Responsibility

Trigger warning:  Discussion of suicide and thoughts about personal choice in this matter. A little while ago, G and I were discussing death and losing people.  I asked her if she was worried about me killing myself.  She said she worried every day about that. She was upset with me.  Upset that I cannot, much...

Dead Man’s Curve

Trigger warning:  Some discussion of suicidal feelings and planning, one brief reference to methods.  Fortunately, I’m not too worried about labels, so I wasn’t upset this week when my psychologist told me that I was psychotic and retarded. I’m half joking. She was most concerned that I understood and was not upset by the words....

A week in The Lodge – anti-ligature rooms, craft clubs and Jaffa cake dodging

So, my last blog ended with me driving away from A&E in the back of a car with 2 staff from the Crisis Team. If this was a short story, that is where we would leave things. Nice cliff-hanger. Full of possibilities. But life isn’t like that. You don’t get to skip past the crap,...

How I ended up in psychiatric care (the first time around)

Trigger warning: I’m going to tell you about the antecedents to my first stay in residential psychiatric care. Inevitably (for me) this involves some fairly in-depth description of planning my suicide. So, if you think in any way that this is going to be triggering for you, just give it a miss. Please? For me?...

Not a cry for help, or: Oh God, on Thursday I turned into Neil out of the Young Ones

Trigger warning:  The opinions expressed in this post are from the point of view of someone who is suicidal and therefore may not be rational.  If you think you may be triggered by this, please don’t read on.  It’s mostly inane drivel anyway.  Go and do something else instead.  Seriously.  Anything.  Cut your toenails or...

Rapid cycling (without a bike) and how to get kicked out of DBT

So, I didn’t write a blog post last week.  It was a bit of a tough week, one way and another, so I just …. didn’t. Anyway, I'm back to full ranting power this week, so… Over the last few days, I have been experiencing rapid mood cycling.  It is an utterly ridiculous and exhausting...

There is a beauty in broken things; or how to have a friend with suicidal ideation….and how not to take it (too) personally

I'm not writing this week - this week my amazing, courageous and resilient best friend is writing a guest spot......... I have been thinking about writing a guest blog for X for some time now but it was her “Diagnosis and a donut” post that really sparked off my internal responses. It was the lines...

Catch 22 – How to not die

Last week I wrote about why I stay alive. Today I want to talk about how I stay alive. So, let’s imagine that you’ve thought about the reasons for not committing suicide and you’ve decided not to kill yourself.  I have been through that process maybe 4 or 5 times in my life (not really...

The Big Red Button

The last time I was ill, I spent a lot of time researching other people's accounts of mental health problems.  I wanted to know how they survived. I listened, read and watched many interesting and inspiring stories.  A couple have really stuck with me, so if you are interested, I've put links at the bottom...