Ninety nine per cent is how certain the rheumatologist said he was that I have fibromyalgia (see my post 'Something else'). However, he had x-rays done and bloods taken just to check that one per cent of possibility that it could be something else causing my pain. There are many things that can cause some symptoms similar to Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) that can be picked up in blood tests, including hypothyroidism and vitamin D deficiency. These are two of the things I was tested for.
The results for hypothyroidism came through clear, which I was expecting as I've been tested for this a few times, most recently before Carpal Tunnel Syndrome surgery. What I wasn't expecting was for the vitamin D level result to show that I am severely deficient. My GP told me that vitamin D levels are supposed to be between 75 - 100 nmol/l, but my result came back at 16 nmol/l. With this severely deficient level and some changes seen on my x-rays I have been diagnosed with osteomalacia, which is the adult equivalent of rickets.
Rickets, and the tell-tale bow-legged appearance of those with it, occurs in children before the bones' growth plates have sealed, but once these have sealed and growth has stopped, the diagnosis is osteomalacia, often (and in my case) with multiple fractures and pseudofractures throughout the body. This certainly explains some of my pain and tenderness. In fact, vitamin D deficiency may well explain the terrible cramping I've had in my hands and feet, the muscle weakness, the lethargy, fatigue, and exhaustion I've had in addition to that caused by the POTS I already have.
As severe vitamin D deficiency can cause problems with bone density, and I am already at risk of developing osteoporosis because of the long-term high-dose steroids I take, I have been referred to have a DEXA scan. The appointment has come through for 21st January. I've had them before, but my last one was two or three years ago, so it's definitely time it was done again.
In addition to all this, I had another letter from the rheumatologist saying that the x-rays of my hands show the possibility of 'an arthritis'. He hasn't specified what kind of arthritis, just saying that I have some 'bony cysts' and that 'closer studies are needed.' I have to have a CT scan of my hands next Monday (14th January), and then I suppose I wait to hear of the results from that before any firm diagnosis is given.
I guess that any treatment for arthritis might depend on the type of arthritis it is, if it is. The treatment for osteomalacia and severe vitamin D deficiency is, not surprisingly, high doses of vitamin D. The prognosis for osteomalacia is pretty good if the right treatment is given, and the fractures throughout my body should heal in three to six months of high dose vitamin D treatment.
However, there is a problem (isn't there always?). It is proving incredibly difficult - actually, impossible at the moment - to find a preparation of high dose vitamin D supplement that doesn't contain something else to which I am allergic. My GP has written to my immunologist for some advice, although this perplexes me somewhat as I'm not sure that he'll know anything more about vitamin D preparations than the GP. I'd have thought that pharmacists would be the folk to talk to, and that, if necessary, pharmacists would be able to make a preparation of vitamin D especially tailored to my needs. The thing is, that while the GP and I wait for a reply from the immunologist, who may not have any answers anyway, I'm not getting any treatment, and I presume my deficiency is getting worse. Mind you, I don't know how long it takes for these levels to decrease.
The other thing I'm not sure about is whether I'll have to undergo any investigations to discover why my vitamin D levels are so low. I know that anywhere north of Birmingham doesn't have enough UVB sunlight between October - April for anyone to produce adequate vitamin D, but most people store up enough through the summer months to see them through the winter. Also, my blood tests were done towards the end of November so I still had most of the winter to get through, so what are my levels going to be like by April?
Of course, all of this leaves me not knowing if I do actually have fibromyalgia as well, and my GP says we won't know for sure until I've been successfully treated for the osteomalacia/vitamin deficiency for six months. In the meantime I'm still taking the powerful meds for neuropathic pain whilst not being sure that I need to. I'd rather not take them if I don't need them, not least because they make me so dopey that if I need to get up in the morning then I can't take the full evening dose. I'm due to go back to my GP for a review of these meds, with a view to raising them further, but I think I'm going to suggest that I don't take them until it's proved that I need them. After all, they haven't actually helped ease my pain anyway. The problem, though, is managing to wake myself up in time to make that 8.30 am phone call needed to get an appointment with the GP.
Something I will probably never know the answer to is whether the rheumatologist in part made his 99% certain diagnosis of FMS because of my scars from self harm, the 'newest' of which is ten years old. It would seem that however many years pass from those terrible years of self-hatred, self-destruction, depression, and suicidality, I will most likely always be judged on them, and they will always influence doctors who treat me for whatever reason. I wonder how surprised the rheumatologist is that his 99% certainty has proved to be wrong.
Showing posts with label self harm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self harm. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
Something else
There has been another long gap between posts, for which I apologise, but it's been for good reason. I've been putting off writing this post - the post I promised you would be next. I'm having a tough time and I've needed a bit of space.
Back in at the beginning of the summer I started to get pain and stiffness in my hands, in all the small joints of my fingers. It quickly spread to both of each of my knees, my elbows, my shoulders, my hips, my feet, and my wrists. Every morning I wake up and dread moving because I know it's going to be painful. I went to my GP and was referred to a rheumatologist with the suspected diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. I have to admit that I was anxious. Rheumatoid arthritis is a horrible disease that attacks the joints, but after reading about it, I was bracing myself for a confirmation of my GP's suspicions.
The appointment with the rheumatologist was on the penultimate day of my last admission for my asthma. Luckily it was in the same hospital that I was an in-patient so I was still able to attend.
I was in with the rheumatologist for about three quarters of an hour. He took a full history and family history; he noted symptoms; and he did a physical examination. He then said that he's about 99% sure I don't have rheumatoid arthritis, but that I do have fibromyalgia, although he's taken x-rays and bloods to be certain, and to check a few other things that can cause similar pain.
I had heard of fibromyalgia before, and know several who have it, but I didn't really know much about it, except what I was experiencing myself. Although I was obviously relieved that I don't have RA, because I was almost geared up to hear that I did have it, it came as more of a shock really to be told that I have FMS instead. It's scared me. I know it's not a degenerative disease, so I ought to be thankful, but it is a chronic problem, and it is a painful condition. It is a condition that, for many years, was dismissed as psychosomatic, and because of that I have felt some stigma attached to it. More recent research has shown that it's actually a Central Nervous System (CNS) disorder, and the rheumatologist described it as a sleep disorder. It's very complicated, and it's been difficult to get consistent, reliable information about it.
