Trust

I’m feeling slightly more coherent now albeit slightly more sore – I managed to cry solidly for 2 hours so my eyes and nose are suffering. We’re still submerged in massive upset and the bottom of hopelessness has been kicked out of it’s usual place. People keep on telling me that this is perfectly natural. I’ve had stories relayed about leaving CAMHS/services/hospital and missing nurses etc. I’m just struggling to justify the weight of what I’m feeling. I’m also beating myself up. I expect black eyes for the morning.

Most people have a story of mislaid trust. Some more heavy going than others. Mine’s probably no different but then this whole thing has me thinking back to a time when trust was a simple thing, and I can’t find it.

Woe is me, but I was bullied from the age of 5 up until I left high school at 16. I also have an untriggered fear of abandonment which I refuse to broach with my psychiatrist. I never had much idea as to why I was picked on through school. Sometimes they gave reasons in a mishmash of “you’re too this, that, the other”. My height came under scrutiny a lot in primary school. Difference is a definite thing to hone in on.

I stupidly put my trust in a lot of people. “Friends” who’d use what I’d said in naive moments of what I thought was friendly honesty. Teachers in the hope that they’d help me. My first and only school counsellor who left after 5weeks when the school decided not to fund her anymore. Not all of that was somebody’s fault. Sometimes it’s all down to circumstance which is the case with my GP. Even so, by then end, I’d near enough cut myself off from everybody. I decided that I couldn’t do it anymore so I stopped talking about what was happening. I’d feign “fine” everyday.

Soon after the counsellor left I started to see my GP, not the present one but someone else. Over the next few weeks I had blood tests for all sorts in response to my vague symptoms. Then one day I just came out with it. Admitted the cutting and the depression and the not eating. I broke down for the first time in front of someone and left myself open to getting hurt again. This is where my referral to CAMHS came from. I hurled all my hope at this hint of some relief. After 2 weeks and an emergency appointment with a couple of workers from the centre, I went back to see my GP to find that she’d left to go back to Ireland. I was left reeling. In her place was Dr P, my GP now. It took me weeks and weeks to trust him. He didn’t push or force me into anything. He just listened and tried to cheer me up on occasion with his really unfunny jokes.

Dr P was the first person to see my arms. He was the first person that I let treat them. When I was cutting everyday, he’s be there with his steristrips and bandages. Admittedly sometimes he was frustrated with me. When I overdosed and landed in A&E last year, I know he found it difficult to even speak to me when my dad brought me in. I was just getting worse, the wounds were getting worse and so were his jokes. He started to come to my care planning meetings with the hospital and my CAMHS centre (my CPN and psychiatrists commented that no other GP had bothered with them before). He cared and still cares and I know it. He’s kept me out of hospital so many times. He’s taken risks with me.

And now he’s leaving. I let someone in again and now I’m being left to fall apart, thinking “Why did I never learn?” Who really have I got to fight my corner now? The CMHT don’t give one. I’m just another seemingly incurable number they’ve got on their books. I became too reliant. I was stupid and naive and trusting. I feel like a fucking idiot. People leave. What reason did I have to think he’d be any different?

I’m back to being on my own.