Sabotaged Life Lines

It's a long time since I did a 'this is what's happening/happened and this is how I feel' post, which is really the purpose of this blog. This blog exists so I can:

1. Protuctively let out my feelings rather than turning to self harm.

2. Process thoughts, reasons, and events.

3. Educate others to help end stigma faced by sufferers of mental illness.

4. Be myself without fear (hence the pseudonym).

In spite of good intentions, my last Zombie post (excluding the one related to the General Election) was way back in January (thereabouts). That's kinda what I want to talk about; why I haven't written anything and why this blog seemed to become a pointless endeavour after January. My reasons for not writing are as important as my reasons for writing, because they are the very reasons why more people need to write about their experiences. No one ever changed the world through silence and inaction.

Now, I want to make something clear; the feeling of pointlessness with regard to this blog did not come from my internal mental state. Many feelings of pointlessness do come from within, but this specific case came from external interactions with those who either had a duty of care towards me or who we relative strangers. These people, these carers workers and people I've only ever spoken to online (and live continents away from), seemed to make it their mission to sabotage my life lines. I don't know why the want to do that, but it's a type of behaviour faced by sufferers all over.

January started off quite positive. I saw a consultant, was given additional meds that helped me sleep, I was put on the waiting list for therapy, and was also promised another consultant appointment three months later. I managed to move past the fact I'd already been on waiting lists for help for the better part of a year and accept being put on yet another, and at least there seemed to be movement. I was still being seen by the Community Mental Health Team's 'Step Up' Team and I felt hopeful enough that my self-harming behaviour began to lessen in frequency. 

Then things fell apart.

First, Step Up insisted on pushing 'graded exposure' for my agoraphobia and social phobia. I said that I didn't want to do the graded exposure until I had done the stress tolerance stuff and therapy, because until then I wouldn't be equipt to deal with the stressful emotions triggered by graded exposure. It seemed pretty sensible to me to get help with emotional control before putting myself in a high stress situation. It seemed too much like setting myself up for failure to focus on graded expose when I knew I wasn't equipt to deal with it. It's not that I don't want to do graded exposure, just that I want to do things in a sensible order. 

Ha ha ha. How naive of me.

Step Up disagreed with my request to delay graded exposure and informed me that if I didn't show signs of improvement they'd discharge me for not engaging. 

I admit, at that point I got a little upset because I was engaging, I just wanted to do things in an effective order, rather than trying to stitch up the wound without first removing the  weapon responsible for the damage in the first place. Or, if you want another metaphor, I wanted to call the anaesthetist before handing the surgeon a scalpel. I got so upset, because I felt I was being threatened into compliance and made to feel like I wasn't trying to help myself that my mind told me it was all pointless. 

It told me there'd be no help.

It told me I couldn't trust the Community Mental Health Team.

It told me I wasn't worthy of help.

I wan't to emphasise that I did not shout or lose my temper. I was upset, yet, but despite the reputation of those with Borderline Personality Disorder, I tool a deep breath and told my 'care' worker that I was getting upset and we needed to drop the subject for the week. She continued to push, and push, until I broke down. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, that same woman dismissed the inappropriate touching I'd experienced from another child as a pre-teen as 'childhood experimentation' rather than listening to what I was saying about how it hadn't been what I wanted, how pressured I'd felt, and how the guilt had continued to affect md all my life. She dismissed, rather than addressed, so it shouldn't havd surprised me to learn she'd rather dismiss me than adress the root cause of my problems.

She left my house while I sat sobbing my heart out on my husband, begging for a knife, while vivid imagery of what I'd do with it played in my head. A woman who'd been assigned to me after Crisis Team discharge because I was still at risk walked out of my house after sending me into a spiral. She put me back where I'd been the night I was first put on the Crisis Team's caseload.0. She set me back by months. And she walked away.

Not a good thing to do to anyone with a mental illness, but add into the mix Borderline Personality Disorder, and you have a powder keg of self-hatred and devaluation.

At my next Step Up appointment, my assigned care worker brought her line manager with her, presumambly because of the tensions the week before. She didn't forewarn me that she would bringing anyone else, though. She could've phoned my husband in advance. Instead, she brought a stranger to my home with no prior warning, despite knowing I have social anxiety and take a long time to trust anyone. My needs became secondary to the needs of the person assigned (and theoretically trained) to help me.

At that point, when I discovered she'd brought her line manager, I felt like they were telling me I was the problem, without words. To me, my mental illness is the problem, one I need support to recover from through a care plan that takes into account my specific needs. 

That's important. All patients need to be seen as individual cases. When someone has chest pain, you work out whether its a heart problem, a lung problem, an irregularity or an jnfection, be it bacterial or viral. You don't give an  asthma inhaler to someone who need coronary bypass surgery. Care providers have to consider what a particular patient actually needs rather than pushing the treatment which is easiest from them to offer. A simple solution that only deals with external symptoms but not internal causes would've been pointless, but that seemed to be what 'graded exposure' would provide. Apparently the very people employed to help me  with that problem didn't want to provide a care plan to suit my needs though...

The pair once again went over how I either had to do graded exposure or there would be no point in remaining under their care.  It seemed to me that they we implying:

There was no point in someone coming around to talk to on a bad day. 

There was no point in support with mood diaries and activity/productivity. 

There was no point in building the trust with mental health services that might keep me alive. 

They said there was no point in continuing to be under their care, and with that they flipped my BPD switch from trying to engage to wanting the distance because I felt I could no longer trust them, a problem compounded by the lies my original care giver then gave in front of her boss.

The week previously, I'd shown her my mood diary, and she barely glanced at it. Shd didn't discuss any of the issues noted on it and offered no support. Then, once her boss was there, she announced that I wasn't engaging and I'd only filled in 'a couple of days'. At that point I got rather angry, so angry that rather than shouting, I tensed up and started shaking as I dug out the previous weeks mood diary sheets, barely able to speak. I also opened my mood diary app on the phone. I gave both to her and pointed out that I'd logged my mood religiously, every hour or two, for two/three weeks and reminded her that she'd seen the dated sheet the previous week so her claim that 'I'd only done a few days' was an outright lie. That cemented mistrust and ensured that when they again pressed to discharge me from their care I just said 'fine' because I wanted them out of my home, and out of my sanctuary.

They went, and the very next day I received a letter from them stating that I had chosen to end my involvement with them. Yup, they claimed I had chosen it, despite how obviously upset I'd been when the matter was first raised. I hadn't chosen. They had.

