At lunchtime I was telling my best-friend how we weren't going to the Hearing Voices group in the nearby city and that I was worried this meant the Ward Doctor would be wanting to see me. After lunch, we were waiting to go to group when she came along and asked why I wasn't at the group. Once I told her she said 'oh! That means we can talk?' My friend burst out laughing so we agreed on 2pm and I went upstairs to group to read my book (a book review will follow in good time) and then after, I hoped the Doctor would've forgotten about the 1:1 but at 2pm on the dot she was knocking on my door! We ended up chatting for an hour and a quarter about so much! We talked about the voices and my mood. We talked about my 'trauma' too. I've always said that what happened was more complicated than people realised but the 1:1 made me realise it was even more complicated than I had realised. She spoke to me about how the 'trauma' made me feel and explained that when the 'trauma' happened I lost a lot... Not just faith and trust in people of authority...
She also made me understand the blame game and that I was blaming myself for the entire thing because no one else was taking any blame. She asked how I knew that the other person involved in the 'trauma' wasn't taking any and I said as long as they weren't in prison or dead they weren't. She tried proving all of my 'negative beliefs' wrong and we talked a bit about hope because she said I appeared to have lost quite a lot of it. And she tried saying that they needed to help me make peace with my past and I said that I'd made peace with my future and the idea that I would end up dead. She asked how I could be at peace with something like that. I explained how everyone has the natural instinct to survive and so at first, I would overdose or self-harm and I'd get help or I'd stop the bleeding. But slowly, I programmed myself not to react in that way. When I was admitted to this Hospital I got my survival instinct back and now I'm losing it again. . . She asked how I could do that and I told her that every time I start to doubt my plan or feel happy, I remind myself of all the pain and badness. She told me that the new Psychologist will be starting next week and that they'll be rushing me through to see them.
After the 1:1, I felt very tired! It was actually physically draining to have worked so hard mentally! For the first time though, I had a bit of hope again. I always had this reluctance to believe that talking about the 'trauma' would make a difference. I always said that I'd talked about it and felt no different. But today made me see, that talking about it could help. Because the more I talk and the more I realise more about it, the more I can understand it. And if you can't understand something then you can't deal with it or accept it.
Finally, to cheer us all up, two of us played a prank on the staff... We ran round the ward with signs we'd made for all of the doors... The ward door had one on reading 'warning: may contain nuts,' the quiet room said 'the padded cell,' the activity room said 'let the games begin,' the security cupboard became 'staff's chocolate cupboard,' the staff office was 'the zoo,' the meeting room (where ward round is held) became 'the torture chamber, warning: Doctors roam free,' our Ward Manager's office was 'God's office,' the kitchen; 'may contain sugar,' and the bathroom was 'shit shed warning: may smell,' the laundry room said 'may contain stained sheets.' They were up for about two hours before staff removed them! We all got a well-deserved laugh though!
