Care in the community

Much change since I last posted here; let me explain …

Well, first and foremost is that I decided to accept the offer of the flat and I move this Friday (30th Nov). I know that ground floor will make my life easier and I could do with a new start. Although its location sucks but it is still within reach of all the usual services (hospital, GP and college). I went there this morning to get the painter started and am going back to clean later on. I was very fortunate to find a painter at such sort notice but he is from church and someone I am doing the alpha course with. I think that was God moving in my life and certainly helped me feel like I made the right decision in moving. It is highly stressful and I haven’t slept properly since my last post. I have been frequenting A&E a fair amount as well, but being stressed over moving is a normal thing, I just don’t have the greatest coping skills. I am missing the weekly group at the unit this week but I aim to be back next week once the move has happened. I must admit there is another positive thing; I am getting a chance to sort out all my junk and I am determined to only move the stuff I want rather than the accumulated crap that has been piling up for years. Going through it all has been a bit difficult as old letters and diaries bring up a lot of memories etc but I think less rubbish will be better for me in the long run. I have also had to be more organised and focused which has got me out of bed and doing things which is another good thing. My parents are being excellent and helping me a great deal. There have been a few heated exchanges, particularly in Homebase over paint colours but I think Homebase is somewhere that everyone argues (I saw a number of people in a similar situation!!!). Despite all my worries and misgivings about it all, so far things have worked out quite well. But the next few days are going to be quite tiring and stressful. I tried to ask my GP for diazepam but she was not having any of it! I don’t blame her really, this is a normal thing to do and if I have too many drugs flying around my brain, I might forget something important.

My relationship with A is something I am giving a lot of thought to. I have been seeing him more this week because he is upset that I am moving and worried I will du p him as a result. But it is not much of a relationship and I think it is more a harm than a good. Saying that, I still go and see him and it is does fulfil me in a way I do not fully understand. Various professionals think that I am using him to self harm. At the unit I had to report each time I slept with him as self harm and I can see their point but I do not want to hurt him as I know he wants a lot more from the relationship than I do but genuinely seems to like seeing me.. I am worried that I am using him but he does get something out of seeing me too, I think. It’s all very complicated. I will see how I feel when I have moved and decide then as to whether this ends or not.

Therapy has changed a lot recently, my psychologist really got to me yesterday, she says I have borderline personality type behaviour but really I do not have the full personality that goes with it – it’s like I have taken on borderline as an identity and I am actually just someone who has depression, self harms and had PTSD. I had wondered for a while as to whether I am a true borderline as I have never been in trouble with the police and I have not been held on a long section. But to hear her say this has thrown me quite a lot. If I am not a borderline, then who am i? Sounds incredibly trite and melodramatic but if I think about it properly, then I do freak out because I have no real idea of who I am and what I am going to do with my life. I have had so many different career ideas and none of them have really stuck. I am doing theology as a bit of a ‘it will do’ course rather than a true passion. For so long, with my asthma, I never thought I’d have a very long life so I didn’t really give it any deep thought. I was scared to hope and got so depressed that I couldn’t see anything beyond being 30. But I now feel quite indestructible – I have lived through so many arrests and resuscitations that I am a lot stronger than I realise. It doesn’t make me happy though, I am not exactly pleased to be alive and I am really cross in many ways, but the fact of the matter is that despite wanting to die and not wanting any sort of a life, I am alive and so I must think of what I am going to do with it. May be that way I will find a way to keep going rather than this half life always in crisis and being such a nightmare to be around. I am too cowardly to complete suicide, so there must be at least a little bit of me that wants to live. This is quite a step away from my usual thinking – I am far more likely to whinge on and on rather than be honest and face the fact that I have to do something. I do truly want to make a difference to the world and be a useful member of society – I am not sure how though.

So things have moved on and the unit has helped a lot in that, but so has my psychologist – she is a brave person to confront me on this, I can be so fierce sometimes. I am lucky to have so many people care for me and I just wish I was worth it.

Right, time to return AGAIN to Homebase and get yet more bloody paint (I think I should get a loyalty card because at this rate, I’ll own the place in no time !!!)

Good morning!

