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…………..
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.
Well I have discharged myself from the CMHT. It went very well. I told them I had stopped the meds and I didn’t want to see the CC or Shrink anymore. The response was in a nutshell “Well OK – you can ring us if you need us” – No thanks I don’t think I will be doing that anytime soon. Like I said before I feel relieved – no more appointments, no more traumatic therapy sessions and no more stupefying, numbing drugs. I don’t feel depressed anymore. I don’t feel manic, the voices do trouble me but I am learning to cope with them so I should be OK without the drugs.
I can go back to being me now instead of a mental health patient.
A forum I belong to had a posting about delusions, basically it said many Shrinks were deluded by their own sense of self importance, well that’s an interesting point of view and from some of the experiences I have heard about I aren’t going to argue.
But talk of delusions made me think of me and my own particular madness. I know that it has been said I am delusional, mainly about the voices I hear, I have been told that the voices are a symptom of my distress; but I don’t believe this to be necessarily true. I have my own set of beliefs about the voices but I keep my ideas to myself now as it does me no good to start holding forth on what I think as then I am delusional or to put it another way my beliefs are different from the professionals.
To be sane it seems that I (and everyone else) have to fit into a nice safe little pigeon hole and if I don’t fit then I am “mentally ill” “unstable” and “mad”. So the best thing is to keep my beliefs to myself and agree with them. So if I know to do this am I mad at all? What is madness anyway?
I went for my bloods doing today, I was also weighed as the Shrink needs to work out the correct dose of Lithium for me I have been thinking about medication a lot and why I take it. I take it because it is better than the alternative which is a psyche ward. Of course I do get suicidal, and I am teetering on the edge of feeling that way again, so I guess death is an alternative too. But it is far more likely I would go off on some acutely psychotic episode raving about voices and trying to cut myself to ribbons.
I have been on a psyche ward against my will before and I won’t let that happen again. I was sectioned because I was suicidal and was displaying a distinct lack of insight. Poor Shrink didn’t really have a choice he knew I would kill myself if he didn’t send me in. Being held against your will is not fun , it’s is frightening and totally disempowering. I was coerced into taking mind numbing medication when I didn’t behave, told when to go to bed, told when to eat and told when I could shower. I don’t want to have to go through that again so I take the medication.
The medication helps, it numbs the pain down slightly and it makes me less liable to hallucinate or become manically depressed. The medication doesn’t stop the voices, it doesn’t really stop me being depressed and it doesn’t take away a lot of my other symptoms such as flashing lights and stuff. It all has side effects too; a tremor from the anti-psychotics and a fuzziness that lasts till the afternoon, when I come off them I will have to do it slowly. The Lithium can damage my kidneys and make me hypothyroid. I have no doubt I am addicted to the sleeping tablets.
So for me it is a bit of a balancing act – demons or medication.
Work is going OK but I have only been there for a total of five hours. I am more clear about what it is they want me to do and to be honest I do have the skills to do it. It is around redesigning systems and processes to improve service; at the moment everything is a little piecemeal and held together with sellotape.
My mental state however is not that good, I am lost in a fug of depression which just gets denser and deeper. I continue to take my pills like the good little psyche patient I am, in fact I have to get my Lithium levels checked tomorrow. Today I heard voices almost constantly and concentration was a bit of a worry but I got through it
I see my Shrink on Tuesday so I will check with him if it is OK to take the odd extra anti-psychotic.
Saw my nice Shrinky today and have to start the Lithium tonight. He was very informative and told me the risks and presumed benefits of the drug, the most common side effects, that it might take a long time to work and that it might do nothing at all. I don’t think he could have told me any more than he has. It has to be titrated so it means blood tests for a while till it is at the right level in my blood. Whatever will be will be.
Also went for my eyes testing, I get light flashes and stuff which are almost certainly due to me being bonkers but as my glasses seem to be no good to read with now I thought an eye test would be in order. Apparently my eyes are getting worse due to my getting older so I have two shiny new pairs of glasses on order (buy one get one free!). Another reason I must go back to work!
I was troubled with the voices quite a lot today. they always kick up an unpleasant fuss when I see Shrinky (I think he scares them) and plus with the eye test I was in strange surroundings which also makes them kick off. Tonight has been a lot better and they have been quiet. I have been finding stuff that help me cope with them and things like deep breathing and stuff help but in the middle of the Opticians it’s a bit hard to ask them to hang on while you do three mantras and a bit of heavy breathing.
My mood at the movement is quite positive, I feel a bit more together than I have for a while and I am being productive instead of sitting and thinking stuff. The house is spotless, been cooking a lot, all the clothes are clean. I am preparing for my return to work, written a few lists of things I need to do i.e. get a new bag, diary, stationary (I love new stationary – pads, notebooks, pens, pencils, feltpens, rubbers, rulers, highlighters, those little sticky tags things you can get, did I say pads and notebooks?) Tried writing a few action plans but they aren’t good enough so must do more work on them.
I am beginning to wonder if I really need the medication and especially the Lithium. I feel like I could stop it and see how things go, I hate it anyway and sometimes I do wonder if they just fob you off with what they can think of to keep you quiet. I will I think write some questions to ask Shrinky when I see him that’s if I go at allnot even sure if I need their help (?) anymore.
It comes to something when the event of your day is seeing your shrink. I need to get out more but I don’t really like it when I do go out, too many people, too much noise and it is very bright sometimes. Anyway the point is I saw my shrink and he is doing the blood tests and stuff before I start the Lithium. He says it won’t stop the voices but it might stabilize my mood. I hope it does. I am sick and tired of myself – utterly and completely. Being a bit of an interweb freak saddo with nothing else to do I have read up on Lithium, it’s risks and benefits and all that mularkey – I would take the risks gladly if it stopped these feelings and the stuff that goes with them. So I wait my renal function tests and assorted others with bated breath – like you do.
The voices carry on with their abuse, I am so used to it now I can handle it mostly but if I am particularly low or disconnected they can reduce me to a smudge of myself a little spot of grease where I used to be. People nod like they know what I mean when they say I hear voices, I think people think it is like thinking thoughts in words but it isn’t. It is like someone telling you something complicated whilst you listen to someone rave on about how bad, stupid, dirty etc etc you are – well thats how it is for me sometimes, other times it like having a running commentary on my life. If I am really lucky the computer talks to me too. The voices are outside my head not inside.
I know others experience it differently, some have friendly supportive voices, others hear angels or demons, some even hear God. I don’t, I hear two little nasty sarcastic voices which sap my non-existent confidence and my non-existent self esteem. I am told by my shrink and others that these voices are manifestations of my distress, that makes sense sometimes but other times I believe they have been sent to punish me.
I am doing a particular type of therapy to help with the voices but at the moment it just seems to make things worse – Ho hum.
Posted by p3bbles 
Posted by p3bbles 
Posted by p3bbles 