Tag Archives: ethylene glycol

A Much Delayed Update

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Being Alive, Coping Strategies, Defence Mechanisms, Depression, Dissociation, Expressing Emotion, Family, Illness, Personal Growth, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy Breaks, Psychotherapy with P, PTSD/Extreme Emotional Stress Disorder, Sef-Awareness, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It has been such a very long time since I last posted anything on here, it feels all but impossible to try to catch you all up. And maybe it’s not really the most important thing in the world that I do? If you’ve been following this blog for a little while, you’ll probably already have some idea of what sorts of ups and downs you might have missed in the last few months. After all, there is nothing new under the sun. And if you have only just arrived on my site, well, feel free to hop on board as you are.

So, I’ll just begin with where I am at now. Literally.

I am at home, very slowly trying to allow my body to recover from the hell I have recently put it through. I suppose you could say that I had been on a slippery slope to nowhere for a long time, and a number of weeks ago, my therapist started a referral for me to go to Drayton Park. I was already with the crisis resolution team at this point, struggling enormously with trying to keep myself safe. Being at a very low point, the only way I could really manage was by taking sleeping tablets. Paradoxically not to kill myself, but to stop myself from doing so. Perhaps not the best way to manage, but it was all I could do at the time. The referral to Drayton Park took longer than usual for a number of reasons that I won’t bore you with, and being asleep most of the time while I was waiting was the only way I could think of to stay safe. After all, if I was knocked out there was no way I could actually act on my suicidal impulses. Right?

A little over a week later I was finally given a place at Drayton Park, and that felt like such a relief. But it wasn’t all smooth and simple. The depression and the suicidal ideation, the flashbacks and the urges to self-harm came with me. And, although I have stayed at Drayton Park about a million times [OK, maybe not a million, but certainly enough times to feel at home there] this time felt like a distinct travel back in time. You see, the only room available was the one room I have always dreaded being put back in; the room I stayed in during my very first time at Drayton Park. Yes, I have stayed in other rooms there more than once with no problem, but this one holds some particularly bad memories for me; this is the room I died in. And this time it isn’t an exaggeration – I was found lifeless in that room, and while I have no actual memory of it, I was told by the doctors in ICU that I had been clinically dead for a number of minutes by the time the managed to bring me back.

The reason I was found lifeless in that room all those years ago was my own. I had brought a substance into the place that I shouldn’t have, and being the kind of person who – owing to deep seated psychological issues – is far more afraid of being found to have broken The Rules than to tell staff that I was afraid of what I might do, and that I needed help, proceeded to ingest said substance. So, this time around, being back in that room, I was overcome by memories of standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom swigging pure poison from a bottle, quickly followed by a handful of Smarties to mask the bitter taste, looking at myself, hoping to die.

This time around I used my one-to-one sessions at Drayton to talk about these memories, about the sense of being thrust back in time and the feelings evoked, and I was immediately and repeatedly offered to switch rooms. But, me being me, I thought there might be some therapeutic value in being able to stay in the same room, look at myself in the same mirror, but having a different outcome. I thought that the feelings brought out by staying in this particular room might be used for healing, for psychological growth, even. Sadly, I seem to have completely forgotten that the reason I was back at Drayton in the first place, was that magnetic lure of release from life – and that I wasn’t strong or stable enough to do this kind of work at this particular time. And it proved to be a costly miscalculation on my part.

Prior to admission to Drayton Park I had purchased another bottle of a similar but far more lethal poison, and it was still sitting at home, waiting for me. Thus, part of the objective of my stay this time was to get me to a place where I would be stable enough to be able to safely go back to my flat and pick up the bottle to hand it in to staff, without having the urge to down its contents on the way back. I was working very closely with both P. and staff at Drayton to get to this place, we talked about my feelings, about the reasons for those feelings and how best to keep me safe – we really were doing everything possible to get me out of this perilous place I had been perched at when I first arrived.

Admittedly, at first there was a fair bit of pressure for me to bring the bottle back at the earliest possible opportunity, but this plan was thankfully changed, when I – with the help of P. and staff who have known me for a long time – were able to to explain that bringing back the Bottle before I was ready to do so wouldn’t necessarily make me any safer; I’d just order another one online, or I’d feel pushed to act out in some other equally dangerous way. [Having a severe nut allergy means that I am never further than a chocolate bar away from having the means to end my life]. Instead we planned trial runs to my flat where I would go into my flat but not into my bedroom [where the bottle of Poison was kept]. I’d pick up post or a change of clothes, but there was no expectation that I bring the poison back. This worked. Twice. In fact, during one of my visits home I managed to – relieved of any pressure to perform, so to speak – bring back the anti-sickness tablets that were also part of my suicide plan. It was hard going back to the flat; in spite of our best efforts to have strong safety plans in place and in spite of never staying longer than ten minutes, I never quite felt safe.

