You're Worse Than Severely Depressed

Continued from 'Hitting Crisis Point' and my PIP post...

Sorry it's taken a while to post this. I wrote it but was too drained to draw an image for it. The weekend was so exhausting I still don't feel up to drawing about it, so I'm just gonna post and I might add drawings later.

By midday we'd spent hours with the Crisis Team and even longer on the phone with Atos and DWP staff. I was exhausted and disconnected, and my husband was running out of energy too. Yet he had more to do. As we still hadn't been able to contact my boss, he phoned again, although my boss didn't ring back until later in the afternoon. They had a chat about my condition and we thought nothing more about it. We didn't dwell because we were still waiting for the psychiatrist who'd added me to his list of home visits.

It was after working hours when the psychiatrist arrived and I'm not going to go through everything we discussed because I've been through the same discussion so many times since 3am on Friday morning. However, he discussed my history and what was happening at present. He scored me. He inhaled, lifted his head and said "You're more than severely depressed."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Finally, someone had said what I'd been trying to get people to believe for months and months. I also have an Avoidant Personality, apparently, although I'm not sure about that. It's something that needs looked into. I've looked up both Avoidant Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, and while I do have a number of Avoidant traits, I'd say I had far more Boderline traits, but I'll discuss that another day. Either way, I was believed. Someone looked at me and confirmed I was right. Despite often feeling I'm not bad enough for help, I am "more than severely depressed".

The psychiatrist left me on Sertraline for depression but he added Diazepam for anxiety, that will be a temporary thing until a treatment plan comes into affect, but hopefully it'll help. He also prescribed Zopiclone to help me sleep. What a cocktail of drugs for someone who avoided antidepressants for sixteen years. But I'm not fighting it anymore. My condition has long since become a disability and I need to accept any help there is.

That was Friday night. The doctor also arranged for a nurse to come out and see me today, Saturday (I might post this in a few days, but trust me, as I write it's Saturday). The nurse cane in the morning, he was lovely, reconfirmed a few things about the Crisis Team and told me I'd get copies of my assessments and treatment plan which I could then show anyone who needed to see evidence of my condition. I was in an ok mood then. Not like a normal person, but for me. The Zopiclone and finally getting help had allowed me a better nights sleep and even though I still felt a bit disconnected, I was alright. When he left, I retained a little of the previous night's relief.

Then the post woman knocked on my door and hubby had to sign for a letter... from work. Human Resources are not happy that I didn't phone them on Thursday. They've arranged a meeting at work for November 3rd despite knowing I can't attend meetings. They've said I can take another employee in with me... a colleague I haven't seen since March, despite knowing all communication really needs to go through my husband because I can't cope. They haven't asked if there was a reason I hadn't phoned. They didn't try phoning me before sending the letter. What they fail to appreciate is that I was not well enough to phone them on Thursday, although my husband had tried to contact my boss. I was heading towards crisis point and as much as they have concerns about the impact of my illness on the business, my priority has to be surviving another day.

The letter talked about occupational health meetings, about being obstructive, about termination of my employment on grounds of ill health. I have a disability. What they're asking of me I can't provide. I can't attend those meetings any more than a paraplegic can walk up the stairs. I'm trying to get better. I'm seeking help, but I can't tell them when I'll be better. The Department of Work and Pensions defines a disability as 'a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long term effect upon your ability to do normal daily activities'. My depression and anxiety is a disability, and at the moment it seems I'm going to me dismissed for that, because at present work are asking me to do things I just can't do and not giving me the time I need to complete my treatment.

I understand it's a difficult one for work. I'm the only person in my role and they can't wait forever. At the same time, I have a disability which I am actively trying to recover from enough to function. I'm not pulling a sicky so I can go to the cinema and see friends every day rather than working. I'm on sick leave because the idea of getting in a car and going among other people makes me want to end my life. I hate myself so much and these letters are adding to that. If someone walked up to a person in a wheel chair and tipped them out, the word would have a problem, yet it's somehow acceptable to send accusatory and stress inducing correspondence directly to someone with mental health issues even though you've been told she can't communicate well at the moment and you should contact her husband. What double standards is that?

What people continually fail to appreciate is that those letters, have. Consider the following phrases: 'assessment', 'capability meeting', 'you did not contact me as requested', 'in light of your refusal', 'medical capability', 'little likelihood of return within a reasonable timescale', 'notice of termination of your employment', 'if there is any relevant information which you believe we ought to consider, then it is in your own interests to make it available to us for the meeting', 'confirm that you are able to attend no less than 72 hours prior to the meeting to facilitate travel arrangements', 'obstructive', 'failure to respond', 'impact of your absence on our organisation or resources', 'I trust you understand the reasons behind this letter, as we do have sympathy with your situation and I have no wish to worry you at this difficult time. However, we do need to consider the operational needs of the organisation and consider what decisions need to be made.'

Those words cause anxiety, feelings of failure, depression, self loathing... they push me when pushing could cause my death. I know I'm blunt about that, but it's where I am these days. I can be blunt about suicide because thoughts of it are my daily companion and one trigger could see me back at crisis point or dead. You can't assess a paraplegic on their failure to walk, so why is it ok to assess someone with mental health issues on their 'failure to respond' especially when you've been neglecting to try her mobile or hold conversations with her husband? It's discriminatory, but because I have an invisible, mental illness, it's accepted.

Telling me I failed to respond is a bit like telling a one armed man he failed to clap his hands. Only in this case it's worse because I didn't ever receive the letters they wanted me to respond to (or, incidentally, any payslips or tax documents) since March and they didn't try ringing my mobile, a number they've had for the duration of my employment, until last week. A number that is answered when it is called, by my husband if not by me.