 In respose, I wrote a seven page complaint letter detailing everything that had happened and sent it to my consultant, who had wanted to leave me in Step Up's care. I pointed out that they had wanted to end their own involvement, and that what upset me initially was their threat of removing support I clearly needed. I had not chosen to be discharged, and to receive a letter saying I had added insult to injury, but it appears that my care doesn't matter.

To this day, I haven't received a response, and that was January.

Months later, when I didn't receive the promised follow up appointment with the consultant, my hubby contacted the Community Mental Health Team. It turned out the consultant had left and my letter had gone ignored, but the nurse I spoke to promised to chase it up and have someone contact me.

That never happened.

Roll on yet more months and several Crisis calls, and I've been advised to reprint and resend my complaint letter as no one knows what happened to it even though my hubby delivered it in person so we know it reached them. Problem is, I keep forgetting to do so. I'm also scared to do it, because I'm scared those people who are responsible for assisting me might take offence at my complaint and deny any further help. It's bad enough that, despite several Crisis calls on days when suicidal thoughts have become too much, I still only receive a call from a Community Mental Health nurse every four weeks, and not to help me or ask how things are. They phone every four weeks with the sole pupose of asking if I wish to remain on the waiting list for therapy. 

I don't even have a designated CPN. The nurse who last phoned me from the Community Mental Health Team said the list was getting shorter as people decided they no longer wanted to be on it, but I still have no idea when I'll get any help. That's right, the waiting list isn't going down because the service is efficiently seeing patients, it's relying on people dropping off and slipping through the cracks. Sometimes I wonder if they're hoping I'll slip through the cracks too.

Just like I did in 2012 when I had post natal depression and ran out of counselling sessions

Just like last year when my counsellor decided he couldn't help me before we ran out of my designated sessions*.

Just like I did at university when the counsellor went off of long term sick leave.

Just like I did at fourteen, when the system decided I didn't need help because I understood why I was self-harming.

Just like in 1997, when child services failed to pick up on the psychosomatic symptoms which we indicating a problem was beginning to develop.

I don't feel I have the support I need, and that feeling is so strong that asking for help now seems pointless. It took years for me to push for help, and now it seems a useless endeavour. 

I've stopped keeping a mood diary, because no one's looking at it to see how best to help me. I'm an author but I barely write because I don't have the drive. My self harm is increasing again, as are my feelings of worthlessness and periods of suicidal ideation. I had a shower today and brushed my teeth... for the first time in two weeks! 

The process stressed me out so much it's triggered my anxiety and I want to cancel the reason I showered. My mam and Uncle are coming over to watch Eurovision with me and hubby, but now I don't want them to because simply washing and dressing has left me fraught. And that, combined with my shame at going so long without taking care of myself, is setting off my depression. I need help. More help than pills alone. But I don't trust the services because the Community Mental Health Team sabotaged what should've been a life line.

What is the point in trying to stay afloat when no one is willing to help you fight against the riptide?

What's happened with the Step Up Team and consultant has fed into my lack of drive as far as this blog goes, but ontop of that a girl I've only ever spoken to online saw this blog and decided to go on the attack, telling me I'm self-centred and weak, whining rather than just dealing with my problems. She completely ignored that this blog was discussed with my Crisis workers before I started it because we thought it might be beneficial to me while I awaited other services. This blog exist so I can HELP MYSELF. 

This is me dealing with my problems. 

This is me saying x, y, and z happened, it affected me this way, now I understand it, I can try to find a way to move passed it in a healthy way. 

This is me saying 'I've hidden this all my life and hiding has made it worse, now I'm going to speak, for myself and for others. Hopefully someone else might see this and realise they're not alone'.

This is me saying it's #oktosay I'm not OK, and although that person's ignorant comments affected me and stopped me posting for five months, I have to do this, because if I don't, I'm letting ignorance and stigma prevail. 

I didn't train myself to face my enemies head on, without crying, even when they were intent on beating me up, just so I could fall at the words of an ignoramus on the other side of the planet. There are bigger challenges to overcome, and so I'm going to write. I'm going to draw. I'm going to share my story in the hope that one day there'll be a happy ending. Not a 'happily ever after', because no one is always happy, but I hope to reach a point when I can be at peace in my own head.

So I'll keep reminding myself it's #oktosay, because the only way to ensure that services are available, that care givers and governments are heald accountable, and that stigma is squashed, is to make sure plenty of voices are heard. 

Sometimes it feels like screaming into a void, like yelling for help in space where no one can hear me or see me in the darkness. The Community Mental Health Team don't seem to care as long as I don't kill myself and become a negative statistic for them. Cuts made by the Conservative government have ensured there isn't the number of NHS staff required to provide a better service. Because of austerity, it's harder to get the medical help needed to survive. 

I'm also in debt because I lost my job due to my illness, and after the stress of sorting out PIP the very idea of applying for ESA triggers anxiety, depression, and self harm. I'm at risk financially, because the government themselves are sabotaging life lines by making benefits unobtainable to the very people they are also denying treatment. Lack of money incresses stress, stress exaserbates my illness, my illness makes it hard to get an income. It's a cycle of despair that keeps dragging me back towards another suicide attempt. 

My life is at risk because these illnesses do kill.  But today I'm still here. I've been cast adrift, but I'm still alive, so hear me yell for a life line.

Pseudonymous Zombie

xxx

*Patients only get 6-12 sessions of counselling or CBT following a referral. How many other illnesses or conditions get a time limit? Been in a severe car accident? We can only operate on you for 6-12 hours. If you aren't stable after that, tough. In labour? If you don't push out your offspring within 6-12 hours, we aren't going to attend to you... Yeah. No. That doesn't happen.

Trapped In My Own Head

There are times when I'm silent despite the tears rolling over my cheeks, even though in my head, I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. I'm clawing at the inside of my skull, trying to escape the monsters which torment me. But all my attempts to escape are in vain. They always have been. Every light I think I see blinks out, leaving me in a dark pit which seems ever more sinister.

You see, the monsters don't want to let me go and they extinguish every spot of brilliance which might lead me to freedom. Three of them are as familiar as old friends now, although they're my jailers rather than much loved companions. Their names? Despression (D), Anxiety (A), and Suicidal Ideation (SI). They claw at me, feed on me, slowly eating me alive while I writhe in the dark, trying to find a way to escape but knowing it's hopeless. There is no escape hatch in my mind and despite my screams, no help is coming.

