And yet last Thursday and Friday when she was in work, and I could have rung her, I didn't because I was just too upset. I feel really confused about the whole thing. I suppose it is a bit like the situation with my mum. I still feel like she has been turned against me where my mental health is concerned, but I still love her despite that. I feel let down by her, and I feel like she either doesn't believe me, or doesn't care about me any more, in much the same way I feel about L, but she is still my mum, and I still love her. I just have to accept that I can't rely on her for support. And I suppose it would be the same with L, except our whole relationship is based on support, as that is why she is there, which makes it much more awkward, But of the CMHT she is still the only person I want to talk to. I feel lost and alone and desperate, and like the people I have relied on and trusted the most are no longer there for me. I really feel like I can't cope.

I have rehearsal again tonight. It is going to be a long one, as I have to get there an hour early to work on my solos with the musical director, and then I have the normal rehearsal, so I will be there from 6:30 until at least 10, possibly 10:30. It's all too much. I want to scream and shout and cry but I don't think that would be appreciated by my parents or my neighbours given that it is 5:30am. I just can't cope. I want out. I want to make everything stop. Just stop. Why isn't it getting any easier? Surely it should be getting easier. And it isn't. It just gets harder and harder. I don't believe that these thoughts and feelings are going to go away without me acting on them. It is too intense. And it feels like the right thing to do. I don't want to wait for them to pass. I just want to make it all stop.

Weight and Cake

2011-02-16T00:01:00.000Z

I feel hideous. I have gained over 2lbs the last few days, and although I am aware that isn't very much, my weight does not fluctuate except with actual weight gain and loss, and I just feel like I have lost control of the sole thing that was actually ok and I wasn't feeling hideous about. The strange thing is, I still have no appetite. I am not hungry. I have just been eating for the sake of it, and that really annoys me. If I am hungry and I eat then that is kind of fair enough, although I still resent it if it causes weight gain, but not even being hungry and yet still managing to eat enough that I gain weight is just shit to be honest. I just feel revolting.

Naturally the way to solve the problem was to make a cake..... I do wonder about my intelligence at times. My mum clearly wanted a birthday cake though - when she was in Sainsbury's last week she phoned me and said they had the Betty Crocker Devil's Food Cake mix on offer, plus the icing and should she buy them. I said she may as well buy the cake mix, since those cakes always turn out perfectly, whereas generally I find chocolate cakes a bit hit and miss as to whether they are delicious or dry, despite using the same recipe. Ironically I said not to bother with the icing, since icing isn't exactly difficult to make. Yesterday's endeavor clearly proved me wrong on that score. So anyway, I cheated and used the packet mix for the cake (which I did on Sunday) and then planned to decorate it yesterday, but as I explained, it all went hideously wrong as the buttercream curdled, and absolutely nothing I tried made it right again. So today I started again. I wanted two lots of icing - white chocolate for the middle layer and for piping, and normal chocolate for the top and sides. It all went fine. It just took so long. I don't know if I am just spectacularly crap at doing things like that, or if my concentration is bad enough at the moment that I went off into my own thoughts for long periods at a time, but from starting to make the icing, to the cake being totally finished took three hours, which is pretty ridiculous quite frankly - I wasn't attempting anything terribly complicated, and I did absolutely nothing in that time apart from that. Wondering if maybe some dissociating was going on, as three hours is just an absurd length of time for it to have taken when I look back at it. Due to my lack of imagination the cake looks remarkably similar to the cake I made for Mother's Day last year. Here are cake pictures since I have nothing interesting to say;

(Mis)Trust

2011-02-15T05:45:00.000Z

I wrote the buttercream off as a disaster. I have no idea what went wrong. Who would have thought it was possible to mess up mixing butter and sugar? The number of times I have made buttercream too. It really isn't hard. I suppose I will have to try again tomorrow, because at the moment my mum still doesn't have a birthday cake. I feel sorry for her - she had a bad birthday. I think she had a really tough day at work with her boss dying this morning so unexpectedly - all of the staff were really upset, and so she was quite emotional all day at work I think, and then had to come home and only have an hour at home before taking me off to ballet and rehearsal. She went to see my brother whilst I was in ballet, and then we had a little bit of time between ballet and rehearsal so we got take away pizzas from a nice bar in town, and then she went to see a friend whilst I was rehearsing, so I guess she had an ok evening, but I think overall it can't have been a very nice day. I will try again with icing the cake tomorrow. I want to make it look really pretty but I can't quite decide how. I am a bit rubbish at doing anything other than basic icing. I made quite a pretty cake for Mother's Day last year, but I would have liked to do something a bit different decoration wise, but I either lack the imagination or the skill to pull off anything much more creative. Whilst I am on the subject of food, the last few days my weight has started to go back up and I am really struggling with it. It was going down, and that was literally the only thing that I felt was going right in my life. Now it is going back up, which is making me feel even more hopeless, and I would be lying if I said it wasn't adding to the suicidal thoughts, which were certainly strong enough without dealing with weight gain as well.

Well I got through ballet and rehearsal. It was an enormous relief to get home and know that I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow - that there is absolutely no need to leave my house for anything. Rehearsal was difficult yet again. I feel like I am completely useless and they cast the wrong person in the part, and like by now they will have realised that and be regretting their decision. The girl who is playing the second female part has a stunning voice - vocally she is definitely stronger than I am, and I hear people talking about how good she is, and I am sure they are thinking that she should have been cast in my part. When I hear her sing I think she should have been cast in my part. I also had to have the publicity shots taken tonight, which weren't terribly attractive I don't think, but I kind of don't give a shit at the moment. What was more difficult was talking with someone about the show etc as part of the publicity. They asked the easy questions I could answer, like where I live and how old I am, where I went to school, what other companies I have worked with etc. Then came the 'What do you do?' question. I do nothing. I said something along those lines. She said so are you still studying or anything? No.... I do nothing. How do you say that without sounding like a complete idiot? And then she followed that up by asking if I had been to drama school or university. No, I haven't done that either. I actually am 24, not studying, not working, and haven't done anything since the age of 19. Not that I said all of that of course. Then it was why did you want to audition for the show, and what attracted you to this part, which were easy enough to answer, followed by how are you finding it - are you enjoying it? Mmm. Enjoying. That doesn't seem to be the word that has been springing to mind lately when I have thought about rehearsals. Dreading? Yup, that will be the one. That doesn't sound so good in an interview though, so I switched it for enjoying. White lies don't hurt anyone right? So that felt quite difficult, because it just reminded me of everything I should have achieved and haven't, and the things I should be feeling about the show and am not. And then I always hate having my photo taken. Oh, and finally, to add insult to injury the costume woman was there to take measurements. Perfect! That cheered me up no end.

I wrote yesterday how I have found I am cutting myself off from people online a lot - usually I spend most of my day online, and am always logged into Twitter, MSN, Facebook chat, Skype, and usually have several conversations on the go. Lately I have been appearing offline on MSN a fair bit, not signing into Skype, not signing into Facebook chat, and watching Twitter but rarely engaging with anyone. I think I am just terrified of the same thing happening with the people I trust online as it did with the people I trust in real life. I am also generally ignoring texts, and most people know better than to phone me anyway. I can't cope with feeling let down or abandoned by any more people. I am scared that somehow people from the internet will be taken over too, despite knowing that makes no sense, as I don't believe that my mum or GP etc were taken over by some form of mind control and had thoughts beamed into their heads or anything like that. I believe that the crisis team and the CMHT manager (who is probably influenced by my psych, as I feel like she is involved, despite my not seeing her since June - perhaps because of my not seeing her since June) managed to persuade L, and my GP in particular, of things that they hadn't previously believed or thought, and my GP to the extent that she did a complete 180, and went from trying to get me more support from them last Wednesday, to telling my mum they couldn't do anything because I have BPD etc on Friday, and persuading my mum of the same thing. So I know logically that unless someone from online speaks to someone from my treatment team, which is not going to happen, they can't be taken over. But that doesn't stop me feeling paranoid that they just might. Or that the crisis team and psych and everyone else are right and I am just an attention seeking, manipulative borderline who doesn't deserve any help, and people will start to see through me if I talk to them. I feel incredibly alone. I really, really feel like I need some professional support at the moment, but I have exhausted that, and now there is nowhere to turn to, and it is still a whole week before I am due to see L, who at the moment I don't even trust. I just feel so isolated and I don't know what I can possibly do.

Useless

2011-02-14T16:13:00.000Z

I am spectacularly useless. I fucked up making buttercream. How can you fuck up mixing butter and icing sugar?? I have no idea, but I did. It has curdled. I have made buttercream enough bloody times with no problems. I think maybe the buttercream sensed my negative energy and got upset. Is that possible? Horses can tell when you are tense, maybe buttercream can too.

My mum's boss died this morning. That's sad. He was due to retire in the summer too. He wasn't even very old. Whenever I hear about someone dying I wish I could swap places with them so that they could keep living. It seems unfair that they should die when they want to live. I don't think my mum will have had a very good birthday.

I got a message today from the person doing publicity for the show saying she needed to talk to me and the male lead tonight at rehearsal, and take some photos, as she has to get a press release out by Wednesday. This is a not good thing. For a start it scares me because it makes it all seem too real. Secondly, I don't want my bloody picture taken tonight. I have to go straight from ballet to rehearsal on a Monday, and so invariably look a complete bloody mess. And yes, I am vain enough that I am bothered by that. I don't remember the last time I had the energy to put on make up or do my hair, and now I kind of have to or there will be pictures of me in the paper looking like complete shit with black rings under my eyes and little piggy eyes from tiredness and just hideous. Not that make up can redeem that, but it is good at improving things slightly. I just want to stay home and hide.

Isolating

2011-02-14T04:49:00.000Z

Today has been yet another difficult day. I am finding I am wanting to cut myself off from people - I think that not trusting the professionals or my parents is making me suspicious of everyone, even the people I talk to online, who I know are always supportive of me. So I haven't spent much time online today. I came online earlier and tried to read a few blogs, and I sat and watched Twitter for a while, but couldn't say anything. Everything feels very overwhelming. I seem to be spending more and more time staring into space and not being able to do anything, because even the internet is starting to feel like too much, and I found that ok until the last couple of days, as it didn't make any noise and didn't involve any concentration. But now I find it gives me a headache. I am absolutely dreading rehearsal later. I am terrified. I am scared of leaving the house. I am scared of being around people. I am scared of having to interact and pretend to be ok. At rehearsal last Wednesday I was told by about five people that I looked ill or pale and was I ok. Since I had missed the Monday rehearsal by saying I had a stomach bug, I told them I still wasn't feeling too great. I can't do that again tomorrow, but when I am feeling this bad my ability to pretend to be fine seems to leave me. I can do it all of the time, and not being able to is really a sign of things being rock bottom for me. I have to go to ballet too, and the same applies, although at least there is less time for socialising there, and I can get by better on auto pilot there, as I know the syllabus so well. Ok, I may not be dancing it as well as I could, but I can get by without drawing too much attention to myself. When I am at rehearsal and learning choreography or singing a song I don't know particularly well, or being told my blocking for a scene, I have to concentrate more, and I can't concentrate at the moment. I am finding it a lot of pressure at the moment.

Plus it is my mum's birthday. Since I never know what date it is, I didn't realise how soon her birthday was until the middle of last week, so I haven't got her much in the way of a present. I feel like a shit daughter. I made a cake today, although I cheated and used a packet mix, as they always turn out so perfect, and later I need to make icing and decorate it. We won't have long at home - we only have about 45 minutes on a Monday between her getting home from work, and having to leave for ballet. I had planned to have the cake all done for then and give her the little present I do have for her and her card, but she said tonight that my sister is coming over. This is my sister who hasn't spoken to me since October and does a bloody good job at ignoring me completely if she is unfortunate enough to see me somewhere, for example when we were both singing soprano in the same carol concert at Christmas and therefore saw each other at rehearsal every week. I made effort with her, and none of it was reciprocated, so I have had enough of her - I have no desire to have anything to do with her, and I am pissed off that she is coming over in the only time we have at home tomorrow. I can't face seeing her when I am feeling this shit, as even when we were speaking she always seemed to go out of her way to make me feel like crap, so I will just have to stay upstairs whilst she is here and not give my mum her present or card or cake. I love my mum, despite what they have done to her in turning her against me. I just need to remember there is no point in speaking to her about my feelings as she has been indoctrinated by them.

I can't wait for today or tomorrow or whatever it is to be over. I am confused about days and times. Since it is 4:45 in the morning it is technically tomorrow, but since I haven't slept yet I am still thinking of it as Sunday. Just need to try and get through the day the best that I can, however much I don't want to. I wish so much I didn't have rehearsal and could stay home though. I really am panicking about that. I wish I was feeling better. If anything it still seems to be getting worse, and a week ago I would have said that was impossible. But things just seem to be harder and harder. I really want to die. The thought that they expect me to cope for over a week more by myself before I see anyone is laughable.

Broken

2011-02-13T04:20:00.000Z

I don't know what to say. I feel broken. Everything feels wrong. The suicidal thoughts are incessant. My concentration is non existent, as is my motivation to do anything. I am constantly exhausted and yet still can't sleep properly. I don't seem to have much appetite at all, which my eating disorder is of course not minding, but it feels a bit wrong. If I have the TV or music on, even quietly, it feels like it is drilling through my head, unless I have a Diazepam first, which helps slightly. When you can't read, watch TV, listen to music, or do anything involving brain power (sometimes I do puzzle books when I can't concentrate to read, but they take more brain power than I have at the moment) I find there really aren't any distraction techniques. I come online but most of the time I seem to just stare at the screen in a daze. And then it gets too much and gives me a headache and I have to log off. I am completely alone as everyone in real life is against me. I am not entirely sure about my dad yet - he may not be, but I am not convinced. My mum is definitely completely on their side, 100%. In fact it is worse than that because she comes up with theories on everything, including me, and then presents them as though they are fact. Apparently it is like being a drug addict who needs more and more drugs, except for me it is support. Which is bollocks. When I was doing better and had weekly appointments with L I didn't have a problem with my level of support. However, when I am feeling how I am now, I do feel I need more support because it is too much to try and deal with alone. Today has been a very difficult day. Very emotional. I suppose this evening/tonight really. The suicidal thoughts have been incredibly strong and I have spent a lot of time either staring at the wall feeling completely numb, or getting upset and finding myself rocking and crying. There has been screaming at my mum for continuing to justify the shitness of mental health services and screaming at my mum because I am just in so much pain. Lots more crying. Desperate. Even now the thoughts of killing myself are incredibly strong. My eyes are stinging from all the crying. I have been very attached to my teddy bear the last two days. This is something that happened once before in a particularly bad patch. I wouldn't leave the house without him. At the moment he is being carried wherever I go, and my arm is around him as I am typing, which isn't convenient, but I suppose he is my security. I have had him since my first Christmas, and he has been virtually everywhere with me - his home has always been on my bed, and he has been on holiday with me, he went to university with me, he went into hospital with me - he has been nearly everywhere I have been. And throughout my life when I have been upset I have come to my room and cried on my bed with him. I am getting increasingly scared of leaving the house. I was trying to remember when I last went anywhere but thinking gives me a headache. I shouldn't have tried. All the days and nights have merged and I am thoroughly confused. On Monday I have to go to ballet and rehearsal and I am already feeling incredibly anxious about it. Not going isn't an option unless I am dead, but the thought of having to go out and be around people and be sociable fills me with dread, and ridiculous as it sounds, I don't want to be without my teddy. It is my mum's birthday on Monday. That means I need to pretend to be ok so I don't ruin the day for her, and I don't think I can do that at the moment. I feel like a shit daughter and that she would be better off without me. Everything feels much too much. I feel like I am going to snap really soon.

Alone

2011-02-11T22:20:00.000Z

Over the last couple of days I have thought increasingly about telling my mum. This morning I decided that it couldn't make things any worse and that I would. I sent her a text saying that I couldn't cope, and that I had been trying really hard, but that my GP seemed to be the only person taking me seriously. She was out when I sent that, but she rung me and said she would come home but she needed to go food shopping at some point today so should she go whilst she was out already, and I said that was fine. I was quite surprised she didn't ask me what was going on or anything but I thought maybe she wanted to talk about it when she got home. She came home and didn't really say much. She said she had spoken to Dr O, she didn't say what they had talked about, but I know that at some point in the conversation she must have complained about the crisis team saying that they would arrange a psychiatrist appointment, and then just discharging me, and Dr O (who is anti meds) evidently told her that I have BPD, not Depression, so she didn't see what good meds would do, as my mother who had been annoyed all week about me not being seen by the psychiatrist suddenly thought it was completely fine. She also seemed to have no problem with the crisis team suddenly stopping seeing me, which she had previously been annoyed, and didn't seem to see that there was a problem that I was being left with no support for two weeks. Somehow they managed to convert her so that she just agreed with them. My mum used to call up and complain if I wasn't getting enough help - now she is justifying their actions to me. I think they all either think that this is something I am choosing, and that I feel like this because I want to, or they think I am exaggerating the whole thing, or they don't care whether or not I kill myself. I am not sure which, but they have got my mum thinking the same. So I don't even have support from her - she has been indoctrinated to say the same things that the professionals say, and is defending things that yesterday she was annoyed about. I feel like she doesn't care what happens to me. Despite me being incredibly upset, and her knowing that it is incredibly rare for me to be asking for help, she did absolutely nothing apart from calling and speaking to my GP. She didn't even bother calling L, which seems a bit strange given that she is my care coordinator. She clearly wasn't concerned enough to think it worthwhile. And amazingly she didn't even try and take away the tablets I have or anything. Which I am glad about, but it just reinforces the feeling that she doesn't care, as in the past that has always been the first thing she has done. Of course I always have others hidden so it doesn't matter if she does take them, but the fact she didn't even try proves that I am right. I feel like everyone is against me. I don't know what I have done wrong, because I have honestly just told the truth, but there is very clearly something. 'Nobody's Side' has been running through my head all day. My eyes are stinging from how much I have been crying. I feel incredibly alone. I don't trust anyone.

Overwhelmed ramblings

2011-02-11T05:44:00.001Z

It is 4am and I am sitting here crying feeling totally overwhelmed and like my head is actually going to explode. This may not make much sense, I don't even know what I am saying yet. I just need to do something to try and ease my head a bit. It's been a really difficult evening and night, the thoughts are very strong, and I just seem to be finding it harder and harder to cope every day that goes by. I have no support for the next week and a half, and no way of accessing any other than calling whoever is on duty at the CMHT that day and them telling me to have a bath or go for a walk. I am feeling so desperate and I just keep trying to carry on and keep going and it just feels like torture, and I feel like there is nothing to keep trying for. There aren't even any small things that I can use as little targets, for example this time last week I knew I was seeing my GP the next day, then the crisis team the next day and so on, and although these weren't fun things, and in fact they made me very anxious, knowing that I had some support was helping me cope. I found it really difficult on Monday when I didn't hear from the crisis team like I had been told I would, but I knew that I was seeing L on Tuesday and I was just desperately hoping that would help a bit, or that she would be able to offer something in the way of support, or just something, anything. Since then I have been finding it harder and harder as I am just feeling incredibly unsupported.

I think a week or two ago I said how people always expect me to cope because I generally do, but that was the case last time I attempted suicide, when the only support I had was fortnightly sessions with a psychologist who I hated and found very unsupportive. I always thought that at least now I would never feel as unsupported as that, because I have L who has always been very supportive of me, but in a way it is worse at the moment, because I didn't expect that psychologist to do anything to try and help - she very clearly had a problem with me, and I found her patronising and sanctimonious. I felt like actually she couldn't have cared less whether I killed myself or not, and so I didn't expect any support from her. I hoped for different from L. She always has been very caring, and she would care if I killed myself, or I think she would, but I am still not getting any more support, and that almost hurts more and feels harder, because I hoped for more. Hope is dangerous, because then you end up in an even worse position if whatever you have hoped for doesn't materialise.

When the crisis team let me down at the weekend, by making promises that didn't materialise such as arranging an urgent appointment with the psychiatrist, and saying they would phone me and then not doing so, I wasn't that surprised, because most people I know have had bad experiences with crisis teams, including me. But it still hurt that they discharged me without telling me. And then I saw L, and I know I must have been very difficult that appointment, because at the moment my mood swings between just wanting to die, and feeling like I need to try and get through this but that I can't do it alone, and that morning I just wanted to die, which isn't really surprising given that I had a stressful day the previous day when I was essentially waiting to hear from the crisis team the entire day, then a difficult night with only a few hours sleep. I was obviously not in fighting mode. But I was still honest about everything. And to just have an appointment made for two weeks time actually felt quite devastating. As I said yesterday, I spoke to my GP, who seemed unimpressed with the crisis team discharging me, and L not seeing me for two weeks, although I did say that L would be on leave next week. And now it is Thursday night, or technically Friday morning, the suicidal thoughts are very strong, the person I have trusted most for the last 18 months hasn't seemed able to offer me any support this week, and is on leave next week, and I am being left with nothing and I am just supposed to get through and cope somehow and I just can't do it. I know this sounds terribly self pitying, but I have been trying so fucking hard, and doing everything you are told to in terms of asking for help etc, and it has just got me nowhere. And I am still feeling as bad as ever, and feeling less and less able to keep going, but with nowhere to turn. And I don't want to upset people or let people down; my family, my friends, the cast of the show, everyone who reads this or who I talk to on Twitter, L, my GP, which is why I have been trying so hard to keep going, and why even when I have wanted to die I have been honest about my feelings. But I just feel like I can't keep going any more. Today I thought about calling L, as she had said on Tuesday that she would be there today if I needed to talk, but I realised I had absolutely nothing to say. I couldn't ring and say 'Well you already know I am feeling desperately low and that I intend to kill myself, but I just thought I would remind you' and what else is there to say? I have asked for help, and that didn't get me anywhere. I feel ready to punch the next person who tells me that I am strong and that I can get through this (no offence to anyone if you have said that) because I can't cope with being strong at the moment and I can't get through this. So I didn't call. And then after tomorrow she won't be in work until the 21st, and there is no way that I can cope that long. Or that I want to. I know it is selfish, but I can't keep living for other people, which is what I have been trying to do lately. And I can't cope with no support. I feel like I have been backed into a tiny corner so that the only option I have been left with is suicide.

I realised something a little while ago. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to perform. For years and years it has been my ambition, my dream, to be in the West End. It has been the thing I have worked towards for years, and it is the only thing that I ever care about. Performing has always meant everything to me, and being in the West End has been like a life ambition. And I realised that if someone came to me tomorrow and offered me a job in the West End I would still want to die. I want to die more than I want the thing I have wanted and worked towards for as long as I can remember. And I don't think there has ever been a point in my life, however low I have felt, when I could have said that before. And that is a really horrible thing to realise. My lifelong ambition wouldn't be enough to make me want to stay alive.

Somehow it has taken me nearly 2 hours to write that. I don't know what my head is doing at the moment. It feels like time is playing games with me.

Not a life

2011-02-10T15:30:00.000Z

I seem to be feeling particularly desperate and hopeless today. I think it is because my mood is not shifting at all and I know that I have literally exhausted all possible forms of support available to me. There is no point in speaking to my GP again, despite her being supportive, because all she can do is contact the crisis team, who clearly don't want to see me, or the CMHT, who already know how I feel. There is no point in contacting the CMHT, because they see me getting through the next two weeks with no support as a valid option, and I most certainly do not. There is no point in going to A&E because I would be assessed by the crisis team who, as already mentioned, clearly don't want to see me. So that's it. I have asked for help, despite not wanting it a lot of the time. I have tried. I have tried so hard. But I am still here feeling completely unsupported, and the suicidal thoughts are still just as strong. In a way I wish I had never told anyone how bad things were and tried to get help, because in a way the constant rejection when I don't get any makes it even more difficult to cope. But if I hadn't asked for help I would feel really guilty about acting on my thoughts, as perhaps someone could have done something to help me get through this, despite my feelings of not wanting to get through this. At least now I know that I have tried. I have tried every way of getting help, and I have been honest about my thoughts and feelings. I don't see what more I could have done. I feel exhausted, hopeless, and desperate. This is not a life.

No change

2011-02-09T17:40:00.000Z

I don't have much to say. Things are much the same. I was absolutely exhausted yesterday, and a combination of that, Diazepam, and Zopiclone managed to knock me out enough that I could sleep last night. The sleep was welcome, although I am still exhausted, but what I was more concerned about was not being awake during the night and feeling as desperate as I was the night before. I have no idea what will happen tonight, as I very much doubt I will be able to sleep again.

I spoke to my GP earlier. She seemed a bit perplexed that the crisis team had discharged me and I was back to just seeing L fortnightly. She said that she would speak to L, and I said that she wasn't there today, and she she said she would speak to her tomorrow. We talked a bit more and she decided she was going to call the crisis team again and get them to make contact with me this afternoon. I am assuming they told her to fuck off essentially, and that she then contacted the CMHT, as I have heard nothing from the crisis team, but I did get a phone call from the CMHT manager, saying that he had spoken to Dr O, and that he just wanted me to know that they are aware of how I am feeling. It was essentially a lot of patronising bollocks with him asking me if I knew I would be seeing the psychologist when I felt up to it, and me saying I know I am on the waiting list, and him then having to correct himself and admit that yes, I was on the waiting list. It pissed me off that he tried to imply that if I felt up to it then it could start now, which is clearly bollocks. She has apparently given them a good indication of what she feels is going on, which is lovely for them, and why I might feel like people aren't listening to me or rejected or abandoned (BPD anyone?) Anyway, he went on to say that they do understand how difficult I am finding things, and that the plan is that until I can see the psychologist (in 3 months time) to continue seeing L fortnightly, and have phone contact when required, and that he just wanted me to know that. So, the same as was happening before I was feeling suicidally depressed then? That's helpful. I appreciate my GP's efforts, but they appear to be in vain, as have my attempts at getting help been. I have tried absolutely everything now, apart from going to A&E, but I see that as entirely pointless, because that means being seen by the crisis team who discharged me two days ago, and presumably refused to take me on again today. I don't think anyone could claim that I haven't tried to get help to get through this.

