Breaking Point… Nowhere To Run

I’m S. I suffer with bipolar disorder. I was bullied all through school and had trouble making friends. I was raped when I was six then again at 12 after which I attempted suicide. I grew up with a perfect family. I have always been extremely close to my mam, dad and sisters. Last year I found out my dad is not my biological father when someone emailed me saying that I’m there sister. I now have 7 new brothers and sisters and a biological father who is currently in rehab. My family hasn’t changed but I haven’t coped with it I’ve just pushed it to the back of my mind. I am in university. I quit the first year because I couldn’t cope but I started again last September thinking I was better but a week after I started I found out about my dad. I am in loads of debt because the only thing that makes me feel better is buying useless crap off eBay. Just to open parcels to see what’s inside. I also have anxiety problems. I can’t be in a large group of people without having a panic attack which then makes me more nervous. When I was 15 my mother had a dvt (blood clot) after the doctor told her for months it was nothing she went into hospital to find she could have died and needed an op straight away. She then needed a second op which had a 70% chance of working and it didn’t work. She then had a bad reaction to morphine and almost died again. She was then left disabled and unable to walk long distances and because my step father had to leave work to look after her they had no income so no car so my mother developed depression from being stuck inside all the time. There was a 3 year battle to get disability allowance and finally she got it but she is now using that to clear the debt she got into. The depression has now developed into psychosis and she is seriously unwell. The mental health team she is supposed to be seeing is neglecting her and a carer who comes around keeps telling her to go to the gym on her own to help with the depression but she can’t because of her disability. She has been neglected by her mother and the NHS and there is nothing I can do. I’ve had a lot to deal with and I don’t know what to do. I can’t afford to pay for her to have private health care and she can’t afford it either. I’m the only family they’ve got so there’s not even anyone to lend us money to get help. I really really don’t know what to do to get her help. Everyone’s treating her illnesses separately and her medications are all counteracting. She needs to be treated by one person who can take everything into consideration not separate people for separate things because they don’t care about the other problems they just care about what they specialise in. the mental health team she is supposed to be seeing have forgotten about her so now she’s got no one. I’m trying to look after her and concentrate on university at the same time. TY SIRIOL have been completely useless.

It’s been 4 days since I wrote this. In that time I’ve found out my 15 year old sister could be pregnant and has been cutting herself. Each time something’s goes wrong I finally get my head straight ready to solve the problem and something else comes along. If my sister is pregnant I think that could be the end for me. I cannot express how much I want a baby. My own child to look after and love. But I don’t want to bring a child into the world until my life is sorted and my head is stable. But I couldn’t bear the thought of my sister having a child before me. The one thing I want most in my life. If I was told I couldn’t have kids as far as I know my life is over. Every time I see a baby I cry.

I’ve just found an email I sent when I was 17. Before I was diagnosed. I still find it hard to read but the problems I had then are nowhere near what they are now. When I read the email it’s strange, I can remember sitting there typing it, I can remember what the room looked like, what it felt like and strangely what it smelt like. I remember exactly how I feel it’s so strange.

“Please help me. I don’t have anyone to talk to and I need to get this out. It’s been going on too long and I don’t know how much longer I can contain myself.

I’m 17, doing A levels in school and yet everything in my life seems to be wrong, like I’ve got nothing to wake up too in the morning. My life seems to be moving in slow motion, it’s as if times stopped, or it rushes by and I’ve stopped. I’ve lost everyone I used to talk too and now I have got no one because everyone and everything irritates me and gets on my nerves. I’ve completely isolated myself from the world and I have panic attacks when someone tries to talk to me. I get anxious about everything because I forget things like to shut a door and nothing I do is ever right anyway. I got taken into hospital 2 years ago after attempting suicide and I was nowhere near the state I’m in now. I can’t control what my mind thinks, it thinks about things I don’t want it to think about and I can’t stop it thinking about it. It’s incontrollable and so are my moods. I’ve always been like this but the past year has been hell.

