Backtracking

I always feel like I am backtracking.

I have periods when I start to feel better. When I say 'feel better' I just mean that I find it more bearable to get through the days.
I feel like this for a while. Its as if I begin to forget about how bad I feel, I forget about all the negative thoughts that have been running round in my head. And life doesn't seem so dark. I can focus a little more on things.
But.... There is always the down fall.
It always leads back to that.
A few days before it arrives I can feel it building up again.
Thoughts start to swirl again. The world dims and things become unbearable again. I try to shut out the negative voices but they always come back in.
This is what happened this bank holiday.
Instead of spending the day relaxing or doing something nice with family, I met breaking point instead.
It was just too much for me. To carry on this way. I came to the conclusion that life just wasn't worth living. It is a waste of a life to spend it this down and always trying to push the suicidal thoughts to the back of my mind. Being so painfully lonely and not being able to do a thing about it because my brain just wont allow me to.

I tried to distract myself from these thoughts. I tried to read. Tried to sleep. Tried to do something productive. I even tried to exercise. But the thoughts where too much. The urge to do it was so strong and convincing. I rang the mental health team who I am under. I spoke to a lovely woman and she tried to help me. Told me I needed to distract myself. I needed to try and calm myself down. So I took the conversation on board. But twenty minutes later I found myself desperate for help. Desperate for these intense feelings to stop. The next woman who I spoke to was unhelpful. I needed immediate help and all she asked me was what help do you need. I don't know. I am not medically trained in mental health so I don't really know what they could do for me. I just needed help. I needed to feel safe from myself. But this woman only made me more frustrated because she asked me so why haven't you killed yourself?
Well because I want help that's why. I don't want to end my life if this can be sorted but I will if this carries on. I can't cope with this horrible feeling. This intense feeling. I ended up putting the phone down on this woman and taking myself to accident and emergency at the hospital. 

On arriving at the hospital I was very on edge and emotionally and mentally unstable. I checked in at the desk. Whispering to the receptionist why I was here and that I would either be outside or waiting in a quiet area because I couldn't bare people in the waiting room to be looking at me. 

When I was called to be assessed by the triage nurse i broke down. I couldn't control my crying. I sobbed and she put her hand on my knee. Just a small gesture, showing me empathy and listening to every word I said. We talked for a couple of minutes so she could make a full assessment before passing me on to the mental health team. She asked me if I had harmed myself..........
I shamefully admitted that I had. I did it to try and be in control again. To try and stop the mental pain for even just a second. To try and focus on the physical pain. To distract me from the way I was feeling... But it didn't work. It was something I hadn't done for a while but it was the only thing that I thought might work.

The next four hours I spent waiting to see the mental health team. All the while I wanted to run away and end my life. It is horrible to feel this way. To feel a risk to yourself. To feel that you are not in control anymore and if you didn't get immediate help you would end your life.
Finally the mental health team arrived. Two members of staff who I sat in a quiet room with. We talked. And I cried a lot. They was trying to get to the route of this feeling. Kept asking me why I hadn't ended my life? Why I had chosen to come to the hospital instead. Why I explained to them the same reason I had told the other assessment team over the phone. I just felt unsafe. 

I just needed something to get me through the next twelve hours. Because in twelve hours (the following day) I would be attending group therapy which is clinically proven to help me control my intense emotions, impulses and relationship management which is some of the things that fall under this new diagnosis of Borderline personality disorder.  

I just needed something to get me to that session the next day.
The took me to a part of the hospital which was a ward for the walking well. Which was basically for people who could mobilise fully and would come in for treatments then go back home the same day once signed off as fit and well enough to do so.
The mental health team gave me a tablet. Something I can't even remember the name of. But it was to relax me. To help suppress the feelings of feeling like this. 

After a while the tablet started to kick in and I texted my mum explaining what had gone on. Mum was really supportive. Knowing it was a difficult thing that I had to tell her about. Knowing that I was worried about upsetting her. At around eleven that evening the mental health team came back round to review me.
We had the same discussions that we had earlier when I first arrived. We noticed that there was a considerable difference in the way I was feeling. While the thoughts of being better off day hadn't gone away completely, the had died down a considerable about. They were happy to discharge me to my home knowing that I felt better, had the support of my family and had a session which I would be attending the following day.

When I arrived home my mind was taken off the thoughts altogether and replaced with how exhausted I felt. How emotionally and mentally drained I was. I just fell straight asleep. 

Ready for the group therapy the following day.

A lot has happened part 2

I actually managed to leave the house. 
I left the house and enjoyed myself. Which is a huge surprise.
At first I was nervous but then everything fell into place like it had so many years ago. I had previously bumped into an old school friend when I was on a weekly shopping trip with my Grandad. Which is the only time I ever go out. I had spoken about having a catch up as he understands what I am going through and is in a similar situation in regards to friends. Meaning we don't really have any at all. We used to be close in high-school but naturally as life goes on and people go off and do their own thing and without even realising it you drift apart from them. In school he also went through a tough time. So it is great having someone who can relate to my current situation. But his has always and will always be something that will stick with me. Which one of those reasons is because of the bullying. It wasn't so much by the old kids but by the younger ones. They're the ones who can be far cruller than anyone else because they don't think. They don't think or understand the impact of their words and actions can have on other people. I remember that day clear as anything. I remember sitting in science after lunch. I looked out the window which overlooked the grass area where we would sit and have our lunch on days where the weather was nice. I saw him laying face down on the grass area with his blazer covering his face and head. I didn't understand what was going on at first. All I remember was a teacher going and getting him and them both walking back into school together. It looked like he had been crying but i didn't know why. But that night after school no-one could have predicted. He went home that sad and depressed he took an overdose of sleeping tablets. He took them and wrote a note to his mum and curled up on the sofa next to her. I can't remember how I heard about what had happened. But I do remember going to visit him in the hospital. Going into that ward not having any idea about mental health. We went into his room and I don't remember us asking any questions we just acted as if nothing had changed in order to cheer him up. We sat on his hospital bed and started messing around with it seeing how high up it was able to go. It was so nice to see him laugh. I just wish that back then I knew something about mental health. I wish that we would have been able to spot what was going on. But what I am even more grateful for is that he is still here now and happier than he was back then. I really do believe that schools should teach people about having a healthy mind. They always go on about physical health but never say anything about your mental health which is just as important.   

After talking to him that day I didn't expect it to be so soon that we would be having a catch up. When I went round to his house there was another school friend there how I had not seen or heard of since we parted ways at school. But she too has been battling her demons. It was nice to be amongst like minded people. People who knew who you felt and what to say.. It was nice to be able to cracks jokes about it too, sometimes if you don't laugh about it you'll just cry. They both said a very good and heartfelt thing which was something along the lines of  "we are all going through similar things and it makes sense for us to stick together. Be each others back bones to be able to support each other".  When you have mental health problems it is easy for people who don't have them to forget about it. It isn't a case of depressed one minute happy the next, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that for ANY mental illness. It is an ongoing thing that can not be controlled no matter how hard we try to push it away and suppress it. When I was with them both it felt like I could be myself. I didn't have to hide anything or worry about judgement. I haven't enjoyed myself that much in a long time. All we did was talk, play cards against humanity and Jack-box. Just something something simple. This is something that we plan to do regularly now. 

They made me realise it isn't all bad. We can get through this together. We can be each other back bones. Each other support networks. I think having people in your support network who have been or are going through similar things really helps as they understand.