As I write this I am sitting in residential inpatient care, I have been here for four weeks and am here for another two and a half weeks. I was initially admitted with a planned discharged of three weeks but my psychologist went away for a month so my psychiatrist thought it would be best to keep me here until she returns this Thursday. That was the plan, but I have been struggling since day one with suicidal thoughts and eating disorder behaviours.
It all came to a head last Wednesday night, I was sitting in my room and the thoughts became too much I started planning ways of killing myself; I purged I just wasn’t in a good place at all. It all started to get too much in group therapy; I shut right down and couldn’t express what was going through my head. After group the therapist asked me to stay back and talk to her and all I could say was that I didn’t feel safe within myself. She was concerned by what I told her so she emailed my psychiatrist and as well as spoke to the nursing staff on duty. One of the nurses who I’ve gotten to know quite well came in and tried to talk to me about what was going on and I told her I didn’t feel safe. She said she was going to call my psychiatrist to come in and see me. At first she couldn’t get hold of her so they had me see one of the other psychiatrists on call who wrote me up for extra valium.
She left and a few minutes later the male nurse came in and took my knitting and knitting needles off my bed and told me that I had to come out of my room and into to the common area and that I couldn’t have my knitting back until my psychiatrist says so. They gave me 10mg Valium and I had to sit in the common area until 9pm when they gave me 10mg Valium and 500mg Seroquel which knocked me out for a few hours, got up at 3.30am for another 5mg Valium.
My psychiatrist came and seen me the next morning where I had a massive breakdown with her, she agreed that I was no way near ready to go home. That another three weeks was needed. So luckily my insurance will cover it.
I am currently getting distressed from writing and from thinking about some things that happened yesterday so I am going to cut it here and write again soon.
I guess I don’t know where to start to with this update. I know I’ve said that before but this time I honestly mean it. So much has happened in the last five days, that I myself have barely had enough time to comprehend it. Mentally and physically this time has been draining. I am exhausted and I am afraid, I am afraid of the unknown and to be honest part of me is afraid of myself.
As many know I have been working a lot more lately as well as going to university. I’ve been doing the Tuesday morning and afternoon shift as well as the Friday morning shift. Well Friday morning I did the shift and came home as usual, I had a scheduled doctor’s appointment that afternoon. What happened between the hours of 10am and 2.15pm? I know I purged a lot, I know I had urges to self harm but I don’t remember anything else. I don’t remember driving to my doctor’s office either.
When I arrived at clinic I was told I could go straight up stairs, I know I was listening to music because I had headphones with me. I know that she wrote me a letter to my university because of the incidents related to me missing classes because of my twin being in hospital.. It was at this point I told her that the room was spinning and she got me to lie on the bed before I passed out. Coming to she asked if the room had stopped spinning yet and when I said no she said that she would have to call an ambulance if I couldn’t sit get up. I can remember parts of our conversation because I remember fighting with her over not wanting to go to the hospital.
She said that I had to go because I was dehydrated and my blood pressure was extremely low, I remember repeating that I would be fine I just needed to sleep it off. She just kept repeating that wasn’t going to happen. She then got onto how while I am there she would get a psych register to come and see me to see if I needed to be admitted. That was when I started to really dissociate from her because I knew my family would find out about my eating disorder and I wasn’t ready for them to know. She said that they wouldn’t but I didn’t believe her. She said that my psychiatrist had already spoken to her that week and was really concerned about where I was at and wanted me to be seen by the psych register anyway.
So she called my father and told him that I was being transferred by ambulance to the hospital for dehydration, I get on the phone and tell him not to stress that I will be fine and I would call him once I knew what the hospital was doing. Also to not worry about driving the two hours to see me, ugh! Did he listen? No, he ended up getting in the car and driving up to the hospital. By the time he gets there its after 6pm, I had been there since 4pm and had only just gotten IV fluid. I had also been given valium because my anxiety had skyrocketed to the point I couldn’t stay still.
