So many months

It’s been almost 3 months and nothing’s changed. It did, slightly, a few months ago when I unilaterally decided to reduce my quetiapine dose from 600mg to 400mg. That didn’t end well; it made me ill almost immediately. And feeling ill I began a battle to see a GP. That took a few weeks. She referred me back to my psychiatriast at Secondary Care. That took a month; no, more. And that was last week.

It’s good to talk about my illness – not just with a health professional but with anyone.

He suggested my most urgent issue was anxiety, which I agree with (but not exclusively). I’ve been in a depression for quite some time now. He suggested I increase the quetiapine dose to its recommended maximum: 800mg. I already have huge issues with weight gain and the other side effects of quetiapine so I said no. His second suggestion was to take lorazepam for the anxiety / OCD I have.

Which I started doing a week ago; the side effects of those have been deeply unpleasant; I’ve spent the past week ‘stoned’, walking around like one of the Undead. The most significant side effect has been incontinence. That alone has determined I stop taking that med. Nothing online suggests this side effect though, which is strange, so it’s probably contra-indicated with one of my existing meds.

Work starts again soon; I’ve absolutely no idea how I’m possibly going to manage that.

Today I’ve managed to avoid crying. And all I want, just now, is to to be hugged; to be held. That’s not too much to ask for, is it?

From: The Thorn by William Wordsworth

“There is a Thorn—it looks so old,

In truth, you’d find it hard to say

How it could ever have been young,

It looks so old and grey…”

 

 

The next nine days.

This is the process for being ‘ill’ and / or ‘in crisis’ in the UK today. I have in the past been told that, if necessary, I am to go to Casualty or ring 999 and ask for an ambulance. As I don’t think I could possibly cope with the wait of several hours for either (assuming either of these would be interested).

My GP surgery has changed the rules for seeing a doctor. Before last month you could turn up at the door for opening time at 8am then wait with the rest of the queue until a GP is free.  Or you could try to book an appointment over the phone; often there would be none free for the next 2 weeks. If there was an appointment free it would invariably be 2 weeks away.

I have a number for the mental health team. Referral appointments for a psychiatrist have always been up to 2 months away.

To reiterate, if I am suicidal and exhibiting other signs of crisis relating to my bipolar / anxiety / OCD I must wait a fortnight to see a doctor.

I have already self-certified myself for having a week off work just before the half term break last week. Which means I must go to work tomorrow or I won’t be paid. I am nowhere near being well enough, mentally (and physically – because mental illnesses have their own physiological friends), to do my job at the standard I have set for myself. That is, as well as anyone else there who doesn’t have a ‘severe mental illness’ such as bipolar disorder.

Technically, I shouldn’t be driving while I am ill, either.

When I do see a GP in 9 days time there will only be two options, because talking therapy is never on the cards: change my meds; sign me off work for x amount of weeks.

Having spent three years trying to get along with quetiapine, Epilim and fluoxetine I am not about to spend the next few months going through withdrawal- and side effects. And I don’t want to put the burden on other staff to cover me in work, even though my manager is very empathetic and helpful (within the realms of employment law). I never think of myself as having a ‘disability’, though this is exactly what I have.

So.. I only have one option, and that is to turn up for work tomorrow, suicidal or not. I am suffering from fatigue, I find it almost impossible to get out of bed, I am trembling, I am confused, I sometimes see shadows, and I continue to put on weight – which makes me feel even more worthless.

Anything could happen in the next nine days. And it probably will.

 

 

 

 

Suicide

Historically my ‘suicidal ideation’ has been extremely intrusive. Sudden and severe, but thankfully very brief episodes with enough space in-between them to make them manageable with the decades of experience I have of doing so.

But the past three days I have been constantly suicidal without breaks, without relief from the exhaustion that carrying this huge weight around – physically as well as mentally – burdens me with. It’s so bloody tiring.

 

Suicide.

 

I’ve spent three days, now, under a cloud

blackbirds have flown into existence. It

 

wraps me in a colourless silk stripping me

of every nerve, every piece of me. I could

 

pull death over me; dive into its net and

drown in the wet ocean of dead fishes,

effortlessly.