Unchartered

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I have divulged before that I knew of some highs and lows through my life but nothing prepared me for January 2021, there had been some family issues which I was dealing with up in the lead up to my first psychosis, I had also had Covid. And it’s been said by many that it was probably Covid that brought out my underlying Biploar. So, there is the scene, there was some quite intense home issues and Covid had also knocked me for six, I spent the whole day going around feverishly cleaning everything I could possibly clean, chucking away anything and everything that didn’t have any use. I had my parents also doing this too. I had also been chucking things in my room into the middle of the floor, making a pile of ‘trash’ literally had glass and everything in this pile. I then left the house and it was during this time I had voices in my head telling me to ‘relinqush control’ and then all of a sudden I was back at my house and I don’t remember leaving the car which I had been in for about 30 minutes. I must have gone inside and I was not really conscious anymore. I remember my sister coming into my room and talking to me and I kept listening out of any hidden messages in anything she had said. I think I went to sleep after that but I don’t really know, the next thing I recall is me running up and down garden with no clothes on (as I said in my previous blog, you want to cut all ties to anything that ties you down), luckily for me this was happening in the middle of the night and I believe only my Mum saw me as I think I was then screaming at some point.

The next part of what happened is muddled up for me, I remember being in the house asking for food and then not eating it. I fell asleep on the sofa and then woke up and this is when I started thinking everyone was dying. I firstly thought my younger sister had died. I then thought my sister was my daughter. I then ended up going to ‘sleep’ in my sisters room and had to have shifts of people sleeping with my as I would wake up every minute thinking someone else had died, sometimes thinking the person next to me had died. I needed to have evidence every time I thought someone had died, to know they were in fact alive. I have no idea how my family got through that night. I carried on like this to the next day and then the ambulance was called to take me. They came in to speak to me and I kept swearing at them as if I had Tourettes and I kept thinking they were some of my friends. I, then had to go into the ambulance and my Mum came with me. It was a really strange journey as I felt like when I looked outside that I could see the streets as if they were as they were many years ago, I don’t really know how to explain it more than that. I think went to Hillingdon hospital and was put into a room with my mum. I was in there for a while and it was a white room and I kept seeing colours on the walls. I then needed to go to the toilet and I remember walking through the hospital waiting room and I kept hearing my ex boyfriends voice calling out my name. Obviously he was not there. I was then taken to a room with a bed and I was on the bed and started doing some random movements and they tried to restrain me but in my head if I did not do these movements I was just be stuck as I am so I resisted the restraining. I was then taken back into the white room and my Dad joined us. I kept thinking he was dying when he was simply nodding off. I, then also thought I was pregnant (my middle sister was) and my Mum had to tell me I wasn’t.

I finally got seen by the mental health team and it was so weird as they were all wearing masks and all I could think of was them looking like ducks. One of the members had a tick and I kept thinking he he was giving me some kind of a signal. After their assessment I was then told I needed to go to Northwick Park Mental Health Unit and it was then when I refused which I why I was then sectioned. And had to stay in the hospital for 28 days. When I was taken to Northwick Park I was let into the ward for a matter of minutes and then was sent straight into seclusion as I was just too unwell to be with the rest of the in patients. I just remember trying to flood the shower. I could then again hear my ex boyfriends voice and that of his friends. I don’t know how long I was in seclusion for but I just remember the staff checking in on me now and again through the glass panel.

I finally came out and was put into a room with my own bathroom, over the next few weeks I made some really good friends and the majority of them were also Bipolar so I now had someone to talk to that I could relate to. Going through that experience is nothing I want to go through again but in reality I made some friends and learnt the first thing about resilience. I came home to a room I’d completely trashed and my parents and family had to sort it out for me.