Vocal eyes and silent mouth...

I can not motivate myself dress today, it not like I am going anywhere. I would love to leave the ward today, I am craving silence, the ward is always so busy on Mondays.

Talking to other patients is messing with my head. I rarely tell them anything about my life or my reasons for being here but I am regularly surprised by the openness of others. One patient tells me her husband is a paedophile whilst another tells me she was sold into paedophilia at age 14, I am so very afraid for my daughter. I can not and will not allow her to have her innocence stolen. If I am not able to protect her from the vile monsters which are everywhere then my role as a mother should have ended with the birth.

I think it is time to bring forward my plans by a few days. I am struggling with the energy even to execute my plans. I must now work on the assumption that my energy levels will only deplete further.

My husband and daughter have just been in, bless my husband he was so tired that he fell asleep. Spent ages trying to explain to my daughter the difference between shadows and reflection. Bless her she didn't grasp it at all.

Just realised my arm/hand (just had operation) is hurting less as I write - good thing I guess.

Went down to chapel for some quiet reflective time but I had obviously fucked up as nurse V was sent down after me. I shouldn't have opened my big mouth but she knew I was avoiding eye contact. I wish sometimes I was capable of a greater level of deceit. Even if my mouth remains silent my eyes tell all apparently, so I have often been told anyway.

Agreed to join in with a game of scrabble but neither my head nor my heart were in it, two of the four players got up and left me and one other patient. I kept suggesting that we just leave it but I felt I would appear too rude if I just got up and left. I do try to be nice but I guess as the old saying goes 'you can't polish a turd' and I am indeed a turd.

Please Lord let it be over, I am tired.

100% or nothing

I want to die. I want to fall asleep and never wake up.  Twice each week on treatment days I actually look forward to the white general anaesthetic being syringed into my venflon.  It has a distinctive smell, sweet but chemical like.  I wonder each time if that will be the last smell I ever experience.  Alas no, I awake each time.

I have considered every method of suicide possible, but not seem guaranteed.  I need to guarantee that I will fall asleep, into an eternally peaceful sleep.  If I don't have that 100% guarantee then I won't do it.

I have considered covering myself in antibacterial alcohol gel and setting myself alight but not worth the risk of living but even more disfigured than I already am.

I have considered lying on my back and using my pen to stab into my already broken heart but have concluded that it would take more than one wound and that I may not feel able to do it after the first.

My favoured option at the moment is an 'accidental' blow to the head.  A risk for anyone but more so for anyone with a bleeding disorder like me.  I don't know if I would be able to hit my head hard enough on purpose though so in all likelihood I would simply end up with a headache and maybe concussion.

This doesn't interest me.  Deliberate self harm I mean, it holds no appeal to me, even if physical pain is easier to deal with than my mental pain.  I know I scratch my arms but that is unconscious, self harm has never been my 'thing'.

I want to die, to put an end to my daily torment.  I am therefore being honest when I answer 'no' in response to the question 'Do you have any plans to harm yourself'  I guess what I should say is 'no but I have plans to end my life fairly soon'

The only reason my answer is no is because I haven't thought of a method with a good chance of it working.  Although to be fair it is probably equally because I don't even have the energy.  I am a waste of fucking oxygen.

Nature v nurture

Thank God today is nearly over, I am exhausted. My mam, nanna and Aunt J all visited together this afternoon. When I have been stuck in here for nearly five weeks my conversation is fairly limited. Waiting in reception for them to arrive I so very nearly bolted. Nurse P from another ward past me and said hello then their car pulled up so in that moment my opportunity had gone. Probably for the best although my misery could be over by now.

Day by day I am finding it increasingly difficult to keep myself safe, which seems to be why everyone keeps saying I need to be here. What no one seems willing to accept is that whether it is morally acceptable or not is immaterial to me I have no desire to continue living. What kind of mother thinks like that? Me. The sort who doesn't deserve the privilege of motherhood.

My daughter deserves, in fact needs better than me. Although if I have unintentionally given her a genetic predisposition to depression I know that it is right and proper that I stick around to deal with the fall out of what I have caused. I am terrified that I don't have the strength of character to cope with that.

Nature versus nurture; if I die now she is able to spend the rest of her childhood without my destructive influence, maybe this would be enough to free her from my grasp?

I want nothing more than for my daughter to be happy, I want her to enjoy not endure her childhood.