It is before 7am and I never usually get up this early except for church. I cannot sleep, which is fairly unusual for me. I have heavy doses of sleeping meds that usually knock me out really well but I am deeply unsettled at the moment.

Let me explain; I am having to move. To give a brief history to this, I have to return to 1998 when I originally moved to Chichester. I was in students halls as a first year at uni. I moved into a shared house in 1999, as a normal student would but then it all fell apart. I took a massive OD and then my housemates did not want me in their house anymore. Understandable really. I left uni and was housed in Chichester by a youth housing organisation called The Foyer. It was like en-suite uni halls but with 24-7 youth workers. After 3 and a half years there, I got thrown out for self harming (I wreaked 3 carpets and nearly died on 2 occasions). Again, understandable. So then I spent a year homeless in a hostel – which was pure hell and my harming was out of control. I was finally offered this flat in 2004 and although it was 2nd floor, I took it just to get out of the hostel. I never thought I’d end up leaving here but I was never really settled. I hated this flat because the previous occupant died in my bedroom and I felt some kind of atmosphere. I had a priest come and bless the flat but it took me over 6 months to actually sleep in my bed, I slept on a futon in the lounge! But although the flat is still decorated with ‘old lady chic’ (ie pink flowers and lace net curtains), I have made it into something I can just about live with. That was until I broke my ankle. Now, I cannot manage the stairs easily and I cannot manage to take out rubbish or get shopping up the stairs. It is such a struggle to go out, I often don’t bother. That is my main reason for moving. There are other reasons like a fresh start, getting away from A (the bloke from downstairs that I am having an ‘unhealthy’ relationship with – we just sleep together out of loneliness and at the unit they thought it was not a helpful thing to be doing, I am torn as I still like seeing him but it is not a normal thing to be doing really), and I can re-decorate the new place so I like it.

I have been offered this flat by the housing association. It is right on a motorway and has lots of other mental health patients in it (a few I recognise from acute psych inpatients). But it is ground floor and is a blank canvas in terms of decorating. I get all new flooring and money toward decorating etc but I have to move in 2 weeks. It feels such a good opportunity and such an overwhelming hassle all at once and I am scared. I do not know if I can cope with such a challenge – borderlines do not do change very well and I have to change housing support worker at the same time. My parents and the unit both agree it would be the right thing to do. But I am not happy. I am frustrated that is not my choice. I do not have a mortgage or any say in what I want and where I want, it is all council rules and decisions. If I do move, then will I lose A? Do I want to lose A? Will it be a case of ‘same shit, different place?’ Borderlines are known for ‘doing a geographical’ – moving physically to fix the internal, psychological chaos. It is easy to think right; I will not self harm there. I will be good and make a fresh start. But that didn’t work here and I very much doubt it will work anywhere. I feel forced into this and that is never a good situation for a borderline, control is very important and when I am forced into things, I tend to go off the rails and kick at anybody who represents that – like this new housing worker who I haven’t met but already hate!

Add to that the general state of things: just coming out of the unit, the fact I have broken the washing machine, I am still not speaking to my psychiatrist and I am mounting a campaign to have a planned admission to acute psych for Christmas as my family are being impossible, whilst all around me everyone thinks I am fine and ‘much better’ than I was before I went to London, and are expecting me to handle everything far better than I actually can; and you have a very miserable and unhappy Sian. That is why I cannot sleep and I feel like self harming SO much.

Yes, I have fantastic support and I am grateful. I have a great flat to move to – if I don’t take it then I could be waiting years for another one. I am lucky this has come up now and the timing is almost an good omen in itself. 2 weeks is enough time to sort everything out, I even have the keys and can get it cleaned and decorated before I move.

But I just wish I was dead. I don’t want any of this, this so-called life that has nothing in it that I want. I want a different body that works. I want a job and a career so I can earn my money, choose more about my life and stop scrounging of the state for everything. I want a real relationship with someone I respect and care deeply for. None of these are unrealistic expectations yet they are for me. And nothing I can have, that I can do, will never be enough. I feel like there is little point moving or trying when I know that the best I can ever be will be no where near what I will accept and be content with.

I hate feeling like this.