I have to go to a rehearsal tonight which I am absolutely dreading, but I got out of Monday's by saying I had an upset stomach, and still got a rather narky text from the director, so there is no way of getting out of going tonight. That means I have to do things like get dressed and wash my hair, which feel ridiculously beyond me at the moment. I have to leave in an hour and a quarter and I've been trying to make myself get out of bed for about 3 hours now and failed.

Hopeless

2011-02-08T14:00:00.000Z

I can honestly say I have never felt so hopeless in my life. I saw L this morning. I had a hideous night last night, I was feeling truly desperate and really struggling a lot, and so I was exhausted and very tense by my appointment this morning, and to be honest I went in there wanting to die far more than I wanted to get better. I can't remember it in too much detail, as my head was all over the place. At first I was finding it really difficult as there were lots of slamming doors and people talking and laughing really loudly and it was making me feel very on edge. She asked how I was. She asked what the most difficult thing to deal with was at the moment, and what was occupying most of my thoughts, and I said definitely suicidal thoughts. She asked how they had changed since I saw her 2 weeks ago: in intensity or frequency, or type, and I said all three. I had written down some of my thoughts last night, as when I was feeling so bad last night I was talking to Part of Being Sane and she said to tell L everything that was going on, and suggested I write down everything I had said to her about suicidal thoughts, images etc etc and write it down so that I could give it to L today. I wasn't sure if I would be able to give it to her or not, but at this point I mentioned that I had written about it last night, as I felt like her reading it would be easier than me saying it, but she said she wanted me to try and explain first, so I did. She never mentioned what I had written again, so I didn't show her. I said a lot of it anyway - I think there are probably things I did forget to say, but nothing too major really.

She asked about what had happened with the crisis team - what they had said and who had I seen etc. I said about speaking to someone Friday night, and then them visiting Saturday, and saying they would call the next morning, but that nobody did, and then they suddenly turned up without any warning and hadn't read my notes, and then about speaking to the woman on the phone in the evening. I said they had talked about getting me to see either their team psychiatrist or Dr E as soon as possible, and said I now had no idea what was going on, as I had been told twice on Sunday that I would be called on Monday, and I hadn't heard anything. She said that they had spoken to her Monday and discharged me back to her, and told her that they either had or would contact me, which obviously they didn't, and that they hadn't mentioned anything about arranging a psychiatrist appointment. I felt immensely frustrated by this, as it was the one thing that everyone from the crisis team that I saw or spoke to had said would happen, and I was also really annoyed that I had been discharged without being told - I think they should do what they say they are going to even if they are planning to discharge you, as the woman Sunday night just said I only needed to focus on getting through Sunday night, and then they would be ringing first thing, and seeing me again etc, and then I heard nothing all day yesterday, and although I wasn't even sure whether or not I wanted to speak to them, I found it really hard that they didn't call - partly because waiting for their calls or visits makes me very anxious, and so I spent the entire day in a state of anxiety. So that is the end of their involvement

She asked how I thought things could change, and I said I had absolutely no idea. She asked if I had been seeing or talking to friends, and I said I hadn't seen or spoken to anyone on the phone, but that I had spoken to people online. For some reason she then went on to talk about relationships - how did I feel about them, did I ever feel like I wanted to be in a relationship with someone, how do I feel about it when things are better. She asked about my concentration, and whether anything at all helped at the moment. I suppose she was just asking the type of questions usually asked to gauge risk, and that things like relationships and thoughts about the future all come into that. She started saying something about getting through this, I can't remember what, and I suddenly felt like I had been hit by a tonne of bricks - I felt physically sick and incredibly anxious, and all I could think was that I couldn't cope and that I didn't want to get through this. She asked what the matter was and I explained that, and also said that last night was just more hideous than I could possibly even begin to describe and that I just could not face another night like that, and that even things got better they would get worse again, and I couldn't cope with that, and so the thought of getting through this wasn't what I wanted - I wanted to die more than I wanted my current feelings to change, because I knew even if they changed, I would end up feeling really awful again at some point and I just couldn't cope.

I can't remember if she asked me anything else or not at this point. She said that if things were as bad as this, then she needed to think about involving my parents. I tried to explain that I genuinely didn't feel it would help (I really don't, and not because I am worried they would be able to stop me from killing myself or anything - I just do not find it helpful). I said about the woman on Sunday night telling me to ask my parents to look in on me before I went to work, and how since then the suicidal thoughts changed in nature because I felt like I needed something without a time restraint like that as a result of what she said, and that since then I had felt worse and that was really when I started getting a lot of graphic images etc. She said that she had to assess risk, and felt that with everything I was saying about how suicidal I was feeling, not being able to see a future, not caring about anything etc etc, that she had to consider what to do, and that she felt it would be appropriate to have a CPA review with my parents as well, and that we also needed to look at if anything she was doing was helping if I was feeling this bad, or whether she was using a wrong approach, or was the wrong person to be working with me. All of this made me feel even worse - I felt like I was being backed into a corner with the situation with my parents, which immediately made me start having thoughts about killing myself as soon as possible, and I then felt like the only person in mental health I had ever really trusted was going to abandon me even if I did get through this, which was another reason not to. I said that I didn't understand how I could be considered high enough risk that my parents could be talked to against my wishes, and yet the crisis team had discharged me. She said that they had discharged me back to her, so it wasn't though I had just been discharged completely, but that they had presumably done their own risk assessments.

I can't really remember what happened then. I know she said that she was mindful of the time as she had a meeting to go to, but I can't remember if that was before I said the previous things or after. She made an appointment to see me in two weeks and told me to think about things and what I wanted to change, because at the moment she felt like there was nothing to work with as my outlook just seemed so bleak, and that she would organise a CPA review at some point with my parents as well, which I am assuming will be in more than two weeks, as she is apparently on leave next week. I asked how I was supposed to get through the next two weeks alone when I didn't feel able to get through another night like last night. I said that even the thought of knowing I am supposed to go to a rehearsal tonight made me feel really desperate and sends me into a panic. I know that I was difficult today. I was completely honest, but I was in a mood where I felt like I just wanted to die rather than get better, and said so, and I know that must have been really frustrating for her. I did explain that sometimes I did feel like I wanted to get better and wanted help, but that my mood just swings so quickly between the two. She said something about needing to make the decision to keep going or something, I can't really remember. I had started to cry by this point, which is very rare for me, and she said she really needed to go, so I got up to put on my scarf and jumper and was really upset by this point, and really just wanted to sit and bawl for a while, but I knew she would need to lock up the room and so that wasn't an option, so I just had to choke back the tears and leave. She said to take care and that she would see me in two weeks.

I am unsure if a) she doesn't believe I am feeling as bad as I am, b) truly believes that I will be able to get through the next two weeks with no support as I have coped in the past since I have been seeing her, or c) doesn't care what happens to me. I actually don't think it is a) - she seemed to fully believe what I was saying, although she seemed to be at a bit of a loss about what to say some of the time. It could be b) but I don't know how if she believes a). And it could be c) but she always used to care so I don't understand what changed if it is that. I am honestly at a complete loss as to what to do. Despite feeling so ambivalent about wanting help today I was still completely honest with her and told her everything, and I still don't understand how she can think a CPA with my parents is necessary, but giving me any support at all over the next two weeks isn't. I told my GP on Friday. I was honest as I could be with the crisis team. I feel like I have done absolutely everything that I can.

Nothing

2011-02-07T17:26:00.000Z

Today has been a strange day in that nothing has happened. That wouldn't usually be strange, but given that when I saw the crisis team yesterday they told me they would be speaking to L and psychiatrist today and try and get me an appointment to see a psychiatrist as soon as possible, and then when I spoke to the crisis team woman last night she said they were going to phone first thing today (amongst other threats), I am slightly baffled that I haven't heard from anyone. They may have tried to phone the landline I suppose, but I gave them my mobile number when I was first referred to them and told them to contact me on that as I don't answer the landline (I don't like not being able to see who is calling, and nobody ever phones me on the landline, so I just end up being an answerphone on the odd occasion I do answer it), and so they have called my mobile whenever they have rung me, plus there is no answerphone on the landline, so I am assuming they haven't called, and I haven't heard anything from L either. I wasn't necessarily expecting to, as I am due to see her in the morning, but if for example the crisis team had spoken to her and decided to stop seeing me, I would have thought she would have phoned, or they would have phoned to tell me so, and if they are still seeing me then I am not sure why they haven't contacted me.

I am not sure how I feel about it. Part of me is relieved. I didn't want to speak to scary woman from last night again. And I was feeling less and less like I wanted help yesterday, and feeling increasingly that it was a mistake to tell my GP how I was feeling and get referred to the crisis team, so perhaps it is for the best. But I dislike changes to plans, and the plan was that they were going to call me this morning, so for that reason I don't like that they didn't, just as I didn't like that they didn't call yesterday but just randomly turned up. I suppose I am still slightly concerned that might happen and that they will just randomly arrive, but I think it is unlikely now that it has got to this time of day and I haven't heard from them at all. And I would certainly have a massive complaint if they did turn up and felt it appropriate to break confidentiality as threatened yesterday, after not even contacting me all day, as they are quite clearly not concerned.

I was supposed to go to ballet and rehearsal tonight but I couldn't face leaving the house. I did try to make myself, but in the end it just felt impossible. I told the director of the show that I have an upset stomach. I just couldn't even face the showering and getting dressed part, let alone leaving the house and having to be sociable. I think I would just end up having a complete melt down. I don't even want to leave the house to see L tomorrow, but I will. I am also exhausted. My sleep isn't really improving, although I have taken 10mg Diazepam the last two nights, at the suggestion of the crisis team. It was about 6am when I got to sleep, and then my sleep was quite disturbed, and I eventually stopped trying to sleep at about 12, so allowing for the time spent awake I think I got a maximum of about 5 hours. I am still feeling much the same really, although feeling less like I want help. I am not sure if that is because I am feeling worse, or because I felt intimidated by the woman last night and it has scared me. It sounds ridiculous as they are meant to help, but I found that whilst I was talking to her the suicidal thoughts were just getting more and more intense, and I was getting a lot of really graphic images in my head, which I wasn't able to shake all night, or today. I have been having quite intrusive thoughts regarding killing myself, which have been somewhat different in content to my usual thoughts. I am feeling thoroughly exhausted.

Crisis team phone call - 2

2011-02-06T21:45:00.000Z

The crisis team did call back as promised, at about 8pm. It was the same woman. Why is that I never get to speak to/see someone from the crisis team more than once unless I don't like them? She asked if I had spoken to my parents, and I said no. She asked if I would like her to, and I said no thank you. She asked why not, and I said that I didn't feel it would be helpful, as if I was going to act on my thoughts and knew my parents would be checking in on me in the morning, then I would use a method where time wasn't an issue. She seemed to ignore that and said she really thought I needed to speak to them, and that if they felt I was at risk and I hadn't spoken to them tomorrow then they could break confidentiality and speak to them without my consent. Just what I wanted to hear - that makes me feel so much more likely to be honest with them about my feelings. To be honest, I don't understand breaking confidentiality. I feel like if they are concerned enough about you that they feel they have to break confidentiality in order for you to stay safe, then you aren't receiving the right treatment - surely if they are that worried then they should be considering admitting you to hospital, and if they're not then I don't see what right they have to break confidentiality. That is something that really pisses me off. If I was living on my own or in supported housing they wouldn't call my parents to let them know how I was, so why should they just because I live at home? It is something I have had problems with multiple times in the past, both with the crisis team and CMHTs. I think L is probably the only care coordinator I have never had that concern with - I know she wouldn't do it, which is one of the reasons I trust her so much I suppose. So yes, that really annoyed me. She said to speak to my parents tonight and get them to come in and check on me before they go to work (which would probably be an hour after I got to sleep and would disturb me well and truly) and that then they would call me first thing in the morning (presumably to disturb me again). Bloody hope it isn't her.

She went on again about how I had got through this before and so know I can do it, and that things do get better. I said that I feel like I could never feel good enough to make it worth feeling this bad. She said we were talking in circles. It is apparently ok for her to talk in circles though, as she repeated that things aren't usually this bad, and that I have got through bad times in the past, and that I have obviously been doing a lot better in the last year or so because it has been a long time since I have been under their care. I didn't bother to tell her that is because L doesn't think it is helpful to see that and so usually just supports me herself when I am in crisis, unlike my previous care coordinator, who made me go to A&E and be assessed by them every time I was feeling suicidal. She also said that I am an intelligent girl and I understand my feelings, and that she thinks that by engaging with them that shows that I want help rather than to die. She is the type of professional I just don't get on with. I am sure she is a perfectly nice person, but I do not like being treated like a child, and I find it patronising when a professional tries to tell me that I am not really suicidal because I am asking for help or something like that, as I know how I feel, and how difficult it is to ask for help, and how much my feelings regarding help vary. I am feeling really quite frustrated and wound up.

Crisis team phone call - 1

2011-02-06T18:40:00.000Z

I just phoned the crisis team. I felt like I needed to do it before things were at a point where I wouldn't be able to tell them how bad things are, which is likely to be what happens the later it gets. I spoke to a nurse who I am pretty sure I have seen a couple of times before and never found to be overly supportive, but I decided I needed to try and tell her anyway. I said that I found it really difficult to talk earlier but that I was struggling a lot, and she said they had known I was struggling at the moment, so I did get that across. I immediately wasn't quite sure what to say, as it felt like she was saying yes, we get it, you feel crap, why are you ringing? I said that the woman yesterday had said to call if I felt like things were getting any worse before it got to the point where I wouldn't be able to and she said that was the right thing to do and that sometimes talking things through for a few minutes can help. She talked a lot about how things aren't always this bad, and how although I have bad periods, it has been a long time since it was bad enough that they were involved, and that things would get better etc etc. I then went on to say that I had been thinking a lot about killing myself tonight over the last couple of days, as I would have all night when my parents were asleep, and then all day tomorrow when they would be out at work. She said I should ask them to check in on me in the morning, and then that would mean I wouldn't have that time and so wouldn't act on the thoughts, and that I should go and ask them to do that as soon as I stopped talking to her. But I can't. I don't want to be checked on in the morning. If I feel like I need to kill myself I want the highest chance of it working. And as soon as she said about that giving me less time etc it immediately made me think that I needed to use my second method, which is my less preferred one, but not a time issue. She then went on to say that I had called so obviously wanted help, and so there was at least part of me that didn't want to die and didn't want it to work, which I have to say I always find really frustrating. It may be true, but it feels like a 'if you wanted to die you would have already killed yourself thing'. I do often find that asking for help means you get taken less seriously. And the thing is, my moods are just so all over the place, sometimes I do want help, other times I just want to die and I don't want help. Obviously there is a part of me that is asking for help, but it is for the sake of others, rather than because I want to live for myself, because I really don't. So I found that quite difficult. She asked how it had been left with them seeing me tomorrow, and I said about them saying they would contact the psychiatrist and L, and she said they would probably be visiting again tomorrow, although I am not sure if that will be the case after they have spoken to L. It wasn't that she was unhelpful or anything. I just feel so hopeless. She said someone would still call later this evening, as they discussed earlier, so I guess that is something, but I am just feeling pretty hopeless.

Crisis team visit - 2

2011-02-06T15:35:00.000Z

I feel like today has gone completely wrong and I am feeling really hopeless. I was told yesterday that the crisis team would call today at about 10 - 10:30am, and then probably come out to see me again. I left my phone on vibrate so that it would wake me up, and didn't bother setting an alarm because I knew that would wake me as it always does. I had said to my mum last night that I didn't feel comfortable talking to people when they were in the house so could they go to see my sister or something, and she said that was fine, but how would they know what time to go, and I said that the crisis team would be calling in the morning and so I would know what time they were coming then. That was the plan. And then I was going to try and tell them how bad things were.

I woke up to my phone ringing at 1pm, and it was a woman from the crisis team asking if I could tell them how to find me. I was thoroughly confused, as I hadn't had the morning phone call as planned. I assumed they needed vague directions, but when I asked where they were it turned out they were actually already outside the house - they just didn't know which house it was, as we like to confuse people by not having a name or number or anything on display. So that threw me into a complete tail spin, as their phone call had woken me up, as yet again it had been about 6am before I got to sleep, and obviously my parents were home as we hadn't had any warning, and I didn't even have time to do things like go to the toilet, so I was feeling really flustered and confused.

My mum came upstairs to do housework and was hoovering etc, so I didn't feel uncomfortable with her being there really, but my dad was downstairs, painting in a room virtually adjoining where I was sitting with the crisis team, he had very good hearing, and the man from the crisis team spoke very loudly and had an irritating habit of repeating everything I said. To be honest the whole thing was a complete fiasco. I felt paranoid that my dad would be listening in and so felt extremely uncomfortable, I was confused about why they had suddenly turned up without calling first like they were supposed to, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to be honest with them because I was feeling so tense and anxious. To make matters worse they knew absolutely nothing about me, and had never even seen my notes - the reason they had randomly arrived was because they were out this way seeing someone else who was only about 15 minutes away, and so decided to come straight on and see me. I still don't understand a) why nobody called this morning, and b) why they couldn't have called when they were 15 minutes away so that I would have had at least had a tiny bit of advance warning. So they literally knew absolutely nothing about me, my history, when I was referred to them, why I was referred to them, how long I had been under mental health services, what my diagnosis was - nothing. I know I complained yesterday about the crisis team not reading your notes properly, but this was a whole new level - they had to ask things like how old I was, and when had I been referred to them. I said I had been referred Friday by my GP, and they asked why he (she's a she but I didn't bother correcting them) had referred me - was it because I was feeling low, and I said it was because of suicidal thoughts, which he loudly repeated, which really set off my paranoia. He asked if the feelings had changed and I said no. I think it was at this point they told me they knew nothing about me and started asking things like how old was I, and did I work, and what had I done education wise etc, and how long had I been involved with mental health services for, and why I was originally referred, and about previous suicide attempts and hospital admissions etc. They were also in agreement with the people that I saw yesterday in that I should see a psychiatrist, they said urgently, and that they would speak to their team psychiatrist tomorrow, and I would either see them or Dr E as soon as possible. I don't know if I will have any more visits from the crisis team, because they said they would speak to L tomorrow, and I am guessing she will probably not be too keen on me seeing them. He asked if I felt able to keep myself safe today and I just kind of shrugged. Saying yes would have been a lie, but I didn't feel able to say no when I was feeling so paranoid with my parents being in the house etc. He asked if I would be able to call them if things really reached crisis point, and I once again explained that no I wouldn't, because if things were any worse then I wouldn't want help. He asked if it would be ok if someone called me this evening, and would I be able to tell them if I was feeling worse, and I said that would be ok.

I am feeling really confused. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should wait for the call this evening and try and tell them how desperate I am, or whether I should call them before then, or whether I actually don't really want to speak to anyone or want any help. I am frustrated with the way today turned out. I just felt so uncomfortable and I really had intended to try and be really blunt about how I was feeling, and I just couldn't, and now I feel really hopeless and just don't know what to do. I wish they had bloody called this morning like they had arranged to do rather than just turning up with no notice.

Crisis team visit

2011-02-05T20:45:00.000Z

I have had a visit from the crisis team. They called about 2:30 and checked it was ok to come, and arrived about an hour later. It was a man and a woman, both of whom I have seen before, but don't really remember much about. I had a vague recollection of the man when I saw him but if he hadn't said that he had seen me before I doubt I would have remembered. The woman I recognised by her voice - she has a lovely Irish accent, and so when she spoke I remembered seeing her before. It all feels a bit of a blur, I feel a bit like I have been hit by a bus. Not implying that they were bus-like or anything. It is just exhausting. The man did all the talking whilst the woman wrote notes.

They asked how I was, and I fairly stupidly said ok. Because it seems like the polite reply? What I find confusing about the crisis team is that they ask questions that either they already know the answer to, or if they don't then they should, as it would only take a quick peek at the notes. There seemed to be a bit of confusion as they started by saying I had switched GPs to the one I go to now, and that I used to be under another county, and I said yes, but that was two and a half years ago. I have been under the care of the crisis team since then. They then went on to say I had been under a CMHT in the other county, and I said yes, but again, that was two and a half years ago, and I have been under my current one since, and they then asked if I was still under my current team and who my care coordinator was, and when I last saw her. Surely this is all fairly simple stuff that would literally have taken a quick glance at my notes to find out? Anyway, then they said I had been to my GP yesterday and told her I was feeling depressed and suicidal and so she had referred me to them. It sounded slightly accusatory - I really didn't want them to think I was being attention seeking and to be written off as being another Borderline etc. I explained that I see my GP monthly and yesterday was just a routine appointment, but that obviously we had discussed how I was feeling. They asked some questions about how my mood was, how long it had been like it etc, and asked what had concerned my GP and made her contact them, and I said that she hadn't said she was concerned, but presumably saying I was suicidal? Seemed a bit obvious to be honest.... They asked about medication and I said that I was only on PRN Diazepam (again, perhaps check the notes?) but that when I spoke to L earlier in the week she had said perhaps it was time to consider medication again, and they agreed with that and said that they thought I should see Dr E. It is all a bit vague. I was finding a lot of things quite distracting - my head for a start, but then I have been having a lot of issues with external noises lately - I can't even have music or the TV on in the background like I would usually as I find it stressful and irritating, so noises like the wind howling (and my house is 16th century and therefore one big draft - the wind really howls) and the dog barking etc make me very tense. It appears that this was obvious in the way that I was behaving, because at one point when I talked about how difficult it was to distract myself because of not liking any noise, they said that they had noticed how tense and agitated I seemed by the dog barking and when the wind got louder etc. They talked about my sleep and went through the usual things of no caffeine too late at night, try having a bath before bed to relax you, try taking extra Diazepam etc. They asked about getting out of the house and seeing friends etc, and I said I didn't really see any friends, and that apart from my appointment with my GP yesterday I last left the house on Wednesday for rehearsal. They asked about my suicidal thoughts, and I talked for a few minutes about wanting to die, and how I feel it is perfectly reasonable given how long I have been feeling bad for etc. I think it was around this time the woman took over the talking. I liked her voice. Her accent was soothing. They asked if I thought about suicide methods, and I said constantly, and they asked if I could tell them what. I hesitated over this for a minute, as I didn't want anything taken from me or anything, so I said that I didn't really like talking about a plan. They asked if there was anything I could do to make myself safer so that I would be less likely to act on it, like give them anything, and I said that at the moment I didn't feel like I wanted to be safe - that I wanted to be able to act on the thoughts, because I didn't want to be alive. They asked if I would call if I needed to - if I was feeling worse, and I tried to explain what I had said to the man yesterday - that if I was feeling like I was going to act on my thoughts then I couldn't call because I would be too determined by that point and I wouldn't want help.

She got a bit tougher at that point - prior to then she had been quite softly spoken and gentle, and I kind of assumed she was just that type, but she got a lot more kind of authoritative and assertive and I realised she wasn't the type of person to try and bullshit actually. She went on to talk about supporting me over the weekend - she said they could call me tomorrow, and visit again if necessary, and that then on Monday they would talk to L about what the best option was, but that I had to be willing to work with them and to try and keep myself safe etc. She said one of the things that I would be expected to do was call them if I needed to, if I was feeling at risk or something. I said I understood what she was saying, but that I would not be able to call if I was feeling like I was going to act on my thoughts, because if things felt any worse and I was feeling any more overwhelmed then I wouldn't want help. She said she understood that, but that she would want me to call before it got to that point, if I felt like things were getting worse, rather than waiting until it was at the point where I was about to kill myself. That made sense, but at the same time it didn't - if things were any worse then I would be at the point where I was about to kill myself. That was why I had told my GP and the crisis team man I spoke to last night how I was feeling. I don't think there would be a middle step between here, and being at the point where it was too late for me to want help. I was feeling ambivalent about it anyway. So I wasn't really sure what to do about that, and I'm still not to be honest. I am feeling unsafe, although I think I can probably get through tonight because it isn't a night I would consider suitable, but I am struggling with that. For some reason I didn't know how to put that into words, so I couldn't explain, so I just said that I would try. She said how the crisis team is an alternative to hospital admission, and how obviously in hospital you have staff around you all the time, which you obviously don't with them, but that was why they gave out this number, and to call it if I needed to talk to someone. And that was more or less it really. Or at least it wasn't, but it was all I can remember.

I am not sure what to feel. I am absolutely exhausted. I have been writing this on and off for 4 hours now - they hadn't long left when I started it, and it is now 8:30. My head is all over the place. I just can't think or concentrate and I am finding my thoughts really distracting. I am glad they weren't completely dismissive like I was concerned they might be, but I am still feeling unsure about whether I can get through this, even with their support. I do feel like I need to see them again tomorrow, but it is difficult as my parents will be home all day, and I feel extremely uncomfortable trying to talk to someone if my parents are in the house, partly because I am worried about being overhead, and that makes me not want to be honest, and partly because I don't trust them not to insist on speaking to my parents as has happened in the past, which I don't think is fair when I am an adult who just happens to live with my parents. I am so tired, and I have a headache, but I think that if I try and sleep now I will wake up in a few hours and not be able to get back to sleep. I don't know what to think about everything. I need to stop writing because trying to think is hurting my head.

