Sleep

Last night we went 10 pin bowling as a family, it was noisy and stressful and I hated every second of it.  I used to love bowling.  I don’t know if it is just how I’m feeling at the moment but I wanted to sit in the corner and strop. I even won one of the games so should have been at least a little happy.

I went to bed as soon as we got back, about 11pm, and woke up at 11.30am.  That is a ridiculous amount of sleeping.  We went to visit my Gran this afternoon and took her out for lunch when we got back I slept for another three hours and now all I want to do is sleep again.  This is madness, no one needs this amount of sleep.  I wake up still tired, it’s as if my mind won’t rest and it is exhausting.  Yet I wonder why I can’t get to sleep at night.

I’m stressing about next week when everyone goes back to work.  My sister has gone back down south so it is just my parents and myself in the house at the moment.  I am scared about how I will manage by myself.  My mind has started making plans, some of which are very feasible.  I need to somehow shake them.  I must stay safe.  Tonight I am going to go for a bath and try to relax.  Then I’ll go back to bed again.

Kx

The Student Nurse – October 2013

I’m sitting curled on the sofa in the communal ward area, it is my first day on the ward.  I haven’t really spoken to anyone except a nurse in the morning to fill in care plans.  We put the care plans on hold as I was too upset to focus.  I stare into space, music blaring in my ears, trying to blank out the thoughts of harming myself.  The negative thoughts and the repetitive “kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself” that won’t go away.  I cover my ears and will my head to shut up but nothing is helping.  I need to cry but can’t.  It is taking all of my effort not to ask to be discharged.

The student nurse comes over and sits next to me.  She is the same age as me with dark hair wearing a purple tee-shirt with her university name printed on it.  I turn myself so I am sitting diagonally facing her.  I look at the floor.  She takes my hand and tells me everything is going to be ok, that this is going to get better.

“You even did it the right way”

“Sorry, what?”

“When you tried to slit your wrists, you did it the right direction.”

I look down at the pale diagonal scars running down each of my wrists from a previous attempt in 2011.  The cuts hadn’t been deep enough to need stitches (only butterfly stitches) but had left a faint mark.  Nobody had ever mentioned them before.

“Actually if I’d done it properly it would have been three cut; here, here and here. (Diagonal horizontal and vertical).

“Yeah, that makes sense because they wouldn’t be able to stitch it.”

“How did you notice them?

”I used to cut myself too, I’m tuned in to seeing scars.”

She shows me a scar on her arm which is dark purple and should have been stitched.  She sits next to me for a while, speaking softly although I am not sure what she talks to me about.  There are a lot of assurances that things will get better.  I tell her I don’t believe things will get better this time.  She talks quite candidly about an episode of depression she experienced a couple of years earlier and I sit and listen.  I wonder if she should be telling me as much detail about herself as she does.  Our backgrounds sound quite similar and I wonder if that’s why she feels comfortable to disclose as much as she does.  There seems to be an unspoken connection there, she is very empathetic and kind with a calming voice.  It helps but at the same time the last thing I want to hear is other people’s problems.  She sits with me for a long time and I tell her I feel like I am wasting her time.  Her response is that she is a student and has all the time in the world.

“Are you feeling safe?”

“No”

“Are there things we need to take out of your room that would help?”

“Everything.”

So we go through to my room.  We remove the sheets, duvet cover, any clothes with sleeves, any cords from my clothing, pretty much everything.  We leave a couple of blankets and a duvet.  The room is bare left with just a bed, drawers and a desk remaining.

“You’re going to be cold, why do we need to take the sheets, what can you do with a sheet?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“How would you plan on doing it?”

“Yes. I’d tie a ligature. You can make a noose from a sheet and partial suspension hang from those door handles.  I would wait until the obs were done and tie it then I’d know I’d have at least 15 minutes.””

“You must really hate yourself.”

“Why?”

“Women don’t really tie ligatures that tends to be men.  Women usually overdose”.

I hand her the sheet and we put them into a large plastic bag.  We lock my bedroom door so I can’t get back in.  We get some strange looks from the staff and other patients as we drag three large plastic bags from one end of the ward to the store cupboard at the other end.  She checks I am ok and goes to talk to the nurses and I return to my safe space curled on the sofa.