The rheumatologist said that for one reason or another people with fibromyalgia have difficulty with sleeping. Many have insomnia, but more than this, it has been shown that those with FMS don't go in to stage four sleep - the deepest part of sleep; the part of sleep that is responsible for repair and restoration. As a result of not entering this fourth stage of sleep, the body has a pain response, which itself then leads to more disrupted sleep. However, the answer doesn't seem to be as simple as getting more sleep, and sleeping tablets don't help. In fact, not a lot seems to help, including many pain killers. The pain that those with FMS feel is a nerve pain - neuropathic pain - so, it seems, is best treated with neuropathic pain killers, which are most usually used as anti-epileptic drugs (though epilepsy and FMS are not at all the same thing or related). I have been started on pregabalin, although it's a medication that needs to be increased slowly, so I'm only on a very low dose at the moment. It will gradually be increased.
I was told that the pregabalin may not be enough, and that I may need a referral to the Pain Clinic at the other big hospital in the city, where they have access to other meds, and other forms of pain relief such as TENS, although I don't know how effective TENS is in FMS. I'm not at the stage of getting a referral to the pain clinic yet, though.
I've found it hard getting this diagnosis, and one of the things I've found hard is that many of those with FMS say that getting their diagnosis was a relief. I didn't feel this way. I felt ... I don't know ... almost physically winded. I felt shocked, because it wasn't what I was expecting or had geared myself up for. I've since felt isolated because I haven't felt the relief that others have spoken of. But the difference is that, for many, probably most, the road to a diagnosis of FMS is very long with many tests and many referrals for investigations. I haven't. I'm pleased I haven't, but as I say, this difference has made me feel alone. And I feel alone because FMS is a diagnosis that most people don't seem to know about, or they know the old thinking of it being psychosomatic. It isn't understood well even in the medical profession, and I am afraid. I'm afraid that many medics will have the same out-dated perception of FMS as a psychosomatic illness, and that when my FMS diagnosis comes to light while I'm being treated for my asthma, then the asthma too will be dismissed and I will be under treated. Perhaps that doesn't seem like a fair assessment of how things might be, but I base this on past experience, not of FMS, of course, but of self harm. My scars are very old, but they're still very visible, and sometimes those scars have made some medics discount my asthma. I have been under treated as a result. I have almost died as a result of that under treatment.
It is very dangerous for a medic to presume that because someone has had mental health problems in the past that the same person can't possibly have anything physically wrong with them. It is very dangerous, but it does happen, and when it happens it can have disastrous consequences. Because it has happened to me before with the scars from old self-harm, it terrifies me that the same will happen with current fibromyalgia, with old attitudes towards it, and my very real, very physical asthma. I am at the mercy of medics and their understandings, and when I'm in the middle of an asthma crisis I have no voice because I have no breath to speak. It is amazing, in a terrifying way, that even when I am like that, and medical findings in blood tests and x-rays confirm the asthma crisis, they can all still be ignored and disregarded if the medic has a negative mentality towards mental health issues, or physical conditions once considered psychosomatic.
So no, I am not relieved, and yes, I am scared. I am very scared, and I feel very alone.
Back in at the beginning of the summer I started to get pain and stiffness in my hands, in all the small joints of my fingers. It quickly spread to both of each of my knees, my elbows, my shoulders, my hips, my feet, and my wrists. Every morning I wake up and dread moving because I know it's going to be painful. I went to my GP and was referred to a rheumatologist with the suspected diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. I have to admit that I was anxious. Rheumatoid arthritis is a horrible disease that attacks the joints, but after reading about it, I was bracing myself for a confirmation of my GP's suspicions.
The appointment with the rheumatologist was on the penultimate day of my last admission for my asthma. Luckily it was in the same hospital that I was an in-patient so I was still able to attend.
I was in with the rheumatologist for about three quarters of an hour. He took a full history and family history; he noted symptoms; and he did a physical examination. He then said that he's about 99% sure I don't have rheumatoid arthritis, but that I do have fibromyalgia, although he's taken x-rays and bloods to be certain, and to check a few other things that can cause similar pain.
I had heard of fibromyalgia before, and know several who have it, but I didn't really know much about it, except what I was experiencing myself. Although I was obviously relieved that I don't have RA, because I was almost geared up to hear that I did have it, it came as more of a shock really to be told that I have FMS instead. It's scared me. I know it's not a degenerative disease, so I ought to be thankful, but it is a chronic problem, and it is a painful condition. It is a condition that, for many years, was dismissed as psychosomatic, and because of that I have felt some stigma attached to it. More recent research has shown that it's actually a Central Nervous System (CNS) disorder, and the rheumatologist described it as a sleep disorder. It's very complicated, and it's been difficult to get consistent, reliable information about it.
The rheumatologist said that for one reason or another people with fibromyalgia have difficulty with sleeping. Many have insomnia, but more than this, it has been shown that those with FMS don't go in to stage four sleep - the deepest part of sleep; the part of sleep that is responsible for repair and restoration. As a result of not entering this fourth stage of sleep, the body has a pain response, which itself then leads to more disrupted sleep. However, the answer doesn't seem to be as simple as getting more sleep, and sleeping tablets don't help. In fact, not a lot seems to help, including many pain killers. The pain that those with FMS feel is a nerve pain - neuropathic pain - so, it seems, is best treated with neuropathic pain killers, which are most usually used as anti-epileptic drugs (though epilepsy and FMS are not at all the same thing or related). I have been started on pregabalin, although it's a medication that needs to be increased slowly, so I'm only on a very low dose at the moment. It will gradually be increased.
I was told that the pregabalin may not be enough, and that I may need a referral to the Pain Clinic at the other big hospital in the city, where they have access to other meds, and other forms of pain relief such as TENS, although I don't know how effective TENS is in FMS. I'm not at the stage of getting a referral to the pain clinic yet, though.
I've found it hard getting this diagnosis, and one of the things I've found hard is that many of those with FMS say that getting their diagnosis was a relief. I didn't feel this way. I felt ... I don't know ... almost physically winded. I felt shocked, because it wasn't what I was expecting or had geared myself up for. I've since felt isolated because I haven't felt the relief that others have spoken of. But the difference is that, for many, probably most, the road to a diagnosis of FMS is very long with many tests and many referrals for investigations. I haven't. I'm pleased I haven't, but as I say, this difference has made me feel alone. And I feel alone because FMS is a diagnosis that most people don't seem to know about, or they know the old thinking of it being psychosomatic. It isn't understood well even in the medical profession, and I am afraid. I'm afraid that many medics will have the same out-dated perception of FMS as a psychosomatic illness, and that when my FMS diagnosis comes to light while I'm being treated for my asthma, then the asthma too will be dismissed and I will be under treated. Perhaps that doesn't seem like a fair assessment of how things might be, but I base this on past experience, not of FMS, of course, but of self harm. My scars are very old, but they're still very visible, and sometimes those scars have made some medics discount my asthma. I have been under treated as a result. I have almost died as a result of that under treatment.
