I have been to see my CC – it went well. I told her about hte funny thoughts I am having, the hallucinations and the increase in voices. I expect a call from the GP tomorrow or Friday – I wish they would leave me alone.

I have lots of ideas but as soon as I think of them they disappear like a puff of smoke in the wind, any ideas I do keep hold of seem to be bad ones and stupid.

I wonder what will happen next?

I can still function OK – I have cooked a nice meal and the house is clean and tidy. I am dressed and presentable, I can tie my own shoelaces and decide between coffee or tea, I can even still write in joined up writing. I will not, however take their tablets or do as I am told. Does that make me mad or lacking in insight?

Yesterday was a different day…………..

Here is a good tune……..

My computer has been speaking to me again, it’s nothing new, it has happened before and it doesn’t scare me. It tells me weird stuff that don’t really make sense sometimes and it takes me places I don’t always want to go. Last night my computer told me that people are putting their thoughts in my head, I know this is true because I keep thinking unrelated thoughts which suddenly appear. I don’t know who these people are though otherwise I would ask them to stop.

I am sleeping OK ish with the Zopiclone, but I wake up a lot and it takes me a while to get back off, I know this is a classic sign of depression, I know I have several other classic signs too. Anti-depressants don’t help that much which is why I stopped mine along with the anti-psychotics and Lithium.

I see my CC today, I really like her but I wish they would all leave me alone.

Atlas

I drew a picture of you

In my mind.

Looking for every inconsistency

I could find,

Mapping the great divide

I coloured in.

You cannot hide

The black ink.

Love coloured pinky blush

Cold jagged blue,

Yellow where deserts lie,

Green, a stinking hue.

I posted the picture,

On my wall,

Set high way above

Over it all.

Cartography of life

I wrote this poem sometime a go when I was more lucid, It means something important and horrible at the same time,

I haven’t been doing too well recently, in fact I have been at rock bottom and have almost killed myself. I am writing this post to distract myself from the ghastliness of it all because I am getting beyond distress and to a certain calmness that I don’t understand but that somehow fills me with foreboding – and yes I know that makes little sense. The voices are almost constantly telling me I would be better off dead and I believe them. I am filled with paranoia and there are people out there who are making me think things I don’t want to think. So I write………or more correctly I blog becuase I still am……LOL.

I have been thinking about MH services and the type of service I would like but I get ahead of myself let me first talk of the service I get. I have a Psychiatrist who is kind, intelligent, respectful and diligent, I see him fortnightly. I have a Care Coordinator who is also a Social Worker, she also is kind, compassionate and insightful, she always does what she says she will and if I ring her she always gets back to me, she sees me every week and would see me more, I think, if I let her. I have a GP who rings me up and asks me to go see her when she hears I am not doing too great and when I am better than I am now she sees me every two to three weeks, lately she has seen me twice a week. My GP is kind, respectful and caring but just a touch scary and she will not let me disengage no matter how hard I try. She has listened to me and respects my desire not to be admitted agaist my will. These three people have been the mainstay of my MH service and have managed to keep me alive.

I have been sectioned in the past and the care in the acute unit was abysmal – I would burn down the unit and start again. I would staff it with nurses who actually talk to patients and engage in at least some therapeutic exchange, rather than nurses who are only interested in order and giving out drugs and drinking tea. I would employ Psychiatrists who listen to patients and not just prescribe for them, telling them to be good girls and take their medication. I would make the rooms in the wards welcoming and different rather than like cells. I would make the food edible.

I have met the Crisis Team, who would not know a crisis if it hit them. I would first of all have them learn how to introduce themselves properly. Crisis Teams seem primarily interested in medication – is that all there is? I think not……

I have also had talking therapy which to me seems banal and unhelpful and somewhat contrived – I chose not to talk.

So what service do I want? – I don’t honestly know, there must be better ways to deliver acute care and I haven’t read or heard one good word about Crisis Teams. The good service I have had has been given by individuals who often themselves grimace at the system. I wish I had answers but I don’t – all I can say is that it is the individuals make up the service who count.

So this post like my mental state makes no sense, offers little insight and rambles. To make amends here is a good song…………..

Today I went somewhere with the clear intention of killing myself. I parked up in the country in my car and was fully prepared and equipped to do the act. I was mentally and every other way prepared. I sat there for a while, carefully picking the spot and just as I made up my mind – a car pulled up. Hmm. It is a cold and wet Saturday morning – who could it be? Out bounced a family of four complete with dog. I sat there as they played with the dog, throwing a ball and chasing each other as they laughed. I waited for them to go, eventually they all piled back in the car and I breathed a sigh of relief. Out came the flask and sandwiches. Hmm. Then something happend – the little girl waved at me and smiled……..

Now I didn’t hear angels singing, the sun didn’t suddenly shine and I wasn’t filled with happiness – I felt guilty and small and suddenly scared. I thought of my children, my family…….everyone……….. all of them. They all ran around in my head, clamoring for attention and screaming …….BUT WHAT ABOUT US? Of course I drove away. In fact I went home and washed the kitchen floor – it was filthy after all.

So here I am – not really saved by a child’s smile nor by love or bravery or anything else glorious, clean and fine. But instead stopped by guilt – a nasty, mean little emotion that creeps up and fill your head before you know it. Of course some people could argue that my connectedness to others prevented me from the act of suicide, some how I think not.

