Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 19 days

Written by Fox.

Keri had barely said a word at all yesterday and was having a hell of a lot of crying episodes but still remembered to text her foster mum and say happy birthday (which I find great with Keri, no matter how terrible she feels she will always remember other people, although that can sometimes be her downfall). Instead of texting back, Keri's foster mum rang her. It's the most she had spoken all day! She even got to talk to one of her older foster brothers. There were a few fake laughs from Keri's end but there were some genuine smiles. Keri was really happy that her foster mum liked her present! It's the little things.

Keri had her ward round today which I think went well. Keri's Quetiapine dose has now been maxed out at 800mg per day. The doctor is going to speak to Alder to see if Keri's allowed back as the wait for specialist advice and assessment is going to take several months and the acute ward is making Keri extremely depressed. I'm just worried about Sally. We've been on this ward for a month. Just because Sally hasn't been able to get out and try killing Keri's parents does that mean everything's going to be all better and changed if she manages to get back onto the rehab ward? I don't think so. A nurse should also have phoned Keri's foster mum as Keri asked about home leave again. I'm doubting they bothered to phone her as I don't think they did last time. Or they might've done. I'm not sure. Me and David are missing bits because of trying to deal with Sally.

Speaking of her, she tried getting over the fence this evening and it was seriously raining. Sally has the strength to get over (whereas Keri needs a bin or something to help as she's a bit of a weakling due to no food etc etc) but if you've got no grip you've got no chance. This got Sally really annoyed but she was out long enough for me and David to pull her back in. I had wondered whether something was going to happen as she'd been suspiciously quiet. Keri doesn't know that Sally tried absconding but I think me or David will get around to telling her at some stage tonight. It's pointless removing the bin from the garden as Sally didn't even bother getting it. She just ran at the fence, jumped and grabbed the top of the fence. Maybe we should enter her for the Olympics! That would be cool. I wish someone was around to record these things on video. Sally would look like some kind of spider monkey.

Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 17 days

Written by Fox.

Sorry it's taken so long to write today's blog post guys but Keri has had a really rough evening. She's been depressed all day and crying. She's suicidal and she wants to abscond. Earlier she posted on Facebook about stigma against mental illness and about ten minutes later was in tears again and tried climbing the fence (though thankfully the amount of medication she's had didn't give her much strength to go on, nor has her not eating) so that upset her even more. Sally is still unusually quiet. I was surprised she didn't come out to help Keri over the fence.

She's just had more medication so I'm hoping she'll calm down. I was hoping the messages that were put on Facebook for her would get through to her but she's in too deep to get a bit of hope out. When she was out a minute ago she was looking around her room for a way to kill herself without any risk of the staff finding out about it before it kills her (she doesn't want to end up like a vegetable). That's why she tried getting over the fence as she's obsessing over the suspension bridge again, although now she's focusing on jumping over the wall of the bridge instead of getting over the barrier on the middle of the bridge. It's a lower fall but it's still a few hundred feet! 

I don't know how to cheer her up. I hate seeing her crying. I hate seeing her suicidal thoughts as if she manages to get out and do them then that means I die too, and so do the rest of us! I don't want to go out of this life that way. I'll give £100 to anyone who can make Keri smile! Strangely I think I'll be able to hold onto the money. If she holds out until her ward round them I'm really hoping the psychiatrist will do something about this! That's if she doesn't completely lose it tomorrow. Actually, today as it's now gone 12.30AM.

Thinking of you guys!

Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 16 days

Written by Fox.

The day didn't go by a good start. Keri had less than three hours sleep and was up before 8am throwing up in her toilet due to her nightmares. After that she couldn't get herself back into bed again so grounded herself by standing in the rain, smoking and getting herself orientated back into the present e.g. where she was, what month it was etc.

One of her key workers came into her room and sat with her as she was concerned over the fact Keri was up so early as it's never a good sign. She gave Keri her morning medication, along with additional sedatives. She's also planning on doing a DBT group twice a week for half an hour. As she knew Keri had done DBT for a year she suggested Keri help her with the group. She's pretty up for that. She wants to show she's at least trying to do things rather than do what she wants aka hiding under her duvet forever.

She managed to go out on leave in the afternoon and got really annoyed with the nurse as whenever she takes Keri to the supermarket she goes and does her own shopping too! Keri gets freaked out by loads of people and doesn't like to linger unless with someone she trusts completely. In and out, that's it, not lingering waiting for her escort!