I don’t know what happened to me, I just stopped, stopped everything. Stopped talking to everyone, stopped going to sleep at nights, stopped smiling and stopped going to school and the rest of the world carried on, it was like I was stuck and couldn’t move. I felt like I was suffocating, but that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want people to talk to me because I was scared of what they were thinking or what they would say back, I didn’t want to smile because I couldn’t, I didn’t want to sleep because I knew I wouldn’t have the motivation to get out of bed in the morning and I didn’t want to go to school because it was hell. It’s hard to explain exactly what happened but basically I was in a four year relationship with ‘L’ but I had been having an affair with ‘B’. My best friend ‘K’s boyfriend was ‘B’s best friend. K didn’t like L and convinced me to leave him for B and stupidly I did, I left L feeling like it was right at the time and got with B but me and B ended up arguing and splitting up every 2 days or so and getting back together. I wanted to end it but he didn’t. Then I started talking to my brother’s best mate N whose girlfriend moved to Spain in the middle of the night without telling anyone. When people seen that I was talking to him they assumed I was cheating on B when I wasn’t, I was merely giving N some support. So B finished me by text and K text me a load of abuse saying I did this I did that, then she and B got together meaning I had lost my best friend. Me and N got close and started going out but everyone in school took Bs side. So everyone completely pushed me away in school. And now I’m stuck, I’m scared of what I’ve become, I don’t know what happened, it’s like the rest of the world carried on and I was stuck. I thought I’d stay away from school for a while till everything calms down but it took me 2 months to go back. I only go about once a week because I’m so scared of everything. I have no friends and no one to talk to, I can’t even see my youth mentor anymore because she’s never in and I’m too scared of what shell think or what she’ll say. I’m scared of what people think and say when I walk out of a room so I just don’t go in. I’m scared of everything. I’ve lost all my friends including my best friend. I’ve had enough of everything, I hate school, and I can’t even go in the common room because it’s got people in it. I can’t sit in a room with people in it, so I sit alone all day. In my lessons I’ll sit on my own, I can’t concentrate, there’s no point me being there. I’m failing all because of my mind and not being able to control what it does. Drama is one of my subjects in school but I’m underachieving in it because I can’t talk to people in the group, my drama teacher always used to put me down and since then my confidence was low anyway but since the incident its near enough none existent. No one understands what’s going on in my head and I can’t even explain it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I know there’s something wrong. My new boyfriend N is amazing, he’s all I’ve got but I don’t think he’s going to stay with me much longer because of all this, he’s going to realize how pathetic I am and he’s going to leave me. I’m so so so scared of losing him I can’t even say it, he’s all I’ve got and he’s the only person who can make me smile. He’s the reason I’m living, if it wasn’t for him I’d be dead. I might sound like I’m rambling on but I just want someone to know what I’m feeling. I need someone to tell me they’re there. I need someone. I hate school, I sit around on my own all day, and I can’t even walk through the corridors or go to the canteen. I sit in the one room and if that’s got a lesson in it then I have nowhere and I go home even if I got lessons later in the day. School is hell, no one knows what I’m like, and no one knows what I’m feeling or what I’m thinking. I’m always cold, I’m always down. It’s like there’s a big black cloud over my life, I just want to move away from here, somewhere sunny and start a new life… I hate talking. I hate looking, I hate everyone and everything. I just want to lie in my bed and fall asleep and never have to get up. I hate how I can’t get a diagnosis. I know there’s something wrong I just don’t know what. When I’m down its unreal, I cry and cry and cry about everything and anything, but then one little thing will happen like I’ll get a text off N and I will feel like the happiest girl on earth, and I cry because I’m so happy. I get so happy I’m sad about it, it’s such an awful feeling, it’s like I want to feel happy forever but I’m scared of it, like I’m scared of being happy but it’s all I want. There’s never an in-between, it’s ecstatic or as low as it can go.