I'm not being obstructive, not anymore than a man with a zimmerframe is obstructive because he's blocking the corridor walking slower than able bodied people have patience for.

It's not that I'm refusing further assessments. That implies a choice. It's that I can't face further assessments, not when I'm already barely coping with seeing my GP, the Community Mental Health Team, the Crisis Team, PIP... I just can't do it. Does a blind woman refuse to see? No, she just can't do it.

As for returning within a reasonable timescale, what is reasonable? Before or after I stop feeling like driving my company car off a cliff during my daily commute? Before or after walking in front of a reversing truck on a building site seems like a good idea? Before of after I recover my ability to answer a phone call? Who assesses what a reasonable timescale for recovery from a disability is?

As for providing evidence as it's in my own interests, how threatening does that sound? They've had my sick notes. When my sick notes failed to be delivered, HR phoned and my husband emailed copies of them to the relevant person. My doctor knows I'm not fit to work, what evidence could an HR Business Partner and Business Manager interpret better than my doctor?

They want me to confirm attendance with more than 72 hours to spare so that they can arrange travel. They, the people who can manage to drive or use public transport. I don't know if I'm going to be fit for a meeting 72 hours in advance. I could agree and then be floored by a panic attack on the day (likely) or disagree because I'm having a bad day them be ok 72 hours later (even though that's less likely). Once again, they're asking me to do something my disability prevents me from doing. All I can do is say I can't attend. And then no doubt they'll say I've 'failed' to do what's necessary. That I 'refuse' as though it's a choice. Or that I'm being 'obstructive'. All verbs and adjectives that would be deemed discriminatory if used to describe the impairments of physically disabled people.

But I guess that it's ok to discriminate against those who can't attend meetings. Who can't say, go and see a solicitor to discuss the possibility of legal action. It's easy to discriminate against people whose disability is mental because they're less likely to have the ability to fight. But that isn't solely a problem within business, its a problem within society and the government. People don't understand mental illness. There's still so much stigma attached to it... We're unusual so people fear us. We're vulnerable, so people discriminate. That's something we have to deal with alongside our conditions.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx

Hitting Crisis Point

This week has been hard. It started out hard. It continued to be hard. Work phoned me asking me to go to an occupational health meeting, which my anxiety means I can't do, and they started the conversation about whether I'd come back at all. They asked me to phone back on Thursday to tell them what I'd decided.  On top of that I had a PIP assessment scheduled on Friday. The result of this added pressure was a complete melt down.

It started with a panic attack on Thursday. My heart raced. My throat closed so I couldn't swallow or breathe and the thoughts in my head spiralled out of control. I cut to regain control. I cut a lot. And my mind was telling me to cut deep enough to die. Normally I cut my left leg, my calf is scars from ankle to knee. Thousands of marks on my skin. But right then it wasn't enough. I've cut the other leg too. I've cut my arm.

It took a lot for my husband and friend to calm me down. My friend wanted me to phone the Crisis Team and it was after work hours before I managed to get cleaned up and go downstairs. I missed my chance to phone human resources but tried to push it out of my mind because my husband had been trying to phone my boss all day, he'd sort it the next day. I thought I'd come through the panic attack, but I hadn't.

The worries didn't stop swirling and lying in bed at night, I wanted everything to stop. I didn't want to deal with work and my failure to keep my job. I didn't want to deal with a PIP assessor judging me. I decided I would rather die. I wasn't sure were husband had my pills and he'd removed all sharp objects after my earlier self-harm session. However, I knew he'd left his car keys hanging from the front door. I knew I could get up, go downstairs, drive away, drive off the coastal cliffs. So I rolled over and woke up my husband. I told him to phone the Crisis Team.

The last time I'd felt so bad, I started swallowing pills. I intended to swallow enough to kill myself. I'd promised the doctors that if it happened again, I'd phone the Crisis Team. Initially, attempting that made me worse. The Crises Team triage nurse asked why we hadn't phoned a GP earlier. Why I hadn't contacted my GP for something for anxiety. It made me feel I'd done the wrong thing calling. She added guilt to my already swirling emotions. But that wasn't all. One of the first things I said was that I'd tried to overdose on fluoxetine previously, then when I said I was planning to get in the car and drive off a cliff, the conversation went something like this. (Paraphrased slightly because I wasn't fully focused and 4am while planning my demise.)

Nurse: "Have you ever done something like this before?"
Me: "Well I've gotten in the car and started driving before..."
Nurse: "No, no... But you didn't actually do it."
Me: ... At this point I was dumbfounded and couldn't say what I was thinking, which was 'clearly not as you're talking to me tonight.'
Nurse: "Have you ever attempted suicide before?"
Me: "As I said earlier, I've taken a planned overdose of fluoxetine before."

Right then, I was back to thinking my depression wasn't bad enough. My suicidal thoughts weren't bad enough. The nurse thought I should've phoned my GP, not her, even though my GP referred me to the Community Mental Health Team because I need specialist help. Then getting in a car and starting a drive towards death wasn't enough because I turned back. What she failed to realise was that to me, that drive and my attempted overdose are the same. Someone intervened.

With the overdose, my husband came in and grabbed the pills off me then phoned the paramedics. During the twice I've almost taken the car and gone, a chance phone call has intervened. Once, my husband phoned just as I put the key in the ignition. He said my son wanted mammy to come in and say goodnight before he went to bed. (I'd come home from work and parked outside, then spent an hour thinking about suicide before putting the key in the ignition and preparing to do it.) My son wanting me was enough to draw me into the house.

The second time, when I actually did start driving, I had to pull over because I was crying too hard to drive. My mam phoned. She talked. She persuaded me to wait for my husband to come to me. He did, with our kids in the car as we had no babysitters. Seeing my kids dragged me back from going through with my plan. To me, there's no difference between the overdose and the times I got in the car. In all three cases I was intent on completing my plan. I was going through the motions of doing it. On three occasions, my family intervened.

