Tag: psychiatry

I Just Want To Live

A Girl In A Complex World

Well, the comfort I was receiving from the hot water bottle was wonderful. Except, it was short-lived. Through no fault of its own though! That hot water bottle was / STILL IS an incredible tool in my Skills Box.

A lot has happened lately. Maybe a slight percentage has been a genuine response to trauma and/or illness, and not something I had complete control over …. but when you choose to do something, YOU are the reason it happens. So whatever happens is your fault, isn’t it?

I’ve put my body through absolute torture these past 2 weeks and its going to take a while to settle from it all. Unless you deal with it on your own personal level, absolutely no one will ever comprehend what its like to live with a brain that wants me dead.

I can’t help but feel a little jealous … I’m actually more than a little jealous, but I digress … of the ppl I hear and read about who also deal with depression, PTSD, eating disorders, BPD, dissociation, and so on who have found ways to still live productive lives and can maintain a level of stability that is acceptable in other ppl’s eyes. I’ve been dealing with this stuff for several decades … and I have yet to discover what ‘stable’ looks and feels like.

I don’t get angry very often but right now I feel absolutely PISSED – at everyone and everything. All I want is to be able to eat, drink, sleep, and socialize with other ppl the way other stable, functional human beings do every single day. It really isn’t that much to ask, is it?

I want to live … and experience things outside of survival. That’s all I want. I’ve totally got the survival part figured out. Now, I just want to live.

Hope Strengthens, Fear Kills

A Girl In A Complex World

Those words were shared in an email response that I received from my psychologist last week. It had been a difficult session and afterwards, I spiraled. I emailed her in the midst of my upset and her brief reply ended with those words – Hope strengthens, fear kills.

Yes. I am scared. Terrified – of my own brain. I have no control whatsoever of the way it reacts to things anymore. Its like I’m dealing with a completely separate entity. I’m going about my day as if im babysitting some overly dramatic child that can’t be left alone for 2 minutes or else it’s going to get into something it’s not supposed to.

I got up after a nightmare that night and spiraled into the danger zone. I remembered that Magda (psychologist)  had pointed out a couple of wins from the previous week (which I really appreciated) and she said that what I was doing was helping me grow my window of tolerance. In my frustration that night, I was like,  “F* my window of tolerance. I’m not doing this”. 

I want to be numb. I want to go back to the days when I was void of all emotion. I used to be so frozen inside but it’s like I’m thawing out now. I don’t want my thoughts to be so loud or sounds to be so clear. When my head was heavy and foggy and I barely even remembered conversations I didn’t have to deal with any of this stuff. My brain dissociated for a reason.

I feel like I’m going crazy. The fear is strangling me. Choking me. Killing me …

I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to me. So much fear, that I’m going to just snap, go totally crazy, lose my sanity entirely.

Fear. Its trying to kill me. The fear of uncertainty. Not knowing from one minute to the next what I’m going to think or feel. The fear that I’m not strong enough … that I might find myself completely alone and have to navigate it all by myself – again … that I’m going to collapse under all the pressure … fear that I’m going to start but never be able to stop crying …

Fear kills.

*Video clip of me in the midst of a panic attack*

BUT ….

she also said that hope strengthens. Hope. I need strength. I need hope. I’m not going to find either if I just wait around for it to fall into my lap though. So I must make it my daily goal to seek out hope. I know it exists in more than just the ink on my wrist. I see it around me. I see that other ppl have it. Its just that it never feels like there’s any for me.

If you want something in this world you have to go after it right? Well, I want to be strong. I want hope to fill me and strengthen me.

And dammit, I deserve it!

How I Ended Up In The Psyc Ward

A Girl In A Complex World

It all started when I went for my regular Ketamine infusion, which is part of my treatment for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.

Felicia, the head nurse, asked if I was doing ok. She said I wasn’t looking like myself and that I was pale. I said I was good and that was all that was said. 



I remember lying back on the stretcher while they prepped me, putting heart monitoring stickers on my chest, attaching a BP cuff to my arm, oxygen in my nose … I was shivering and could feel tears running down from the corners of my eyes but i had no emotions. It was strange because that doesn’t usually happen. They took my hand to start an IV and I heard a faint voice in my head whispering – don’t touch me.

