Things have not got better since I overdosed. They say when you hit rock bottom the only way is up. But as I’ve said before, the ground can continue to cave in under your feet. The fall is endless. For five days I have remained so distressed the only way to get through was to take sedatives and hope they would be kind enough to put me to sleep. Even though I had dreams of being strangled it was still better than being awake. I could not stand being conscious. I was angry all the time, couldn’t do anything and wanted to overdose again and kill myself. I didn’t even know what was causing all this. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I tried to do some internal family systems therapy on myself. “Who are you?” I asked my inner “family” of parts/personalities, but I got no response back. At one point I wondered if I had a demon attached to me.

My psychologist says that the end of the year is always a particularly rough time for me. I had my last session of the year with her on Monday. I made sure I arrived on time so we could have the full hour as it was an important session. I was in a critical state and hadn’t seen her for ages as I’d been in hospital. I waited in the reception area for ten minutes not knowing what the fuck she was doing inside her office. Then she finally came out. She then finished the session right on the dot. I said hey, I was waiting for you for 10 minutes, you owe me another 10 minutes. She told me sessions are actually 50 minutes, not an hour (despite being billed for an hour). I was sick of the bread crumbs of support I get from her. She is away all the time, won’t even read my emails anymore, and next year she will be even more unavailable as she has placement (she is training to be a clinical psychologist). I can’t believe she let me walk out of her office in the state I was in. I sat in the car and cried on the phone to Lifeline. We had a chat but no help was arranged. I was lucky I didn’t have an accident on the way home. I stopped at my mum’s as we were going to have dinner together. I told her I wanted to kill myself. All I got was unwanted advice, and CBT. She asked me what I was thinking as my thoughts are what’s causing all this.

I reached out to another therapist I used to see. He called CAT (Crisis and Assessment Team). For a while I was in contact with a woman there who was just as useless as everyone else. She told me suicide is selfish.

Finally, yesterday, I called my private psychiatrist. His receptionist answered. I told her what was going on. I shortly got a call from another lady from CAT. She took me seriously finally and wanted me to go to hospital. She arranged for an ambulance to come to my house, but said there would be a bit of a wait. I got a call from a psychiatric person working for Ambulance Victoria and she said to call them back if things got worse. Unfortunately they did get worse. My OCD reared its ugly head and I couldn’t stop pacing around the house and cursing as I tried to find my glasses case. My dad finally lost it.

“STOP IT!!!!!!!!” He screamed at me.

“I can’t help it!!!!!!!!!” I screamed back.

He got up from the living room chair and approached me. I thought he was going to hit me.

I went back to my room. I then overheard him screaming on the phone to my mum.

“I can’t stand her!!!!!” he screamed. “I can’t stand the mess!!!! She should be institutionalised!!!!”

I wanted to kill myself even more hearing this. I thought everyone would be better off without me around. I started grabbing at whatever pills were in reach and taking them. I then thought I better call 000 again, as they said if things got worse call them back. I told them things were getting worse, but they did nothing.

I had an appointment with my old therapist. I left behind my now crying dad, telling him I was sorry, dragged myself into the car and drove there (it was only a couple of minutes down the road). I screamed and cried and spent the session lying on the floor. Then my dad called me to tell me the ambulance had finally arrived. I returned home to find an ambulance and police outside my house.

I got in the ambulance but was so drained from the day I could barely talk. There was a bit of a wait for a bed at the hospital, and I was asked if I could wait in the waiting area so the paramedics were free to attend to other calls. This time I said NO, as last time I was left in there for hours in an extremely distressed state with no support. I ended up losing it, screaming, throwing chairs and being restrained. I didn’t want that to happen again.

I got a bed in the emergency department, and was shortly seen by someone from the psych team. He wanted to send me back home, but also wanted to get rid of the things in my house that I planned to kill myself with. I find comfort having these things, and got extremely distressed that he wanted to take away my “exit” from this hellish world/life. They belonged to me, and it was my right to opt out of life if I wanted. I wanted this conversation to end. I ended up grabbing my bag and making a bee line, pushing aside my nurse who was standing outside my cubical at the computer. I ran through the hospital like a wild animal in my pink pony dress.

“NO!!!!!!!” I screamed, as I tried to find an exit.

“Would you like a nice cup of milo?” a woman nurse asked me. I ignored her.

“That’s not the way out,” someone else said.

I kept on running.

“Call a code,” I vaguely remember the psych man saying.

I ran down a corridor and tried to open the door at the end. It wouldn’t open. Then I noticed a green button to the right. I pressed the button and the door opened. I tried to get through but the nurses and psych man pushed it shut again. I was screaming and hysterical. A lady nurse spoke to me very gently and kindly, and in the end I resigned. She sat me down and I was shaking. Then she walked me back to my bed. I passed a whole group of people standing around who I assume had responded to the “code”.  I crawled into bed. The nice lady rubbed my back and I was given some diazepam.

The psych man came back and told me he was putting an “assessment order” on me. I would stay in the psychiatric unit and be seen by a psychiatrist the next day. I would most likely stay for only a few days. As usual, when you ask for an admission, they won’t give you one. But when you don’t want to stay they force it on you. Hospitals don’t like admitting patients with BPD, but will happily keep you here if you’re psychotic.

So, here I am, back in hospital for the zillionth time this year. I’m actually so relieved to be here. I feel heaps better. I’m scared I’m getting dependent and almost addicted to hospital though and being “rescued”. I have such little support outside of hospital, and never got the help, attention and care I needed growing up. Hospital is the only place where I feel looked after. And now, after those awful things my dad said, I don’t know if I want to go back to his place (even though he apologised). I feel like an exile. I just have no where to go after this. No where that feels like home. Hospital is the closest thing I have to home.