I'm rotting.

[dontrunwithscissors]

I've been doing so well recently. I had a great work trip to the U.S. and felt like the bipolar was finally under control, but I think everything's falling apart again. The last week I've been feeling so drained, hopeless, helpless, just want to disappear. The instrusive sucidal thoughts are back. I can feel the badness is back inside me. My stomach hurts like I've been punched; I can feel the evil spreading and rotting inside of me. I'm so, so tired of all this.

How many times before you just give up? I feel like they wouldn't leave a dog to suffer like this.

Dontrun I stumbled across your thread and didn't want to read and run. Hope you've managed to get the tablets down. How are you feeling now?

Thanks loiterer, I've had the meds. I've just cuddled the DD's and kissed them goodnight. Am i weird to still smell their hair? It's very comforting. I just hope I can knock myself out as the nights are so difficult.

I love smelling my children's heads, think I will still be sneaking in to do it when they're teenagers! Anything that's comforting is fine to do when you're feeling pants, however 'weird' it is. I always eat cheap microwave macaroni cheese when I'm ill, something about it makes me feel better!

Glad you find the crisis team helpful, they are hit and miss here. Some are lovely, others are not so much. You took a massive step asking for and accepting help today. Are crisis going to set up a Drs appointment for you to review your meds?

Hope you sleep safe tonight x

Thanks MS and FC, the CT have been and are back at 4pm. I'm not sure about seeing a doc. They usually bring one out after a few days

I'm starting to receive thoughts and messages about what I need to do. I'm really struggling to keep 'myself' alive (figuratively) against all the external stuff. They're stifling and overpowering, and they're breaking me down.

Sorry to be so pessimistic

Thanks FC. The CT are helpful, but they go on about planning the day and what little things I can do to distract myself. I appreciate their efforts, but I can barely figure out what to do in the next two minutes, never mind the rest of the day. I can't hold enough information in my head long enough to figure out the steps needed to get a shower.

Planning my day right now is like trying to memorise the whole works Shakespeare. I'm exerting all my mental power upon just stating safe minute-to-minute. They think I should distract myself from the thoughts, but there just isn't enough space to do that. I'm coping as much as I can.

dontrun, I'm so sorry to hear you aren't feeling well again. I remember you from a few years back when you were on your work trip. You did so, so amazingly well then. I know you have the strength in you to hold on today.

I'm sorry I don't have anything practical to advise you, but I wanted to be another person here holding your hand.

Thanks thurlow. I appreciate you taking the time to write. It helps to have others on the 'end of the line.' I just don't know how to explain this to DH and just can't face being around people.

Just posting for something to do. Really struggling, rang the crisis team but they're in a meeting until 2pm and someone will call me back then. Don't know how to last half an hour. I just can't find the words to tell DH--to let him know how far I've fallen. He just doesn't deserve to have to take this weight on. I know it upsets and worries him not knowing, but I literally don't have the ability to explain. I don't know why.

You've done a really good job of explaining yourself on here, dontrun.

Do you think if you wrote something down for your DH, it might be clearer than trying to verbalise it?

I ended up ringing the crisis team and asked them to speak to him. He didn't know how bad it was. He'll watch over me until crisis people get here at 4pm. Too, too close to losing control.

Stay safe, OP. You can do it. One minute at a time.

I really think it would be best for you to be in hospital Scissors - it sounds like you could be getting out of touch with reality - what did you mean when you said "I've started to receive thoughts and messages about what I need to do" - doesn't sound good to me. At least in hospital you wouldn't have to pretend to be ok, and could just curl up on your own for a while. They might be able to adjust your meds too. It doesn't sound safe for you to be at home just now.

I'm just waiting for my CPN - stupid I know but I hate to be in the depths of despair when I see her because when I'm well (which isn't very often) we have a good chat and laugh.

Just count the minutes. Keep posting here, we're listening. I'm here all afternoon, is there anything distracting you can talk about? Can you tell us about your work - what do you teach?

Keep going dontrun, you've come so far. Thinking of you xx

DH knows and now and has been told to not leave me alone

NN He's a man; someone from my past. They're thoughts being given to meinstructions. He's very powerfulI suppose beyond human would be a way of trying to explain---and I'm worried about fighting him. I understand what you mean about waiting for your CPN and not being well. It sounds like you have a good relationship.

thurlow I teach american history--post 1945 civil rights activism. I'm writing a book on America's prisons and race relations. My next project is to work on the closing of asylums in the US and UK and the impact on debates over mental illness, the impact on civil liberties, and the fact that the prison system today has become the 'new asylums.' But all of that seems a gazillion miles away when I can barely string words together. I feel like I'm fading away.

You're doing really well, that made perfect sense. And is fascinating - I did a module in my undergraduate degree on the history of asylums in the UK in the 19th and 20th centuries. Such an incredibly interesting topic, especially the intervention of the Quakers.

Hi dontrun,
we hope you don't mind, but when threads such as this one are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health resources - here. You can also go to the Samaritans' website here, or email them on [email protected]. Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but it is very good to see you seeking RL help and support as well.

We also like to remind everyone that, although we're awed daily by the astonishing support our members give each other through life's trickier twists and turns, we'd always caution anyone never to give more of themselves to another poster, emotionally or financially, than they can afford to spare.

So sorry for hijacking your thread, dontrun, stay safe, your book sounds amazing.

I hope to push the research beyond the closing of asylums. I think there's too much emphasis on this early period, but it's because it's easy to access source material. When the asylums empty, the mentally ill disappear from histories, whereas I believe that they were actively challenging their treatment, and challenging stigma from early on. I'm tracking down people who were active in psychiatric rights groups in the 1960s to interview them. There were 'psychiatric survivor' groups across the USA during the 1960s and 1970s. They organised protests and wrote books about the system and 'care in the community'; they demanded a complete and radical overhaul of psychiatry that recognised their right to choose their treatment and define their identity. However, this activism has been pretty much overlooked by historians of the sixties.

Sorry to waffle on. I love my research. I love opening students' eyes and help them to see how society is structured to marginalise the poor, women, homosexuals, and other minoritiesbut also that those people are not helpless victims. They have organised and challenged the systemand encourage students to be activists themselves.

I will stop waffling

X posted with MN HQ. Thank you.

I'm glad you've got your dh with you and the crisis team visiting in a bit. Hospital might be a good place while you feel so unsafe. Please think about it.

I hadn't thought of that but of course, once they are living in the community the mentally ill are no longer quite the same distinct group and so far easier to marginalise. I think I remember my course stopping at that point - "and then we closed down the asylums and everything was good!". Which of course it wasn't!

And you're not waffling, it's genuinely fascinating. What are you hoping to get from the research - a course, or a book?

I agree, those thoughts sound scary and you can probably not avoid hospital. They will keep you safe, which is good.
Keep waffling, it's very interesting!

In an ideal world, I would get a kick-arse grant to bring together a team of researchers to look at the history of psychiatric 'survivors' from the closing of the asylums to the present day in the US, UK, Italy, Germany, and Australia. That would mean multiple books, research students, public engagement work, policy advice, and teaching.

Failing that, it will be little old me writing a book on the US and UK. I think that while the mentally ill were held in asylums, society could tolerate them much more easily. They were at arms length. When they enter the community is when the great fear (how do we know who's mad?) of mental illness springs up, especially the media reporting of the fear of mentally illness and violence.

Thanks for posting! It's helping to distract me until 4pm.