I’m messed up. I argue with my boyfriend because I need constant reassurance that he cares otherwise I panic he’s going to leave me, I can’t control my own mind. He keeps lying to me, I know he does. I caught him out and he still lies. It’s like I know what he’s thinking, I know when he’s lying, and I even know what the truth is when he lies, even if it’s only something small. I know where he is who he’s with and what he’s doing without him telling me anything, I just get feelings, and once those feelings are in my head I can’t stop my mind wandering off thinking other things. I see a psychologist but it doesn’t seem to be helping. I want a diagnosis. I hate how my mind wandered off to stupid things, always about losing N. always about what he’s doing where he is and who he’s with. It’s like I don’t trust him, I really really want to trust him but I’m scared of getting hurt. I don’t want to be caught unexpected like. I feel like he’s not happy with me anymore, because of this. When we first got together it was amazing, I really really was happy, but then he changed, he doesn’t feel the same about me and I want things to go back to how they were those first few months, Because every day I wish I could go back and re live them, . It hurts so much. I’m going to lose him and there’s nothing I can do. I seriously need help. I need someone to talk to, for someone to give me advice, I tried emailing a teacher, but all she ignored it. I’m having trouble at home too, my mother is disabled and my step father can’t work because my mother needs constant care, but we are not receiving and disability living allowance due to a communication problem with the doctor and the DLA so we are living off money I earn from work, £20 to feed a family of 4 a week. We are still waiting for a tribunal but it’s a lot of pressure and it’s causing extra stress. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t seem to get the right help anywhere; I just need someone to talk too.”

Today’s been a tough day…

It’s 30 Jan. I went to meet Darren my biological father yesterday. It was strange. He seemed to be doing really well. He looked old and brittle. He kept telling me I looked like my sisters. Anyway it all went fine and I was happy. I woke up this morning to texts and messages on my Facebook saying Darren had been rushed into hospital ill. Then more messages saying had had a stroke and got pneumonia. I tried to push it to the back of my head but then 2 hours later I had a message saying he had less than 24 hours to live. My boyfriend took me to pick one of my sisters up and we went to the hospital. This was the first time I’d met my sisters. It was really strange. We have so much in common. I went in to see Darren in intensive care. He looked like he was sleeping but had loads of wires and tubes. It was horrible. He felt really cold. I don’t know what I’m thinking right now. I’m really confused. I feel mixed emotions…  confused….. There’s always something going wrong. I met my new family in the worst circumstances and I think it’s my fault for giving him such a shock yesterday when I went to see him….

31^st Jan… Haven’t slept at all. Spent the whole night thinking about Darren. When I went to see him Sunday he took a photo of us together on his phone. It’s the only photo ever of us together. I want to somehow get that photo. I went to visit him today. The nurses managed to wake him and everything seemed fine. I went in with Jessica. Darren didn’t know who she was, when he realised he started crying. When jess told him Ashley was going to see him he got really upset, I think he was just so happy. He kept looking at me and looking away. I couldn’t speak; I didn’t know what to say. When jess said Starr’s here too he asked who and couldn’t remember me. Then when he seen me properly he started crying again. It was heart-breaking. He can’t talk he can just about manage a few words. It was so hard to see him like that. I’m going to leave it a few days before I see him again. I feel ill again.

Natalie gave me some photos, there’s one of her where she looks like my twin. We look pretty much identical. It’s scary. I’ve never been this tired before. I feel absolutely drained. I’m not going to university tomorrow. I can’t face it.

Been a while since I wrote on here. Haven’t seen Darren since, heard he’s out of hospital. My whole family is upset; they’re scared I’m going to replace them with my new family. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to do. I’m trying to keep everyone happy. My mums still ill, my stepdad phoned me saying he doesn’t know whether he can stick it much longer. Again it’s all put on me. I can’t concentrate on anything. I’ve got tons of uni work to do I just can’t find the motivation.

Had an argument with my housemates. I’m constantly cleaning up after them and they don’t appreciate it. They have a go at me for everything. I hate them. I want to move out. They make me so angry leaving all their dirty dishes when they go away for the weekend. I wouldn’t clean them but it’s the saucepans which I need to use so I have to clean them.

I have no money left and I’m going on holiday. I’m fucked….. Too much going on for me to think straight. Had an argument with the housemates again. They gang up on me when I’m on my own with no one to help defend me.