Meds, Phone calls and other things I avoid.

I look down into my hand at the little pile of multi-coloured meds for the morning. Yes I started taking them again, only lasted a week because I am far more dependent than I realised and the withdrawals were becoming too obvious to hide.

The deep feelings of inadequacy this twice daily ritual encompasses are seemingly endless.

Today I finally googled the names of some psychologists that were recommended to me 6 months ago, unfortunately I am not the Queen and as my funeral would cost less than a visit to them that impracticality put me firmly back to square one.

 I then called the local mental health team to ask for a phone number for the psychologist that is covered by medicare. I need a referral from my GP then I can make an appointment.

GP is away until May. Might call back if I can be bothered seeing her - not much point once May hits, a little late anyway I reckon.

I have consolidated a folder containing PDF downloads and great resources for the family of suiciders … suicidees? Suicide victims, people who commit suicide… whadevva you want to call them I have a stockpile of info to validate their feelings and give them ideas of ways to cope.

I have been binging like a mother fucker and my fat is expanding daily. None of my clothes fit me and a very small part of me WANTS to go to hospital PURELY because I can't binge there.

I’m going to go smoke a joint and go back to bed now. Not just because I am depressed but also because I have a killer sinus infection and my whole face hurts.

The Purple Coffin

She was one of those people with more personality than she knew what to do with. She stood up for the world and was passionate about everything, a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend and to me she was a colleague. Her firey sense of standing up for people’s perceived rights could be downright scary at times depending on which side of the argument you were standing. I won’t forget the blaze in her eyes as she would snarl “just try it!. Her passion it seems, was born from her own inner demons, described as somewhat formidable at times, she was also a nurturer, a care giver, gardener and breeder of small dogs.

While we had talked at work often, I think I learned more about her that day in the room full of mourners, those that had loved her than I would ever have been privy to otherwise. Her bright purple coffin adorned with the most brilliant display of flowers collected from her own garden. I was somewhat saddened that we had so much more in common than I had realised and I wondered for the conversations that might have been had time permitted.

While the taste of salt trickled onto my lips, the feeling I had in my heart was not so much one of sadness but self-guilt – my outlook on what so many were calling a wasted life, is somewhat tainted by my own experience and feelings, I was glad for her that she had found the peace she needed at that time and secretly I was jealous.

Two of her children, the same age as two of mine – their faces. The way her eldest daughter spoke with guilt wishing she had said more, or less – never imagining that once her mother had been admitted to the hospital that she would not have the chance to take back any harsh words and tell her she loved her. That was hard to hear.

I took a deep breath and with a final look at that bright purple coffin I whispered goodbye. As I drove home my mood was rather surreal. The looks on those little faces, the same ones I would likely be causing on my own kids someday. It hurt so bad. For them so many more questions than answers.

The hardest part about this for me is it hasn’t changed how I feel in the way it seems it probably should. I was supposed to look at this as a realisation that I need to stay well for my kids, to TRY and want to stay well. But it didn’t work, I understand the intellectual concept and I feel as guilty as hell that i don’t FEEL it but I can’t help my own need for peace.

A few days later with these added guilty thoughts and pit of depression I had already sunk into before the funeral, I had an internal anxiety attack at work and ran out the door chased by a team leader asking what was wrong, I lied and said nothing I had to go and drove to a spot I had always regarded as a possible resting place. A beautiful waterfall that tumbles down a sheer cliff face. I cut through the bush track to avoid the safety rail look-out area and instead climbed down the rocky stream to the edge of the cliff. I sat there with a bottle of water and a bottle of pills in my hand and my legs dangling off the edge, feelings of numbness and simultaneous peace.

The sun was warm on my skin as I lay back absorbing the rays on my face for a while feeling very close to nature. My iPod on the ‘D’ playlist. I had no paper to write a note. – oh well, someone would eventually go through my computer and find my heavily passcoded ramblings.  A little voice in my mind kept saying – ‘this isn’t fair on Cara’ – Cara, my team leader who’s final words to me had been ‘are you sure there is nothing I can do?” with a look of startled concern in her eyes and a slight wobble in her voice. I had told her ‘no, but thanks..’ with a tears in my own.