It is very dangerous for a medic to presume that because someone has had mental health problems in the past that the same person can't possibly have anything physically wrong with them. It is very dangerous, but it does happen, and when it happens it can have disastrous consequences. Because it has happened to me before with the scars from old self-harm, it terrifies me that the same will happen with current fibromyalgia, with old attitudes towards it, and my very real, very physical asthma. I am at the mercy of medics and their understandings, and when I'm in the middle of an asthma crisis I have no voice because I have no breath to speak. It is amazing, in a terrifying way, that even when I am like that, and medical findings in blood tests and x-rays confirm the asthma crisis, they can all still be ignored and disregarded if the medic has a negative mentality towards mental health issues, or physical conditions once considered psychosomatic.
So no, I am not relieved, and yes, I am scared. I am very scared, and I feel very alone.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Black Blood
Following on from my post Reflections I wanted to try to explain a little more about self harm (si), but I also wanted to try to take you into the experience, into the mind-set, although of course I can only take you into my own experience, not that of anyone else who has/does si. To this end I've written 'Black Blood.'
It was difficult for many reasons to write 'Black Blood', not least because I had to take myself back to that deep, dark, painful time of depression and self-hatred - a place I remember so vividly, even though I don't live there now. Perhaps the difficulties are worth it if they help just one person who reads this to understand a little more about si and the confusing experience it is with it's dreadful emotional pain and the conflicts that battle inside...
Wrapped up in the dark, trapped in the night and bound by a constricting sheath. I need to breathe. I need to break out of my prison. I need to know that I’m still alive. I am completely numb, yet I am also entirely filled with pain – the pain of my soul being murdered; murdered by depression. I need to know that I have some life inside me and I need to feel something other than the intangible death of my spirit. I need to break free from myself ... unleash myself from the binding of my skin ... cut myself free.
My mind whirls into an almost drunken calm. I know I will do this. I know I don’t want to, I know that I need to, I know I do want to, and I feel the jittery excitement of expectation.
I finger the flimsy blade gently, caressing it with both love and hatred. I have freed it from its plastic casing and now it is my saviour and my downfall. It has potential to pacify the monstrous depression and save me from certain death – suicide – but it could equally well kill me entirely ... if I choose; if it chooses ... if it catches the wrong thing; the right thing. Which will it be tonight?
The lamplight isolates me in the darkness of the night – a spotlight on my anticipated activity – and then momentarily glints back at me from the grey metal, like a single eye winking encouragement: ‘Come on. You know you need me.’ Evil. Enticing. Exciting. Energising.
The coil inside me frets.
The tension threatens to strangle me and I tighten my grip; fingers turning white, ghostly in the halo of light from beside me, confirming something of my deadness. I look down at the pale, clean canvas of my arm and I hate it. I see the blue-black blood in the surface veins, assisting the transport of the poison that is in it – undetectable by any analysis, but there nonetheless, feeding the beast of depression. I need it out of me.
The coil winds further.
With an uncertain tenderness I place the cold slither of razor blade onto my arm and let it rest on my skin. The sharp edge tantalises the nerve endings, making them prickle with anticipation. They dread it. They adore it. There is an indentation, but the weapon does not yet break through the suffocating membrane. I am waiting.
I am waiting.
The night envelopes me.
I am waiting.
I am alone in the dark; alone with depression; alone with an all-consuming detestation of myself. Then with a fury that explodes like a silent volcano I press down hard, I pull back my hand, and I swipe at my skin. I rip into it like a savage battling through the undergrowth hunting its prey. I will not give up the quest. Layer after layer, through taut, white skin; through yellow jelly fat; through strings of veins; past tense cords of tendons, and I feel nothing. I continue my search – there must be life hidden somewhere in the dark corners of my being. Somewhere. I slash my way through the jungle of myself until at last I see the purity of bone – a white angel that smiles at me through the gape in my arm. It has caught me before I have killed myself. It has saved me from myself. It weeps blood and the tears form rivers down my arm and onto the tissues I’d arranged as a comfortable pillow for my limb before the massacre had begun.
And then I feel the pain.
It is a shock.
It is a relief.
Now I cry from my eyes as well as my arm, both in silence, both in the dark. Full of hatred. Full of calm. I am alive. I do exist – the physical pain tells me so.
I watch the blood-well in my arm. It fills and it spills, and what has been poisonous is now pure – the black blood having turned red as soon as it hit the air. My body has taken a breath through my grinning skin and I am relaxing. Calm is descending. The hunt is over and the beast is slain. Red rivers show my tracks, and slowly they too begin to ease up, no longer desperately trying to escape the confines of the deathly, tight shroud that shackles me to myself. It thickens. It oozes. It creeps. It stops. It sticks to me, reminding me that although it is now free it is still a part of me. I despise it. I love it. I wipe it from me, easing it off my skin with the tear-damp tissues I’d held to my face. I mother myself and I tend to the wounds of the injured child before me – this limb that feels detached from me, yet is a part of me. I weep for it; I weep for myself; but I rejoice because I have proved that something of me still lives, even though I had to slice through the repugnant wrapping that engulfs me to find it.
I sit with the remnants of the beast strewn around me.
I come back to myself more fully.
I re-enter the world, although still in darkness.
Reality hits.
Now that I know that I exist I realise that however much motherly love I give myself I cannot repair the damage I have done. But I also cannot afford to beat myself up about having done it ... I have already done the beating. No, now what I must do is prepare another soft pillow, this time of padded bandage, in which to tenderly wrap the damaged arm with its trapped angel smiling from within. Now I must brace myself for a battering of scorn, resentment and abhorrence for my self-loathing act of destruction ... of survival ... from medics at the hospital. They will hate me as much as I hate myself, and their hatred will feed the beast, refuelling its energy and resurrecting it from its resting place.
It was difficult for many reasons to write 'Black Blood', not least because I had to take myself back to that deep, dark, painful time of depression and self-hatred - a place I remember so vividly, even though I don't live there now. Perhaps the difficulties are worth it if they help just one person who reads this to understand a little more about si and the confusing experience it is with it's dreadful emotional pain and the conflicts that battle inside...
Black Blood
Wrapped up in the dark, trapped in the night and bound by a constricting sheath. I need to breathe. I need to break out of my prison. I need to know that I’m still alive. I am completely numb, yet I am also entirely filled with pain – the pain of my soul being murdered; murdered by depression. I need to know that I have some life inside me and I need to feel something other than the intangible death of my spirit. I need to break free from myself ... unleash myself from the binding of my skin ... cut myself free.
My mind whirls into an almost drunken calm. I know I will do this. I know I don’t want to, I know that I need to, I know I do want to, and I feel the jittery excitement of expectation.
I finger the flimsy blade gently, caressing it with both love and hatred. I have freed it from its plastic casing and now it is my saviour and my downfall. It has potential to pacify the monstrous depression and save me from certain death – suicide – but it could equally well kill me entirely ... if I choose; if it chooses ... if it catches the wrong thing; the right thing. Which will it be tonight?
The lamplight isolates me in the darkness of the night – a spotlight on my anticipated activity – and then momentarily glints back at me from the grey metal, like a single eye winking encouragement: ‘Come on. You know you need me.’ Evil. Enticing. Exciting. Energising.
The coil inside me frets.
The tension threatens to strangle me and I tighten my grip; fingers turning white, ghostly in the halo of light from beside me, confirming something of my deadness. I look down at the pale, clean canvas of my arm and I hate it. I see the blue-black blood in the surface veins, assisting the transport of the poison that is in it – undetectable by any analysis, but there nonetheless, feeding the beast of depression. I need it out of me.
The coil winds further.
With an uncertain tenderness I place the cold slither of razor blade onto my arm and let it rest on my skin. The sharp edge tantalises the nerve endings, making them prickle with anticipation. They dread it. They adore it. There is an indentation, but the weapon does not yet break through the suffocating membrane. I am waiting.
I am waiting.
The night envelopes me.
I am waiting.
I am alone in the dark; alone with depression; alone with an all-consuming detestation of myself. Then with a fury that explodes like a silent volcano I press down hard, I pull back my hand, and I swipe at my skin. I rip into it like a savage battling through the undergrowth hunting its prey. I will not give up the quest. Layer after layer, through taut, white skin; through yellow jelly fat; through strings of veins; past tense cords of tendons, and I feel nothing. I continue my search – there must be life hidden somewhere in the dark corners of my being. Somewhere. I slash my way through the jungle of myself until at last I see the purity of bone – a white angel that smiles at me through the gape in my arm. It has caught me before I have killed myself. It has saved me from myself. It weeps blood and the tears form rivers down my arm and onto the tissues I’d arranged as a comfortable pillow for my limb before the massacre had begun.
And then I feel the pain.
It is a shock.
It is a relief.
Now I cry from my eyes as well as my arm, both in silence, both in the dark. Full of hatred. Full of calm. I am alive. I do exist – the physical pain tells me so.
I watch the blood-well in my arm. It fills and it spills, and what has been poisonous is now pure – the black blood having turned red as soon as it hit the air. My body has taken a breath through my grinning skin and I am relaxing. Calm is descending. The hunt is over and the beast is slain. Red rivers show my tracks, and slowly they too begin to ease up, no longer desperately trying to escape the confines of the deathly, tight shroud that shackles me to myself. It thickens. It oozes. It creeps. It stops. It sticks to me, reminding me that although it is now free it is still a part of me. I despise it. I love it. I wipe it from me, easing it off my skin with the tear-damp tissues I’d held to my face. I mother myself and I tend to the wounds of the injured child before me – this limb that feels detached from me, yet is a part of me. I weep for it; I weep for myself; but I rejoice because I have proved that something of me still lives, even though I had to slice through the repugnant wrapping that engulfs me to find it.
I sit with the remnants of the beast strewn around me.
I come back to myself more fully.
I re-enter the world, although still in darkness.
Reality hits.
Now that I know that I exist I realise that however much motherly love I give myself I cannot repair the damage I have done. But I also cannot afford to beat myself up about having done it ... I have already done the beating. No, now what I must do is prepare another soft pillow, this time of padded bandage, in which to tenderly wrap the damaged arm with its trapped angel smiling from within. Now I must brace myself for a battering of scorn, resentment and abhorrence for my self-loathing act of destruction ... of survival ... from medics at the hospital. They will hate me as much as I hate myself, and their hatred will feed the beast, refuelling its energy and resurrecting it from its resting place.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Reflections
I've been thinking about Nn's death, and whilst it's bound to have a significant impact on me I wonder if it's had more impact because it was suicide. Death is a taboo subject in most of society, and suicide is even more so. I'm going to talk about it here though, because not only has it raised itself in my life now, but it also had a significant presence in my life in the past.
I suffered from disabling depression for many years. I was drowning in an emotional sea of black treacle that sucked me down into its depths and so nearly suffocated the life out of me. I spent a significant amount of time in my twenties in hospital with depression, and to be honest I didn't believe that I'd ever be free of it. I wanted more than anything to be 'normal', to be happy, but the more I wanted these things the less achievable they seemed to become.
I self-harmed. Actually, I started to self-harm (si - self injure) when I was in sixth form, though I always hid it as much as I could, but as I got older and the si became worse it was impossible to hide from everyone, because it was too severe to patch up myself. Very few people understand self harm and think of it as attention-seeking behaviour. Perhaps it is for some, but not for me - I never wanted others to know, and I hid it as best as I could, but when the cuts wouldn't stop bleeding or were too severe and deep for me to manage I had no option but to go to A&E or my GP to get sewn up. No, for me si was a huge mix of things. To a certain extent it was about tantalising death - I didn't care much if I lived or died (and later I definitely wanted to die), and venturing that close to arteries, tendons, bones, ligaments, etc was almost like letting fate decide. But ironically, si was often also about survival. I hurt so much and so deeply in my soul. The only thing that told me that I wasn't physically dead was the emotional pain I was in. Oddly, I often didn't feel the physical hurt of cutting myself until sometime after I'd done it, and then it was almost a relief because it was a different kind of pain, a tangible pain, something I could see and was justifiable. If I hadn't cut I would've imploded more entirely, I'm sure. Contrary to the 'tantalising death' thing, si was also almost the opposite of death ... it let the edge off the agony and stopped me from killing myself ... a kind of letting off steam from the pressure cooker...
I don't si now. I haven't si-ed for 8 years. The last time I cut/si-ed was 22nd April 2003, though of course I will always bear the scars. There's nothing I can do about that, but I refuse to be ashamed of them, and whilst I hid the wounds at the time, I refuse to cover my scars for the sake of others now. If people don't like what they see then they don't have to look, but I have to live with the scars everyday, and if I allow others to make me feel ashamed of them, then I'm allowing others to make me feel ashamed of myself. There is a stigma to mental illness and depression, but there oughtn't be, and I won't, if at all possible, be ashamed because of the depression I've suffered from in the past, or the actions that depression led to. Depression is horrendous enough without adding extra guilt into the mix. So yes, I have the scars, and whilst I don't flaunt them (I'm not proud of them either - they're just a part of me), I don't hide them away unless I want to, and yes, there are some situations in which I will do that for myself, and sometimes for my mother as I know that she can sometimes find it difficult.
Self harm so nearly wasn't enough to keep me alive though, and for a long time I was intermittently suicidal. For years, in fact. It reached a head in 2002/2003, during which time I took several overdoses (very significant ones, far removed from any category of 'a cry for help'), and tried to hang myself. That is where I feel a particular connection to Nn in his final act. Unlike Nn, I was found just as everything was going black and disappearing into a haze somewhere beyond the sound of the familiar wheeze of constriction, this time from strangulation rather than asthma, but the same sound nonetheless. Despite being in hospital with depression at the time, I hadn't expected to be found until after I'd succeeded, and I was distraught when I realised that I hadn't succeeded. Nn was in a different physical situation from me and had no interruption, but I do know something of what he experienced in those last minutes of his life, and that has made me reflect a great deal on his death, his life, my life, my past depression, my subsequent fights for life through multiple asthma attacks, the whole complicated thing of 'life'. It fills me with such huge sadness that Nn felt such despair that he chose to kill himself ... and I remember the despair I felt myself when I was suicidal. I remind myself that this is remembered despair, not the feelings of today, and I remind myself of the fantastic moment of miraculous cure.
You may not have seen the list of 'Facts about me' near the bottom left of this page, but there's a fairly random list down there of snippets about me. Third on the list is, 'at 4pm on Monday 5th May 2003, walking down one of the grimmest streets in Newcastle, I experienced a miracle.' This was at the height of my suicidality. My world had been the deepest, darkest shade of black imaginable for what seemed like forever. I couldn't remember what it was like to live in a colourful world, or to feel that I was doing anything beyond existing. I had no hope of anything ever changing. At the time I was being desperately let down by the mental health services, who I believe were actually making my situation worse, and I was so nearly, so very nearly successful in my suicidal acts. And then 4pm on Monday 5th May 2003 happened. Nothing had happened to change my world; no event had taken place; nobody had said anything or done anything; no change had been made to medication; but suddenly everything changed. I was walking down Westgate Hill in Newcastle, which several years earlier had been voted the 4th grimmest street in the country (what an accolade!), when I suddenly felt something I didn't recognise. It worried me that I didn't recognise what I was feeling, and the worry caused me to glance up from my fixed focal point of the grey pavement just ahead of my feet. The grim street was still shades of grey, but the grey buildings were topped with bright red tiles and looked over by an intensely blue sky. My eyes hurt with the colour. It was like regaining sight after years of darkness. It was astounding, astonishing, amazing. And that feeling, it was becoming more overwhelming. What was it? It was the feeling of being alive! I wasn't just existing, and I wasn't in a monochrome world any more! I was alive and living in technicolour! I texted my mum. I texted that for the first time in years I suddenly felt alive! I have been alive ever since, never having returned to those depths of depression. Sure there are low times, especially after near-death experiences, or other significant events, but they're different from depression - they're normal responses to difficult circumstances/situations/events, and they don't last. Monday 5th May 2003 was my rebirthday, a miracle day. I was a Christian before this wonderful event, for many years before the event, and I never stopped being a Christian throughout my depression, but I felt forgotten by God. I felt as though I didn't matter, and questioned why I felt that I should matter as there were so many other, much more important things going on in the world, but it saddened me that I didn't matter even to God. And then God showed me that He hadn't forgotten me, and that I was as important as anything else on His 'to do' list, and that He really is there even when we think He's busy with something else. I don't think anyone ever expects a miracle to happen to them. I certainly didn't. I feel incredibly privaledged to have experienced a miracle, and for it to have been so completely life-changing ... life-giving. I wish with all my heart that Nn could've had the same miraculous event occur in his life. I am so thankful that God stuck his oar in when He did with me, saved me from myself, from my suicidality, and gave me colour and life again. It's just over 8 years ago that it happened, but I remember it as clearly as if it happened today. It still fills me with awe, I still get excited when I think about it, and I know that I am truly blessed.
I suffered from disabling depression for many years. I was drowning in an emotional sea of black treacle that sucked me down into its depths and so nearly suffocated the life out of me. I spent a significant amount of time in my twenties in hospital with depression, and to be honest I didn't believe that I'd ever be free of it. I wanted more than anything to be 'normal', to be happy, but the more I wanted these things the less achievable they seemed to become.
I self-harmed. Actually, I started to self-harm (si - self injure) when I was in sixth form, though I always hid it as much as I could, but as I got older and the si became worse it was impossible to hide from everyone, because it was too severe to patch up myself. Very few people understand self harm and think of it as attention-seeking behaviour. Perhaps it is for some, but not for me - I never wanted others to know, and I hid it as best as I could, but when the cuts wouldn't stop bleeding or were too severe and deep for me to manage I had no option but to go to A&E or my GP to get sewn up. No, for me si was a huge mix of things. To a certain extent it was about tantalising death - I didn't care much if I lived or died (and later I definitely wanted to die), and venturing that close to arteries, tendons, bones, ligaments, etc was almost like letting fate decide. But ironically, si was often also about survival. I hurt so much and so deeply in my soul. The only thing that told me that I wasn't physically dead was the emotional pain I was in. Oddly, I often didn't feel the physical hurt of cutting myself until sometime after I'd done it, and then it was almost a relief because it was a different kind of pain, a tangible pain, something I could see and was justifiable. If I hadn't cut I would've imploded more entirely, I'm sure. Contrary to the 'tantalising death' thing, si was also almost the opposite of death ... it let the edge off the agony and stopped me from killing myself ... a kind of letting off steam from the pressure cooker...
I don't si now. I haven't si-ed for 8 years. The last time I cut/si-ed was 22nd April 2003, though of course I will always bear the scars. There's nothing I can do about that, but I refuse to be ashamed of them, and whilst I hid the wounds at the time, I refuse to cover my scars for the sake of others now. If people don't like what they see then they don't have to look, but I have to live with the scars everyday, and if I allow others to make me feel ashamed of them, then I'm allowing others to make me feel ashamed of myself. There is a stigma to mental illness and depression, but there oughtn't be, and I won't, if at all possible, be ashamed because of the depression I've suffered from in the past, or the actions that depression led to. Depression is horrendous enough without adding extra guilt into the mix. So yes, I have the scars, and whilst I don't flaunt them (I'm not proud of them either - they're just a part of me), I don't hide them away unless I want to, and yes, there are some situations in which I will do that for myself, and sometimes for my mother as I know that she can sometimes find it difficult.
Self harm so nearly wasn't enough to keep me alive though, and for a long time I was intermittently suicidal. For years, in fact. It reached a head in 2002/2003, during which time I took several overdoses (very significant ones, far removed from any category of 'a cry for help'), and tried to hang myself. That is where I feel a particular connection to Nn in his final act. Unlike Nn, I was found just as everything was going black and disappearing into a haze somewhere beyond the sound of the familiar wheeze of constriction, this time from strangulation rather than asthma, but the same sound nonetheless. Despite being in hospital with depression at the time, I hadn't expected to be found until after I'd succeeded, and I was distraught when I realised that I hadn't succeeded. Nn was in a different physical situation from me and had no interruption, but I do know something of what he experienced in those last minutes of his life, and that has made me reflect a great deal on his death, his life, my life, my past depression, my subsequent fights for life through multiple asthma attacks, the whole complicated thing of 'life'. It fills me with such huge sadness that Nn felt such despair that he chose to kill himself ... and I remember the despair I felt myself when I was suicidal. I remind myself that this is remembered despair, not the feelings of today, and I remind myself of the fantastic moment of miraculous cure.
You may not have seen the list of 'Facts about me' near the bottom left of this page, but there's a fairly random list down there of snippets about me. Third on the list is, 'at 4pm on Monday 5th May 2003, walking down one of the grimmest streets in Newcastle, I experienced a miracle.' This was at the height of my suicidality. My world had been the deepest, darkest shade of black imaginable for what seemed like forever. I couldn't remember what it was like to live in a colourful world, or to feel that I was doing anything beyond existing. I had no hope of anything ever changing. At the time I was being desperately let down by the mental health services, who I believe were actually making my situation worse, and I was so nearly, so very nearly successful in my suicidal acts. And then 4pm on Monday 5th May 2003 happened. Nothing had happened to change my world; no event had taken place; nobody had said anything or done anything; no change had been made to medication; but suddenly everything changed. I was walking down Westgate Hill in Newcastle, which several years earlier had been voted the 4th grimmest street in the country (what an accolade!), when I suddenly felt something I didn't recognise. It worried me that I didn't recognise what I was feeling, and the worry caused me to glance up from my fixed focal point of the grey pavement just ahead of my feet. The grim street was still shades of grey, but the grey buildings were topped with bright red tiles and looked over by an intensely blue sky. My eyes hurt with the colour. It was like regaining sight after years of darkness. It was astounding, astonishing, amazing. And that feeling, it was becoming more overwhelming. What was it? It was the feeling of being alive! I wasn't just existing, and I wasn't in a monochrome world any more! I was alive and living in technicolour! I texted my mum. I texted that for the first time in years I suddenly felt alive! I have been alive ever since, never having returned to those depths of depression. Sure there are low times, especially after near-death experiences, or other significant events, but they're different from depression - they're normal responses to difficult circumstances/situations/events, and they don't last. Monday 5th May 2003 was my rebirthday, a miracle day. I was a Christian before this wonderful event, for many years before the event, and I never stopped being a Christian throughout my depression, but I felt forgotten by God. I felt as though I didn't matter, and questioned why I felt that I should matter as there were so many other, much more important things going on in the world, but it saddened me that I didn't matter even to God. And then God showed me that He hadn't forgotten me, and that I was as important as anything else on His 'to do' list, and that He really is there even when we think He's busy with something else. I don't think anyone ever expects a miracle to happen to them. I certainly didn't. I feel incredibly privaledged to have experienced a miracle, and for it to have been so completely life-changing ... life-giving. I wish with all my heart that Nn could've had the same miraculous event occur in his life. I am so thankful that God stuck his oar in when He did with me, saved me from myself, from my suicidality, and gave me colour and life again. It's just over 8 years ago that it happened, but I remember it as clearly as if it happened today. It still fills me with awe, I still get excited when I think about it, and I know that I am truly blessed.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Books that saved your life
Last night I went to a talk/interview thing with Jeanette Winterson at Newcastle University. It was fascinating stuff. She was largely talking about the memoir that she's writing and is due for publication in October, I think. Obviously as it hasn't been published yet then none of the audience had been able to read the memoir, but Jackie Kay who was interviewing had had the privilege of doing so, and Jeanette Winterson read out the first chapter to us. I hadn't known that she had been adopted, and this is largely what the memoir seems to be about, in a similar way to Jackie Kay's own memoir Red Dust Road. My younger brother, C, was adopted (originally born as my cousin), so it's a subject that interests me from the position of a sibling, and I think I'll be getting Jeanette Winterson's book when it comes out later in the year.
During the course of the interview JW spoke about the effect of some of her adoptive family's home-life and parenting, and the effect of learning more about her birth mother, and finally meeting her. She spoke also about working through the feeling of not belonging anywhere solidly in the world when you're an adopted person, which resonated in me with something that my brother once said to my mother. He was very young, perhaps six - I'm not sure - and he said, 'I don't want to be a dopted. I want to be a boy.' That says so much about identity, and a small child's perception of who they are and who they're seen to be.
So Jeanette Winterson was talking about this time in her life when she was working her way through all this, and she told how she got terribly depressed and had a breakdown. She spoke about how she lost all her words; not just her ability to write, which is terrible enough when you're an author, but more her all-round ability/inability to express herself. She told how awful that was for her, but then how it was poetry that helped her find her words again - not writing poetry, but reading it. As she said, poetry often isn't taken seriously as a form of literature and emotional expression, but rather as something soft and insincere, or conversely hard and academic. She then went on to say that reading poetry, and particular books of poetry saved her life; not the self-help books on depression and surviving nervous breakdowns, but books of poetry, other books - books saved her life. I found myself being distracted by this for a while during the talk, and through the rest of the night at home, and all through today, and I've been thinking about what books would I say have saved my life.
As I've spoken about a little in the past (and realise I've mentioned several times in recent posts for one reason or another), I had terrible, terrible depression for many years. It was debilitating. It had me in hospital on several occasions, usually for at least a few weeks, and once for eight months. In retrospect I would say that I was depressed to some extent from fairly early childhood, getting worse in my teenage years, and then reaching desperate levels in my twenties. I was actively suicidal. I self-harmed extensively. I started self-harming when I was in sixth form, but at that time it was very superficial, and it stayed superficial (though that doesn't make it insignificant) for a lot of years. As time progressed, the depression got worse, my lack of self-worth increased, and I lost the desire to live, the self-harming got worse. I'm not going to go into detail, but just to say that I was told on several occasions in A&E that it was the worst self-harm the doctor had seen, and I became very well acquainted with the internal anatomy of my arms. It was a terrible, terrible time, that I didn't believe would ever end without my killing myself. Thank God I was wrong, and thank God He got me through the suicidality so that I had the opportunity to find out that the terrible time could end another way.
In my late teens I read Richard Bach's book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I know it's kind of seen as a 'hippy' book, but it I loved it. I still love it. There's a hope in it; a hope that being different and alone doesn't make you worthless and hopeless or any less worthy than anyone else. Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a kindred spirit to the outsider. It's a book that saved my life. When I was in the deepest depression I had no concentration to read, but my friend S read the book onto tape for me and I listened to it again and again and again. I still have the tape. I lost myself in the imagery it induced, and my time flying around the lonely skies above the seas, taking dives closer and closer to the surface of the water, gave me some calm. Jonathan Seagull was playing with death, I suppose, as he made those dives seawards, and I was playing with death with my ever-worsening self-harm ... although it wasn't a game ... it was the deepest unhappiness in the world and I was trying to escape...
After thinking about Jonathan Livingston Seagull, I wondered if there other books that had given me a spider's-breath of hope, or something else that had saved my life. Like JW I'm not talking about self-help guides, and I also mean something other than the Bible. There probably are other books that gave me something positive, or helped me see things in a different way, but nothing I can really, truly identify. No published books anyway. However, there was one other book (or series of other books) that was highly significant to me, I carried with me constantly when I was in hospital, and called upon often when at home. My diaries. My diaries probably saved my life too, and I have my diaries going back to about twenty years, although I hardly ever read them as they're full of that horrendous depression. But I want to share with you just a small part of two diary entries from 2003:
Monday 24th March 2003 - 10.32pm
I don't feel safe to myself. I don't know why but I am very urgy. At the moment I'd say that I'm maybe 90% certain to cut. Wish I knew why I'm so urgy. Maybe it's the habit of it. Maybe it's because inside I'm crying, but can't on the outside. Maybe it's something familiar ... a very weird kind of comfort. It shows me that I'm real, despite not feeling it. It shows me that I'm alive, despite not feeling it. When it hurts some of the internal hurt goes. While I'm doing it I'm calm and everything else goes for a while.
Thursday 27th March 2003 - 3.34am
I've been looking at my arms whilst moisturising them, and I've realised that my scars will only ever remind me of bad times. I've known that somewhere for a long time, but I've only just fully realised it. I want to be able to stop cutting. I don't always want to be reminded of all the bad times. I am going to try my hardest not to cut. I think it's three years that you have to be si free before you can have plastic surgery done on them so I figure that if I can do that then it'll be 2006. It'll almost be my 32nd birthday. I could aim for that ... I shall make that my aim. I will try to find a way, and ask other people for ideas of ways to stop. I shall need a lot of support and I don't know how I'm going to achieve it, but I want to try. I want to be able to free myself from the past - from all the pain - and I don't think I'll ever be truly able to do that while I bear constant reminders of how terrible things have been (and are at the moment).
I will see if it's possible to buy Tubifast so that I can write on my arms without immediately having to wash it off so others don't see it. I will write 'NO' in big, black letters. I will write '32/2006' or something similar.
Seems weird talking about becoming 32 and the year 2006 because they're in a time-scale that doesn't yet exist for me. I can hardly comprehend Monday [...] let alone 3 years time ... I'll still try to aim for it though.
Need to find other coping strategies quickly!
I have only self-harmed once since making that diary entry, and that was on 22nd April that year - 2003. It was one of the toughest things I ever did - giving up si (self injury) - but I did it, and it's been several years now since I've had kind of urge to si. I never did go for plastic surgery and I'll always have the scars, but they're a part of me. I don't like them, but I don't hate them - they're just the way my arms are, and I long ago decided that if other people don't like what they see then they don't have to look. I, on the other hand, have to live with them everyday so if I hide them away and refuse to accept them, then I'm hiding myself away and refusing to accept a part of me. I won't do that. Harbouring that attitude will harbour an underlying self-hatred that has potential to develop into depression again, and I'm not doing that if I can help it. Life is for living, and I'm going to live it! My diary taught me that. My diary saved my life.
Are there any books that have saved your life?
During the course of the interview JW spoke about the effect of some of her adoptive family's home-life and parenting, and the effect of learning more about her birth mother, and finally meeting her. She spoke also about working through the feeling of not belonging anywhere solidly in the world when you're an adopted person, which resonated in me with something that my brother once said to my mother. He was very young, perhaps six - I'm not sure - and he said, 'I don't want to be a dopted. I want to be a boy.' That says so much about identity, and a small child's perception of who they are and who they're seen to be.
So Jeanette Winterson was talking about this time in her life when she was working her way through all this, and she told how she got terribly depressed and had a breakdown. She spoke about how she lost all her words; not just her ability to write, which is terrible enough when you're an author, but more her all-round ability/inability to express herself. She told how awful that was for her, but then how it was poetry that helped her find her words again - not writing poetry, but reading it. As she said, poetry often isn't taken seriously as a form of literature and emotional expression, but rather as something soft and insincere, or conversely hard and academic. She then went on to say that reading poetry, and particular books of poetry saved her life; not the self-help books on depression and surviving nervous breakdowns, but books of poetry, other books - books saved her life. I found myself being distracted by this for a while during the talk, and through the rest of the night at home, and all through today, and I've been thinking about what books would I say have saved my life.
As I've spoken about a little in the past (and realise I've mentioned several times in recent posts for one reason or another), I had terrible, terrible depression for many years. It was debilitating. It had me in hospital on several occasions, usually for at least a few weeks, and once for eight months. In retrospect I would say that I was depressed to some extent from fairly early childhood, getting worse in my teenage years, and then reaching desperate levels in my twenties. I was actively suicidal. I self-harmed extensively. I started self-harming when I was in sixth form, but at that time it was very superficial, and it stayed superficial (though that doesn't make it insignificant) for a lot of years. As time progressed, the depression got worse, my lack of self-worth increased, and I lost the desire to live, the self-harming got worse. I'm not going to go into detail, but just to say that I was told on several occasions in A&E that it was the worst self-harm the doctor had seen, and I became very well acquainted with the internal anatomy of my arms. It was a terrible, terrible time, that I didn't believe would ever end without my killing myself. Thank God I was wrong, and thank God He got me through the suicidality so that I had the opportunity to find out that the terrible time could end another way.
In my late teens I read Richard Bach's book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I know it's kind of seen as a 'hippy' book, but it I loved it. I still love it. There's a hope in it; a hope that being different and alone doesn't make you worthless and hopeless or any less worthy than anyone else. Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a kindred spirit to the outsider. It's a book that saved my life. When I was in the deepest depression I had no concentration to read, but my friend S read the book onto tape for me and I listened to it again and again and again. I still have the tape. I lost myself in the imagery it induced, and my time flying around the lonely skies above the seas, taking dives closer and closer to the surface of the water, gave me some calm. Jonathan Seagull was playing with death, I suppose, as he made those dives seawards, and I was playing with death with my ever-worsening self-harm ... although it wasn't a game ... it was the deepest unhappiness in the world and I was trying to escape...
After thinking about Jonathan Livingston Seagull, I wondered if there other books that had given me a spider's-breath of hope, or something else that had saved my life. Like JW I'm not talking about self-help guides, and I also mean something other than the Bible. There probably are other books that gave me something positive, or helped me see things in a different way, but nothing I can really, truly identify. No published books anyway. However, there was one other book (or series of other books) that was highly significant to me, I carried with me constantly when I was in hospital, and called upon often when at home. My diaries. My diaries probably saved my life too, and I have my diaries going back to about twenty years, although I hardly ever read them as they're full of that horrendous depression. But I want to share with you just a small part of two diary entries from 2003:
Monday 24th March 2003 - 10.32pm
I don't feel safe to myself. I don't know why but I am very urgy. At the moment I'd say that I'm maybe 90% certain to cut. Wish I knew why I'm so urgy. Maybe it's the habit of it. Maybe it's because inside I'm crying, but can't on the outside. Maybe it's something familiar ... a very weird kind of comfort. It shows me that I'm real, despite not feeling it. It shows me that I'm alive, despite not feeling it. When it hurts some of the internal hurt goes. While I'm doing it I'm calm and everything else goes for a while.
Thursday 27th March 2003 - 3.34am
I've been looking at my arms whilst moisturising them, and I've realised that my scars will only ever remind me of bad times. I've known that somewhere for a long time, but I've only just fully realised it. I want to be able to stop cutting. I don't always want to be reminded of all the bad times. I am going to try my hardest not to cut. I think it's three years that you have to be si free before you can have plastic surgery done on them so I figure that if I can do that then it'll be 2006. It'll almost be my 32nd birthday. I could aim for that ... I shall make that my aim. I will try to find a way, and ask other people for ideas of ways to stop. I shall need a lot of support and I don't know how I'm going to achieve it, but I want to try. I want to be able to free myself from the past - from all the pain - and I don't think I'll ever be truly able to do that while I bear constant reminders of how terrible things have been (and are at the moment).
I will see if it's possible to buy Tubifast so that I can write on my arms without immediately having to wash it off so others don't see it. I will write 'NO' in big, black letters. I will write '32/2006' or something similar.
Seems weird talking about becoming 32 and the year 2006 because they're in a time-scale that doesn't yet exist for me. I can hardly comprehend Monday [...] let alone 3 years time ... I'll still try to aim for it though.
Need to find other coping strategies quickly!
I have only self-harmed once since making that diary entry, and that was on 22nd April that year - 2003. It was one of the toughest things I ever did - giving up si (self injury) - but I did it, and it's been several years now since I've had kind of urge to si. I never did go for plastic surgery and I'll always have the scars, but they're a part of me. I don't like them, but I don't hate them - they're just the way my arms are, and I long ago decided that if other people don't like what they see then they don't have to look. I, on the other hand, have to live with them everyday so if I hide them away and refuse to accept them, then I'm hiding myself away and refusing to accept a part of me. I won't do that. Harbouring that attitude will harbour an underlying self-hatred that has potential to develop into depression again, and I'm not doing that if I can help it. Life is for living, and I'm going to live it! My diary taught me that. My diary saved my life.
Are there any books that have saved your life?
Thursday, 17 January 2008
Blue chickpea
I got my first computer with internet connection back in 1998. I was studying my first course with the Open University and a computer was required for the course, but I very quickly found my way into the world of the internet. At the time I was pretty depressed and needed as much support as I could get, and after a short while found my way to Healthyplace.com - a large American site with information about a multitude of different mental health problems, but also, and most importantly for me at that time, a large community in their chat rooms of people at various stages of difficulty with mental health problems. At this time of my life I spent much of my time hidden away in my flat, afraid of the outside world, and desperately lonely, but through the discovery of these chat rooms I was able to partake in the world in some way or other and also get and give support at the same time. As I guess you get in all open chat rooms, there were the occasional cranks who'd turn up, but the majority of people there were genuine and I made some very good friends. One of these friends was someone who went by the name of Blue chickpea, and who turned out to live only two streets away from me! Blue chickpea turned out to be called Janine, and was a few years younger than me, but we got on well. Like me (at that time), Janine struggled with self harm and was a member of a closed group online for people who do or have self harmed, and she asked me if I'd like to join. She put my name forward to the moderator and before long I found myself in the middle of a lively, and tremendously caring, bunch of folk dotted around the UK (and one or two ex-pats). Although I haven't self harmed now for almost five years, I'm still a member of the group, which is a bit like a family. This group has its own chat facility and one night, several years ago now, I was talking to Janine in there after a particularly rough day and I'd harmed myself. It needed medical attention, but unfortunately the attitudes of most A&E staff towards people who self harm is one of derision, anger and time wasting, and these attitudes make you feel even worse and your self-loathing even stronger at a time when your self-esteem is somewhere around zero. It's a time when you need support and understanding, not berating. Janine knew the attitudes I'd face and she knew of the state I was in. She also knew that I was really quite agoraphobic too, which would compound any other fears of going to A&E. It was three in the morning and she offered to come with me. She came round, and this was the first time we met person-to-person, rather than online. We got a taxi to A&E, and all the while Janine talked to me to keep me focussed and calm. When we got to the hospital Janine booked me in; she came with me to the triage desk and later into the room with the doctor; she both distracted me and comforted me in the waiting room; and she stood up for me against the hostility of the medics and nurses who were on that night. Janine made me feel that I was worth standing up for. She believed that I deserved to be treated with care and given support. Janine made me feel valued. She was a good friend.
That was only the first time we met irl (so to speak). We met on many other occasions too, but that time meant something particularly special to me. However, Janine was something of an inspiration, because, as I've already said, she had her own difficulties and struggles, but she'd turned herself around. She'd turned her whole life around. She'd gone back to college and got excellent grades in A-levels/HEFCs; she'd broken free of her self harm; she'd got into university and was achieving well beyond what she'd ever dreamt she could (we all knew she could though).
Janine died very suddenly and unexpectedly just before new year.
It was her funeral today, but I couldn't get there.
The world has lost another truly wonderful and inspirational person, and again at such a young age.
Sleep now, Janine - Blue chickpea - and rest in peace.
That was only the first time we met irl (so to speak). We met on many other occasions too, but that time meant something particularly special to me. However, Janine was something of an inspiration, because, as I've already said, she had her own difficulties and struggles, but she'd turned herself around. She'd turned her whole life around. She'd gone back to college and got excellent grades in A-levels/HEFCs; she'd broken free of her self harm; she'd got into university and was achieving well beyond what she'd ever dreamt she could (we all knew she could though).
Janine died very suddenly and unexpectedly just before new year.
It was her funeral today, but I couldn't get there.
The world has lost another truly wonderful and inspirational person, and again at such a young age.
Sleep now, Janine - Blue chickpea - and rest in peace.
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