A mental health worker had came and seen me before dad got there, he was a complete moron. He didn’t listen to a thing I said so I had to keep repeating myself and even then I had to repeat myself another fifteen times. He kept coming in saying so and so would be in to see me and then cancel to say someone else would be and that just made my anxiety worse. At 10pm I asked him for something for my anxiety and he was like “No you better hold off on it”... I was like “If I was at home I would have taken my seroqual by now... Hmm! So he then goes and gets me 100mg! 100mg! After his asked my psychiatrist, my doctor and myself three fucking times what mg I am on he gives me 100mg, when you’re on 400mg; 100mg doesn’t really do much. Wanker!
So at 12.30am a psych register gets there, I had just woken up from a cat nap since I had been awake since 4.30am. He takes me to a private room we chat for 25 minutes about what has happened in the last 12hours and he pretty much decides that it is best to admit me in the short stay unit because I am voluntary patient. He then finds out it is full so lets me go home because he doesn’t want to admit me to the psych ward with people who are totally bonkers. On the condition I go to my parent’s house, but he slips up if I refuse to eat or I feel suicidal to bring me back. I deny the eating disorder - which he believes. Saturday morning dad goes and picks up my nephew from Sydney and doesn’t get back here till 2pm, I decide that I am not going to travel 2hrs to be at their house less than 24hrs. We get into a argument about it and he decides that he will stay at my house until Sunday and then travel home Sunday morning.
Saturday afternoon my housemate opens her big mouth and tells him I haven’t eaten all day, he tells me to get out of his face before he hits me. We argue and eventually I tell him that it’s not a choice that I would love to eat and not have the stuff in my head tell me otherwise. He still talks to me with attitude about it, so I avoid talking about it. I don’t know how to address it, so I guess we’re back to how it’s been for the last fifteen months - a game of charades.
Mental health are coming out to the house on Thursday afternoon, I am anxious and scared, I don’t know what they are going to say. I don’t know what I am going to say. I don’t know if I say what I think they want to hear or do I say what is really going through my head?
I just got home from seeing Danielle, it was a tough session. Actually tough doesn’t even scratch the surface of how hard it was. I broke down in the session due to not knowing how to deal with the eating disorder anymore and not knowing how to express to Danielle the extent in which I am struggling.
I went home on the weekend after breaking down to my parents on the phone, like a child my father told me I had to come home. As soon as I walked in the door I was greeted with how much weight have you lost questions, I felt like I was in trouble and felt very exposed. Not only was it from my father, my twin asked me as well she said it was a compliment. How is asking someone how much weight they’ve lost a compliment? Ugh, I don’t know!
I walked in and told her I went home and what happened. This is when things went from bad to worse inside my head.
Danielle noted that I was distant and dissociated and wanted to get to the cause of this dissociation.
I got up and paced the room which just caused further anxiety; I then sat back down and at that point lost it. Told her I didn’t know how to explain it, that it is like all my thoughts are fused together and everything is fuzzy. That I don’t know who is in control that I don’t know which aspect of the layers is in control. She asked what was wrong with not being in control and I told her it doesn’t feel safe, that I don’t like this unknown.
She then asked me; do you think that this could be the eating disorder in complete control?
Looking at it from that at angle, it does make sense. For weeks now she has been asking me “what does it feel like within your body” and I guess this is the perfect way of explaining it. Besides the psychological component of torment it also makes things unclear and somewhat “fuzzy”.
She said what happens when you don’t get the correct nutrition, I responded with things become harder to process. She asked what happens to emotions, I responded with they become erratic and harder to control. She asked what happens to concentration, I responded with I lose it. She asked what happens to Chloe’s progress in here, I responded with; it get’s put on hold. What she was getting at there is starvation syndrome which is developing more and more as the days go on.
She said she could tell that things are tough eating disorder wise right now.
I told her that I wanted to tell her things against the advice of my head.
