Category: self harm

Panic!

Trigger warning: discussion of self harm.

It’s mental health awareness week and I have deliberated about writing this. I am not ok. But I am also not really ok with people knowing that. However, given the point of this week to increase awareness and understanding of mental illness, I am putting this out there. It is scary. It feels like I am turning my brain inside out and hanging it out for everyone to see. But it is my hope that it helps someone and creates empathy for people with mental illness.

This week I added more items to my very long list of issues, generalized anxiety disorder & panic disorder. I have struggled with anxiety in the past, particularly from social anxiety, but in the last couple of months the anxiety has become extreme and I have been suffering from panic attacks. These come on suddenly and the feelings of dread quickly become overwhelming . My heart speeds up (my apple watch tells me my heart rate gets up to around 110-115 beats per minute) and I can feel it pounding in my chest. I feel faint and dizzy and like I can’t breathe. The first few times it happened I thought I was having a heart attack. Now that I know what it is I can recognize that I have had a few in the past, but not as consistently as I am getting them at the moment. They are very scary and I feel a constant sense of unease.

I visited my psychiatrist with my case manager on Wednesday to discuss my medication. I am already on medication for my anxiety that is supposed to help with the panic attacks, but the increase in my mood stabilizers a few months back have caused me to gain 12 kg in about 3 months. I wanted to see what other options there were as the weight gain is very uncomfortable and makes it hard to do the exercise I need to do to stay well as the heavier I am the worse my back pain is. This is a real shame as the current mood stabilizer I’m on (Epilim) has made a huge difference to my mood once the dosage was tweaked. For the first time in years I had felt neutral or good about 80% of the time, and even when the downs hit there was an underlying buoyancy to my mood which meant they were not as persistent as they had been in the past. It was so nice to be able to depend on my mood being ok, and I finally lost the suicidal ideation that has dogged me for at least 7 years.

However, adjusting the medication is what had to be done for physical health reasons. Unfortunately, this meant dropping the Epilim dose by 2/5ths and slowly titrating on to a new med. With this drop my mood has disintegrated. Last night was not a good night for me. I think words do not accurately convey the desperation I felt. It’s hard to explain to people without lived experience of mental illness what it is like to go to the supermarket and be triggered by the alcohol on display because feel such strong desire to drown yourself in alcohol but know that if you do you are loosening your inhibitions and you might harm yourself in that state. To walk past the personal care aisle and see the razors and not be able to resist standing in front of them, wanting blades to harm yourself. To stand in front of the bandages and wonder if you should buy some because you are probably going to fail to hold yourself together in this psychological storm, but wonder if by buying the bandages you are somehow giving yourself permission to self harm.

I didn’t buy razor blades or bandages. But it took superhuman strength on my part not to.  I came home. I did my mindfulness exercises. I rocked in my rocking chair with my weighted blanket, headphones on, listening to my favourite music, for an hour and a half. And the storm raged on. The drive to self harm was so strong I could clearly picture the blade against my skin and the droplets of blood as they slid down my arm. And what that pain feels like and sensation of afterwards when the endorphins kick in. Even the shame that always accompanies the cutting.

This isn’t pretty and it probably horrifies most people. I continue to write and put my experience out there even though it is raw and hard to look at because this is the reality of my mental illnesses. It’s not nice, it’s not pretty, and it’s not easily understandable unless you have come through it yourself. Anyone can struggle with illnesses like mine at some stage in their life. And you more than likely have no idea what they are going through. Yesterday I smiled and said I was ok, when I had all this going on in my brain. It’s not polite to answer the “how are you” question with a real answer, especially if you are in public. But that doesn’t mean the person who is saying they are ok actually is. Look beyond the words on the surface. Life is complicated but a little understanding and kindness can go a long way and doesn’t take much.

Some days just suck

Today was not a good day. The prelude to today really started on Friday when I went to pick up my 10 year old (G) from afterschool care. G is prone to accidents as she is hyper-mobile, has low tone and has a problem with proprioception. She had apparently fallen from a tree on to her outstretched wrist, and there was some debate as to whether it was broken. I was supposed to be taking her to her swimming lesson, and after a long week seconded in a different office, I couldn’t handle the change in plans so decided to just take her to swimming and deal with the problem there.

Driving to swimming, about 5 minutes down the road, there was a bang. The lights all flashed up on the dashboard and the power steering went out. I thought I must have run over a piece of plastic or something but checked the rear vision mirror and there was nothing. I managed to steer the car to the side of the road and called the AA roadside service, who ordered a tow truck for me.

