Tag: self-harm

A closing drawbridge and a silent cry – Eating Disorders and Personality Disorder – #6

A closing drawbridge and a silent cry – Eating Disorders and Personality Disorder – #6

Protection in Emptiness

Eating Disorders and Personality Disorder – #6

“Closing the drawbridge” – eating disorders and rigidity

PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION – this post contains discussion of eating disorders (primarily anorexia), description of my eating-disordered thinking patterns, and a link to an article about studies on calorie restriction

[Wow, again it has been too long since I have posted in this series. Sorry.]

Many books about eating disorders, in particular anorexia, mention rigidity of thinking as a symptom which emerges as restriction of food increases and weight drops. When I worked at an eating disorder service, it was frequently described in inpatients on the ward. I’ve been pondering why this is and how much did I experience it when I was anorexic. I never used to think that my eating disorder was about control, although I now would take that back and I think I did use it if not exactly for control, in order to separate myself from my mother’s abuse and protect myself (and, I thought, others too) from demands, emotions and the dangers I felt they presented.

Perhaps it is logical that counting calories and measuring portions and exercise, forcing yourself to adhere to a punishing regime of starvation and painfully excessive activity in the very weakened physical state of anorexia, requires a strong, almost angry, obsessional drive. Sticking to this above and against all the natural urges of your body to keep you well and nourished, to the point that your body consumes its own muscle for energy, requires a steely determination that must be fuelled from somewhere. This could be seen as rigidity. It could easily spread to other areas of cognition and daily routine.

Certain chemical changes in the brain are thought to contribute to this rigidity as well, I believe. Two studies were conducted in the 1950s, using as participants conscientious objectors to National Service and former prisoners of war. One of these is the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, where starvation was imposed on physically and psychologically healthy participants who had no history of eating disorders. As the participants’ calories were reduced and their weights dropped, their thinking patterns became more rigid and obsessional thought and behaviour patterns emerged. When their calories were no longer restricted, they also became vulnerable to binge-eating. You can read more about Ancel Keys’ Minnesota Study here. (It would be considered highly immoral by today’s standards, although perhaps it is worth bearing in mind that one purpose of the study was in order to find out how to care for and manage re-feeding and weight restoration in victims of starvation in several countries following World War II.)

I am not sure to what extent rigid thinking was a big feature in me when I was severely underweight. Others who knew me at the time might disagree! It was mentioned to me on a couple of occasions.

On further thought, perhaps I did not struggle so much with rigidity over, say, my daily timetable – with the notable exception of excessive exercise, as I forced myself to swim a certain distance a certain number of times per week, until I was so exhausted and weakened that I could no longer move through the water which felt ice cold, my legs cramping, and I would drag myself to the changing rooms with my skin purple and blue, bruises appearing that did not heal and no number of layers of clothing warming me up.

However, if the rigidity was not externalised, it was certainly internal. This is what I think of as the “closing drawbridge” of anorexia that locks up or locks away everything we fear. I’ve talked in previous posts about the blissful, safe numbness of anorexia, ensuring my emotions were in check and flattened, and ensuring the evil I perceived in me was locked away to hurt only me, weaken only me, so that I could not hurt anyone else. Locking up the perceived evil locked up feeling, too. No more panic – just obsessive counting calories, distances, how to hide or avoid food. No more fear – just explicable pain, wonderful blanks and emptiness, safe empty gnawing in my stomach. No need to feel others’ feelings. No need to be hurt or be overwhelmed. Just glorious numb, nothing, whiter. lighter, clearer than before. No needing; no taking; just closing down, separated, apart from everything, locked up safe, pushing away and always succeeding, taking nothing in, frozen.

As a friend pointed out to me recently, emotions take energy, just as physical exertion takes energy, so with vastly insufficient calorie intake, there simply is no energy with which to feel. Despite the lack of energy, the drawbridge was shut tight and closing harder. The further I starved and restricted, paradoxically, tighter shut the door and even stronger came the energy driving me on, not to need, not to feel, not to fear, not to touch anyone or anything.