I told her that I had cut down on behaviours, and she asked which ones I was talking about. I told her I was talking about the binge purge cycle but I was concerned I wasn’t winning the battle with it. She asked what I meant by this. When I was referred to the eating disorder’s program last June it was because I had relapsed into anorexia. Well for the last eight months I have been struggling with the bulimia side of the disorder. That is until about a month ago when I have started to restrict again.
By this point I was crying... The thing is I don’t even pick up on how restrictive it is until the end of the day when I write it down on my food log. It’s not even intentional restriction. I was telling Danielle all of this while crying into my sleeve, she asked if she could draw an image of what she thought was going on; I agreed because I couldn’t find a reason to object to it. She drew a circle and then inside that drew a spiral, in the circle layer she wrote eating disorder / mask. She explained that she could tell that it was causing a great deal a distress and that together we would change the behaviours, that I am not alone in this, that she doesn’t want the starvation symptoms to land me in hospital.
She asked me what would Vanessa or my doctor suggest as an exercise to do this week and I said to add one thing each day; she said that, that shows to her that I am committed to change and that I am not just saying it even though things are hard right now. She again just expressed her concern over the situation and where things are and that something needs to be done. I see my doctor next Friday, I tried to get in sooner but couldn’t.
At the end I apologised for how my behaviour was so erratic and she said that there was nothing to apologise for but by me doing so that it shows her that there is still parts of clarity in me able to show through. It's hard because I've spent the last six weeks telling myself that I am okay, that everything is fine and that I am dealing with it when in reality I am not. I don’t even know if this makes sense, it has taken me numerous hours to write because I cannot focus.
I seen Danielle yesterday, it was a very confronting session. From the moment the first word left my mouth it was control from the eating disorder for most of the session. From anxiety that was bought up in the waiting room when a lady invaded my personal space by sitting right next to me when there were numerous vacant spaces on the other side of the room. It didn’t make sense to me that she would sit right next to someone when there were so many vacant places, isn’t it etiquette to leave a space if there is the room? In my opinion it is. I have a massive thing about personal space and that lady really invaded it and increased my anxiety tenfold.
My housemate has been told by her gynaecologist that she has to lose weight, so my mother told me I should be supportive and motivate her in this weight loss. Easier said to someone without an eating disorder, I am concerned that I could be a negative influence on my housemate. I’ve told her what she can and cannot eat in order to lose weight and about portion control etcetera, and how it’s all about balance but I feel like a hypocrite. I am telling her about all these healthy things to do and I cannot do them myself. Currently I am pretty much living off smoothies, fruit and wraps because I am too afraid to eat anything else.
The voices in my head don’t like that I am consuming what I am and that though of increasing it to anything else at this point petrifies me. I told Danielle yesterday that while I know it is bad, it isn’t as bad as it has been. With my 21st coming up I am extremely scared as to how I am going to cope with it. My family want me to come home and I don’t know how I am going to deal with that, it was at this point that the raw and honest me came out and the true Chloe was seen.
I started to draw on the white board at this point, about how the mask hides the hurt, how it hides how I am really struggling with this eating disorder and how badly I need the support of my family, but it seems that Codie’s issues will always trump that of this eating disorder.
I ended up back at my dentist yesterday afternoon; I’ve been in the process of getting a crown fitted to one of my front teeth. Since the temporary crown was fitted I had been in constant pain, but it had been manageable until Monday when I rang up to get an appointment to see what was going on with it. Turns out it wasn’t fitted correctly which was causing irritation to the surrounding gum, she could of left it since I see her on Tuesday to have to permanent crown fitted. But since it was causing so much discomfort an injection and some drilling later I walked out in even more pain. She said it should subside in a couple of days, just in time to go back and see her.
