I feel myself slipping. Slipping into the underground world. When you are in this much pain you will accept relief anywhere. I want heroine, but I don’t know anyone or anywhere who has it. My friends are not part of this world which is enticing me like the deceptively calm waters of a rip, pulling me so far away from the shore that I barely know who I am anymore. I heard there is a man in the neighbourhood who does drugs. He works as a logger, frequently bringing wood home and chain sawing it or grinding it in his machine, subjecting the whole neighbourhood to his incessant noise. He has kids who are just as loud and obnoxious and love riding motor bikes around the yard. Apparently he even owns a gun and has threatened the neighbours with it before. I used to hate him, but now I think about knocking on the door and asking if he can help me.

Alcohol is easier to get hold of. I never understood why people drank until now. I enjoy getting intoxicated. My head begins to spin. The whole room begins to spin. I cannot do anything but stumble into bed. For a while things don’t bother me like they used to, even noise. It’s like being in a room lined with cushions. I feel like I’m floating in some kind of alternate universe. I can tell it is a heavy substance. I used to guard my body and not allow stuff like this in, but now I am breaking all my rules. My doctor said if I mix the alcohol with my medications I could stop breathing. I didn’t tell him, but that’s kinda what I want. 

The mental health system has completely taken over and destroyed my life. I no longer study, I don’t work, I rarely see friends, I have clinical depression and some of the medications I’ve been given have left me with new problems I didn’t already have. I don’t buy new clothes thinking they would be nice to wear to a party or night out. I think “this would be nice to wear when I see my case worker Jordan”. Sad, huh? That is why it’s so devastating this talk of discharge. It’s like losing everything. I’ve been trying to turn to my friends more…. open up to them and strengthen those relationships. One friend, however, asked me to stop talking about suicide with her as she finds it too distressing. I felt so alone in all of this. 

The service is stuck in the medical model. If they’re not experimenting on people with drugs, they feel useless. They don’t recognise how important relationships are, even though research now shows that what influences recovery most is not the kind of therapy we’re doing but the strength of the relationship we have with our worker/therapist.

I feel invisible to them. If I’m not manic or psychotic they don’t care. Somebody who knows the system all too well told me if I want to stay longer then I’ve got to act like I’m hearing voices. I’ve got to walk around screaming at the voices and when asked who I’m talking to say “I can’t tell you”. Then I’ve got to scream at the wall, whisper to the window and “have an argument with the chair”. I must never say what is really happening, that will never help me. If I explain I am sick and I need to stay they will think “who are you to think this, we know best not you.” They equate level of “insight” with level of wellness. I’m told they have a whole lot of people who are really sick needing their service. How can they not see that I am sick too, even after two hospital admissions in a fortnight, two catatonic episodes, suicidal thoughts every single day, and a public outburst where I was screaming and kicking the walls of my psychologist’s foyer. Still, my case worker will not take back the threat of discharge. I wish he could walk in the shoes of someone suffering from BPD for just one day. I think they’re a bunch of abusers who do what they like to people. They will discharge people like me even when it traumatises them. And they will make other people stay, forcing them to take medication even when that traumatises them. What they’re looking at in me right now is not just autism. This is PTSD, and my psychologist will agree with me on that. They are traumatising someone just to make space for someone who doesn’t even want to be part of their service. It’s wrong on every level. My parents are fighting for me to stay on and are waiting to hear back from my case worker’s boss right now. They are upset they weren’t consulted about this. 

Today I saw one of the doctors at the clinic and he took my weight. I had lost a few kilograms since I last weighed myself. I felt very pleased, and want to lose more. I like to look as impoverished as I feel on the inside. I like it when people can see there is something seriously wrong.

I will continue to bleed my feelings onto this blog. One day, if I survive this, I may publish all of my blog entries. “It is writing that truly rescues, that enables us to reach the shore, to recover,” said Bell Hooks.