Our team had already lost one of our own to suicide in the last week, and as I lay back in the sun tears stinging in the corners of my eyes I felt like I couldn’t do that to Cara- she would blame herself for not acting on her instinct, she’s only young and she doesn’t need that, it’s too selfish.

At that moment I heard voices from up the track. Shit! People were coming down to the look out. I shoved the pills back in my pocket and bolted up the flat rocks and back into the crevices of the boulders on the side. Getting caught on a cliff face with pills in your hand probably lands you locked up somewhere I don’t want to go. I got back to the car and drove the long way back to the city.

I did something naughty...

 I stopped taking my meds.

The Lamictal, Lithium and Seroquel combination. Stopped the lot of them, cold turkey.

After some killer withdrawals for approximately 48hrs I am feeling more clear headed than I have in I can't remember how long! I actually feel like a person, heck I can FEEL - I have been numb as hell for so long I forgot what it feels like to be human. - I LIKE feeling human!

That being said I only got 4hrs sleep last night and its currently 2:44am and I am not even remotely tired that coupled with some other mild hypomanic symptoms that I have been having over the last week or so, it is possible that I am heading up.

I think that feeling like I was going up is part of the reason I have now stopped the meds, I really NEED to go up and don't want it jeopardized the suicidal zombie self was getting old and I cant live like that for much longer.

I am pretty much thinking that even if this isn't simply a lovely hypo productive plateau and if this does tailspin into a full blown manic episode in a few weeks time, its fucking worth it, heck what have I got to lose?

Best that will happen is they are all wrong, it's not bipolar and I will be fine and dandy and never have another episode anyway.
Worst that will happen is I go nuts, they lock me up and medicate me back to zombie- again.
Nothing lost, just a chance of normalcy for a while or more or at least a little fun along the way.
I hate being controlled by doctors, meds, people in general!

Nope, screw everyone its ME TIME!

The School Of Life

We all spend hours, days sometimes weeks pondering the meaning of life, finding the point of it all, I mean surely there is a point to it all, right? The trouble is while we look for the meaning of life we are constantly focusing on all the negative aspects such as Aunt Joan died of cancer, why? What was God/Allah/Buddah’s plan? When we focus on the worst parts we are turning a blind eye to the many good things that occurred before this event. One might say that so many people were devastated by Aunt Joans death that the funeral was packed – rather than thinking how wonderful it was to have an opportunity to share a part of their life with a wonderful person like Joan who had clearly touched so many peoples lives.

The meaning of life isn’t about the great plan from a higher being, it is actually very simple:

It is to simply live. No different to the ants or the sunflowers we are here to live, just that we as humans are lucky enough to have free will over our decisions and surroundings, intelligent enough to influence the world around us and emotional enough to love, laugh and cry.

That thing you are doing when you are not asking ‘why?’ the thing you do unconsciously every day. That, is living and that IS the point to it all. When you are looking at the negatives, you are blinding yourself to the reality of what you have, the positives that are all around you and the lessons you are able to learn and the fun to be had in Earths playground it is the school of life.

You only get one shot at this life, make the most of it until your lessons are learned, then retire to pasture or wave farewell with dignity.

Terminal Mind

I see depression as a terminal illness, responding to treatment for a time, but for many it inevitably comes back more aggressive than ever. The cycle continuing, drug after drug until eventually one day the medications will stop working altogether and quite understandably, one simply loses the will to fight any longer.

Don’t ask me to be ok, I can’t and knowing that only makes it harder.

After struggling with general existence for so long, the thought of suicide becomes so ingrained in your being that it’s not even a thought in it’s own right anymore, but as unconscious as taking a breath of air.

For such a long time, dates are important. Timing, is important – not too close to a birthday/anniversary/special holiday etc. Then eventually you realise that there is never going to be a good time. Much like having a baby there is always a reason to put it off even though your heart aches for it so. One day you will find that the pieces simply fall together at just the right moment and you will take the plunge. And much like making a baby, once the deed is done there is no going back, it is done forever.

As I write these words I have a sense of guilt. I feel like I should be offering my readers some sort of happily ever after, a traditional phoenix from the ashes story.