Referral to crisis team

2011-02-05T02:21:00.000Z

I had an appointment with my GP this afternoon, as I mentioned yesterday. I had quite mixed feelings about what to say to her. I didn't know how much to say. I didn't know if I wanted help or not. I didn't know whether I would be able to get help or not, even if I did ask for it. I just knew how suicidal I was feeling, and that if I left there without asking for/getting support then I would not get through the weekend - it just wasn't going to happen. Within a couple of minutes of me going in she commented that I seemed to be having trouble with my concentration, which I am. I keep losing my train of thought in the middle of a sentence and then just kind of drifting off and forgetting what I was answering. I can't really remember the appointment very well, I don't remember what order things happened, or even what she asked really. I know I was in there for quite a long time. I told her how bad my sleep was, and she asked if I had any of the sleeping tablets left, and I said that I did but they didn't help, which was why I hadn't been taking them really. She had received a letter from the psychologist that had been sent to L that she had been CCed on, and asked me what that was about. I told her I had an assessment with the psychologist and she had put me on the waiting list for CAT. She asked if there being a psychologist there was new, as she never seems to have any patients who are seeing them, and I said that it wasn't, but since there is only one part time psychologist in the team not many people get to see her. She asked what CAT was, and how it was different from CBT, and I tried to explain, but my mind was really wandering, so she is probably none the wiser. She asked how long the therapy lasts for, and I said either 16 or 24 sessions, and she asked how long the waiting list was and I said up to 18 weeks. She got very frustrated by that - she said how ridiculous it is that there are such long waiting lists for things like that, particularly when the government are so keen to get people back to work and all that sort of thing - she said it really winds her up that mental health services are so underfunded. At some point I started getting slightly upset - I wasn't crying, but I knew that if I tried to speak I would start crying, so I just sat there trying to breathe for a minute. She was very sweet and asked what the matter was. When I finally felt like I could speak without bursting into tears I told her that I was just really struggling and feeling really bad. She asked how long I had been feeling like this for, and said (as predicted!) what a shame it was when I had been doing so well. I said I was just feeling really awful and the suicidal thoughts were really strong, and she said how I have felt like this before and that I know it will pass and so I could get through it, and I said that I didn't want to, I just wanted to die. She joked that if I said that she would have to suggest I started cross stitching again. She asked when I was seeing L, and I said that I was due to see her Tuesday. She talked to me for quite a while asking if I had any plans over the weekend, and if I had any friends I could see or talk to or anything who were supportive. She was very supportive and kept trying to encourage me that I could get through, and said to try and find something I could do over the weekend, and then go and talk to L on Tuesday, and that I could see her again sooner than usual if I felt I needed to, and that she was really sorry I was feeling so bad, but that it would get better etc. I didn't really know what to say - I find it really difficult to be totally blunt about how bad things are when I am actually speaking to someone, and I just felt so drained, and like I was going to burst into tears, so I said goodbye, and got about 2 feet outside her door and turned around and went back in and said I really didn't feel able to get through the weekend. She asked what I would like her to do, and I said I had no idea, I just couldn't cope. She asked if I had the out of hours number, and I briefly explained the mess of when I tried to call a couple of weeks ago. She said that was ridiculous, and that she was going to call the crisis team and ask them to make contact with me over the weekend, and that hopefully having that support would make it easier to keep going. Overall she was very supportive, and I felt like she actually gave a shit about what happened to me. Obviously mental health isn't her area of expertise, but when I am truly in crisis she does seem to try hard to support me. She spent a long time with me today - I must have been with her for about 40 minutes, and she did genuinely seem to care.

About an hour later I got a call from the crisis team. To be honest I wasn't really expecting them to call today - I thought it would be tomorrow, so I was quite surprised. I spoke to a man whose name I can't remember who actually seemed perfectly nice. Initially I thought it was going to be one of those quick 'oh great, we've had a Borderline referred, better give them a quick ring' calls that I have had in the past. He did things like asking if this was the first time I had felt like this (I always wonder why they ask things like that when they quite clearly have your notes in front of them) and then asking what had helped me get through in the past, or if after a while I just started feeling better, and when was I next seeing L. I said that nothing really helped, but that after a while it would start to get a bit easier. He said the stuff about how if I have got through it before then I could again, and I said that I didn't want to. That I was sick of getting through a really horrible patch just for another one to come along, and that I just didn't want to be here any more. I also said that this was actually the worst I had felt for quite a long time - that the suicidal thoughts were stronger this time than they have been for a long time. He asked how long, but I didn't really know - again, my whole conversation with him was rather stumbling and confused as I just couldn't think properly. I said I have been feeling bad for years now, and things never get any better and that I have just had enough - that I don't want to be here. He asked if I had any plans regarding suicide, and I said that it was all I could think about. He asked what I would do, and I said that I didn't want to say because that makes things rather awkward (as in my experience they have then merely attempted to take away whatever method I say I am planning, which doesn't solve anything, as I am still left with the feelings). He asked if I had the means to carry it out, and I said yes, and that if I couldn't use one method then I would use the other that I consider. He asked if I would call someone if I felt I was going to act on my thoughts, and I said no - that if I was any closer to suicide then I wouldn't want to speak to anyone because I wouldn't want to be stopped, and that it was difficult enough to tell Dr O how I was feeling, but that if I was about to do something then I would not call anyone, as it would seem completely counterproductive - if I was any more suicidal than I am now then I would just want to die, I wouldn't want to talk to someone. We talked about my sleep, and how the nights are when I feel most unsafe, as I know I have quite a few hours when my parents are asleep, and so it would be quite a long time before anyone found me etc. He asked about plans for the weekend etc, and I said I didn't have any. He said that the crisis team could visit me tomorrow, but that I needed to commit to keeping myself safe and would that be ok. I said I couldn't promise that - that I could try, but I couldn't give him a guarantee, because I didn't know for sure, and there would be a chance I wouldn't be able to. He asked why not, and I said that if things got too overwhelming then I couldn't be sure I wouldn't act on the thoughts, and he said that he was hoping that if they were seeing me and giving me support then it would stop that from happening, but that he understood and wouldn't ask me to promise, and that they would come out to see me tomorrow. He did ask me more, but I can't remember, and I can't remember the order of most of the conversation. At first I felt like he was just going to make a quick five minute phone call where he would ask when I was seeing L, reassure me that I had got through times like this before, and say to talk to L about it when I saw her, but actually he talked to me for a long time, and was pretty thorough and reasonable. He said they would come out and visit me tomorrow, but that if I needed to speak to someone before then I could call, and he said that he would give me their number, which he shouldn't really do until after they had seen me and assessed me, but that if I needed to call then to phone that, which goes through to a call centre where you leave your name and number, and someone would then call me back as soon as possible. So I have them coming out to see me sometime tomorrow, which I am quite nervous about. I would actually really like it to be him that came out, but that is very unlikely. It's funny, as usually I am much more comfortable with women than men, but the women who work for the crisis team seem to be either patronising, dismissive, intimidating, or a combination of the above, whereas there have actually been a couple of men who have seemed very reasonable. I am pretty much expecting it to be a couple of the scary women (there is one in particular who I have seen several times who I find really intimidating so am really hoping it isn't her) who will come out and either be very dismissive and say that I seem to have suicidal thoughts frequently and that I can get through this and to talk to L on Tuesday, perhaps also breaking my confidentiality by talking to my mum and telling her to confiscate all pills and dressing gown cords etc as I am a suicide risk, as that tends to be my experience with the crisis team, but I am really hoping it isn't like that. It is over two years since they last came out to see me etc - I think I have been referred one other time since then, but someone just spoke to me on the phone and decided I would be ok, and I have been assessed by them several times in A&E, during Summer '09, but I haven't actually had a visit from them for over two years, and I am a bit nervous. I hate the way they always visit in pairs - it feels really intimidating. I just really, really hope that it is someone who actually takes me seriously and tries to help, rather than just dismisses how I am feeling in the way that they so often seem to. I tried to be really honest with the man on the phone, as I figured it couldn't do any harm - it couldn't take suicide away as an option, but it might get me some support. I hope that I can do the same tomorrow, and that they actually take me seriously like he seemed to. I suppose if they don't I won't be any worse off than I would have been had I not seen them though. And it might help. The difficulty is, that as I explained to him, it is the night time that I feel most unsafe, and even if they are doing daily visits, they can't be here now, when the thoughts are at their strongest. But I will just have to see how it goes.

Limit

2011-02-04T01:39:00.000Z

Surely I will have to sleep better tonight?! I have to. I have been so exhausted and felt so dreadful today - I surely can't have another night as bad as last night??

I am feeling really hopeless. I don't understand why you are always told to tell someone if you are feeling suicidal, but then if you do then you don't get any support or help. What is the point of telling someone? I have an appointment booked with my GP tomorrow, just because I see her every month for meds etc. I don't really see the point of going. There are no meds she would give me that I could use. I don't need the usual meds if I won't be around. She wouldn't be able to help with how I am feeling now even if I told her, which I would be unlikely to do. I could tell her, but I know there is nothing she could do, and she would try and help by suggesting something I find unhelpful or unrealistic - previous examples have included going to church, learning to cross stitch, and most randomly of all, training as a DBT therapist because it sounds like a good therapy that isn't available in our area..... Also, if I ever tell her I am doing badly she tells me I have been so much better for so long, which is of course always bollocks - I just haven't bothered telling her how I have been feeling generally because I know she can't help. So I can't imagine that telling her would help anything, but I am feeling so bad that I don't know if I could fake it in the way that I usually do. And will end up feeling patronised, and hopeless that yet another professional knows how I am feeling but hasn't done anything to help, which is the inevitable outcome. So that makes me want to not go at all.

I just want to make everything stop. I want to die. Living feeling like this is not an option, and I can't get any help, despite trying. I have tried so hard. Asking L to call me today when she hadn't got back to me earlier in the week was really difficult to do, because I was already feeling really rejected and hurt by it, and even though she was nice when I spoke to her it just confirmed that I didn't matter enough for her to bother contacting me, and that despite knowing I was feeling very suicidal she didn't suggest or do anything. And I know there is a limit to what she can do, but there is also a limit to how long I can keep going like this, and nobody seems to realise that.

Exhausted

2011-02-03T17:00:00.000Z

I suppose it must be possible to feel worse than I am, but right now I can't imagine how. I feel exhausted and desperate and alone, and I can't put into words how bad I feel. My sleep was even worse than usual. I finally managed to get to sleep about 7:30am, and slept for about an hour and a half before waking up and not being able to get back to sleep for a while. Then I kept going back to sleep, but only for about 30 or 40 minutes at a time, and then waking up and not being able to sleep again. I probably managed about 4 hours total in the end, maybe a little more, but it was so disturbed and broken, with long patches of being awake in between, and the longest I managed to sleep for without waking up was the first 90 minutes, and was then awake for quite a while before I managed to get back to sleep. So I am exhausted. I feel like complete shit.

I spoke to L a little while ago. In complete desperation at about 7:15 this morning I sent her a text asking if she could please call me at some point today. She rung about an hour ago. I am shit on the phone. Particularly when I am feeling as bad as I am at the moment, and I don't think the exhaustion is helping. I can't remember much of the conversation. I know I had difficulty forming sentences and finding the word I meant, so my part of the conversation was all very slow and confused. She asked how I was and I said bad, and she asked what I had been doing this week. I asked what day it was, and she said you tell me, and I said I honestly had no idea, I was too confused. She told me it was Thursday, and I said I had been to rehearsal twice and that was about it. I was semi crying most of the phone call. I said I couldn't keep going like this, that I felt too bad and I just couldn't cope. She asked if my mood had suddenly dropped or if it had just been getting worse and worse. I was a bit confused by this, because I had emailed her Monday morning, so surely she knew my mood was very low. I asked if she had got the email and she said that she had and that she was sorry she hadn't had time to reply. Which kind of confirmed to me that I don't really matter. She asked what I thought about what the psychologist had said, and I said I found it really hard to think about, because it just seemed such a long way ahead and I couldn't imagine being alive that far ahead and that I just couldn't think about it; that it seemed irrelevant. I said I was feeling really suicidal and that I wanted to die. She said the usual type of things - that I needed to try and find one or two things that I could do each day to give my life some structure, and that I could work on getting my sleep pattern better, and not to view suicide as an option as it wasn't helpful etc etc. I spoke to her for about 15 minutes and then she said she was going to have to go, and that she would see me Tuesday, and that she was sorry I was feeling so awful. So at least now I have spoken to her, and I know that she received and read my email and knows how I am feeling, and it doesn't seem like more support is an option. I am too exhausted to care or even really have any feelings about it.

Stop

2011-02-03T02:48:00.000Z

I think (hope) I might be able to get to sleep earlier tonight. About every 10 days I seem to have a night where I am able to sleep earlier than usual (usual being sometime between 6 and 7am lately) and I am thinking tonight may be that night. Although I have no idea why I am thinking that. Desperation perhaps?? Since it is already 2:30am I suppose the chances are fairly low.

Rehearsal was long - 3 hours. Apparently not knowing my lines was fine - I said I was going to use my book because I wasn't confident enough with my stage directions or cues yet (which is true - we have only done any of the scenes once or twice, and that was the first time running the Act, and even if I had known my lines I would have needed my script for some of the stage directions I have scribbled in etc). Anyway she said that was fine - that when she had said books down for principals she hadn't meant for me or the male lead. Would have been nice if she could have said that at the time, but never mind. As usual I spent the whole time desperate to get home, so the rehearsal running over by half an hour was far from ideal. I felt pretty useless at rehearsal too. I felt like everyone must be wondering why I had been cast, because I know I was.

I have eaten way too much today. I feel disgusting. And it was all late night eating. That is when I am most vulnerable to eating too much. Rehearsal didn't finish until 10:30, and yet I managed to pack plenty of food in between then and about midnight. Hate myself for that.

I am still feeling the same. Feeling increasingly drained and exhausted by it all, and feel like I have less and less fight left in me each day. My head feels all over the place. I can't focus on anything. Still not heard anything from L, so I am now assuming she isn't planning to contact me before I am due to see her next week. I am not sure why. It is my nephew's birthday tomorrow. Birthdays are exciting when you are that age, so I mustn't do anything to ruin it for him, even though I won't be seeing him as my sister still isn't speaking to me. But my mum will be going over there, and I suppose if I was dead then she wouldn't. I had forgotten it was his birthday tomorrow until earlier today, and it was incredibly frustrating as I had kind of been planning to do something tonight, and that made me feel like I couldn't. So I have to keep holding on. I hate it. More than I can put into words. This is not living, and I am not interested in just surviving. I just want it all to stop.

A film

2011-02-02T04:49:00.000Z

Sometimes this all feels like a dream. Or a nightmare. This can't be how my life has turned out. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. It can't be real. Sometimes it is like watching a film. This isn't my life. I am watching someone else. I can see myself sitting on the bed typing on my laptop as though I am not in my body. I can observe myself doing things, but without any sense of it being me. It is someone else's life, and I am watching, but I can't intervene - I can't get involved or speak or help. I can only watch. Like a film. That tends to be at the worst times. I watched myself take loads of tablets one time I attempted suicide. I have watched myself sitting in appointments, barely able to speak. In bed, staring at the walls. In A&E, sitting in a little cubicle waiting for someone to come and assess me. I have watched all of those things, and many others, as though they were a film. I see my mouth moving and hear words coming out, but I don't know what will be said, because I am just observing. I am not there. It is quite a surreal experience, and not one that I have often, but I generally find that it happens when I am at my very worst, and will happen quite a few times over a relatively short period, then stop. Recently it has started happening, just for short bursts at a time. Sometimes in the past it has lasted longer. When I was emailing L the other day. I could see myself typing. Also when I was trying to get dressed to go to the quiz the other day. I think it generally happens when I am particularly distressed, or am doing something that I find difficult, so I assume it must be some type of coping mechanism - if you are observing something you don't feel in the same way as when you are experiencing something. It is different to when I dissociate, or to what I think of as dissociating anyway, when I just don't remember anything. When it is like this I can see it all, and even see how I must be feeling, in the same way as you can see how a character must be feeling when you watch a film, but the feelings it elicits in you are different, for example if you see someone in great distress, you tend to feel pity rather than feeling that distress yourself, and that is what is like when I am seeing the film version of me. I suppose in some ways it is a relief, not to be experiencing the intense feelings that I know I am feeling, but it can also feel quite scary, as I feel completely out of control - I don't feel able to influence what I am doing, any more than you could a character in a film. But this isn't a film. It is my life.

I have to go to a rehearsal tonight. We are running Act 1 for the first time. The Director said last week that principals had to be books down. I know about 6 lines, and I only know them because they are on the CD as they lead into one of the songs. I don't have the concentration to even attempt learning them, not to mention not having the motivation. Leaning lines for a show I have no intention of being alive for seems entirely pointless, and with my concentration as poor as it is, trying to learn them would just result in me getting very upset and stressed. I have no idea what I will say - when asked why you are using your script you can't really reply that you have been too busy contemplating your suicide to learn your lines. I am finding this show torture. It should be great - it has a wonderful score and I have a very good part. But every rehearsal feels like hell. I dread going, feel terrible the whole time I am there, feel myself get increasingly tense and irritable, and then sometimes feel like I am going to burst into tears. The relief when it is over and I can go home is tremendous. I assume that I would feel differently if my mood wasn't like this, but it is. And so I turn up to rehearsal, and count down the minutes until I can leave. The run through will be hideous. When did something that I am supposed to be doing fun, that is the only thing I have ever cared about, turn into something I dread and loathe?

I can't cope. Carrying on like this is not an option.

Fake

2011-02-01T17:19:00.000Z

I feel like I must be a fake. Somehow I must give the impression on here that things are worse than they actually are. I am not sure how, because I just type what I am thinking and feeling, but that is the only explanation I can come up with as to why people who read this blog are concerned enough that they think I need more help or should be in hospital or whatever, whereas in 'real life' nobody seems to feel that - neither L nor the psychologist I saw last week expressed any concern or suggested I should be seen more regularly or by the crisis team or anything. So I think I must somehow be misrepresenting myself here, and I am sorry for that. Or perhaps I am making everything up and there is nothing wrong with me. Maybe it isn't obvious in my writing, but when you actually see me it is clear that I am nothing but an attention seeking liar. It feels real, but maybe I am making it all up and am just a compulsive liar. I don't understand. I am confused. I don't understand how I can give one impression to people who read this, and obviously one so different to the professionals involved in my care. I know it isn't because I don't tell them everything, because as I have said, L reads pretty much everything that the people who read this do. I sent that email to her the night before last saying how desperate I was and that I needed help, and attaching everything I had written lately. I still haven't heard anything from her. She hasn't replied to my email, and she hasn't called me. Either she must think there isn't really anything wrong with me and I am exaggerating everything, and therefore it isn't worth contacting me, or she doesn't care what happens to me. If it is the first and I am a fake and making everything up, then I am truly sorry for misleading you all. If it is the second them I am screwed really, as she has always been the one person I have trusted and who I have felt does care about me. Either way I don't feel like I am being left with many options.

I have tried

2011-02-01T04:55:00.001Z

Firstly, thank you all so much for the comments on my last entry. You were all so supportive and caring, and it really did mean a lot. Quite a few people suggested I should be in hospital, or go to A&E, and a few people asked why my care plan says to avoid being admitted. That is kind of difficult to explain, partially because I don't completely understand myself. This entire paragraph will attempt to explain, and is long, so please skip to next paragraph if this doesn't interest you! I do know a few reasons why L wants to avoid it, and therefore put it on my care plan, and I can completely see where she is coming from in that sense. There is still a lot of stigma surrounding BPD, and this is apparently pretty rife both amongst the hospital staff and the crisis team staff. I haven't been in hospital since being given the BPD diagnosis, so can't comment on that, but from my experience I would agree that the crisis team seem to have a poor attitude towards PDs - when I switched GP a couple of years ago which put me back under this trust for Mental Health, I was seeing the crisis team (the GP referred me) and they said they would continue to see me until I was taken on my the CMHT, which was likely to be a few weeks away still. Then one day they had contact with the old CMHT, were told I had a PD diagnosis, and when they visited that day their attitude was completely different, and they didn't see me after that, despite it still being a couple of weeks before I was due to see the CMHT. I can only assume that was down to seeing a PD diagnosis, rather than the depression etc the GP had discussed when referring me. It didn't seem to matter that I was still feeling very suicidal and had attempted suicide only a month or two earlier - they just dropped me. So I could see that attitude in the crisis team then, and it is apparently equally bad amongst the hospital staff. During summer 2009 I ended up presenting at A&E three or four times due to suicidal thoughts etc. Despite making my feelings and thoughts known clearly, I was sent home every time, after perhaps a 10 minute chat with the crisis team, who would generally then speak to my mum and tell her to make sure I didn't have access to any tablets or dressing gown cords etc, as I was suicidal. One time she asked them to admit me as she said she couldn't cope, but I was still sent home. At that time I really was not well at all - I was possibly a slightly lower suicide risk than I have been at some other times as I was just so confused etc. I wouldn't go anywhere, even outside of my room, without my teddy bear, as I thought that he could protect me and I thought people wanted to hurt me. I didn't trust anyone, even my family. I wouldn't put the teddy bear down under any circumstances. I spent the whole time crying, I was possibly a bit delusional, and I was also having suicidal thoughts. I sat there crying, clutching my teddy bear (yes, I was 23) telling them that I wanted to die and that I was going to kill myself but that people were trying to get me. I was still just sent home with no follow up, despite my mum asking them to admit me. That was the last time I went to A&E, and the last time I saw anyone from the crisis team. I have no trust in the crisis team - I don't feel like they care if I live or die, except for any inconvenience I might cause by dying, but luckily for them I have a BPD label, and therefore if I did successfully commit suicide after seeing them they wouldn't have to explain anything too fully, because they can always say with BPD that there is constant risk and therefore you can't be kept safe, or something along those lines. So essentially my diagnosis is a major reason why L doesn't think hospital is appropriate - not because she has a problem with it, because she is one of the few professionals I know who gets really angry about the way people with BPD are treated in services etc, but because she doesn't want me exposed to the type of attitude that so many of the acute services staff do have. I think that is a valid point, and I can understand the reasoning behind it. Another reason is that she thinks that the vast majority of times hospital actually makes people worse rather than better. Therapeutically it has no value, as there is no therapy there, and so unless it is essential for medications to be altered or something, she thinks it rarely helps. Again, I have to agree that there is no therapeutic value - it is essentially somewhere to keep you safe until you can be safe at home - for that reason I think it can have value, but she has pointed out in the past that if someone is determined to kill themselves then they will do it wherever they are, and that people do successfully commit suicide in hospital. Another reason is that she thinks it is really important that I get through bad patches without hospital or crisis team intervention, to see that I can do it. She doesn't want me to get reliant on hospital, and feel like I need admission every time I feel suicidal. Again, I think that is a good point, and it is certainly something I have seen happen, both with friends in real life, and on blogs I have read. If you don't start learning to cope with the feelings outside of hospital, then you never will be able to, and she doesn't want me to be a revolving door patient. I really do understand where she is coming from with this - I don't want that either, and I know that even in the past year for example, there has been more than one period where I have felt bad enough that I haven't felt safe, and other care coordinators perhaps would have had me admitted, and yet I have got through them. However, I also know that if I look back at my history, there have been two genuine suicide attempts, three years apart, and both times I was honest about how I was feeling beforehand and tried to get help, but couldn't. There have been other times when I know I would have acted on the thoughts had I not received the extra help that I had at the time, whether that be from the crisis team or hospital admissions. So I suppose that is a kind of risky strategy in that most times, yes, I will cope without hospital, and that is obviously a positive thing, but there will also be times when I can't, and if more help isn't available then that could lead to a suicide attempt, which could of course kill me, as that is the intention. So basically they are the reasons why my care plan says to avoid admission wherever possible.

For those who suggested that perhaps I hadn't been able to explain fully how bad things are - I do think that is something that is difficult to do, and that I am not always able to do in person. However, the day before I am due to see her I always email her everything I have written since the last time I saw her, which is primarily what I write on this blog. It is edited slightly - sometimes I will write things in what I send to her that I won't post on here for various reasons, and there are things I write on here that I don't send to her. But not anything to do with my mood or thoughts - all of that remains unedited, and so essentially she gets to read everything that people who read this blog read. The things I don't send are for example if I have discussed what happened in an appointment, I don't bother sending that to her because she already knows. In general though I am very honest, and I do send her things that I find difficult to imagine her reading, which is why I try to edit as little as possible, or I would end up cutting a lot of things out, so for example I leave in things like my views on the mental health service, and when I don't feel like I am getting enough support, and when I feel like she has let me down or isn't there for me etc. So it is very honest, and is difficult to do, but I know that the more she knows the more she can help me. So whilst I may not always express quite how bad things are in person, she reads virtually the same as all of you read, therefore I don't think I can really make things any clearer. Seemingly what I write here is enough to concern people at times, judging from comments, and she sees the same thing. I think the fact that a lot of times I have managed to cope, leads her to have more belief in my ability to get by than I have, and means that even if I say outright that I can't cope, she generally believes that I will manage to. I appreciate that she has that belief in me, and I am more pleased than I can express that she isn't like my old care coordinator, who sent me to A&E if he thought there was any chance of me acting on my thoughts, and also insisted on breaking confidentiality and speaking to my mum if I mentioned the word suicide, as that means I am far more honest with her than I could ever have even considered being with him. However, it does sometimes mean that there are times like now, when I don't feel able to cope, and yet I am left without any support, and I honestly don't know how to deal with that.