On paper, I've made one suicide attempt, and because of how few pills I managed to take I feel medical professionals don't feel I was genuine. What they don't realise is that my husband had to grab the pills away because I continued swallowing them even after he came in. They don't hear the desperation of those telephone conversations in my car. To me, I've started implementing suicide plans on three occasions. 

If I'd actually driven off the cliff, it would have been a suicide, not an attempted suicide. What I did was an attempt, an attempt where my husband intervened. Turning on the ignition was the same to me as swallowing the first pill. Putting my foot on the accelerator was the second. Releasing the handbrake was the third. Pulling out of my street was the fourth. To me, each step forward made it more likely I'd kill myself, but until the point of death there was still a chance for my family to intervene. At the moment the triage nurse said 'but you didn't do it', my need to get in the car grew exponentially. I wanted to hang up. Fight my husband for his keys. I wanted to end it all so I didn't have to fight anymore.

After that the nurseasked me if the Crisis Team could send someone around to talk to me. I said I didn't know because I'm not good with strangers and her phrasing had made me feel guilty for phoning., in response, she asked to speak to my husband and I handed over the phone. That was when the nurse asked my husband if I seemed 'reluctant to engage' and his temper started to fray.

He told her that I that I'd been trying to get help for months. That I'd told him to phone because I wanted help. He told her that she'd made me feel guilty for phoning. He even asked her what her job actually was, and that's not like him at all. I'm not sure if she answered that, but he agreed she could send people over. Then I sat in fear, wondering if someone as guilt inducing as the triage nurse would turn up on my door step.

Luckily, the two guys who came out were really nice. They listened. They discussed options. They agreed with me and my family that I needed immediate help but that hospitalisation would do more damage than good. At 5am in the morning, two strangers walked in, listened, and came up with a plan. Once again, I'd had to be ready to die before that help arrived, but it was there, and that was a good thing. They promised to arrange a psychiatrist visit for later that day (Friday) or Monday at the latest. They promised I'd see a nurse on Friday if the doctor couldn't come, and on Saturday. Then they told me to wrap up and have a hot drink and they went on their way to begin formulating a treatment plan.

I'd like to say I was grateful, because I was, although the emotion was felt through a fog. I was exhausted. I'd cried myself out. I felt completely disconnected but at least I was safe and someone had promised help. I thought that if I could endure the PIP assessment, I'd be OK...

But, of course, Atos don't have a reputation for treating PIP applicants well.

Continued in next post...

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx

Two Hundred and Eighteen

218. That's the number of times I put a razor to my leg at 3am and pressed down, drawing it through my skin and then watching as blood welled and trickled over my calf. My left leg is scars from just above my ankle to just below my knee. Scar, after scar, after scar, one on top of another. In the past I've had words cut into my skin. 'Help' was the first phrase I wrote. 'Kill yourself' was the last. Not that the words are visible now. Not under the scars I've added since.

218. That's the number of cuts it took to calm myself out of putting my suicide plans into action last night.

Why cut?
Sounds contradictory doesn't it, that hurting myself can stop me from doing something worse. I know a lot of people who've never been where I am can't get their head around it when I say cutting gives me control. It's a pain I can choose to stop if I want. It's also a distraction. Very rarely it's a punishment, and when I start out punishing myself it quickly becomes soothing because I'm so used to being calmed by that familiar pain. I've acclimatised to it because I've been using cutting to cope since I was fourteen. It's how I self-soothe.

Cutting myself was the terrifying act which made me seek medical assistence in my early teens. My doctor referred me to a counsellor but the next time I saw him he told me that because I understood why I was cutting, and because I wasn't cutting severely, the counsellor had decided I didn't need to be seen...

To me, that's a bit like saying 'we've found a tumour, but don't worry, it's small and not serious yet so we aren't going to treat it'. The world seems to disagree.

That first experience of asking for help was sixteen years ago. It seems like a lifetime ago, yet it set me on a course that I'm not sure is reversible. It taught me that seeking help was futile unless I actually became suicidal rather than 'just' depressed. No one cared to address why I was cutting or try to prevent escalation. I wasn't ill enough to merit care.

Insidious illnesses take control...

I guess it was the age old problem, lack of funding meant only those with the greatest need could be treated. However, that ethos condemned me. I dread to think how much it's cost the NHS and student services to keep me alive since because I've struggled all my life. If someone had intervened then I might have recovered. At the very least I might have developed 'positive' coping methods rather than 'negative' ones.

There's the problem, you see; if you find the courage to ask for help with depression and then get told that someone doesn't want to see you, it damages your ability to request help in the future. You already know you won't get it because you aren't on the brink. You don't ask for help and you develope your own ways to keep yourself alive. The decision not to treat a teenager who's asking for help lets the wound fester. It encourages it. I still have scars on my arm which are a physical representation of what was going on in my head as a teen.

Back then it wasn't always bad. Yes, my self-esteem had been irrepairably damaged by long term bullying and other issues and that didn't help my state of mind, yet still there were some months I managed to live a normal life. Some I didn't, however, and that was when I'd drag sewing needles or the pins of badges over my skin. It was later that things went completely to hell.

When I started university at eighteen, my depression was already getting worse. Then my freshman year turned out to be horrific. Looking back, undiagnosed social anxiety had me on the back foot from the start. I moved into halls of residence but I couldn't gel with the girls in my flat. I didn't like to go out into crowded spaces. I couldn't join them in clubs and bars. I was an exceptionally private person and let very few people get close to me.