There are probably other monsters tearing chunks from me too, but they're as of yet unnamed. Vague, undiagnosed, not like the three I'm on first name terms with. Those three seem to have been my life long companions. I can't remember when I finally learned the names of the beasts who'd began to torment me before my age reached double digits, nor can I remember when they first clawed at my still developing sense of self.

The struggle has gone on so long now, that at times it feels like I'm going mad, losing control of my mind. My thoughts spiral. Worries and paranoia tumble over each other until I can't understand what I'm anxious about, and A mocks me as he predicts catastrophe after catastrophe. Meanwhile, D whispers his insidious lies, telling me that no one could truly love me, that I'm worthless, that my family would be better off without me. D is best friends with SI, who is arguably the most dangerous of my three tormentors. She is the executioner. A and D are mere interrogators, they're torturers and judges. It's SI who sharpens the weapons of my demise, because it's SI murmurs constantly in my ear, plotting all the ways I could end my life and tempting me with them daily.

Being trapped inside my own head with such gaolers is hell. So many times I just want out of there, that dark cell where my screams go unheard and the monsters remain invisble to the people passing obliviously by my dead outer shell. Mental illness is a lonely prison where friends often don't exist, but where hungry demons of your own creation feed on your spirit and drain you of energy. They devour your will to live until all that's left is the desire to die.

I don't want to live this way any more. I don't want to cry and scream as I try to escape my mind. I want to be normal, and if not normal, I would like to push SI from my mind and have the strength to fight back against A and D. I want some quiet. Some peace. I want the scars to heal, then maybe I can heal too.

There's a problem with that though. Some people say they want to become who they were before their illness, but I was a six year old girl back then. My personality and knowledge hadn't finished developing. I don't know who I would be without D and A, and that itself is terrifying. Although perhaps not as much as the feeling that there's a bigger predator circling, one caused by traumas in the past, which simply hasn't been given a name yet.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx

The Untreated

When I saw a psychiatrist last week, he himself said I was 'more than severely depressed'. We discussed anxiety. Agoraphobia. Social phobia. Avoidant personality. I thought I was finally properly being diagnosed. Then I received his written report, which stated I have recurrent depressive disorder but "there was a report of self harm behaviour and anxious avoidant strategies, however there was not enough evidence to formulate a diagnosis of comorbid personality disorder". That diagnosis, or lack thereof, is disheartening.

And no, it's not that I want another disorder. It's that I believe there is more going on and I feel like that's being ignored. I constantly feel like I'm screaming, screaming for help as the darkness creeps around me and light recedes. Screaming, even though it's hard to speak, or even to breathe. People hear me but they turn away. They hear me, but they don't have time to help. That leaves me feeling hopeless.

I wanted my GP to check for other disorders months ago, but there just arent enough community psychiatrists to see me based on what I think are possible conditions. I wanted to discuss it with the CMHT nurse who initially assessed me, but again, discussing it is really a no go until I'm assigned my CPN and my treatment really starts. That's why I'm attempting to inform myself about the possibilities.

I know self-diagnosis is not advised, but after 22 years of asking for help it's inevitable that I've done my own reading, so I have ideas, but I'll discuss them after I've gone over a few other comments in the psychiatrist's report which left me feeling deflated.

"Crisis team to monitor for 7 to 10 days", I'm already on day 8 and I now feel I'm running out of time for help when I haven't yet been given my community psychiatric nurse. Will I be abandoned again in two days time? I know the Crisis Team is as its name suggests, it's for crisis not long term treatment, however, if they discharge me before other help is in place I know I'll end up back at crisis point. I've thought about it so many times this week. And I'm not sure how many times I can go through the cycle before I lose faith in there being help again. 

If I'm discharged from the crisis team before I have a CPN, I think I'll give up. I won't phone next time I feel like killing myself. What would be the point if the help I need never comes? That though leads to my next extract from the psychiatrists letter.

"No further medical input required". What does that mean? I need medical input. I need to know for sure if there is something else. I need the depression and anxiety to be treated so I remember how to live.

Last night I had a panic attack, when it east I ended up wandering the house looking for a way to kill myself as I no longer have access to car keys or pills. I had a plan to get an extension cable and hang myself from the banister. Matt had to phone the crisis team for me again. Talking to them helped, but it's a new method of coping. It's novel. Sooner or later I'll need more. 

What do I need to do to get continued help from people who'll listen to me? Do I have to make another suicide attempt? Because if it comes to that, it won't be an attempt. It won't be cry for help, it'll be a determined attempt to die. And that's the head space I was in last night.

Here's the thing... My brain tells me I should be dead all of the time, constantly, and I want it to stop. I would die just to make it, and my self-loathing and self-doubt, stop. That means I need help, right? But help is hard to get. I'm in a cycle and it feels like the only way to get off the ride is by dying.

That's everyday life for me, however, so lets ignore the nagging suicidal thoughts for a moment and focus on "not enough evidence to formulate a disagnosis of co-morbid personality disorders." That's what I want to discuss.
There is a disorder I suggested to my GP, Borderline Personality Disorder, although she didn't seem overly interested in investigating. Here's why I think it's worth taking a look at...

Borderline Personality Disorder (this list of indicative/diagnostic questions is from the NHS website):

- Do you have an intense fear of being left alone, which causes you to act in ways that, on reflection, seem out of the ordinary or extreme, such as constantly phoning somebody (but not including self-harming or suicidal behaviour)?

Yes, I do this. I'm terrified of being abandoned. There are days when I'm irrationally furious with my husband and I'll scream at bim to leave. Then stand in the door so he can't, because I'm afraid he won't come back. I'll promise friends more than I can manage because I'm afraid of losing them if I say I can only manage less.

I'm a self published author, but in the past year but at times I've barely written because I've been rewriting somone elses chapters for them because I felt obliged to keep her happy and keep her friendship. As it is, that friendhip has now ended so I'm no longer rewriting her book for her, but I did get drawn into that trap for the better part of a year.

Even two weeks ago, when we were barely speaking as I'd learned how manipulative the person was, she messaged asking me to read over a short story. She hadn't spoken to me in weeks but she wanted a favour. There was no 'hello, how are you doing', just 'can you read this and give me feedback?' I spent three or four hours going through that story for her. I rewrote example paragraphs and made detailed suggestions. Then she went back to barely speaking again. Because my fear of being hated is so great I'll do things I'm not really up to, until I'm at breaking point and become angry, and push people away.

