Good day!

So I thought I'd write a post about having a really good day.

What a breath of fresh air today has been. I can't honestly remember the last day I had where I had no negative thoughts, no anxiety, no stress and no SH thoughts of any kind.

Yesterday I got the move at work I wanted, back to core gardening where I started 5 years ago. For the past 9 months ( since my 7 month sickness period) I've been on seasonal dept and that has involved selling high value garden furniture since February.
I am not cut out to be a sales person I am a sales assistant and am happy to talk to customers about our products but have been hating trying to talk them into buying.
I feel like a weight has been lifted. I'm doing my old job within a great team. I have a great supervisor who looks out for me now and a great line manager.

Today I've felt like I'm flying. I had a couple of cans of energy drink and was on it!
I was focused, not anxious and buzzing. Every customer query I had I could solve and things just flowed.
To get through a 6 hour shift without the diazepam, without shaking, without oozing anxiety and without desperately waiting for home time has just been amazing.

Long may it last.

Thanks for reading x

Superstition inconveniences

- The tv volume must be on an even number
- When I switch on tv in the morning I must have coffee in my hand
- My left shoe must go on before right shoe
- My trousers must go on before my top
- I must use plastic spoons at home
- I have a fear of putting fuel in the car
- I get anxious if someone opens a packet of crisps upside down
- The volume on the car stereo must be an even number preferably 18,20,22.
- I have just 1 coffee a day when I get up. It must be weak and I must stir it clockwise 4 times my lucky number.

And so the list goes on. I didn't think all these things affected my life but maybe they do!

Anger part 2

This anger has been building since Monday. Today is Friday. It is snowballing. I feel like a ticking bomb just waiting to explode. I actually feel I want to be physical with my anger and hurt either myself or someone else.

If I had the Amitryiptiline now I have ordered on Tuesday I would take it., Od on it, I know 30@50 mg is enough to cause series harm if not death. As it is at the moment it's what I want. I want this to end, the mood swings, the anger the failure... Everything.

Yesterday at working had to go in the yard, just lying there was a metre glass shelf shattered in bits. I was triggered instantly, my first thought being glass-cut-hurt-bleed-ease anger. This I know cannot be normal.

Sometimes I don't think L my care coordinator understands how bad things are and how serious my thoughts are. Maybe an overdose of any kind would prove that. I feel because I've not Od for ages everyone thinks things are ok. Do I have to prove my pain by doing something?

Maybe I should buy some rope, I've googled how to make a noose and use it in the garage. The garage has metal beams they've been used to lift an engine out a car so must be able to take my weight. I tried hanging myself once on a general ward after I'd had surgery on my stomach because I'd stabbed myself. I had gone to the bathroom and there was a dressing gown cord in there. I stood on a dressing stool under a coat hook on the wall. I tied rope around my neck and the hook, I kicked away the stool and hung there feeling the oxygen be cut off. Then the coat hook broke and I fell to the floor.
The beams in the garage wouldn't do that they are strong steel. I'll keep this idea and pick up some rope of I see any around.

Anger

I'm am full of anger as I write this but figured it might be a safe outlet. It's all stemmed from my psych appointment yesterday with my care co-ordinator. It was mainly a medication review but a bit of my care plan crept into it to.

Our last appointment had ended abruptly when I walked out as I wasn't being listened to.
He opened with apologising that it had ended the way it did and was sorry I felt the way I did.
After a long chat he asked how I felt about an increase in my quetiapine . I wasn't thrilled but listened to his reasons and how he felt it would help me.
I questioned the lithium again he had sent me for a blood test a few weeks earlier as he said it was an option but they had great concerns about my safety on it. He then brought up a graph on his computer screen and showed me and cc. The chart showed when I was on lithium in 2010. It showed my levels and showed that most of the time I wasn't at therapeutic level I was either under or well over. So this he said proved the lithium didn't help and he backed this up by flicking through my notes to that time to a piece written by my last psych saying I was suicidal and distressed. I thought I was stable during that time. Maybe I am only remembering the good times?