Feeling like an outsider in my flat, during my first experience of living away from home, was heartbreaking. Especially as my younger brother took possession of my bedroom at home so I never really felt I could go back without being in the way. The result was I spent most of that year staying overvat my boyfriend's parents' house, especially after he became my fiancé. He had one of those high level beds with a desk under it. I hated the bed so I used to sleep on the floor next to his computer, listening to its fans whirring all night because he never turned it off. To me, that was better than being in the flat with the raucous drunkards who couldn't wash a dish to save their lives.

Seriously, there were monsters growing in the fridge and every surface of the kitchen, even the dining table. I kept my plates in my own room because it was the only way I could avoid coming in to find some new green and blue growth  over my belongings. It was disgusting and the clutter made my depression worse, especially as the other girls realised I was an odd introvert and merely lived with me rather than engaging with me.

The change of environment, loneliness, and the feeling uprooted on top of pre-existing stresses led me to start cutting again, just so I could cope. I fantasised about jumping off the Tyne Bridge and drowning myself. If it wasn't for my fiancé, I would have done it. He's the reason I sought help again at all.

Unfortunately, help is rarely forthcoming...

I'd had to move to a new doctors when I moved out of home and into halls which was unfortunate. I joined a practice which university recommended. That proved to be a mistake. My new doctors kept their main surgery for general, local patients. They had a second door in the side street which led to a grubby upstairs surgery. That premisis was where they ran drop in clinics for students.

The students unlucky enough to register with that surgery were only allowed to go to the drop-ins run out of the grim upstairs rooms. Getting an appointment with the main surgery was almost impossible as the receptionists actively turned us away. That arrangement made me feel like a second class citizen when I was already feeling worthless which wasn't helpful, but that wasn't the only problem with the practice. In addition the drop-in was run by triage nurses who weren't qualified to deal with my problems and had to refer me to doctors, who had to be seen at the drop-in and were only occassionally available on a sit-and-wait basis. More than once, I'd spend an hour waiting to be seen only for a nurse or doctor to announce she was going home sick and we'd all have to come back another day. The effort that took was almost insurmountable as my depression became  progressively worse and smothered my motivation.

'Luckily' the university operated a counselling service for students. Unfortunately, that didn't do me much good as the counsellor went on either long term sick or maternity leave, I can't remember which, before I managed to trust her enough to open up. I gave up on student services after that.

By the age of twenty I'd determined that there was no real help out there. That seeking it was a pointless endeavour because I just wasn't suicidal enough. So I continued on, struggling, cutting, binge eating, hating myself more and more with each passing year but hiding behind a masquerade of being a functioning adult, going to university and work but avoiding socialising to quite a degree.

The masquerade is hard to keep up...

I didn't get better. I just learned to live with the numbness, fear, hopelessnes, and self-doubt. I had no professional help and lot happened over those years which made it difficult to fix myself. I changed course twice, we bought a house, we were in car accidents, I was diagnosed as 'sub-fertile' and when I finally got pregnant after years of trying I was sick for eight months solid. I was sick to the extent that I weighed less in my last week of pregnancy than I did in my first. The pregnancy was fraught with worries, suspected miscarriages and health concerns about the baby. It wasn't the experience I'd hoped for. Alongside that, my husband was made redundant and then, the week I gave birth to our daughter, I was made redundant too. We had no money. Our mortgage went into arrears. I had to work sixty hours a week setting up a business to keep a roof over our heads. In the weeks before my daughter's first Christmas, I broke down in poundland because I didn't even have the £3 I needed to buy her three books.

That was a bad year. My confidence plummetted still further and I was stressed constantly. Anxiety prevented me sleeping and I was exhausted all of the time. Eventually my doctor referred me to a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. I was offered antidepressants as well but I didn't want to become reliant so I didn't take them.

Sadly, CBT didn't do much for me. Funding meant the counselling service could only provide between six and twelve sessions, but no more. Yup, no matter my condition, my treatment was limited because of the underfuning of mental health services in the United Kingdom. I didn't go to my last appointment. What was the point? I was still depressed, despite my therapist saying I was improving, and I was about to be cast asunder by him. Once again the notion that seeking help was pointless reasserted itself. I'm not sure I've ever really functioned properly since then, but what could I do?

We then had our second child, a son. Because of money issues I was back at work a week after giving birth. When I had an operation the next year, I sat emailing clients from my hospital bed. I never stopped. I never rested. Every day was an act of survival. All I did was work and worry, and feel completely worthless. My children deserved so much better than what I could provide and that was a constant nagging declaration in my mind. I didn't get better. I cried. Me and my husband fought horribly. Most months, I wasn't sure we could even be together any longer. It was year after year of hell. Eventually I managed to find new employment which paid more than my business. I though 2015 might finally get easier.

'Better' is a hard place to find...

Then my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Terminal cancer. He was given four years but there was just something about the situation, about his mad rush to get his affairs innorder including refurbishing the house he wanted to leave to us, that made me think four years was optimistic.

For the first time in quite a while my dad made the effort to spend time with me. The whole thing was confusing. I'll go into the problems stemming from my relationship with my dad another time, but it's safe to say being told he had cancer caused a great deal of conflicting emotions and even my grief was confusing. I often didn't know whether I was grieving for my dad or for the father-daughter relationship we'd never had. It was only in those months of treatment and uncertainty that I managed to vocalise something I'd struggled to say since my teens.

I managed to say 'I love you'. And I meant it.

For the first time in goodness knows how long we hugged and he said 'I love you too'.

I don't know if it's a good thing that we got closer then, or whether it led to more pain because we didn't have enough time to fix all the problems that had made me unable to tell him I loved him in the first place. That was hard, and it got harder and harder every time he was admitted to hospital and it became more and more obvious that four years was unlikely, that even two would be difficult.