I also feel obliged to answer messages even when I'm in a situation where my phone should be off because I fear people will come to hate me if I don't reply. That's so stressful that I can only interact with a few people at a time. I barely write now because I'm afraid that if I take time for myself and stop messaging my few friends, I'll lose them.

And if I try to get in touch with someone and get no answer? I panic and keep ringing. If i upset someone I keep messaging, trying to explain, even though the flood of messages often make things worse rather than better. Sometimes I must look crazy (by that I mean out of control). I certainly feel it.

- Do you have a pattern of intense and unstable relationships with other people that switch between thinking you love that person and they're wonderful to hating that person and thinking they're terrible?

Yes. Not my marriage. Well, I have days where I can be loving and then believing I hate my husband. We've been together for twelve years and there have been some pretty unstable periods when our 'issues' clash, but he loves me, and I love him. He's one of the few people who can make me laugh.

The real unstable relationships are with friends and other family members. The friends I have, I idolise, but psst experience tells me that I can go from idolising to hating very quickly. There are a few I hope this would never happen with, and I hope they forgive me if it does. I'm really trying not to be the sort of person I seem to be. As for family members...

I supposed I must have idolised my dad at some point. We had a complicated relationship and there were a lot of times I hated him. It took until the last year, when he was dying, to be able to say 'I love you' again and mean it. It was the last thing I said to him.

Whereas the last thing I said to my brother was the he was an arsehole. That was the day after dad died and I was struggling. My anger was rearing up to protect me from breaking down and when we fell out it exploded. I apologised, but he wouldn't accept an apology. He then went on to tell me I only self harm to hold man hostage, which isn't at all true as mam often doesnt know when I'm self harming. We fell out. I fell out with my other brother too.

I hate them both.

I did love both of them. Despite our competitive streaks I idolised the older of the two and I adored the youngest. But now I hate them both, and they might as well have evaporated. And I decided that in a moment. I spent a while being heartbroken over the falling out, then one night I thought 'no, I hate them. I don't care what happens to them now', and the switch was flicked.

That's an unhealthy skill I have, the ability to flick from love to hate, I guess I learned it during the times when my dad walked away and wouldn't speak to me for six months at a time. Or maybe I learned it when friends left me because, I assume, they were fightened of being targetted by the bullies who were targetting me. I don't know. I just know I can press that switch.


- Do you ever feel you don't have a strong sense of your own self and are unclear about your self-image?
Goodness yes. At almost 31 I still don't know what I want to be. The best option is an author because I enjoy writing and it allows me to explore different facets of my character, of experience, and even work out how to be a better person. But as far of myself goes... I switched university course three times because my goals kept changing. What I aspire to keeps changing. A lot of the time I just don't know what I want.

- Do you engage in impulsive activities in two areas that are potentially damaging, such as unsafe sex, drug abuse or reckless spending (but not including self-harming or suicidal behaviour)?
I do spend recklessly. My husband is terrible with fiances so I have to control them, but that involves a battle with myself because I do impulse by a lot. Even when I 'plan' a big purchase, our version of planning is to discuss it without making plans other than 'we'll save up', and then one day I'll be in need of a pick-me-up and I'll say 'fuck it, lets get that'.

I also binge eat. My depression currently means I don't really have an appetite driving me to eat. I eat because my husband makes food. However, I do have a habit of going through stages when I'll go through every sweet thing in the house. My brother has shown his disgust before because I ate a whole Golden Syrup cake for breakfast. I can do that. Eat a whole cake. A family size bar of chocolate. A box of donuts. It's not a daily thing, but I go through periods of binge eating. I just don't admit it because I'm ashamed of it. I know it's tied up with my mental illness but I'm ashamed of it.

That comes back to stigma, though, doesn't it. There's a lot of media coverage on anorexia and bulimia, on how the media encourage those conditions and how people suffering symptoms of those conditions need help. But if the media shows an overweight person devour a whole cake, scorn follows. They're seen as greedy pigs. As a strain on the NHS. As people who don't deserve help because they're causing their own suffering. No one ever says 'this person has a mental illness and they need help'.

So I don't admit my dark, disgusting secrets about refusing dinner but then hiding alone eating a full family size packet of marshmallows. That's just stupid and disgusting, right? More so than vomitting after meals, which is part of an illness.

The media still sees eating disorders as starving because of distorted self-image or mental illness. They don't show that over-eating or over-eating junk food is also a reaction to distorted self image and mental health conditions. The person in the street often expresses the same bias. How can anyone admit binge eating is a problem for them when they expect to be met with disgust?

- Have you made repeated suicide threats or attempts in your past and engaged in self-harming?

Yes. Repeated threats, I've made one recorded attempt, family intervention has stopped several others, and in the last week crisis team involvement has stoped several. Ive self harmed for years. My left leg is scars from ankle to knee. I have scars on my other leg and my arms too.

- Do you have severe mood swings, such as feeling intensely depressed, anxious or irritable, which last from a few hours to a few days?

Yes. I'm in a severe depressive epidode at the moment with severe anxiety. An extended episode happens every few years, but between my them I'd consider myself to be emotionally unstable. I have severe mood swings that cause shorter term depression, anxiety, and anger. I can be ok, then at seemingly nothing I'll be suicidal, or anxious, or easily angered. Then I'll be ok again.

- Do you have long-term feelings of emptiness and loneliness?
Yes. All the time. It's one of the hardest parts of being me, the emptiness that just stays, stoping me from interacting or living like normal people. I can't remember not feeling lonely on some level.

- Do you have sudden and intense feelings of anger and aggression, and often find it difficult to control your anger?
Yes. This influenced my falling out with my brothers. It's affected my interaction with colleagues before too, and my husband.

- When you find yourself in stressful situations, do you have feelings of paranoia, or do you feel like you're disconnected from the world or from your own body, thoughts and behaviour?

I often feel paranoid that people are talking about me, laughing at me, or plotting against me, at othertimes I feel totally disconnected and yes, like my body is going through the act of living and interacting but I'm not really there.i also find it hard to remember things that go on while disconnected.

In the last week alone I've phone the crisis team because I've gone from managing to panicked nauseous or suicidal for no reason. I do have stressors at the moment, but this switch can happen for seemingly no reason too.

So, that's Borderline Personality Disorder, the indicators and my responses. I think that's my most likely disorder and would like that to be investigated, but I feel like having waited 16 years to help with depression (22 if you consider the years of migraines due tobstress before that diagnosis), that it'll be another 22 years before anyone listens to my suspicions that more is going on.