I have the house to myself again this weekend, I have so much study to get done I just need to find the motivation to do it. At least I have started the introduction to my creative writing piece:
As the bitter coffee passes my lips I sit back and listen to the sounds outside my window. It is never silent; it seems this city never sleeps. As the night approaches I sit here staring at the blank page before me trying to write the words that run like a freight train through my head, jumbled they make no sense. As the cigarette leaves my mouth and falls gently into the ashtray I breathe in deeply, trying to calm my nerves. Moments of clarity I once felt slip further and further away I dream of the past, where things were easier. Confused I sit back and take another sip of this foul coffee I don’t know why I bother drinking the stuff; it doesn’t give me any satisfaction. Once sweet, it has joint in with the times; somewhat depressing.
I am stressing about university and how I am going to go this session with statistics, ironically the guy I received tutoring off last year is my tutor this session which is cool but at the same time if I fail again I am going to feel like he wasted his time on me last year. This is the first year psych statistics class. By the time I reached out for support for the class last year it was already after midsession break, therefore 45% of the assessment tasks were already failed, I didn’t have a chance of getting a great mark overall. The annoying part is, I passed the class with a pass conceded which is a mark of 45% – 47% basically they give you the 6 credit points but you have to redo the class again the following year.
I spoke with him after the tutorial on Monday, he asked me how I was feeling about it this time round and I told him straight out “If I fail, I am worried you’re going to go I taught you this shit” and he basically reassured me that he would not say that at all and that if I can get my anxiety under control I will be fine.
My other two classes seem alright, I am doing a culture and emotion class (MACS or CULTURAL STUDIES) which is third year. This is the third MACS class I’ve done, I wouldn’t be doing a third year this session while doing statistics if I hadn’t done so well previously in it. It is kind of my fun class, I am doing it with a girl I met last session. We ended up at the unibar after the tutorial on Monday, sat there having a drink discussing many things.
My final class is a second year sociology class, it is on Youth Cultures. I am a qualified youth worker so I am not stressed about it whatsoever. The only downside is that it is on a Thursday afternoon at 3:30 – 5:30 which makes it a long day.
There has been so much going on lately and university has gone back so that has taken up more of my time. I am working every Friday morning for the school term so Thursdays are a long day with an early night. I have to be up at 5am so I can leave the house before 6am so I am at work ready for a 7am start.
I’m not sure where to start as there has been so much going on that I barely understand half of it myself. With therapy, treatment, university, work and life in general I am kind of overwhelmed by it all.
Well as I discussed in my last post, my team told my doctor about me having borderline personality disorder. I didn’t get to see Danielle until a week and a half after my doctor mentioning it due to work. Danielle and I discussed it in-depth but it has still left me feeling very raw. I don’t understand why this “diagnosis” is different from any of the others I’ve had. Part of it could be due to the stigma related to the disorder and the knowledge I have of it due to studying psychology.
We then decided it was best that we didn’t focus on the label of the disorder but rather the individual issues, the treatment program I am in is designed for people with borderline personality disorder. It is a two part treatment program: Individual and Group therapy. At this point in time I am only doing individual due to being unstable with eating behaviours. The plan is to re-evaluate at the end of the year what will happen next year.
I seen her yesterday, it was a tough session. Partly due to the fact that I went home on the weekend. I had a breakdown on Thursday and my parents forced me to go down to theirs after work on Friday until Sunday. I told mum how I was feeling about my body image and weight – which is a massive thing... How did they respond to my confession... With fucking cake. Yes, I am not kidding one bit, my father responded to my breakdown with going to the patisserie and ordering me a cake with the words “cheer the fuck up” I am not even fucking kidding. So will I be putting myself out there for support from my parents again anytime soon – the answer to that is no!
So Danielle and I discussed this situation and how I am constantly torn between the need to care for Codie and the fact that physically I cannot do it anymore. I sent her down to mums and dads on Wednesday after her surgery was cancelled as I cannot do it anymore. The charade is exhausting. The stress is at breaking point. We worked on the “aspects of me chart”, we have changed the structure of it. Danielle was drawing it up to use an example and I was thinking about it all and how nobody knows anything as the mask layer is constantly up and under that is the anger or deceitful lies of the eating disorder and every now and then the truth will be revealed. Like with the body image issue, it was revealed, it was brushed off so now the wall has been built around it stronger.