Coupled with that strength came a desperation never to leave this closed up place and never to need or feel again, to remain unreachable, to keep safe away and to keep everyone else safe away from me. If I could just be sure to hurt myself enough and never to eat, this wonderful place would stay with me. The fear of everything the drawbridge kept away joined the energy and both drove me harder and deeper into the numb place of anorexia.

Combined with my mother’s illness and abusive actions, there was no shortage of reinforcement from the outside that this numb place was good. The only period of my life in which my mother’s emotional abuse and threats reduced and in which she was even caring towards me, in which interactions with her were free of threats and scorn and twisted statements about the harm I was doing to her and my father, was when I was severely underweight with anorexia so severe it was probably life threatening. I was no longer a danger and no longer seemed to be so evil. I even thought perhaps she loved me. I even dared to hope perhaps the evil thing I was sure was in me and that came out and hurt and controlled and deceived everyone, was gone. If I could just stay like this, perhaps it wouldn’t come back. On the other hand with the drawbridge tight shut my body was mine as well, only mine, and the anorexia was mine, and she would never come near me again, literally never touch me again.

(Perhaps that was the one thing that was eventually true in all my twisted anorexic thinking. She did abuse me sexually during the anorexia but afterwards, she didn’t ever abuse me sexually again.)

Until I started to eat again and weight restore, there was only one thing that cut through my rigid defences, and that was singing. I’m not a particularly good singer but I was in a musical at my school (more because I used to be able to dance, than for my voice, I think!) and afterwards I took singing lessons, which were about the only part of my later school years that was enjoyable. Although I enjoyed singing, during the anorexia I would find that the music had a peculiar effect. We didn’t usually sing particularly emotive songs but I would often find music bringing me to want to cry or causing a strange twisting feeling of unease inside me, as though it was draining away the rigid kind of energy but I wouldn’t let it go. My mother prevented me seeking any professional help for my eating disorder but the only two people to whom I did talk about it honestly at all at school were my singing teacher and my art teacher. (My swimming coach was also very concerned about me and to some extent I did talk to her but, for some reason, although I knew she cared and was a safe person to trust, I was never able to be truthful to her, I think because in some way I feared hurting or disappointing her too much.) I don’t know why music and to some extent art, broke through the rigid protective mechanisms, but it did. I know that music can be very helpful in therapy for people with various conditions, including dementia and depression. I’ve never read about it in relation to anorexia but that might be something I should look into!

The struggles I have with overpowering, overwhelming emotions in my Borderline Personality Disorder, are the complete opposite of the protective place I entered in my anorexia, and they are an excess of feeling and needing which are probably, actually everything I feared. If I’m honest the numb place was safer. I’ve long lost the way back there and lost the key to the drawbridge and I hate that and I’ll admit that in the worst times, when I really hate myself and everything I feel and need, I wish I could return and it’s hardest at these times to try not to punish myself with cutting or purging. I’m trying to learn how to choose life and staying connected to other people – and to my body and my emotions – without the unbearable and dangerous becoming all that there is.

Ginny xx

Scared I’ll lose it again

Tomorrow I have my usual weekly group therapy, then I have my monthly care coordination appointment (it’s supposed to be monthly but has been canceled more often than not since October last year). It’s challenging at the best of times when this appointment comes round, especially when it closely follows therapy group on the same day, which is draining in itself.

I’m very worried about the care coordination tomorrow. Last month I was really upset and desperate in the appointment, didn’t get the help I felt I needed to stay safe and left wanting to end my life and overdosed. There was a complete lack of understanding between me and my care coordinator.

I’m scared something similar may happen. I’m scared that I might lose it like I did a couple of weeks ago. I’m so so ashamed of that and I feel dread when I think of it. I’m scared I won’t be able to control what I do and it’ll happen again because I’m so unstable right now, flicking into distress and hurt and anger so quickly.

