Defeated

It's ages since I've posted.  I haven't known what to say.  I still don't know what to say.  I don't know where to begin...

...I'm struggling.  A lot.

I went to an appointment with the psychologist a week past Friday, which was supposed to be an hour long, but turned in to two hours.  Basically, I am a mess.  The psychologist wanted to call the CAT Team (Crisis Assessment and Treatment Team - for people experiencing mental health crises), but I was extremely reluctant for her to do so as I'd had such an awful experience of them ten years ago.  At that time they made things much, much worse for me and I swore that I would never let them in to my life again.  It's an indicator of where things are up to that, after much deliberation, discussion, and upset, I was persuaded to let the psychologist call them.  She talked with them at some length, expressing her deep concern for me, and suggested that I be admitted in to hospital for a while.  They said they would come out to my home to assess me that afternoon.

The psychologist seemed very unsure about letting me out of her office, unsure that I would be able to 'keep myself safe.'  To be honest, I wasn't sure I could do that either, but eventually I agreed to do so long enough to get home and be assessed by the CAT Team.

The CATT arrived as a trio - doctor, nurse, and medical student - forty-five minutes later than they said they would be, which wasn't a great start, but the nurse was one I recognised from the ward when I'd been an in-patient with depression many years ago.  That helped me to feel a little more at ease as I remembered he was one of the better nurses.  I spent an awful lot of my time with the CATT in tears, much as I'd spent my time with the psychologist, and after quite a lengthy assessment the three of them went and sat in the car outside to discuss me.  When they came back in five minutes later they had decided to opt for home treatment with daily visits and a 24/7 'carer's line' phone number.  My feelings about this were, and have continued to be, very mixed.

These past ten days have been bloody awful.  I'm not going to go in to details, but suffice to say that I'm not really coping with 'life' at the moment.  I have a couple of 'big' things going on, but primarily I'm in a state of post traumatic stress from my recent hospital admission, and severe depression from the accumulation of traumatic asthma attacks (and some other things too).

I have come to a stand-still, defeated by all that has happened, unable to bounce back as expected, as I have done previously.  I am trapped, once again, by the monster of depression, and above all else, I feel as though I have let everyone down.  Myself included.  God included.  Especially God.

I am continually told that I'm strong, but believe me, I'm not.  I am now very, very broken and very, very weak.  It isn't helpful to tell me I'm strong, so please don't.  I need to be allowed to be however I am, and telling me that I'm strong makes me feel even more as though I've let everyone down because I know that I am so very broken right now.

Difficult

Hmm, I'm supposing you've guessed that I'm having a difficult time at the moment, that I'm not really coping too well.  Not a lot has changed since I last posted, and I haven't updated till now because I haven't wanted to bore you with the same old stuff over and over ... I reckon once in a while is okay, though, right?  So here it is...

I saw the psychologist a week ago.  As has always been the case with her, she was good.  It's never easy, and it's hard to say with such things that they're ever good experiences, but I think I've been lucky to be allocated the psychologist I have.

I'm not going to say anything about the content of last week's therapy session, because that's between me and the psychologist, but what I will say is that I was honest with her.  I had to be, and really, what is the point of therapy if you're not going to be honest with the therapist?  The session actually went a little over time, which is very unusual for therapy, but such was the nature of the session and of my need.

Two hours after my appointment with the psychologist I was due to see my GP, and by the time I got there my psychologist had already phoned the doctor to express her concerns.  She also tried to persuade the doctor to prescribe some sleeping tablets for me as I'm getting very little sleep and finding it incredibly difficult to get to sleep (it's more often than not at least 5am, and it's not unusual for it to be 7 or 8am before I get to sleep).  The lack of sleep is most likely contributing to my state of mind and general state of stress of at the moment, but the GP won't prescribe sleeping tablets of any description because all of them can suppress breathing.  She doesn't want to risk that with me, and tells me it's not worth it, and I can see where she's coming from, but I'm knacked.  I'm trying all the 'sleep hygiene' stuff, but it's not currently working for me, and I'm spending most of each night getting up after another 30 minutes of failing to get to sleep, sitting in the dark/dim light, doing very little, going back to bed, and failing to get to sleep.

So yes, the GP talked with me, but of course has no quick fix, or in fact any fix, but she's there.  The psychologist has been away this week, so the GP wanted to see me instead so that she could keep an eye on me/things with me.  I saw her yesterday.  Nothing much to report, but again, she's there, and it's probably a good thing that she knows the state of play even if she can't do anything about it.  As others have said, she too said that it's just going to take time, but she understands the complexities of my situation with recent events still fully to get my head around, and multiple factors around my health in general.  It's not about feeling sorry for myself; it's about coping with the challenges my health issues lay before me, the impact they have on my life, the way they've changed the course of my life, and how they continue to change every aspect of my life, always moving the boundaries.  Lots of things.  Too many things to try to mention, and perhaps I don't want to mention them simply because that feels like trying to justify them.  I'm not going to get in to that.

The psychologist is back next week, not until the end of the week, which seems like an impossible time away, but I suppose it'll arrive eventually.  In the meantime I have four other hospital appointments to get myself to next week, one of them at the ridiculous time of 9am.  Not so ridiculous if you have a normal sleep pattern, but if I don't get to sleep till 7am, then that'll leave me with about half an hour's kip.  I can only hope that the night before that appointment is better than anticipated.  To be honest, a week of hospital appointments isn't really what I need at the moment. I could do with some time trying to concentrate on things other than my health - or lack of it - but next week I have no choice.

I feel like I'm beginning not to make much sense or that I'm going round in circles.  Maybe it's more in my head than coming out like that on the 'page', but I think I'm going to have to end this post here.  Perhaps next time I post I'll be somewhere closer to myself, but apologies in advance if I'm not.