I remember turning my head to the side and just letting myself drift away. Don’t have any more memories about the treatment than that.

Once the infusion was done they wanted to talk to David. Felicia asked him how I’ve been doing lately. David later told me that he told her I’ve been purging a lot, that I’ve been quite depressed and that he’s been worried. Apparently she told him that I’m not looking well. That I was pale, my eyes were dark, and my lips were almost grey.

I was awake, my eyes were open, but I was non-responsive. My neck and head were spasming and I was staring off with no reaction when someone spoke or touched me. So they decided to keep me an extra hour to give me more fluids and more time to let the meds wear off. David asked if they felt I had taken anything and she said no because my vitals were all good. But they did bloodwork just to be sure. 

An hour later Felicia called David back in and told him that he needs to take me to the ER. Apparently I had been mumbling some things that no one could really pick out but Felicia had heard me say something about this being the end and it was almost time to die …. I don’t remember any of that. I’m just telling what I was told. 

So they put me in a wheelchair and David registered me in the ER, where I sat/slumped for 9 hours. David said I kept falling to the side as if I couldn’t hold myself up. He had to ask for a pillow and blanket to put around me to secure me a bit. He said I was in a completely different world.

Then they called us in to a small room that had nothing but 2 chairs bolted to the floor. And that’s where I spent the next 26 hours. It was nothing short of brutal.

Tears are burning my eyes now as I write that. I think it’s cruel how this was handled. They took me from the OR after having a procedure done and forced me to sit up on hard seats for a total of 36 hours. I was hallucinating. I was in terrible pain and developed a migraine. Had multiple bouts of vomiting. And I started experiencing opiate withdrawal because after I took my meds Thursday morning, I wasn’t given anything until Friday night. By that time I had missed 6 doses of morphine. It was torture.

David had to leave at one point. We had taken our dogs with us that morning. So David spent the entire day going from me in the hospital to the dogs in the car. He’d switch every hour. Take them for a walk, a drink, get them a snack then settle them in the car again before coming back in with me. But they couldn’t do that all night. So around 10pm he spoke to the staff. They assured him that I would be in safe hands and would be looked after so he left to go home with the dogs. Just before he left, he brought me in Zoey’s blanket from the car because he’d been asking for a blanket for me for 2 hrs with no luck. So I just kinda dozed off, sitting up in the chair, with Zoey’s blanket over me.

At one point I started to be more alert and I was really confused. I needed to use the bathroom but there wasn’t one so I left the room and just wandered around a bit. I went to the nurse’s station and asked if there was a bathroom and he said down the hall on the right. I roamed the hospital for a while. Took the elevator a few times, and eventually made my way back to that room. I called David, upset, wanting to know what was going on. When he realized that I was still there in that room – alone, he drove back to Grand Falls again at 4am. In the meantime, while hyperventilating and being trapped in that space with the chairs bolted to the floor, I clawed/scratched/cut my neck. 

David came, and he channeled his anger into fighting for me. He took me outside for some air then went and found a vending machine and got me a sandwich and water. I hadn’t had anything since 7am the previous day. Thankfully there was one nurse there on Friday that had a bit of respect and showed some compassion. She even gave me a little bit of her on personal toothpaste so I could brush my teeth. No one gave me a breakfast tray but she made sure there was one for me by lunch time. And she also contacted the necessary ppl to get my meds ordered. 

Then my psychiatrist came. It was still another long painful day sitting in that chair but by Friday evening I was admitted to the psyc unit.



And I’m still here. I am much more stable than I was over 2 weeks ago but still have a ways to go. Have no idea what is going to come out of this.

I Don’t Feel The Same Way You Do

A Girl In A Complex World


Identifying how I’m feeling has always been difficult for me. Although I must admit, I have come a long way in that area in recent years. In the past if you had asked me at any given point how I was feeling I wouldn’t have been able to answer you. I lacked not only the vocabulary necessary to describe the feelings but also the introspection. I had no concept whatsoever of emotions, what they were, or how they felt. I also had no idea that emotions also come with bodily sensations and could actually be felt in the body.



I have a much better understanding these days of feelings, though it’s not something that comes naturally. My first response to how I’m feeling is still the usual “I don’t know”, but I am learning how to pause and go inward. I take a moment to investigate and I can usually come up with something that somewhat describes my current emotional state.