However, let's consider me as someone without BDP as the psychiatrist I saw didn't mention it at all. Let's consider Avoidant Personality Disorder instead, as an epansion of my anxious avoidant strategies which were noted.

Avoidant Personality Disorder (taken from this website):

As briefly aforementioned, people with AVPD will exhibit a variety of common traits and characteristics. Although these may vary slightly from person to person, generally avoidant personality disorder symptoms are quite specific. This does not mean however that someone who shows signs of avoidant behaviour has the disorder. Everyone from time to time may feel hypersensitive and antisocial, and only those who exhibit a number of AVPD traits can qualify for a diagnosis.

The most common avoidant personality symptoms are:

- Avoidance of occupational activities.

I've been on the sick for 6 months and I really don't want to go back. Does that count?

- Easily hurt and offended by criticism or disapproval.
Yes. Definitely. And I'll spend days going over and over critisism feeling worthless.

- No close friends.
No. I have a select group of close friends.

- Strong reluctance to get involved with other people.

Yes and no. I'd like to be involved but I don't know how to be without extreme anxiety inhibiting me.

- Strong reluctance to take personal risks or engage in new activities.
Yes. Definitely. Risks and unfamiliar situations cause panic attacks.

- Very shy in social situations.

Yes. Very. I'm known for sticking to my husband's side and staying quiet.

- Preoccupied with criticism.

Yes. See point two.

- Exaggeration of potential difficulties.

I wouldn't say I exaggerate, others might.

- Holding back in intimate relationships.

No. As far as intimate relationships go I'm an all in kind of person.

- Perception that they are socially inept.

I AM socially inept.

- Constantly using 'always' and 'never' statements.
I sometimes use always and never statements.

- Blaming others for creating a problem rather than dealing with the problem.

No, I'll deal with it while seething at the person who is to blame. At least I did until my current depression hit.

- Catastrophizing - always assuming the worst case scenario.
Yes. I do that.

- Depression and mood swings.

Yes.

- Escaping to fantasy worlds and daydreaming about ideal relationships.

Yes, I guess. I'm an author and I write paranormal fantasy books so escaping to fantasy is kind of my thing...

- Fear of abandonment.

Yes. So much so that I avoid people so I don't upset the into leaving, but then they feel pushed away anyway.

- Hardly speaking when forced to participate in a social situation.
Yes. I do this whenever I'm forced into a social situation.

- Hypervigilant - having an unhealthy obsession with the actions, thoughts and interests of others.
I wouldn't say obsession, but I do have an unhealthy concern over the thoughts of others.

- Passive-aggressive behaviour.
Sometimes, when I'm trying to rein in the openly angry outburst which relate to what I discussed in the BPD section of this post.

- Self-loathing and self-victimisation.
All the time. I hate myself. I blame myself for everything. Often it's unbearable.

- Tunnel vision - can only focus on a single concern while ignoring priorities.
I want to say no, but recently it's a yes.

I've read up on other personality disorders too, but none fit as well as BPD followed by AvPD. And the indicators that I've answered yes to all severly impact my life, my ability to socialise, leave the house, maintain family relationships, maintain friendships. I really do think there's something else going on apart from recurrent depressive disorder, but I'm terrified of mentioning it again in case I'm ignored, or told I'm being a hypochondriac. I'm scared of being judged if I ask for a third time. So what do I do? That's a question I can't answer, because part of my brain say's I need help, but another part of my brain also says no one will help anyway so I may as well stay quiet. Or better yet, die.

This is what happens when mental illness goes untreated for too long. Vulnerable peole whose minds are already working against them become ever more entrenched in their doubts and symptoms. But a lot of the time, it seems the government and wider world don't care about that. Physical illness is worthy of being treated. Mental illness? Not so much.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx

Guest Blog: Abused By So Called Friends

Today we have a guest blog written by one of my best friends, The Undead Noodle. It relates back to my 'Not All Killing Blows Are Physical' post and it's heart-breaking. This is why we need to stop peer and emotional abuse, and why no person suffering mental illness should be targetted for harassment and have their illness used against them. Such behaviour is life-threatening. In my opinion, it can amount to attempted murder.

To my UndeadNoodle. You are valuable. You are loved. You are worth so much, no matter what cruel ********* say. I know you won't believe me, but it's true, and I'm going to keep repeating it. I am grateful that you're in my life. Even though we can't see each other as often as we'd like, talking to you almost every day matters to me. You matter.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx

Abused By So Called Friends

Well, I have been asked to write a blog as a guest for one of my closest friends, and I said yes, so hey. I have been thinking a lot about what to write, and yesterday’s events gave me some good ideas. But before I go there let me give you a small bio on me, so the rest of what I write will make sense.

I am a 31 year old mum. I haven’t worked in 8 years now, because I wanted to be a stay at home mum and watch my beautiful boy grow. Then once I could go back to work I found I had cancer, so went through treatment which was successful thankfully. Now, I have struggled with depression for most of my life, and the last few years have added a massive bundle of anxiety to that too. I am overweight, so my confidence is basically non existent. But, despite all of that, I am a nice girl. I am always friendly, I support my friends as much as I can, and all in all I am a good person.

That’s rare for me to admit. Especially now, after yesterday. Yesterday, a couple of my friends and I were betrayed by someone we thought we could  trust. The woman and her husband were rude  disgusting to us. I was personally attacked online, and my friend was given horrid abuse when she stepped in to defend us all.

We were abused. It can’t be explained any other way. Unfortunately we all suffer from depression and anxiety. We have all self harmed. And at  one point or another we have had suicidal thoughts. The girl who was downright cruel I shall name Girl C, and her husband will be called D. Girl C was so good, she weaselled her way into our group, working slowly but surely closer and closer, getting us to trust her, to open up, to let her in. This is over the space of about a year, so she knew how to play the long game. Her husband, D, was always abusive. He treated her so badly and we all felt bad, supporting her through her depression, through her feelings of worthlessness that this awful excuse for a human being constantly made her feel.

We told her things barely anybody knew. We all shared, or so we thought. And we kept it all between us 4, again or so we thought. We were a close knit group. We chatted online every day. We Skype and oovooed, sometimes all 4 at the same time. We were really close. Until recently.

