In September 2010 I was admitted for the first time into my local psychiatric hospital. I went voluntarily; I wasn’t sectioned. Over the Summer of 2010, my mental health had deteriorated and I basically suffered a complete breakdown. We are talking full on crying, screaming, total rocking backwards and forwards and a drastic increase in my levels of self-harming. I could no longer guarantee my own safety.
I wasn’t going to work. Up to that point, work had always been my sanctuary. It didn’t matter how bad I felt, I would go to work. It was the best distraction of them all. I didn’t have to deal with how I was feeling. I could go to work and just dive into a big word document, fat spreadsheet or juicy PowerPoint presentation. I didn’t have to feel at work; I just got on with it. That was no longer working. Most days, I couldn’t get out of bed. I wouldn’t speak to anyone. I didn’t want to go out. I wouldn’t shower and spent most days in my PJs. Dave (the now ex-Husband) was still my boyfriend at the time.
As work was no longer the safe haven it had always been, I knew I was in trouble. I booked an appointment with my GP who onwardly referred me to my mental health team for my borough. I then saw them for an assessment and initially I was seen daily by the Home Treatment Team. I agreed to start taking medication. I had always resisted to that point, but I also knew that this was far worse than I had ever been before. I wasn’t getting any better so Dave and I had a very frank discussion with Fiona from the Home Treatment Team one Friday evening. Fiona told me the process of voluntarily going into the hospital. She went through everything with us. We said that we would consider it over the weekend and tell her my decision on Sunday when she came to visit.
The biggest thing I had to keep asking myself was “could I guarantee my own safety”? I have never been a danger to others, always to myself. I already had a history of a couple of suicide attempts up to that point and the self-harming was gathering pace at an alarming rate for me. I couldn’t believe how much emotional pain I was in and everything I had always done up to that point to ease and stop emotional pain was no longer working. Dave and I decided that I was going in. Fiona arranged it all and I was admitted on the Monday morning. I phoned and told Mum and she came down too for the admission.
There will be a separate entry on what it is actually like to stay in one of those hospitals but, suffice to say, it is no holiday camp, even though I have come to call it Nutlins! For those of you who may be reading this from outside of the UK, there is a company who run holiday camps around the country who have a similar name, but I don’t for one minute want to publish their name here and then people think that their holiday camps are associated with psychiatric patients! I have had some great times over the years staying at various of their holiday camps.
I spent just over two weeks in the hospital on the first admission in 2010. When I was discharged, I was on new medication, I had the BPD diagnosis and I felt somewhat recharged and ready to fight. I came out on the Thursday and was back at work the following Monday. That was a huge mistake. I thought I could just dive straight back in and I’d be absolutely fine again. I struggled for another year and then in September 2011, I was admitted back into the hospital again. I couldn’t guarantee my safety again. Partially I think I was running away also. I didn’t understand why I hadn’t gone back to “normal” after my last admission. Dave and I got married in 2011 so, theoretically, I should have been on top of the world. Why was I still so depressed? Why was I still self-harming? I was now on medication. Surely, I should be swinging off the chandeliers? To use one of the most common questions of people suffering with depression: “what have you got to be depressed about?”
The second admission was for longer. It was during that admission that I realised that I’d had a massive breakdown the year before and that going back to work that quickly was too much. I needed to take a step back. My brain had told me that it was done being silenced and that I needed to process what was going on inside it and deal with 20+ years of built up emotions, anger and frustrations, process it all and then be able to move on.
So, I didn’t go back to work and ultimately never returned to my (now former) employer. I spent the following years going through various treatments, my sister moved 125 miles away, one of my dear friends was killed and my ex-Husband left me for my ex-best friend.
Which brings me to today. I want to fight again. I’m not brilliant, I’m not standing on top of the World but I’m in a better place than I have been for a long time. I’m encouraged by the fact that Dave leaving me for Alexis didn’t result in me being admitted into the hospital again. Dear friends and my family were incredibly worried in the early stages as to what effect their betrayal would have on me. Fear not, there will be blog entries about that and all will be explained as to why the ex-best friend has been called Alexis for the purposes of this blog. I’ve lost weight since Dave and I split up. I’m in better physical condition than I have been for a number of years. My blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels have all lowered to “normal to low” parameters since Dave and I split.
I want to work again. I want to be a “functioning member of society”. Plus the fact I kind of have to work now because Government benefits aren’t sufficient to pay my household bills living in London. I don’t have a mysterious benefactor who will cover all of my expenses and my savings are disappearing at a rapid rate of knots. I don’t want to be on benefits. Granted, they are extremely valuable right now but then I have paid a ridiculous amount of Tax and National Insurance over the years! Obviously, I can’t go diving back into Monday to Friday full time work after being out of the system for nearly seven years so it’s got to be something that I can ease myself back into and allows for the fact that I’m going to have bad days still. What about my skills? Have I lost my ability to reformat a Word document, run macros in a spreadsheet or create a PowerPoint presentation from notes on a scrap of paper?
I know there is no cure for BPD and my side orders of Bipolar and Depression. It’s something that I know now I’ve got to own and manage and not let it own and manage me. However, with the support of my family, my dear friends and my “London family” (more on them in future entries), I know I’ll get there. This is the journey.
Living The BPD Life 