Sadly, much like Lithium the truth can be a bitter pill to swallow. There is no happy ending here, It always was and always will be a roller coaster ride. The best I can offer is a retelling of the lessons I learned throughout my journey.

The highs are like buying cocaine that you can’t really afford. It’s so damn irrisitable but there is a terrible price you will have to pay later, one way or another.

…and the siren song of Mania lures me in deeper still. Now I am standing at the crossroads, I can still make a choice but of course, I already know that I will choose the path in the wrong direction. It’s impossible to say no as you feel the clarity wash over you, nothing matters now anyway, after all you have a world to conquer. Places to go, people to see! The consequences? Laters’ problem.

 

………….After all, we cant sue god because the world didn’t come with a trigger warning.

Run Away

Recently on a freezing winter night we were visited from my neighbour and good friends other half, he arrived very upset, my friends 14yr old daughter had decided to run away.

We live on bushy farmland in the middle of nowhere, so running away from home in the middle of winter is at the very minimum inviting hypothermia. I went looking and found her on the side of the road about half way between her house and ours (we live about 5km apart). She had a jacket and a backpack with all her most loved worldly possessions in it including lap top, iPod and a few clothes.

After a hell of a lot of convincing I managed to get her and her 45kg bag to come into my warm car and talk, she eventually opened up to me and apart from the usual teenage mother/daughter clashes I was saddened to hear how she has been bullied mercilessly at school. She has been very down for a long time and I think she would most definitely fit the criteria for depression.

As we talked, I told her how I was bullied horribly in school, and while I will never forget that things will get better and that even though it doesn’t feel like it now, high school is such a small part of life compared to the rest of adulthood. I made some suggestions of different coping strategies she could use while thinking in the back of my mind what a complete and utter hypocrite I am.

I tell her how it’s all going to get better yet the other part of my mind is still plotting my impending suicide. I remember thinking of her as I drove home after taking that overdose and hoping she wouldn’t find out why I had died, I felt guilty for lying to her – it doesn’t always get better.

Perhaps things will be different for her, perhaps she will be able to find the happier parts of life and cling to them. There is a window of opportunity where people will still look for and see the good things when they happen – you see this particularly in children - No matter what awful circumstances they are living in they grab onto the little sparks of light hoping everything will turn around. Unfortunately after enough times of your hopes getting dashed and nothing changing you eventually give up, your spirit broken and resigned to the fact that some things can’t be fixed.

Even as an adult, I have thought of running away often, mostly to save my family from the burden of living with me. But I also know that running away wont fix anything, I can't runaway from myself sadly and it would make the kids feel abandoned in a different way to the way death would.
*Sigh*.... I hate being like this, I am trying I want to try to get better or at least I want to want to...

Suicide attempt and the week that followed

Hi people,

I have just uploaded the below posts which I had stored on my computer but never posted. I decided to upload them all and start doing this blog properly as in the past writing has been good therepy for me. If you are reading this in order I need to add a pretty big TRIGGER WARNING. If you have any thoughts of suicide AT ALL, this is NOT the blog to read. Stop, turn around and leave now!

Quick.... off you go!


I will wait.....


Ok, now that the crazies are gone ( I can say that cause they aren't supposed to still be reading),
The most recent post below was during a mixed transitional state which peaked out the next morning (Monday) when I couldn't handle being in my own skin anymore.

I tried to crash the car twice (ended up being harder than it sounds) and ended up just damaging it and then I went to work where I promptly lost the last of my marbles in the car park and ended up ODing on the only available substance I had with me at the time which was paracetamol, I took enough to do the deed and started feeling nauseous pretty quickly. I had been under the impression that it took several hours if not days to work so I was a bit taken aback by how fast I was affected.
I went into my work, told them I was sick and had to go and went back to the car.

I was quite disoriented at this point I drove (very stupid and unsafe decision) I wasn't sure where to go but was feeling increasingly unwell, I thought I would head out to a look out area I like around 40km from my small town, unfortunately (or fortunately upon reflection) I was getting dizzier and dizzier and realised I wasn't going to make it. I reached the small town before my small town and started vomiting uncontrollably, this is not ideal whilst driving and made a huge mess of the car while trying not to swerve into oncoming traffic.