Meanwhile G’s wrist looks to be just sprained (again), so that’s something I guess.

Fast forward to this morning, and I wake up with period pain and a sore back and jaw. I’m already not feeling great, then I get a call from my mechanic at 7.30am. He had looked at the car over the weekend for me and it wasn’t great news. Whoever did the cam belt last put a washer back in the wrong place, it had stripped the belt and the belt had snapped, causing massive engine damage. He said the car would need a new motor, water pump, valves, cam belt etc. He said he’d see if he could find a second hand engine and give me a quote.

This put me in a tail spin as I knew it was going to be expensive and I don’t have anything in reserve. Last year was one of those years I’m still recovering from. My other car had needed expensive repairs, then I set up my business and there were quite a few bills for that. Then I had a disaster with one of my contracts and ended up doing about 60 hours of work I didn’t get paid for. I took a massive pay cut when I took the job I started in October – long story, but basically there is potential for growth in the role so I took the cut in the hopes increased role & responsibility would gradually lead to increased salary. Then I had an accident and the costs associated with that, and have been on ACC at 80% of my massively reduced wages. Oh and I spent what savings I had left in topping up the trade in when I brought this current vehicle. So I have no capacity to pay for repairs or buy a new vehicle. And I currently have a leaking caravan as well, which is a whole other story.

I spent the day feeling teary and trying not to cry. My back is still sore and I’m still seconded to another office so I was feeling out of sorts. Then my mechanic rang and said he’d managed to source a second hand engine, though there was only one in the country (mine is a V6 and my car is 16 years old so not as many of them around). However the bad news was that the car was going to cost approximately $4,600 to fix. I had to take lots of deep breaths when he said that. I can’t find that kind of money and my financial situation is such that I already have 2 credit cards (1 is maxed out) and a small personal loan. And nothing to secure any loan against anyway. And I’m still on ACC so have limited earning capacity.

I then spent quite a bit more time at the office trying not to howl with what seems like the unfairness of it all. My brain automatically goes straight for “the universe is against me” and I feel that urge to self harm. When that comes up I try not to push it away. I try to tell myself its understandable I’d feel like hurting myself to get some relief, that the situation looks bad and of course my brain is going to offer it’s old habit to create some solace from that pain. So I can feel the endorphins and not the pain, so I can distract myself from the terrible thoughts going around in my head. Thoughts like “I never make good decisions” and “I deserve this” and “what’s the point, everything turns out shit”.

I am noticing my feelings and how they are effecting me physically, and trying to surf the wave of pain. While simultaneously trying not to cry in an open plan office full of about 20 other people. This is not easy. I felt very alone.

So later I pick G up from afterschool care, and she tells me she has found a bug in her hair. This is not good as she has been complaining of having an itchy head and I have been checking her every second day for nits (head lice). Sure enough, I look and she is crawling with lice. So then I have to come home and strip both beds (she’d been in mine over the weekend), wash all the towels and sheets etc, and then treat us both for head lice. Turns out she’d shared the love with me so I had them too, though mine were only tiny. 3 hours later I’d done 3 loads of washing, two lots of treatment shampoo (me and her), nit combing, blow dried and straightened both our hair. Not a great end to a shit day.

I still want to hurt myself, but tonight reflecting I can recognise the improvement in my self harming urges. Some of them are not as strong, and some are not as ceaseless or long as they once were. I am able to use other things to keep myself from fulfilling the urge. I wouldn’t trust myself to pick up a craft knife tonight (I have them around for sharpening pastel pencils) but I won’t seek one out, and although I am thinking about razor blades I have no motivation to go and find some pliers to pull apart my razor. I am trying to chose to focus on the progress I’ve made, and the difference between where I would be if this happened 2 years ago vs it happening now. It’s not easy and it feels tenuous and fragile in the face of so much turmoil, but it’s so much better than it once was.

When I feel like the urge to self harm is starting to over power me I try to think of my daughter and use the love I feel for her as my anchor. I don’t want to self harm partly because I don’t want my daughter to see that I have cut myself. She is so much more aware now, and she knows that’s where my scars have come from. I want her to feel secure and teach her to deal with her emotions in a much healthier way than I do. Part of teaching her that is to model the behavior for her. I may not be able to muster desire to improve for myself, but I want to try to for her. She is my reason.

Here’s hoping tomorrow is a better day.

Ka Kite