Also, I’m scared because there are really difficult things I want and need to say. I can’t say everything’s good and fine or that I’ve made progress; I can’t say I think I have the support I need because there are massive issues and have been huge failures in communication and so many things promised have not been acted on. I now operate by expecting nothing from the service and expecting whatever is arranged not to happen. It’s “safer” that way. It doesn’t open me up with hope and trust then twist the knife with another let down or betrayal. It means I don’t ask for help either.

I need to communicate these things. I never do, usually, but if I don’t there’s no going forward. So I’m going to try to say at least some of them and write a letter as well in the next few days.

I do not know how to stay calm whilst I do it. How do you stop yourself losing it? How do you control the aftermath of feelings without harming yourself? How do you keep your emotions level when things that are really deep hurts to you, are unanswered or ignored?

I’d be seriously thankful for any suggestions!

Ginny xxx

Crisis Plans

Last week, after the really distressing meeting on Tuesday, where I completely lost it and just screamed and screamed, I had another meeting with the same CPN on Thursday. It went quite well although I am still reeling from Tuesday. I never lose it like that when anybody else is around. I do that alone at home, usually at night, usually cutting myself before I can reach that point, because it stops some of the noise in my head for a while and quiets the fury and hurt. On Tuesday all my control methods didn’t work and the worst of me exploded. Since then I’ve been feeling both raw and outside myself at the same time.

We tried to come up with other ideas for what to do when I am extremely distressed when I am on my own, other than always turning to cutting or overdosing. The problem is that no matter how harmful those things are, they do “work” to stop the feelings (if only by stopping me being conscious!) punish myself, so bring down the emotion and enter a state of numb nothing for a while, or at least explicable pain.

One of the things we came up with was the Rescue Box, which I’ve posted about previously. I’ve committed to making that up this week.

The other things my CPN suggested were: putting my head under cold water eg cold shower for 20 seconds, to shock the body and so bring down the emotion (a bit like the lemon juice idea!), starting some activities that would give me more social interactions and so leave me on my own less, developing a relaxing routine for evenings (which I’ve got out of the habit of), and sorting out my dodgy internet access so that I can have more contact with people via blogs and similar, as well as making use of online resources for relaxation and mindfulness.

I’m not very sure how this is going to go. I’m starting with small steps, making up the Rescue Box this week and getting in contact with my internet provider.

A large part of the problem for me is that all these techniques are great ideas but I too quickly reach too high a level of distress to be able to use them. When I’m in that state, or when I have more of the psychotic symptoms (which tend to accompany higher distress), it’s as if the part of my brain that would reflect enough to try one of these techniques just shuts off. I have an overwhelming need for someone else to keep me safe and almost hold me and ground me and prove something exists beyond the fear and distress. But the PD Service seem absolutely against anything that would lead to me not being on my own in these situations (like being referred to the Crisis Team who’d come to see me at home, or being admitted when I’m overdosing etc). I’m not entirely sure why. They are written into my “crisis plan” as ways to keep me safe when I can’t keep myself safe, but when it comes to it they are withdrawn or refused. This is something I’ll be talking more to my 1:1 therapist and/or Care Coordinator about.

I guess I have to learn to discover earlier when the extreme feelings are coming – at the moment they spring up at me from nowhere and that’s terrible. It feels very out of control. There’s no doubt that as I’m experiencing more emotions, I’m becoming less stable.

I’ll post an update on how things are going with trying these techniques.

Ginny xxx

What do you do to stay safe?

Today I’m going to the hospital again for another meeting with the CPN. I’m very scared of going after I lost it there on Tuesday. I think I’m scared what will happen, scared of losing it again, ashamed about what happened and still feeling very out of it, although not in the way I usually am when I dissociate. That gives some kind of protection. This is raw at the same time as shaken and disconnected.