Recently Girl C changed. She got new friends that she spoke to more. I mean by all means no one was upset that she had more friends. It was the fact that her attitude changed towards us that I didn’t like. But, arguments aren’t my thing. I have always suffered with self blame, and I will blame myself for everything. I can’t help it. I constantly feel guilty. Guilty for things I’ve said, things I’ve  done. Even when I haven’t done anything. I don’t lash out, I lash in. I withdraw, and force myself to take the blame, take the punishment, even if none is needed. I always think I’ve done wrong. I have done since I was a teen.

So, naturally, I blamed myself for Girl C's change of behaviour. I tried to stay away from arguments, whilst still supporting whoever needed me. Oh, and Girl C was my best friend. I was fooled. She had been telling D stuff about us. Because yesterday, after I commented once, and it wasn’t even anything bad, D got involved. He told me and my friends to kill ourselves. He said no one wanted us. No one would miss us. He then turned on me. He said I needed to get laid. He said that I would have to pay them, or ply them with drink and drugs to get them to be with me.

Bang. One of my biggest triggers. Thrown so carelessly into my face. He didn’t care. He laughed. I have always felt disgusting. Like I wouldn’t be desired, wanted, needed. Especially intimately. It takes a lot for me to do anything. And  now, there is no chance. Not after that. I think of someone touching me and I cry because they wont truly want me, will they. They need drugs. They need money. Because I am not attractive enough for them to want  me just because it’s  me. Any tiny, miniscule amount of confidence I had in myself is gone. Completely. Because that’s how mental illness works. Out of a thousand compliments you will only listen to the one insult. Because it’s the only one that makes sense. It’s the only one you can truly believe in. Someone finally said exactly how you feel. And as you feel relieved that finally someone sees what you see, it also breaks you. It smashes into your heart and rips it apart. Your soul dies a little more. Your pulled a little deeper into your pit of depression. And the walls become even harder to grip onto.

You think, why bother? Why try and climb out when you can just slide to the bottom, lay down and die. If that one person sees your true self, then everyone else must do too. They pity you. And no one wants to be pitied. So push away again, your curl into yourself, so they don’t have to bother with you anymore. They will feel better because your gone. They don’t have to waster their time on you any longer. And it swirls. Down, down down. It’s never ending. I could write for hours and hours about how my thoughts go.

I know I’m worthless now. I know I’m nothing. If someone who was named my best friend could betray me, then I cant be worth anything, can I. But, I still will live. I will support my other friends who were abused by D. Because that’s who I am. I’m worthless, but I love my friends, and I don’t want them feeling this way. I won’t let them think like I do. I will support them until I am no longer needed or wanted, and then I will slink away and let them be happy. Because I can be a support beam, but I’m not worthy of standing on the floor I support.

TheUndeadNoodle
https://www.blogger.com/profile/06892693911835590834

How Not To Talk To Sick People

1. "It's all in your head."

You wouldn't tell someone with a fractured skull that it was all in their head. Don't say it to someone with a mental illness. The location of the damage doesn't change its existence.

2. "You're lazy."

You wouldn't say it to someone bed-ridden with a spinal injury. Don't say it to someone with depression. Being unable to function is harder on the sufferer than the bystander. Support, don't accuse. And if they manage to do something they enjoy? Congratulate them on doing that, because even that took more energy and willpower than you appreciate.

3. "What have you got to be depressed about?"

You wouldn't ask what someone had to get cancer over, don't ask a depressed person to justify their illness. Not all lung cancer patients are smokers and not all depressed people have a trauma in their past.

4. "Stop worrying."

You wouldn't tell someone with scoliosis to stop their spine curving, so don't ask someone with anxiety to stop worrying. It's a symptom, not a choice.

5. "You're doing this to manipulate/control someone."

You wouldn't tell someone who lost a leg that they did it to control someone, don't say it to someone who self-harms or is suicidal. You can't control anyone if you're dead, and self-harm is usually about coping, not controlling. Don't judge.

6. "It's a case of mind over matter."

You wouldn't say this to a paraplegic, don't say it to someone with a mental illness. Their mind is the problem, after all, it isn't functioning properly. It can no more force itself to function normally that someone can overcome paralysis by willpower alone.

7. "I don't believe you."

You wouldn't say this to your son if he found a lump on his testes, don't say it to your daughter when she says she's self-harms/wants to stop existing/feels empty. Many illnesses take away loved ones, both physical and mental. Get the appropriate help and stand by her.

8. "I can't be around you when you're like this."

You wouldn't say it to someone struggling through chemo, don't say it to someone who is getting their medication adjusted/suffering withdrawals. They are suffering. They didn't ask for it. Empathise.

9. "You refuse do to x/y/z."

You wouldn't tell a one armed man that he refuses to clap. You'd accept that he can't clap, which is a different thing. Don't tell someone with anxiety they refuse to pick up the phone/reply to a letter. Chances are they just can't do it, even if it seems like the simplest thing in the world to you.

10. "Just don't think about it."

You wouldn't say this about a heart attack, don't say it about a mental illness. It is not that easy. The person with a mental illness is very probably trying not to think about it in a way those with other illness never do because negative thoughts play such a huge part in so many mental conditions. If the sufferer could turn off the noise, they would.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx

I Wish You Weren't Here

Here's the thing about three year olds, especially three year olds you've created... They aren't cruel, but they can cut deeper than anyone else. You see, they rebel. And when they rebel and push boundaries, they're blunt. The open their mouths and they haven't yet learned tact, or metaphor, or sarcasm. What comes out is a mix of the truth of their feelings at thatb moment and words they know have upset you previously.

Tonight my son didn't want to eat his tea and he was being obnoxious about it. I told him he could eat his tea or he could have a time out on the 'naughty step' and that I'd have to tell Santa he'd been naughty.  He turned to look up at me and said, "Mammy, I wish you weren't here."

And my heart broke.

Logically, I know exactly what I said in the first paragraph; they rebel and they say things that hurt. The problem is that my depression has a voice and it whispers to me. Sometimes it yells, actually, and what it yelled today was, "see, even he knows he'd be better off without you. No one even wants you." I had to get up and go into the next room...

"I wish you weren't here" is among the most hurtful things that can be said to someone who often wishes they weren't even alive. Those words cut deep, carving a path right into the wound which is already trying to become fatal.

"I wish you weren't here" is the worst thing you can say to someone with a fear of abandonment and has had other loved ones turn away.