Partway through my stay P. went on leave, as did K. This meant that most of my usual safety net was no longer available to me. And that, too, was hard. Destabilising, is the word that comes to mind. I knew that I would not be able to stay at Drayton until they were back from their respective leaves, and that didn’t feel good at all. So, fear of going home – having still not been able to hand in the Bottle – intensified. Towards the end of week two I was asked to make a Week Plan, to add structure to my stay, which I did. Knowing how hard it had been the two previous times going back to the flat, I only planned visits home for every other day, so as to not overwhelm myself.

But on the very first day of following my Week Plan I knew I wasn’t stable enough to be able to go home, even for a short visit. It was one of those very bad days with lots of flashbacks and thoughts of how much better things would be if I were dead, so, I switched days on my planner, did my Tuesday plan on the Monday. And it would have worked out fine, except the next day was just as iffy as the previous one, safety-wise. I wanted so badly to be able to stick to the plan, though, since otherwise there would be fewer opportunities to go home before actually being discharged. And I knew discharge would be coming, whether or not I had brought the Bottle back.

I want to pause here to make something perfectly clear: there was absolutely no pressure from staff for me to go home that day – none, zero, ziltch – and that is really important to understand – they were all working hard to keep me safe. All pressure to go home that day came from me, and me alone. But, in the end I did decide to push on through. And that turned out to be a near fatal mistake.

When I first got to the flat on that third trial run I felt anxious, but sort of within the realm of what I could manage. So, before entering I rang Drayton to say that. All was good, I sat in the kitchen for a bit, I even wrote an angry note to my flatmates about the washing machine not having been fixed during my two week absence. Everything felt normal.

And then suddenly it didn’t.

I know that I went and took a sleeping tablet in desperation. At the time I really thought it was just the one, so, that is what I told staff when I called them in panic. They stayed on the phone with me until I was out of the flat and I got a taxi back to Drayton. I saw my main worker when I got back, and prepared to go to bed [after all it was a sleeping pill I’d taken]. We agreed that they would check on me every hour, just to make sure I could be woken up, since I have a history of taking overdoses in a state of dissociation, and I couldn’t say with 100 per cent certainty that I hadn’t done so this time, too. [Entering a dissociated state is actually far more common than you might think, especially for people who have suffered severe abuse and have used dissociation as a coping mechanism all their lives]. About quarter of an hour later I knew that I must have done more than just taking a single pill, because I was feeling nauseas and drunk and was losing control over speech and movement. So, I went straight to the staff office and knocked on the door. [This is, incidentally, the exact opposite of what I did that very first time at Drayton]. The last thing I remember is lying on the sofa in The Quiet Room with a member of staff next to me, being told that an ambulance was on its way.

I woke up in hospital. I knew immediately that I was in hospital, because nowhere else on earth are you met with those cold harsh lights, and those ugly tiles in the ceiling. That is my first memory. My second one isn’t so much a memory as a feeling, a feeling of immense relief that I was alive, that I had in fact woken up. And I knew that was a big deal. Every other time I’ve woken up in hospital I have felt nothing but sheer anger that I hadn’t died, wondering what I had done wrong, thinking about when I could do it again.

I spent a number of days in hospital being given antidote every twelve hours. And that was one of the most scary experiences ever. The relief of being alive soon wore off, and the fear of not knowing whether or not I would actually live – and what that life might be – took over. I knew that things were bad, really bad – not just from the vast number of tubes coming out of my body or the urgent frequency with which blood tests were taken day and night – but by the fact that when I tried to ask doctors and nurses would I be OK, they avoided eye contact and would generally mumble something along the lines of Let’s not worry about that right now, sweetie.

It wasn’t until the very last day, the day I was due for discharge, that I finally found out the truth of just how close it had got. I didn’t ask the doctors or nurses this time because I didn’t trust that I could deal with what they might have to tell me, instead I reached for the journal folder at the foot of my bed. And there it was in black and white. Multiple organ failure. Prognosis: poor.

Of course, by the time I read those journal notes, I was out of immediate danger, but it was still a shock to see it. This was what I had done to myself.. I had put kidneys, heart and respiration at serious risk. When the first tox screen came in they didn’t think I’d live, and if I did I’d likely have reduced function of at least some of those organs.

