It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote a post as we’ve had a lot going on. I think I’ll start with the positive as I’m sure there’s some of that going on!
Keri has finally stopped drinking. She always does it cold turkey but because she was only drinking heavily for about 6 weeks her withdrawals weren’t life-threatening: they didn’t involve seizures or DTs. We were all just extremely uncomfortable for several days but I didn’t have to endure it much as I stayed well out of the way. It was selfish of me but I can’t cope with any form of physical illness, including withdrawals. It’s one of my triggers. In order to remain a leader I need to invoke my self-care rule at times! It was only yesterday that everyone started feeling a lot better and we’re almost back to normal. Keri also stopped taking her medication for a few weeks, all of it. Since Tuesday her care coordinator has rang most days to be able to phase her back onto it. We’re in the middle of the “phasing” at the moment in consultation with our care coordinator and 2 psychiatrists (one of which is our current one, the other is the one who was previously overseeing our care). The fact our medication has been messed with is not helping Keri’s state of mind and mine is being effected too, although not nearly as bad.
The staff here at the flats have been absolutely amazing. They’re spending time on the phone in the middle of the night if Keri isn’t coping and they’re really trying to keep us all going. We had an anniversary on 3rd September in regards to “our” daughter. I wouldn’t class her as mine as I wasn’t around when she was born, but overall she was all of ours. The staff supported Keri all day. She went bowling, went out for a coffee and got a balloon and let it go in the car park. We managed to persuade Keri to put off any suicide plans but it’s one of those things she’s still constantly thinking about, she’s even written a will for god’s sake. She just won’t bloody talk about it! Me and Nat are pretty on the ball when it comes to talking to staff though, especially our key worker.
One more positive thing I can think of is Keri is trying to involve herself in as much as possible. If she doesn’t stay distracted she gets totally consumed by her thoughts and her hallucinations i.e the wall people she’s hearing and the delusion she still has about the demon inside her. She’s having meltdowns very quickly and over very trivial things that very quickly spiral downwards. We’ve encouraged her as much as possible to keep doing things that keep her occupied, even if it’s only a few minutes. Every Wednesday she’s going to the community centre, she’s going to start going swimming again with a support worker on Thursdays, she’s got her therapy on Tuesdays, she wants to start going to the gym again. I’m not sure how serious she is about all this or if she’s just saying it to keep us all happy. I’m a positive thinker most of the time so I’m hoping she’s doing it for her own good to stay distracted. She’s already started exercising again every day but I’ve got my fingers crossed that it doesn’t escalate into obsession.
Now, all the crap stuff. We’ve had to go through our daughter’s anniversary which was so painful it was beyond belief. Nat made Keri a video to try and persuade her it wasn’t her fault. Even Sally doesn’t blame Keri and she blames everyone for everything. Keri has a tendency to blame herself for everything that involved her birth father. This delusion she has of a demon inside her is convincing her she’s making people sick and killing people just by physical touch. It’s ridiculous of course and the staff have tried very hard to convince her that’s not the case. Has it worked? It hasn’t even put a single doubt in her head. It’s extremely frustrating!
One of our gerbils, Ian, very sadly passed away at the end of August. We found him lying curled up in his coconut with Tom lying on top of him trying to groom him. It was the most heartbreaking thing we’ve had to deal with since our grandad died. All we can think is that he was misdiagnosed and that he had a stroke instead of an ear infection. He was so small that it’s hard to diagnose compared to a cat or a dog. Keri took him to Forget Me Not Pet Crematorium with her best friend and we now have Ian’s ashes in a scatter tube and a lovely card that has Ian’s paw prints and some of his fur inside. The woman who dealt with it all was so compassionate and kind. Little Ian was cremated inside his beloved coconut. The woman’s name was Sue. She dropped Ian off to Nat at our flat two days after Keri took him in and a lot of us cried, understandably. Tom is now on his own. He sat for a while huddled in a corner, very depressed, and not wanting to do anything. After a few days he started perking up again and he’s back to his hyperactive little self. Keri thinks she killed Ian because she ‘transferred some of the demon to him’. This is obviously far from true but she’s convinced of it. A couple of the staff have had to speak to Keri to ask what happened as there’s been miscommunication about what happened between the staff and their notes they have to write. Keri has been clear that she killed Ian but that she didn’t mean to, that it was to do with the “demon transference” not anything like suffocating him or throwing him at a wall. Unfortunately, a couple of staff have misunderstood this and they’ve had to ask Keri why she killed him and what happened. We’ve had one of the managers over asking about Ian. She knows Keri would never have intentionally hurt him but she had to ask to protect the welfare of Tom. Yesterday, a member of staff had misread the notes and thought Keri had done something deliberate. Keri won’t even touch Tom now. She’s feeding him and making sure he has water and cardboard to chew, but if he even tries putting his paw on her hand she flinches away. She’s terrified the same “transference” will happen and that she’ll “kill” Tom too. He’s still getting cuddles and playtime though as a few of us are coming out to see him. I’m out most nights again and I always love a cuddle with my little Tom. I had him running around on the sofa not long ago but had to put him away after half an hour as he wanted to try to help me type my blog! He loves me as much as I do him, and he knows the difference between all of us alters. As an example, he’ll come straight to me for a cuddle but if Clari tries he’ll stay well away! I’m giving him as much physical contact as possible but I know he misses spending time with Keri. If he senses the difference between us then I’m sure he’s intelligent enough to know when Keri is out instead of one of us.
Since Keri stopped drinking her self-injury has gotten ridiculous. I’m covered with staples right now (medical staples, not random staples). She’s targeting her legs for some reason and even though we’re coming out as often as possible to help, it doesn’t seem to be working. I’m hoping that with some more time and getting adjusted to being back on the medication that this will ease off a bit. We’re already quite severely anaemic so this isn’t going to help the situation. She’s not even letting anyone know but I think if anything starts getting infected then I’ll be informing our key worker or therapist myself if Keri doesn’t. It is my body too after all. I hate when Keri feels suicidal and self destructive as I don’t want to die. If she dies, all of us die. But then she thinks being alive and in contact with people is causing “transference” and is going to make people sick, or worse. She’s still accepting support right now but I’m not sure how long that’s going to last. This delusion of hers isn’t getting any better. Far from it. It’s getting stronger. I can only put my trust into our support workers and mental health team and hope they know what they’re doing and how to help. I’m not a professional and we’ve found that arguing with Keri about all of it is just making the situation worse. Whenever any of us say something, the ‘wall people’ immediately jump in to disagree with what we say to her and it causes a lot of friction which makes the situation worse for Keri which isn’t what any of us want 🙁
Keri still isn’t talking properly, can barely read anything without getting muddled, and when she writes none of us know what on earth she’s trying to write as she uses a lot of rhymes instead of the words she actually needs to use - although she thinks it makes perfect sense. The only time I get some peace is when I’m out. I don’t hear these voices she hears, I’m not experiencing any demon thing, and I don’t have my thoughts racing as fast as hers are. I’m usually pretty on the ball but trying to keep up with someone who’s going at hyper-speed is hard for anyone! Let alone when all their thoughts are jumbled together.
As you can see, writing a post over the last few weeks has been nigh on impossible! It’s nearly midnight and I need to get some food inside us so I’m going to publish this and get on with other things I need to do! One of the downsides of having an unwell host is that the rest of us are left running around trying to get everyday things done!
Good night 🙂
Fox 🦊
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