Yesterday and today my eating disorder has been in complete control which is physically draining. My heart is aching and I am getting blood pressure drops. I seen my doctor this morning, last time I seen her I agreed that I would allow her to weigh me. She said that she would allow it to happen in my own time. She didn’t push the issue at all but I ended up writing down two numbers, what I weighed in June last year and what I weighed that morning. After talking for a while this morning she bought it up. I dismissed it, I really did not want to get on the scales. Then I thought about it logically, no one has been monitoring my weight for the last month and a half and in that time it has been fluctuating 5kg. Who is really in control if I keep the number to myself, me or my eating disorder? So I relinquished control, I agreed to be weighed; I hopped on the scales while she was facing the other direction seen the number and then allowed her to see. She suggested blind weighing but in the past that has always caused more anxiety.
Well, I am starting to fall asleep, so I am going to cut this one short and go to bed since I have to be up so early.
I seen my doctor on Friday, primarily to start the B12 injections but also to catch up where things are at. It was a rather long appointment. She had seen Vanessa the previous Thursday and had spoken to Danielle that morning so we discussed what they had to say. Parts of what Vanessa had told my doctor really got to me, firstly as I don't agree with the diagnosis and secondly as I shouldn't be hearing things like it off my doctor, I should be hearing it off either my psychiatrist or psychologist.
Vanessa told my doctor that they think I have borderline personality disorder, which I don't agree with at all; nor does my doctor. My doctor doesn't understand how they've come to this conclusion. She is going to be telling them that she doesn't agree with that diagnosis as well.
The symptoms of borderline personality disorder are:
Unstable interpersonal relationships, affective distress, marked impulsivity, and unstable self-image.
Individuals with borderline personality disorder tend to experience frequent, strong and long-lasting states of aversive tension, often triggered by perceived rejection, being alone or perceived failure.
They may show lability (changeability) between anger and anxiety or between depression and anxiety and temperamental sensitivity to emotive stimuli.
The negative emotional states specific to BPD fall into four categories: destructive or self-destructive feelings; extreme feelings in general; feelings of fragmentation or lack of identity; and feelings of victimization.
Okay; if I had borderline personality disorder I would not be able to maintain successful friendships. I would not be able to maintain the lifestyle I do, the ability to go to university would not exist.
So my doctor asked me to look at the differences and similarities of borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. I believe the possibility of having biplolar disorder is greater then the possibility of having borderline personality disorder. I see her again just shy of two weeks. I had to cancel my appointment with Danielle next week as I gained more hours at work.
I am working Monday 9 -5, Tuesday 10 - !, Wednesday 10 - 6 and Friday 7 - 10. So I am staying at my aunts again Monday night.
Physically my body is not coping with the behaviours I have inflicted upon it. I am tachycardic, have heart palpitations daily, I am deficient in iron, I am deficient in B12, I am cold constantly and constantly feel like I am going to pass out. I have to start having B12 injections as the levels are that deficient that taking a supplement would not bring the levels back to normal. So to those who believe that this is a lifestyle they really need to see that this is killing me. Slowly, even though I am fighting as much as I can it is in fact a slow and painful form of suicide.
I have currently finished appointments with Vanessa, as I have mentioned in previous posts she was supposed to be meeting up with my doctor along with Danielle which would then be evaluated as to how sessions would go with her. Well twice now they have neglected to attend the appointment. Each time my anxiety grows deeper. I have not seen Danielle for two weeks, in which the last appointment bought up some deep rooted issues. I really believe that the issues that were bought up lead to the past two weeks events.
The past two weeks have been this intense rollercoaster where some parts have extreme highs followed by extreme lows where you are unsure if the ride is safe. Parts of the last two weeks have included actions that I am not at all proud of, actions that in normal circumstances I would not engaged in. Since deciding that I would open up to my psychologist about what happened in the past in previous relationships I have been feeling highly triggered.
