Gallows

My blog posts are necessarily short these days because all I have with me in this hospital is a phone, and that doesnt give much scope for epic essays.

At 2pm today I have the psych teleconference at which my fate will be decided. I feel like I am being led to the gallows. They will finally realise how insane I really am and send me down to the Big House for good.

I want to barf. I want to scream, I want to bargain with the devil.  Anything, so I can stay here and get better.

I ventured outside today. Its warm and sunny, birds are singing in the trees above the vineyard at the rear of the hospital. And despite all this beauty, I think of throwing myself over the edge of the hill. Or of running, running through the paddocks and off into the bush. Run run run. Run from it all.

I want to barf. I will be locked away.

Incarcerated

I am a "voluntary" patient in my local country hospital.

I say voluntary, but should I try to leave, I will be detained and moved to the Big House With Locked Doors.

I have no idea how long I am here. A teleconference with a psychiatrist from The Big House has been ordered, but that will happen whenever.

I cant leave till my meds are stable, til I can function.

And that isnt now.

While I'm Down Here You May As Well Get The Boot In

You know you've done something right when you get a hater.  It means you've told the truth.

The only hater I've had up til this morning was a loooong time ago, back in the day of companies taking your content, republishing and getting ad revenue for it. I objected, as I am wont to do. I got a response - from the company I "named and shamed" - saying that I was a whore and my son was the son of a whore. Charming.  But not unexpected. They had a lot of emotional investment in what I brought to the attention of readers.

Bringing us back to today, another hater.  On my Broken post. (I am hanging in there, by the way. Just. Not going to do stupid stuff: the kids, remember?)  Go read that comment from Anonymous. Its a corker.  Go on, I'll wait.

Some fucked up part of my brain automatically wants to rebut (oh! my brilliant legal mind!) every.single.point.  I'm trying hard to shut it up, because there is nothing to defend myself for.  Quite obviously, someone has a lot of emotional investment in what I have written. In my truth.  I'm actually hoping to god its my husband's family, or there is one fucked up random out there who needs their own life to get invested in.

Let's get something perfectly clear.  This is MY story.  It is not the full story, nor can it possibly be.  There are many things I have not yet written about (the full story of my spine for instance), there are many things I will only give limited information about (my kids, my husband), there are things I will never write about.  I dont need to write the exact conversation had when MIL took my kids.  The police have that record.  I dont have to record conversations with my husband that devastate me. I dont need to write what I do or dont discuss with my health professionals. I DO have to write what is affecting me so I can get it out and try to process the emotions.

And that is what this blog is. It is me, with a tiny part of my truth, processing my emotions.  If those emotions are too raw, too confronting, or too close to home, feel free to click that little X in the top right corner and go somewhere else.  No one is making you stay here.

This is a part of me.  And I'm not going away.

By Hand (with thanks to Eden)

Eden has started her own meme, from her own brain! Who am I to resist? Some sort of self-centred arrogant know-it-all slunk down in a cesspool of self-pity?

Here is my handwriting, in all its mess and angst from my journal when I was in hospital.

My handwriting changes almost with the price of oil. Going back through uni lecture notes, there can be 4 or 5 distinctive handwriting styles within the one lecture.  Some are so minimalist that its impossible for anyone else to read them. 

If you would like to share some of your handwriting, pop along to Edenland and put your name on the list.

Broken

There is no doubt that if I didn't have kids, I wouldn't be here right now.

I hate that I have kids. That they stop me.

I hate my existence. Its not a life. I exist. I get up, I breathe, I go to bed.  There is no point to this existence. There is no reason to get out of bed. No reason to be here.

My marriage is a farce. Almost every day something happens thanks to my husband that makes me think that I should just end my life. The pain is too great, being badgered and hounded at my lowest point every time until I want to die.  Knowing that it is affecting the kids to watch how I am treated...I can't describe that pain.

Even now, with what I am going through on this new medication (one my doctor has now been told - by a shrink I've never seen -  I must stop! Immediately! For it has never been used to treat Bipolar Disorder! Fuck me.) I am still attacked until I want to die.

Everything I have ever said or done when ill has been brought up and twisted, thrown in my face used against me and it is very clear, oh very clear indeed, that should I slip, falter at all, my children will be long gone.

Take them, and take my life with them.

There is no escape from this living hell.  No carer to replace the one who does not care.  No one to help me through my disability and make sure I can raise my children. I would be better off if I were a junkie. I'd get all the help in the world then. But a broken spine, not "the right sort of spinal injury" and under 65? I am invisible. I do not matter. My children, therefore, do not matter.

There is only one escape. Only one. It seems to be the one everyone wants.

Non-Alcoholic

When I was in hospital for alcohol withdrawal, I was put on a drug called Campral.  This is supposed to stop all craving for alcohol and assist greatly in creating permanent abstinance, if taken for 2 years.

For the first few months I think it helped greatly. Over Christmas I thought more about drinking than at any other time since I quit. Wine and beer were everywhere.  I got through that, without much suffering at all, and I have had no desire to drink whatsoever.

So I gave up the Campral.  Part of the reason was that I hated having to be on a medication regime that included nineteen tablets a day (Campral alone was 6 a day).  The other was that I needed to know if I could do this on my own.

And you know what?  I can.  A whole month and not one desire to drink.

I haven't gone to AA because I reject totally the notion of giving myself over to a higher power.  I am the higher power. I am responsible for what I do or what I do not do.  If I am going to beat this, then I must do it. I must do it. Not a higher power. Not medications to change my brain even more.

So I'm doing it.

How about that?

Seventy-five

Milligrams, that is.

Not even halfway to the therapeutic dose.

And I appear to be awake and alive and this wont do at all because there is the fetal position to assume and the intrusive thoughts about how unfair it is that I have kids, because now I can't not be alive and I am trapped trapped trapped and none of it can be undone.

My brain needs to be occupied so as to avoid those nasty thoughts because being in that spiral will only lead to more madness. But really, I have been reduced to reading dooce, for fucks sake. Next stop, Cornflakes boxes.