Scattered pieces

Got to run… Got to get away… Got to escape…

This is how my need to runaway always starts… those words, repeated over and over.  Sometimes they creep up on me slowly; but sometimes, they hit like the freight train.  On Sunday, they hit suddenly; although I should have been expecting them…  Last week, an inundation of triggers, meant that by Friday, I was a dissociated mess.  Through my own actions, and decisions, I set myself up on the road to self-destruction, and despite some last-minute reality checks, things became very messy…

On Sunday, I got that last little push that tipped me over the edge into a flip-book of flashbacks…  So, the chant began… Got to run… Got to get away… Got to escape…

This has often been the beginnings of an incident of self-injury, which I know just causes pain to be piled on top of existing pain.  I know the pull of self-injury well… it can be hypnotic and alluring… there’s a cold comfort in its familiarity.  But, instead of following that path, I took the words literally and escaped by going for a walk.

Considering my social anxieties, I’m not quite sure why I decided to do this… and initially, it seemed a huge mistake.  I walked past families preparing BBQ’s, causing flashbacks to summers of watching my father cooking at the family BBQ… past the barking dogs, which brought up images of the scars on my friends back from an attack by a stray Alsatian… It went on, with each new sight, smell and noise triggering a new flashback.

I walked faster, and faster… trying to outpace the thoughts and images in my head.  But the chanting in my head got louder and louder… Got to run… Got to get away… Got to escape…

Negative talk started to drown out the chant… I shouldn’t have eaten so much over the past week… I didn’t do enough at work… I’m just an attention seeking nightmare…

It went on and on… until, the words of WPT cut through all the noise.  He told me the story of a woman who heard some rattling behind her as she walked; so she walked faster, scared of the noise… She walked faster and faster, until she was running… all the while, the rattling noise became louder and louder.  As she scrambled up a hill, she met someone who told her to turn around… The noise was that of the skeleton of her past, tied to her ankle.  Until she turned, faced it, and cut it free; it would always be with her. **

This rather butchered part of a story, brought me back to reality…  I realised that this is what I was so desperately trying to do… I was trying to outrun the skeletons in my closet.  But, they were making their presence felt through flashbacks and anxiety.  Because they exist within me, I’m never going to outrun them… or inflict enough damage through self-injury to drown them out for long.  Until I turn to face them, and work through what happens in the present as a consequence of those skeletons; I’m never going to ease their hold over me…

The kicker is, that I know this.  I know that my self-injury is just another way to try to run… but turning around to face those skeletons is terrifying.  I’ve been able to do it at times, but never for long.  I get scared, confused and overwhelmed.  I can never seem to do it they way they say in the books, or even in the other blogs I read… It seems such an unobtainable goal.  How can something summarised in one chapter of a book, be so difficult, and take so long to do?

Of course, my annoyance with not being able to achieve this thing called “healing” is yet another sign of my need to distract and have control…

So, the skeletons of my past keep rattling…

** As a note: I know my recounting of the story isn’t accurate, and I’m not sure of its title; but I think it might be one of the short stories in the book Women who run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

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Now playing: Missy Higgins – Ten Days
via FoxyTunes

Note: This entry may trigger due to issues around suicide being discussed.

I’ve been fairly open about my levels of suicidal ideation on this blog over time. But the last week or so, I’ve been dancing around the subject. The reason why… on the 2nd and 3rd of August I tried to commit suicide.

I’m still trying to make sense of the attempts, and the triggers which precipitated them.

The main things I remember about Monday, are that I didn’t work my usual late shift, and that I was very tired… very, very tired. So tired, that it made perfect sense to come home, empty a pill bottle into my hand and swallow them down with a caffeine drink.

I vividly remember looking at the pile of pills in my hand, and thinking… “This will help me sleep”.

This terminology is significant… “This will help me sleep”. Usually, my suicidal ideation and intent is termed “running away”, so I wonder if the change in phrasing was an indication that different ones were driving the attempt, or whether I was just really tired?

In the past, whenever there has been even a suicidal gesture, a protector has come forward and immediately called for help. But not this time. This time, I climbed into bed and waited for sleep. That was at about 6pm. The next thing I remember, is waking in a panic at 2.45. I wasn’t panicking about the pills that were now well absorbed into my system…  Oh no, I was panicking because I wasn’t sure if it was morning or night, and I was worried about missing work!

The details are fuzzy, but somehow we ended up in ER. ER’s always seem so bright… so well lit… super bright… I know this is a medical necessity, but it’s also about our fears. We hate hospitals. We feel ourselves get smaller, younger and more tongue-tied in hospitals… It’s hard to hear what people are asking of us, and we become more robotic.

As an indication that there was still come cognitive thinking happening, we’d remembered to bring our iPhone with us. Hours of playing Boost 3D, Euchre, Hell’s Kitchen… Anything to try to keep calm! Then the unspeakable happened, the iPhone battery ran out… This tipped the scales back to crazy.

• We removed the lure ourselves and went to the nurses station, asking to leave. They took us through to the observation lounge instead. Yay… power points for recharging the iPhone :)
• WPT came and visited us in the ER, and we brushed him off… told him we were fine and not to worry about us…
• When we were assessed by the psychiatric team… I say “assessed”, but to the system, it felt like a grilling.  They asked about family relationships, abuse history etc.
• By the end of the assessment, angry protectors were up front and they ripped up the discharge papers as we walked away from the nurses station.

Yes, we were released with no follow-up or safety options mentioned.

When we got home, there was still the need to sleep. I think one of us called the crisis team, but gave a fake name… I remember the crisis person yelling at us that they were sending the Police around. This was the wrong threat to make, as it gave the protectors hope that help was on the way. They became less vigilant…

We sat down at the table with enough pills for a fatal overdose. It was very mechanical and quick. Again, there was a need to have enough pills to “get some sleep”. Once these were consumed, we went to bed. Again, a panicked waking a few hours later and a ride in an ambulance.

This time it was serious… I knew that because of the number of nurses around. I remember looking over when they took my blood pressure, and saying how good it was (53/45). Usually my blood pressure goes through the roof in hospitals due to anxiety (the next day it was 195/146). I asked if I could go home, because my blood pressure was so good, and it was all just a silly mistake…

I remember the nurses being nice.
I remember them wheeling me down corridors to a ward.
I remember a nurse sitting in a chair at the end of my bed all night.

We called the mother, asking her to come up because we needed help. Our cat needed food…

We were kept in for a couple of days, and again had a psychiatric assessment, this one was much more gentle. They asked about safety and stressors. They gave us options – they suggested hospitalisation, or respite. But the psychiatric ward was fairly full, and the respite place would be different to the one I’ve been to previously. Instead, we were released to the mother (a former nurse) at home.

The thing that blew me away about the medical ward, was their compassion and understanding. I was there for an overdose, but they didn’t judge. They had almost no knowledge of mental health issues (I had to tell them how to spell “dissociative”), but they were respectful of me as an individual…

It’s now over a week since the attempts, and I’m still on shaky ground. Last night, R was very present. I know it was him, because I could clearly see what he wanted – to be wearing just jeans, standing in the middle of the road, in the pouring rain, arms up, yelling (in pain, release, anger???).

I’m very aware that I’m still walking along the cliff edge. One little push will send me over.

It’s times like this that I realise how amazing the people around me can be… WPT came to see me in hospital (twice); while my blog friends have been a steady, calm voice of reason when I needed it desperately… thank you!

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Now playing: The Freshman – The Verve Pipe
via FoxyTunes