A couple of hours after posting last night, when I had read the first few comments on the post, I decided to email L. I didn't know what to say. So I said that. I then rambled a little about feeling like things were getting worse every day, and I really felt like I needed more help if I was going to get through this, but that I didn't know what or if it was an option, but that I felt like I needed to ask so that I could tick it off in my head as trying to get help, and then went on to say I had attached what I had written in the last week (basically sent everything from last Wednesday to last night's post - I think the only edit was describing what happened in the appointment with the psychologist, because she will already have been told about that. I left in everything else, including all the stuff about not feeling like I was getting enough support, and that I feel like services assume I will just get by because I usually do. I then apologised multiple times for being a nuisance and said how desperate I feel, and I think that was about it. Except it somehow took about three times as long to say. Just add some more confusion in and you get the idea. I then sent it and within about 10 minutes wished I hadn't, as it seemed pointless and kind of scary, even though I trust her. I nearly sent another email telling her to ignore the last one, but I thought she would probably read it anyway, and that it might then look a bit manipulative or something so send a second one saying not to look at the first one. So I left it. I haven't heard anything. She didn't reply or phone. I don't know if she wasn't in work, or if she was too busy to contact me, or if she didn't see the point or what. But at least I have tried. She now knows exactly how I feel, or as much as I feel able to put into words anyway, and I have actually directly said that I need more help. If I can't have more help, which I suspect will be the outcome if she does get back to me, then at least I have tried, and so kind of feel like I have done everything that I can and explored all options, which is what I always say I feel people should do if possible. But I have tried.

What do you do?

2011-01-30T23:58:00.000Z

What do you do when it feels like every day you are inching closing and closer to the edge of the cliff? The cliff that you have spent the last two weeks feeling like you are hanging on to by your fingertips in fact, so perhaps it is that you are now losing grip and starting to slide down the side? What do you do? When is it ok to say that you have been actively fighting this for over seven years, and that you just can't do it any more? To give up essentially. Particularly when you don't seem to be able to get much support, and so really you are having to do it on your own. There must be a point when it is considered acceptable to stop fighting. When you have tried hard enough for long enough. When people would understand that you can't keep living for others, and that you have kept going for as long as you can.

I honestly don't know what to do. I feel like I am at that point, but I know others would disagree. And I suppose part of me wonders if with more support, although right now it would need to be quite a lot more, I could keep going. But what is the point? What would it achieve? Another two months or so and I would be back in this position. To me, I have done enough and suicide is a perfectly reasonable option. For the sake of others I am trying to continue to fight, but I cannot do it on my own. So what am I supposed to do? Telling my parents won't help. They know I am not doing too well anyway, but talking about suicide just panics them, and won't change anything. My mum takes away whatever pills she can find, but actually that doesn't change anything. So I don't see talking to them as a helpful option. L knows I feel awful. I could tell her again, but I don't know what difference it would make. And there is nobody else I can turn to. That's it. She is the only person I trust, and she is the only person who could actually do anything. But she already knows. So here I am. Sliding down the cliff, and feeling like any day I am going to lose my grip completely and fall off. Which would be an enormous relief to me, but even in this state I know that it wouldn't to those around me. I do believe that they would be better off without me in the long term, but I know that they wouldn't be able to see that. So what do you do?

Times Like This

2011-01-30T02:27:00.001Z

Today has been difficult again. My weight was significantly higher than yesterday, which I knew it would be, but it still upset me a lot. When I am already struggling a lot gaining weight can really tip me over the edge. I have been very irritable again today. I have tried to stay as calm as possible, but a tiny comment can just make me snap and scream, and then 20 seconds later I will be ok again. I think it only happened once today - I told my dad I wanted to kill him, but then I calmed down again soon after. My temper does seem quite out of control at the moment though. Things have been ok with my mum. It was actually fine last night - things were normal when we got home but I was still feeling guilty, which was when I wrote last night. The night time was hard. I felt really alone. I ended up going downstairs at 4am and woke the dog up because I wanted a cuddle. He was very obliging, and didn't object to being woken up and cuddled in the middle of the night. Dogs are good like that. And then I came back upstairs but I was feeling really quite desperate. In the end I decided I would go and sleep in my mum's room at about 5am, so I went in there. I said to her that I was sorry for being horrible and she said that she was sorry too. I managed to fall asleep in there, and then woke up at about 9am due to bloody hammering from next door, and so then went back to my bed as it is a bit further away, and went back to sleep again.

The day has felt really long. I am finding it impossible to concentrate on anything or distract myself from my thoughts. Unless there is something I particularly want to watch, which there isn't usually, then I can't have the TV on when I feel like this - it just irritates me. Music is the same - I love music but I can't cope with the noise. Thinking even a day or two into the future sends me into a complete whirl, and trying to think further than that causes full blown panic attacks. The obvious solution is just to not let myself think ahead, but sometimes I can't help it. The more I think about the future, the more I want to die now. I hate that it is the weekend. I hate weekends. I find them really difficult. I think because I am not by myself as much, and I find that draining. We are going to see The King's Speech tomorrow. I have wanted to see it, but I know I won't be able to concentrate properly. I keep finding myself just sitting and staring into space. I keep wondering if I will get through this or not. I don't actually want to.

I might go and see my dog for a cuddle again. I don't think he will mind being woken up.

'A friendly face, the kind of face
That melts you with a grin.
The kind of eyes that welcome you
The minute you walk in.
A tender glance you simply can't refuse
At times like this a girl could use
A dog.

He listens when you tell him things,
There's nothing you can't say
And unlike certain people you can teach him how to stay
And if the world is giving you the blues
He cheers you up by chewing up the news.
It's things like that that make you choose
A dog.

Other people need romance, dancing, playing around.
Other people need constant fun, well I'm not one.
I have my feet on the ground.

Give me a quiet night, a stack of books
A tuna fish on rye.
A simple walk together
Underneath the starry sky.
And suddenly the night is something rare
And all because there's someone special there.
Who's gazing at the views.
His head upon your shoes.
At times like this, I sure could use
A dog'

- Times Like This, Lucky Stiff

Invalidation and anger

2011-01-29T03:47:00.000Z

Today has been difficult. Last night was difficult too actually. I have been feeling more and more strongly that I don't want to be here. I feel completely alone - I know I have the support of people on here, but that is different to real life support, and actually what I feel like I need at the moment is professional support, and that is what I am not getting. Last night I was actually feeling really tempted to discharge myself from mental health services - sometimes it feels like an appointment for an hour once a fortnight is worse than nothing at all, because when it is helpful I still leave feeling hopeless, because I know it is 2 weeks before I will get that again, and then there isn't time to talk about everything I feel I need to talk about - I found that even with weekly appointments, so fortnightly are even more difficult, and then even when I am really at crisis point I can't get any more support, so it all seems kind of pointless. Fortnightly sessions feel a bit like 'so here's what you could have won!' L has always been very supportive of me, and I know I have been lucky to have her, but I almost feel like she has given up on me or stopped caring or something. Either that or she thinks I am making up these feelings. I am not sure which is worse. But either way I don't feel supported at the moment. So I did consider contacting her and asking to be discharged, but I decided against it. She would probably have suggested we discuss it when I am next due to see her, in a week and a half, and by that time goodness knows how I feel or what position I will be in. I could be dead, or I could have attempted suicide but failed, or I could be feeling differently about things. So I suppose essentially it seemed pointless to ask for discharge now, when I am not even due to see her for a week and a half. I am just really struggling with the lack of support when I am feeling so bad. I suppose I just feel abandoned, and like nobody actually gives a shit whether I kill myself or not, which in a way is a good thing, as it makes me feel less guilty.

This evening was really difficult. A friend of my dad had asked him to go to a quiz a couple of days ago, but they only needed one for their team, so my mum and I couldn't go. My mum was going out with a friend, and asked if I wanted to go with them, but I didn't. Anyway, my dad phoned me at 5:45 and said he had spoken to his friend and there was room for me at the quiz after all, as someone couldn't make it, and that we would need to leave at 6:45. I wasn't actually sure if I wanted to go by that point, as I was anticipating a night here on my own, but I also knew that with how I was feeling that probably wasn't the most sensible option, so I agreed to go. The trouble is, it wasn't giving me nearly long enough to get ready - it was about 6 when I started to get ready, and I had a quick shower but didn't have time to wash my hair, so just straightened it instead. That didn't take too long. Getting dressed is another matter however. I find it incredibly hard to know what to wear if I am going anywhere other than an appointment or rehearsal, in which case I either don't give a shit what I look like, or wear dance type clothes. When I am going anywhere else getting dressed is an incredibly stressful and time consuming process. I put on a skirt, top, and cardigan, then decided the tights were no good, then decided it wasn't the tights that were the problem - it was my huge legs. So off came the skirt and cardigan, and on went skinny jeans and boots and a long cardigan. I decided my legs still looked hideous, and was getting really quite upset and crying by this point. Told my mum I wanted to stay home and that I couldn't get ready. All along my mum had been trying to be helpful, but was actually making matters worse, by saying that I was being ridiculous and my legs looked fine, and that the jeans looked fine, and nobody else would look at me and think my legs looked awful, and that I was making my dad late (which I was), and I ended up yelling at her that I felt hideous and I didn't give a shit what other people would think - I couldn't go out feeling hideous. Was sobbing uncontrollably by this point. Took off the jeans and cardigan and tried on a different skirt, but still didn't feel comfortable, and didn't have a cardigan that would go with it so would have been cold. She kept on and on, and it felt like absolutely everything I said she was just dismissing and invalidating, which is an ongoing theme, and I totally snapped in the end and screamed that she was being really fucking invalidating, to which she replied that she didn't even know what that meant in this context, and so I said that she was just dismissing and ignoring all of my feelings, and she said that was because they were stupid, and I said (when I say I said, I mean I screamed) that they were real to me, and that she was constantly invalidating my thoughts and feelings, and that actually that can be a major contributory factor to BPD. I wished immediately that I hadn't said that, because I never want to make my parents feel bad, or like they are to blame for my problems - partly because I don't think it is fair to blame someone else, and partly because I don't want them to feel guilty, even when I do think they have contributed to how I am now. So I felt like a complete bitch, and was in a complete state, crying hysterically and hyperventilating. I said (cried) that I couldn't go out and I needed to stay home, and had put my comfy jeans on by that point, not with the intention of going anywhere. My mum said I looked nice in my comfy jeans that I had on and that I should go like that. I just couldn't stop crying. My dad came upstairs then and tried to calm me down a bit - he asked what the matter was and I said (cried) that I felt hideous in everything and I had made him late and I couldn't go anywhere, and that it was my mum's fault (unfair I know). He said we weren't too late, and that I looked fine how I was, and I didn't need to dress up or anything and that I needed to just calm down. I think my mum was also quite worked up by this time as she said what I needed was a slap, and at that point I completely lost my temper and screamed that I was going to kill her and my dad had to hold me back from going into her room after her. I don't think that I ever would be really physically violent - I have been known to hit my dad when I have got really angry and worked up, but it is generally when he has intentionally wound me up, which he has a tendency to do it, but I don't get any more violent than that - I have grabbed a knife and said I am going to stab him in the past, but I am certain I would never do anything like that - my anger just gets out of control occasionally and I say things that I don't mean, like I did tonight. I then said that she was a fucking bitch and cried some more. After a minute my temper disappeared and I was just back to being upset. My dad said he really wanted me to go with him and I calmed down a bit, although I was still sobbing, and said goodbye to my mum, and we left. I then sat in the car crying and was talking to myself a bit, but my dad managed to get me to stop. I decided I needed a Diazepam a minute or two after we had left, and looked in my bag, to find that I had grabbed my Zopiclone instead of my Diazepam (and very nearly taken one - they are the same size tablets, and apart from the writing, the blister packs look identical) and so I then had a panic attack and said I had to get out of the car and I would walk home because I needed my Diazepam. A moment more of rooting in my bag produced some Diazepam though, and I took one, and after about 10 minutes had managed to calm down enough that I was just sobbing quietly, and a little while later I started to feel a bit better, and was relatively calm by the time we arrived.

The actual quiz was fine. I only knew my dad's friend on our table, as did he, but the other people all seemed nice. I answered a reasonable number of questions, although not nearly as many as my dad - he is very good at quizzes. Food was an issue. There was a Ploughman's included in the ticket price, so there were baguettes and cheeses on each table, and then the people on our table had brought lots and lots of crisps and nuts and things with them, and when there are things like that out I just can't stop eating, so I ate all evening, and was feeling worse and worse about myself. Then finally there was this chocolate cake thing that someone had brought, and I had a piece of that, and it was incredibly rich (and something has to be really rich for me to say that as I have a very sweet tooth!) and I just couldn't cope, and I ended up going to the toilets and purging. That is the first time I have purged for ages - it has been months since I last did it, but quizzes are a real trigger for me where that is concerned - there are always lots of nibbles around, and I have no self control where things like that are concerned and so just keep eating, and then feel terrible and go and purge as much as I can. It was also at a quiz that I first ever purged, so I guess they are one of the least safe places for me in that respect. I hate myself for the amount I ate, despite purging. And even though it is now 3:30am, and so it was hours ago, I still feel sick from it. I am feeling really shit about that - my weight had been slightly down this morning, and it made it that tiny bit easier to get through the day, and now it is going to be way up and I just can't cope with something else going wrong. So it was a really bloody hard night. Although out of 15 teams we did win the quiz, and so my dad and I came home with a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates.

I am feeling really guilty about the things that I said to, and about, my mum. I feel like a terrible person. When I lose my temper I just seem to lose all control, and when I am very upset and then she says things that upset me more I just snap. My dad does it too, but kind of intentionally - he does wind me up on purpose sometimes. Strangely I don't think he means to upset me - it is like he doesn't realise that what he is doing or saying is really upsetting me or making me angry, despite the fact it happens on a semi-regular basis. I think he just genuinely doesn't realise how his words affect people. I suppose it is just a complete lack of tact, and not thinking before he speaks, and an almost childlike sense of him thinking something is fun, even when the other person quite clearly isn't enjoying it. And so I do get really furious with him. My mum is different. She means well, and she tries to help, but I really do find her very invalidating a lot of the time, and when I am already upset I just can't cope with it. My mum and I bicker a lot, but it is very rare for me to lose my temper with her to the extent that I did tonight. In fact I am not sure that I ever have - I have always had the self control before not to point out that there may be a link between her behaviours and some of my problems, and I lost that tonight, and feel really guilty for doing so, as I know it will have upset her, and that is the last thing I want to do when she does so much for me, and tries so hard to support me. I think I am just feeling so awful at the moment that it really isn't going to take much at all to flip me over the edge in the way that I did tonight. And the worse I feel the more I hate myself, and the more self critical I am, and the more irritable I am, and therefore the more frustrating I am to my parents, so it does tend to be that the lower my mood, the more we argue, which then makes me feel worse and more suicidal, and acts as proof to me that they would be better off without me. I am really not in a good place at the moment, and I don't know what to do. Suicide looks more and more appealing every day.

Assessment

2011-01-27T19:50:00.000Z

I had my assessment appointment with the psychologist today. It was fine. I feel like my brain is quite slow because of how I am feeling, and so I think it probably took me quite a long time to answer some of her questions, although I am not really sure as my perception of time seems a bit wonky at the moment. Anyway, she was very nice and friendly. She didn't ask about my history at all - she asked why I thought I had been referred, and then asked what my current problems are and what I would want help with changing in therapy etc. She asked how I felt about therapy, and if I felt like I wanted it at the moment. I said that it was really difficult to answer that, because a month ago I would have said yes, but that at the moment I was feeling very suicidal and didn't see a future. I said that I didn't want to waste her time by saying I was interested if I was then going to go home and kill myself in a few days. She said she would offer me CAT, and talked a bit about it, and asked if I would have interested in that if she had asked me a month ago rather than today. I said that a month ago I would have said yes, and so she said that she would put me on the waiting list because with how I am feeling at the moment I wouldn't really be able to make a decision. The waiting list is up to 18 weeks, and therefore probably longer than the therapy, as that tends to be 16 weeks, although she said it would possibly be 24 weeks. I was getting a bit emotional at the end of the appointment - I think I was just feeling so hopeless and overwhelmed, and I was starting to feel a bit teary, but I managed to hold it in. I am not good at showing emotion.

I had quite a lot of time to hang around in town before and after my appointment. There was about 45 minutes before and I went into Costa and tried to read a book, but I couldn't concentrate - the words were swimming around on the page and I couldn't concentrate and just ended up staring into space. Reading really isn't working for me at the moment. After the appointment I had to wait for about an hour before I could be picked up and I went and sat in the library. I was somehow there for an hour and yet it felt like 10 or 15 minutes - I was just in a daze. I didn't even bother trying to read, I just sat there. I think I am dissociating quite a lot at the moment - time just keeps disappearing without me being aware of it.

I am struggling a lot. I made it until today, which was what I said I would do, and I went to the appointment. It was fine, and the psychologist was nice, but I am now back in the position of feeling very depressed and suicidal, with just fortnightly appointments with L to get me through, and a 3 or 4 month waiting list for therapy. Essentially that does not feel like a realistic option. It is now nearly 2 weeks again before I am due to see anyone. To be honest even if I had more help I don't know whether I could get through this, but it certainly doesn't feel like a possibility as things stand. I know that it is my life and I have to take responsibility for myself, but when I feel this bad the only way I feel able to do that is by telling someone how bad I am feeling and trying to get help, which is really hard to do, but is all I feel able to do. I do find it frustrating that it is always just assumed I will be fine and manage to get through. There have been a lot of times when I have been desperate and coped, but there are other times when I haven't. I think because it has been over two years since I last attempted suicide there is just an assumption that I will be fine. The last time I attempted suicide it was actually very similar, although that time it had been even longer - it was over 3 years that time, and again actually I was only seeing someone fortnightly, and that person wasn't even remotely supportive when I did see her, and completely ignored how bad I was feeling. I don't feel like L is ignoring how bad I feel, but I do just feel like there is an assumption I will just get by because I usually do, and sometimes I just feel so desperate, and like I need more support to cope, and when I can't get that it makes it even harder to find the motivation to keep fighting - it feels like they don't care enough to support me, so why I should I keep trying so hard when I don't want to be here? I just don't know what to do.

Tax doesn't have to be taxing??

2011-01-26T16:00:00.000Z

I am really tired. I didn't get to sleep until late again last night, and then our next door neighbours are having work done on their kitchen, and so there has been drilling and banging all day, and even though their kitchen is the other side of the house, somehow it disturbed me and stopped me sleeping. It is strange because it is so quiet, but it just kept me awake. So I didn't get enough sleep, and what I did get was very disrupted, so I am exhausted and feel like shit.

I have to go to a rehearsal tonight - again the last thing I feel like doing. I also only have a few days to sort hundreds of invoices and receipts into date order for my dad's tax return. At the moment my eyes are so blurry I don't think I could even make out the dates, and I will keep getting hassle from my parents until I do it. And then when they are in date order I have to help him enter them onto a spreadsheet. I could really do without all this at the moment. Unfortunately a couple of years ago I made a deal that I would do the accounts for him in return for them paying my mobile bill. I now think that was a shit idea. For a start I am crap with money. I thought we had until April to do the taxes because that is when the tax year starts. Who knew it had to be done in January? Well, seemingly everyone apart from me, but that means I have now been left with the stress of having to get it all done in a few days. Tax doesn't have to be taxing? Bollocks!

I have this assessment appointment tomorrow. Don't really know what to think about it. It is only an assessment so it isn't going to change anything. I am feeling really exhausted and hopeless. My mum will be home from work soon. I should go downstairs and pretend I am filing these stupid bloody invoices, or I will get a bollocking when she arrives. Yesterday she said I was the most frustrating person imaginable because I was lying in bed in the dark in the afternoon. She clearly doesn't have a very good imagination.

Frustrated

2011-01-25T14:28:00.000Z

I am really struggling. I saw L this morning, but to be perfectly honest I don't feel like it helped at all. I don't feel like I really ended up talking about anything I feel like I wanted or needed to - it just seemed to go off in a direction that may have been helpful for her in understanding more, but didn't do anything to help me. I wish I could re-do the appointment and somehow change it. Although I don't really know what I did want to talk about. I just feel frustrated that I have had the one hour in a fortnight when I could talk, and I wasted it. Although maybe I would feel like that regardless of what we had talked about. I don't know. I don't know what I wanted her to do, but I suppose I just felt like I needed something. She just made an appointment for a fortnight's time like usual. I suppose I have this appointment on Thursday, but that is just an assessment, that isn't going to help - it will just be going over my history. I will still wait until then and go to the appointment, but I am not feeling hopeful in any way. Quite the opposite to be honest. I am exhausted.

Numb

2011-01-25T01:19:00.000Z

Not feeling any better. Exhausted. Went to ballet and rehearsal. Felt like shit the whole time, as predicted. Desperately just want to give up, but I am trying really hard to just keep going for the next few days. I am seeing L in the morning. Don't know how I feel about it. Usually I look forward to seeing L, but I am just feeling nothing. Kind of numb. Can't explain it. Just empty. I feel like a zombie, just getting by on auto pilot. Don't want to be here. Have had enough. Three days to go. Then I can make a decision. My brain feels jumbled. Random words and song lyrics keep popping into it. I type decision and my brain starts singing 'It's your first big decision. The choice isn't easy to make'. That's from Into The Woods. Not relevant. Brain is just linking random things. Type another word and my head shoots off in another direction. Can't think in complete sentences. Brain is just too jumpy. Can't concentrate. Can't write. Can't make my head calm down enough to extract any thoughts. Feel horrible.

Decision

2011-01-24T04:34:00.000Z

So I suppose today has been vaguely productive, even if I have felt shit. I showered. It is so weird the way you don't realise how disgusting you smell until you are clean. It's lucky I hadn't left the house since Monday. Something as simple as showering really shouldn't take so much effort and feel so difficult. People do it every day. I do it every day when I don't feel like this. I never find it difficult. Then full blown depression hits, and it suddenly seems like a completely pointless, and rather strange thing to do. So what if you stink and look like shit? It involves being out of bed for more than 5 minutes, and therefore absolutely is not worth the effort. In the end my mum tells me how revolting I am and makes me shower, and I then realise that I am indeed revolting, but still don't actually care. So anyway, I showered and washed my hair. I am sure that I must deserve a medal of some kind - I managed to do something that the rest of the population do daily without even thinking about. What an achievement.

I also had rehearsal. I managed to make myself rushed and slightly late by getting up too late, which was because it was 7:30am before I got to sleep, so I fairly naturally then didn't want to get up. I then spent half an hour persuading myself to get out of bed, then spent over an hour showering, throwing on the clothes from the top of the pile, and drying my hair for 3 minutes. Oh, and cleaning my teeth. I seem to do everything in slow motion at the moment - I am still trying to work out how those things took over an hour. I didn't spend time wondering what to wear - I just threw on some dance trousers and a top and cardigan that were conveniently at the top of the pile because they were what I wore last time I left the house. The cast probably think I only own one set of clothes.

Went to rehearsal. It wasn't quite as painful as last week, but I think only because I was there for an hour less. I still spent the whole time wanting to go home. Felt useless because I hadn't warmed up my voice properly (ie I had sung for about 5 minutes in the car on the way there) because I just couldn't be bothered, and so I sounded like shit. Typically the director wanted to listen to me sing my biggest solo for the first time. Never mind. Sung a bit more, pranced around a bit, said a few lines, had a few kisses, came home. I think I must have been functioning on auto pilot, and at least partially dissociating, because there are big chunks I don't remember, and one time I remember starting the number, and then realising we had finished, but not being aware of anything in the middle. My concentration is all over the place. I have to go to another rehearsal tomorrow night, after ballet. That is a full cast rehearsal, whereas today was just me, the male lead, the director/choreographer, and the musical director, so I need to try and be a bit more focused tomorrow or I will probably end up looking like a complete idiot. Again, I don't want to go, but it would fuck up the entire rehearsal if I wasn't there, so I don't have a choice.