Also I’ve got an inescapable question that has been in my mind for several weeks. I’m not at all stable or safe at the moment. I want to continue with therapy. I committed to the group that I’d do it and not give up. I promised to God and Mother Mary in prayer. I’ve made quite a few sacrifices for it – I don’t think I’d have had to leave my last job if it weren’t, at least in part, for my therapy appointments (though my last employer were definitely at fault too, in my opinion). I’ve seen the therapy as the only hope of learning how to get better and manage my condition. I’m privileged to live somewhere MBT is actually available (there aren’t specific PD services in all areas of the UK). I really don’t want to have to stop therapy.

However, at the moment I’m actually more unstable, at least in part because of the therapy and the emotions, memories and questions that it raises. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Other people tell me they can see positive changes in me, for example communicating more clearly about emotions and things that happened to me in my childhood, none of which I can yet see for myself. However I trust the people who tell me this and think it has to be a good thing. It’s another thing I don’t want to waste.

So the big question is, what to do.  I can’t keep myself safe at the moment. For example I’m “coping” by cutting, taking overdoses or higher than prescribed doses of medication, drinking* (and this really isn’t me, I do not enjoy drinking in this way), escaping from daily life by ignoring letters, calls, etc and not able to keep on top of the basics of looking after my home and myself (cleaning, cooking etc). I’m more unstable in my moods, especially anger, and I’m struggling more to hide everything to try to participate in daily life by eg going to work. Things like hallucinations or paranoid thoughts or feeling dissociated are pushing their way more into the working day.

I don’t know what to do to change this.

I’ve some hope that medication changes could help and I’m seeing the psychiatrist on Friday. But I doubt that’s going to be the only answer. I’ve tried to exhaustion (both daily and when in crisis moments like the extreme distress or wanting to end everything) the techniques I know like distraction and grounding and self care / self soothing (this latter is very hard for me to do when I feel as I do about myself). It isn’t working. And I feel that the things other people could do to keep me safe, many of which are on my crisis plan, are not happening or not working either. I’m experiencing more and more let downs where xyz help is promised then doesn’t materialise (appointments canceled, calls not returned, planned sources of support withdrawn, mistake after mistake, discharge plan not followed). Or I’m told that the help I want to keep safe doesn’t exist or I don’t qualify. What is offered – and don’t get me wrong I’m grateful that it is offered and I know it’s more than many other services provide – is not enough to keep me safe. For example when I’m suicidal a 5 minute telephone call may calm me a bit for a few minutes but an hour later in usually feeling worse than before and – this is key I think – still on my own trying to cope.

What do I do in this position? Are there other techniques I can learn to cope better? Are there other or higher doses of medications? When I so so much feel I am not safe on my own and really need someone with me (especially when I’m really distressed but also day to day because the slightest thing, as little as a letter that makes me panic or a canceled appointment,  can thrown me into extreme distress, self harm etc) what can I do? The PD service are adamant I mustn’t be admitted and don’t qualify for any carer help and ongoing support in person isn’t possible. I haven’t any other way of getting that kind of support. I live alone, my dad and step mum live hours away and I don’t have friends very locally or whom I see regularly.

So how do I do my therapy and stay safe as well? How do I either answer this need not to be on my own when I’m so much at risk and unstable, or what solution do I have to learn instead?

What do you do to stay safe between therapy appointments or between times you can access support?

I know this probably sounds silly and I do get a lot more support than most people and all I’m talking about coping with is simple daily life. Right now this is where I am.

Ginny xxx

*just to be clear, I’m not diagnosed with any alcohol problem and I’m not comparing my struggle with that of someone who is struggling with alcohol or other substance use. That is a much more painful place. I sometimes use what is probably an objectively average amount of alcohol taken with my tablets to make myself fall asleep when I can’t cope. Not a great thing to do but I’m not trying to compare the two.

I lost it.