As I write this it strikes me as pathetically funny……………LOL

I wrote a post which I deleted about an hour or so after not because what I wrote wasn’t true or what I really felt but because it was too painful to leave it posted. I still feel the same – I want to die.

I am on a ramshackle suicide watch at the moment seeing my GP at least twice a week interspersed with the Care-Coordinator. I am a hair’s breadth from compulsory admission, saved from it, I believe, only because I display some insight and because I gave my GP good reasons why admission wouldn’t help which she agreed with on the whole.

My mental state is confused and at the same time clear, I vary between being able to sit and write, as now, to being immobile and mute, to being in a restless agitation in which I can neither sit still or concentrate. The voices I hear have multiplied from two (there have always been two) to many, so many I cannot identify them all, none are kind and most just want me to harm myself telling me the world would be much brighter without me. I self harm but even that brings no relief anymore and the overwhelming urge is to end it. Maybe when the confusion becomes less than the clarity I will be sure and find peace.

People ask where voices come from and I am assured by the professionals that mine are symptoms of my distress, I find this difficult to believe and am increasingly aware that instead the voices are from another dimension which reflect all the truth from here. The voices tell the truth.

I wrote a poem which tries to demonstrate how voices are – I reproduce it below but it is meant to be read out loud really so it may just look confusing and pointless.

Voices For Three, Four or More………….

How have you been? Say you’re a twat

I’ve not been too well

I’ve tried my best

But, well, you know

The voices and that….

How are you sleeping? We want you to bleed

Not really that good

It sometimes feels

Like I’m slow

Then I’ll speed

What makes you worse? It’s time you were dead

I’m not so sure

People and stuff

I can’t handle

The things in my head

What makes you better? You’re a worthless shite

I really don’t know

Not sure it’s the pills

I take them regular

Always at night

See you next month You’re a stupid fat cow

Yes, well, thanks

I’ll keep on with these

Maybe they’ll help

But I don’t know how…..

I have to go now my ability to still still and concentrate is waning and the voices are angry because I have written about them. I am reading lots of others blogs which somehow help, I very rarely leave comments because what I write always sounds trite and banal.

I like this track………….

So I saw the CC and made the mistake off being honest. Then the GP rings me at 6pm on Friday night, the CC has spoken to her and they are both very worried, she knows I have a busy weekend ahead, (I have to go somewhere, it is really important, and I told the CC) but will I go see her this Monday, so that means I will see her on Monday and Thursday and the CC on Tuesday. Hmm.

I read the Shrinks blog about the MH Act (referred there by Mandy of course!). I understand the MH Act – I have been detained under it, they may very well use it to detain me again after my sudden bout of honesty especially if it continues.

So I have two speeches for my GP one where I tell her I am OK and I have no plans to kill myself and that I know the voices are part of my mental illness and that it could perhaps be treated by medication. I will tell her I am sorry for causing trouble and I will keep my appointments and see my Shrink or whichever Shrink they want me to see. Or then there is the other speech where I say I am OK, please leave me alone, I know the voices are right, they tell the truth and I would be better off dead. I don’t want any medication, it doesn’t help and it makes me feel ill, numb and slow. I can tell her my plans and that it is all arranged, no need to worry, I have made provision.

The truth is I don’t know which to tell her, I want to be honest and say what I feel, how I feel, what I know and I want her to say “OK, I understand, I really understand. you don’t have to come anymore, we will leave you alone”

There is a phrase that repeats in my head, it is Rolf Harris saying  “Do you know what it is yet?” Don’t they know what it is yet? Can they not see that admission to a crap Acute Ward will not help? Nor will a hand full of tablets and a quick bit of CBT from some over-worked nurse. I need and want to be left alone to get on in my own way, to sink or swim by my own hand. I don’t need help. I want choice. I can see what it is on my own.

(I edited this post and even here I am not being entirely honest – Can you see what it is yet?)

I am tired and fed up of fighting everyone. Can someone tell me the f*cking point please?

Saw my GP today, I had to go otherwise they would have come looking. I am walking a fine line, she did consider sectioning me. I had to agree to see the CMHT again. I hate this. I told her the pills were poisoning me and that I had struck a deal with the voices. I told her I was fine. But I still have to go tomorrow to see the CC, my Shrink is off ill so I have to see the GP every week and the CC as well. It feels like my life is not my own. Luckily they are not trying to get me to go back on the pills.

The voices are terrible tonight, they are angry with me for going back to the CMHT. I tried to tell them at least I am not taking the pills but they won’t listen to me.I watched Masterchef whilst hearing how disgusting and weak I am. The voices are right, I am weak and stupid. The Shrink and the CC tell me the voices are a symptoms of my distress, I know this isn’t true. The voices are from another dimension and can see the truth.

The voices which trouble me are a little worse. They have been worse since my last therapy session and they get worse when I see the Shrink too. This is partly why I have discharged myself from the CMHT, The voices suggested it to me and said if I did discharge myself they would leave me alone more, but I wanted to do it myself too, what good is a CMHT that makes you worse?

As for stopping the medication, this was my idea, it dulls and numbs me and it doesn’t stop me feeling bad or stop me hearing voices so there is little point in taking it. Anyway the depression seems to be going now and I tend to think it is the passage of time rather than any medication that has done this.