This blog is part of my recovery, and I would like it to remain a safe place for me to share parts of myself and my life that people close to me may or may not know. As a result, while I'm not going crazy with privacy settings, I do ask that if you find this on your own and suspect you may know me, please respect my privacy by checking with us before reading any further. This obviously doesn't apply if one of us has given you the link!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Tsunami (Otherwise known as "Where I'm At")

Some of you may know/remember that November is often a difficult month for me, and despite last year's improvement, this year was something of a set-back. I don't know how obvious it's been (either here or elsewhere), but my mental health has been declining for quite some time. There were several things feeding it, including another visit with my father, but the result is that for particularly the last several months, I've been very unwell.

I've been increasingly paranoid, guilty and ashamed, and withdrawing/guarding my comments, because my thoughts lead me to believe I'm unwanted anyway -- every comment or lack of comment has looked like a closed door; I've been losing large chunks of time and not even realising it; the hallucinations that are part of either my depression or the BPD, and indeed my entire sense of reality, have all gradually spiralled out of control; and all my efforts to right the roller coaster have only confused the issues more.

As a result of all this, after what had been I think around 3 years, I was admitted to the hospital's psychiatric unit for just over a week. I suppose I think that if I had just worked harder at being well, if I had tried harder, this wouldn't have happened. I find myself feeling deeply ashamed to have been admitted back there when I know that I don't think badly of anyone else who is admitted.

The upshot of all this is that my medication and my diagnosis have both been changed, and that there is talk of more intensive support being available, especially since the program I've been seeing my private psychologist (Sonia) under has now ended, leaving me with four sessions until next year (quite a drop since I had been seeing her 2 to 3 times a week). I'm not certain exactly what that support will entail but there was mention of a case manager to help organise some sort of housing, a public psychiatrist once a month or so and someone from the Mobile Intensive Treatment team to see a couple of times a week.

In the meantime, what I do know is that I've been put back onto Avanza (mirtazapine) - though how long that will last (as its sedating effects are already beginning to wear off) remains to be seen - and my diagnosis has been officially changed to also include Dissociative Identities Disorder. I must admit, it feels quite surreal to have that on my record after spending 12 years knowing but undiagnosed. I'm still sorting through how I feel about it, that's for sure.

There's been a lot of upheaval. There's still a lot of upheaval. I'm doing better than I was prior to my admission, but I'm still very unwell and struggling with many of the same issues I was having difficulty with before I went into hospital.

4 comments:

  1. A very honest post- that took guts. Well done.

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  2. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I'll be thinking of you.

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  3. I'm so glad you were able to come here and talk about some very personal and important things. I am very proud of you for getting through this. I am so sorry to hear though of your struggles and I hope you had support around you to help you through these times. I just want you to know that I think you are incredibly brave and amazing and I take my hat off to you for your honesty, it must have been so hard to come on here and say what you did. I'm glad you have a proper diagnosis now, because you can't start working on it unless you know what it is [even if it's just the treating team knowing when you've known for ages]. The other thing is thank you for sharing this with us. Thinking of you!
    ~Sarah~

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  4. as out-of-the-realm-of-possibility as it probably seems, letting other people be there for you is a gift to both them and yourself.

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