Waiting out the end of the year

Back on meds(when remember) and things a little calmer now. CC made appointment with shrink tommorow not sure to what ends but guess will see. Just waiting out the end of the year really it's not been a good one

A confused post.

Haven't posted here for ages, firstly because october was really good month for me and I didn't think I had anything to post about. I guess I was busy trying to get my life in order, I had sorted out some voluntary work actually helping out people who were in acute care, I went to a mental health conference. I started making plans about doing post graduate study in the next year or so and all was hunky dory.

Somehow it changed. I forgot to pick my meds up on friday and have been cold turkey since. I was doing so well so why need meds anyway?. Plus I could do without the hair loss and morning hangover. Am I making sense? I think I have had less than ten hours sleep this week. sometimes I think maybe I am asleep when I'm awake, or its just things are confusing.

There are people watching me all the time I see them though they try to disguise it. I can't leave the house they are there. I even looked for cameras in my house but realised that they wouldn't have got them past me. I think I may be part of a case study a medical experiment the Shrink, Care-Co, hospital staff, gp- I think they all know and I can't trust them.

I just want to sleep - I trawled the net for prescription pills to buy - taking 2 zolpidem and 2 temazepam doesn't work. My head feels like one of those spinning tops the ones where you pressed down on to spin. but it never comes to a stop to rest.

And it's November how did that one creep up on me. Damn 2009 it has brought me hell. I am so tired, mentally and physically. I don't know my next move. You let these people into your lives and they take hold of it and they try and break you and they have an agenda - always and I don;t want to play their games. I am not some crash test dummy. I am not some number on a chart some line on a graph. I will never be free from their clutch.

Everything is loud at the moment. clocks ticking, the fridge humming, I can even hear the light bulbs. I just want to go somewhere I'm not watched somewhere I can come out from under my blanket, but they wouldn't allow that. This is no way to live. I see thing sometimes out of the corner of my eyes or I hear wasps in the house in November? but when I look they are gone and I know perhaps, well most likely they were never there and that's scary.

If you have read this I apologise for it's confusing nature it has taken me over an hour to re-write it semi-coherent and is as much a note for me of my current mental state then worthwile reading for others. La-reve x

CPA Review

Doing really well here things seem to be finally clicking into place and I feel pretty ok. I have been priorotising my meds and have not missed a dose and feel better for it. Yes I can actually say my meds are working to stabilise my moods. Problem is the Depakote is causing hair loss and my hair is getting noticably thin. So now that at last the meds are working I am going to have to change them.

Today I had my CPA review it went ok, me , my mum, CC and Shrink. I have never been to one before apparently they are yearly, it covered everything. I am going to look at changing my meds re:hair loss. Lithium was suggested but the idea of having Lithium about makes me nervous and then there is starting a new drug and the risk of another hospital admission near christmas if it all goes wrong. But I don't want to be bold. I will have n appointment to decide in few weeks.

On other positives this week. Dla application completed by CC and looks hopeful. I had a visit from OT who is going to arrange a meeting for me with their volunteer co-ordinator as I have decided to try and volunteer once a week to force me out of the house as I don't want to end up a recluse over winter.

My sleep is slowly getting better I tend to have a night of three hours and then a night of six/seven this is with the Temazepam. However they have taken the Temazepam from me so who knows what the sleep will do now. I am not pleased about this as I think when I was starting to get this sorted why rock the boat.

All in all though a good week.

Yesterday I got my letter of dismissal from work on grounds of capability. It is what I was expecting and wanted in a way but it's still hit me hard. It seems like a reminder of everything I've lost to this illness. Also I've never been dismissed before and I can't help feeling I have failed somehow.
This week has been quiet though and was going well until I got the letter, today I hibernated and tried to challenge the negative thoughts resulting from receiving it. Got to go out and do some shopping tommorow though so will have to try and get myself into gear. Nothing more to report here.

Signed off for three months

Well I went to work meeting last friday. It was quite difficult being bombarded with questions for 45 minutes by section manager and HR. They mainly asked me why I said I could go back in July and August but failed to return. I told them that they may have caught me on a good week but my mood fluctuates and at the time I told them that I would have meant it. They don't seem to understand how it works. They didn't dismiss me they want me to see occupational health this week. I think they wanted to cover their back's. Anyway I have not heard from them this week and today I was signed off work for three months, CC is going to help me apply for DLA. I am therefore expecting my dismissal letter in post. This is best outcome at moment so will not push me over the edge again.

After the meeting I felt a bit hyper, a rush of adrenaline and went shopping, buying a new bag and some other bits. Felt a little guilty after as two weeks of my ESA spent but was fun. Mood has continued to be good this week, and I have remembered to take all doses of meds. I think I am relieved that work is not stressing me, decision has been made and I can concentrate on trying to get better. I want to take up a hobby or do some voluntary work on my days off or I will become a social recluse especially with winter coming.

Good mood has allowed me to get a lot done round house and a lot of paperwork, form filling and calls that needed to be made- I love these productive weeks. Next week I am going to try and go to the coast for the day as not seen the sea for a while. I want to book a holiday for next year and take my son to the farm.

Back at Hospital............again

A lot has happened in the last week things continued to go downhill after last post. Last friday after dropping son off at nursery bought some paracetamol and went home to take them. I wrote a suicide note, but then rang my car co-ordinator who told me to come and see her to work through things to do to distract from thoughts. Unfortunately I then decided to take tablets and got to about 16 or so 4 Diazepam and a lorazepam before I decided I didn't want to die and leave my family and also felt much calmer with Benzos.

I went to the appointment with CC. CC could tell I had OD though and called ambulance and I was taken to A and E where I waited for several hours for blood tests (fine as usual). Whilst I was there CC rang and told me that she had arranged bed back on A42 of QMC which is acute psychiatric assesment ward for weekend and if I didn't agree to go then I would have a MHA assesment.

So I agreed to go. Now I don't know if it's any easier when you are a familar face on a psychiatric ward. Yes I knew where everything was and which staff to approach for certain things but there is a sense of shame that you couldn't survive on the outside and are back under their care. Plus it did nothing for the reason I was suicidal in the first place, mainly that I had no job etc and that I didn't want to be a revolving door patient and be ill for the rest of my life. The ward looked a lot more depressing and drab but I think this may have been the perspective I was viewing it from as my mood was high last time I was there and I suspect I didn't notice my surroundings as
much.

I was on the ward for three nights. I got no sleep on the ward the first night I was there they wouldn;t give me my usual meds so I couldn't sleep. The second night they insisted on shining a torch in my eyes every hour to see if I was still alive. After being woke for the third time I gave up on the sleep. And on the third night they decided to move the most disturbed and loudest patient next to me.

On Monday I got to see the consultant. He saw me in previous admissions so knows me quite well. He decided to let me go home as I had been fine over weekend. Sometimes I think I may be too inteligent for my own good . I don't mean this in boastful way. But I know how to work the system and doctors and even though I was still suicidal and spent my time on the ward thinking how I could kill myself I needed off that ward. That ward is not the place to get me better and I'm not sure it is even place of safety as there were several easy ways I could have killed myself.

Saw my CC yesterday she says we are using our time talking about negative things and she wants me to start challenging my thought patterns. She says as much as she sympathises with me and what I have gone through I need to move forward(If I could I would).She thinks I have surpressed anger. This didn't go down well I am not in the mood for CBT rubbish or psycho babble shit. Also I feel I was once more blackmailed into hospital for what I feel was not a serious overdose and I have been allowed home after taking much more. It's not that I am upset with her but the whole one size fits all approach these MH workers seem to use.

Tommorow I have the capability hearing at work in which I expect to be fired. CC thinks this it will trigger something and is worried I may end up on multi-storey car park I'm not sure there is any point in me attending when I know the outcome. I will see how I feel in the morning but attending a meeting where there will be my manager, section manager, note taker and HR rep without any benzos seems a frightening prospect.

This morning after the letter from work telling me I have meeting with section manager and HR next week and them telling me it may result in dissmissal I am on a bit of low. I can't work I am on mediocre benefits and 'i can't be a stay at home mum or even drive . Feeeling pretty crap about myself so after taking son to nursery, came back and sat around with all my meds old suicide notes and a new one I had writ. ~I called my care co-ordinator, she came round and converscated all my meds despite ten Lorazepam which ~I mananaged to quiety take and some zolpidem and few paracetamol I had taken before she arrived. She rang me a pedemedic but I didn't go with him I was ok. I just feel a bit blurred. I dont think I will sleep without my benzo later despite the 10 loraz earlier. I wish she hadn't have taken my stash and I would have deffinitiely finished foff the paracetamol at least. hope don't feel the same again tommorow.

Reflection

16 months ago I was referred to Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust for postnatal depression/depression initially.

Since then I have been under the care of the Nottingham Crisis team, Stonebridge community mental Health team, back intermittently to Crisis and I am now under a specialist team called EIP- Early intervention in psychosis who are a team for people under 35 I think who are experiencing onset of psychosis for first time.

I have taken Citalopram, Mirtazapine, Sertraline, Sodium Valproate(depakote) several times, Quetiapine, Risperidone. Also Diazepam, Lorazepam, Temazepam, Clonazepam, Zopiclone, Zolpidem.

I have spent a total of eight weeks as an inpatient on a psychiatric assesment ward away from my family.

And where am I now????

I have a diagnosis. Rapid cycling Bipolar, which is preventing me from working(and I expect P45 shortly), at times from looking after my son from driving(I was told today for at least another six months). I am several thousand pounds less rich and I have alienated family and friends.

I hate it. it has stolen my life and even at the moment when mood is pretty high again I resent it bitterly. Last week I was very suicidal. Last two nights after no sleep and no quetiapine I am making imposible plans, making endless lists, dancing and look like complete opposite. thats how quick it changes. so how can I ever do more than take each day as it comes, which was ok a year ago but I need more. I don't think the NHS can help me all they can do is try and keep me alive.

So where will I be in another 16 months - Alive I hope but a fully functional stable member of society I have my doubts.

Tears and resolutions

Today have been tearful. I remember once as a child my Dad would say whatever happens you must never cry. There was physical consequences for this but I won't discuss that here. For once though I am letting the tears flow, well not so much letting as being unable to stop them.

I went to Shrink appointment and managed not to cry there. I told him I had stopped meds for few days. I told him about the thoughts and my low mood. We have decided that I just take the Depakote if I like, until next week and not the Quetiapine. As for my sleep he has prescribed me Clonazepam which I think this will work as it did in hospital. We will review this next week. I can ring Crisis if things get worse.

My CC is coming round tommorow to collect all my old meds I have horded particularly the 40 Zolpidem that play on my mind. I know this is sensible but I just don't want to give them up. If things get too bad they are my last way to silence the thoughts. And I know how that sounds, but I feel like I need to have them there. Will try and do the right thing.