I agreed to give the quetiapine increase a go.
The whole appointment lasted 1hr 20 I was drained when I came out.
I then went to 3 different chemists to get my new prescription no one had the 50mg tablets. I ordered it through my village chemist and took the remainder of my old script to make 100mg last night.
Today I went to pick up the ordered script to be told they had probs getting it but had 150mg tabs I told the pharmacist that would be ok as would prefer to take all at night because of driving and work. He said he had to speak to psych to check. 1 hour later after several phone calls back and forth via psychs secretary etc it was decided i have to go back tomorrow when they should have sourced 50mg tablets.
So angry all this wasn't sorted. I felt like a criminal in chemist like I was trying to fiddle my scripts or something.
I came home fuming and ordered the Amitriptyline I have been tempted to buy the last few weeks. My impulsive side just came out and I just did it.
Spoke to my cc and told her I've ordered the Amitriptyline she said it was silly. Suppose it was really but that's just the way things are when you are impulsive.
And now I'm left with the anger still simmering away, that is leading to self harm thoughts and the way I feel at the moment I glad I ordered the Amitriptyline just a shame it's gonna take a while to get here.

Thanks for reading x

Struggling

So I feel like I need to blog, no i'll rephrase that, I feel like I should blog. Though I dont have anything specific to blog about.

It's been another tough week. I've managed to go to work and complete my shifts somehow, but at night time my thoughts have turned really negative. I've had suicidal thoughts again quite strong but I've taken my night meds and have then fallen to sleep stopping the thoughts being actioned.

Today feels different, I've woken up with same thoughts that I went to bed with ... Suicidal ones.

I have nothing to hand in the house to do anything. My meds are all weekly so
nowhere near enough. To get other paracetamol would mean going to several different places. And to be honest although I have the thoughts and urges I don't think I have the energy to go to 4 different places.

What I am on the verge of doing is ordering some Amitriptyline online. I want these as a "get out plan", I'm not saying I would take them, I just know I would feel better having them in the house as a "way out".

So that's where I am at. Feeling pretty crap and I have a shift at work to get through later.

I'm sorry my blog posts are so negative at the moment but I suppose blogging is about what's happening and that just happens to be bad stuff.

Thanks for reading x

Struggling to cope

So I'm not really sure what to write. All I can write is about the present and how I am struggling.
My OT has told me on the phone this morning to use distraction, do something practical, write something on my Angry Heart journal about what's happening now.

I have done something practical today but it is something that will be frowned upon. I have planned and typed out my funeral wishes. The pieces of music a speech to be read by vicar and have even inserted my favourite poem. It sounds really morbid and I suppose it is, but where my mind and mood are at the moment my funeral doesn't seem to far away. I am having to fight suicidal urges almost constantly. Thoughts are ruminating in my head leading to plans like timings, methods etc. This is a cycle I can't break at the moment. I have no idea what is stopping me but whatever it is can surely not last. As the thoughts get stronger I am getting tired and giving up seems more and more appealing.

I hate this illness, I hate how I feel worthless, selfish and generally a bad person. These thoughts, my emotions, my reactions to everything are breaking me down. I know I am not the illness but when it affects your life in so many ways it's hard not to think I am it and that's what makes me who I am.

I know all this can be treated and I can recover, I have been told so many times. But when you are dealing with this shit day after day it's hard to imagine recovery. It's hard to keep hanging in there while you work on healing.

And so the hours continue to pass by and the thoughts go round and round...oh how I wish it would end.