Something else I also struggle with is identifying emotions and facial expressions in other people. I misinterpret a lot and it has led to many misunderstandings. I get insecure about not being able to pick up on emotions in other people so I observe, and I use what I see to figure out what the other person is feeling. The problem with that is that more often than not, I’m wrong. That slight shift in a facial expression does not always mean what I think it does. A raised eyebrow may make me think that the other person disapproves of something I said but that might not be the case at all. The other person may in fact be impressed, surprised, or even intrigued by what I had said.


For a long time I didn’t even know I struggled with emotions. I just thought I didn’t have very many. I’m almost always “OK” if you were to ask. It seems like that’s all I ever knew how to be. I couldn’t identify sadness, joy, excitement, contentment, and certainly not anger. I’ve spent my life so detached from myself that I had no idea these things even existed in me. Growing up I experienced a lot of unwanted emotions and as I got older they seemed to have just flattened out. I stopped feeling the varying intensities and the window of what I could actually feel grew extremely small.

So here I am, at the age of 42, realizing that I don’t know what it actually means to feel a certain way. And I have a very low tolerance for anything that takes me away from “OK”. Sitting with a feeling is a fairly new concept in my world and it’s turning out to be one of the most excruciating things I’ve ever experienced. My system jumps into high alert whenever I sense any sort of emotion inside of me. Whether my heart rate begins to speed up from excitement, fear, anticipation, lust, pain, joy, or whatever else may come up, my brain reacts in a way that propels me towards behaviors that shut it all down. I am working on this though.


A few weeks ago my therapist used the word alexithymia to describe one’s inability to identify and describe emotions. It is a word I had never heard before. I had no idea that my difficulties with emotions were something that other people out there experience as well. I thought it was just another thing I was bad at. One more thing on my never-ending list of character flaws. Something else that other people do with zero effort but requires so much work on my part. Another complexity. Another failure. Another fault.

But I’m beginning to realize that’s not the case at all! Alexithymia is a real thing that is not a character flaw! It’s not because I’m too stupid to understand emotions. It’s not because I’m an air-head, or that I’m dumb, or careless. It’s not because I’m a cold-blooded person who has no heart. It’s something that’s actually more common than I realized. So much so that it has warranted a label of its own.

So I just want to say that if you’re reading this and you find yourself relating to my experience in any way, I encourage you to do a little reading about alexithymia. It might very well help you understand why you feel (or don’t feel) the way that you do. There are a few websites in particular that I found really great at explaining it. I don’t usually post outside links here but if you are interested, feel free to ask and I will gladly share. It could open up a door to a completely new way of seeing things! Please be gentle with yourselves today. You all deserve it!

🦋

That Was Then. This Is Now.

A Girl In A Complex World

I sweep the shower curtain aside. A few water droplets fall from my hair before gliding down over my bare chest. My skin is bright red from the hot water. Steam rolls out through the window that was slightly ajar. It’s been a busy weekend, but it’s over now and we’re back home again.

It’s mid afternoon and David is in lying down, trying to catch a nap before he heads in to work tonight. Last night was a late one for us. Being the designated driver David spent the early hours of the morning taking ppl home. It was almost 4am when our heads finally touched the pillow. 5 hours later we were back in the car again. Thank God we are home. So while he rests, with the dogs curled up beside him, I go off to shower and calm myself down. In my own shower. In my own bathroom. In my own house. Safety.

The scalding water distracted me from the thoughts that had been swirling around in my mind. The tension that was trapped in my body that had been brought on by so much overstimulation, washed off me freely, mixed with the coconut body wash.

But the second I stepped out and my foot touched the towel that was on the floor, something didn’t feel right. The hair rose on the back of my neck. Goosebumps covered my arm and legs. The frantic beating of my heart became confused with memories of someone pounding on the door. Oh my god … there was someone else in the house.

Fear wound itself around me at the thought and circulated within my mind until it flooded my entire body with panic. I pulled the bath towel tighter around me in a lame attempt to suffocate the terror. Then, I reached for the doorknob and my hand lingered there. I couldn’t turn the knob, my mind was bombarded with images of who could be waiting for me on the other side of the door.

