And this is how a life ends, not with a bang, but on a cold, grey, nothing November Friday when you have just finally had enough. No huge cataclysmic event. No careful planning. No helium, in the end – I lack the money or motivation to procure it.
I thought I would feel something. I don’t. I am beyond feeling. I said I have had enough, which is exactly it. There is only so much pain a person can take until they become numb, already dead inside, a zombie, like a piece of elastic stretched so far, so many times it ceases to be elastic.
I thought I would break in Tesco. The mundanity, Tesco. I felt dizzy. I felt so heavy I could barely force myself to keep walking along the aisles, one step at a time. I nearly screamed. I nearly sat on the floor. I nearly ran into the road outside. I didn’t. I was thinking, these people don’t know – the other shoppers buying Friday night food and drink, the shelf stackers, the checkout woman, the bus driver and other passengers on my way home – they have no idea that I am planning suicide. Why would they? If I had melted down, some kind person would have asked if I was OK, what was wrong, probably the police would have been called, I would have been taken to A&E and the mask would be back on, and I would have had the usual lack of help and been home after however many hours.
It can’t be December. That would mean Christmas and that is the trigger – if I don’t do it now, it would affect Christmas for people I know. I can’t be the spinster aunt without kids or a partner, who never even brings anyone to Christmas dinner, tolerated with pity. Another year can’t have gone by with nothing changing. I don’t have a life. I exist. Why. Literally, why – I eat and eliminate, repeat. I don’t do anything. I take money from the state in the form of benefits.
I don’t do anything. Mental health services think it’s laziness and that I should just decide to get out and do things, meet people, join groups, do a class, volunteer, all the well-meaning suggestions. They don’t understand depression – the crippling fog of inertia that makes you cancel plans and stay in bed instead.
I had an ‘assessment’ by the CMHT a few days ago. The woman was ‘nice’, and it’s always harder when they hide their contempt for you so well behind a cloak of friendliness and helpfulness and care. She very nicely completely fobbed me off. I knew it would not go well when she mentioned Mind in the first two minutes. She doesn’t know what a care co-ordinator would do with me, apparently. They don’t have support workers for whatever reason. It was full of excuses, we don’t have that any more, or we can’t do that because reasons. I should go to Mind and get a private therapist. They will not be helping me. She said I was talking about Christmas – I had said I was dreading it and it was making me suicidal. She said I didn’t have any suicide plans. They put words in my mouth. They don’t hear what I actually say. I feel I am speaking another language. I can scream for help until I’m blue in the face and they will ignore it, minimise and dismiss it, or of course I am being too aggressive. There is no way I can ask. I am silenced.
I started to deteriorate in late August, as I always do, faced with my birthday and then Christmas approaching. I had been discharged by the CMHT in February, very cruelly – psychologists had offered support but suddenly decided I was too bad, too much, the people who had promised they weren’t going anywhere, did. I had been surviving – I never get to happiness or fulfilment or doing anything worthwhile – but went downhill again. I told my support worker (through a housing organisation, SD) this and while initially she was supportive, she grew annoyed and cold. I texted her desperately suicidal and she would not reply or something utterly dismissive like ‘OK, see you *date of appointment*’. I texted her desperately and she replied coldly, ‘Unfortunately if you threaten suicide I will have to call the police’. It is obvious that I did not want to encounter the police. I had to call her and plead for her not to – of course, I then had to deny what I had said and insist I didn’t mean it and was safe, frame myself as just saying things, attention-seeking, manipulative, you know the stereotype. I wasn’t safe. It ended up in confrontations, she got her manager involved, she had just become cold and uncaring – you know when someone has had enough of you, the relationship has died. In the end I left a distressed voicemail late at night. Apparently she felt threatened – I didn’t threaten her, didn’t insult her, was just distressed, but I was punished by a change of support worker and my support being reduced. I was told off for being suicidal as if I was a naughty child and told it will in future be ignored.
I didn’t go to A&E or call the local helpline or the Samaritans. People don’t understand that there is no point. There is nothing mental health services will do, I will be met with the usual dismissiveness. No Samaritan or other well-meaning volunteer, or friend, without mental health knowledge and training can save me, despite the nice, cosy campaigns.
I was taken to A&E by police a few weeks ago now, mid-October. I had contacted a private psychiatrist to enquire about a report for Dignitas. It was either them or SD I assume who called the police. They found helium and a stash of pills and were very concerned. A couple of hours and I was discharged by another ‘nice’ yet breezily patronising and dismissive woman. Helium is very dangerous, apparently. She ‘knew’ I could survive until an appointment with the police mental health guy, two hours later. He didn’t show or contact me. I now realise I assumed he was coming to my home, but he may have thought I was still in A&E.