I have now been at home for about two and a half weeks. I am extremely fatigued and am sleeping most of the time. Any little thing exhausts me. I have had follow up tests and the results are not great. They aren’t anywhere near as bad as they could so easily have been, but I am also not recovering at the rate the doctors would have hoped. So there will be more tests to come. In short, I still don’t know the full extent of the damage I have done to myself.

But, I am alive.

And I have a lot of feelings about that.

 

I hope that I will be able to write more about those feelings soon. –ish.

xx

 

 PS. I want to make a special mention that I have chosen not to share what has happened with my immediate family, in an effort to spare them pain and worry. At least until I know for sure what I am dealing with. So, should you be someone who knows me in person – and knows my family  – please make sure to keep this information to yourself. This blog is semi-anonymous, not for my sake, but for the sake of those close to me. It is also a place where I can safely share my feelings, and that means a lot to me.

 

 

Twenty-fourteen – A Year Of Changes & Challenges

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Abandonment Issues, Acceptance, Attachment, Flashbacks, Hearing loss, Memories, Personal Growth, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy Breaks, Psychotherapy with A, Psychotherapy with P, PTSD/Extreme Emotional Stress Disorder, Sef-Awareness, Separation-Anxiety, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide, The Therapeutic Relationship and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I thought I’d make one final push to get an update out before the end of the year. I’m not in a great place, hence radio silence on most channels, but sometimes that’s when the best blog posts come out, so let’s hope for the best. Could be nothing, could be something.

It’s been a rough year. There are no two ways about it. At the beginning of the year I ended with my therapist of five years and started over with a new one. It’s a big transition, moving from A. to P., and a huge emotional undertaking. It’s a bit like being asked to switch out your parents. Sure, your parents might not always get you, might be unfair, might make mistakes, might be downright unsuitable to parent anyone, but at least you know them, right? You know their habits, their triggers, their blind spots and you know how they react to the things you say and do. And you also know how you react to the things they say and do. It’s that comfortable – if often less-than-ideal – Familiar versus the scarily unpredictable Unknown that I’ve written about so many times in the past.

That was pretty much what I was going through with A. at the beginning of the year, as we slowly neared and then reached The Ending. Things had been running along the heading-for-an-irreparable-relationship-breakdown route for some time – probably for far longer than I was ready to admit to you, or myself, at the time – but at least I knew what to expect, knew when odds were that my words would be met with silence, knew when there was potential for disappointment. I also knew what not to say and what not to do to keep the status quo, to keep us from falling off the edge. In addition, I was standing on the bedrock of our previous years together, all the times we had communicated really well, spoken a similar emotional language. I had a good sense of where we had one another, of how big or small the distance between us was at any given time, how close we could get, how much trust there was and where the boundaries of our relationship were; all those things that had made our work together so meaningful and fruitful for such a long time. So, it was with a lot of sadness that I had to accept that the time for us to part ways had come.

I had met P. only once before we actually started our joint therapeutic journey. Fifty shared minutes during an initial consultation to decide whether or not we could be A Match. I left that first meeting in December last year feeling that, yes, she could potentially be someone I could learn to trust, given enough time and space to Thoroughly Test what sort of stuff she was made of. But, apart from that gut feeling I didn’t know much about her [or attachment-based therapy] when I went for my first real session in February. I knew that there was something about the way she actively sought to make eye contact in that first meeting that both scared me beyond reason and made me feel that she genuinely wanted to get to know the real me. Actually, let me rephrase that: the way she actively sought to make eye contact with me scared me beyond reason, because she so clearly wanted to get to know the Real Me. Not just the Me she could glean or guess at from the polite introductory phrases or the bullet pointing of my fragmented, chequered and often painful past during this initial meeting, but the Real Me hiding behind all that – the Me that only comes out after the Thorough Testing has been done. The Me that even A., after nearly five years, was only just beginning to get to know.

I took the plunge, and it turned out that the water was far more calm and warm than I had expected. As K. put it only the other day: ‘When you finished with A. I didn’t think you’d ever be able to build a relationship with another therapist. I thought the trust had been shattered for good. I’m amazed at how quickly your relationship with P. has developed.’ I get exactly what K. meant, because it was what I, myself, was thinking at the time. How would I be able to trust? Why should I?

I suppose the answer to that lies in the way P. is, really. I wasn’t at all ready to trust, and P. was able to accept that completely, without any expectation that this would change. Was able to meet me where I was at. She was able to accept that I simply didn’t know if I really wanted to go on with therapy, or even with life. The exact thing that had ultimately caused the breakdown with A. The very thing A. had made clear she couldn’t accept; that I may not only feel that life wasn’t for me, but that I might actually act on it. P. made me, almost immediately – without the Thorough Testing – feel that this was a part of me she could accept. She in no way gave me license to act, but she simply accepted that this could be one of the paths our journey might take.

