Been out of the hospital for a whole 6 weeks now. Holy crap it does not feel like it has been that long. I guess I should feel some sort of accomplishment or like I achieved a goal but I just … feel … numb.
Well, here I am, finally back after weeks and weeks of either being in the hospital or being too out of it to pick up a computer. It’s been a rough time and I have been busy with more than just laying around recovering. I am almost through with a 6 week DBT course (dialectical behavior therapy) and I have been working on my mindfulness meditations from an 8 week course I took right before my original breakdown back in September. This week my pdoc has upped my meds enough that there has been a breakthrough in my anxiety. It’s deathgrip on my mind has lessened and I can control my thoughts a bit. My therapist has steered me back to the loving-kindness meditations from mindfulness class so I have been using that to combat the anxiety now that I have a fighting chance. It goes:
“May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I be peaceful
May I be safe.”
You substitute the “I” for another person as well. Let’s say I am freaking out worrying that my daughter’s bus is going to crash and all the kids will die on the way home…I would do the loving kindness but picture my daughter or the buss instead of myself. This is a sort of quick and dirty explanation - there is a larger practice that you do over time and not related to anxiety but rather to better yourself….but this sure works for me in the heat of the moment.
The DBT class has been nice. The book we are using is The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook and so far has really focussed us on building plans for when we encounter difficult situations. Times that would normally send me cutting, for instant, are exactly what we focus on in group and come up with plans to distract from that thought, cope with the situation, and move on. Next week is the last week of the class which only covers the first half of the book. After the holidays we will pick up again with the second half and I am really looking forward to it.
So that’s all the good stuff I have been doing. How have I been doing, really? Still crappy. I struggle through each day getting nothing important done. I threatened to hit my oldest daughter tonight I got so upset with her. I didn’t hit her. I never have, so I guess I am supposed to hold on to that as a good thing but I just can’t. All I can do is hate myself for what I said and feel weak for having gotten to that point. Overall I feel like I am walking around with my insides on the outside - no buffer between me and the world and the world is just pummeling my ass nonstop. I still want to kill myself several times a week but I am in control of it and don’t need to be in the hospital at least, that last stay was a real nightmare. So as you can see, overall I am not doing well at all.
I keep trying. I’m going to my sessions, taking my meds, going to my class, doing meditations, and trying to believe them when they say I will get through this. Someday I will be myself again, whoever the hell that is anymore. I’m like a hull burned out with a blowtorch and whatever is left may not be recognizable to anyone but I am hanging in there just in case.
Another 7 days inpatient under my belt. Home again now - whoopdee doo.
I’ve been out of the hospital for weeks, out of the outpatient program for about a week, and here I am having suicidal thoughts. I wrote a suicide note. My husband left to go get something and I am stockpiling meds so that if he gets alarmed collects my meds (which he should have done by now but I am just too manipulative) and I decide to go through with it I can still do so. I’m swaying between “you’re being ridiculous” and “when is the best time that will have the least impact on everyone.” I’m glad I have the blog as a secret outlet. Tomorrow I will talk to my therapist. I’ll come clean. Will they send me back to the hospital? I doubt it. I won’t make it sound all that bad, though I think it might be.
If they recommend the hospital I will go. I want to go somewhere different because my experience with the ancient place I went last time was so bad. But really at least trying somewhere new gives me a little hope that they will do something that the others didn’t. Does that make sense? Going back to the same place seems hopeless because I have tried their bag of tricks and it failed. Going somewhere new - or thinking about it anyway - gives me a tiny bit of hope that they will have something to help me. I guess that’s all that’s keeping me going….that and the preparations. I have all the paperwork in order but need to get a few things notarized. How the fuck am I supposed to get that done without setting off alarms?
Maybe I need to go back to the hospital. Maybe I need to stay longer this time. Maybe I just need to hold on to that hope.
two things i have never seen
1. smiling punk rocker
2. a black kid wearing a lei
this was taken at a Pride festival. The kid was there with his dads and saw the punk’s spikes. The punk bent down to let him touch them and they hugged afterward.
This made me miss the days when I lived in DC and my daughter and I would go to the Pride parade to show support. What a great event. We even made the front page of the local LGBT paper one year!
This is how crappy my day is…this movie is waiting for my in the mailbox and I can’t get myself to walk out there. I see the fucking neighbors with their cheerful children outside and I think if I go out and they say something I may just start screaming and tearing out my hair. I’ve had a better day than yesterday mostly by sitting very still and trying not to disrupt the air around me. When I was in the hospital they actually mentioned this movie being about BPD so I put it on Netflix and it should be here. But here I am with my cowardly ass just sitting inside wishing I could watch it again. The damned thing is like 50 yards away or something. Shit.
read the book. it’s the truth and it’s better than the movie.
Oh, good idea! I requested it from the library, I am second in line. So that usually means I will get it sometime this week. My concentration is crap right now and I can hardly read anything longer than an magazine article but maybe this will help pull me out of it. I LOVE to read. Thanks for the tip!
This is how crappy my day is…this movie is waiting for my in the mailbox and I can’t get myself to walk out there. I see the fucking neighbors with their cheerful children outside and I think if I go out and they say something I may just start screaming and tearing out my hair. I’ve had a better day than yesterday mostly by sitting very still and trying not to disrupt the air around me. When I was in the hospital they actually mentioned this movie being about BPD so I put it on Netflix and it should be here. But here I am with my cowardly ass just sitting inside wishing I could watch it again. The damned thing is like 50 yards away or something. Shit.