The hum of anxiety and depression had never left me since my teens, but late last year, after dad's cancer diagnosis, I went into a tailspin. One worse than ever before. The diagnosis raised childhood problems. My head filled with things it would be unfair to raise but which would never be resolved by silence. I didn't tell my dad any of the hundreds of things I wished I could explain. I ignored the past and let dad know the one thing that mattered; I loved him. Because of how my brain works, how I've been trained by experience to turn off my feelings for people if I need to, I had to choose to let love back in because I'd shuttered myself off from dad so many years ago. But choose I did.

Syill, during the months that followed, my need to cut grew a hundred times worse. I even ended up carrying a knife in my bag so that I could cut wherever I needed to. Parked in a car park. Locked in the bathroom at work. Anywhere. Rather than doing a few cuts at a time like I used to,  I'd do ten. Then twenty. Then fifty. Then a hundred. Up and up and up. And I became more suicidal than I'd ever been before. While driving to and from work I'd imagine driving away; running, vanishing, dying. I day-dreamed about driving off the coastal cliffs near my home. It became so bad that in January, despite having avoided it for years, I went back to the doctors. This time I accepted the antidepressants. I was also referred to counselling again, and placed on a waiting list.

Then my dad had died in March, more than three years earlier than the estimate he'd been given, and the day after his death my family imploded. Grief caused a number of people to say things they shouldn't have. My depression led to anger and I lost my temper, I shouted because it was the only way to avoid breaking down and my family fell apart. Thats how bad I am. Anger is another coping mechanism. I shout when I can't bear to cry because I simply can't function like a normal person. I've never had the help I needed to be able to.

Now several people I love won't speak to me. At all.

Apparently I'm disposable...

One of those who fell out with me won't speak to mam either because she was more concerned for my mental state than his in that moment of falling out. The other has told me that I only self-harm to control mam. That, despite me having hid my self-harm from her for months until I just couldn't any more. Apparently I'm manipulative because I let my mam know I was falling apart and she wanted to help me rather than telling me to stop being childish, selfish, disgusting, the way others did.

I lost three loved ones in two days, and two of them blamed me for that. No amount of apologising or explaining could change that because, with me, they saw behaviour they couldn't understand rather than an illness.

Everyone had gathered around dad. Wanted to support him. Mourned his loss. He had cancer and we watched him fail. With my mental illness certain people saw me as inappropriate, as disgusting, as if I chose to feel what I felt. That's the difference between physical illness and mental illness; people see mental illness as a choice, but no one would choose this. No one would choose to live in a state that made them want to die.

In the aftermath, someone I cared for deeply told me he'd had enough of making exceptions for me. Making exceptions for me, because I'm ill but he won't accept that. He tells me he understands mental illness but that I'm a brat whose behaviour disgusts him. He claims the coping strategy which has cept me alive for sixteen years is actually just a way to control my mam. He says that not everything is about me, indicating he thinks I think it is, and ignoring the fact I hid my worsening depression while dad was sick. I hid it. I told no one but my husband and the doctor how much I wished to simply not exist because everyone had enough on their plates.

That doesn't matter though. Apparently, with mental illness, the very act of asking for help and empathy is attention seeking manipulation because everyone can have a rough time. Everyone can get down. It's not something that should make it hard for sufferers to interact normally...

 
Even after he told me I was manipulating my mam, this person went on to say this, "I have done nothing wrong to you. But you have made my life horrendous and stressful. Just because I don't blow up every day and make a fuss doesn't mean I'm not hurting or depressed."

Do you know what's wrong with that statement? What's wrong every time such things are said to a severely depressed person? It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of a condition. There is a huge difference between hurting and suffering a mix of severe depression and chronic anxiety. Claiming to have done nothing wrong after telling a depressed person they only self harm to control others is laughable. His exact words were holding my mam 'hostage'. Also, saying I blow up everyday was just melodramatic. I exploded once. The day after my dad died because I couldn't cope with what was happening. I apologised the next day. Any argument following was because I was being attacked or asked to apologise again. The person name calling and throwing around accusations was the other party, not me, and we didn't talk regularly enough for him to assess what I did day to day anyway. This person also kept requesting yet another apology. That's the thing with mental illness, sufferers are required to apologise for it.

Would you apologise for being unable to play football if you'd lost both feet?

No one tells a cancer sufferer to apologise for the effects of their illness. No one asks a person with a broken leg to apologise for not being able to walk. But an illness of the mind? A broken brain? That's different. That, sufferers are made to feel guilty for. As someone said to me, "If you think you've apologised enough then you really are an idiot". Or another example, "Maybe people talk to you like you don't have a clue because you go on like a brat. Thanks for confirming I am doing the right thing. Shouldn't have even bothered holding a (wedding) invite back in case of a miracle sincere apology. You proved me right. Don't contact me again to bitch about a problem of your own making."

The 'sincere' thing came up several times because he wouldn't accept any apology I offered. He walked away and decided I was a 'selfish arsehole' who he didn't think 'could get any lower'. And that's the better of those two people I fell out with...

The other one doesn't just ignore me. He turns his back on my kids when they say hello to him, even if I'm not there. He won't let his kids speak to them through a six foot fence. He's taken his anger at me out on my children. And that pisses me off even though I've successfully shut down what I myself feel for him.

So many of my problems come from abandoment. They come from being told I'm not good enough or that I'm some how deficient, from the bullying in my youth and from other relationships. I have an illness which has sprouted from feeling worthless and abandoned, but many people react to it by leaving. By making a sufferer of a mental illness feel worse than they already do.
I developed a survival tactic a long time ago. I can switch off my affection as if I'm flicking a switch. When someone leaves I'll hurt for a day, maybe two, and then I will decide to feel nothing for them. I don't think that's normal. I want to speak to mental health professionals about it, but the ability stems from the same place as my hopelessness, my anger, and my low self-esteem. It's a defense mechanism and right now people are probably judging me because of it. But do you judge someone with a broken arm from shielding it? That's all I'm doing. Shielding the broken part of me. Society treats physical ailments so differently to how they treat mental ones...