The day my world ended

On 30th October 2000 my mum took her last breath. It was a Monday evening at 7.13pm.
The week before I had been told it was just a matter of weeks she had left to live. The bone marrow transplant had failed leaving her with such a low immune system that a simple cold sore would be what eventually went on to kill her.
The cold sore on her lip had spread, it began to grow like some alien fungus, every little bit it spread meant there was less of mums pretty face left. Her platelets were so low (despite constant transfusions ) that the large scab covering her mouth, cheeks and nose wouldn't stop bleeding. The scabs began to block her nostrils and her mouth opening so that breathing became more difficult. I asked an E.N.T specialist if he could do anything and he said no as whatever he cut away would just bleed until she bled out. It wasn't an option.

The hospital and I arranged that my mum should come home to spend her last few days where she belonged, in her own home , amongst her own things and where our lovely dog Meg would be. A special bed was delivered and was put in the dining room. I knew this would be where she would die. An ambulance brought her home on Friday 27th. She was barely conscious. She couldn't speak due to what was now a mass on her face. It didn't look like my mum. She looked like a child. She was bald from the chemo, pale and so so thin. She must have weighed less than 5 stone. I had never seen anyone so sick before. She also had a smell a unique smell that is so hard to describe. It is the smell of cancer, the smell of it rotting away every part of her body.

She was in our care now. Mine, her boyfriend Ian's and her brothers & sisters. We spent time sitting around the bed. Talking, re-living old memories, crying all with no answers but I knew she was listening and that she understood. Aunts and uncles would come and go on what seemed like a rota system. It was on the Saturday night things really deteriorated.
Me and Ian helped her onto the camode. While on it supported by us she collapsed. Ian screamed out "she's gone" no she hasn't I said ..she still had a pulse..a faint one but she had one. We got her back on the bed. My mum was not gone in medical terms but my mum HAD gone. What was left was a shell of a woman I loved more than anything in the world. I could only recognise her by her eyes and hands. I rang the Macmillan nurse who said this was the final stage. She was unconscious and would not recover.So the family were called and over the next 36 hours we stayed around the bed. If she was going to take her last breath soon she would not do so alone. The nurses told us the last of the 5 senses to remain is hearing. We put music on constantly in the room. I worked my way through our cd collection turning louder her favourites.In the last few hours before she passed I noticed a noise coming from her throat. This is the death rattle. It is the most frightening thing I have ever heard. It sounds like a little bit of water boiling in a kettle. It is unforgettable. Her breathing became shallow and uneven, going for what felt like minutes between each breath.

I moved off my chair and slid half on the bed with her. I cradled her head and body in my arms like I was holding a baby. I stroked her neck softly and told her it was ok to let go, I told her she would be with grandad. Tears poured down my face as I told her how much I loved her and that she was the best mum in the world. The tears fell off my face onto hers. The family were crying but somehow my tears seemed much calmer, quieter. In the background Westlife were playing, Flying without wings one of her favourites.
She took one final breath and then her body just went limp, she was gone...I just knew. I told the family "she has gone" and I gently laid her back down on the bed.
It was at this exact moment our dog Meg who had been laid in the same room got up and went into the next room where she lay at the bottom of the stairs for the rest of the evening. Even the dog knew she had gone.

As I write this now I am crying, I am shaking & I am cold. I can feel all the emotions I felt that night as if they are now...this moment. As I cry and write my dog Marley is laid on me, comforting me as if he knows the pain I feel and somehow he's trying to ease it.

As I come to end this piece Bette Midlers-Wind beneath my wings has come on (I am listening to a music channel). A song that always reminds me of my mum, maybe it is her way of showing she's never far from me whether in my heart, my mind or in spirit.

Thank you for your time. X

It never lasts

I thought I'd write a quick post on having had a few good days then it ends. I'm guessing all of us with bpd experience this. The highs and lows that come so quickly, sometimes in a matter of hours.

I've had 3 really good days, I've faced work head on even though I'm struggling with it at the moment and my mood has just been good, no thoughts of self harm, no thoughts of suicide, just 3 " normal" days.
And yet today it has all come to an end. I have no idea why, nothing has changed I haven't even gone to work yet. My mood has just dropped, I feel empty and flat like there is no more to give. Horrible thoughts have returned, exit plans are ruminating in my head. Judging by today already it looks like this weeks going to be a tough one.

