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Sunday 3 April 2011

Psychiatric Breakdown

I've been away from bloggin for a while because I have been in crisis.
It all started in February when my boyfriend of six years decided to end the relationship.  Naturally I am devastated and it came as a complete shock.  I knew things weren't great but believed it was because we were both working too hard and stressed.  When he told me I broke down and had to get a friend to take me to the doctor where he took one look at me and tried to gt me to go to the clinic.  I refused.
He then called J, who came immediately and took me home where he had instructions to stay with me.  I went to bed and slept for a very long time.  I crawled to work the next day, no idea how. Although I went to the snowbar and ordered copious amounts of red wine in a coffee cup so that my boss wouldn't see what I was really drinking.  Friends were supportive though but I knew it would be a five minute wonder and then forgotten.
So we were then living in the same apartment for a while, which was awful.  There were a couple of timed when he persuaded me to sleep in our bed rather than in the spare room and he tried it on with me.  Against my heart I refused to have sex with him - I knew I wouldn't be able to hack the emotional fallout.
Cue an emotional few weeks living in limbo.  I then announced I had found a studio apartment and would be moving out to which he responded there was no rush and that I didn't need to move out.  I decided that I had to, I hated living how we were and in the cold, lonely spare room with just my cat for company.
All was going OK, just a waiting game until I moved, when the crunch came.  Although I have been trying to control my alcohol consumption, I drank, went "home" with J an d we had a massive row.  It brought up all my feelings of inadequacy and filed relationships.  I phoned my friend in England and told her about the row, at the same time popping packets of pills and forming a big pile of them next to me  When I put the phone down (J had gone to bed) I ran them through my hands a few times and then in a split second, before I even realised what I was doing, I took them.
The thing that saved my life was my cat.  He walked in and looked at me and all I could think of was how much I would be letting him down.  So I phoned my GP.  He was brilliant.  I stumbled to the surgery just behind my apartment and he immediately arranged for me to go to hospital.  Of course, living in a mountain town this involves a lot more organisation.  He arranged for a taxi from the surgery to the station and called the local equivalent of St John's ambulance to accompany down the mountain while he wrote a summary for the hospital.  Needless to say, they had to "hold" the next train for me and I was stretchered into the luggage compartment.  Frau W kept me awake by talking to me all the time on the 15 minute train journey to meet the ambulance in the valley.  That's when I passed out. (I have seen her since and thanked her).
Next thing I remember was being in the hospital being made to drink charcoal (which I spilt everywhere - I just wanted to sleep and figured if I just gulped it down they would leave me alone) and having a tube stuck up my nose to the back of my throat (but I don't think they pumped my stomach).  Next thing I remember is the next day when they woke me becaue my doctor phoned.  I don't remember the conversation but apparently J on finding my ski school jacket not there and me not in bed had wandered the village trying to find me and eventually gone to the doctors surgery.  Unfortunately my doctor had not phoned me.  He then went to a bar by which time the rumours were going round the small town and people were asking him if it was true that I was in hospital.  He told everyone to leave him alone and so no-one knew what was going on and didn't visit as they weren't sure if it was OK.
When I came round on the Tuesday it was enough to send an SMS to my friends and tell them what had happened.  My Aussie friend M, who I only met this winter but clicked straight away, immediately got the train down to the hospital to visit me.
In the meantime the lovely nurse looking after me helped me get up for a shower and change of gown.  I felt woozy and tired and had the lovely experience of having a catheter taken out.  And I also felt very sad and very embarrassed - how could I go home and how could I face J after this?  They were going to move me to another ward when M arrived and so I asked if I could go home if she accompanied me, which they agreed to.
M was brilliant.  She brought me home and stayed with me the whole day, making me join her and her boyfriend for a meal in the evening.  I also went and saw my good friend G who was working and he hugged me and wouldn't let me go.  M made sure every day I got outside and met up.  For someone that hardly knows me she was a tower of strength.
Of course, I knew I had to see my psychiatrist, but he was on holiday and luckily one of the psychologists who had visited me in hospital arranged an appointment and we put together an emergency action plan.  We also talked about the power of cats to have this sixth sense that something was wrong!
I still feel so embarrassed and it is like a dream - I still can't get my head around it.  But pills are definitely the way to go, as I had always thought.  The suicidal thought have subsided but I am being kept a close eye on because I moved into my new Studio and they are all worried I will try the same again because I am on my own now.

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