I lost it today. And I wasn’t on my own this time. I went to an appointment with one of the CPNs. I was shaky before I got there, anger rising in the waiting room as two other patients and I were talking about how let down they felt by services, and in my appointment everything I said it felt like it was minimised or dismissed, I think. I can’t remember what we talked about or what we said.

I snapped. I screamed and screamed and then I can’t remember. Pain. Then I was on the floor screaming and then I couldn’t breathe and I was crying and couldn’t stop. I thought I’d hurt the CPN and took a long time to believe I hadn’t. Then I couldn’t speak and somehow nearly an hour had passed with all this, though I couldn’t understand it. I was so tired.

I’ve never flipped out like that in front of anyone. I cut so I don’t get there. Now it isn’t working. Usually it just happens on my own usually at night. Now they’ve seen the worst of me. Now I’ve lost control. I want to take responsibility but I’m losing it more and more. Nothing is working.

I’m home now. On the way home I felt out of my body but unable to get away from everything being shaken. Tea and blankets and NCIS tonight, my usual escape. But I have to face it.

Fat, and hot, and horrible.

The hardest thing about the quetiapine (and venlafaxine maybe, though I attribute it more to the quetiapine) and clonazepam is what it’s done to my body, or rather what I’ve let happen.

Fat. Disgusting. Sweating and hot (that’s the pain meds too I guess). Conscious of my expanded body. I have gained so much weight in the last couple of years. And I’ve let it happen. It’s true the drugs make you gain weight and increase your appetite, but I’ve failed. I haven’t stopped it.

I’m repulsed when I pass a mirror and see the foul reflection, bigger and bigger; when I feel the flab around my stomach and waist, the one thing I used to be able to keep flat and small even if I did have chunky thighs I hid under skirts. It’s everywhere. Crawling disgusting flesh and fat.

Why did I let it? Why? Why did I return to this demanding sick big disgusting body? I want to rip and claw and cut. It’s out of control. It’s all wrong. Growing and needing and hungry and hurting inside and out, aching within, stabbing in my stomach, darts and shooting burning pains as my feet touch the ground and my joints feel like they’ve been smashed and bruised.

Failure. Why. Hate. Hate hate hate this growing sick too big too present body. Even in my dreams I’m fat fat fat, running and clawing to get out of my body. My mother is there, shouting and mocking and threatening and I wake up drenched in sweat and shaking because the nightmare is real now. I couldn’t save her and the foul thing I am stares back at me out of every mirror.

And I cry.

Silly post, but just to hold myself to it!

This is a pretty silly post but I’m writing it here in order to hold myself to it, because if I write it here I’ve made the commitment to all of you (lovely readers) as well as myself.

I went to group this morning. I’m so boiling with feelings and hurt and loss and anger (not with group or anyone in it but with the whole PD Service). I desperately need to shut off and the best ways I know without help are things that hurt me. And it’s very possible I could just go home and do that and dissociate or literally knock myself out. I am going to try to make myself take another action instead.

I commit that this afternoon I will write a card to send something to my step-sister that she needs. Then I will clean in every room in my flat. It is in a complete state as i have not cleaned or cared for it in the state I’ve been in in the last two weeks. I may not finish all of it but I will vacuum everywhere and I will clean at least three things in every room (it’s a small flat!).

And to keep going in the promises I made in my commitment to getting better, 5 things I’m thankful for today are:

  • I have a flat of my own to live in (well I say my own; it’s rented but it’s home and I’m blessed to have my place and my safe space).
  • I went to therapy today and talked about horrible feelings and the other members of the group listened and didn’t treat me like a freak. They actually seemed to understand.
  • I saw an old friend yesterday who I have not met in years. She seemed happy and well and she’s having a baby very soon.
  • My step-sister and I are getting in contact with each other more.
  • Um… I didn’t have to wait ages for the bus back to town after therapy, does that count 🙂 ?!

