Just Get Over It

It's the motto of the people. Just Get Over It. Because a mental illness isn't really an illness. You don't need to diagnose it, or treat it, or beat it. You just need to Just Get Over It.

So many people love to regale me with stories about how they had a hard time after a break up and then they just got over it. They just decided that they weren't going to be sad about it anymore. So they just put their problems away and got on with their life. Hooray!

Unfortunately mental illness isn't like that. It manifests over time. It builds and builds and builds, slowly infecting the rest of your life like the fucking parasite that it is. For me it started as a few years at school, not knowing what your crying about. Moving on to hurting myself with a number of tools. When I reached drinking age it became a new way of hurting myself. Drink til I'm sick. Behave in ways that weren't very kind to myself. My dignity took a battering. I stopped feel proud of myself.

Over the years I have tried to fight it. I have tried to Just Get Over It. It hasn't worked. In fact, I think it has made it even worse. The anxiety grew and grew. The sadness and emptiness deepened. The self hatred got stronger.

Through all of this I have come to realise that I can't beat this. Instead of trying to Just Get Over It I need to treat it. In order to treat it, I need to accept it. Accept that I am going to be anxious. Accept that we are going to get depressed. Accept that we are worthy

Self Care Sunday

It's one thing to focus on the negative mental health state. It's a whole other to focus on the positive side. The self care side.

As a consequence I have decided that Sunday will now be known as Self Care Sunday. Each Sunday I am going to do something good for myself. Something physical, social, emotional. Just something.

So today I had my girlfriend come see me to cut my hair and wax my eyebrows. I joked that my eyebrows were actually caterpillar's who had half digested their dinner. In fact I only half joked. They really did look that way.

I am pleased to state that not only have my hair and eyebrows improved, but my sense of well-being has improved too. That could have been the awesome company too.

While it is important to think about what is weighing you down, it is important to consider what will help us float.

Aaaaaaaaand We're Back.

On Thursday evening I did something I would never suggest anyone ever do. I attempted to overdose on a fist full of pills. In retrospect it was more an exercise in self-harm. There was no well thought out plan. There was no giving away of my things. There was no note. In a moment of desperation I swallowed a fist full of my pain meds and then decided what a stupid idea that was and immediately notified my husband.

An ambulance was called and within 20 mins or so I was shunted off to the local hospital for observation. The pills I took didn't warrant having my stomach pumped, so that was a good thing. I was under observation for 12 hours and I woke feeling extremely bratty about the fact that my Husbfriend hadn't been there. Later on I found out that he had been there for hours, but I was pretty much incomprehensible by that stage. There was a mere muttering of words and a few brief movements on the bed, but that was about it.

Come Friday morning I was out of the woods and left in a state of extreme drunkenness without the fun of a good few tequila shots with good mates to balance it out. I couldn't walk a straight line. In fact I actually peed on my foot because I couldn't aim on the toilet properly (I don't sit down properly on public toilet seats). Now that I write it down this does sound much like a night out in my early 20s! All jokes aside the hospital contacted Belmont with the request that I be admitted here due to the high risk I was of reoffending, for lack of a better word. There was a lot of discussion between my Husbfriend and my psychiatrist about whether or not I would be admitted or not.

So I was discharged from Ippy hospital around 10am, went home for more sleep, and then was told to be back at Belmont for 2pm. Trying to get me organised was probably akin to getting a belligerent toddler to pack up his toys at bedtime. I was so so so so tired that I found it hard to get my act together to pack my stuff up. Sometime later I had my bag together and we were out the door, making it here somewhere between 2.30pm amd 3pm. Hooray for my time management skills!

My timing was terrible. My doctor left after our appointment and now won't be back until Monday. There are no activities of any value on over the weekend. So I kind of have to find my own way through the weekend. There are nurses here to talk to if I need to, but it isn't the same. Meanwhile I am spending time with another friend who has been admitted, gone for a bit of a walk, did some painting and moped around wondering how the hell I'm going to fix my broken little self.

If you have any tips or tricks, I'd be happy to hear them.

Love and hugs xxx

Are You OK?

***TRIGGER WARNING***

No. Tonight I'm not ok. My insides hurt, my brain hurts, my heart hurts, my skin hurts, my bones hurt, my everything hurts. My brain hurts the most. Followed by my heart.

My brain hurts because I know the way I act, or overreact comes from a shitty place. But I don't know how to get past it. It keeps ruining relationships for me. It stops me from being happy. It stops me from achieving everything I could possibly have ever achieved.

My heart hurts because it really is still just little Allison. That young girl who learns how to walk on eggshells and to try to not do/say the wrong thing least we released the dragon in my father. Sometimes if we gave him nothing to be angry about he would go looking for it. He would always find it in my bedroom. Clothes shoved under the bed, desk drawer cluttered and not messy. The clothes in my wardrobe may be on the floor of the wardrobe instead. Then the kraken would come cracking. He didn't just use psychological violence. Physical violence was his speciality. The amount of fractures my poor mother suffered are innumerable. Not to me room the territory anguish wondering whether tonight would be the night. And if it was my sister and​ I would argue about whose turn it was to get in the middle of them.

My skin, bones and everything hurts because of my stupid undiagnosed illness. I keep losing feeling in my fingers in both hands. The almost burning pain I feel down my spine. The fact that I now often poop my pants unknowingly. Like fucking hell. Haven't we got enough here???

So after having an argument with Trent I jumped in to the car wondering if I would just drive in to something or if I would just go back home. After a call from my eldest asking me where I've gone and when I'll be home, I think I will go home.

A lapse or a relapse?

I'm back in hospital. Things didn't turn out the way I had expected. These things included my health, my brain, my general symptoms and my inability to feel safe at home. I was at a point where I would have hurt myself or run.

On Monday I had an appointment with my ortho spine specialist. Originally anticipated an appointment to discuss my surgery. He looked at my MRI results and figured that surgery would not do nahzhing. So now I'm back where I was 12 months ago with no idea of what's wrong with me, with hands that ache and go numb, often being unusable. I now hove ankles that sting when I walk, and hips that don't lie about how painful they are. So apparently I finally am getting the rheumatologist referral that I asked for months ago.

After absorbing this information about my health and pain I figured that I wasn't too keen on spending possibly the rest of my life like this. I started formulating an "exit plan". I felt really unsafe and anxious. So then I popped Valium and neulactil like they were lollies just to try to chill out. My psych and GP figured I needed hospital. Belmont doesn't do an Emergency section so I would have to go via the public system. So we skipped Ipswich and headed in to Royal Brisbane Hospital.

When ​we arrived they checked me in and quickly whisked the crazy lady out of the waiting room, only to find myself in another waiting room. I waited around 2 hours on my own before they brought food around. What they didn't factor in was the 5 anti-anxiety pills that I had taken just a few hours earlier. I was so damn tied. Needless to say that by the time they night dinner around halfway through the delicious meal of dried silverside with a side of ugly vegetables that were worth of my digestive tract, I fell asleep. My plate slipped and ended up as part of my clothing ensemble. Thankfully black leggings go with EVERYTHING! I asked for a bed but the logos said no. I had to be seen first. When they finally did offer me a bed I felt as welcome as a cold sore on formal night. Their preference was that I spend the night with my family and see my psychiatrist the next day.

Psychiatrist day came. Yippee! Finally I'd get the help I needed to keep me off the proverbial ledge. He pushed for me to stay at home. I told him if he did not admit me I would go to Toowong hospital and ask to be admitted. Finally he relented and here I am, in my own room and everything.

So here I am. With more to write once my hands feel better and it isn't 4am.

Hope you all slept well xxx