A whole blog-free week later and where am I?
Still in hospital, still not stable, still stigmatising myself.
The first two probably come as no surprise to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of mental illness and their treatment but I reckon the third one almost comes as a surprise, even to me….almost.
Last weekend I went home and when I came back to the hospital on Monday I was depressed. I’d been depressed all weekend actually, was depressed even before I got through my own front door on Friday but I hid it well.
I spent the weekend doing what people do- cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, shopping and crying (though I probably did more crying than most people this weekend). My stubbornness and determination to prove ‘I could do it’ was the only thing that stopped me retreating back to the hospital on Saturday.
So I stayed at home all weekend and proved I could do ‘it’ and it turned out to be a refusal to accept that I am ill and will need and deserve time to recover properly. It is giving myself a hard time because things I used to do easily are a lot more difficult now. It is a refusal to ask for and accept help, it was exhausting.
Truthfully, I don’t know how I did my life before, being exposed to one small part of it this weekend left me in a mess.
So the Lithium isn’t doing it’s job- yet, I will stay where I am and cross my fingers and if I go home this weekend I will take my metaphorical crutches and wheelchair so everyone, including me, knows not to expect too much.