The vomiting probably saved me as I think I threw up a large portion of what I had ingested, I managed to make it home and had a bit of a freak out regarding the children coming home from school and finding me, I even contemplated calling a friend to take me to hospital so that wouldn't happen but didn't want to risk them saving my life.

At this point all I could think about was crawling into bed, which I did and slept for what must have been a few hours. I woke up - this in its self upset me greatly - and promptly threw up again, lay in bed feeling god awful for a few more hours, started to feel more alive and pulled out the lap top to google how long liver failure takes etc and did a vlog entry.

Long story short, hubby came home and I had to confess due to my pitiful state, he was AMAZING about it ( I am SO lucky to have him) and took me to the GP. She took blood tests, organised hubby to stay with me and I managed to talk my way out of being sectioned although I could see she wasn't happy about it. I came home and started to feel better physically and mentally, went to bed and SLEPT until morning.

Tuesday I woke up manic, as you do, but physically fine, organised a week and a half off work and we went to the shops and bought some things we needed, hubby kept watch of my money spending and had lunch together and talked. It was actually a really nice day! That night I ended up in a mixed mood again and was starting to really freak out but was eventually able to contain it by running on the treadmill for half an hour with my headphones up full bore.

Wednesday I went out with a friend to the movies and was flying high but still reasonable, spent a bit too much money, ate too much and didn't care until later that evening but then as I was manic I continued to binge ALL night because I didn't go to sleep.

Thursday I went out by myself - I was manic as hell at this point and bought a STACK of things, ate too much, GAMBLED (very very naughty for me) luckily I ended up $200 richer. Went and looked at new cars I cant afford ( I am going to have care salesmen bothering me for months) Met a friend for coffee and headed to my GP appointment.

My GP has been awesomely trying to find me a new Psychiatrist and generally being very helpful. All my blood work came back ok even the liver function test - which was surprising.
So I have all these plans in place now for in case of more nervous breakdowns, my hubby has been given phone numbers and strategies for him to use on me if I happen to lose it when he is around.

Knowing myself, when I am in that state the chances of me calling anyone are pretty slim as I don't want help, I want to die. When you WANT to die, you don't tend to make phone calls to people who will stop that from happening.

Just glad to be still fairly hypomanic today (Friday) but not off my rocker and rested as I actually had a real full nights sleep last night!

I will leave it there, but that's an update on my mixed episode instant suicide attempt.

You Are My Sunshine

 Today is the day before mother’s day, I have been really sick this week with Lithium toxicity, went to the doc again today after stopping the lithium 3 days ago, my symptoms are still getting worse, I am trembling constantly, I have a thing called Nystagmus where my eyes jump around all over the place when I try and focus. The doc said the Lithium should have cleared my system by now and has ordered more bloods, she thinks I also have a sinus infection which is contributing to the feeling like hell so I’m on antibiotics too.

I was left feeling awful terrified that this could be permanent, my eyes are so bad that it is taking me forever just to type this and its quite painful. Suicide has been on my mind again lot lately and then something happened this afternoon that made me feel really guilty about it, less like I would be doing them a favour.  

My 5yr old daughter (baby bel) came up to me handing me a little creation she made and said “This is for mother’s day tomorrow but I want to give it to you now. Then I can give it to you again tomorrow.”

This is the card:

She the promptly looks me in the eye and with a big smile starts singing

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine you make me happy when skies are grey, you never know how much I love you, so please don’t take my sunshine away. 

Mum, you are my sunshine, I love you SOOOOOOOO much!”

Please don’t take my sunshine away. Fuck.

Sorry baby girl, I promise I will try my best I love you Sooooo much too! You may have just saved my life.

 

A Somewhat Innappropriate Article

Forgive me if this is inappropriate but I am kinda manic right now and so I am going to post it anyway!

*Extra Trigger Warning*

This is hands down best anti suicide article ever written and it’s hilarious to boot. If it doesn’t change your plans at least you get to laugh once more before you go!

http://www.cracked.com/article_15658_the-ten-minute-suicide-guide.html

And yes, I do stupid shit like google suicide, even when I’m high as a kite and not feeling remotely suicidal. I do however challenge myself to re-read this article next time I am about to end it all, I have a feeling it might just be enough to stop me…