Keri's light of her day was when her foster mum and kid foster brother turned up to visit. Considering how low she'd been for most of the day and how out of it she'd been on her medications she was still able to chat and even laugh! Considering her foster brother is only 15 he seemed quite comfortable being on an adult psychiatric ward. I was surprised. It's been a long while since I last saw him. He's changed a lot! Last time Keri saw him I wasn't really around so it's been a while. Keri gave her foster mum her birthday present but forgot to put her Mother's Day card with it! Although I'm sure Keri will see them again soon. She's going to ask the consultant for home leave for the third ward round running this week, hopefully he will agree now that Keri is finally off ten minute observation! 

I'm glad they came to see her as it'd been such a depressing day! We couldn't cheer her up at all so it made the rest of us feel like crap as well. I like seeing them. They're my family too!

Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 15 days

Written by Fox.

The problem with Keri is that when she's highly medicated it relaxes her body so it's not obvious to people that she's feeling terrible or anxious, if this is the case she has a horrible habit of putting on a "I'm ok" face which the staff seem to be falling for. I think even when she saw Fiona that she fell for it although I can't be definite.

No doctor has reviewed Keri although the student doctors have been bugging Keri again. Again, they end up attracted to her like magnets because of her DID. 

Keri's mainly been sat alone listening to her music today and not doing much else. She did manage to get off the ward with staff for half an hour but it wasn't very relaxing. Keri put on 'her face' but was panicking when she looked around every corner. Unfortunately even though she's now on 600mg of Quetiapine a day it still hasn't gotten rid of her psychotic symptoms. Hopefully by the time the doctor gets it up to 800mg a day we'll start seeing some difference, although she still doesn't recognise what's reality and what's not so that might cause a bit of friction. The consultant is very good with her actually and never uses the words paranoid or psychotic or delusional so Keri does listen to him. As soon as any of those words come up she completely tunes people out and becomes plain uncooperative!

Sally's been pissed so if she doesn't abscond tonight then Keri's going to be in shit needing stitches. I think I'd prefer Sally absconding with the way Keri's physical health is at the moment. Losing more blood is going to end up getting Keri on a bloody IV drip (if they can convince her to go to a medical hospital).

Good thing; nothing bad has happened today so far. Not outwardly anyway so that's good. Plus she hasn't collapsed or fainted so that's a good thing too! She's also preoccupied with her little brother as he's got early signs of appendicitis. Apparently it's too early to operate so he's just been given a load of painkillers and has to go back to the hospital tomorrow. We're hoping that tomorrow they'll turn around and say they can do the surgery so he doesn't have to continue being in so much pain. We're all thinking of you Jamie, although Sally not so much!

Edit (12AM): Sally has gone unusually quiet. She's not even shouting and me and David for trying to keep her from coming out either. It's making us all very suspicious. Although maybe we can enjoy the peace while it lasts, which hopefully will be a while!

Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 2 weeks

Written by Fox.

On the good side of things, Keri is able to form full sentences and slept like a log because of her medication! On the downside she's severely depressed and suicidal and is desperate to get out of hospital. Her self harm has been obscene (as in the quantity of the self harm not the depth).

A nurse spoke to her while she went on leave to tesco and Keri said all she wanted to do was go back and live with her foster parents but knew it wasn't possible as she recognises that she needs 24 hour care. The nurse said that it was possible if Keri's foster parents were happy to have a nurse arranged to be with Keri while no one could be around to supervise. Obviously this isn't possible but it was nice for Keri to know that it was possible to get a nurse to live with you for 24 hour care outside of hospital. Though obviously it's still unlikely she'll be discharged for a while... 

Tomorrow Keri's going to demand her section be lifted. I think chaos may ensue. What's the phrase? Keep calm and carry on?

Edit (1AM): Keri almost had another fainting episode so the nurse had to do her physical observations. She hadn't eaten for three days but has eaten today. She's going to have to be reviewed by a doctor tomorrow as her blood pressure is too low, her breathing is quite fast and her pulse is 140! About the only things that were good were her temperature and oxygen levels!

Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 13 days

Written by Fox.

Well, after a fair few weeks Keri managed to start being weaned off her Diazepam and had managed to get down to 24mg a day (8mg three times a day). But due to her agitation (the staff found her on her floor this afternoon banging her head to try and make her visions go away) the nurses spoke to the psychiatrist and he decided to put her back on 30mg (10mg three times a day) as she'd already maxed out her doses of Lorazepam the staff had given her to calm her down, they've seen her level of frustration because she's still being checked on every ten minutes. When she was on hourly observation they thought she was fine as they only saw her for thirty seconds an hour!

If I'm honest I haven't seen her this bad. She's struggling to put her sentences together again. I would've thought that the additional 150mg of Quetiapine the doctor put up after her ward round that she'd calm down but that hasn't happened. Most of the patients have stopped trying to get a conversation out of her as they can't understand what she's saying. The nurses are pretty good as they've got a lot of patience and tolerance so they can figure out what she's trying to spit out! She can still text people fairly well but it's taking her a while to write anything!