I'm not going to hold those words against my son. He and his sister are the reasons I'm alive. Maybe that's why it hurts. I draw breath for my children. Without them I would have attempted suicide more than the once I have, and maybe that's why those words hurt so much. It makes me want to evaporate, to simply cease to be. I will almost certainly cut tonight. It'll be the only way to stop myself walking out of the house and just leaving. Vanishing. Either to kill myself or die on the street.

That's the thing about depression; the slightest thing, like an off the cuff comment from a child you know loves you to bits, can set in motion a tailspin that you just can't pull yourself out of. That makes every conversation a risk. It means being around people is a risk. It could take one wrong word, one misunderstanding, one moment to kill me. Literally. And even the most innocent voice could be the one that makes me crumble.

Pseudonymous Zombie
Xx

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

Raising the Dead: The Day to Day Life Of a Zombie

So, why Pseudonymous Zombie? The pseudonymous is self explanitary. I'm using a pseudonym. The zombie... well that's a metaphor for several of the states I regularly find myself in.

Not all zombies are 'walkers'. Some can't get out of bed at all...

Some mornings getting up and living is a lot like raising the dead. Impossible.

Today has been one of those days and I feel like a failure. I'm failing at life. I'm wasting life. I'm a burden on my family and most days I wish I wouldn't wake up at all. For me, a good day is waking up and not instantly regretting it. That doesn't mean I'm happy to be alive or enthusiastic about the day ahead. It doesn't mean I'm motivated. A good day means I'm emotionally numb, rather than actively hating myself and my life. I take my pills. I carry on existing. That's a good day.

On such a day I might not cut, because I'm emotionally numb rather than suffering from my relentless self-loathing and hopelessness, or the whirling anxiety that sends me into uncontrolled panic, a panic which I can only stop by sliding a razor blade through my skin over and over again. Twenty times. Fifty times. One hundred times. I've cut over one hundred and fifty times in one sitting before. My husband found me surrounded by pools of blood in our bathroom. That's normal to us now. We clean me up. We keep going. We wipe away the blood so it's gone when our kids get up in the morning. I hide the scars and try not to cry at the dinner table when I look across at the two beautiful faces of my children and know that those two perfect little people deserve someone so much better than me as their mother.

Those two are the reasons I'm still alive, but on a bad day my mind tells me over and over that they would be better off if I was dead. On those days I want to leave them with their daddy, walk out of the house and drive to the cliff tops three miles away. Then drive off them. My family would hurt, yes, but they would move on. They would no longer have to deal with me and they could have better lives. That thought process is why I no longer have access to my car key, because one day I started driving away intent on not coming back and it was only because of a lucky stop and a lucky phone call that turned me back.

Another day, before I went on long term sick, I drove home from work and spent an hour in the car outside my house debating leaving, running away and finding somewhere to die. My husband saw the car parked and he phoned to tell me that my son wanted to see me to say goodnight before he went to bed. That made me bawl my eyes out but I got out of the car and went inside to be a mother to my kids. Two months later I waited until my kids where safely at school and took a planned overdose of anti-depressants, knowing my children wouldn't have to see me. They'd be protected. I survived that suicide attempt because my husband came back sooner than I'd expected. Even when he walked in I threw back more pills until he grabbed them from me and called an ambulance. I'm not allowed to keep my own pills now either. My husband gives me what I need every morning.

Luck (or lack thereof), more than anything, has ensured I'm still breathing, but I don't feel like I'm alive. So what's the point in getting up in the morning? Especially when I can't go anywhere or see anyone?

Unsociable and better caged than being a menace...

Depression and anxiety have kept me housebound for seven months. I can count the number of times I've been out in public since March on my hands, and on none of those occasions have I been alone. I need my husband or my mam with me whenever I do venture out and even then its hard, especially while going somewhere busy. Twice I've tried to go with my two children to the soft play, with my husband and mam at my side, on both occasions being sat in that busy environment has caused distress. It starts with a gnawing anxiety and becomes panic. I feel unsafe and I start to fidget. I can't stop worrying and eventually it gets too much, my brain feels like it's being squashed under the weight of my anxiety and I need to leave, to get away. Even though my kids still want to play, we have to go home. I can't manage an hour in a place with more than two or three strangers. After both trips to the soft play I hid away in my bedroom, needing to be completely alone, away from even my family, while I reset. Resetting is a process that can take days. Days just to be able to face my husband and children.

I'm a better mother and wife if I don't leave the house at all. At least then I can face my husband and kids rather than hiding away on my own. If I go out, they're going to lose me for a day or two. If not permanently.

It's a nightmare. The panic that makes it impossible to go out in public also prevents me answering the phone most of the time. Every time the phone rings I feel a sense of dread, that whoever is calling will have bad news or wish me some harm. Sometimes I manage to answer, most times I pass the phone to my husband. I can't make phone calls either. The idea of having to talk to strangers, to call center employees, or the staff at the doctors surgery, even my friends is terrifying to me. My mind tells me they'll judge me. Or I'll say something stupid. I feel sure I'll do something that makes the person on the other end of the line think less of me. Because of that, my husband makes all my phone calls for me. Sometimes I have to get him through security question but that is all I will do. State my name, date of birth, and the first line of my address. I can't actually have a conversation about whatever I needed to phone about. Even getting through security leaves me feeling distressed, and then I feel like such a failure for not being able to manage such a basic thing. Something most people take for granted.

My inability to make a phone call is dangerous as well as being disheartening. I keep telling health care professionals that I'd phone the crisis team if I got to the point of putting my suicide plans into action, but the truth is that I'm incapable of making that call. I'd have to hope that my husband was with me and that he could make that call for me. There's no way I can call a stranger at my most broken and tell them what's going on. I can't even call people I know... People I love dearly.

I have a friend who I've known since the age of twelve. She's my best friend. Yet I haven't seen her in months. I haven't phoned her. I've stopped replying to her texts. Not because we've fallen out but because I'm scared. I'm not coping. I'm failing as a friend and I don't want to burden her with my shit. I don't want her to hate me for it like others do, and so I'm hiding myself away. Logically, I know that's the wrong thing to do. I know I'm pushing her away at a time when having a friend could help. But the illogical voices in my head, the depression and anxiety, they whisper the opposite every day, that I shouldn't burden her. That I'm worthless. That sooner or later she'd walk away from me anyway because I'm such a horrible person. Those feelings have control at the moment and I can't seem to fight past it.