Then, of course, only a few months later this was put to the test. A splash of a toxic chemical on my tongue, the swallowing of some tricyclics – which I still to this day don’t remember taking – an ambulance ride from the women’s crisis centre to A&E and eleven hours in a coma.

Some might say this was part of my Thorough Testing. I’m not going to argue for or against. All I know is that we survived it: P. didn’t break, didn’t conclude that the reality of acting out was so different from the theory and phantasy of it that she could no longer work with me.

And our relationship grew a little stronger.

The aftermath of this overdose – along with a previous, more serious, intake of that same ototoxic chemical – was the loss of most of what remained of my already damaged hearing. Another big thing to deal with; the knowledge that my actions would have a lifelong effect – near deafness. But, also, in a backwards kind of way, the realisation that even when I mess up it is still within my power to do something about it; the decision to hop on the not-so-joyful steroid ride, the slight but miraculous recovery of some hearing, the sorting out of hearing aids [even though it at times makes me feel I’m ninety-something rather than thirty-something].

And all year long this journey has of course been fenced in and intercepted by flashbacks, by horrendous memories of a past that is never really in the past and by nightmares that don’t go away just because I wake up. Post but-never-quite-over traumatic stress disorder. The stuff that makes day to day life all but impossible to plan. The never knowing if a day will be a 40, 100 or near continuos flashback day. Making plans, cancelling plans, scheduling and rescheduling – because I simply can’t know in advance if any given day will be one where I can leave my house without putting myself at risk.

At the moment it seems worse than usual, more 100-a-day days than 40s. I went to visit my father for the first time in two and a half years at the end of November. That may have something to do with it. I don’t know. It might be related to the fact that both P. and K. have now gone on their respective Chrismukkah breaks, leaving Little S. feeling sad, scared and abandoned, and Adult Me struggling to cope in their absence. Or it might be chance. But, whatever the reason, it’s not so easy to deal with.

Anyway, I want to take the time to thank all of you who have faithfully stuck with me through the ups and downs of this year, in spite the updates being few and far between. It does make such a difference to me. It touches me deeply every single time one of you takes the time to post a comment or write me an email to share a bit of your Selfs with me. I know that is how most of my replies to your communications begin, but it is for a good reason: it’s the truth. I am very grateful for your support.

So, wherever you are in your lives, whatever is going on for you right now, good or bad, I do wish you all the very best.

xx

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I’m Alive, I’m A Mess

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Being Alive, Depression, Dissociation, Friends, Illness, Inner Conflict, Medication, Music, Psychology, PTSD/Extreme Emotional Stress Disorder, Suicidal Ideation, Video and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s been a physically and emotionally exhausting few days and I really ought to be asleep right now. It’s 4.30am at the time of writing, yet, inspite of being tired in the extreme sleep evades me.

Things have been shaky in the last few weeks, to say the least. A lot of flashbacks, and on top of that I’m on a hormone triggering treatment which makes me even less stable than normal. We are talking an emotional rollercoaster of going from blue skies to pitch dark in seconds flat, up and down, round and round. Not an enjoyable ride in any way, shape or form.

And at some point in the midst of all that my poor impulse control won over the utilisation of coping strategies; I decided that having a bit of ethylene glycol would be a good idea. I think it was only a tiny amount to start with, certainly less than a mouthful. I knew that was a really bad idea, and the following night when I felt the urge I rang the mental health crisis resolution team under whose care I’ve been the last three weeks (with a break in the middle, where I went to stay with my sisters). It was about 1am when I rang and talking seemed to help; by the end of the call I had agreed with K., (the person who was working the night shift), that I would come in to see them at ten that morning and bring the bottle of ethylene glycol for safe disposal. That felt both scary and good. It’s kind of hard to explain, but there is something about having the means to kill myself readily available that feels like a safety net of sorts, something that gives me a feeling of being in control. Twisted logic, for sure, but there you have it. But, it also felt good, the idea that someone would relieve me of this deadly stuff,would, in a sense, save me from myself.