You don't tell a cancer sufferer they're only threatening to die to hold someone hostage.

You don't tell someone in a wheel chair that they should apologise for not being able to do things 'ordinary' people take for granted.

You don't tell a deaf person that they're clueless because they can't communicate the way you do.

So why tell a depressed person they're only self-harming or talking about suicide to hold someone hostage? Why tell a person which chronic depression and anxiety that they should apologise for not coping with distress the way 'ordinary' people do? Why tell a depressed person that they are clueless because they have difficulty communicating in a normal way? I have yet to understand it, but I've gone off on a tangent here so lets get back to how I got to sitting on the floor of my bathroom, cutting myself 218 times.

By April everything that had happened, everything I'd lost, was too much to bear and so I picked up a sheet of paper and wrote a letter. I apologised to my mam, husband, and children. I reiterated that I loved them but that they'd be better off without me. I'd struggled for sixteen years and I was finally ready to let my condition kill me.

After addressing that letter to my husband, I popped all of my Fluoxetine pills out of their blister packs and lined the green and yellow tablets up in front of me.

Then I started taking them.

I swallowed one antidepressant after another, fully intending to swallow every pill available. Unfortunately my husband came home earlier than I'd expected. He grabbed the pills from me and called an ambulance. I didn't die that day. When doctors asked if I was likely to try again I said no to avoid being hospitalised, even though I had other plans. I was sent home having failed to take my own life...

But I did achieve something. The hospital's self harm team contacted the counselling service immediatly. They got me an appointment the very next week. After months on the waiting list, I had a counsellor.

The hospital were also going to refer me to the community mental health team. Trying to kill myself seemed to be getting me the help I'd been asking for since my teens. It was just as I'd suspected back then. The only way to get help was to prove myself on the verge of suicide. For the first time I felt a spark of hope... The difficult pill to swallow was that even while suicidal, I was more optimistic than my situation merited. I hoped to get help, but help still hasn't arrived.

No further forward...

Weeks of counselling and a change of pills later and I'm no better. I haven't been assigned to a community mental health nurse yet. I can't see a psychiatrist even though my doctor wants me to because there isn't enough of them available. On top of that, my counsellor has decided he can't help me and has stopped our sessions and put me on the waiting list for more CBT. CBT, like the therapy which had failed me the last time I tried it.

To me, my counsellors decision felt like further abandonment. It felt like someone else giving up on me. September had come. Five months had passed since my suicide attempt and I was back where I started, only my leg was more scarred than i'd ever thought I'd make it. More scarred than my mam knows. I can't tell her because I don't want to be told I'm controlling her.

One of those who won'the accept my apologies knows I attempted suicide. Afterwards he reiterated that I was controlling mam, but I don't know how I'll control anyone from beyond the grave, which is where I'd intended to end up. But what the hell, it doesn't matter. I'm more bothered by losing my counsellor than losing him now, because I can't allow myself to care.

Not only am I still cutting, and worse than ever, but after my doctor chased up the community mental health team several times after my hospital trip. It turned out the self-harm team hadn't referred me as they'd told both me and my doctor they would. They'd sent a report to the CMHT but that was all. My doctor had to refer me instead and I was only placed upon their waiting list then, several tear and blod filled months after I should have been.

Since that referal I have seen a mental health nurse to be assessed. He agreed that I need treatment and support. He agreed I have severe depression and anxiety and I need help. So he's put me on yet another waiting list. He told me I'm 'amber'; in need of help because I have plans for suicide but lower down the waiting list than others because I'm not 'red'. In other words, I'm not in hospital or currently in the act of stepping off a cliff or swallowing an overdose.

If I find where my husband has my pills hidden and take them all, maybe then someone will throw me a rope. That's what it takes to get help when you have a mental illness. I knew it at fourteen. I knew it when a hospital worker arranged the very counselling I'd been waiting months for in a matter of minutes, all because I'd tried to overdose.

I'm not advocating making a suicide attempt in order to get help. If you're dead you can't be helped at all. I know that, and I want to emphasise it. Yet on my frequent bad days, I want to do it. Not as a cry for help but because I can't bear my existence. I don't care if a failed suicide attempt earns me treatment or if a successful attempt leaves me dead. Either is better than what I'm going through now.

I'd like help so I can see my kids grow up, but if I am beyond help or not worth the effort and funding, then I'd rather just die. Get it over with rather than waiting. Always waiting. Never living.

I don't feel alive anymore, you see. Emotionally I have about four settings now. Numb. Panicked. Enraged. Or more often than not, hopeless. Completely hopeless. So hopeless that there's no point in getting washed or dressed. No point in getting out of bed. I'm not going into that though as my hopelessness and lack of ability to live is covered in my last blog post entitled 'Raising the Dead: The Day to Day Life Of a Zombie'. Instead I'll summarise...

The truth about seeking help with mental health...

What have I learned over the past sixteen years? If you're diagnose with cancer, you'll get help. You'll get treatment to cure or slow the disease. It might fail, yes, but you will see doctors and nurses and they will try to help you. They'll provide painkillers. I would never wish my dad's death on anyone. It was horrific. But he spent his final days surrounded by his family. Surrounded by medical professionals. That's worlds apart from the situations those with mental health problems experience.

