Hold On Pain Ends?

*TRIGGER WARNING – SUICIDE*

HOPE. Something I had very little of yesterday, as my husband frantically tried to get me some help. The last few days have been filled with staring vacantly, anxiety that made me want to claw my own skin off, and almost constant planning of suicide. My mood made even worse with the knowledge that, logistically, I had no sure fire way of ending it all. The day spent smoking too many cigarettes, the nights tearful and panicky.

The calm that thoughts of suicide can bring is eerie. Time is spent looking for websites that will legitimately send you morphine for $20 and the best way to drown yourself in the bath. Working out how long it might take you to walk to the nearest train line, and how you’d explain yourself in a note to the train driver, to be read long after they’d scraped you into a body bag. It all seems rational, logical, the obvious best choice. For you, and for those around you. Then you realise, you don’t really give a shit about those around you anyway, your own pain is all consuming.

Getting quick help via the community mental health team is nigh on impossible. ‘We’ll speak to a doctor and call you back’, ‘they’re just with a patient, we’ll call shortly’. All the while my husband was trying to juggle work too, and I was going even further out of my fucking mind. Then the call that saved me, for now at least, an appointment made at the inpatient unit with the home treatment team.

Sitting in that waiting room was tough. Really tough. Anxiety level high, sobbing, not wanting help, just wanting to die. Knowing that once these people were involved, there was no way I’d have the opportunity to see it through. I’d be stuck receiving help that I didn’t fucking want.

The nurse was so lovely, without being patronising. She allowed me to sit and cry, to mull things over, my husband could ask all the questions that he wanted. I’ve never been so open and vulnerable in a mental health appointment. There were moments that I did my usual cover up thing, dry humour, laughing. But somehow she cut through the bull shit. That and there was no point in trying to be strong any more, I didn’t want to be strong, I was just desperate. The home treatment team will be visiting all week, with a treatment review with the community mental health team on Friday.

I’m not sure how I feel today, really. Am I relieved I’m getting some help? Will this mean more effective treatment? Am I fucked off I’m not dead? I could be long gone by now; relief. Am I just vacant, defeated? I think I’m all of those things. Nothing sounds appealing, nothing raises a smile. There’s the occasional fleeting moment, when my daughter talks to me, that I’m engaged, I forget. And then that moment is gone, and the emptiness returns. Is there a sliver of hope? Perhaps. Which is more than I had yesterday. I feel a bit indifferent about life, I can’t commit to any opinion or emotion. I’m just…here. Barely existing.