As hard as it is I need to accept this is just the way things are, and that just as my mood has dropped it can return to where it was just as quickly. This is what wise mind tells me. Emotional mind tells me living like this is a horrible nightmare not knowing where I'll be mentally 1 day to another.

So I'll end this post trying my hardest to stay in wise mind but I can't promise anything!

Beginnings..early years

So beginnings I thought was my mums death. It was after this that my mental health began to decline. But no, when i really think about it and go right back it was in my childhood that things started to go wrong.
Maybe I can pin point beginnings to my dads violent behaviour and outbursts after he'd been drinking. I'd stay in my bed curled up in a ball scared he would hurt my mum or come into my bedroom for me.
More likely it's from when I was nearly 15 and my mum told my dad she was leaving him and I was going with her. He reacted by beating her up in front of my eyes. I was unable to do anything about it, I froze and then went into automatic mode simply fetching my school shoes and then standing at the backdoor (after ringing my aunty for help). He spat tea in my face as I stood on the doorstep and called me a bitch. My mum got to her feet and grabbed just her purse and key and we ran from the house. I can remember all her change falling out of the purse and her fumbling on the floor trying to retrieve it all. I screamed at her to run to leave the money. We made it down the road when my aunty pulled up to rescue us.
My dad then stalked us for over a year despite injunctions against him. We had to spend a year in Bed & Breakfast accommodation ...we were homeless. I had to have teachers collect me from B&B and take me back to ensure I was safe.
It was during the time in B&B that I first thought of taking my life, I was 15. I didn't try anything just felt the pain and had ideas of how I could do it to get me out of the horrible situation. I began falling behind at school doing my GCSE's and the school suggested I drop subjects that weren't as valuable just to concentrate on the main ones.
What followed were tough years, my mum trying to raise me on her own despite her own depression and low self esteem. She told me once she wanted to end it all and kill herself. All I remember doing was begging her not to. Thankfully she didn't. During the year my dad stalked us he sent me a suicide letter with his plans etc. Apparently he did attempt suicide.
It was when my mum was first diagnosed with cancer when I was 24 that I first went to the GP and said I was struggling and feeling depressed. I came out of that appointment with Prozac ...the first of many medications I would got on to have.
It wasn't until after my mums death that my first episode of self harm actually happened. I sat in my bedroom and took a razor blade and took that first cut. I had been numb since my mums death 3 months prior not even being able to cry, the cut made me feel real again and the pain was nothing compared to what my mum had felt before her death.
And so the cutting became a coping mechanism that was used on and off for 8 years before my first suicide attempt in 2008 . That is where I became involved with mental health services.

The end of the road to lithium

So today I had my appointment with my worker. I knew it was going to be a struggle when I began crying to myself whilst sat in the chmt waiting room.
She came to collect me and said I seemed full of it... She knows me too well. From then and for the duration of the appointment an hour and fifteen minutes i cried. Not wailing sobs just those ones that trickle out gently even when you think you've stopped a lonely tear falls down your cheek.
Things are just getting to much at the moment work especially. I'm feeling overwhelmed by everything. So when she said she needed to be honest with me I knew things were gonna get a whole lot worse.
10 days ago I had my blood tests done for going back on lithium. Having had 9 months stable on it before I had faith in it working again. But today she told me she couldn't take the risk working with me on lithium. She feels it is too dangerous for me. She said I could still push for lithium but I would have to have a new worker, one that felt comfortable with me being on it. That just isn't a possibility, I am starting to get attached to her there is no way I want a new worker. She did then follow that comment up with she will work with me if I'm put on a different mood stabiliser. So I left it at that as it'll be discussed with psychiatrist in 3 weeks.
We made a start on the self help book The Angry Heart, it warned in the introduction it will be an emotional journey and it seems that way already. I have to write in a journal as part of it, that I'm gonna face later on in the week.
So the whole appointment was pretty emotional. I then had to put in a 6 hour shift at work. I honestly don't know how I've done it.
And where does it leave me now? Not on the road to lithium where I wanted to be that's for sure. Dbt skill radical acceptance may be required for now until my medication review in 3 weeks. And I need to look into other mood stabilisers ....

