D-Day

Over the last couple of months, there have been certain issues bubbling to the surface. On Saturday, everything came to a head.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. It wasn't supposed to happen until I was inpatient, safe and supported.

I've been putting off writing for nearly two weeks now. Even in my journal, it took days of writing to get it out.

There have been a lot of trauma issues rearing their ugly head of late. Things from my childhood that I've never gotten help with, things I've only started telling people about this year.

On Saturday, disaster struck. D-Day. Everything came bursting out from a deep, dark place inside me, and tore everything to shreds. I'd spent most of the day crying. When I made a coffee to go outside for a some, mum came out and asked me what was wrong. I told her I was scared about going inpatient, about opening up about everything. I didn't want to hurt my family. I told her I thought I'd be better off keeping it to myself. After all, one person suffering is 'better' than all of us.

We ended up clashing about the abuse, again. She thinks I'm angry/blame her/have a 'hidden agenda'. I tried to tell her I'm not, but that I'm scared and don't understand.

After a while, she decided to ask said abuser about it. I blocked the back door with my armchair, and dragged the chimenea to the side gate to blockade myself in the backyard.

Things got messy. Apparently those years are a 'black hole' for him.

I climbed through the kitchen window, grabbing a couple of bottles of liquor, my bag of self-harm tools, and the rest of my week's meds.

Panicking, I stupidly cut my head, right near the top. I lost a chunk of my hair, and now have a mini mohawk. I held my hand to my head, and when I looked at it, it was dripping wet. I panicked. Mum panicked. I had blood running down both sides of my face. Mum passed a wet face cloth through the window, and when it started to slow, I moved my chair from the door and she came outside.

I spent the night crying and screaming “Why?!”. Everything had blown up and fallen apart


Backtracking a little, last weekend, I had a clash with mum over said childhood trauma
  “Why didn't anyone pick up on the signs?”
  “Why do you want to just stay in denial?”
  “Why did no one ever ask me if I was okay?!”
She told me to move out if I think she's such a horrible mother.

I raided my stockpile and curled up on the couch crying
  “I don't understand.”
  “It's all my fault.”
  “I need to go away and leave my family in their blissful denial.”
My fault for letting it happen. My fault for being too scared to tell anyone. My fault for being so selfish for now needing to talk about it.

I slept longer and deeper than I have in a long time. Usually, I wake up somewhere between 4-6am. If not, the sound of the kettle boiling when mum wakes up always makes me jump up. But the next day, it was after midday before I even stirred. The whole night before and that day was just a blur.


Yesterday, after D-Day, I awoke with most of my hair in a knotted clump. I had bags under my eyes like I'd never seen before. I felt sick. Scared I've destroyed everything with the truth. I soaked in the bath for an hour, washing my hair three times, plus a moisturising treatment, combing and trying to untangle it. Blood plus restless sleeping equals a mess. In the end, I had to cut a chunk of it. Even once cut, the knots were impossible to seperate. Now I have an emo side fringe.


After I last posted, that night, I had another laxative overdose, triggered by all of this mess. 116 this time. I know it's probably not a lot for some of the more regular users, but after not having misused them for years (before the other overdose in August, anyway), I have no tolerance for them anymore.

I wanted to avoid public A&E, as they were clueless and I didn't want to talk to anyone from their mental health team. I asked my brother to drive me in. I went to A&E at the private hospital, but was turned away.

I told the triage nurse that I'd taken too many laxatives. She asked if I'd done it before, and I said yes, about two months ago (6 weeks if you want to split hairs). She told me they don't have psychiatrist facilities, and I said I knew that, and I'm getting help, but I just needed help with the physical side of the overdose.

She went back to check with one of the senior doctors. When she came back, she told me the doctor said I couldn't be admitted, as they were obligated to take care of the psychological side too, and I needed a mental health assessment that they couldn't provide.