I made a decision today. That sounds a bit monumental doesn't it? And it isn't, or not really anyway, given that I quite frequently change my mind. But I realised I have been a bit hypocritical lately, because I have been planning to kill myself, but allowing myself to forget something I have said to friends when they have been feeling suicidal. That I think suicide can be a valid option once you have tried all other options that are realistically open to you at that time, but not before then. On Thursday I have an assessment appointment with a Clinical Psychologist whom I have never met before. I have no idea if she would be able to help me, and to be honest at the moment I still feel like I would rather be dead regardless of whether I might start to feel better at some point, but it is something that is currently an option I haven't explored, and I think I would be very hypocritical if I were to ignore that, so I decided that however bad I feel I must at least keep going until then. Deciding not to kill myself within the next four days probably doesn't really sound like a very big deal, but it feels like it to me, because I am just feeling so terrible. So I need to really focus on getting through the next four days. After that I have no idea what will happen - I am not going to commit to anything further ahead than that, because that would feel impossible right now, but at least I am making the effort to go to the appointment and meet her etc. So I just have to get through tomorrow, when I will probably sleep the majority of the day, then have to go to dreaded ballet and rehearsal in the evening, then Tuesday I am seeing L, but I am not sure what I can do after that. My mum has a hospital appointment, but I find hospitals kind of triggering at the moment - they make me want to kill myself even more than I do usually. I suppose association of ideas. Anyway, then Wednesday will maybe be another sleeping day, and then I will have to go to another rehearsal. And then it will be Thursday and I will see the Psychologist. And that is as far as I am going to think or plan, because it gets too overwhelming after that. It all feels quite scary and difficult - even just thinking about being alive in four days time is hard, and I really wish I could get out of rehearsals and things, but realistically I can't without getting a lot of very awkward questions and inconveniencing a lot of people, and even if I could it wouldn't help really, because it is my head I need a break from, and I can't get that any more at home than I can out - it is just easier being at home because I don't have to hide behind a facade all of the time. I still desperately want out. I am exhausted. But I will stick to what I believe and at least go to the appointment on Thursday. Obviously I know nothing will change then, and that she won't be able to magic me better. But at least I will be going and meeting her, and getting an impression of what she is like. If I still want to kill myself after that then I think it is pretty much fair game - no big dates coming up for a few weeks, not too close to the show that I can't be replaced, no particular reason stopping me that I can think of. But I won't make a decision before Thursday, or I will try not to. I can't not see suicide as an option, because it is basically, but I am seeing it as an option I can explore after Thursday if I want to, not before. That's not something I can do long term, or keep doing time after time for various reasons, but I think I can do it for the next few days. I suspect this entire paragraph would make no sense to anyone but me, but I understand how my mind works. Or I do some of the time. Sometimes I find it utterly baffling.

Inside I'm screaming

2011-01-23T03:44:00.000Z

Things aren't getting easier. I am still feeling really desperate, and really like I am going to fall off the edge of this cliff I am clinging on to by my finger nails. Tonight I made the decision to call the out of hours number. This is not something I usually do. I have called before, but I don't remember the last time, and I have called perhaps once in the last year. I find it really difficult to phone and say I am struggling - I even find it hard to call L when I am going through a bad time, as I just don't know what to say, and it is like my entire vocabulary disappears from my body apart from a few words like 'I'm not feeling very good' or something equally ridiculous and meaningless. But when I call and speak to L, I know the sort of thing she is likely to say, and it is safe - it doesn't feel scary, apart from my dislike of phoning anyone, and the knowledge that I won't be able to express how I am feeling. Calling the CMHT when she is not there is more difficult because I don't know who I will end up speaking to, and it makes me far more anxious, and so I have to be more desperate to do it. However, once I know who I am talking to, again I know what they are likely to say, and what I feel able to say as a result. For example if I end up speaking to my old, shit care coordinator, I know not to mention the word suicidal, even in passing, as I will be told to go to A&E. If it is one of the women I can say pretty much anything, and won't be told to do that, but they will almost certainly suggest I go for a walk or have a bath, and ask when I am next seeing L, and tell me to wait until then and talk to her about how I am feeling. Calling the out of hours number is a whole different situation, as I don't know anybody, or at least occasionally I have spoken to someone who has said they have talked to me before, but I never remember. So I find that a really difficult and scary thing to do, which is why I ring so rarely - I have to be really desperate to even consider it, and I have to feel right on the edge to actually call. I don't know what I expect them to say - I know they can't change how I feel, but a couple of times I have spoken to people who have been really helpful and understanding and who have helped me - other times it has been completely unhelpful, so it is pot luck really. Anyway tonight I decided I had reached that point and so called the number I have been given, which goes through to the local psych ward - you can't call the crisis team unless you have been referred to them, so if you phone out of hours you speak to one of the psych ward nurses. I rung and asked if there was somebody I could speak to, and she asked if I was a service user, and said I needed to phone the main hospital switchboard, who would put me through to the crisis team. So then I had to try and make myself make another phone call. Calling the crisis team is scarier than calling the ward for some reason. Anyway, I rung the main hospital switchboard and asked to be put through to the crisis team. She asked for me name and asked if I was a doctor or professional, and I said I was a service user. She said that they can't put service users through to the crisis team, only professionals, and that I needed to call the psych ward. I said that I had just done that and been told to call them. She sounded slightly confused and said she didn't know why, as they used to be able to put people through to the crisis team, but now they had to give people the number of the ward. She gave me the number, which was a different number again - I now have 3 numbers for the psych ward - there is the one on the trust website, the one I was given and told to use out of hours that I have called before, and now the one that I was given tonight. At this point I gave up. I couldn't face making another phone call, when I had already gone through the anxiety of calling the ward, to be told I needed to call the switchboard and put through to the crisis team, to be told I needed to call the ward, who would probably have given me yet another bloody number. So I just gave up. I am pretty unimpressed with the quality of the out of hours services in the trust though. Other people seem to just be able to call their crisis team out of hours. In fact, I could in the other trust I was under. It is frustrating that on an occasion when I am really struggling, and could really do with talking to someone, and I actually manage to pluck up the courage to ring, I can't actually get through to anyone. Ironically I received a Service User Questionnaire from the MH Trust in the post today. I may not be overly complimentary.

I don't seem to have been functioning very well the last couple of weeks, particularly this week. My personal hygiene is terrible - showering seems to have dropped to a once a week activity. I don't remember the last time I put any make up on, and I actually have to think quite hard to remember the last time I got dressed. It must have been Monday when I went to rehearsal, and of course I would have had to on Wednesday, but I didn't feel up to going. When I do have to leave the house it takes so much energy, and just feels so hard, that I can't even think about what I look like, and so I turn up to rehearsals looking a complete mess, in whatever clothes were at the top of the pile on my floor and with no make up on. I have to go to a rehearsal tomorrow afternoon and I am dreading it. I envisage it being a repeat of last Sunday, when I looked like shit (as my mother kindly pointed out, although not using that term), felt like shit, desperately wanted to go home, and was probably a nightmare to work with, as anything that anyone said just pissed me off. I tried to stay calm and professional, but inside I was feeling incredibly tense, and could just feel myself getting more and more irritated, and just wanted to collapse in the middle of the room and sob. Sometimes when I feel like this I just reach such a level of desperation that I just want to beg someone, anyone, random strangers in the street, to please help me somehow, to make it stop, to kill me, to make the pain go away, to help me find a way of having a break, anything. Of course I would never do it - I put on my happy face and pretend everything is fine, but inside I'm screaming.

Useless friend

2011-01-22T05:58:00.000Z

I feel like a shit friend today. A friend of mine, who I met during Carousel, is moving to London next weekend as she has got a job there. I didn't really get to know her very well until probably the week before the show - that was a strange show to rehearse, as I was only in the long dance scene, and then two other scenes, so until a couple of weeks before the show the only other cast members I really had much to do with were the people playing my parents, as they were who my scenes were with, the dancers and children who were in the ballet scene, and some of the other principals because you tend to get to know them at initial read throughs etc. So I had spoken to her a few times, but that was about it I think. Then on the day of the tech rehearsal between the band call and tech rehearsal, five of us, including her, went out for lunch, and we got on well and during show week chatted a fair bit, and talked online, and then a week or two after the show finished she came over one day etc. I haven't seen her since then, which would have been early November, but we have continued to chat online. Anyway, because she is moving tonight she was having a farewell drinks thing. It wasn't a massive thing - she had invited quite a few people, both people from Carousel, and friends of hers that I didn't know, but I don't think that many people were going. She told me about it weeks ago, and although I felt a bit anxious, as plans were all a bit vague and I find that stressful, I had intended to go. But then this week has been so hideous that I just couldn't face it. And the pub people were meeting at is always packed, so she didn't even know if they would be able to get in there, or if they would have to find someone else, and I just cannot do busy places, and on a Friday night pretty much everywhere is going to be busy. I would have liked to see her, and the girl who played my mother in Carousel, who is a really wonderful person, whom I also haven't seen since November, was also going, and it would have been nice to see her, but I hate anywhere crowded, and although I would probably have tried to go had I been feeling better, there was just absolutely no way that it was going to happen this week. But I feel like a really shit friend for not going, because she told me about it so many weeks ago, and I just feel like she must hate me. I spoke to her online earlier and said that I was really sorry but that I wasn't going to be able to make it - she does know that I have mental health problems, although I don't talk about them in depth with her, and when I last spoke to her a few days ago I did say that I wasn't doing very well depression wise at the moment, and so when I spoke to her today I apologised and said that was why. She said it was fine but I still feel guilty.

Then something happened with another friend today that also made me feel really guilty and like a shit friend. I have a friend who I have talked about on here before a few times - the last time would have been when she came to stay in October, and she was also here in July. Anyway, I will henceforth call her E, as I realised I don't have a name for her. She has been severely anorexic for years now, and has spent a long time inpatient as a result of it, but was really very ill both times I saw her last year. She was on the waiting list for inpatient again, but comes from Ireland, where the system is very different, and there seem to be far too few ED beds for the number of patients, as there were something like 3 beds and 12 girls waiting for them. Anyway, when she was over in October she was talking a lot about wanting to get better, and hoping a bed would come up soon for her, but then soon after she went home she actually started doing much better. She was eating more, and managed to cut down a lot on the amount she was purging, and the number of laxatives she was taking, and was starting to gain weight. I was concerned that she would get to BMI 15.5/16ish and then hit a brick wall, as I know that is the point she has managed to get to several times in hospital, and has then relapsed, and I was worried because they took her off the IP waiting list as she was doing so well. Unfortunately it went more or less as I predicted - her BMI was high 15s before December, and she was really struggling with it and starting to cut back, and since then she has been finding it really hard, and has lost some weight again, although I don't know how much, and then the last couple of weeks has been feeling increasingly depressed. I spoke to her last night and was quite concerned, as she did seem low, although I didn't get the impression she was actively suicidal, although I may have been wrong, but she was certainly feeling bad and struggling a lot with her eating, and was back into her old patterns really. She was due to see her psychiatrist today, and she said she would be honest with them and tell them what was going on, and when I spoke to her this afternoon she had been admitted - not a long term ED admission, but a short term admission to try and lift her mood, and also stabilise her eating a little if possible. I had simultaneous thoughts - I was pleased that she was getting help, because I have felt for a long time like she needs it, although I don't think a short term admission like this is the answer, and I was glad she was safe, but at the same time I felt jealous. I feel terrible for saying that, because she needed help, and I am pleased she got it, but at the same time I don't understand why it often seems so simple for other people to access more help when they are struggling, and yet I never can. I am not saying I would want to be in hospital - it is always something I feel very ambivalent about, but when I spoke to her she said how it was a relief to have a break, and that just hit me really hard. I just felt like crying. Suicide is still my preferred option, but as at least a temporary alternative a break would be really bloody good right now. I am just too exhausted to keep going like this, and I feel like if I look at the short term I either need a break or I need to kill myself. Admittedly the local NHS psych ward wouldn't actually be my place of choice for a break even if it were an option, but I don't know. I guess I just feel so desperate, and this week has felt more horrific than I can even express, and so anything feels like it would be better than this. As I said, it isn't an option anyway, and if it were then I am sure I would refuse, as there have been multiple times in the past when I have been offered admission and turned it down - the only times I have been in hospital were voluntary admissions, but I wasn't actually given a choice about going. I just couldn't help feeling jealous knowing that E saw her psychiatrist today and was admitted, when it doesn't matter how much I struggle, or how desperate I am, I just seem to be left to do. But I feel really guilty, and like such an awful friend, not to mention really quite weird, for feeling jealous that E has been admitted to a psych ward. I suppose I just really am so desperate that even something I would usually avoid at all costs seems like a better alternative right now.

I spoke to L earlier. I rung and asked to speak to her, and they said she was with someone but they would get her to call me back. When three hours had passed and I still hadn't heard anything from her I was starting to give up, but she did call back. I didn't feel able to really say how bad things were - I tried, but at times like this it seems that the words don't even exist. "depressed" "suicidal" "desperate" "hopeless" - none of them actually even begin to convey how horrific it feels. It is slightly easier when I can ramble at length, rather than trying to form coherent sentences, but I don't believe the words exist to fully explain the extent of these feelings. I did try - I said it had been a really awful week and that I was feeling very depressed and was completely unable to distract myself, and that my sleep was awful and essentially that I just couldn't cope. She said more or less all she could I suppose - to try and plan my time and do things to distract myself, and to keep writing things down, and that we could talk about it on Tuesday. It just feels so futile. Talking about it on Tuesday won't make any difference whatsoever. I don't even want to be alive by Tuesday, although I probably will be I suppose. But it won't change anything. I am feeling really disillusioned with everything at the moment. I just see absolutely no way forward from here, and I don't view continuing to feel like this as an option, which once again leads me back to suicide. Even when I try not to think about it, it always pops up as being the solution. The right thing to do. The answer. Maybe it is. I don't think my brain would push it so hard, and so continuously, for so many years unless it was the right course of action. Brains are supposed to have survival instinct, but mine just tells me to kill myself.

This isn't living

2011-01-21T03:27:00.000Z

I don't know what to say. I feel awful. My sleep last night was as bad as ever. I woke up to a text from the director of the show saying she wanted to rehearse Sunday afternoon again, which immediately filled me with dread. I hate feeling like this about the one thing I have always cared about more than anything. I perform because I love it, because I am passionate about it, because it is the only thing I have ever wanted to do. And yet I have the lead part in a brilliant show, and I actually dread going to rehearsals, and spend the entire time desperately wishing I could go home.

I feel like I have reached a point where I just can't keep going on like this. It is too hard, and I need a reason other than other people to get me through, and there just isn't one. I sometimes wish that I didn't care about other people's feelings as much as I do. I feel like it constantly means that I am left feeling like shit, and like my feelings don't matter, because I don't want to hurt people, or because people make comments about suicide being selfish etc. But how do you weigh up the pain of one person against the pain of another? The people saying suicide is selfish aren't the ones who have to live with these feelings of complete desperation every single day. I feel like to get through this I really need a lot more help than I have at the moment, but I also know that isn't going to happen. I also have severe doubts as to whether anything would actually help. I feel like I am past the point where having a little chat about how shit I feel will change anything, and certainly having a bath or going for a walk or any of the other patronising bollocks that mental health professionals are so fond of suggesting will not make a scrap of difference. Having said that, I did try to call L yesterday, as I mentioned, and I also sent her an email during the night last night asking if she could call me today, but she didn't. Maybe she wasn't in work, or maybe she didn't have time, or maybe she just didn't want to listen to me whine about how shitty I feel, which would be entirely understandable. As I said, I don't actually think it would help anyway - I just always feel an obligation to at least mention to a professional if I am feeling seriously suicidal, so that I feel like I have made an effort. Of course I know they will do nothing about it, but there is nothing I can do about that. I don't know. On the one hand I feel like I really need support to get through this, but short of locking me up nothing would stop me if I decided to do sosmething, therefore it is pointless to even attempt to get help, and on the other hand, I don't even know if I want to get through it. I feel like I have had enough. This has been going on for too long, and I have had enough of feeling this terrible all of the time. And now things are at a point where I just absolutely do not want to see anyone or go anywhere, and I would do virtually anything to get out of doing the only thing I have ever cared about. This isn't living. It may be surviving, but it isn't living, and what is the point of surviving when you have no quality of life?

Dying with clean hair

2011-01-20T04:04:00.000Z

I stayed home tonight. I decided I just couldn't face going out. My mum was slightly unhelpful as I said that I was thinking of saying I was ill and couldn't go, and she said I couldn't do that because I wasn't actually ill, 'only in the head'. That helped. But I decided to ignore that. I didn't have to make an excuse for ballet, as my teacher knows that I generally won't be there on Wednesdays because of show rehearsals, so that just left the rehearsal. I sent a text to the director saying that I wasn't feeling well and so wouldn't be going to ballet, but that I would go to the rehearsal if she needed me, but that I obviously wasn't feeling great, and she replied saying not to worry. That meant that I felt ok about missing rehearsal, as I had offered to go if required, but said that I wasn't feeling well, which was pretty much the truth, and I was just hoping that she would reply in the way she did.

I am feeling shit about my weight. I gained a little this week, which I always find really difficult. Because I am feeling so terrible I am finding myself comfort eating, which is fine at the time, but not remotely comforting afterwards, as I feel extremely guilty, and then of course when I weigh myself I gain weight and feel shit about myself, which makes me feel even worse, and so the cycle goes ok. It is strange, when my depression gets really bad I either lose interest in food altogether and just don't get hungry at all, or I just want to comfort eat. Not out of hunger I suppose - I just feel like I have to do something to make me feel better, and eating cake seems like a good idea at the time. There is also a part of my brain that tells me I may as well eat what I like, as I will be dead soon, and it doesn't matter what I weigh then, whilst another part of me tells me that I must lose weight, as I can't die fat. I am assume that is somehow linked to the part of me that tells me I can't die with dirty hair.... I have no idea what that is about, but even if I am really depressed, to the point where I am really struggling to move, I have to wash my hair if I am planning to kill myself that day. You would think that would be about the least relevant thing possible, but for some reason it seems important, and I suppose dying thin is somehow related to that.

My sleep is still terrible. I seem to be permanently exhausted, and yet unable to sleep until at least 6am, regardless of what I have been doing that day, what time I woke up, and how much sleep I got the night before.

I am really finding everything very overwhelming. I am feeling so low, and then when that is combined with my dreadful sleep, and my complete inability to concentrate on anything, it makes the days feel incredibly long, and very difficult to get through. I have tried to think of reasons to live, things to keep going for, but I can't think of anything for myself. There is always the thing of not hurting others, but there is surely a limit to how many years you can be expected to go on feeling cripplingly low for the sake of other people? And I cannot think of a single reason to live for myself. Sometimes when I am feeling really bad I am able to cope by setting myself days, for example when I have an appointment or something - I suppose the hope that talking to someone might change things or help in some way helps me to get through, but I don't even have that at the moment. I am due to see L next Tuesday, but I can't see it as something to aim for, because I know it won't change anything. There is literally nothing that I can use as a motivator to keep going. I feel terrible.

Sickie?

2011-01-19T17:39:00.000Z

I am supposed to be going to ballet and rehearsal tonight, but I am exhausted and feel like crap, so I am considering pulling a sickie. Ordinarily I wouldn't, but I don't think I will actually be needed very much at the rehearsal if they are doing what the schedule says, and missing ballet wouldn't be the end of the world.... I just really don't want to have to go out and be sociable. I went on Sunday and Monday and just felt hideous the whole time, and was desperate to be back at home, and just felt so horrible, and I don't know if I can cope with that again tonight. I am feeling really low. I tried calling L earlier, but she must have been doing a half day or something as they said she had left for today. I don't know what to do with myself. I just don't know how to cope with feeling this low.

Response

2011-01-18T03:52:00.000Z

This is a reply to the comments I received on my post before last. I was writing it as a comment, but it got a bit long so I thought I may as well make it into a post.

Karita - essentially trusts will fund treatment out of area if they think it will be more cost efficient for them in the long run, so for example if someone frequently presents at A&E and has regular admissions to acute wards, and often has crisis team intervention, then they may well look into funding a therapeutic community, because it will probably not cost them any more in the short term, and in the long run should save them money. As Harriet said, these places do produce statistics showing that treatment with them is more cost efficient than frequent crisis intervention.

However, I am in the fortunate/unfortunate position (depending on how you look at it) of not having frequent crisis intervention, which is obviously a good thing in many ways, but unhelpful in this situation. I have the issue of not being your 'stereotypical' Borderline - I have been told this several times, and as a result I really don't cost the trust very much at all, and so there would be no reason for them to fund an expensive treatment programme for me. I have never been the type to self harm a lot, or take non suicidal overdoses and then present at A&E, so that isn't an issue for them. For reasons I discussed recently I am not referred to the crisis team - essentially L thinks they would do more harm than good, as they have a tendency to see everything other than psychotic illnesses and bipolar as being too insignificant to require their input, and therefore treat you like shit (I have experienced this), and they are also gatekeepers for acute wards. On paper the bosses of the trust, who make the decisions on matters like this, would see me as a stable patient, who copes with weekly or fortnightly appointments with her care coordinator, and doesn't require any other input, so they would be likely to see me as not needing intensive, expensive treatment. I don't even see a psychiatrist any longer, since she took me off my meds, so I am basically as straight forward as it comes in terms of the treatment I am receiving.

What I find very frustrating, is that if I acted on all the suicidal thoughts I have, then I would constantly be at A&E, I would be deemed higher risk and so would probably have acute admissions and crisis team intervention, and would be far more likely to be able to access appropriate treatment. However, because I am able to contain my behaviours generally to those not requiring medical intervention, ie superficial cuts, small overdoses that I don't seek treatment for as they are self harm rather than anything else etc, I look to be coping. But I have no standard of life, and I have been under services for 7 and a half years, and am as bad as I have ever been. This is something that came up in a session with L once, and she said something along the lines of me being equally as unwell as those with the same diagnosis who do fit the more traditional borderline pattern, but that obviously on paper it doesn't appear that way as I have become very good at containing it. But that doesn't help, as it leaves me with this nothing of a life, where I am unable to progress or do anything I planned, and yet because I don't 'act out' I will probably never be able to access the more appropriate types of treatment for me.

L actually agrees very strongly with the therapeutic community approach - she thinks it is very effective, and I know it is something she is very interested in, and would actually like to work in herself. However, it isn't her who has the power to make the decision, and there is no point in referring me if there is no chance of getting funding. My county is also particularly underfunded - I know they all are, but there really are no specialist services at all in the county - if children/adolescents need inpatient treatment they have to go to another county, same for eating disorder patients, there are no specialist personality disorder treatments, etc etc. They have the very basic services - the CMHTs, an outpatient ED service, and one EIPS team on the other side of the county, and that is more or less it. You can't even access the Crisis Team without a referral - there is no option of calling them when in crisis like you can in virtually every other area - you have to be referred first.

Pandora - I think at this point there would be very little point in getting my MP involved, largely for the reasons above - on paper everything looks fine, and I haven't been referred to any services but denied on grounds of cost, so I have no cause for complaint. Also, he is a typical Tory twat (who manages to vote in the opposite way to what I believe on every single bloody vote in parliament) who would probably consider me scum for scrounging off the state, and would probably think it better if I just killed myself rather than cost the government the sort of money that therapeutic community treatment costs!

I may be rather cynical over the whole thing, but I think that realistically a therapeutic community is never going to be an option for me unless I win the lottery, or some philanthropic millionaire comes along and wants to pay for my treatment! DBT and MBT aren't even options in the next trust, so even going out of area for those isn't an option. Essentially, nothing is an option, apart from what I have now, and I can't cope with that. I am somehow just expected to keep going, from week to week, or fortnight to fortnight, despite overwhelming suicidal thoughts, and feeling so terrible that I can't get out of bed most of the time. And this is one of the reasons why I see suicide as a valid and logical option - I have virtually exhausted my local mental health services (I say virtually, because I have not had CAT, which I believe is the only therapy other than CBT that is offered, but I don't realistically see 16 sessions of that changing things dramatically) and I have no other options treatment wise, I don't consider carrying on like this to be an option, and since nothing has changed for the good in the last 7 and a half years, I sincerely doubt it is suddenly going to happen now.

A mess

2011-01-17T16:08:00.000Z

I am really struggling. The rehearsal yesterday was possibly even more hideous than I anticipated. I felt like complete shit the entire time, hated every second of it, and desperately just wanted to be at home. As a result I was probably hideous to work with. And I have to do it all again tonight, except for 3 hours, and with an hour of ballet first. I am feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed by everything, the last thing I want to do is go out for 4 hours tonight, plus over an hour travelling. The suicidal thoughts are incredibly strong and powerful and I don't know how to fight them. At the moment lack of opportunity is stopping me, but I don't know how long that will apply. Although I am possibly too exhausted to do anything, I'm not sure. Certainly my brain doesn't seem able to think very clearly. I just feel a complete mess. I got more sleep last night, but am still absolutely exhausted. I also made the mistake earlier of looking in a mirror, and I do actually look as shit as I feel. My eyes have turned into these tiny little half open things, with enormous black rings underneath them, and I just look awful. Both parents have pointed out the black rings multiple times over the last couple of days, so I am definitely not imagining them or exaggerating how bad they are - I apparently look awful. When I was on my way to rehearsal yesterday my mum suggested I put some eye make up on. I asked why, and she said it might make me look a bit better as I looked exhausted, and maybe some mascara would make my eyes look like they were open. She definitely had a point, but I didn't have the energy, and I don't today either. I can't fucking cope like this. I meant to write a post over the weekend for One Month Before Heartbreak, but my brain is too jumbled to write anything to do it justice.

Sleep and suicide

2011-01-16T05:50:00.000Z

Feel free to skip on past this to other posts - I didn't mean to write a blog post 5 hours after my last one - I just got so frustrated with my sleep, or lack of it, that I started writing.