If only it were that easy!

"Don't let it bother you" something that is said to me at least a few times everyday. Sometimes its colleagues or sometimes my fiancé or friends. They say it after I've told them about something I've seen or if someone has upset me, the latter being the most frequent. I can't ever get across that it does really bother me. It bothers me so much I feel terrible about myself. It bothers me that someone can be so horrid to another human being. It bothers me so much I can't think of anything else. It bothers me so much sometimes that I want to kill myself so I don't have to ever be made to feel that way again. And they say "well don't let it bother you".
If only it were that easy with bpd.

My first week of blogging

I have been debating whether or not to blog for nearly 3 years. Not only was I worried about opening myself up to the world but the fact it could be triggering to myself.
When I first started self harming just after my mum's death I kept a little journal. I only posted in it maybe 10 times but it was really powerful stuff that then left me re-reading it and then harming more. So I stopped writing it.
Through twitter I've met some great people with bpd whom through their blogs I can relate to.Reading them helps remind me I'm not alone and all the things I feel with bpd are ok.
So on Monday I took my first steps into the world of blogging. Twitter is where I can be the real me so I wasn't afraid to share it through it. Facebook however is the false me and I just can't open up my blog to all my friends/family. Maybe one day I'll be strong enough but not yet. I did direct message my blog link to a handful of friends through Facebook. These were people who I knew wouldn't judge me. Their feedback has been positive thanking me for letting them in on something so private and telling me how brave I am. Brave I am not... Just trying to help spread awareness of bpd whilst trying to protect myself.
So after a week of blogging I feel i am doing the right thing. It hasn't triggered me so far and I feel it may be a new outlet when emotions get too much. If you are reading this and don't know whether to blog .... try it, even if no-one even reads this I'm not bothered it is helping me.

I hate goodbyes

Today I had to say goodbye to 2 managers at work. Due to management restructure they had been made redundant. They were brilliant managers and they were part of my work family. We all started at our store when it opened 5 years ago and together we have seen changes and the good and bad things that happen to each other.
One of the managers was my line manager and such was his caring nature he visited me in 2009 when I was on a mental health ward for 7 months. He only came once but that was enough to show that he cared and that I wasn't far from their minds at work.
So at lunch today a buffet was put on for the staff and the 2 managers sat and reminisced with us all. For the half hour I was there all I could think about was having to say goodbye. I knew I would cry and was worried I'd look silly in front of everyone. The time came and i did cry, I could barely get any words out when I was trying to thank him for his support through my mental health problems.
I know everyone hates goodbyes but I really do find them difficult even when I am not that close to someone. Perhaps it's because things will change when someone leaves in any situation. I'm just not sure but know I'm dreading the next goodbye to whoever it is.

Strange wobble at work

So yesterday I had a really weird day at work. I started my late shift at 2pm and was feeling ok. An hour or so later I had problems with a label printer it just wasn't working and kept telling me there was an error. After a few attempts I lost my temper and used the phrase I hate to use " it always happens to me". My manager came over and told me there was a problem with it and IT were sorting it.... All this stress could have been avoided if someone had told me. The result of a silly situation was I had to take some diazepam as prn to calm down. As the diazepam kicked in so did the yawns and feeling drowsy.
2 hours later while just chatting to a colleague I got upset from nowhere, I couldn't control the tears and I was on a shop floor with customers around. My colleague was supportive as always and I went on to pull myself together.
I just can't explain what happened and how my mood can change so quickly from ok to angry to stressed to sad. God I hate this illness and trying to carry on working with it is so hard, I'm surprised I haven't been sacked for what must look like bad behaviour.