We're diagnosed but if our condition isn't going to kill us in the next week, the next day even, then we're told to wait. We're told that we're not a priority. We can have a chronic, life threatening condition for sixteen years or more without ever receiving the treatment we need. For any other condition wouldn't that be medical negligence?

And if we're lucky enough to receive some token attempt at treatment but it fails us? We don't die with people crowding around us talking about the good times. Our illnes isn't even marked down as our cause of death. We die alone with several bottles of pills and enough vodka to drown in. We die as we step on the cliff edge and plunge into the darkness. We die bleeding out from a self inflicted wound. Or we die with our necks bruising under the rough rope of a noose. We die from suicide, not depression, as if somehow the two are seperate. As if suicide attempts aren't symptoms of an illness.

If my next suicide attempt succeeds, I won't die as the documents are likely to say. I won't die of an overdose. I won't drown. I won't die from suicide. I'll die from depression. I'll die from an illness that was allowed to fester in my childhood and became an unstoppable force in adulthood. It's something I don't think I can escape because it is ingrained in me. Part of me. A dark part that has spread through me and left me scarred.

My death won't be today. It probably won't be tomorrow. It may not even be in a months time, but I have a plan, and sooner or later my coping methods will fail and my plans will become action again. I don't doubt it because I don't believe I'll ever get real help. But that should worry me. I've learned to time things carefully now. My husband won't walk in on me next time. He won't save me next time.

But I'm only 'amber', so help can wait.

Wait, even though my mind will continue to torment me, belittle me, tell me that I'm worthless, that my family would be better of without me. I'll hate myself and be more disgusted by myself than anyone else ever will be, even those people who turned away because I've hated myself since I was about eight. I'll continue cutting because it stops me doing worse, at least for now.

218. That's how many times I dragged a razor through my flesh at 3am. It's how many wounds I bled from just to keep myself alive last night. That might be the most I've ever done in one sitting. I don't know. I don't usually count. All I know is that my calf is scarred from ankle to knee, and it isn't the only part of my body I've permamemtly branded with my badges of self-loathing.

And my mam doesn't know, because I cut to control my own emotions, not to control people.

218.

But I dont blame the NHS, or the CMHT, or my doctors. They can only work with the funding that's available, based on how society values mental health services. Everyone understands A&E and why it's essential. Governments know they have to fund A&E. Not everyone understands mental health or its devestating affects, and because of the governments get away with underfunding mental health services. It's time for a rethink. Many of us urgently need the wider world to rethink.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx

Sinking into Davy Jones's Locker

I'm sorry I didn't post more about the experiences which made me who I am. My depression took hold and I couldn't face writing about it. Even doing this post has taken weeks of thinking about it ti find the willpower to do it. For the moment I'm going to leave the 'my history' posts although they will come. Instead I want to tell you what depression is to me - sinking into Davy Jones's Locker.

Imagine you're sailing on a stormy sea. You are the captain of a ship which you've spent years building, crafting, learning to command, but your journey isn't going to plan. You've been tossed around by the waves, lifted to dizzying peaks and thrown into trenches. Your crew have all been swept away and you have whiplash. You're exhausted. You just want it to stop and you consider giving in.  Surrendering, letting the storm win and allowing the current pull you under, seems ever more tempting, but you stand at the helm, gripping the wooden wheel as tightly as you can, struggling against the pull.

That's only part of your battle for survival.

Eventually the sea grows calm, completely still. No wind fills your sails and even though you haven't dropped anchor you can't move forward or back. You're stuck in place and it feels a lot like drifting, directionless, even though you aren't going anywhere. It's dark and sunless, and even the moon has turned black. You can't see, not even to find a candle or lamp to illuminate your charts and compass. Worse, you have no food or drink, and you're too weak from your previous battle with the storm to fish or get water. You're too weak to do anything but lie on the rough timbers of the deck, wishing you had a crew to help you.

Over time, hunger and thirst begin to gnaw at you, and your failure to captain your ship presses down on you but it only registers in fleeting moments because there's a greater weight on your shoulder. Everything you've done plays through your mind over and over. The guilt is relentless because your mind insists that your actions alone have cost you your friends, family, your ship. It tells you you're stupid; that every disaster is your own fault.

You should never have tried to captain a ship or chase your dreams. You're worthless. Trouble. Others would be better of without you. Such thoughts become a chant in your mind, a mantra that never ceases. It doesn't allow you to sleep or concentrate or even comprehend what's happening around you. The voice in your head is the only one you can hear.

Hatred sets in, surrounding you and swamping your awareness. You hate yourself far more than you hate your situation; so much so that you stop feeling your hunger and thirst at all because the only things you can feel are shame and self loathing. It doesn't matter that you didn't create the storm, or that the wind, rain, and monstrous waves were beyond your control. You're the captain, right? You should have been able to do something to salvage the journey...

It's not until you're already swamped that you realise you're sinking, that the sea is rising up around you, cold and inescapable.  Your ship, your life's work, slides into the sea and as it does it pulls you under. You can't breathe. Even holding your breath, you know you're floundering, failing. You're too weak to swim and even if you could, it's too dark to see and you don't know what's up and what's down. Your body's instinct is to fight, to keep breathing...but your mind, that just wants the struggle, the pain, and the shame to end. After causing so much anguish and being so worthless, it seems only right you go down with your ship. It's the captain's duty, after all. It's the one good thing you could do with your life.

The only 'right' thing you believe you can do is to die.

So you open your mouth and let your lungs suck in water.  You hope it's over quickly, that the pain won't be prolonged, but in truth it doesn't matter. You'll escape the world sooner rather than later and in so doing you'll save everyone else from having to deal with the suffering whuch getting close to you brings. No one will ever have to get close to you again. No one will take that risk and be injured by your certain failure.

Your pain will end, and the world will be a much better place without you.