So I don't leave the house. I don't interact with the world outside. I stay in the cage that my own mind has locked me in. What's the point of getting out of bed when that's my life. Even when I do get up, it's only to move to the sofa, where I'll spend the day in the same pyjamas I've spent the last week in because getting showered and dressed takes to much energy and feels pointless as know one but my family will see me anyway. Sure, with my husband's help I make sure my kids brush their teeth and get washed. They always go out in clean uniforms, well fed and well rested. But what I ensure for them, I can't do for myself.

I only wash and change at all with my husband's prompting. He needs to prompt me to perform any sort of self care. If he didn't cook, I wouldn't have meals. I might binge eat the can of condensed milk from the cupboard to try and make myself feel better, or munch my way through the christmas biscuits which are seven months out of date, but then I'd just stop eating. I'm regularly dehydrated because I don't drink unless someone prompts me to do so. Everything about functioning is just pointless to me, but it isn't the futility alone that affects me... It's also hard for me to even remember to do the most basic things.

Zombies are characterised as having diminished brain activity...

Poor memory and poor cognition is another symptom of depression and it's hit me hard. There are times I'll listen to what someones saying to me and not understand a word. I'll misinterpret situations. I'll misread letters. My brain seems to be functioning in a fog, and if you tell me something, don't expect me to remember. Unfortunately, my problems with cognition might not be down to depression alone, because depression and anxiety are no longer my only health problems...

I received a phone call from my doctor yesterday, one of the few I've managed to answer after my usual deliberation. She thinks I have fibromyalgia, which would explain the pain I feel all over my body and my poor cognition and memory issues. Basically, I can't catch a break, and if I did, it would probably be in a bone.

Shuffling, moaning, and not really alive...

In addition to fibromyalgia, an x-ray on my wrists shows minor changes which look like the onset of osteoarthritis. I'm only thirty. That diagnosis may seem completely separate from my depression. Although many fibromyalgia sufferers are depressed, my battle with depression started in my teens, not with the conditions of chronic pain which have plagued me over the last few years. However, that pain is feeding my depression and making it worse. Right now my lower back, neck, shoulders, wrists, fingers, calves, ankles, hips, and even my toes hurt. When I managed to drag myself out of bed, a task which took three hours thanks to the stiffness in my joints and the pain in my back and neck, I took every type of painkiller I could (in the correct doses while supervised). That helped a little, but I'm still in pain and I know from experience that when I sand up, unbending my body with be excruciating.

Even writing this is difficult. I'm not using a keyboard. That hurts my wrist, and when I was at work I had constant numbness down half of my left arm because of using a keyboard all day. Instead, I'm using my tablet which has a stylus which is light enough and precise enough to make typing on a touch screen a little easier on my wrists which are in constant pain. All the same, my left hand which is holding my tablet is suffering. The tablet's too heavy to hold without the connective tissues around my wrist joint burning. I'll have to put the tablet on my knee, but then I'm looking down and that is making my neck worse.  I have to change position constantly to easy parts of my body, only to put another part under pressure as a result, even though the act of moving itself is painful, often painful enough to bring tears to my eyes.

I cried this morning with the pain of sitting on a dining chair. It took me three hours to get out of bed because of my pain and stiffness. I'm in pain now. And worse, what I have has no cure. All I can really do is take pain medication. The doctor has advised doing gentle exercise like swimming or yoga, but thanks to my anxiety there's no way I can leave the house. Especially not to don a swimming costume or show the world that I can barely move and often only manage to shuffle like a zombie, moaning as I go.

I'd like to go for a walk in the countryside like I used to, but my back pain means I can't even get from my house to the shop at the end of the street without crying in agony and losing my ability to move. 160 meters. That's my maximum as far as walking goes. And if I need to keep going, if I force myself on with tears in my eyes and my brain telling me I should just kill myself rather than go on like that, then I'll put myself out of action for days. I simply wont be able to move the next day, or the day after.

I used to love kayaking, and strangely that doesn't affect my back the way walking does. However, it does affect my wrists and shoulders. It was the one sport I really loved to do. It gave me freedom and fun while also providing the solitude I need. My husband and I used to go to the lakes and paddle out to deserted islands. It was quiet. Peaceful. A new perspective. But now, on most days, I wouldn't be able to do it. If, on a rare good day, I managed it, then I once again wouldn't be able to move for days afterwards. That's my conundrum. If I make the most of a rare good day, pain wise, then that is followed by several of my worst days. It's just not worth it, because the intensity of the pain on my worst days increases my suicidal thoughts. Anything to make the pain stop.

Even cooking meals is hard now, which doesn't help with my lack of interest in feeding myself. I used to bake but I can't now because mixing cake batter hurts. I love cooking, but I can't chop a meal's worth of vegetables without increasing the pain in my wrists, and I certainly can't stand at the hob making sauces or stirring pans. I know. I've tried one of the rare occasions I had the motivation to feed myself properly. I ended up in tears with my back pain and had to get my husband to finish for me. I couldn't move properly for days afterwards and my feelings of failing my family increased again. I'm unable to perform even the basic task of making a family meal. Often I can't even open jars or bottles because of the pain in my wrists and fingers. And this is me, potentially for the rest of my life.

It's a relatively small thing that really gets me upset about the diagnosis of incurable fibromyalgia though... It's agony to put on a bra. Trying to get a bra on is excrutiating while I'm moving it into place and fastening it. What sort of person can't put on her undergarments without gasping and grunting in pain aged just thirty?

This feels like a life sentence. My anxiety and depression have me in a cage and have done most of my life to varying degrees, but now my chronic pain tortures me as well. Most of the time, living this way just doesn't feel worth it. I have no value because of it. I'm useless. On long term sick. Unable to care for myself. Unable to be the mother my kids deserve. I want it to end, but the only way it will is to take myself out of the picture.

So no, I don't wan't to wake up tomorrow. If I do, I won't want to go through the agony of getting out of bed and facing another day. If I make it downstairs, the constant pain will gnaw away at my resilience until I'm seriously considering suicide as the ultimate painkiller, as well as the best thing for my family. It's on my mind now, and I the only way I have to calm myself, to block out that need, is to go for my razor blade and add the the scars already covering my leg.

That's the thing about each of my conditions, from the mental to the physical. There's never a reprieve, not really. It's constant. Depression. Anxiety. Chronic pain. It's a constant gnawing, like rats chewing a cable; sooner or later the cable will snap. These conditions are things I'm fighting to survive day in and day out. It's exhausting enough to make getting out of bed difficult and getting dressed impossible. I'm not living. I just shuffle along, moaning in pain, unkempt and finding no joy in being on earth.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx