Arms wrapped around me

Arms wrapped around me

I’m crippled by my diagnoses, GAD, OCD, BPD

They wrap their arms around me

depression, anxiety, fear

meaning I cannot move from here. 

I’m suffocating under the weight. 

Maybe this is just my fate?

But then I think maybe life introduced me to pain 

so I could know the power of God, even in the torrential rain. 

His power made perfect in my weakness, I pray

The holy book, the gift from God, the Bible does say

Life taught me a lesson whilst in the valley of the dark

That God, the one in control, even if I do, never loses His spark. 

The days go slowly by and I’m oh so aware that the struggle is real.

That the combination of emotions I’m facing are something not that many feel. 

They’re tearing me down, I’m crumbling under the pressure I swear. 

This whole thing, this disaster of a 2 years has been anything but fair. 

I’m stuck, I’m stuck in almost the same position fighting with all I’ve got.

Baby steps of progress, but no leaps, no bounds, am I even in the same spot?

There’s something stirring in my soul, a poem to be written, a song to be sung.

Little did I know this would be my future when I was young.

But there is one who did know, and has stuck by me throughout it all

God doesn’t step over me or leave me when I fall

He picks me up, dusts me off and kisses me on the head.

Through this desert, even when I didn’t realise, I was being led. 

The paranoia is getting at me, attacking me from every angle

The what ifs, the questions, the assumptions are wrapped around my neck, in a strangle. 

The feelings of abandonment, of rejection, of loneliness consume me

But none of this, on the outside, anyone can see.

I’m helpless & hopeless, all entwined into a big fat ball of mess. 

Even when I get a good sleep, or have a nap I’m nowhere near having a successful rest. 

There is a war, but the war it’s already been won

by the Messiah, Jesus, the resurrected one. 

He taught me how to fly, He taught me how to soar.

But now I need a reminder as I’m a crumpled heap on the floor. 

The battle wages on; but the war it’s been won. I’m sat here in the midst of a fight

where nothing, not even the constants in life, feel right.

I’m so close to breaking, in fact I’m already there.

For these burdens I carry I’ve never been able to share. 

Here I stand with support all around me but with little progress to show

In this game of life it’s all about what you do with what you know

I’ve been picked up and spat back out onto the ground.

With this large group of people, standing back, watching, all around. 

He’s the hope that can be found within the shadows when everything is dark.

I feel like I’ve been given so much to carry, but it wasn’t a blessing like with Noah and his ark. 

This can’t be from God I cry as I’m begging on my knees, make it stop. 

I promise I’m looking for the rainbow I say as the rain drops drop

But now I’m no longer crippled by my diagnoses, GAD, OCD, BPD

As I now know the God who wraps His arms around me

It hurts

It hurts 

My soul is tired from the constant wearing of a mask,
It hurts
The brokenness of my mind so obvious to me,
It hurts
This broken mind is so fragile, yet you can’t see that
It hurts
My heart is heavy from the inner screams that can’t escape,
It hurts
The momentary strength fades away as the pain takes over and
It hurts
The laughter from my friends, I decide is about me, and they can’t see that
It hurts
I’ve lost myself in the fear and the chaos, I can’t find myself again and
It hurts 
I’m overwhelmed and I’ve forgotten who I am,
It hurts 
I’m beaten down, with shame, with fear, with despair 
It hurts
This heart is beating, but I don’t want it to be and each time it beats 
It hurts 
When everything is out of control, nothing is going right
It hurts 
The pride I once had in who I am has disappeared and
It hurts
The shadow in which the monsters lurking and is all too familiar to me
It hurts 
When even giving up causes pain to you and those around
It hurts
But I must hold out hope for the day when no longer does 
It hurt

Reasons to Recover #2

10 more Reasons to Recover
Inspired by a Reasons to Recover workshop

1. To be able to look in the mirror and not hate myself
2. To go out with friends and be anxiety free
3. To feel happy
4. To have a loving relationship
5. To have the confidence to date
6. To realise I am more than my diagnosis's
7. To be there for Esther and Logan, my God Children 
8. To trust my relationships and not have paranoia surrounding them
9. To go back fully to the job I love
10. To be spontaneous without worry.

The Reality of a Psych Ward

The Reality of a Psych Ward

I asked some friends to share their experiences of the reality of an NHS psych ward. Maybe you've never been to a psychiatric ward, I hadn't done before April 2019, or maybe you want to read the differing experiences and views of 4 friends and myself. I hope this gives you a glimpse into the reality of a psych ward. 

Maddie - "I knew if I didn’t go into hospital, I wouldn’t be here at all."

I felt at my safest on the ward and met the most interesting and strongest people I know. Everyone stigmatises mental health and think it would be most scariest horrible place but during my crisis, it was my safety. However, I didn’t get what I needed from my admission- Therapy and plan of continuing recovery care. I did make a friend who can understand totally how I feel and she inspired me to start writing and I found my voice. Despite what anyone says or thinks, I know if I didn’t spend 2 weeks in hospital during my crisis, I wouldn’t of been safe and I definitely wouldn’t be here today- continuing to fight and making first steps to recovery. I finally saw the ward consultant psychiatrist, who took time to listen to me. The consultant was first person to put it altogether and make referral to a neurologist. She also put together my whole history and symptoms and diagnosed me with EUPD as well as PTSD. 

Overall to sum it up, my 2 weeks in hospital was best decision I made during my crisis episode, it wasn’t perfect but I learnt a lot about medication, care, stigma and ultimately myself. It helped to keep me safe and I found my courage, fight, voice and understanding, which together has brought me to where I am now. Recovering. I will not be made to feel ashamed that I went to a psychiatric hospital for 2 weeks to enable me to survive a mental health crisis. I have learnt that it was right and safest thing for me at the time and it has enabled me to take the first steps towards my recovery and has been a huge learning experience, which I am grateful. I got the protection I needed to enable me be where I am today. 

Brooke - A psych ward isn’t all about lovely nurses and doctors with mind stopping medicines. It’s not about painting to your hearts content or spending hours in therapy. The reality of a psych ward is seeing people you class as your friends cry in extreme mental pain. It's witnessing the unimaginable, self harm, suicide attempts, violent fights - with no chance to escape. Its constantly being on edge, just waiting for the emergency alarms to go on, again. It’s being told what to do, what medication to take, what to eat, how much to drink. A psych ward, is not a therapeutic place to be- it’s traumatising.

A -  Being a psychiatric inpatient is hell. It’s not the cushy place you might imagine, with inspirational quotes all over, miracle pills and access to 24 hour airy fairy therapy. When I spent time here last year I was lucky to see a therapist once a week (and that was only on one of my admissions). I was also circulated through a heck of a lot of different medication to reach the right mix - which is largely the same as today. The consultants all had varied views about my diagnoses and seemed to ignore all others when they landed on EUPD. There were patients screaming, shouting and swearing, alarms going off and sadly patients who would wander around not even knowing where they were.

But being a psychiatric inpatient is also safety. It was walls that held me until I was strong enough to build my own. I made a few of my closest friends there - not so I could ‘speak mental health talk’, ‘get ideas’ or ‘compare notes’ as my family seem to think but because they understood me and I knew I could turn to them when things were bad. 

Amidst the storm of the ward, there were certainly moments of calm (and even sunshine occasionally!) and the best care came from certain lovely nurses, HCAs and even the cooks and cleaners. I wouldn’t wish being an inpatient on anyone, but I also wouldn’t take it away from me as it has made me who I am today.

Ciara -  Some people think a psych ward is about medication and therapies. Actually it’s a lot more than that, it’s about having an attachment to certain people and then having agency nurses come in every night. Its watching the people you have grown close to, cry out in pain and distress, it’s feeling the pain everyone around you is feeling, it’s having medication thrown at you if your distressed. It’s seeing things you cannot forget, hearing alarms because someone has done something to harm themselves. It’s being told how you can and can’t go about your day, what you can and can’t do, when you can and can’t go out. People think psych wards are somewhere therapeutic to go, trust me they are not. They are traumatising and distressing.

Steph - I've been on 4 different wards of 2 different hospitals and each one has many similarities. The thing that sticks out most to me is the emergency alarms that go off throughout the ward when there is an incident of self harm, suicide attempt, violence, absconding or something different. If you've been on the ward for a while these alarms have an extra layer of worry as you consider could it be someone you know the staff are running and attending to? Theres been many occasions I've watched as staff from throughout the hospital run towards the room of someone I know and I wonder if that person is ever going to be alright again. 

If you spend a while on a ward you grow close to staff, make attachments only for them to be cut abruptly short when you get no notice of your imminent discharge. You don't get to say goodbye, or if you do it's the hardest goodbye because those members of staff have literally picked you up off the floor on your darkest of days. How can a simple goodbye be a good enough thank you for those members of staff? 

Psych wards pump you full of meds, your dose increases or your meds change and you spent so much of the day recovering from the drastic side effects that so many meds give you. It's about being distress and the first response being give you meds to calm you down instead of a chat because most of the time they're short staffed or busy. It's having to ask permission to leave, to have what your wearing written down each time you leave site, it's about locked doors and doors with windows so they can check on you regularly. It's the no privacy, even in the bathroom, and it's the lack of dignity as you experience incidents of your own. It's about befriending people who you don't know if you'll ever see again, it's about the waiting round doing nothing day after day after day. It's the small snippets of time where the Occupational therapy team or the activities co-ordinator manage to plan something you feel well enough to engage in. Its about weekly ward rounds with a doctor that barely knows you that could mean anything, discharge, a longer stay, who knows? 

I saw a (lovely) psychologist twice on my longer stays on ward, but often on a shorter stay I didn't get to chat to many staff at all to help me process what was going on in my head. You witness the unimaginable on a psych ward and you hear screams and cries you never want to hear again. It's full of nights you can't sleep but you can't chat to staff because most of them are agency and you don't trust them yet, and full of nights you sleep too long and miss meals or activities.  Inpatient life is not therapeutic, it's somewhere you're kept reasonably safe during a crisis.

However, psych wards have kept me alive when I couldn't do that any more, and I've met some of the kindest most inspiring nurses and HCA's who when they can take time out to chat to you, play a game with you or help you get out of a panic attack. 

50 reasons to recover

50 reasons to recover

1. To meet my new baby niece
2. To be involved in her upbringing as much as I can.
3. For my niece and nephew
4. Particularly for my nephew and Auntie day out I've promised him. 
5. To prove the doubters wrong
6. To walk back into the psych ward this time as a peer support worker.
7. To go back to work
8. To enjoy puddings out with friends.
9. To actually live and thrive not just survive.
10. To really laugh again.
11. To have days out with friends uninterrupted by anxiety or worry. 
12. To read all the books on my to read list. 
13. To watch all the movies on my movies to watch list.
14. To keep watching all the series I watch and find out what happens next. 
15. To not have any more new scars.
16. To travel more. 
17. To watch beautiful sunsets. 
18. To make myself proud.
19. To make my family proud.
20. To make my friends proud.
21. To prove to myself I can do it.
22. To prove to other people I can do it. 
23. To not let comparison rob me of any more joy.
24. To settle in properly to my new flat.
25. To one day move into a bigger place. 
26. For house parties.
27. For my big 30th birthday party I've got all the ideas for. 
28. So I can be independent.
29. So my parents can trust me once again. 
30. So the staff at A&E don't recognise me every time. 
31. To make my dreams become reality.
32. To drive to beautiful places. 
33. To have lazy days and not be ruled by urges.
34. To have more brain space.
35. To meet new people.
36. To get a puppy or a dog. 
37. To never be ruled by rituals or counting again. 
38. To go on holidays with friends. 
39. To swim without being ashamed of my scars. 
40. To wear shorts and not have to hide my scars.
41. To wear short sleeved t-shirts around kids and not have to make up stories about how I hurt my arms. 
42. To see the girls I used to nanny regularly again.
43. For silly selfies 
44. For photos with friends.
45. To make new memories with friends. 
46. To see the young people I work with flourish and grow.
47. To go back to volunteering in my old school.
48. To mentor young people again.
49. To adopt.
50. To finish my bucket list.

Borderline Personality Disorder

BPD Diagnosis

During my first admission into psychiatric hospital the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder or emotionally unstable personality disorder was talked about in one of my ward rounds. Ward round happens weekly and a nurse from the ward, yourself and the psychiatrist meet together to discuss your admission, how you’re doing, discharge, medication and diagnoses. This was when BPD was first thrown in the mix for me. However it was mentioned by a doctor who had only met me in one ward round and wasn’t the normal psychiatrist I saw in ward rounds and therefore I dismissed the thought of this as a diagnosis straight away. 

It was during my other admissions following that one that I was given the official diagnosis of BPD and first I wasn’t happy or convinced that it fit my problems at all. I knew I suffered with anxiety, depression and OCD but this extra diagnosis just didn’t seem to be me. I hadn’t suffered trauma as a child and my parents had done a great job of raising me and my sisters. At first, all I knew about BPD was that most people that suffer from it have experienced trauma as a child. The psychiatrist who diagnosed me and I didn’t get on too well either so I just decided at the beginning that he was wrong and so he put BPD traits as my diagnosis rather than just straight out BPD. 

During another admission on the same ward, with the same doctor he changed it to BPD and at first again I was not happy or convinced. But I started to research BPD a bit more and discovered whilst a large number of sufferers have experienced trauma you don’t have to have to be diagnosed. At this point I was starting to realise some of the things I could relate to and that maybe the psychiatrist had been right, although it still pains me to say it! They say you must experience at least 5 of of following to be diagnosed so I will go through each one and say how I relate to it. These were taken from the Mind website, the link is below. 

• You feel very worried about people abandoning you, and would do anything to stop that happening.
• For me, fear of abandonment is there but it’s not extreme.

• You have very intense emotions that last from a few hours to a few days and can change quickly (for example, from feeling very happy and confident to suddenly feeling low and sad).
• This is true for me some of the time, again I wouldn’t say I experience this to the extreme. 

• You don't have a strong sense of who you are, and it can change significantly depending on who you're with.
• My self esteem and sense of who I am waivers quite a lot. In some circumstances I feel very confident about who I am and what I do, other times I feel like a complete failure of a person, who I dislike very much. 

• You find it very hard to make and keep stable relationships.
• This isn’t true for me. 

• You feel empty a lot of the time.
• This isn’t true for me. 

• You act impulsively and do things that could harm you (such as binge eating, using drugsor driving dangerously).
• This isn’t true for me at all.

• You often self-harm or have suicidal feelings.
• This is very true for me. 

• You have very intense feelings of anger, which are really difficult to control.
• I have only started to recognise that some of my feelings I experience strongly are anger. 

• When very stressed, you may also experience paranoia or dissociation.
• I have experienced both of these in crisis before.

 https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/borderline-personality-disorder-bpd/about-bpd/

Being diagnosed with BPD, for me, was quite a long, stressful and challenging process and time. At first I completely disagreed with the diagnosis but I agree with it now and realise that knowing what I am struggling with is only going to help me improve my life and work through the challenges that BPD presents. Many people think those with BPD are manipulative and challenging in relationships with short tempers and challenging behaviour but I urge anyone to just get to know the person, rather than jumping to any conclusions. BPD does not define a person but if you struggle with it, recognising that you do, can be the start of your journey to recovery as you learn more about you and how your mind works. 

One year

One Year

One year ago today my life changed. I went to a gig in Brighton with my friend Keturah, I socialised with people, I enjoyed myself, I had a smile on my face and I laughed. But nobody knew what I had planned for that night, I planned to take my own life. Thankfully I found some bravery somewhere deep down and I told Keturah how much I was struggling, and what my plans for that evening were. She had no idea. Nobody would have. 

At this point she demonstrated how amazing a friend she was as she sat with me in A&E for hours on end waiting to see the psych liaison team to decide where to go from there. She sat with me until the early hours as I cried and as I grew more and more weary and unwilling to stay any longer. At a certain point Keturah had to leave me and I was given a bed in CDU, the clinical decisions unit. Nobody else knew what I was going through at this point, I hadn't yet found the bravery to tell my family. 

The next day, I dug deep for the confidence to share what was going on with my sister. The rest of my family didn't even know I'd been struggling with my mental health at this point. My sister was an absolute life saver and communicated all that I wanted with the rest of my family. 

It was decided, by the psych liaison team that a stay in psychiatric hospital would benefit me, as the state I was in with self harm and suicidal thoughts was life threatening. 

I spent much of my time in CDU sat in the corner of my room on the floor crying or having panic attacks, the other part of my time I paced the corridors. There was only one person successful in helping me up from my crying, screaming state on the floor and that was a nurse called Jess. Jess helped me literally pick myself up from the floor and start to turn my life around. 

After a couple of days in CDU, I felt unable to stay and tried to leave. It was at this point the psych liaison team sectioned me on a 5.2 (72 hour section) for my safety. They thought that if I left I would try and harm myself or take my own life. After 6 days in CDU I was given a bed in a psychiatric ward in Chichester, 36 miles from home. I ended up staying in Chichester for a month before moving to a more local unit. 

What followed in the last year has been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions, of admissions into hospital, of suicidal thoughts and attempts, of self harm, of both speaking out and of bottling it all in. I never thought my year would turn out how it did, but I shall remember this year for the rest of my life.

But this year, I've learnt so much. I've learnt about myself, I've learnt how to dig deep and find the bravery and confidence to speak out when I'm struggling. I've cried tears I thought would stay bottled up forever and I've fought intrusive thoughts, urges, rituals and compulsions like I was in a war. I've hurt myself far too often and I've left scars on my skin forever, but I've also grown. I've grown into this 28 year old woman who can speak up about suicide, self harm, anxiety, BPD and OCD. I've grown in confidence and I've grown in bravery.

One year ago today my life changed. I went to a gig, I socialised with people, I enjoyed myself, I had a smile on my face and I laughed. But nobody knew what I had planned for that night, I planned to take my own life. Thankfully I found some bravery somewhere deep down and I told someone, and that was the bravest thing I've ever done in my life. Nobody would have had any idea I was struggled but because I spoke out I received help that I so needed at that point. 

Please reach out if you are struggling, it might just save your life. 
Please speak to people if you think they are struggling with self harm or suicidal thoughts, it might just save their life. 

One Year On

One Year On 

One year on, 
Since my freedom was thieved from me, 
I was sectioned and taken away. 

One year on, 
Since I was picked up from the hospital floor,
Screaming and Crying 'make it stop.'

One year on, 
Since the voices in my head got too loud, 
haunting me and scaring me. 

One year on, 
Since I first screamed someone please help me, 
admitting to my struggles and revealing it to everyone. 

One year on, 
Since death seemed the only option to get me out,
where living was only going to hurt me. 

One year on, 
Since suicide seemed attractive to me, 
my only escape and way out

One year on, 
Since I was hospitalised in a psych ward & checked up on,
every hour through a small window in the door.

One year on.
Since the voices were loud enough to be called torture, 
the harming myself considered fatal.

One year on, 
Since the counting, the rituals, the compulsions, 
reached out of control. 

One year on,
Since all of this and more, 
my life changed, flipped, was turned upside down. 

One year on,
Since so much has changed again, 
Finally everything, the intensity is less
And I keep living instead of dying.