[note: this post contains discussion of suicidal ideation]
I just recently found out that the girl I'm closest to on the ward told staff on Sunday, after I'd come back from my home leave, that she was worried about me and she would panic if I was allowed on leave considering how I was feeling. And then the student nurse (who was sat with us) added that she spoke to me on Monday and apparently, because of what I was saying to her and a piece of writing I showed her, she handed over to the staff that I shouldn't be granted my leave for the following day. She said she was angry no one had listened to her and that she would've felt so bad if something even worse had happened when I'd gone AWOL or if I'd died from the overdose or it'd caused serious damage. I told her it wouldn't have been her fault if she'd done her bit in telling someone else even though I had no idea what I'd said to the student nurse or my friend and I didn't even know I'd written something down on Monday until I came across it on my desk in my bedroom.
'Aimee thought she was doing really well and was proud of herself for handing in the china. She saw it as a sign of how bad it'd been (that she'd hid sharps in her socks) and how far she'd come. Albert and Annie told her she was weak for not even trying to sneak the china back onto the ward. They told Aimee that the fact she didn't, just meant the staff had defeated her and not that she's getting better. They shouted at her for letting the staff 'break' her spirit. The next day, when Aimee didn't put her leave down because she was being told to run away on it and overdose, she began to wonder if going home was worth all of this. Then she felt terrible for even thinking that.
I don't know who's side I'm on. I want to be positive and get better like Aimee but sometimes the voices are so loud my ears hurt, my head feels full and my heart is torn. Sometimes, I agree with what Albert and Annie say and think I deserve to be dead then other times, I don't. And I fight so hard against them but the harder I fight, the worse they get and then they make me want to be dead, even if it's just to escape them. I feel like I won't ever win.'
I think that now I'm not in that place in that, I'm not so close to wanting to overdose, (the voices are still loud and nasty though) I'm angry that nothing more was done about the student nurses' and my friends' concerns and no one stopped me going on my leave or even spoke to me after people told them they were worried about me. It's ridiculous because staff then tell me to take responsibility for my actions but if I want to do something that's unsafe etc then it's pretty much down to them if they don't want me to. And from reading what I'd written on Monday, it doesn't seem surprising for me that I overdosed the next day. It's strange to me though, that I don't remember anything from the Monday and my friend on the ward has told me that I was going from being completely clingy and cuddling her to pushing her away with one word answers and she said the look in my eyes was so blank she knew I was hearing the voices and because she said she would speak to me and it was as if I was already hearing something else so I couldn't hear her at the same time. But then the SHO who I spoke to on Tuesday said she was shocked I'd gone on my unescorted and that if she'd known I was going to she would've said I couldn't but I said why because I hadn't said anything worrying and she agreed but said I'd been so abrupt with her (more so than usual) that she was unsettled.
Today hasn't been too bad; I was allowed to stay in bed in the morning after falling asleep in Morning Meeting and explained to my Named Nurse that I felt so physically tired I might just pass out since I'd barely slept in the medical hospital and had a hard night after having to take my anti-psychotic and two Lorazepam tablets to ease things enough for me to get to sleep. So she let me stay in bed since there no important groups on and I slept 'til 1pm, got ready then had group DBT at 2 even though I was the only one in, then I read magazines and watched telly all afternoon before my 1:1 DBT. We did a lot of work on the O'D, I had to complete a chain analysis on what had happened prior to the incident, what actually happened and the consequences. A part of me got sick of talking about it but at the same time I knew it was so important and that I need to get through it!