I’m wishing for something good to happen to you today.

Ginny xxx

Group and no more trust

Tomorrow is MBT (mentalisation based therapy) group. I don’t know whether to go.

All trust I had in the service has gone. It’s been completely wiped out by the lies and let downs of the past months, the proofs they don’t believe me, the tricks, the cuts that open me more and more vulnerable then leave me with nothing and noone.

I don’t really want anything to do with a service that does this, but I’m desperate and have nowhere else to go. I’m desperate for help but it’s denied, it’s promised then withdrawn, or I’m deemed not in need or not believed. I want to do the therapy but I can no longer go forward safely with it. I cannot cope between sessions except by overdosing to black everything out and self harming to punish myself, temporarily quiet the voices, temporarily be something other than the utter pain. I’m not allowed any of the things that would keep me safe between sessions.

If I go tomorrow, I will be so angry. I can’t say I’ll keep it under control in the session. I can’t say I’ll stay “stable”. Nothing keeps it in anymore. I can’t mentalise like this and really I don’t want to. These things just are as they are. There’s nothing to be “curious” about or explore my feelings or someone else’s thoughts. Their thoughts have been made totally clear – they don’t believe me, I’m not allowed help, they’re tricking me, they’re cutting me open then leaving me and finding more and more ways to do it. My feelings are exploding and total. Fury. Hurt. Trapped. Over the edge. Liar. Fake. Fraud. Pain. Screaming.

If I go to group I can’t avoid it being clear I have no hope and no trust left. If everyone or anyone else does trust the service and does believe they’ll help them, then maybe that gets them through and helps them and is a lifeline for them. I don’t want to destroy that.If I say what’s happened to me, even in the last couple of days, I could destroy it.

I could go and just try not to talk about anything to do with me and just be there for other people and listen to them and try to mentalise about what other people bring. But I’m so far gone over the edge I don’t think I can trust myself not to explode.

When the group started committed to do it all. I committed to not leaving. I committed it to everyone in the group – not out loud, we didn’t do that, but in my head I did. I promised to God and Mother Mary too. If i leave I break my commitment to everyone, not just the service. I really don’t want to do that.

Yet at the moment I’m just ending up in more and more danger. It seems as if I should just accept this’ll never end, dissociate as much as possible, hope for something sometimes bearable…. but I think I’m too far gone for that. I wish I’d never trusted them.

Time to pack it in and leave, I think

So the last couple of hours have brought me absolutely beyond all hope.

I’ve been led on a cruel dance by all the so called emergency out of hours lines.

The PD service secretary refused to even phone any of the clinicians. She told me all kind of rubbish and lies, like that she couldn’t put me through to anyone else in the hospital, she didn’t have a telephone number for any of the clinicians or anyone else in the service, she refused to get me help, she pretended the crisis team didn’t exist, she shouted over me. I called 111 the out of hours service, since it was after 5. They refused to get me an appointment face to face or telephone. They said my own gp still needed to see me. They were not responsible til 6.30. They refused to make me an appointment after 6.30 or refer me to the crisis team. My own gp put me through to the duty doctor. She refused to visit me because it was too late in the day. She refused to refer me to the crisis team because they wouldn’t accept a referral without her seeing me which she’d refused to do. She then hung up on me whilst I was speaking.  The so called emergency out of hours mental health line went to answerphone 3 times. I finally got through. They had none of my messages. They talked over me constantly and said nobody world come to see me and just go to a&e. I’m too ill to go out of the house and what’s the point of going to a&e? They just send you back out a few hours later. What was the point of the line then if they don’t offer help? If I wanted to go to a&e I’d have gone. The woman actually agreed yes it’s fairly pointless, she just tells people to go to a&e.

I am desperate. I have done everything I’m told to. I have jumped through every &*$/€(# hoop. I even trusted them. What do I have to do to get help? Every single thing gets taken away. How much sicker do I have to be before they’ll help me? Before they stop talking about building my resilience? They’ve taken every bit of my resilience away and finally pushed me over the edge.

