And it all goes back to shit.

If anyone wants the password for the previous post then ask but I warn you that it’s 1500 words of pointless whinging and was written to allow me to sleep.

I don’t know what to do   I’ve started self-harming again which is a real bugger to put it mildly. I’d stopped for 6 months and now it feels so safe to get back into it, the wondering how much damage I can cause without generating too many awkward questions. The temporary distraction then the guilt but at least guilt is an “easy” emotion to deal with.

My first placement allegedly starts tomorrow. I say allegedly because I’m not entirely sure I can do it. I needed something inspirational for it, something to convince me that I’m doing the right thing with my life, that this all isn’t just a big waste of time. Instead I’m in a crap nursing home for people with dementia. The place smells, the staff don’t speak any English and I just don’t think I can face it.

Plus my car failed its MOT this morning. My car was my independence and I’m rather fond of it. I build up deep attachments to anything that is vaguely nice to me, ever if that something is a big lump of orange-painted metal. I now feel like I’ve failed it which I rationally know is insane because what could I have done different? I need my car. Twenty minute drive to placement vs an hour on the bus. Freedom to travel, to escape the Cambridge bubble, to seek space and clear my head all gone.

So it’s back to googling for exit strategies. How did my life come back to this so fast?

Protected: Emotions

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Why is it always so hard?

Damn it all, I’m having a bad day. I know everyone has them and I’m not expecting sympathy more just after a place to rant. I nearly threw my phone full pelt at the wall before it thankfully clicked in that my phone may not appreciate making high speed contact with something quite as strong and unmoving as the wall. I need to get out and do something but I don’t know what, just release all this stress somewhere.

So, despite having occy health clearance, they’ve sent me a letter inviting me to attend an appointment with no explanation of why. This is stressful. I know I have the clearance but I want to have as little to do with them as possible. The more they know, the more damage they can cause. I know I could phone them and see what’s going on but I HATE making phone calls. Besides, if I speak to them they might tell me they’re taking my clearance away…

I’m also coming to a rather unfortunate conclusion about my meds. I like them, they make me happy and as long as I remember to take them we’ve been getting on together just fine. The only thing is that I’ve been noticing recently that I bruise rather more easily than I should and cuts and grazes take an unnaturally long time to heal. Taking up rock climbing should not leave me looking like a victim of a particularly severe case of domestic violence. Now I initially assumed I was just clumsy but my legs are quite literally black and blue all over. My housemate (who has infinitely more common sense than me) asked if it could be a side effect and it turns out that a rare side effect of venlafaxine is poor blood clotting.

Warning: pseudo science mumbo-jumbo follows!

Now, being the unbearable geek that I am, the explanations google was given me weren’t enough so I used and abused my student nurse journal access to read the scientific papers behind the hype. It turns out platelets use serotonin to help with blood clotting but can’t make their own so they need to take it up from the blood stream. Now, one of the effects of venlafaxine is it prevents the uptake of serotonin in the brain. While it initially seems this would be a good thing for the platelets, in a few cases it seems the serotonin receptors on the platelets are sufficiently similar to the ones in the brain that the platelets can’t take up enough serotonin either and blood clotting becomes poor. Now, the papers do emphasise that this alone wouldn’t explain all the symptoms they studied but it is concerning.

Basically, I may have fucked up my blood clotting and the only way to sort it out would probably be to come off my meds. This is all conjecture at the moment, I could just be really accident prone! The thing is I don’t currently have a GP in Cambridge and it will take me a while for me to build up a level of trust with a new one. Plus, I don’t want to come across as an over-paranoid nutter seeing problems where there aren’t any. So, at the moment I’m not taking any action on that one either and hoping that I don’t get stabbed any time soon.

But to be honest, it’s neither of the above that have set me off today (although they may have contributed to me being less forgiving than I usually aim for). Despite studying adult nursing at uni, all branches do the same course in first year which means that the first module is the one on mental health. Fun, fun, fun for all the family… Although, I may have an unfair advantage for our first assignment, 3000 words on “What is Mental Health?”. Do you think I can use myself as the case study

Anywho today we were looking at a scenario that was a tad close to home and the biased, ignorant views of the others in my group really offended me. The way they leapt to assumptions and made judgements based on a few words was painful. Put it this way, if they were running occy health, I’d never have been given clearance and would probably have been locked up or possibly shot for good measure. I tried to argue with them but as I obviously wasn’t too keen on the whole self-disclosure thing given their views, I think I just came across as contrary and deliberately awkward. And yet, these people are in the majority, this is what I’m putting myself into. Is this really what I want? Is it possible to be a good nurse without getting on with a lot of others? Can I rise above all this?

Oh, and my car is due its MOT and I don’t want to act on it because then I’ll have to phone a garage and they’ll almost certainly laugh at me and then try and rip me off as I know less than nothing about cars. And it might fail and then I’d be car-less which would suck.

I don’t want to have borderline personality disorder today. I’d be quite happy being an ignorant fuckwit like most the rest of them. Then none of this would matter.

At long, long last!

I apologise for my extended silences of late both on here and in terms of comments etc. I promise I am still reading what everyone writes. I’ve actually rediscovered having a life (of sorts) and it’s very good! It would be a lie to say everything’s perfect (upsetting someone and then spending half an hour contemplating a railway bridge wasn’t smart) but it’s getting more there than it’s been for a long time.

And as of half an hour ago I actually have my occupational health clearance! This means I’m officially in (we’ll ignore the fact I’ve been going to the course for the last fortnight anyway). And now I’m there, it’ll be a darn sight more difficult to get me out again no matter what happens. The theory bits of the course are great and seem more than doable. I’m more than a little bit nervous about starting placements in a fortnight but I feel in a state to take on whatever it throws at me.

Wish me luck!