(This blog post contains a TW for mentions of suicide. I wouldn’t normally speak in so much detail about it, but for the purposes of this post it needs to be said.)
A few weeks ago I nearly died.
This may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. A few weeks ago I found myself at a motorway service station when I should have been at uni.
I found myself trying to bring myself to run out into traffic, stood by the fence. I had a panic attack and hyperventilated. Collapsed to the floor.
A woman came over, a kind lady. Who stroked my shoulder. Asked me if I was okay, I couldn’t speak to her. She called an ambulance and then had to leave.
She was the first person to come over. I had been panicking and trying to harm myself for around an hour before someone noticed me.
I was in my uniform. My nursing uniform. I had every intention when I woke up that I was going to uni regardless of how shit I felt.
But then it all built up, and panic overrode everything. I wanted to crash my car. When I pulled over I ended up still wanting to hurt myself.
I had been trying to access help for years. With no success.
A few weeks prior to this I had been put under the care of the crisis team when my parents had found suicide notes in my bedroom.
The crisis team were seeing me once a week but only with the aim of keeping me alive not me actually getting better.
When the ambulance came and got me from the services I felt numb. I knew in this moment that my nursing career was over before it begun. The one thing that had kept me going was going to be taken away from me.
But I sort of didn’t care at the same, I mean I few moments earlier I was ready to give up my whole life.
I struggled to really anything to paramedics. When I got to the hospital I was given a bay in majors.
The only people who knew I was there was my best friends and the lady who called the ambulance.
I couldn’t tell my family.
I felt ashamed that I had got to that place again.
I was seen by a Dr who did blood tests as I had been taking regular overdoses, and then eventually seen by the mental health team.
In this case it was a psychiatric nurse who saw me. She asked me questions, I tried my best to answer. But my brain didn’t want me to speak to her.
When I had finished, I said to her “I’m still going to kill myself”.
She went and spoke to my crisis to come up with a plan. I was sent back to my bed..
I called my stepdad. He came to the hospital as quickly as he could.
The mh nurse told him what she told me. That I would be discharged, as there was no where for me to go.
Even though, I honestly thought I was going to die. I was terrified, my brain was telling me I was going to not stop until I was dead.
I spent the next few days in bed. Not really leaving my room for anything except to see the crisis team once.
I was furious in my appt with them, even though I knew it wasn’t their fault as individuals. I was so mad that I still hadn’t got any help.
I was trying to help myself but there was nothing I could do, I don’t like myself. Why would I want to help myself?
After that appointment I went back home and back to my bed and cried.
I honestly felt like nothing was ever going to change.
I went to my next appointment and got told that I was being offered DBT and it would start the following week.
I have now had about 5/6 sessions of it and it is okay. It’s hard but it’s early days.
But I’m glad I’m getting some help. I’m furious though at how long it took me.
I’m not expecting for everything to be done for me, please don’t think that.
But I nearly died before I got help. And I know it’s a common theme.
If your friend or family member is going through a crisis then do what my friends did and be there. You don’t have to understand, you just need to be there if they need you. At the end of a phone is good enough.
Read up on their diagnosis (if they have one) -I got shouted at for not explaining my diagnosis to my dad. I asked him to read up on it but he said he’d rather hear it from me. It would have been easier and more comfortable for him to read it online.
If you’re going through this then I’m sorry, just try not to give up, whatever you do. It’s hard, it’s beyond bloody hard. But you are so worth it.
I feel like I have lost everything in terms of my future because of EUPD and not getting help. But I have my friends who I adore and my family whose hearts are in the right place.
As the election is coming up I want to say, vote wisely. People are being failed by the healthcare system as there is not enough money.
Vote for who is going to save it.
Much love,
Abz XXX
Samaritans (phone line)- 116 123
Samaritans (text line)-07725909090
Crisis text line Text SHOUT to 85258
There's Been a Change in Me 