I'm sat watching Family Guy. It's pretty cool. When I come out I don't have any chaos going on, unlike when I'm inside and Keri has all this stuff going on, means the rest of us have to experience it as well. It's not fun. At least when I come out I can actually rest for a while! The staff never pick up on the fact it's me, they just think Keri's refusing to talk. She's pretty quiet and subdued at the moment anyway so it's not really much different. For the people that know me they'd know straight away who I am but considering the staff don't know Keri well they haven't figured out when she's been switching personalities yet. 

Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 12 days

Written by Fox.

Hey guys! I know it's been about three months since I last wrote a post but I went a bit loopy when Keri got weaned off her Quetiapine. She's now been back on it for several weeks and is even on a larger dose than before (although she's unfortunately still psychotic).

I wish I could say things have been good but they haven't. Keri managed to get back to Alder Unit but it barely lasted a month before they were forced to move her to Silver Birch which is another acute unit in the hospital. The reason for this is because one of Sally's memories leaked out and she was very upset by it. Instead of wanting to kill Keri, she turned her rage against Keri's parents. Somehow she managed to get to Keri's mum's house after going missing from the hospital, which resulted in Sally being faced with nearly a dozen officers who'd been called out by Keri's mum at her house. They all had riot shields and tazers as Sally was holding a ten inch blade, and Sally was dragged out of the house handcuffed and put in the back of a police van and brought back to the hospital. Due to the seriousness of this, Sally was taken by the police and a member of staff from Alder to the seclusion unit on another ward (which is basically an empty room with a mattress in it, if you can even call it a mattress). Sally remained in there for half an hour before Keri switched back and the first thing she asked the staff from Alder was why the hell she was in seclusion. The staff spoke to her and told her what happened through the intercom. Despite Keri being Keri again she was kept in seclusion for several hours and medicated so much that by the time they decided Keri could go back to Alder she could barely stand up on her feet.

The conditions for Keri going back to Alder was that her room was searched for any obvious weapon in case Sally came out again, Keri had to take more medication before leaving, and she had to be on 2-to-1 observation for the rest of the night (for those that don't know, 2-to-1 observation means that you have to be in visual sight of two members of staff at all times). When Keri got back to Alder she pretty much collapsed in bed and woke up the next morning with a member of staff still sat at her door. She was down to 1-to-1 observation and it was to remain that way.

What we didn't realise is that while Keri was blissfully ignorant to what the staff were doing behind the scenes, they were arranging to have her transferred to a more secure ward as she now had "attempted homicide" on her record which is very serious.

Keri's been here now for a day short of three weeks and she's still on ten minute observation due to her unpredictability. Sally came out on Sunday and decided to mess up Keri's arm. So now she's a bit stuck. People are making phone calls, trying to get specialist advice and trying to arrange a transfer to a more secure, long term facility until Keri is stable. She's very depressed and has taken a turn for the worse today. She's barely said a word to anyone and she's terrified to say anything. She trusts nobody. She had ward round today and the psychiatrist is putting up her dose of antipsychotics again as she's still exhibiting strange behaviours and thought patterns. Officially we found out she's diagnosed with Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder with transient psychotic episodes. She has a tribunal at the beginning of June which her solicitor is going to for her but everyone's been blatantly honest and said there is no way on earth she's going to be able to get her section lifted, especially with Sally still expressing severe homocidal intent.

To give you an insight, Keri wrote this about two hours ago. I'm sure she won't mind me sharing it, although she doesn't really read the blog anyway!

"Sometimes I wonder how people can believe in God. These things are sent to test us? My family think I'm a lunatic. My foster family cares more and they aren't blood related. I hate having these illnesses. I hate having to rely on medication just to get me through the day. I hate how unpredictable I am. One minute I can be fine, the next Sally could be absconding with homicidal intent. I don't want to feel so depressed. All this noise in my head, the bug, the visions, all these fucking voices, my alters arguing. Some of the feelings I get make me such a horrible person. I know I will go to hell when I die but surely it has to be better than this?! I've been sectioned for nearly nine and a half months and all that's happened is I've bounced around wards and my mother's almost been killed. It's too late to help me now. I'm too fucked up. I'll die the same way I've lived, classed as a fucking lunatic. Who can love someone like me? I'm unloveable!!"

It breaks my heart knowing she feels like this but all me and David can do right now is try controlling Sally so Keri doesn't have to panic and worry all the time. I don't know how to help her, and neither does anyone else. She's in an emergency stage of treatment and with what's now on her record, I'm worried about where she'll go, how long for and whether Sally will eventually get what she wants. 

It's nice to be back in contact with you guys. Hopefully I can start posting more on the DID page :)