I’ve been thinking for some time about just packing up and going away somewhere else. Going off to the other end of the country. Somewhere else I can live hidden, preferably under a different name, nobody else knowing all this $#@/!&£* inside me, nobody pulling me apart and cutting and cutting deeper, nobody tricking me, and it’ll be numb but it’ll be some pretence of normal, it’ll be numb and fake but I’ve seen what trusting gets you, nobody will come near to me again, the real and the screaming and the desperation and hurt, I’ve been shown what that deserves, I’ve had it. I think I should just choose the numb.

Punished for hope

Go on then. Smash me into the ground and kick me as hard as you can.

That’s what they do to me.

I was promised “victim support” when I went to the police about the abuse. I was promised support from the victim support team’s specialist CPN and to finally get help with the trauma, flashbacks and PTSD. A phonecall with the CPN was booked in for today by the support team. The police officer who took my statement knew.

I got the call from the CPN who told me she is employed by the same mental health trust as the hospital I’m seen at for my personality disorder. Oh good,  I thought, that should help, shouldn’t it? She’ll know my mental health background and have my records. Wrong! She said that she’d organise support for people who aren’t currently seen in the mental health trust and get them therapy to help them deal with the trauma of what they’d had done to them but because I’m seen in the personality disorder service I’m “already in the most appropriate pathway” and she can’t help me.

But the personality disorder service specifically don’t address trauma and PTSD. The therapy I have there doesn’t deal with flashbacks, memories, hallucinations etc.  It deals with here and now. Which is great and important but leaves all the trauma untouched. I need help with that.

Why am I not allowed that because I have personality disorder, when a victim who does not have personality disorder, would be allowed to access it? Why am I denied help with one condition because I also have another diagnosis? You wouldn’t say to someone who had been in a car accident and fractured their leg as well as aggravating a pre existing back injury, “oh sorry we aren’t going to get a surgeon to set your leg to heal because you’re already being seen in the spine clinic.” So why is it deemed okay to deny me victim support because I have BPD?

The CPN said I should make a list of all my unmet needs and take it to my appointment with the psychiatrist next week. Oh my days have I not already begged for help with all the “unmet needs”! She just didn’t seem to grasp that the personality disorder service simply do not address the PTSD area. Which in itself is fair enough, it’s a specialist PD service – but it’s not okay if you’re denied access to other specialist services!

Why was I promised psychological help from this victim support team and this CPN if this is the outcome?! Everyone knew I am being seen in the PD service.

Then the CPN said oh they just don’t offer this help in the community teams. Yes and don’t you think I know, after fighting for 15 years plus. … and that’s why it’s speed to be coming from her!

This is yet another kick and yet another betrayal. Yet another thing I held on to snatched away. Yet another desperate hope gone. Yet another trick, this time effectively from the police, it feels like, though it isn’t the officer’s fault, he was nothing but supportive and this victim support team is separate…. but this is the last hope of people believing me and allowing me any help. And it’s now gone.

It’s absolutely proved everything my mother threatened. People would think the fault was hers, if they ever found out, and they’d take her away. Nobody would imagine a child could do all this. But really she’d know and I’d know that it was my fault all along, and what I’d done (and how evil I am, the voices add). I told. They found out. They think the fault is hers. But I must remember, the voices say, really it’s me all along, really I don’t deserve anything because I’m so evil. It’s confirmed it. 

It’s the hardest kick and tightest grip of the terror and memories again.

I was promised support when I went ahead to make the statement. Now I’m left and left more raw than before. I don’t regret doing it but can’t cope and I’m not okay and I’m not safe.

To top it all off I called the personality disorder service to be told there are no calls back today because the team have gone on an away day. Shame the voices and flashbacks haven’t gone on an away day. Shame the planning for how much hurt I can cause myself hasn’t.