I pulled my hand away from the door, my lungs …too paralyzed to breathe. My shoulders trembled as I held back the cry that was threatening to escape from my throat. I forced my hand over my mouth to block it. Backing up, I felt the bench on the back of my legs and I let myself fall onto the seat. What the heck is wrong with me??!

I reached for my phone on the sink next to me. Placing my thumb on the screen it recognized my fingerprint and unlocked itself. I instantly searched for David’s name and opened up a new msg window. I knew he was asleep but assumed the sound of his phone receiving a new msg would stir him. ‘Are you awake?’

I stared at the screen, silently pleading for him to pick up his phone, a feeling of something dreadful happening consumed me. No response. I msged him again. ‘I’m really sorry for bothering you. I know you’re tired, my honey. But can you get up for a minute?’

Still no response. I thought of calling instead. The ring is louder than the new msg notifications. But that would mean I would also be required to speak. I couldn’t do that. My voice was currently non-existent.

A sob got stuck in my throat and my body trembled. I felt the sting of tears on my cheeks. Panic was pulsing through my veins. I thought to myself, “This is insane. There is nothing out there. There is no one out there! This is ridiculous. Why am I so scared??” I remembered that I needed to breathe. I have a tendency to hold my breath in moments like this and have been working on becoming more aware of it. I take in a small, shakey breath through my nose. “That was then … this is now. That was then … This is now.“

I repeated the familiar words to myself several times. I stood up from the bench I had been sitting on, and reached for the doorknob again. As my fingers touched it panic surged, threatening to drown out the mantra i had just been repeating to myself.  That was then … this is now. Slowly I turned the knob and opened it ever so slightly. My chest burned from needing to exhale, but the grip of terror was strangling my throat.

I paused, waiting for that looming, dark figure to inch his way into the bathroom … but he didn’t. And suddenly I realized that it had happened again. My brain had forgotten where we were.

It’s 2024 … you’re in your own house … David is here … he’s asleep … you’re here in your own bathroom …

I turned on the tap and splashed cold water on my face. My lungs began to relax and I took a few shakey breaths. I grabbed my robe and pulled it close around my body, letting the towel fall to the floor. Feeling ashamed and broken I left the bathroom and went to our room. I quietly positioned myself on the bed next to David, sound asleep. A few silent tears fell before I cuddled in closer to his back. The warmth of his body against mine reminded me once again …

That was then. This is now.

Life Has Been Unraveling

A Girl In A Complex World

My mental health has been on a steady decline for a couple of months now. There’s been a lot that’s happened, in succession, and the stress of it all has been accumulating. Trying to manage both physical and mental illnesses why all this life stuff has been coming at me was too much and I crashed. As a result, every area of my life is now suffering.

A little over 2 weeks ago something inside of me just cracked and I attempted to end my life. In a moment of desperation, needing the mental anguish to just stop, I chose what I thought would be the solution.

After spending the past 2 weeks in the hospital, in the Intensive Care Unit, here I am sitting in the car with my husband, as we travel to his parents’ place for a 60th birthday celebration (tomorrow). I was discharged yesterday, after being cleared as well enough to leave. I feel a million miles away right now. Certainly not in the frame of mind for a party. I really don’t want to be around people.

Can I just say one more thing?

Our health care system here in Newfoundland, Canada is … I’m biting my tongue here because every word coming to mind could get me banned from WordPress … so I’m just going to say … it SUCKS.

It’s sad. Based on my own experiences my heart aches for those needing services. If it happened to me then I’m sure it’s happening to countless others. 

In my opinion, if someone almost successfully takes their life and then sits in front of you and says they are not able to function because they are so mentally unwell, I don’t this it’s even sensible to suggest they develop a better sleep routine and that you’ll chat with them in 6 to 8 weeks.

Dude, if you ony knew the half of it ……

Squirrel!

A Girl In A Complex World

My mind is constantly shifting, switching from one thought to the next, one memory to the next, one daydream to the next. I admire ppl who can focus on one task at a time and are able to lead productive lives.

I’ve been so frustrated lately with my inability to focus. I find my mind growing full of ideas for blog post topics. I wanted to make writing a central activity in my daily life once Christmas had settled down. I intended to turn writing into a therapeutic practice as well as a hobby. I love writing but I usually lack the motivation. So I decided to put my focus into growing this blog.

