Throughout my struggle with mental illness, the one thing I've had in my head at all times is "I'm doing this to myself. I am entirely responsible." I might have some people in my life who reply saying "No, it's not your fault, you're not well" or "it's the illness". I rarely have anyone agree with me. Until today.
I saw the doctor. I was scheduled to see him anyway to discuss my mood but I could tell as soon as I started speaking about how things have been that there was judgement. He was sitting thinking, "This woman is doing this to herself and she knows it." He may as well have said it. In fact, what he said was close enough to it to impact me into writing this.
Here's a little background: I went about 4 months totally codeine free. Towards the end, I had a couple of slip-ups and then I went completely free again for another nearly 2 months. At the end of that, I had a complete breakdown. I ended up in hospital after taking a full strip of codeine/ibuprofen and about a half bottle of vodka. It was embarrassing. It's still embarrassing. The lack of control that led me to that situation is difficult to think about. After it happened, I again went without codeine or alcohol for a little while.
"A little while" means less than a week (or until I discovered I had a box of codeine/ibuprofen I forgot to throw away). At first I was thinking: "I'll just use this pack up. That couldn't hurt, right?" Unfortunately this meant that when I would have a difficult time, I had some codeine right there. Right there to overdose on.
So I overdosed on it. Then I did it again. And again. Then I bought some cocodamol since it was so cheap. I overdosed on that. I was taking dozens of tablets at my worst and feeling the side effects of both A. overdosing on paracetamol B. overdosing on ibuprofen and C. becoming a full blown addict. I spoke to my drug counsellor and we agreed I could either cut down and then go on Naltrexone to help control the opiate addiction or, if I couldn't do that, I could get in-patient treatment and go into rehab. The second idea terrified me, so here I am, cutting down.
Even though I'm cutting down, the dose I'm taking is still high. Because of this, I'm still getting the side effects from it. Hence, off I go to the doctor today to tell him about the unexplained bruising, the pains, etc. etc.
"You're in charge of looking after yourself. You know what will happen and yet you do it anyway."
He's right.
But it reinforces my idea that people like me should just not bother seeking help or healthcare. We're hurting ourselves. We cut ourselves. We take too many of things we're told a million times will cause us serious damage. We damage ourselves knowing... it will damage us.
The problem here is, when you're in the kind of mood required to injure yourself, to overdose on drugs, to drink too much... You don't care. You aren't thinking about the damage you'll be doing yourself that will show it's nasty head in a few years time. You aren't even thinking about the damage you'll be facing tomorrow. It's what works NOW. What will make me feel different NOW? It's selfish thinking, sure, but sometimes it's what you have to do to stop yourself running into traffic.
I'm sure many people will disagree with me but I'm not sure it's entirely helpful telling a patient the equivalent of "meh, you knew what you were doing, I guess I'll do some bloods but I'm not sure what else you were expecting." I know sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind but perhaps when someone is in the state where they're behaving this way to begin with and where they're also self-injuring, you should be more considerate in your wording and be a little less stern.