I am going to be blunt and straight to the truth. Up until Friday I have only ever slept with two people, I am twenty years old and the two relationships I had been in ended up bad. The second one was worse and the cause in which made me move out of my parent’s house and two hours away. I did not feel safe remaining in my home town and I rarely go home out of fear I would run into him or someone affiliated with him. It’s not fair that I cannot go home to visit my parents, go out and see my friends and enjoy myself.
Okay so like I said two people. That is until I started working on what happened in those relationships. In all uncertainty I think it bought up more trust issues and the low self esteem. Friday, I slept with a 23 year old I had just met. Saturday I slept with yet another person I had just met, he was 24. Seriously? What the heck! Who the hell does that? The first one seemed to have a more direct effect, I sat in the bottom of my shower for over a hour. Scrubbing until it hurt. I felt dirty and cheap. Although with the second person I couldn’t speak up that what he was doing hurt out of fear of what could happen? I don’t know what has caused such a drastic change of events.
Things are hard, both physically and mentally. I saw Vanessa this morning which has bought up a lot of emotions. I have urges to exercise right now buy physically cannot, which is making me anxious; I know I shouldn’t act on these behaviours. Last night my house mate and I were moving her furniture last night and she dropped her desk which out of shock I ended up dropping it which landed on my right foot shattering my toes. They are extremely painful and are extremely bruised... Think it is broken, with how much it hurts. Ouchy!
Back to the appointment with Vanessa, there were both positives and negatives. Let’s focus on the negatives first as there are a less of them. She is concerned about how much weight I lost in the two week period. Normally I wouldn’t mention numbers but it is really getting to me, according to the number she wrote last fortnight and the numbers of today I lost 2.9kg which I am not sure how.
This brings me to the positives I’ve been eating a lot more; I’ve been eating breakfast daily and overall increased the amount I am keeping down. I haven’t eaten breakfast daily since my mother made my breakfast at around 7, so this has been a massive adjustment. Over the last two weeks I’ve engaged in behaviours a lot less then I have in months.
So the plan for now is to increase vegetable intake and to add dairy daily. She said that while she normally wouldn’t recommend clients skipping food groups but understands that I cannot eat certain foods as they aren’t safe for me to eat without risking a binge purge cycle. So at this point it is safer to stay away from it.
Thursday is the review between Vanessa, Danielle and my doctor. I see my doctor on Friday. I don’t see Danielle this week, I have my final exam that day.
I seen Danielle this morning, I did not feel hungry prior to leaving the house. I made a commitment to myself that when I got home I would eat something. I am currently in this place where I am working on finding foods that are safe, I discussed this with Danielle today. I received some good news moments before seeing her, My tutor called and told me I passed my sociology exam and passed the course overall. She said that she thought I would like to know, which I was very grateful for. Now I don't have to stress about whether or not I passed it and only have one class left to worry about.
While calorie intake is important I am currently not in the place where I can stick to a set amount of calories per day. I am currently working on finding foods that are safe and won't trigger me into engaging in eating disorder behaviours.
Currently the foods I find safe are:
Strawberries.
Green apple.
Pineapple.
Rock melon.
Watermelon.
Carrot.
Capsicum.
Popcorn.
Nuts.
Chicken.
Onion.
Broccoli.
While these foods aren't high calorie I have been managing to eat them without engaging in eating disorder behaviours. My doctor isn't currently concerned with calorie content as much as she is concerned about the effects my behaviours have been having on my body. My blood pressure is still all over the place and I have been having heart palpitations as well as continual black outs. So right now I am focused on eating healthy and trying to have three separate meals or snacks a day without engaging in behaviour. I have only acted on them twice since Friday which is a massive achievement in my recovery.
Today Danielle and I discussed a few different things. We discussed the progress I have made with food and how I've realised I cannot allow what HE did control me any longer. How I don't even think about the physical side of it and how its the psychological issues that come about because of it that I need to deal with. HE is not worth me killing myself over. His taken so much off me, but he will not take my dreams.Love x