I don't really post much at all on here although a few people may remember me as a much more prolific poster.
I've been a silent observer of this thread from the start wondering if i should make comment or not. It's a wonderful thing and it's only my own personal demons thst has made me pause.
I've experienced mental health problems from both a professional and personal point of view. I'm a mental health nurse and I've worked pretty much every environment going. My main background is acute but ive worked secure, crisis team, rehab, substance misuse etc.
I've suffered from anxiety since i can remember. It's like i have a need to be liked and loved by everyone so i am a complete people pleaser and so although in public i appear to be a confident clown inside it is very different.
I took my first overdose about 10 years ago. It wasn't so much as an intentional overdose, more that the worse things get the more extreme i go with my lifestyle until i don't care anymore. I think that night it was flake and popping opiate painkillers until i passed out. I woke up face down in vomit, if I'd fell a different way i doubt I'd be here.
I picked myself up. Things are always up and down with my mood but like a lot of people you become a master of disguise.
I just poured myself into my work. With no partner or kids i moved around, getting what i wanted from the job then leaving for promotions and somewhere new.
I started managing an acute ward. It was in bad shape when i arrived but i got rid of all the bad eggs and recruited a new team who were inexperienced but full of passion. We worked together for 2 years and they were like family. Then the hospital was taken over and they changed the spec. They started taking referrals that i felt unsafe for the environment. I wanted to protect the team and the patients and tried to battle the exec team and obviously lost.
They got rid of me and i went downhill fast. I was too proud to let anyone see me down. I turned into Charlie Sheen (minus the AIDS and sadly Bree Olson) and eventually hit rock bottom.The girl i was seeing turned out to be shallow and falseand that hurt me. I just remember waking up in a hospital bed with the crisis team looking at me. I obviously knew them personally and I got them to put it down on my record as accidental alcohol poisoning and came back to Liverpool.
My anxiety became so bad i struggled to even leave the house. I became obsessed with cooking and would spend the entire day cooking and watching cookery shows.
Eventually with a kick up the arse from an antidepressant i started to ride my bike a bit outside and from there gradually became able to go in public again.
I took a job managing an acute step down hospital. I was promoted to manage the acute services. But i was struggling. I had a team unwilling to change their culture and an exec team unwilling to back my changes. I spent 10 months in a place where i couldn't trust anyone and it was a completely hostile working environment.
I'm on the sick now but im not going back.
I can't go back, someone or some staff have been compiling a list of things I've allegedly done and so im suspended pending investigation. I hate it there anyway.
Ive been prescribed lots of antidepressants in the past but it's my anxiety mainly that leads to my low mood. I didn't want to go on an antidepressant only and so i took a short course of benzos. I had been prescribed proprano
previously but ineffectively and I asked the gp to give me pregabalin because i shouldn't be taking the proprano
with my asthma.
One of my nurses was a good friend and we started a relationship. She broke up with me this week. I've had the pregabalin pushed up to the max dose but im eating them like sweets and taking double my mirtazapine to get to sleep.
I feel like i did before but not despairing more like resigned. I feel like ive been fixed just to be smashed into pieces again. And it's not like i want to die anymore, i just don't care if i live. So at the moment i am in Charlie Sheen mode, last night i cut and pasted the same message to girls on a dating site until i got some redhead to come to mine and then even after she left i was wanking like a safari park chimp to babestation daytime until the rum and pregabalin made me pass out.
I woke up at teatime today. I just feel numb. Everyone i know is getting married and having kids, i have absolutely material to show for my life, no wife, no house no cat.
But I've been offered a chance to work overseas and i am going for it. It's my lifeline because if i stay here i think im done.
Apologies for the long and rambling message, I'm not asking or expecting help.
I don't know why i wrote it really, only to unload and put it in black and white for myself and because I have read this thread for so long with pride and admiration really.