CPA / medication review

Thought I'd bring the blog up to date by posting about my CPA and medication review last week. The appointment at my CMHT was with my care-cordinator (occupational therapist) and psychiatrist. It started off badly as they called me in 15 mins later than my appointment time.The Dr then spent the first 15 mins talking about my self harm that had re-started in January. I didn't want to talk about it, it has happened and I want to move on from it. He asked to see it... Total embarrassment as I hide it away. I showed him but then asked that we move on with the meeting and stop talking about SH as it was triggering me.He moved on at my request and then medication was the issue. I told him I was still wanting to go back on lithium, I I have been asking for a year. He told me their concerns regarding toxicity and overdose risks after I OD last February on it and was really poorly suffering several seizures whilst in hospital. I reminded him of the 9 months I was completely stable on lithium and I want that stability back again. He stopped me in my tracks and offered to up my trazadone and quetiapine. I then lost my temper. After a year free of OD and after a year of collecting my prescriptions weekly I still wasn't trusted! I told him to just forget it I would buy the lithium online and risk all sorts not being properly monitored with bloods etc. I said I had wasted my time and flew out the room slamming the door behind me. I got in the car and sped away seething with anger as I drove home. I hadn't been back in the house long before my worker phoned and asked how I was and tried to calm me down. She said we needed to resolve this and couldn't leave things as they were. Another appointment was made for 2 days later.So Thursday I went to CMHT and saw just my worker this time. She had made a plan and I could see she had spent time on planning where we were going together as a team. She gave me 4 options
1- I go back under my old Dbt therapist for some more 1 to 1 work ( this would mean a change of team as in a different town)
2- I try my trazadone and quetiapine at higher dose
3- I try working with her on a self help book she had ordered from USA and work at the Bpd from a different angle than the dbt
4- I get put on a mood stabiliser

Together we decided options 3&4 used together would be a fresh start.She gave me a blood test request form that the dr had written so the lithium was still a strong possibility.She's off now for a weeks holiday but next Tuesday we will start the book The Angry Heart and hopefully I'll be on the road to lithium. I'm hopeful for this new plan, it's a different angle of attack on this horrible horrible illness that is borderline personality disorder...Thank you for reading

How it all started

It was back in 2008 that my mental health became a real problem. Prior to that since the death of my mum in 2000 there were a few problems but not enough to be involved with a mental health team.
January 2008 my fiancé of 3 years left one saturday morning to go shopping and never returned. He hadn't been one of these people who just go missing .. No ...he'd been very clever and had been planning to leave me for weeks. He had snook all of his best clothes and his gadgets and stuff gradually out the house. I had challenged him just days before asking where is your laptop " I left it at work" he replied, very unusual! Anyway the result was I was devastated and felt humiliated. I had added him to my mortgage,remortgaged and took out loans with him to buy new cars, motorbikes caravan etc he took them all except my car.
I spent the rest of 2008 spiralling out of control especially with a gambling addiction that started as I was struggling to pay all the bills on my single wage.
I was by the end of the year heading for a breakdown, I took a few overdoses late November and the crisis team became involved.
A saturday night early December after a horrible visit from crisis team i was feeling extremely suicidal. I smashed a photo frame and cut both wrists really deep and gradually felt myself drifting off as I lay in a pool of blood. The rest is a blur but I had text a friend prior saying i was going to do it apparently, she called an ambulance. The damage to my left wrist was serious I had cut through the carpel tunnel nerve, I was transferred to another hospital for plastic surgery. From there I was threatened with a section but i offered to go informally to a mental health ward 12 miles from home. I was taken by an ambulance and began the 1st night of 7 months on that ward. What happened during my stay there I may post about in the future but for now I have written enough and have told the story of how it all began x