That's what depression feels like. A long struggle. A slow starvation. Loneliness and self-recrimination. Sinking can become unavoidable without help, but the only way to get help is to drag yourself off your ship's deck and find a flare before your damaged boat slides the surface and beyond recovery. You need to find the strength to signal for help even though you're exhausted, lost, and alone on a vast sea with no land in sight. You have to persuade yourself that someone will see your flare, even though it seems hopeless. Harder still, you have to persuade yourself that even though you feel worthless and undeserving, calling for help is the right thing to do.

If you manage to send up a flare, well done. It's a step. A step towards salvation. At least that's what you think as another flare sparks to life in the distance. A response. A promise of help.

If your rescue boat arrives, you're lucky. In my experience that isn't how mental health services in England work. That flare will give you a day or two of hope. For a week you'll believe that someone will come for you with all the correct equipment to ensure your survival. However, as the weeks become months, your ship sustains further damage. Its sodden timbers begin to rot and you can't maintain it on your own, not in your fragile state. The water starts to rise faster and no matter how many flares you send up, the rescue boats never arrive. Sure, they send up responding flares. Some days the flares even seem to be closer, but then they move away again as if your rescuers have decided you aren't worth saving. Not yet, at least.

Truth is they have other priorities and although you know you're dying, your death isn't imminent and so your rescuers decide you can wait. Another week. Another month. It's the best they can do because there aren't enough rescue vessels for all the captains who have floundered in the wake of their own storms. The problem is, that the longer you wait the less you believe anyone will come. The neglect seems to confirm your own worthlessness. You have no value. Nothing to tempt a salvage team to head your way.

Months pass. Maybe even years. Eventually sending up flares seems pointless. You are dying and nobody seems to care and the thought that the world would be better off with out you joins with the need for your lonely suffering to end. Thoughts of a reprieve, free of pain, shame, guilt, and loneliness become a plan. Make your suffering end. Jump overboard. Take yourself out of the picture so that the rescue boats can focus on those who are more deserving than you.

You might fight off that urge most of the time, but it only takes one defeat to lose everything. To become just one more captain who was blown off course and was never heard from again. Your family will be left wondering what happened. Could the have stopped you setting sail? Could they have kept you safe at home? Maybe if they'd just talked to you beforebyou set out...

Those manning the rescue boats will wonder why you didn't hold on that bit longer. They will claim they would've gotten to you eventually, but your demise isn't their fault. They would've been faster if only they had more rescue teams... more boats... more support from the community, the government, anyone with the power to help. Responsibility lies with you, only you even though you didn't cause the storm.

It isn't your fault your crew couldn't hold on as your ship was battered by the tempest. It isn't your fault that you fought and fought but ultimately succumbed, yet there will be some back on land who will say you were responsible for your own death. You should've toughened up and weathered the storm. You should have just kept going even though each further breath end every small endeavour was a tortured disappointment. You should have been better. Stronger. You could have willed yourself to survive, after all you were physically healthy. It wasn't like you had lost a leg or were suffering some terminal disease. You should have saved yourself. You could have swum to shore if you'd told yourself it was possible rather than telling yourself it was too far.

Right now, I'm sinking. I sent up my first flare almost sixteen years ago. I've managed to get myself to shore numerous times since my teens, but this time I'm too far out. I can't see land. My compass has broken. My charts were washed away. I sent up a flare in January, after months of trying to save myself. Since then I've been on waiting list after waiting list. In April I attempted to jump overboard but someone pulled me back onto the ship. For a little while I had someone to talk to, but even they left me to continue my wait alone. Now I don't have the strength left to function. The words 'I can't help you' tell me I'm not worth more time. Assisting me is too much work.

In desperation, I've sent up further flares. The water is starting to creep over me again. I'm tired and I hate myself for my weakness. My failure. I'm ready to open my mouth and let the water in, but until I do, I think I'll be left on this sinking ship.

There aren't enough rescue boats, you see, and someone else needs those there are more urgently than me. I don't think I can bear to send up another flare. I don't have the strength to find the flare box. I certainly don't have enough hope left to persuade myself it's worth the effort. Maybe once I start to drown, someone will pick me up again. Maybe they'll help me back to shore then...

It's that or I'll slip into the depths and it'll be over. All of it. I'll never struggle again. I won't care either way; save me or let me die, either is better than lying on my ship, lost, ashamed, and in pain. When I drown some will ask if I was trying to cry for help or if I truly intended to die. They won't believe the truth, that opening my mouth was neither of those things while at the same time being both of them.

I want to live differently or I want to die. Either will do just as long as my current existence changes. That won't matter if I make an attempt to end it. They'll say I was unsure of myself, unsure if I was calling for help or seeking to die. They won't accept that I hadn't care which outcome I achieved; summoning help or ending it all, not as long as I achieved one or the other.

If I'm pulled from the sea again, surviving my second attempt to end it all, they'll say I have suicidal ideation. They'll say I'm crying for help. They'll say I'm not truly seeking to die or I would have tried more often, tried harder, needed to be hospitalised rather than needing 'cared for' in the community. That's what they'll say, or how their words will seem to me. But the truth is, when I open my mouth I  do hope to drown. I hope to end it all.

If someone hears my instinctive gasps for breath and comes to my aid, finally deciding to try and get me to shore, then I'll be grateful, sure. Yet at the same time I'll be disappointed and anxious, dreading the battle for recovery that I'll have to endure. But if I die? If I die, then there'll be nothing. And nothing can seem like the best out come for someone who is exhausted and in pain. Just like a someone might crave sleep after a long day, I crave an end to a long period of struggling. An end which I can't retract. A safe nothingness where I'll never face another storm or loss.

That's depression to me.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx