Posts Tagged ‘crisis team/home treatment team’
Nothing of note to add.
Posted on: April 23, 2012
I guess I’m not been updating because I thought things were going well, but I have returned because they are not. Which means you get to put up with me, if you are reading. Sorry.
The crisis team have been fantastic with me this time and not even putting the phone down when I start off the conversation with “I am so *bleep*ing angry, I don’t know what to say” and end with sobbing uncontrollably and repeating ”Why can’t I just die?” all the time.
The thing I hate about becoming unwell is that I turn into a total bitch and I don’t even mean to. I curse my family, I curse my friends, I curse God, I curse everything and everyone around me. Nobody will let me die, how dare they try to stop me dying? They are selfish, all of them are selfish *bleeps* and they can *bleep* off and not bother pretending to cry at my funeral (I know, I’m terribly dramatic..) Then when I’ve “snapped out of it”, for want of a better phrase, I want to die because I’m such a horrible person and how could I act like this and I don’t deserve to be alive and…and…and…and…rinse and repeat.
My illness is no excuse for my behaviour. I just wish I could stop. Stop being like this. I’ve self harmed a couple of times but I’m not going to consider it a full relapse because it wasn’t really a conscious decision. It’s not really dissociation, but I don’t know what I’m doing at the time.
An unrelated physical health problem is leaving me in constant pain, which isn’t making me the most fun person to be around either. Feeling very sorry for myself.
Other than that… nothing exciting is happening….
Psychological breakthrough.
Posted on: March 9, 2012
I think this is the nicer mental-health-services term for “immense psychological collapse”. Whichever it is, I feel like I’m going through one of them.
The dissociative-type thing has come back in full force. I’m losing large chunks of the day with no recognizable trigger for it. I’ve been trying to employ the usual defences that are suggested by the crisis team and the MH team, like regular sleep, fresh air, exercise, healthy eating (?!) and so on; so when it doesn’t seem to be working, I get even more frustrated. I’ve lost my ability to read well which has really upset me. Reading has always been something that’s calmed me down and given me pleasure, but words simply don’t make sense. I can barely hold a conversation, the almost physical sensation of the chaos inside me is too distracting.
I’m still able to do artwork and play music, occasionally, because it doesn’t involve any human interaction and it keeps me active. I sound horribly selfish and blah but I literally cannot cope with people at the moment. Trying to read someone’s emotions from their face, deciphering an onslaught of speech and then forming a reply… it’s just too much. I haven’t self harmed which I’m pleased about, but the suicidal thoughts are becoming overwhelming. I’ve been tempted to take a relatively small overdose of benzos and/or painkillers – unconsciousness sounds infinitely more appealing than awareness right now.
I don’t see the point in harassing any of the mental health team or the crisis team – trauma is not their “area”. I was meant to be starting therapy but there was a mix-up and I am still months away from the top of the list. The professionals that I see have been clear on the boundaries of what they deal with and the effects of trauma are definitely not one of them. So I don’t really see the point in trying to talk to them. Meanwhile, the less-than-well-oiled machine of NHS talking therapy waiting lists continues to grind and my education/social life/hope goes down the crapper. Excuse my language.
I could complain a lot more but my attention span has reached it’s limit and I think I’m ready to go back to bed. Two hours after getting out of it.
Apologies for the poor quality and spelling and content.
(…and other mental things)
To put the title into context, “rage quit” is a kind of internet language speaking thing, oft-used when someone exits out of an online game they are losing, storming out of a chatroom or a DFE moment – “delete f…. everything”. Like facebook, etc. It is quite literally, quitting with rage. I estimate that I’m not that far away from rage-quitting life.
Although I primarily write about mental health on this blog, I haven’t really touched on the stigma and nasty comments that I get about it. People who don’t just have no understanding, but don’t WANT to have any understanding. People who say I am a danger because I’m mentally ill. People who say I cannot be reasoned with, am not worth talking to and am a chore to deal with. These aren’t professionals, but people that I have to associate with in daily life. Obviously I can’t put that into context, at least at this stage, but these are just a few examples.
Then there are the people that mock me for my career hopes, my hobbies, my skin colour, my culture, my clothes and… my hair. And tonight I went, for want of a better word, mad.
I was washing my hair, aware there were some kitchen scissors in the vicinity, left over from opening some packets. Me being me, I don’t feel that I’m at risk of “self harm” as in “suicide”, so razors, craft knives, scissors, etc. are always around. To cut a long story short, I started hacking at my hair. I wanted to make myself even uglier, for reasons unknown to me. The proximity of the blades to my face gave me even better ideas. Why don’t I just dig my eyes out? Even if I don’t get them out completely, I could at least blind myself. Then I’d never have to see my ugliness, my failure, my foul skin colour, my disappointing choices, my fat, my presence, my scars, ever again.
Thankfully, I think, I stopped myself. It’s a tempting thought. Harming my eyes and my face, this repulsive appearence of mine. As I say, I don’t necessarily feel at “risk”, so I don’t feel like it warrants ringing the helpline or the crisis team. I’m not angry or out of control. I feel in control, I feel quite rational and balanced. I don’t think killing myself would even be a particularly bad thing. If I’m such a waste, it’s not really like the world is going to miss out on anything.
I’m not as positive and stigma-fighting as I make out. I’m hurt. I’m ashamed of myself for things that I largely cannot help and I feel like I’m letting the side down because I’m ashamed.
Gosh. I’m a crap person. Really really crap.
Possible triggers for self harm, substance abuse, eating disorders and generally not very nice thoughts.
I have been released into the community, armed with benzodiazepines and not incredibly further forward than when I went in. My first night in my own bed involved DVDs, rum and a very poor excuse for a wound dressing. The night workers at the supermarket barely raise a brow when I arrive in the late evening at the self-checkout (how annoying is that woman’s voice?!) with various bottles and “sharps”. I don’t necessarily expect them to do anything, but seeing as nearly everyone I do know is indifferent at best towards this latest “episode”, it just makes me feel more invisible.
My team and I have come to an agreement that the aim is not treatment, per se, but management. It’s dreadful of me to say, but the term “management” makes me think of a palliative care patient. There is no treatment or hope - the vast arsenal of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic interventions have seemingly been tried, all that can be done for me now are sympathetic faces and making me as comfortable as possible while I wait to die. The poison that invaded me as a child has turned into some cancerous growth that is taking over my existence and I grieve for the person that I could’ve become, had this disease not taken it away.
I get even more upset when I think of how precarious the balance of my mind really is. I sit among people my age at college and wonder how many of them have families that need to know the protocol for having them detained under the Mental Health Act. It scares me that one day, my family will be faced with that decision, that I would have no control over what people do to me when control is the one thing I need so much. I understand now why people call it going mad. You are entering a strange land with laws and regulations that you don’t understand, in a language you don’t speak and every time you end up going down that path, you wonder if you’re going to return this time.
And I’m resentful and bitter and angry. When I eventually sleep, I am tortured by nightmares. When I’m awake, I’m back on the merry-go-round of cut/drink/purge/cut/drink/purge to just escape the chaos in my head. The sound of the phone ringing sets my heart pounding, someone coming up behind me makes me scream, I can feel thin layers of grains or seeds, some irritant, under the skin on my face. I can see it. I want to claw off the flesh and wash it away.
I don’t think I’m going to return from this one. I don’t know whether what’s happening in my head or what’s happened in reality is the scarier thing.
A crisis.
Posted on: November 21, 2011
“Crisis team” sounds rather grandiose, doesn’t it? It sounds like a group of sweaty, burly, self-sacrificing embodiments of human kindness, responding to major natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, rebuilding homes and hand-feeding tiny children.
Actually, a “crisis team” tells you to go for a walk and have a bath when you’ve decided to end your life.
Maybe crisis care services in the NHS are actually exhibiting signs of acute mania, demonstrated by symptoms of grandiose, delusional behaviour.
…. and I’m in the crazypeoplehousecentre again. Balls.
I am just one big ball of fail and drama teetering on the edge of the border line.
Now that I’ve got the dramatic intro out of the way…
I am feeling rather frustrated. I don’t quite know how the mental health services want you to work. If I don’t ring the crisis team tonight and end up having a Fail and I unfortunately survive it, then they will be annoyed that I’m not taking responsibility for myself. Cue angry psychiatrist and care-coordinator appointments, angry faces, angry angry angry. But. If I DO ring the crisis team because I don’t want to have a Fail, that means that I didn’t ever feel like Failing in the first place, so please leave us alone now thanks bye.
I don’t know whether this is just how treatment works, it wasn’t the case in CAMHS but then it’s a pretty well known fact that child and adolescent mental health care is better than adult mental health care. I really do wish I was back with CAMHS. I miss CAMHS. I’m even starting to miss being inpatient. Before that really does sound crazy, let me explain.
There were one million and one things horrible about being in hospital but. For that period of time, I didn’t have the problems at home that I do now (and the problems most professionals agree contribute to my mentalness a great deal). I was removed from it, limited to a 15 min phone call in the evenings. Rather than exercising alone at night, or just sitting alone crying, I could have a hot chocolate and find a member of staff to talk to (depending on how good the staff were that night!). You were there because you were crazy and everybody feels sad when they think of a crazy young person. Crazy young people deserve trips out and having their makeup done for them and lessons that you might only get half a piece of work done, but they realised just how much it took to complete that half piece of work when your mind was shattering. But somewhere around my 17th birthday, I was propelled into “adulthood”, adult services, adult treatment, adult total disregard for feelings.
I talk to adult services, where my messy little 17 year old self is treated on par with 50+ year olds. I am expected to have life experience and understanding that I just don’t have yet. I study at an adults further education college, where just getting your work done one day when you’d rather kill yourself isn’t an achievement – neither is getting the work done good an achievement. Perfection is an achievement… or was it expected all along? Grades are everything! And what about your career? It’s all about the dollar, baby. No, no, no, we don’t CARE if you’d rather work with people than earn money. Success is measured by your wage packet at the end of the month, the size clothes you wear, the car you drive.
Somehow over the past few months, I’ve built myself a little shrine to Miss Perfect Outwardly. I’m overachieving at college, or was. I signed up to a billion volunteer projects. And then I got offered some more and you can’t turn it down because I thought you were doing well? I thought you were better? We won’t ask how you are because things might not be going well and then you’d have to talk about it.
And this all happened at 12:01am on my 17th birthday. I’m not even out of my teens and I’m now an adult. I’m barely legal to have sex, I couldn’t get married without parental consent, I can’t even drink alcohol.
It’s a very hard gap to bridge. One I think isn’t being addressed enough. In some areas in the country, the cut off for CAMHS is 16. 16? Some eating disorder experts have even gone as far to say as treatment for 16-18s with eating disorders would be better cared for socially, emotionally & educationally in a CAMHS setting, rather than adults specialist eating disorder care.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re really the mental ones in all of this. And I think I’ve ranted enough for tonight. And I’m no further forward in deciding whether to call the crisis team or not.
“Blessed be the cracked, for they let the light shine through”.
Hmm.
Posted on: March 6, 2011
You know that feeling when you have a million words & thoughts in your head & you have no way of expressing them?
For the past few days I’ve been wondering if my mood was going a little bit too high. I had an (understandable) drop in mood when I lost two friends in one week. The funerals were hard. Again, I can’t really explain a lot due to anonymous..ness… & the fact that one has been in the news recently so I’m trying to distance myself as much as possible. But yes, I lost two very dear friends in different circumstances within days of each other. So things have not been great.
The fired-up, electric feeling was sparking up, along with a brilliant burst of creativity & energy. Now I love the creativity. & to an extent, I love having energy. That day or so of increased activity can be useful at times. Obviously though, it will get too far. I have no words to express how it goes too far, everything is super-charged & I end up thinking I’m on some sort of mission & I will upset people & storm out of college & end up being chased by a paramedic or something.
So now I’m waiting for the crisis team to return my two phonecalls over the past 6 hour period. I realise they have other people to contact, but this happened earlier in the week as well. My team are in a blissful state of positivity, believing that I’m coping fine. Oh, all I do is complain on this blog. I promise I will write something more positive soon.
Damn Sundays. Damn culture-of-only-going-mental-between-9-&-5-Monday-to-Friday.
Things were going brilliantly! I didn’t feel low at all, if anything, the absolute opposite! Life was fabulous, I’d finally gotten over this whole “mental illness” thing. BPD? Depression? Pish! I could do anything that I wanted to do. In fact, I wanted to go to university. No, not to study art or fashion… I was going to be a doctor! & a bloody good doctor at that. I could see myself striding onto wards, laying blessings & healings upon the unfortunate “normal” people lying in their hospital beds. I could. I could. Things like Occupational Health & actually getting better didn’t matter because I WAS better! Except for all these bloody people who were trying to hold me back. Saying that was acting irrationally, spending too much money, flirting with too many people, setting my sights too high. I didn’t need them. I didn’t need anyone. I didn’t my family or my friends or my religion or my CMHT or anything. I may as well have been God. I had the power already, right? I had, through some miracle, shed the horrible “mentally ill” label. I felt great! I was lively, passionate, vivacious, wild hair & wild eyes & every other word an expletive. But that was attractive. Damn, I was attractive. I was a funny, fabulous, sexual human being. It was all grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-eat!
& stop.
What an interesting week or so. Now I’m in a permanent state of shame for the things I’ve done & said & spent. & waiting for the crisis team to ring back, as the very flimsy reason for me sitting here now is that I don’t get on with the mental health nurse based at A+E. Obviously, if I survive another attempt, then I’ll have to see them, & after saying that I “look like someone with an overeating disorder”…. I am not the best of friends with them. I honestly don’t think my mind can take much more without breaking.
The phrase “I hope you had a happy holiday” sounds somewhat wrong the context here but oh well. Hope you enjoyed yourselves…!
A change of topic: Careers?
Posted on: December 21, 2010
A bit of a change from the BPD/CMHT ranting. On the menu today is careers: deciding on one, deciding on one that will please everyone else in your life & the most useless reason for suicidal ideation ever..
So it’s a somewhat well known fact that some with BPD (mentioned BPD!! damnit) have difficulty with their sense of self/self image. Well, it’s actually part of the criteria. & this can manifest itself in rather dramatic changes in job, career choices, study choices, religion, sub-culture that one identifies with, etc. My religion has always stayed stable, but the biggy for me is career choices & study choices.
I changed my mind about three/ four times before settling on my performing arts course at college. Including applying for said courses, then ringing up & asking to be put down on the other course. Cue much confusion from my potential lecturers when it came to induction day. Now we are coming up to that time of the year when application forms are sent off, audition & interviews held & pro-plus/red bull becomes part of the staple diet ready for exams. Of course, I haven’t the foggiest about what I will be doing, come September ’11. I haven’t the foggiest what I will be applying for in the first place. Some very lucky people just know what they want to do with their lives, or know exactly what their talent is & how they will use it. Brilliant, awesome, lovely for you. Spare a though for us poor souls that bumble through life with smoked up glasses, not quite sure whether the lack of obstacles & increase in free choice is due to finally walking in the right direction, or finally walking over a cliff.
An important aspect of the personality of yours truly – I have a MASSIVE fear of doing something that isn’t “acceptable” to someone else. Monumental. I am not one of these young people who just love to shock & be individual. No, everything about me is moulded on some opinion of someone else. People don’t think I should be a dancer = discarded much-loved idea of studying dance further at college. People expect me to go to university = I am apparently going to university. To do what, exactly, I have yet to be told. Medicine, psychology & social work have been mentioned.
At one point, this would’ve been true. But there has been a great shift in my outlook recently, one that I don’t think will be very popular but here we go. I’m wondering whether I really want to study something like that & go into mental health. I’m tired of mental health, I’m tired of the medicine & the crappy ideas people get on how to treat it, I’m tired of the approaches to mental health that must be spewed out, even when they don’t work. I want to do something fun & creative & free & that isn’t going to remind me of some of the most dark moments of my life. & I feel the worst person on earth for thinking that. I want to surround myself with beautiful & inspiring & hopeful things, things that will make me enjoy being alive.
Helping other people, counselling, charity work, voluntary work.. this is all acceptable to other people. “She works with disadvantaged people.” “She’s a student doctor, you know.” Whereas “She’s at university studying fashion & where to get the best Americano’s” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Or is it just me? I sound like such an evil, evil person, I know.
It’s such a stupid thing to feel suicidal over, absolutely pathetic, but I really feel now as if there’s no point in carrying on. I get nasty comments already about doing performing arts, I will be letting so many people down if I don’t keep up this facade. & I feel as if somehow I’m turning my back on all those people out there that are suffering. Because people who’ve suffered abuse & mental health problems generally want to turn around & help others going through the same thing, right? That’s the normal response. Except I don’t. I’m just being selfish & pathetic & disappointing everyone around me. The CRHT would reeeeally love me if I rang up, going “I can’t decide what to do at college & it’s making me want to kill myself.” Sorry, couldn’t help getting in just an teeeeny little snipe about the crisis team there…
I have no positive way to end this post, really. Apart from thank you for all the votes on the mental nurse site for this blog.
- In: Abuse | borderline personality disorder | CAMHS | Depression | Hospital | Mental Illness | Self harm
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Things weren’t great, but I was safe to an extent. I’ve started self harming again, after almost 8 months free, which is bad but. I was getting out and doing stuff and trying to struggle on.
One fell off and banged his head.
The full punch-in-the-balls realisation about my past experiences has hit me. Hard. I’m trying to accept years of psychological and sexual abuse. My feelings, my trust in people, my sense of self have been raped, violated, vandalized. It’s like being in shock after a car crash, only to realise that you’re missing limbs but you couldn’t feel the pain until now. And then it hurts. Maybe there’s no word in the English language that can describe the pain of being violated, physically and emotionally. It’s the most horrible, degrading, destructive, vindictive, soul-tearing, heart-breaking thing ever. I feel disgusting and damaged and abused.
I’ve been spending most of the day in bed, crying, and crying in bed. I’ve eaten nothing but fish finger sandwiches. I managed to force myself to have a bath, but that was hard work. I could tell that I was heading up for “something” but I didn’t realise just what that something was.
Mummy called the doctor, the doctor said…
Last night, I made another less-than-well-planned kind-of suicide attempt. I remember doing that, being forced to take PRN and then everything is hazy from that. Then I woke up this morning, tried again in vain to open the medication case, had to get forced to take more PRN and call the crisis team before going to sleep. They came out to see me an hour or so later, and told me to try and keep myself safe for the next 24 hours until a plan can be sorted. Meanwhile, I’ve got permission to cut and the family have permission to give me the most PRN I can take safely, so that I sleep and don’t do anything. The nurses said hospital wouldn’t help but may be a necessity.
The great, great news is that because I’m soon going to be too old for CAMHS and too young for the CMHT… nobody knows what to do with me anyway. I won’t have CAMHS, the doctor I would’ve been seeing in the Adult Services only sees people from 18… inpatient CAMHS wouldn’t have me, it’s unlikely that an Adult’s unit would take me. They’ve admitted they actually don’t know what to do with me. I’m in a warped kind of mental health purgatory, waiting for punishment for my sin of being human and crazy.
I’m writing this because I need to talk it over to make sense of it, and because my last tablet hasn’t kicked in yet. I’m tempted to try something again. I really cannot cope anymore. I don’t want to cope anymore because it’s too hard and it hurts and I’m just disgusting and evil and sullied and bad and nasty and dirty. I wonder what’s going to happen tommorow…
I want to kill myself.
No more monkeys jumping on the bed.