I have remembered why I don't even try to get to sleep at a slightly more reasonable time when I am doing badly. It doesn't work, and I get stressed and upset, and end up working up and crying, which of course makes me even less likely to sleep. I didn't aim to get to sleep ridiculously early or anything, as I knew that would be pointless. I Took 10mg Diazepam at about 1:30, to try and start calming me down a bit, then about half an hour/three quarters of an hour later I had a Zopiclone. I hoped to start feeling dopey within about half an hour of that when I have taken it following Diazepam like that, but no such luck. I wasn't feeling anything, and I was really desperate to get a decent sleep, so I took another one. I think that must have been at about 2:45. I decided that if I could get to sleep about 3:30/3:45, then that would give me 9 hours sleep, which would be a functionable amount. So even though I still wasn't sleepy, soon after 3 I decided that I would put on a CD I like, that is quite relaxing and soothing, and just lie in the dark and hope that I drifted off. The CD played. I wasn't feeling at all sleepy. The CD played all the way through and I started getting a bit stressed when it got to the end. By that time it was about 4am. I then decided that perhaps playing musical beds would help, and went off to try and sleep in a different bed. That didn't help, and I didn't even have the distraction of music then, so I started getting more and more intrusive thoughts, and then got quite worked up and upset and ended up crying, and decided to come back to my own bedroom, where at least I could sit up and do something until I felt sleepy. Unfortunately it is now less than 8 hours until I need to be awake, I have taken 2 Zopiclone, and I am going to get an inadequate amount of sleep, which means that I will be like a complete zombie at my rehearsal tomorrow. I am not sure what to do really sleep wise. I have tried everything. I have tried just staying online etc until I feel sleepy, but even with meds that can result in not getting to sleep until after 6am. I have tried doing the listening to soothing music whilst lying in the dark and just hoping you will drift off. I have tried just trying to go to sleep. I have tried not taking anything. I have tried just Diazepam. I have tried two or three Diazepam. I have tried not taking Zopiclone. I have tried taking one or two Zopiclone. I have tried taking Diazepam and Zopiclone together in various quantities. But I still cannot sleep. I know that if my mood were to pick up then I would start being able to sleep again - not early, but I think I am semi-nocturnal naturally (I actually think I have this - it fits me perfectly) but several hours earlier than I am currently sleeping, which would be fine by me. But I think my mood picking up is very unlikely, and that suicide is actually a far better option. I hate knowing that I have less than 7 and a half hours until I have to be awake. I know I will get some sleep, but I also know that it isn't going to be enough and that I will feel like shit tomorrow. At this fucking rehearsal that I don't even want to go to. Wonderful. I haven't even been to sleep and woken up yet, and I already know that I am in a shit mood and that I hate Sunday.

Usually at this sort of time of the week I start thinking that it isn't long until I will be seeing L, as I usually see her Tuesday mornings, and so I use that as something to hold on to and to try and get through until - my time when I can be honest about how I feel and talk about what is going on. But because of seeing her fortnightly that means there is an entire week and a half until I am due to see her, and that feels like a really long time away. I am not sure if I can get that far. I am not sure if I want to. I don't see the point. Whilst I look forward to seeing her, as it gives me an opportunity to be myself and talk about what is upsetting me that I don't get anywhere else, ultimately it can't change anything, If I saw her this Tuesday it wouldn't stop me feeling suicidal. The thoughts would still be there. She can't fix me - we both know that. She can support me and encourage me and listen to me and make suggestions of things that may help, but she can't fix me. The trouble is, I don't think anyone can - I feel like I am broken into too many pieces for it ever be possible for me to be whole again. I am of course aware that nobody can fix anyone - therapy is very much a two way process and you have to work really hard at it. But I just don't feel like things can ever change, and that makes me feel so hopeless. There are things that I think may help, or have more chance of helping than anything else, but they aren't things that are options for me, due to them not existing in my area (DBT, MBT and other recommended BPD treatments), or not having the money to pay for them or any chance of gaining NHS funding for them (therapeutic communities at The Cassel or The Retreat - ideally The Retreat as I think it looks more suitable for me, but hey I wouldn't be fussy!) The above treatments are those recommended in the NICE guidelines as being the most appropriate treatments for people with BPD, but I can't access any of them. At the moment I can't access anything except fortnightly sessions with a CPN and a waiting list for CAT. I have been under Mental Health services for 7 and a half years now, and things are as bad as they have ever been. I am just so exhausted and I feel so drained and I can't keep carrying on like this, but nobody can take it away, the only things I can imagine ever helping aren't available, I can't imagine things ever changing any other way, and even if they did it wouldn't be worth living like this, and that makes me feel like suicide is my only option. I didn't mean to start talking about suicide again. I meant to talk about sleep. I suppose that shows how much suicide is on my mind at the moment. Everything seems to lead back to it. Since I now have less than 7 hours until I have to be up I suppose I should try and sleep yet again......

Too much

2011-01-16T00:55:00.000Z

My hopes that the rehearsal tomorrow wouldn't happen have not come to fruition unfortunately. I have to spend two and a half hours tomorrow afternoon rehearsing. I would do almost anything to get out of going, but I can't. I am really feeling like I can't face things at the moment. Not tomorrow in particular, just generally. Obviously tomorrow I have this rehearsal. Monday I have a ballet class and another rehearsal. Tuesday I am supposed to be meeting a friend in London, which I could cancel, but I had to cancel on her last time we were due to meet, and I also have been in need of some new pointe shoes for ages, so I have to go to London at some point, but keep putting it off due to stress. So I am undecided about that as yet. Wednesday I have another rehearsal. Thursday I have another rehearsal. I just can't face it all - it is too much.

The suicidal thoughts are really strong. Everything feels like too much, and I just can't cope with it, and that seems like the way out. In fact, it feels like the only way out. I have had enough. I have been struggling with all of this for seven and a half years now, or at least that was when I first sought help for it, which may not be that long by some people's standards, but it is nearly a third of my life, and has been all of my adult life. Perhaps if I believed that things could change, or that it would get easier, then I would find the ability to keep fighting and get through it, but I see absolutely no indication that I am likely to feel any different in the foreseeable future, and even if I did, I don't feel like it would be worth the pain that I have to go through every day at the moment. Nothing could be worth that.

My nephew and niece are staying the night tonight. Children are so loud. They are nice children, but I can't cope with being around them for too long - it is just too much. Everything is too much at the moment though. Not getting enough sleep isn't helping matters, but the worse I feel, the later I get to sleep, and I don't know how to break that cycle. I have felt like a complete zombie today - I find that if I take Zopiclone and then don't get enough sleep then I feel like utter shit the next day. I am debating whether or not to take it tonight - if it makes me sleep that would be really helpful, since I can't sleep for half the afternoon because of having to go to the rehearsal, but on the other hand if I take it and then am still awake at 6am, then that will make me feel even worse tomorrow. I wish so much that I didn't have to go anywhere - I was really getting my hopes up, but no such luck. I can't keep going like this.

How can you explain it?

2011-01-15T05:40:00.001Z

Sleep still isn't impressive. Last night, or rather this morning, or I suppose technically speaking yesterday morning, I finally got to sleep at about 7:30am. It is now 5am, and I have had 10mg Diazepam and 7.5mg Zopiclone and I am not feeling remotely sleepy. I am not sure what to do. I know that it is because of my mood, and if I started to feel better then my sleep would improve, but I also know it is a vicious cycle, and sleeping in this pattern, and not getting enough sleep generally is going to make my mood even worse. I have absolutely no idea how to break the pattern though - the time I get up and what I do during the day don't seem to impact on the time I am able to sleep when I am feeling like this. Medication doesn't seem to be helping. I suppose I will just have to put up with it.

My parents both knew what time I got to sleep last night, as I was still awake when they got up, so my mum didn't wake me up like she often does. I still didn't sleep terribly well, or get as much sleep as I would have liked really. My dad said to me this evening that I had massive black circles under my eyes and looked really rough. I said that I was tired, and he said why don't I sleep at night then. I said that I am not sleepy. I am tired, but not sleepy. He asked why and I said I didn't know. He asked why I was feeling bad and I said I didn't know. He asked if I was thinking any bad, silly thoughts (his phrase) and I laughed. He does occasionally try to talk to me about how I am feeling, but he can never ask if I am having thoughts about suicide, or even self harm - he will say things like bad thoughts, or silly thoughts, or evil thoughts. Not evil as in thinking I was evil for having them, he just seems to think that the suicidal thoughts are evil, which they are I suppose, for making me feel so bad. I said I was just tired. How can you explain to someone that you don't remember the last day when you didn't think what they consider to be evil thoughts? That you don't remember the last time that given the choice you would pick life over death. That you have thoughts of wishing bad things would happen to the people who care about you so that you can kill yourself without upsetting people. Those are what I consider evil thoughts. I hate myself for thinking them. But I am that desperate to die. How are you supposed to explain that?

Overall my mood is really quite low. I have absolutely no motivation to do anything. It takes real effort to get out of bed to go to the toilet or something. My personal hygiene has become non existent. It is now the early hours of Saturday, and I haven't showered since Sunday. Whilst I can appreciate that is disgusting, it just seems like a much bigger thing than I am capable of doing. I am absolutely dreading this rehearsal on Sunday. I am desperately hoping it won't happen, as I am yet to hear about a time and venue for it, but I am fairly sure that unfortunately it will happen. I don't know how I will manage that. I suppose I will just have to turn up and hope for the best. The only good thing about it is that it isn't a full cast rehearsal - it is just the male lead and I, and then the director/choreographer and the musical director. So hopefully I won't have to make too much small talk. I am just really desperately hoping they decide not to rehearse Sunday after all. I am going to try and shower tomorrow. Well, today actually since it is 5:20am. I feel like such a mess. Is this living? Feeling terrible, wanting to die, unable to do anything, not wanting to talk to people, not wanting to see people, not caring about anything, not enjoying anything, having no motivation, not looking forward to anything, losing your ambitions and hopes and the things that mattered to you. I wonder if people would be so anti suicide if they had experienced feeling like that. Although obviously of course I hope very strongly that my friends who have mental health problems are able to keep going, I do understand that sometimes the pain of trying to live like that, with no pleasure or interest in anything, and constant thoughts of suicide wearing them down, means that people just can't keep going anymore, and I don't judge that. I can't judge that - I have attempted suicide twice in the past, so it would be hypocritical to judge others for doing the same but succeeding.

I had had another Zopiclone when I started writing this, so I am hoping that 2 Diazepam and 2 Zopiclone will be enough to send me off to sleep - let's give it a go. Shame it is already 5:30, but I took the Diazepam about three ago hours ago, and the Zopiclone two hours ago, so it isn't like I didn't try to sleep earlier. Let's hope it all works and I am not still awake in two hours time. I think it has to - surely my body can't withstand 20mg Diazepam and 15mg Zopiclone?!

'I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living.
So different now from what it seemed.
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.'
- I Dreamed a Dream, Les Miserables

Bad sleep

2011-01-14T06:54:00.001Z

My sleep is all over the bloody place. I am writing this at 6am, wide awake and yet exhausted. Oxymoron? Seems to happen a lot. Last night I think I got to sleep about 6:45am, or I suppose technically I should say this morning I think I got to sleep about 6:45am. Without fail the worse I feel the later I get to sleep. It doesn't matter what time I have woken up, or what I have done that day - my body just seems to break a bit. Not that I am pretending my sleep is ever good, but there is a definite correlation between my mood and the time I get to sleep. It is now 6:40. I really should be asleep, but I am still very awake. I took 10mg Diazepam about an hour ago to try and help my head slow down a bit to let me sleep, but it doesn't seem to have had any impact unfortunately. I didn't take any Zopiclone, because by the time I had realised I wasn't going to get to sleep, it was later than I like to take it - I only take it if I have 10 hours before I have to be awake, as otherwise I feel like a zombie the next day, and unfortunately my mum has fridays off work, and so will be at home, and will wake me up at some point. Not early, but I won't be able to sleep half the afternoon like I do sometimes. I suppose in theory that is a good thing, but I don't know what I am waking up for. Another day that I don't want.

'At the end of the day you're another day older
And that's all you can say for the life of the poor
It's a struggle, it's a war
And there's nothing that anyone's giving
One more day standing about, what is it for?
One day less to be living'

Ok, poverty isn't really an issue for me, but the rest feels appropriate. Good old Les Miserables - a lyric for every occasion. Except happy ones. It isn't called The Glums for nothing. Luckily that isn't a problem for me as I rarely have anything happy to express. It is now 6:50. Parents will be awake in a minute. I will get told off for still being awake. Never mind.

The mask is slipping

2011-01-13T04:44:00.000Z

It is 4:30am and I am not even a little bit sleepy. My sleep seems to be getting worse and worse. This always happens - the worse I feel, the worse my sleep gets, and then I end up exhausted and feeling worse. It has been a difficult day. I have been feeling really low. Low is a ridiculous word to describe it - it doesn't even begin to express how I have been feeling. No words do. So for now I will use low, because there is nothing else. I have reached a point that only happens very occasionally, even when I am feeling really terrible, where I just can't pretend to be ok. Usually, even if I am feeling desperately suicidal and depressed, I can still keep up my facade, providing I don't have to spend too much time around people. But I can't do it at all at the moment. The mask is slipping. My parents both commented - according to my mum I looked peaky and they both asked what was wrong. But I didn't know. I don't know. I have absolutely no idea what is wrong. I just feel terrible, and I have no reason for it. So I just shrugged and tried not to cry. I thought I was going to be able to get out of going to ballet, as my mum had to go over to rescue my dad, who was at the flat he owns that is supposed to be let out but got flooded in the summer, and is just being repaired now, as he had somehow managed to lock himself out of his car with the keys on the inside, so she had to take the spare set over. I hoped this meant we wouldn't have time to have dinner and still leave for ballet on time, and I said to my mum maybe I shouldn't go, but she said she thought I should. Then later on, after dinner, I was feeling worse and worse - it was at this point that I was downstairs with my parents, and I came upstairs to get ready, but really didn't want to go, and ended up getting a bit upset and crying a bit, and went downstairs and said I wanted to stay at home and that I didn't want to go to ballet, but for some reason my mum had decided I really should go - I think she thinks that going out when I am feeling bad helps me - and so sent me back upstairs to get ready. I was really choking back the tears by this point - I felt awful, and I just did not want to leave the house. Then I got there, and nobody else from my class had turned up - I think there is a lot of illness around, and then some people have exams at the moment, and one girl had an audition, so I was the only person. The Wednesday class is always smaller - there are usually six or seven of us, but I was the only one. So I had to do the whole class on my own. It did at least mean I didn't have to make any small talk, but it also meant that I got lots of 'smile!' and 'use your eyes!' and 'perform it!' comments, which I just couldn't do today. I am so relieved that my rehearsal tomorrow has been cancelled. I absolutely cannot face leaving the house again any time soon. Now that is cancelled I don't have any committments until the rehearsal on Sunday, which I don't want to go to, but I am not even letting myself think that far ahead at the moment as it is too overwhelming - I am trying to just take things a day at a time. Or an hour.

I am thinking about emailing L, but I don't really know why. I don't know what I would say - I can't really send her an email saying 'Hi, just thought I would let you know I am feeling a bit down, which of course you already know' and I have nothing else to say. I can't express this. And even if I could, there is nothing she could do, so it would be pointless anyway. I suppose I just wish there was something. I am feeling really desperate, and I don't know what to do with those feelings, and it is really difficult knowing that there is nothing anyone can do to help, or to make them go away. I suppose the other reason I have been thinking about contacting her is because I have been under mental health services for so many years, and always been told to contact someone if you are having suicidal thoughts, and so when I feel like this it feels like I should be contacting her. But there is absolutely nothing she can do, and so I don't know if it would just make me feel worse - I suppose at least at the moment I can kid myself that I have an option there if I need it. When you have run out of options it is even worse. Although I know in reality that I am essentially out of options in that sense - nobody can take the thoughts away, or make them easier to cope with. I don't know. I just feel a mess.

Is hibernation an option?

2011-01-12T16:54:00.000Z

I am having one of those days where I just want to curl up into a ball and disappear. I feel like shit and I don't want to have to see anyone or go anywhere ever again. I am supposed to go to a ballet class tonight, which is more or less the last thing I feel like doing. Actually anything thing involves leaving my bedroom and/or seeing people is. I could skip the class, but my teacher is already pissed off with me, because the show I am doing has meant that I can only do one ballet class a week usually instead of two, and she is not at all happy about that. This week is the only week in the foreseeable future (I don't want to foresee a fucking future) where I can make both classes, and that is because at the rehearsal tonight they are rehearsing a chorus number that I am not in. So I told her on Monday that I could make the class tonight, and got a lecture on why did I audition for a show that would mean I couldn't do both classes every week. But since I am already unpopular for that, I don't feel able to not go tonight when I have already said I would be able to go because I don't have a rehearsal. But I really don't want to go at all. And then the director of the show rung and said she wants to rehearse for three hours on Sunday, probably somewhere that is a 36 mile drive from where I live. Fantastic. I feel really fucking overwhelmed at the moment. I do not want to leave the house. I don't want to go to ballet tonight. I don't want to go to rehearsal on Sunday. I don't want anything. I just don't want to exist.

I am also really bloody pissed off with Sony. It has been established that it is a hardware problem, and therefore needs repairing. My warranty only covers collect and repair, which means being without my new laptop for 5 - 10 working days, so 1 - 2 weeks. I think that is completely unacceptable and want them to send out a technician - I don't give a flying fuck what my warranty is - their product had a serious fault within 2 days of me receiving it and that is not acceptable. It is not difficult to replace a touchpad - it would take them about 15 minutes I should think. So I am fighting that one, but having trouble getting hold of anyone who actually has any bloody authority. I have been told someone will call me back, but I am not holding my breath.

I feel so shit. I am having one of those days where I feel like smiling would hurt - it is too painful. I don't even feel capable of putting up my usual facade. I just want to curl up and die. Or hibernate. I don't care as long as it stops me feeling like this. Instead I have to pretend everything is ok and go off to a ballet class.

Support

2011-01-11T16:38:00.000Z

I'm not really sure what to say. I am feeling bad. I saw L this morning. It was fine, but I just felt completely numb throughout it really. I am having trouble to really concentrate and think properly. There is also some not great news that I could have done without at the moment - I am going to have to switch from seeing her weekly to fortnightly. She is having to cut down on her hours for personal reasons, which means that some people are being switched to other care coordinators, and then some people that she has been seeing fortnightly will be switched to monthly, and those like me who were being seen weekly are being switched to fortnightly. I understand why it is necessary, but that doesn't make it any easier, particularly when I am feeling as terrible as I have been lately, and now am supposed to get through the next two weeks alone. I can't help comparing the support I have now, with what I was getting this time last year - last year I was seeing L weekly, and then also my old support worker N weekly for a couple of hours, and my psychiatrist Dr E monthly. I am now reduced to seeing L fortnightly. If this was due to an improvement in how I was doing then that would be great, but it isn't - it is unfortunately almost entirely due to staff circumstances.

N's job was cut due to funding issues - she was only on a one year contract with MIND and was then seconded to the CMHT, but MIND had their funding cut, and so her contract was not renewed, so there was no longer a support worker for me to see. That didn't bother me too much - I liked her, but I didn't have any attachment issues with her, and although sometimes it was nice to get out the house with her etc, it wasn't too difficult to stop seeing her as I still had L, who was my main source of support. My psychiatrist stopped seeing me because she had stopped all of my medications except my PRN Diazepam, which meant that she no longer felt like it was necessary to see me. Again, I didn't really have an issue with that as 15 minutes every month or two with her never felt particularly helpful, and I didn't really feel like she listened to me much. Now my contact with L is being cut because of her circumstances, which is really difficult, as essentially that hour or so a week I spend with her is the only time all week that I feel able to actually be honest about how I am feeling, and can be around someone without feeling a need to put on a front and pretend everything is fine.

Throughout my appointment I couldn't stop thinking how much I wanted to die, and how I desperately didn't still want to be alive in 2 weeks, and also what a long way away that felt, and how was I possibly meant to get through that on my own. I just felt like sitting there and crying my eyes out, but I didn't want to make her feel guilty about something that isn't her fault and that she can't do anything about. When I left I wanted to burst into tears but I couldn't because I was then in the car with my mum and a) she wouldn't have understood why only seeing L fortnightly was such a big deal, and b) I don't like showing emotion like that - I have never been good at it, and I just feel awkward and uncomfortable. I am on my own now but I just feel numb.

I have been really struggling with my weight and eating lately. Whenever my mood goes down I get increasingly fixated on my weight, and since it is post Christmas that isn't really helping at the moment. I gained a couple of pounds over Christmas, which I was expecting and so could kind of accept. But now Christmas is all over, and I am still struggling with it. I always find that when I start eating more often, like I was over Christmas, I find it more difficult to go back to my usual eating patterns, and that is the only way that I am ever able to control my weight. It doesn't help that I still have some chocolates left over from Christmas that I am working my way through, but it is more than that - I am just eating more generally than I feel comfortable with. On Saturday I was back down to my pre-Christmas weight (which is still higher than I was to be), but then Saturday and Sunday I ate too much, and so gained a pound, and expect I have gained even more as I ate a lot yesterday, but I haven't weighed today because I had to be up early to go and see L, and I have particular times I will weigh myself. But my middle of the night weight last night was considerably higher than the night before, and that is generally a fairly accurate indicator. I feel disgusting. I hate myself for being so greedy. And yet I feel so shit, and food is somehow comforting, despite being distressing at the same time. So I am comfort eating I suppose, and yet not even remotely comforting because it makes me feel shit. I don't know. I am just desperate I suppose, and in a way it feels like I may as well eat whatever the hell I want, because it isn't going to matter anyway if I am dead.

I don't know. I don't know what I am doing. I don't know how to cope with things. I don't know how I am expected to get through my life with one hour of support every two weeks. I don't even feel like I want to at the moment. I feel like such a fucking mess, and I am bloody exhausted.

Not better

2011-01-10T02:50:00.000Z

Today wasn't really any better. I did get more sleep, although still not the 10 hours I would really like to get one day, but I still felt really shit and tired all day, which makes me think it is probably more a depression thing than just a sleep thing. No great surprise. I just want out, I have had enough. I am seeing L on Tuesday. I won't do anything before then. I just don't want to be alive though. And I don't think I should have to be when I feel so awful so much of the time. I can't keep living for other people - it just makes me resent them and so I am moody and snappy and irritable and just not a nice person to be around. I have obviously had suicidal thoughts for years, but for quite a few months now I have been convinced it is the right decision, even when my mood hasn't been at rock bottom. It seems like a rational decision.

I start back at ballet tomorrow for the first time since before Christmas. Usually I have to go to rehearsals Monday night following ballet, but I am not needed at rehearsal tomorrow or Wednesday, as they are working on a number I am not in. That is a massive relief. I shouldn't feel like that - I should enjoy going to rehearsals. I am supposed to be performing because I enjoy it, nobody makes me do it. But when I see a rehearsal on the schedule that I am not called for I just feel such a sense of relief. I think when I am feeling bad it just takes too much energy from me - ballet is difficult in that I have to a) get dressed, b) leave the house, c) see people, and d) be energetic, but at least there isn't too much chance for socialising at ballet - 5 or 10 minutes before class starts whilst I am getting ready, 5 minutes in the middle of the class whilst we are stretching, and 5 minutes whilst I am getting changed after, and that is about it apart from a few words now and then. That feels more manageable than a 2 and a half hour rehearsal, for obvious reasons really.

I think I will take Diazepam/Zopiclone again tonight. I took 2 Diazepam last night, rather than the 1 I usually take, and then 1 Zopiclone about half an hour later, and that seemed to make me sleep, although I did have the horrible Zopiclone taste in my mouth when I woke up. I still had 2 Zopiclone left from my last prescription of it, so I could do the same tonight without having to start on my new prescription. I could sleep without it, but I did manage to sleep an hour or 2 earlier last night than other recent nights I think, so maybe it is a good idea. If I took it now hopefully I could be asleep about 3:30/4, which whilst not exactly impressive, is definitely better than 6. I suppose it is anyway. I have to say I don't really understand why it matters that much what time you go to sleep and wake up, but everyone else seems to think it is important so I suppose it must be.

Tired

2011-01-09T03:31:00.000Z

I am feeling really shit. I have felt completely exhausted all day, to the point where it took me hours to find the energy to get out of bed to go downstairs and get some food tonight. I think it is a combination of lots of nights when although I have slept ok, and got a reasonable amount by most people's standards (generally 6 - 8 hours), it hasn't been enough for me, and I don't remember the last time I got the 10 hours in a night which is what it takes for me to really feel awake. And then I think I am just completely and utterly drained emotionally. I am feeling really awful and it is really taking its toll on my energy. I feel like I am just marking time until I can make everything stop. I think I am moving back into the type of depression that involves lots of feeling exhausted and staring into space. Either that or I am just having a bad day energy wise. I have taken a couple of Diazepam and am going to have a Zopiclone or 2 and hope that I can sleep well tonight and will see how I feel tomorrow. Today has been bad, but maybe it was just a blip energy wise from a difficult day yesterday and not enough sleep and that is making me think I am more depressed than I actually am. It is weird because I feel suicidal either way. I suppose it doesn't much matter. I am not thinking very clearly. I think I will try and sleep now. I hope tomorrow is better.

Same old

2011-01-08T04:43:00.002Z

I am absolutely furious because my brand new laptop that only arrived on Wednesday had a problem tonight, which means I am back on my old laptop. I was just chatting on Facebook etc, and the mouse started going funny - kept sending the cursor back to the beginning of where I was typing and it wouldn't move. Assumed it was Facebook or Internet Explorer acting up, so I tried to close the window, but couldn't click. Realised I couldn't click with the left mouse button, or using the touchpad, but the cursor and right button were still working normally. Rebooted the laptop and assumed it would all be ok. It wasn't. Got angry. Rebooted again. Still no good. Found my info stuff that came with the laptop and tried calling them. Their stupid bloody phone line is only open Monday to Friday, 8am - 6pm. Since this was a Friday at about 10pm that meant there was 3 days before I could call them. Went online to see if I could get online help - I assumed things like that were 24/7, as I used to have a Dell laptop and they seemed to have online support constantly. That is available the same as the phone. I don't have a mouse I can plug into the USB port, so I can't use my new laptop now. I am concerned it is a hardware problem, as I googled it and somewhere it said to reboot and press F10 to get the start up diagnostics thing up, and if the mouse worked there then it wasn't a hardware problem. It didn't work. From when I have learnt from Google I think it is likely to be a hardware problem and need replacing, which is a bloody pain in the arse - I waited 3 weeks after ordering for it to arrive, and now it looks like I am going to have to send it back after 3 days, and goodness knows how long it will take to get back. I haven't downloaded anything, so it can't be a virus. Pissed off.