Two hours later I once again felt myself plummeting into darkness and I picked up the phone again, since I had found it helpful the last time, and talked again to K. for some time. I may have come across somewhat incoherent because she asked me if I had ‘tasted’ any more of ‘that toxic chemical’. I said I hadn’t but in the same instance shot a glance at the plastic bottle and it was immediately clear that there was a whole lot more than ‘less than a mouthful’ missing. Alarmingly, I genuinely have no recollection of downing a large amount of this sickly-sweet substance. In fact, and I said as much to K., I wasn’t even sure if I had actually drunk it or maybe just spilled it. Or when this had happened. Still, as there was certainly more than a lethal amount missing from the bottle I agreed to let K. call for an ambulance – but, not before saying ‘Can you wait half an hour to call so I can have a shower first?’, to which she calmly explained that having a shower at three in the morning when you have potentially consumed enough poison to kill yourself was hardly a priority. So instead I started stuffing things into bags: iPad, iPod, mobile, chargers, clean underwear, toothbrush, EpiPen, my journal, a random bunch of puzzle cubes and even my prayer book. I have no idea where this sudden organisational skill came from, I normally have to write lists to make sure I don’t forget things when I pack a bag, but there I was, five minutes later, fully equipped to spend a long time in hospital, should it come to that. Then I told K., who was still on the line with me, that I was going to go outside to wait for the ambulance, promptly grabbed my bags and made it down two flights of stairs and out onto the pavement outside my house.. where I laid down to sleep while I was waiting for the ambulance to arrive. K. kept talking to me, trying to convince me that while it was OK to lay down, if I was too dizzy to stand up, I really needed to stay awake.

The paramedics arrived and got me into the ambulance with some difficulty as my legs refused to carry me properly. They asked a tonne of questions, all of which I answered in something of a drunken stupor. K. had already told them what I had taken, which was probably a good thing as they would more than likely otherwise have assumed I was just another overly refreshed Saturday night party-goer, and might not have realised that time was pretty darn critical. Also, I had brought the bottle with me so they could see exactly what I had drunk and how much was missing. I mainly just remember babbling like crazy in the ambulance before passing out, and the paramedic pinching at the nerves on my shoulders over and over to get me to stay awake.

In A&E I was first put on a drip of pure ethanol, which is one of two antidotes to ethylene glycol poisoning, followed by a number of rounds of Fomepizol. Hurt crazybad, I can tell you that much for nothing. (Imagine the sting of cleaning a wound with rubbing alcohol, and then imagine that kind of stuff going straight into your bloodstream, and you’ll get a fair idea).

The side effect of this, having bare spirit pumped into me was that I got drunker than I have ever been in my life. I’m not someone who drinks particularly often, so I have a very low tolerance to alcohol, and here they were giving me as much as they could based on my weight. Suddenly absolutely everything was hilarious beyond comprehension. I was giggling and rambling and apologising left right and centre, trying to explain that They were making me drunk. In the midst of that I decided that sending a text to let people know I was in hospital was a good idea, only – I discovered later – the text made very little sense, and I managed to send it to a whole bunch of people I wouldn’t knowingly have sent them to.

At one point a friend of mine, having seen my text, rang me (this was as I was being wheeled into a ward, still apologising profusely for my drunkenness) and all she got was me laughing, unable to explain what had happened. Later, when she came to visit me, she said that it wasn’t exactly what she had expected when she called to hear if I was still alive..

Whilst being drunk was not all that bad, it did mean that I was sick a lot. I have a sneaking suspicion that there was a miscalculation as to how much ethanol they were giving me, because last time I was rushed to hospital for having done something very similar (that time, completely on purpose), I remember screaming in pain as the ethanol went in my arm, but I don’t remember being drunk, nor being repeatedly and violently sick.

I had to stay in hospital for a day and a half, on constant drip, most of the time in both arms. It’s still too early to say if I have done any permanent damage to my kidneys and if so, what the extent is, all I know is that I my vision is extremely blurry and I have been sick a number of times even this morning.

I am out of hospital now, back under the care of the crisis resolution team, but as neither I, nor they, think it’s a good idea for me to be on my own just now, an assessment has been set up for later today at Drayton Park Women’s Mental Health Crisis House. As regular readers will know, I have stayed there in times of acute crisis before, and have found it helpful in turning a negative trend, so I really hope that following the assessment they will offer me a place.

Sorry for making this a somewhat long-winded entry, but I think I just really needed to get it all out.
I think I am still a very long way away from truly absorbing how close I got to dying, and writing is often the best way for me to process things.

Do be kinder to your Selves than I have been to my Self.

Much love,

xx

PS. If you are one of my many wonderful friends who received my drunken text and who tried to get in touch with me later, but couldn’t get through and didn’t hear from me: something went wrong with my mobile and I could only send texts, not receive them, and incoming calls only worked sporadically. So, please don’t think I was ignoring you, I simply didn’t get your messages and consequently didn’t know to respond to them.

For some reason this song is playing in my mind. (Although the title of this post is actually from another Heather Nova song).