It has been a while! Hello. Hopefully you’ll be pleased to hear that the time since my last post has been spent working especially hard on becoming more well (I struggle to use the word Recovery for some reason…I think because I feel it is thrown around a bit flippantly). I have made a hell… Continue reading Challenging Thoughts & Feelings
Category: placement
The Not Knowing Stance
Absolutely key to Mentalization Based Treatment, of which I am very fortunate to be undergoing in an intensive rehabilitation iinpatient service. I am almost 14 months in and for the first time am seeing significant positive change and hope for the future.
“You’re worth it, Molly”
The team here really are going above and beyond to help me cope with an operation that my mum is having at the end of the week, and their willingness to be flexible and supportive means that I will get to be there for here at the most important times whilst making sure that I get through it as emotionally unscathed as possible. When I thanked them for all they are doing, the above was their response. Words that are hard to take on and truly believe but that they are proving their belief of it to me through actions.
9 Month Hospital Review: Previously Unimaginable Progress
Today brought my 9 month CPA (Care Planning Approach meeting) at my placement, which I’m at for intensive treatment for Personality Disorder using Mentalization Based Therapy (alongside medication and some other bits and bobs!). These meetings are always stressful for me – and this one brought its own struggles in that I have a very… Continue reading 9 Month Hospital Review: Previously Unimaginable Progress
Things I Never Thought I’d Be Able to Say: 9 Months in to Inpatient Treatment for Personality Disorder
Out of area locked placements for the treatment of personality disorders frequently get a lot of bad press, and I can often see why this is the case. Fortunately, I have been very lucky (finally!) with my current placement which, although it is several hours drive from home and run by a private company (usually… Continue reading Things I Never Thought I’d Be Able to Say: 9 Months in to Inpatient Treatment for Personality Disorder
Re: The Guardian’s Report on Locked Mental Health Rehabilitation Wards – A Patient’s Experience
The Guardian has published an article about locked mental health rehabilitation wards that has a lot of interesting figures in and some perspectives on the purpose and morality of wards such as these existing. This article and the figures within need to be looked at with balance and with regards to whether each ward does… Continue reading Re: The Guardian’s Report on Locked Mental Health Rehabilitation Wards – A Patient’s Experience
6 Months in to Personality Disorder Placement
As I type this, I’ve been meaning to do so for so long that I’m now actually closer to 7 months of being here. Where is here? Well, to me it is the place that has given me hope of a life. For the first and only time, I feel like I no longer am… Continue reading 6 Months in to Personality Disorder Placement
Libraries and Pondering the Future
Finally registered with the local library and got my first book out: ‘Confessions of a Male Nurse’. I’m looking forward to it greatly, especially as I suspect more and more that my future lies in healthcare. ‘Allsorts’ looks intrigued, too… 😉 It’s been a while since I’ve had the concentration to sit and read, and… Continue reading Libraries and Pondering the Future
Small Acts of Kindness
As part of an Occupational Therapy group at my placement we are doing a topic on ‘care’; a member of our group suggested that we make notes to leave in books at the library and what a lovely idea that is! So today I’ve gotten really in to finding some nice messages and making some little cards up to put in there on Monday.
I’ve always loved the idea of doing something like this, thinking that you never know what little thing might brighten someone’s day. And who knows, maybe it will trigger a whole chain of small acts of kindness?
Dishing out advice is so much easier than following it…
As someone who yesterday wrote this: Today I’ve struggled not to dissolve in to tears about the mess of a person I am and the mess of a year I’ve just had. Whether it was comparisons with others (the achievements and lives of my friends, people I went to school with, people I’ve been in… Continue reading Dishing out advice is so much easier than following it…
What is Mentalization? (MBT)
My placement is based upon the Mentalization Based Treatment model; this is a NICE recommended, evidence-based treatment for personality disorders (although it is less well-known than DBT). I’ve had a day where I’ve needed some help distracting myself and keeping busy, so one of the MBT Practitioners here asked me to have a go at summarising Mentalization and the model we work with in to something that can be transformed in to a booklet for staff members (e.g. HCAs and nurses who haven’t had specific training in MBT) and new patients.
This is my first draft and I thought it might be useful to share it more widely for anyone curious about MBT as I know I struggled to find easily-accessible material when this placement was suggested to me.
Painful Contradictions in Mental Health Treatment
I’m having a contrary time at the moment.
On the one hand, I am feeling incredibly awful – dealing with dreadful anniversaries, and a whole host of guilt, shame, self-hatred and fear that go with them.
On the other, I had the most positive CPA I could hope for today in terms of recognition of the work I am putting in to my placement (& the intensive therapy that is part and parcel), the progress I’ve already made, and everyone’s hopes for the positive trajectory of recovery they are currently predicting.
This second point is also making me guilty that I can’t “just be positive” and focus on the blessings of the help and support I am currently receiving that led to as yet unheard of positivity from everyone at the meeting (including myself). But here I am feeling overwhelmingly sad for all I’ve put those around me through and struggling to cope with that guilt.
To try to help get through, I was searching for a positive quote to paint as a reminder for myself, and this one struck a chord…
Monstrous Mental Illness
is a painting I did last week when really struggling; I just needed to get what I was feeling out so it is a rough, emotion-filled picture with no fore-thought or plan. It depicts the dark, overwhelming monster of mental illness feeding on despair and blocking out the colour of the world and vibrancy of life. It can feel like the very substance of ‘you’ is being sucked away, becoming more and more faint, dominated by this inexplicable darkness…yet you know that just out of reach is a colourful, textured and varied world.
A Bit of My Leg Will Be In My Arm
**Trigger Warning: mention of self harm and medical treatment** Today I found out that I need to have surgery to deal with some self harm that otherwise won’t heal. It’s one of those things that I know I have to deal with as potential repercussions of symptoms of my illness such as self harm- although… Continue reading A Bit of My Leg Will Be In My Arm
TOXCITY LEVEL EXCEEDED
TRIGGER WARNING: overdose
Today has been a day of fighting that bastard of a monster who takes control of my head and heart. I think of him like this:
That monster convinced me that even by sitting with other patients or staff I would spread the toxicity inside me to them and even worse that I was having such a bad impact that I couldn’t even just avoid people but would have to die.
I found some tablets on leave. I grabbed them. I meant to take them to punish myself.
But that little bit of Molly somehow battled past the monster long enough for me to grab a member of staff I know and trust. And I wrote a letter explaining, handed it over, and then had a chat with her and a nurse.
The staff were lovely- truly- but I still don’t know if I did the right thing or if it was really selfish of me to not remove myself for the good of everyone else. I still couldn’t sit with my usual group of friends here after the talks and PRN.
A very sad, scared and confused Molly 😦
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