I am feeling really shit today. Worse than I have other days this last week. Not because of the laptop, although that has pissed me off. The suicidal thoughts are really strong and I just desperately want to make everything stop. It has been a really difficult evening and everything just feels like more than I can cope with. I saw Dr O earlier. I didn't tell her how I was feeling. She doesn't actually ask. I glanced at the screen and saw my notes from the last few times I saw her - she seems to judge how well I am doing on a) whether I smile, b) how much eye contact I make, and c) how 'bright' I seem, things I have noticed other times I have looked at the screen in my appointments with her. So now if I can't be bothered to tell her how I am feeling for some reason, I just try and make sure I look at her lots and smile at appropriate times. Today I didn't want to tell her because I wanted some Zopiclone, and if I had gone in and said that I had been having strong suicidal thoughts and that I was feeling really awful, then she a) wouldn't have given it to me, and b) would have told me I had been feeling good for a long time now and so why am I feeling bad now (she always thinks I am feeling good unless I explicitly say I am feeling suicidal), and c) suggested I learn to cross stitch or something of that nature. Since I have no intention of learning to cross stitch and didn't want to tell her that actually I have been feeling shit fairly consistently and that I just don't bother telling her, for her to then say that I have seemed like I am doing really well and she definitely thinks I have been better than I was blah blah blah, because it is just frustrating and serves no purpose, I thought the smiling and eye contact approach was most appropriate. So I told her I had been sleeping badly, and she asked if it was because I was coughing and I said no (that wasn't a totally random question - last time I saw her I had a chest infection), and asked for some Zopiclone. She gave them to me on the proviso that I know they are just short term etc etc, all the usual stuff. So I have 28 Zopiclone now. I am not quite sure why I wanted them really. They don't help me sleep, or at least 1 (7.5mg) doesn't. In fact, it tends to make me quite hyper. 3 or 4 do, but it isn't really advisable to take them 3 or 4 at a time. I think it is partly so that when I am having a bad day and just really need to knock myself out I can take a few and know that I will get some sleep. And partly because I like having them. I like having pills around. It makes me feel safe and like I have an option if things get too much. Obviously not just Zopiclone, but generally. I told her I am still taking 1 - 2 Diazepam a day, which always pleases her, and because I had so many boxes at the beginning I don't need a refill every month, so it looks like I take less than I do. Although I actually do only take 1 most days. But some days I have more. I technically didn't really need to get any today as I found a box of 56 I hadn't opened from the time before last that I saw her, but I thought I may as well, as I like to have spares. It was a fairly uneventful appointment really. She said she would refer me to the physio because I have been having problems with my upper hamstrings for a few months now.

I wish there was an easy way out of all of this, that wouldn't involve hurting people.

Random thoughts

2011-01-06T23:11:00.001Z

I am still struggling to sort through my thoughts, everything is just a bit jumbled and so I can't write. I don't like that. I like using writing as a way of getting everything out of my head, but I just can't seem to untangle my thought to write them down at the moment. I was supposed to be seeing L on Tuesday but it was cancelled because she was off sick, and they said she would contact me to rearrange when she was back, and I still haven't heard anything, so I assume she still isn't back, which means it will be next Tuesday before I am able to see her. Obviously I didn't get to see her last week, as she was on leave between Christmas and New Year, so it will have been 3 weeks between seeing her, which always feels like a really long time, particularly when I am struggling.

I am still having a lot of suicidal thoughts. I am not in that very flat Depression that I was a couple of months ago. I have just had enough of everything, I have considered all of my options, and I don't want to be alive anymore. I have had 3 rehearsals this week, and I have found them really difficult to be at, because I am continually thinking that I won't be alive by the time the show is on, but obviously that isn't that kind of thing I can say - I can't tell the Director that I am not going to be able to do the show because I will be dead, and I certainly have no excuse for dropping out to give my parents. And so I feel guilty about that, because I know that the longer I rehearse for the more difficult I will be to replace, which makes me feel like I need to act on the feelings as soon as possible to cause as little inconvenience as possible to the creative team and my fellow cast members. My mum is back at work next week, so I will have to see how I feel over the next few days I suppose and then make a decision.

My new laptop arrived yesterday. It is very shiny and pretty. My mum made some comment about how I shouldn't really be able to buy something like that when I am claiming benefits. My whole family seem to be of the opinion that you shouldn't be able to afford anything at all if you are on benefits. I have always been a saver with money - apart from the odd impulsive buy, and obviously necessities, I am a real hoarder, and so I do save. I am lucky in that I have little in the way of expenses, but I only claim Incapacity - I don't get DLA, so it isn't like I have very much money coming in - I am just good at saving. I am lucky in that I don't have bills to pay, as I live with my parents, although I give them any Cold Weather Payments that come through to go towards the heating costs. So I know I do have more money to spare than many people claiming benefits, but that is partly because I am careful with it. I don't smoke and I don't drink so I don't have any expenses there, which a high percentage of people do. I just find it frustrating when people judge how I spend my money, and I get it all of the time from my family.

If you can't beat them....

2011-01-05T03:37:00.001Z

Join them! Everyone else seems to be doing it, and I can't sleep, so here is the 2010 questionnaire thingy.....

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

Performed as a soloist in a concert with a West End performer I have respected for many years.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s Resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't make New Year's Resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Two friends had babies, and a cousin, but I haven't actually met any of the babies.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My paternal grandfather. We weren't massively close, but he was my grandad.

5. What countries did you visit?

I stayed in England all year. That is a bit crap really.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

Happiness, which means recovery from my mental health problems. Unfortunately I think this is very unlikely, as the only things I can imagine possibly helping are not options, and I don't hold out any great hopes for the types of therapy that are available in my county. L is great and a massive support, but she can't make me better - she is a CPN, not a miracle worker.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

I don't know that any will be etched for long, I am not that good with dates. At the moment I suppose 5th December, because that is when the concert was, but in a couple of months I doubt I will remember the exact date. In fact I just had to double check I had it right.....

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Surviving the year, despite feeling so terrible for the vast majority of it.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not achieving any of the things I planned to do, like summer courses, applying to drama school, finally getting my driving licence, recovering from my mental health problems.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Ongoing mental health problems of course. Physically I injured my back rehearsing a show, and have had problems with my upper hamstrings ever since then. I need to see a physio again really.

11. What was the best thing someone bought you?

I don't really know.... I don't think any one thing stood out in my mind. At the moment probably some pyjamas I got for Christmas because they are so cosy, but some of the presents I got from my fellow cast members when I did Carousel meant a lot, even though they were just small things.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Everyone who had a difficult time this year and got through it.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and/or depressed?

Probably my sister primarily, for behaving in such an immature way.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Single thing would be my new laptop that I ordered before Christmas, and am expecting to arrive tomorrow or the next day. It is much needed - this one overheats quite scarily.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

When I first got cast in the concert I was really excited.

16. What songs will always remind of 2010?

I don't really know. I suppose 'Nothing' because that is what I sung in the concert, but I have been singing that song for years, so I don't know if I will associate it particularly with this year. I don't think there is a song I would particularly associate with this year.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?

Looking back at what I wrote this time last year, probably similar, although I am more suicidal now, but that is more because I have had enough of all of this than because I am currently feeling more unhappy. It is just so unrelenting.

b) fatter or skinnier?

I'm not sure - possibly a few pounds lighter. This time last year my weight was on the way up though, and it is now on the way down - I gained and then lost a reasonable amount in 2010.

c) richer or poorer?

Ermm, I think similar, but I am not that great at noticing money.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

It's hard to say, because all the things I wanted to do and didn't were because of my mental health problems - without those there are hundreds of things I would have liked to do.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Staying in bed too depressed to move and feeling severely suicidal.

20. How do you plan to spend Christmas?

Well it is now January, so it is a bit late for that really, but I spent Christmas Day at home with my parents.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010?

No.

22. How many one night stands?

None.

23. What was your favourite TV programme?

I think I have 2. The first is Glee - it was very funny, and it was good to see some musical theatre performers getting exposure. The second is Downton Abbey - I thought that was absolutely brilliant, and far surpassed my expectations - I thought that ITV were a bit weird for trying to do a period drama, but I really loved it, and thought it was much better than the BBCs Upstairs Downstairs, which I was expecting to love but was left pretty cold by.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

I don't think so. Hate is a strong word. There are people I am angry or upset with, but I don't hate them. I don't actually want to care enough about them to hate them. Hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is.

25. What was the best book you read?

I read a lot of really good books, but I can really only remember the ones I read in the last month or so, because my memory is that shit, and I feel sure that I read some better books earlier in the year, although I have read some good books recently too. I couldn't name one. I can never name favourite books.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Hmmm. I don't know if I had one as such. My favourite CD I bought in 2010 was probably the musical Next To Normal - it is beautiful music, and I can really relate to so much of it. My favourite solo album was Annalene Beechey's album Close Your Eyes, although she wasn't a new discovery as I had seen her in shows before.

27. What did you want and get?

To be cast in the concert. The role I played in Carousel. The lead in the musical I am rehearsing at the moment.

28. What did you want and not get?

Recovery from my mental health problems, or at least to feel like things were improving or that there was a hope of things getting better. Appropriate treatment for my mental health problems, ie DBT or a therapeutic community, or both.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?

Probably Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1..... I don't go to the cinema that often, and I do love Harry Potter, although the books are so much better than the films. But this film was definitely better than the others due to not being crammed into 2 and a half hours.

30. What did you do on your birthday?

Went to my Grandad's funeral. That was not a good birthday.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Not being depressed and suicidal for most of the year, so that I could actually enjoy things, rather than just let them happen and feel indifferent about them.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Are pyjamas a fashion concept? I think I have spent a good 90 - 95% of my time in pyjamas. I only get dressed when absolutely necessary, partly because pyjamas are so comfortable, partly because getting dressed takes too much effort, and partly because I feel really uncomfortable with my body, and so finding clothes I feel look ok is virtually impossible and very stressful.

33. What kept you sane?

Oh goodness - define sanity. I don't know if I would be considered sane. The two things that helped me the most were this blog and the support I have received through it and people I have met from it, and L.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I don't know that I did particularly.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

Oh politics has made me angry virtually non stop this year. Virtually everything the Tories and their Lib Dem lapdogs have done have made me furious, but top of the list would be the benefits and welfare cuts, closely followed by the tripling of university tuition fees - as someone who is yet to get a degree because of mental health problems that will affect me a lot if I ever recover to the point where I am well enough to live a normal life. So essentially the government have managed to fuck my life now with the benefits cuts, and my life if I ever recover with the tuition fee hike. Thanks for that.

36. Who do you miss?

I still miss my old GP who died in 2009. She was a fantastic person. And I miss some of my friends who I haven't seen for various reasons.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

Best new people I met in 'real life' would be T, who has been a good friend, and some of the cast members of Carousel, particularly the girl who played my mother, who is such a lovely person. I have also met loads of fantastic people online through this blog and the associated Facebook/Twitter pages - too many to start naming names.

38. What was the best thing you ate?

I have absolutely no idea. Probably something I ate lots of times, because I am pretty predictable with my food choices. But I don't think I would ever really remember eating one thing in particular.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010?

Everyone, no matter how much they mean to you, will let you down at some point. But that does not mean you shouldn't get close to anyone or let anyone in, because the benefits can outweigh the negatives. But it was a difficult, but valuable, lesson to learn - that everyone will let you down at some point, and that nobody is perfect. Relationships are bloody complicated and confusing, and can be really hurtful, but sometimes you have to put yourself out there and risk being hurt, because otherwise you will always be alone.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

'I've run the gamut, A to Z.
Three cheers and dammit, c'est la vie.
I've got through all of last year, and I'm here.'

Still depressed

2011-01-04T03:55:00.000Z

I seem to be struggling to write much at the moment, despite my head being full the whole time. I think maybe it is too full and so I am having difficulty distinguishing thoughts from one another. It is a few days into the New Year, and naturally nothing has changed. I still want to kill myself at the first suitable opportunity. My mum is off work this week - she doesn't go back until Monday, so realistically nothing can happen before then at the earliest, which means I have at least another week of fucking hell. I tried buying things online yesterday to see if that made me feel any better, even if just briefly, but it didn't. I ordered a couple of DVDs, and a couple of computer games that I will probably never play. I still haven't watched the Lost Season 6 DVD that I bought last time I felt crap and thought that buying something would help, and every other season of Lost I have watched within a few days of it arriving, and I have had that for about 6 months now. Same with books I haven't read, other DVDs I haven't watched, CDs I haven't listened to, clothes I didn't like but didn't get round to returning. One day I might learn that buying things when I feel crap doesn't actually make me feel any better, it just costs money and leaves me with a pile of stuff I don't need or want. But probably not. It's like self harm - it used to help, and so I still try it sometimes, but it doesn't have the same effect anymore.

My mum made me go shopping today. Hideous. I am such a shit girl. I hate shopping. I almost view it as a form of torture. I deliberately avoid the sales racks, because they are just far too confusing and stressful to even look at, which makes shopping at this time slightly awkward because half the shop is sales racks. I have absolutely no idea how anyone can get excited about sales shopping. All the shops open stupidly early on Boxing Day, and people actually queue for hours to get into the stupid shops, and hunt through loads of rails of clothes, most of which will be a) hideous, b) the wrong size, or c) both. Why would you do that? I would actually rather just pay full price for something than face the sales.

We had to go shopping because my mum managed to buy me quite a few things this year that were no good. She is actually usually really good at present buying, but she just seemed to get it all a bit wrong this year. My favourite present this year was a pair of really warm, fleecy pyjamas from my mum, but she wasn't very impressed that they were my best present. They are so warm though, and I am always cold. I wasn't too bothered about not getting many things I wanted - material things aren't really meaning anything to me at the moment, I suppose primarily because I am not planning to be here much longer, plus I do genuinely prefer giving presents to receiving them, unless it is something I particularly want. My mum took back the things that she had bought for me that weren't any good, but I really couldn't be bothered to look around the shops properly, so I didn't buy anything as a replacement. That's ok. I don't need anything. Actually I do. I have no clothes. But I spend a good 90% of my life in my pyjamas, so I don't need too many clothes really. Although I could do with some to save the panic attack I get every time I get dressed and feel hideous in absolutely everything that I put on. It took me so long to get dressed today, and I was getting more and more worked up, because I just felt so awful in everything that I put on, and nothing was suitable, and I was just getting more and more stressed, and my mum was getting more and more angry because she had wanted to leave and I was still changing clothes. I just get into such a state, and she gets irritated with me and continually tells me how silly I am being, which I probably am, but I just can't help it.

I do find my mum quite invalidating a lot of the time. She is always saying that I allow myself to be like this, or that my life is good and so I should be happy and stop letting myself be depressed or that I am a drama queen or that I am just saying things other people have said, like she did about New Year, and things like that, and if I ever mention that I find what she says hurtful or invalidating she says that I have picked up saying things like that from the internet or books or associating with people with mental health problems, or whatever her current theory is. It really frustrates me when I say I am stressed or upset about something and she replies with 'You're not really'. I know she doesn't mean to, but she really upsets me sometimes. I wish that she would just listen to what I am saying rather than just dismissing everything. And then she gets annoyed with me for not talking to her more often and not telling her how I feel. But is it really any wonder I don't talk to her more when virtually every time I try to I get dismissed as being a drama queen, or exaggerating, or letting myself get worked up?

I am really struggling to write. I feel really distracted by my head and the thoughts/images/films of suicide it is having. I know there was something in particular I wanted to write about, but I can't remember what. I am feeling really shit. Not in an only able to stare at walls type way like I was last time I was having a really difficult time. Just in a I've had enough and I don't want to be alive regardless of what happens kind of way. I'm not sure which is worse. Both feel shit.

Shiny thing of shininess

2011-01-02T16:42:00.001Z

I am rather late with this, but it is time to display and show off about my shiny thing of shininess, as awarded by Mental Nurse. I won this in the annual TWIM awards, for being runner up in Best Personality Disorder Blog. I was amazed to receive so many nominations, particularly given that I am in the same category as Pandora, who is the author of what is, in my opinion, one of the best mental health blogs around, and who rightfully won the category. I am always shocked that people even read the drivel that I write on here, as essentially I just come on here to brain fart - I don't have a wonderfully articulate, well written, thought through blog like lots of other people do, and even after writing it for a year it still surprises me that people make the effort to comment on what I write, and the nominations I received for the TWIM awards were even more surprising. So thank you to everyone who voted, and thank you to everyone who comments or reads - it all means a lot to me. Congratulations to all of the other winners in all of the categories - many of my favourite blogs scooped awards, and lots of others received nominations - there is a full list of winners here for anyone who wants to check out some of the other brilliant blogs.

As I said recently my blog, and the rest of the Madosphere, has come to mean a lot to me over the last year, and has been one of my biggest sources of support, so thank you for that. I genuinely don't know where I would be without all of the support I get from this blog, and people I have met through writing it. Winning an award for something that has helped me so much almost feels wrong, as I write for entirely selfish means, but I appreciate it very much.

I'm Still Here

2011-01-01T20:14:00.000Z

So, it is the 1st January 2011. 1/1/11. Start of another shitty year. I still wish I was dead and that I hadn't made it to this year, and I still plan to correct it as soon as possible. I have a vague feeling that killing myself is a somewhat inappropriate New Year's Resolution, but that is the thing that I want. I spent last night with my parents at home - half a bottle of champagne and a couple of Diazepam got me through. I am struggling to write. There's lots I meant to say but I just feel like my brain has fogged over, and it isn't due to the alcohol from last night. I intended to try and write about the positives of 2010, but I am feeling too shit to bother. I know there were positives. I just couldn't make them mean anything to me - they all felt irrelevant. I will try and do it at some point. At the moment Sondheim's lyrics from the song I'm Still Here from Follies pretty much sum things up.

'I've run the gamut, A to Z.
Three cheers and dammit, c'est la vie!
I got through all of last year and I'm here!'

New Year blues

2010-12-31T05:16:00.002Z

Today has been a shit day. I just feel like a tonne of bricks dropped on me a few days ago, and every day another tonne has been added. My aunt was here today, which was ok, but I just find speaking to people, and trying to show any enthusiasm in what they are saying so much effort - I don't even feel able to fake it properly any more. I ate like a fucking pig - yesterday I weighed less than a pound more than I did pre-Christmas, which I thought was quite impressive in the overall scheme of things. Today there was loads of food out because we had people over, and so I just ate fucking non stop. I felt sick and still kept eating. I desperately wanted to purge, but that wasn't an option, and so for some reason I just kept eating instead. I am not sure whether it was supposed to be comfort eating, in which case it failed miserably as it made me feel like complete shit, or whether I was punishing myself, and since I couldn't purge I just kept eating until I felt ill instead. Either way I ended up feeling grotesque. All day I was getting really graphic images popping up in my head of me hurting myself. Mostly bad self harm, which is quite random as I rarely self harm, and when I do it is never deep. But I just kept getting these images of me cutting myself really deep, and slicing big chunks of fat off my thighs. We have a bread knife, which is supposedly 'The World's Sharpest Knife' (says that on it) and every time I see it I imagine sawing through all of the fat on my thighs with it. It will saw through frozen chicken portions, so it obviously is quite sharp. I know I would be very unlikely to do it - that just isn't my style. I don't like anything that involves medical attention. Proper suicide attempts are slightly different as the medical attention is not my intention or plan in those situations, but I would never take an overdose or self harm and then present at A&E - I am not judging people who do that, but it just is not something I would want to do. If I want to hurt myself I want to do it in the most unobtrusive way I can find, again barring suicide attempts, as by their nature they have a tendency to attract attention. But if there was a way I could just disappear then I would. Anyway, so I had lots of films in my head of self harming badly, and also of jumping off a multi storey car park, and of hanging myself. My head isn't a nice place to be at the moment. It is quite distressing really I suppose. Even if you want to die, you don't really want possible scenarios playing out in your head constantly - it all gets a bit much really.

I loathe New Year. More than I can express. I think it is actually my least favourite day of the whole year. It is even worse than my birthday I think. At least most people either don't know, or forget, that it is your birthday, and so you can generally get through most of the day without it being brought to your attention, and if you look at it from a materialistic view point you usually get presents and a cake, and so there are some nicer aspects to it, although I have to say that I think birthdays are pretty shit really, and I refused to acknowledge mine on the correct day this year. But anyway. New Year. What the fuck is the point? It is another year. And people actually seem to think that because the number of the year is different, your life will also be different. That things will change for you this year, or that this will be the year that is good for you, or where you will achieve something, and bollocks like that. No. It will be the same - the date will just be slightly different. And then you are expected to stand around drinking Champagne and singing a stupid song that nobody actually knows the words to, and saying Happy New Year to everyone you see for the next couple of days. And I don't know what we are fucking celebrating. I have never understood that, ever. It makes no sense to me. All it does for me is remind me of everything I have wanted to achieve but haven't in the past year, and make me realise what a failure I am.

My mother has done a good job of reminding me of that this evening actually. She doesn't do it intentionally, but she really seems to have a knack of tapping into my insecurities. Earlier on she told me she really thought I should have applied for drama school this year, and that if I didn't go this year (meaning 2011) she didn't think I would ever go, and that this would have been a really good year to apply. I said that I didn't feel well enough, but according to her I am because I can get up on stage and perform, and that is all you do at drama school. Which is of course complete rubbish. She then pointed out that if I didn't go this year I would be at least 26 when I started, and that I would be getting old, and when I said that actually some people go to drama school a lot older than that she said that they would have achieved something first, whereas I haven't done anything. Which is all fucking true, and makes me even more angry and upset because of that. If she had been talking bollocks then I could have coped with it, but she was saying all of the things that I always think. That I am getting old, that I haven't achieved anything, and basically that I will never accomplish the only thing I have ever wanted to do, because I am leaving it too late because of my mental health problems. Great. Just what I needed to hear the day before my least favourite day of the entire year when I dwell on all of those things anyway. She didn't say any of it in a nasty way. It just felt like salt being rubbed into a very raw wound.

Apparently my sister has invited my parents to spend New Year's Eve at their house. Not me of course because she still hates me. I was hoping they would go, but it seems they aren't going to. I had it all planned out. If they went I was going to tell them I would probably be asleep by the time they got home, take an overdose as soon as they had left, and leave a note somewhere where it would be found but not immediately, so that they wouldn't see it when they got home. Then when they got home they wouldn't have known I had taken an overdose, and so would just think I was sleeping, then I usually sleep until at least 1, so they wouldn't come up to see me before that, and it may even have been an hour or two after, and so my overdose would have had a good 18 hours to work before I was found, possibly even 20. Unfortunately it seems they aren't going to go. Primarily because my dad doesn't want to, although my mum also said that she didn't want to leave me here on my own on New Year's Eve, despite me protesting that I really didn't mind at all. They know that I loathe New Year and don't want to celebrate it. They see me having a complete breakdown every year. And yet they still try to give me champagne and say Happy New Year to me. When I said something to my mum tonight about how much I hate New Year she said she thinks someone must have said they hated New Year to me, and so I say it as well. Because I clearly couldn't actually have a thought of my own - everything I think and feel that she doesn't understand or disagrees with, she calls my 'quirks' and seems to attribute all of them to things that other people have said or done that I have copied. I suppose that fits in quite well with her agreeing with my sister that there isn't actually anything wrong with me and that I do everything for effect.

I am feeling really terrible. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up again. I can't imagine anything at all that would make me want to live, or make this constant pain bearable. I really want to die. I don't want to be told how much I have achieved, or how strong I am, or that 2011 will be better for me, or anything else. I just want my life to end, and I consider myself incredibly weak for not making that happen before this.

'Turning, turning, turning through the years.
Minutes into hours and the hours into years.
Nothing changes, nothing ever can
Round and round the roundabout and back where you began.
Round and round and back where you began!'
- 'Turning', Les Miserables

Shit

2010-12-30T04:27:00.000Z

I am still struggling enormously. I am completely terrified by how close New Year is. I want so much not to be alive by then, but I know that realistically I am not going to get an opportunity to act on it before then, and I don't know how to cope with that. I want to be dead now. Not in a few weeks or months or years. Tomorrow my aunt, who has been over from the US for Christmas, is coming over, which means I can't do anything tomorrow, and couldn't do anything tonight. And then it is New Year's Eve. At the moment I am coping by taking Diazepam when things feel too much, and am generally just a bit of a mess. I think the only way of getting through New Year's Eve will be taking a lot of Diazepam, and anything else that might help, and just sleeping through it, but even that isn't really a solution because I will have to wake up the next day. I want to die so much. I really just can't express how hideous this feels. And it is just so bloody unrelenting. Ok, sometimes I get a few weeks when I feel crap but I am slightly more able to cope, and less suicidal, but things are always shit, and I seriously believe that suicidal is a completely logical decision for me - I feel like it has reached a point where the pain is just too much, and too unrelenting. I want out as soon as possible. I know that it is very unlikely to be before the New Year, but it will be as soon as is practical after that.