The only problem is that I’ve gone from unmotivated and lacking direction to becoming almost borderline obsessed with collecting ideas. I find myself super aware of things around me, even more than usual, as I search for things I can write about that would bring growth and add depth to this site.

See the thing is … while I haven’t been officially diagnosed with ADHD, I have undergone some testing and it has revealed that I do fall on the spectrum. The problem though is that the psychiatrist who I’ve been with is not at all open to the possibility of a new diagnosis. Despite having official testing done by a well respected psychologist, who did multiple different types of clinical tests to see where I am with regard to current diagnosis and other potential diagnostic possibilities … and even though she presented the findings in a written report to the psychiatrist, he was still unwilling to even consider the possibility of a new diagnosis.

Now in saying that, a diagnosis is merely another label. While it has added to the confusion I have about my identity as an individual, having a diagnosis that is agreed on by all the professionals is not completely necessary. It would certainly help me a great deal, that’s for sure! But I already KNOW I have a big problem with distraction. And focusing on one thing at a time is really difficult for me. I don’t need a diagnosis of something to know that.

But you know, I don’t think its a lack of attention that’s my problem. Quite the opposite actually. I feel like I have too much attention. I notice more than my brain is able to fully process at one time. I’m frequently distracted, yes. But not because I can’t pay attention. Its because I’m paying attention to everything. It seems like I hear more and see more and just notice more in general, than other ppl do. And that makes it super hard to fully focus on any one specific thing since I’m being distracted by all the other things that are coming at me at any given time. I have more attention than I know what to do with.

I have no idea if that makes any sense to you who is reading this because I’m trying to make … oh look! Squirrel!!

Oops. Sorry about that. So um, yeah. Where was I? Oh yes. So, I’m trying to make sense out of all of this myself to be quite honest. But if you agree/disagree or even relate in any way, feel free to leave a comment below and share your own thoughts about this topic! I’d love to hear what you have to say about this!

I’m Still Here

A Girl In A Complex World

For the first time in weeks I feel a little bit like myself again. Its probably been more like months but the few weeks have been especially challenging. My mental health has been on a steady decline since the summer came to a close and then I took a nose dive and crashed head first into rock bottom.

There was no one single incident that took place to push me over the edge. I’d been fighting to hold on for a while and my rope just grew so thin that it broke. I’ve been so tired. Just the simple daily stuff has even been too much. Folding laundry had been leading to meltdowns. Once 2 then 3 baskets became filled with clean clothes I’d sit and cry because there was no basket for the dirty stuff. My husband walked in one day and found me sitting on the couch with a towel in my hand, sobbing. I had gotten out of the shower and our 3 laundry hampers were filled with clean clothes so there was nowhere to put my towel or dirty clothes. Folding it felt so far beyond what I was mentally able to process. I thank God for my incredible husband who stepped in and took it over, while I sat there crying and holding on to the towel.

Eating. Drinking. Walking. Talking. Even breathing felt pointless.

And sleep. I don’t know how long I had been without sleep but I know I was into night 3 at least because my husband was working his 3rd 12 hour shift that night and I hadn’t been to bed at all during that stretch of time. I had been purposely avoiding food and water because in the back of my mind I was thinking that the weaker I could make my physical self … the more tired and worn out and deprived I could become … the faster my body would give up at the end.

I had every aspect of my death planned out. How I was going to do it, where I would be, what I would be wearing, precise timing of everything, who would find me, details about my funeral wishes were written down and placed in my wallet with my ID and other important cards, etc

What I didn’t take into consideration was how weak and worn out I actually was. And the apathy … I didn’t care. I was completely shut down. I had been experiencing waves of emotion in between the numbness but for 3 days straight I was a zombie. I just gave up caring.

So those things paired with all the despair and brokeness I had been feeling resulted in a week long stay on the intensive care unit then a transfer to a different hospital an hour away, which is the only place that has a psychiatric inpatient unit in our district. And that’s where I’ve been for the past few  weeks.

Being in the hospital is a challenge all by itself. But today I ventured out of my room and wandered into the main lounge where several staff members were putting up the Christmas tree. A security guard came with a guitar and began singing. After a while I joined in and for the first time since my Nan’s funeral 2 years ago, I sang in front of a group of people.

Today, I feel hope.