  “You're obviously upset, and you need to talk to someone. There's obviously something going on if you've done it twice in two months. I think you should go down the road to public and talk to someone on the mental health team. I'm really sorry.”

I went home. The night was rough. I found leftover painkillers and Buscopan to help with the cramps.


The next day, Wednesday 28th, I got an emergency appointment with my GP to get bloods done and check in after not going to A&E. I also had a double appointment with her on Thursday anyway. When I saw her, we talked about going inpatient at the Clinic for a little while. I was hesitant to put the referral through straight away, and she said to contact her this week if I wanted to go ahead.

It's been made clear to everyone that I'm not going to the Eating Disorders program. It's mostly to deal with the trauma issues, the flashbacks, nightmares, not taking my meds properly because I'm too scared to sleep, then stockpiling them to knock myself out when I get desperate, the self-harm, overdose urges...

My GP is all for it. When I tried going there earlier this year, I had a seizure in the waiting room and they couldn't admit me. But I've been cleared by the neurologist, my GP, my dietician, and I have a psychologist on the team now (granted, I've still only seen her the once). She also wants my meds to be assessed, as she's been in charge of them, with advice from a psychiatrist she consults, for years now. I'm worried they'll change everything and I'll lose my benzos.

It's not so much for active treatment as it is to stabilize me and keep me safe, as well as trying to work through some of the trauma issues for the first time, not to mention getting me back on track with my meds. It could be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. I've not had a great track record with following though on admissions there - out of several attempts I've never made it past 24 hours. Even on medical wards for my COPD exacerbations, I'm not the best at staying put. I go in with the best intentions, but I get scared quickly.

Once the pain and discomfort of the overdose wore off, I was slapped in the face with all the reasons why I did it in the first place, the reasons why I need to go inpatient.


I finally saw the dietician last Tuesday (the 4th), after missing 8 weeks of appointments. I'm going to try to get in to see her tomorrow too.

After the appointment, as mum and I were waiting for the Uber driver, my GP came in. I'd had mum leave a message for her the day before, wanting to clarify a few things about the inpatient referral. She apologised for not calling back the day before. I asked if she could make sure the admission would be to a private room (sharing is just not possible, whether in medical or psych, I just can't do it), and was wondering if I could be referred to the psych who initially diagnosed with with C-PTSD when I was 16/17.

Unfortunately, his books have been closed for a year now. I told her I just wanted someone who understood C-PTSD, and wanted to avoid my old ED psychs. She said she could do that, and I didn't have to worry about my ED psychs, as one of them didn't work at the Clinic anymore, and understood I didn't want to see either of them.


I fucked up my first week of weekly dispensing, after being on daily for at least a year. I thought I'd skipped a couple of days of meds, as I tend to do. I couldn't remember if they'd been delivered on Friday or Monday, but figured it'd been Friday as they were sitting for a couple of days before I opened the pack. Seven day's of meds disappeared in four.

By Saturday (D-Day) morning, I found myself with no meds. Mum called the GP's office for me, and even though the only GP working wasn't anyone I'd seen, he thankfully faxed the pharmacist to authorize an extra three days of meds.

They disappeared in a day and a half, most of them the same day. Mum thankfully gave me two of her oxazepam (which we both take) to get through yesterday. I'm currently counting down the minutes until my new meds are left at the front door. I know my GP won't leave me without meds, so it kind of defeats the purpose of weekly dispensing. They could all go today (they won't, but hypothetically), and she'd authorize another pack tomorrow.


Now, life is a mess. The world is upside down. I'm even more lost than before, with no clues and no answers.

The referral's gone through to the Clinic, and now I'm waiting on a bed. I've got no idea when that will be, but being a private clinic, hopefully it shouldn't be too long.

I'm so scared. I knew it had to get worse before it gets better, but I don't think I can cope with things getting worse than they already were.

“In a flash, I felt something: disgust ... 

and certainty that we'd never be able to 

put this back together – even if we tried.”

xxBella