People say I have achieved things this year and that I should be proud of myself. But the point is, that none of the things I have done actually mean anything. They have no impact on my life, or how I feel. Sure, I have done things, but they don't mean anything. I still feel hideous and I still want to die. I don't want to wait and see what the future brings, or what opportunities there are in the New Year or anything else, because it doesn't matter. None of it matters. I am just desperate and I don't want to be here, and nothing can change that.

Desperate

2010-12-28T03:40:00.000Z

I am feeling worse and worse. In the last couple of days I have turned into this tense, anxious mess, constantly on the verge of tears but never actually letting the tears out, feeling desperately alone regardless of whether I am with people or not, continually thinking about how I can kill myself before the New Year because I can't cope with it. I feel sick with anxiety, and just completely overwhelmed. I feel like a complete and utter failure for letting yet another year of my life go by without achieving anything significant. My mental health problems are not getting any easier at all to cope with - if anything I would say that in many ways they are more difficult to live with now than they used to be, and so I can't see myself being able to achieve anything in the next year if I were to stay alive for it either. I have had enough of everything. I have been feeling like this for too long and I just can't cope with another year with no end in sight. My usual coping mechanism when things start to feel impossible is to turn to my weight and food, and to try and control that, but that is absolutely impossible at the moment as there is food everywhere, and I have gained several pounds - I haven't eaten an enormous quantity, but I have eaten a lot more than usual, and I have eaten a lot of foods that are high in calories and fat, so it isn't surprising. But it means that my normal method of attempting to control my mood even slightly isn't available to me.

I know New Year is just a day, I know that things might improve in 2011, but I don't actually give a shit, I just need everything to stop, and before 2011 starts. The thing that scares me most is that it is so few days away and I don't know when I will have the opportunity to do anything about it. I wish it wasn't this time of year, because I do appreciate that it is not good timing, but I just can't cope with the start of another year, I really really can't. I am feeling so desperate to get out. I wish I had killed myself years ago, or that one of the attempts I had made had been successful - there has never been a point when I have been pleased to still be alive and that I survived, and I think that has to prove something. Maybe some people just aren't meant to be, I don't know. I just know it feels completely unbearable at the moment, and I don't want to be here for the start of another year.

Christmas and New Year

2010-12-27T01:55:00.000Z

Christmas Day was actually ok. It was pretty quiet, as it was just me and my parents for most of the day. It was actually nice to just be relaxed and for it to be quiet, rather than busy and noisy with lots of people - it felt easier to cope with. Food was difficult, but then I think that food will always be difficult for me, and particularly at the moment, when food plays such a central part in trying to control my mood. I didn't eat an obscene amount I don't think - it is just far more than I am used to eating, and when there is constantly food out then it can be difficult to deal with. Plus alcohol calories always bother me. But it was quiet and relaxed, although in retrospect I am not really sure what we did with ourselves. Then at about 6 one of my sister's friends came over for the evening - he is single and had his children with him until 4, and then they had gone to their mums so he came to us, and we played Jenga and cards in the evening/night. I wasn't excited or enthusiastic about it being Christmas, but I got through it, and it was fine and not too stressful.

Today was more difficult. Both of my brothers came over with their families, so there were 8 people in the house, plus me and my parents, so it was much busier and louder, and I just found it a bit much really. I went down for a while and then just found it all too much, so came upstairs for a while to spend some time on my own and then went down again. It wasn't that they were doing anything wrong - I just wasn't feeling very good, and I didn't have the energy to put on my happy face or sit and make small talk. My parents are going to visit my brother tomorrow, but I have decided to stay here for a couple of reasons - firstly I don't see a need to see them again when we saw them today, it seems pointless, but really I just can't face another day with a lot of people - all of his wife's family will be there tomorrow as well, and I just don't want to have to see lots of people, and it is much harder to escape when you aren't in your own home, so I will stay here with the dog.

I am feeling really quite awful. I wasn't feeling great yesterday, but I put on a happy face, and because it was all pretty quiet and laid back I got through it alright. Today was a lot more difficult, but I was trying to hold up but it was like a big wave of desperation and hopelessness came and hit me this evening, after not feeling good all day. I don't really know why - I just know I feel really awful and nearly burst into tears in front of my parents for absolutely no reason, which is so unlike me. I even said that I felt really crappy, which I very rarely do. I just didn't want them to think I was just being grumpy or ungrateful or anything. I suppose that although I haven't been consciously thinking about it, I am very stressed about New Year. I do not want to be alive by then, it feels like more than I can deal with, and I don't see the point, and the speed with which it is approaching is really quite terrifying, particularly now that Christmas is over. Not having anyone I can contact to talk to doesn't help, but then I don't think talking would make any difference - I have felt for months like I didn't want to live to see 2011, and I still feel like that - telling someone that I feel like that won't change anything, so maybe it doesn't matter anyway. I just feel really horrible.

Christmas

2010-12-25T02:22:00.000Z

It has been a rather busy few days. I went Christmas shopping on Wednesday. That was a fairly good resemblance of hell I think. It was of course pretty busy, and I had been very organised and made a list of everything I needed to get, and when possible what shop I was getting it in. Naturally everything I had planned to get was out of stock and so I then had to search around for alternatives. Then shops I had hoped would have the type of thing I wanted didn't have. And basically it was all quite crap, and I didn't end up getting anything at all that I couldn't have got in a much closer, smaller, less busy town. During the afternoon I had a headache which got worse and worse, and by the time I got home it was really quite agonising, so I had dinner and then ended up going to bed at 8:30. During the night I woke up feeling really ill, all shivery and cold, with a really nasty cold and streaming nose and just feeling crap. Ended up going back to sleep after a couple of hours, woke up in the morning not feeling any better. Got a hot water bottle and took a couple of paracetamol and went back to sleep for an hour, and woke up feeling a little bit better, and so made myself get up because I had lots to do. Went off shopping again - this time to much closer, smaller town, where I managed to find everything I wanted within about half an hour, and then spent another hour and a half pacing the streets in the cold because my mum was at my sister's house, where I am obviously not very welcome. I noticed my sister left me off our Christmas card this year - she really does have it in for me.

Shopping finished, came home, felt ill so had a couple of hours relaxing time and then cracked on with the wrapping. Wrapping is a time consuming affair because I like making presents look pretty. I like using lots of ribbons and bows and curling ribbons, and so trimming a present to make it look pretty takes at least as long as the actual wrapping. And then I decide which ribbons and labels I will be using before I wrap the present, and choose the paper accordingly, so it is all rather time consuming and complicated really! I don't bother when I am wrapping for the children, because they just rip paper off as they are children, and my dad doesn't care what his presents look like, so I don't spend that long wrapping his, although I must admit I find it really difficult to leave a present just with paper and a tag, so he sometimes ends up with a little bit of ribbon because I just can't help myself.... But my mum really loves presents to look pretty, as do I, so we both put lots of effort into wrapping our presents for each other, and so it takes hours. Plus I have to help my dad with his wrapping, because he refuses to touch a ribbon and will use completely inappropriate paper unless I stop him, so I either have to wrap and trim all of his presents for my mum as well as my own, because I think she deserves to have them looking pretty, or I do what I did yesterday and make him wrap them himself but then tell him which paper he has to use for each present and which label he has to use, and then do all the trimmings on them myself. So lots of hours wrapping. I may be ever so slightly obsessive about wrapping.

Today was surprisingly calm. Scarily calm actually for Christmas Eve in our house. Generally that is when most of the wrapping gets done, plus pretty much everything else, but I had finished my wrapping (and my dad's) last night, and my mum only had to wrap about 4 presents for my nephews today, so that didn't take long. And then she made some mince pies and sausage rolls, although not that many, and that was about it. We think we have probably forgotten to do something vital, as it was all far too laid back and relaxed - we have never had such a calm Christmas Eve before! I watched 4 films. Miracle on 34th Street (my favourite Christmas film - I watched the original yesterday and the remake today), then The Queen, then Prince Caspian, then Chocolat. And the fire was alight and the tree looked all pretty and it was nice and cosy. And had a couple of glasses of chapagne which always helps matter. Champagne goes straight to my head. I blame the bubbles, because it is much worse than any other alcohol - I am always pretty lightweight because I don't drink very often, but I feel the effects of Champagne rather quickly. Probably doesn't help that I still have a nasty cold and am therefore slightly lightheaded anyway! I have had a cold and sore throat continuously for a month now - as soon as one starts to go another one comes along and replaces it.

I should go to sleep since it is 2:15am and I have been told I have to get up at 9. Father Christmas has already been. We all came upstairs to bed, and my stocking was empty, and then I went down an hour later and it was full - how's that for proof?! I may have watched Miracle on 34th Street too many times the last couple of days..... I am not feeling too stressed about Christmas - food is always an issue, but I think because it is just me and my parents here tomorrow it is less stressful than it would be ordinarily as it will be pretty quiet. Both brothers and families are coming Boxing Day, so that might be a little chaotic, but neither are coming for the whole day, just the afternoon, so hopefully it will be ok. It is New Year that I am really dreading. I can just about cope with Christmas, despite the food situation, but New Year is hideous.

I hope that everyone has a good Christmas, or at least as stress free as possible. I leave you with a picture of my Christmas Tree......

Busy

2010-12-23T16:51:00.000Z

Just a very quick update to let everyone know I am ok and will write a proper update later - have a nasty cold and been very busy. Hope everyone is ok.

Happy Birthday Blog!

2010-12-21T23:35:00.000Z

Today is my blog's 1st Birthday! I would really like to thank everyone who has read and commented over the last year. Starting this blog was one of the best decisions I have made in recent years - I have met so many really incredible people, and I am so thankful to know all of you. I would never have dreamed when I started this blog a year ago, just as a place for me to write about how I was feeling, that I would get so many readers, and that I would end up feeling so close to my fellow bloggers. So thank you all very much for your support over the last year - I genuinely have no idea where I would be if it wasn't for all of the support and understanding I have received from readers of this blog, both here on the blog, and on Twitter, Facebook, and via email and MSN - people staying up half the night to support me through bad times by talking to me, or leaving me comments, or just checking in on me when things haven't been great. It really does mean more than I can say, and whilst it sounds somewhat melodramatic to say I don't know where I would be without it, I really don't. This really has turned into one of my main sources of support, or at least the people I have met via it has, and there are definitely times I don't know if I would have managed to get through without the support. I couldn't wish for a more caring and compassionate online support network, and you all mean so much to me. Thank you so much for everything.

Weather and Christmas

2010-12-20T04:45:00.000Z

Lots of pretty snow. It started snowing yesterday afternoon and snowed all afternoon and evening, so we ended up with a good 6 inches of snow, which is the first proper snowfall we have had this winter - when everyone else had shit loads a few weeks ago we just had a tiny covering. Very pretty. Not so great from the practical point of view.

Firstly, our poor Christmas tree, which was supposed to be put up this weekend, was standing outside when it started snowing, and so got covered with 6 inches of snow, along with everything else. Therefore it couldn't come inside, or the snow would have then melted and flooded the lounge, which would have been somewhat inconvenient. Then there is the added problem that it needs potting, which involves needing soil, and the ground being a) frozen solid, rock hard, inpenetrable, and b) also being covered with 6 inches of snow. Not entirely sure what the plan is. Can shake most of the snow off the tree, but it doesn't help the problem of having nothing to plant it in of course.

I had a carol concert tonight. I wasn't sure if we would be able to get there or not. The roads had been gritted, but unsurprisingly grit isn't terribly effective on top of lots of snow - I think they are meant to put it down before it starts snowing, or when there is a tiny bit, rather than when it has finished snowing and it is laying thick everywhere. So the roads are a nightmare. In the end we decided to go, but had to drive very slowly the whole way, and there was a bit of skidding at times. The concert was fine. The majority of both the band and choir had managed to make it, which was pretty impressive given how many of us live in the middle of nowhere, with terrible roads, and therefore had a nightmare getting there, although one person did point out that we must all be completely mad to have bothered. My sister is still doing a wonderful job of ignoring me - in a way it is quite impressive that we could both sing Soprano in the same choir, and her not speak to me at all during rehearsals or the concert. I have made some effort several times, but she certainly is not reciprocating, so there is very little I can do about it. I just find it quite astounding how immature she can be.

Audience numbers at the concert were down on other years, which was to be expected, but there were still probably 250 people or so I would guesstimate, so not bad given the conditions. Carols were fine - sore throat and snotty nose weren't really helping, but it was fine - the throat is getting better, and although I obviously could have sung better I think it was fine. And nobody would have known if it wasn't actually - the joys of singing in a choir rather than as a soloist! It was bloody freezing though. A blouse and skirt just are not very warm, and the church wasn't very warm, I suppose because there was about half the number of people there would usually be, so I felt like a snowman by the end of it. Then had the fun of the journey home again.

We were supposed to be going Christmas shopping tomorrow but I think realistically that isn't going to happen - it is a good 45 minute drive to where we were going, which would take much longer with the roads as they are, and it isn't meant to get above -3, and is supposed to be foggy too, so I think it would just be dangerous to try and travel that far. We will go on Tuesday or Wednesday, although Tuesday could be difficult because I am seeing L at 11, and I think after that would be getting a bit late to go off shopping, so it will probably have to be Wedneday. Which is leaving it a little close for comfort, but never mind! The weather is so frustrating - I wish it had stayed dry this week, and then just snowed loads on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - that would have been so pretty, and wouldn't have caused any inconvenience. We could have just made a snowman. As it is I think it is going to melt before then and we will just end up with nasty slush everywhere. Yuck. Wrong timing by 1 week unfortunately.

I am not feeling too stressed about Christmas, but I am about New Year. I am trying not to think about it, because I get really upset and panicky when I do. I just absolutely do not want it to happen at all, under any circumstances. I just don't. I really feel at the moment like I can't cope with it. It is just too overwhelming and stressful. As soon as I hear the words or think about it at all, I get this sudden mad rush of totally overwhelming thoughts. I genuinely have absolutely no idea how I will get through it right now - I might try and knock myself out early in the night and just sleep through it, but then I will still have to wake up and it will be 2011, and that is just so unbelievably shit. I need to freeze time or rewind time or erase myself or something. Very anxious, very stressed, very desperate.

Still here

2010-12-18T03:51:00.000Z

So I am staying put until further notice, but am in the process of moving. Deciding on a name is surprisingly difficult. Obviously I have become known in the blogosphere as Bippidee, but I feel like I am going to need to change that even if I do move to WP, which is the current plan. Unfortunately, the only other name I have thought of so far has a rather unfortunate shortening, which is what I would end up being called all the time. Hmph. When I do move I will make sure that anyone who wants to follow me to the new blog can do so.

So what with all the posts about my childhood, and then the identity crisis yesterday I seem to have been neglecting day to day stuff somewhat. I am not sure how I have been doing. I am, without a doubt, better than I was a few weeks ago, but naturally I am still not feeling great. I am slightly confused by my sleep lately. I have always needed about 10 hours sleep ideally, to wake up and not feel tired and stay reasonably alert the whole day. I used to end up napping every afternoon, virtually without fail, even if I had slept ok the night before, but definitely if I had got less than 8 hours sleep. But there have been several days lately when I have only had a few hours, and yet after the inital pain of dragging myself out of bed, have been surprisingly alert all day, and still not been able to sleep that night. Thursday was an example of this. I only got 4 hours sleep, which is nowhere near enough for me, and yet I stayed awake all day, no naps, was pretty awake and alert, and still couldn't get to sleep before 5am. There is surely something wrong with that? I should have been exhausted and been able to get an early night, but I didn't get to sleep any earlier than I would have if I hadn't woken up until the afternoon, and had 9 hours sleep. I was out for a lot of the day too, which should have made me even more tired. And I never nap anymore. I am always tired, but my ability to sleep properly seems to have disappeared.

I am singing in a carol concert on Sunday, just as part of the choir. Well, it is just the choir and silver band. I realised at the rehearsal tonight that I don't have a bloody clue how the descant goes for While Shepherd Watched, which is slightly problematic, and I have no idea how that happened. I have sung in so many carol concerts/services, and I know all of the descants really well, but I actually don't think I have ever sung that one before, but I don't see how that could be possible when I have sung in carol concerts for 12 years. Although the audience can never hear the descants properly anyway, as by the time you have a full choir, organ, silver band, and all the congregation singing, I think the descant gets somewhat lost. Someone had the bloody brilliant idea of making Twelve Days of Christmas a song that everyone sings, ie audience too. I have no idea what they were thinking. The arrangement that we use is very much a choir version - all the voice types sing different days etc, and the tempo changes loads - at one point it gets really fast, and one of the other sopranos pointed out that there is no bloody way they will keep up with that, and it will end up sounding like we are singing it in a round. Bloody ridiculous idea. I always get bored of that song after about 5 days anyway - I am sure the other 7 are unnecessary. Or we could just start with 12 rather than 1? The Hallelujah Chorus goes on rather as well, although I probably shouldn't say that. And I can never sing For Unto Us properly. I cheat. I can do it slowly, but then when it gets up to speed I just can't fit all those notes in. I am not really a classical singer, I am a musical theatre singer - The Messiah is a bit much for me really!

Christmas. Hmmm. I still have shopping to do. I have actually done most of it online, but I need to go to the shops to buy things for my mum - the things I wanted to get for her weren't things I particularly wanted to buy online. And then I need to get something for one of my nephews, but I know what and where to get it, and something small for one of my nieces to go with things I have already got for her, and a few boxes of chocolates for various people, and then I will be finished. I have stopped buying for siblings, since they all have children now, so I just buy for the children, although I haven't bought for my eldest nephew this year for the first time, because he is 19, works full time, and has far more disposable income than I do, but has never bought for me, despite me buying for him every year. It is a bit weird, because I am his aunt, but he is only 5 years younger than me. So I have always bought him presents because he is my nephew, but it is kind of weird because he is so close to me in age, and now that he is working full time and I am on benefits it just seems a bit ridiculous to be spending money on him really. So that just leaves his younger brother, my sister's 2 boys, and my brother's daughter, and step daughter and step son. And my parents of course. If I get time/inclination I might try and make some fudge or something for siblings and their partners, but it was getting too expensive buying for all of them and all of the children - even just with my parents and nephews/nieces I had 8 people to buy for, and it would have been 9 if I had bought for eldest nephew. Oh, and I buy something for my dog.... I wouldn't actually mind buying for my sisters in law - they are both easy to buy for, and I quite like buying presents for people who are easy to buy for, but my sister (who still isn't speaking to me) is a nightmare to buy for, and so are my brothers and brother in law. I haven't started my wrapping yet. Wrapping takes me forever. I am a real perfectionist with my wrapping - I will take ages deciding which paper to use, and which ribbon and label to put with it etc, and then ages making it look pretty. Takes bloody hours, particularly given that I also always have to wrap everything that my dad buys for my mum, a) because he doesn't have time, b) because he can't be bothered, and c) because he doesn't make it look pretty - he just wraps with paper, and my mum really loves prettily wrapped presents with bows and ribbons and things. So I have to do it for him. I tend to get all my presents and find cheesy Christmas films on TV and wrap it all whilst watching them.

We went and bought our Christmas Tree on Tuesday. It isn't really what I wanted - it is a bit small. But the place we went to weren't going to be getting any more in, and it was a nicer shape than the bigger ones. We then tried a couple more places, but one didn't have any, and the other only had 3 left, and 1 was enormous, and 2 were tiny, so we just went back and got the first one. We will put it up this weekend. We will stand it on a box. That will make it look bigger, and keep it out of reach of the animals, which is always a bonus. My old cat will love us putting the tree up. It is his favourite day of the year. He gets ridiculously excited and starts playing with tinsel and baubles etc like a little kitten, despite now being 15. The other cat never plays. The dog will be excited, but the dog is always excited. I don't buy presents for the cats, but I always buy for him, because he will unwrap them himself and it makes me laugh to watch him. I am trying to think about the positive things about Christmas rather than the things I find stressful, although it is hard. New Year will be worse, because it always is. I hate New Year so much. It makes me feel like such a failure, and I find it incredibly difficult to get through without resorting to self harming behaviours. I tend to end up in a complete state crying hysterically and saying that I want to die. Which I do, but I can usually keep it hidden, but for some reason I just completely break down on New Year's Eve. I am already dreading it.

Goodbye Bippidee?

2010-12-17T02:55:00.000Z

I don't bloody know what to do. I really don't want to make my blog password protected or invite only, because I have met so many great bloggers, and want to continue to do so, and think that invite only/password protection puts up a big barrier up in that respect. I considered starting a blog with a new title and URL on WordPress, and still posting under the name Bippidee, but then realised anyone googling Bippidee could still find it if I did that. So essentially I am looking at having to start completely from scratch, and it is going to be a fucking nightmare. My email address, my Twitter, and my Facebook are all Bippidee. A new account means replacing all of those as well, or I would have the same problem with Google. Well, not the email address, but I would want my email address to match everything else because I am neurotic like that. Also, I would want to export this blog to the new account, because I don't want to lose everything I have written in the past year, but again, there are posts that mention Bippidee, or comments to Bippidee, and so Google would still be a problem. But I don't want to just dispose of my last year of posts. I also considered setting up another account on Blogspot, making that account co-admin of this blog, then changing the URL and Blog Title, then deleting the Bippidee admin from admin. But either way means getting rid of Bippidee, and ridiculous as it sounds I am really reluctant to do that. It is what I have been known as in the Madosphere for the past year now. I have an identity linked to it. And I feel like changing the name will somehow make me lose that, and that is sad. I don't see how I can keep my blog going, even by exporting it to a difference account, without starting completely afresh, and that is the last thing I want to do.

I am so fucking angry. I actually cannot convey how upset I am about this whole thing. I feel stupid for saying that, because it is just a blog, but it has got me through so much, or at least the people who read it have, and it truly has been a lifeline this past year. And I have invested so many hours in it. And because of a fucking ridiculous printer, which I desperately want to go and smash up, I could lose all that, and that is just shit. I know I can tell people where I am going and start again, but that isn't the point. This is my home, and I have no option to leave it, but I can't leave behind all my posts because they represent the last year of my life, and a lot more actually. Why oh why did I think I needed to print a stupid bloody shopping list?? If I hadn't tried to do that then we wouldn't be in this situation. Or of course if I had a printer that printed what you told it to (and there is absolutely no doubt I told it to print the right thing) rather than just printing any random page you happen to have open at the time. I am feeling really upset.

I wish I could just trust my parents not to look at it, but I can't. I think if I explained I didn't want them to see then they might respect that wish now, but if it got to a point when they thought I was doing badly, and they knew there was somewhere I would have written about it, then I don't think they would be able to resist looking. If I thought someone I careed about, who had a history of suicidal attempts and hospitalisations for suicidal thoughts, might be suicidal and I had a way of checking that then I think I would, even if it was going against their wishes and invading their privacy, because I wouldn't forgive myself if they went on to do something and I hadn't looked. So whilst I would like to think they would respect my privacy and not look, I think that there would inevitably be occasions when they would, and I can understand that, which is why I need to remove temptation so that it isn't an option. But it is bloody hard to work out a way of doing that, without losing everything I have written in the last year - everything that has made my blog what it is. I am so upset.

Blog at risk

2010-12-17T00:38:00.000Z

Today has been a complete bloody fuck up of a day. My mum had a hospital appointment at 11 that I had said I would go to with her, as sometimes she misses what is said and forgets things, so it is easier if I go with her so that we know what is going on! Unfortunately it meant leaving the house at 10, and so I had only had about 4 hours sleep. My plan was to then go into town and do some Christmas shopping - I have done as much of it as I can online, but there are some things I need to actually go to the shops for, and so I thought it made sense to go when I was already there, but it didn't happen. I woke up exhausted and feeling like I couldn't be bothered. I then thought that maybe I would, but it was tipping it down with rain, which was offputting. But in the end we didn't finish at the hospital until 2pm, and I decided that was too late to get the bus into town and start shopping, so I came home and need to find some other time to go.

Tonight I had a disaster. Last night I had tried to print my shopping list for today (our printer is meant to print remotely) and told it to print but it didn't work so in the end I cancelled it. All fine. Then this evening, it decides to fucking print, but not what I told it to print last night, which would have been bad enough in that parents would have seen what I was getting them for Christmas. No. It printed my Blog Dashboard. My dad came in with some paper and said this has printed - I assume it is yours. He clearly knew what it was. My parents know that I have a blog, and they know that it is anonymous. He had a blog on Blogger himself for a while, so he would have immediately seen my blog name at the top. Therefore he now knows my blog name, and can easily look it up. He may already have. As soon as he gave me the paper I put the blog into lockdown, but since he is now in bed I will unlock it for a while. I don't know what to do. Blogging has genuinely been a lifeline for me this last year, and whilst I know I could just start a new blog elsewhere, this is like my home. This is where everything is, and my identity is tied up in it. I don't want to have to stop being Bippidee. And if I move I don't know how I will be able to tell everyone who currently reads where I have moved to, without also telling my dad if he chooses to google it. I am just so upset and angry about the whole thing. How can my printer be so fucking useless that it tells me it is printing 'Christmas List 2010', then prints nothing, then 20 hours after cancelling 'Christmas List 2010' it prints my Blog Dashboard?! I just feel really upset and stressed. My blog has helped me a lot, and it has kept me going at times, through the people I have met via it etc, and I just feel so upset that I no longer feel safe to keep posting here. I haven't made a decision about what to do yet. I may relocate, but I don't know how I will let people know where, as I obviously can't say it here. I might have to keep blogging here but password protected or invivte only, which is something I have always wanted to avoid because to a large extent that defeats the purpose for me. There is no good solution in this situation, and I just feel really upset. It has really put me into a complete spin. I feel like I have just lost the only form of support I have other than L, and I don't know what to do.