I failed at pregnancy, failed at birth, failed at breastfeeding and failed at the early months, I then managed to fool myself that I had been able to correct that. I am failing her again now. I don't want to let her down but I seem incapable of doing anything else.

My husband and my daughter have been having their photographs taken for my friends exhibition, the pictures are lovely. It has been like viewing what the future would be like without me. That is emotionally painful but I recognise that the right decision is not always the easiest one.

My time on this earth is nearly over and I have caused more heartache than love, I will endeavour to correct this over the coming days but maybe I need to accept that some things I am unable to change. Staff persuaded me to leave my room and play scrabble with them, I am pleased I did join them as my thoughts were getting too fast and out of control alone in my bedroom. I needed that distraction.

I think I have managed to convince staff and my family that I am doing well so if things go to plan my observation levels will be reduced to reflect this. Opportunity is all I require now.

Plans have had to be changed however as I asked my mother to bring me a lightweight robe and had no intention of handing in the belt to the staff but nurse V came in to my room for a chat and when I woke up to chat to her it was in my hand so I had no choice but to offer it to her as though I had intended to all along. Good job I am able to return to plan A. I am suddenly aware however that I must keep up the pretence of wellness, off to put my PJ's on.

MUST make this work. Dear God please let me rest in peace.
I am so afraid to go to sleep, first and foremost there is the devastation when I wake up then there is the prospect of re-living some of the worst times in my life during sleep.

Night night folks.

Reflection

When I began this hideous journey again last spring I began by taking each day at a time. This soon became too much and I began trying to manage each hour at a time. If I was to break my day down into units now I can not even face the next minute. This is how I know it is time to admit defeat. Time to give in, time to let this force in my brain take the power it is fighting with me for each waking and many sleeping moments. Time to die.

I was naïve enough to believe those around me after my daughter was born four years ago that recovery was indeed possible. That I could be fixed. I now recognise that I need to accept I am broken beyond repair. If I were a domestic pet I would have been put down; well please someone HELP ME as I can not and will not carry on like this.

02.30am and I wish to be neither awake nor asleep. Awake and my head isracing with thoughts of the perfect plan to end my torture and asleep I have grown to expect dreams of horror, horror and fear.
My husband has just informed me that he has called the ward tonight to check up on me. Apparently my dear dear friend S had called him concerned after I had shared with her how utterly desperate I feel.

Mistake. Big fucking mistake as I can feel already that I have shut down ranks. Now I will talk to no one. I will keep my counsel and sort things out myself. I always have done the sorting of things myself so at least I'm well practiced.

Also been in touch with a previous patient tonight who told me about another patient taking her underwear and actually admitting to it. I am not entirely stupid and know to take everything I am told here with a pinch of salt but this has still concerned me.

When I was a young child I knew no better and allowed 'him' to act out his sexual perversions on me, once I realised how wrong this was I vowed to be in control - even if this meant handing myself on a plate to men I was in control. The thought of someone taking my undergarments for their own pleasure and without my permission litterally leaves me terrified.

Whether or not it was based on their own perceptions or on my husbands phone call I guess I will never know but what I do know is that the staff have been especially wonderful today. Tonight they even managed to encourage me to leave the relative sanctuary of my bedroom.

Nurse L even managed to convince me that she needed my help with scrabble (hmmmmmmmm I think not) and this evening nurse N brought in dvd's of the sex and the city films. I was able to escape briefly into my pre-marriage/child for a short while and remember some of my single youthful adventures and dating!

I am struggling to write now as I am so tired but fingers crossed for a peaceful night. If only I could look forward to reprieve from my horrific thoughts when I was asleep. Night folks. X

Road to recovery?

ECT treatment number six; I was well on the road to recovery last time. I seem to have set myself up for a fall by almost expecting to return to the ward with a spring in my step.  I feel worse than ever, far far from having a spring in my step I feel like my boots are lined with lead.  The weight of my thoughts as heavy as my heart.

If the risk from general anaesthesia is 1:80k my risk surely must increase with the number of treatments?  Good job I am not a mathematician or I feel sure that would secure me a nurse shaped shadow.

Being a smoking fatty again must put me at a greater risk.  I even ate a bag of chocolate coins (how very festive) before treatment five in the hope that by ignoring the nil by mouth would be enough to put me out of my misery.