crying

To Protect

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  • From sadness
  • From fear
  • From pain
  • From those who want to harm

That sums up my ideal superhero.

Thinking about it makes me cry, as I feel so powerless and unable to protect.

Reading a crisis scenario in a fantasy book I cry because the loss is beyond my ability to stop.

Postscript

The emotion involved with wanting to protect is significant and can feel overwhelming. I don’t know how I want to deal with the emotion. The usual techniques of distraction or rationalising thoughts help, but don’t deal with the emotion coming up again and again.

I’m still anxious

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I’m still worried about going to another unit, which has no real leave. My current position: nope, not going unless their leave policy improves

Eating on the ward is a bit hit and miss, both shifts forgot to place mine up separately. I think my complaint to staff got misinterpreted as “the staff paid no attention to me”

I’m changing medication again, moving one dose up, and removing a medication (the new setup is 15mg aripiprazole and 250mg clomipramine). I wanted the changes but I am not liking the temporary increase in anxiety.

I did cry, and eventually relaxed somewhat after having 2mg lorazepam and talking to one of the therapists on the ward.

Meltdown postmortem

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Triggers (last day or so)

On the ward:

  • Wrong food supplied by the catering staff yesterday (and I didn’t eat half of it as a result)
  • Wanted to go out first thing in the morning, but had to wait 40 minutes for morning medication.
  • Being told I had to knock on a door to get staff attention (the contamination anxiety induced by that causes me to avoid knocking)
  • Distractions (phone, book, video games) all felt really unpleasant for no good reason.
  • Got forgotten at lunch time (usually I’m served first to avoid “contamination”).
  • I then refused to eat anything, which didn’t help either as I was actually hungry.
  • I was also worried about eating too much which led me to refuse breakfast, in retrospect that was a mistake as it would have meant I’d eaten something today, rather than nothing (so far, 15:20).

Coping strategies used

  • Yesterday: The usual distractions – which didn’t seem to do much
  • This morning: Going out for a walk/run – which helped
  • Had a shower (after running) – only took 30 minutes, which is a pretty good time for me, helped me feel OK.
  • Distractions (phone, laptop, etc.) – they were ineffective
  • Sedative (about 12:30) – limited effect
  • Crying (about 12:15 until about 13:15) – pretty effective, I felt better when I’d finally stopped crying.

The “meltdown” is the unrestrained crying. I felt unable to speak to anyone while it was ongoing; even though there was a nurse trying to speak to me.

…And Nay!

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Trigger warning: If you’ve worried about accommodation, hospital/home changes or suicidal thoughts this might be difficult to read. Writing it left me crying.

Of course I’m going to get anxious about leaving, even if I want to. This leaves me confused as to what I really want, leaving, or staying. I kinda want both, so if either one goes wrong I can escape to the other.

Knowing that my room on ward was still mine to occupy if being in my flat became too much would be a amazing safety net to let me risk trying to function in my flat.

With my flat I’m terrified of things ending up how they were before I went onto the ward. The consequences are potentially even worse this time around as I’ll be “asked” (or, from my point of view, pressured) into going into supported accommodation, and forgoing my flat permanently.

The intensity of these feelings make me feel like I’d prefer to overdose, and be in A&E, rather than deal with transferring to supported accommodation at a later date. Its scary (for me), and I need to persuade my care team quite how strongly I feel.

Got to stop writing as I’m starting to cry.