I have more than one lingering infection, am in constant physical pain from them, and no-one will help. I am still on the ‘evil patients’ scheme at ‘my’ ‘GP’ (I do not feel I have one) and confined to one male GP and a few appointments. He wasn’t interested and didn’t even look, didn’t prescribe medication, just gave me the form for blood tests. I haven’t gone for them. The pain and feeling disgusting, taken over by infection, by parasites, fear that it was spreading and I was not human, took over and I ended up calling 111 a few times. They fobbed me off because ‘it’s ongoing’ ‘go to your GP’. My GP kept refusing to see me again and said they could not take swabs or do anything else, and I couldn’t see anyone but this GP even though I asked justifiably to see a female, putting me in the position of seeming like I was seeking urgent care for something ongoing. I tried to explain the pain was getting worse, making me suicidal, I couldn’t eat (one of the issues is my mouth). As it was making me suicidal, I went to A&E. I saw the liaison person, was directed to physical care by them, must be ‘medically cleared’, told I would see him again after that. The physical doctor prescribed a week’s worth of medication. (It didn’t clear it up but maybe took the edge off a little.) I waited for the psych liaison guy, who spotted me and said he hadn’t been told I was cleared, and his shift was ending but he would make sure I was seen by the next shift. An hour and a half later…I wasn’t listed to be seen. The receptionist informed me of this stonily and refused to help, and when I said I was suicidal just turned to the person behind me in the queue with a ‘can I help you’. They had clearly thought oh her again, wasting our time, we won’t see her. The OOH doctor I finally saw about my mouth told me I just had gingivitis which clearly is not the issue and to go to the dentist. I don’t have one. I am still in agony and struggling to eat.
They keep telling me – go here, do this – not realising the effort, that I am exhausted and dragging myself through existing, feeling as if I weigh a ton, that sometimes I can’t get out of bed or out of the flat. That it’s not that easy to summon up the motivation to even make a phone call. Things happen at a glacial speed if at all. They don’t understand. I don’t even understand, so how are they going to? The simplest things are so difficult. This is a web that I can’t untangle.
I tried PALS. PALS at the hospital are ignoring me. PALS at the mental health trust have previously dismissed my complaints, but I tried anyway. I would be too terrified to open a response anyway. I know how the cold bureaucratic language will hurt, I know that they won’t help but will accuse me and say terrible things about me. I have tweeted both trusts and the Chief Executive of the mental health trust, again, ignored. I had been talking to the ex Chief Executive but she too is ignoring me.
The local complaints advocacy service refused to help me, again, too much, too suicidal, bad.
I have been speaking to a Mind advocate, who seemed to care, but I e-mailed him this afternoon desperately suicidal and he hasn’t answered.
I e-mailed the new support worker at SD, no reply.
I must not be a human. Through all of this I haven’t had one genuinely kind word.
I can’t cope, can’t function. No-one is listening. No-one believes me. I am silenced.
I have burned all my bridges. They think the distressed me isn’t ill but it me all the time, that I am a terrible person. They think I am a criminal. I am. I am evil.
They think I am just lazy and will be too dependent.
I am either seen as some evil bombastic terrible dangerous person, or as a meek little nothing who is a joke.
I am abnormal, different. I was only born as a conduit, a thing for others to take their issues out on.
I had potential. I was called gifted at school, another difference, another thing to be bullied for. I’m not. I was just fairly bright, willing to work hard, eager to please, desperate to achieve. I was told I should be an academic. I wanted to be a doctor, but was too shy, too quiet, lacking confidence – I applied but didn’t get a good reference and messed up the interviews. I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, or a mental health nurse, or a support worker. Now I have no future. I will not get into any of that kind of employment with a criminal record and mental health issues. I won’t meet anyone because I don’t go out but if I did find a partner, it’s likely I wouldn’t be able to have children without medical help and they won’t provide that with that record either, and forget being able to adopt or foster, something I would love to do anyway. People just see evil, abnormal. I could be a good person, if only there weren’t other people in the world.
I cared once. I tried to fit into the world. It doesn’t want me in it.
To waste that potential may be a bad thing to do, but it’s already gone. I am not going to sit on benefits and get old. There is no way out. I can’t undo the things I have done. I can’t be in this pain any more. There is no point of me.
I’m genuinely sorry that people will be affected, but I don’t matter that much to anyone, people will be sad for a bit but survive and move on. I am only an annoyance, tolerated, I have hurt people. I am bad. It is for the best. The world will go on turning. Without me in it. I can’t imagine what it will be like. Of course, how can we know what it’s like to be dead, what happens when we die. I don’t believe in any religion, I don’t think I will be going to heaven or hell, or reincarnated. It’s a very weird concept that I won’t be here and there won’t be a ‘me’ to know ‘what it’s like’. There will just be nothing. It will be peaceful. It will be peaceful. I messed this life up too much, damaged too many things, am staring at a life dirty, in ruins. I’m too broken. It will be peaceful.
policeoutofmentalhealth 