Sectioned in Hospital - 2 years 10 months 6 days

Written by Fox.

What can I say? Most things are getting pretty positive right now! 

We had our CPA last Tuesday and it went well. We just have to wait for a bed now so we can go back to the rehab unit back in Bristol. I'm hoping it'll give me more of a chance to see our foster parents too. As Keri only goes once a fortnight we try not to hog the spotlight and leave them to it. I think of all the time we've gone home I've only seen them twice. Maybe three times. It'll be nice to see them again. But anyway, the problem is we don't know how long it's going to take for us to get a bed. It could be a couple of weeks, it could be a couple of months. Everyone agreed that this environment is now doing more harm than good. We have no time frame. All we know is that we're currently second on the waiting list. We're trying to stay positive even though at times it's been difficult.

We are continuing our CAT and MBT with our therapist. Keri saw her today actually. We were all a bit peeved with her as she said in the CPA that we are all 'parts of Keri'. It almost made it sound like we weren't even real. That really hacked us off. We were open with the therapist about it today and she clarified that that isn't what she meant and apologised for making us all upset. We discussed it in one of our daily meetings. I'm glad she's one of the people in the world that actually listens rather than talks down at you. She takes our opinion as a whole and doesn't single us out if we've done something wrong. I like her. It'll be a shame when we leave as we've all grown to trust her now.

The only thing that's really gone downhill is Keri's fluid intake. Food is, overall, better than it has been in a long time and that's pretty much down to a lot of encouragement from staff and, sometimes, it means the rest of us coming out from time to time and actually eating for her. Her weight is now stable as she's trying her hardest to stop making herself sick after meals or, well, food in general. She has a care plan in place e.g. handing in her toilet key for an hour, not being allowed to her room as it has a sink in it etc. She's really struggling but credit to her, she's doing really well with that which means she's currently a stable and healthy weight. Over the last several days her fluid intake has been minimal which has resulted in her blood pressure dropping too low over the last few days. Due to this she isn't allowed her unescorted leave. This isn't a punishment, it's just that if any of us start feeling weak and dizzy and we aren't with staff than we're a bit screwed really. Despite this she still managed to get out today in group leave as staff were going to be there. 

She hasn't presented too well over the last few days, seriously low in mood, switching all over the place. Our therapist said this was to be expected. Hopefully, with our usual hard work, we can get back into the swing of things in the next few days. I'm remaining positive. I know how strong we all are. I know what we've fought through. We've done it this long, why shouldn't we be able to do it now?

Sectioned in Hospital - 2 years 30 days

Written by Fox.

What a start to September. Another month gone. Time is disappearing quickly!

Keri went to her first PTSD group on Thursday which went quite well in Keri's opinion. It was a bit slow in my opinion; talking about rules and introductions and the content of the group. I think Keri was just glad to know there were other people there which I think is also a good thing. It makes her feel less alone. Everyone needs support sometimes.

Keri got struck down with a fluey head cold this week. She spent all day in bed on Friday because she was aching so much. It's rare to see her in bed for 36 hours. On the positive side, the staff waited on her hand and foot; getting her drinks, bringing up her medication... She's still feeling a bit rough but a lot better than she was.

I feel quite optimistic about things at the moment. We've managed to keep hold of Sally and stop her wreaking havoc amongst the other patients. Speaking of which, a new one arrived on Thursday. I haven't formed an opinion yet. She hasn't caused any incidents yet. About incidents, Keri self harmed on Thursday! The first time in months! Luckily it wasn't classed as an 'incident' but Keri was gutted that she'd broken her stride. Hopefully she can get back on track again so she doesn't feel so badly about it.

Things are looking pretty good. There's always going to be blips but as long as we all keep trying to work together than the blips won't turn into relapses.

Sectioned in Hospital - 2 years 20 days

Written by Fox.

Keri's been pretty out of it today. She's spent most of her time hidden in her bedroom and only spent a few hours downstairs (and even then she sat in the kitchen away from everyone). I've had to completely take control in regards to her eating. She did perk up a bit after her brother rang which I was hoping for. Just goes to show how important family is to Keri. 

One of the psychologists came to see Keri today. She's being offered a place in a new group that starts next week. It's about dealing with trauma and PTSD. There's only several patients going out of all four wards. A nice quiet group by the sounds of it. I hope the rest of us are welcome as well. A lot of us need help with trauma stuff but I don't know whether we will get any support if we come out in the group. It's ten weeks long so that's not much time for Keri to learn skills let alone the rest of us!

Sectioned in Hospital - 2 years 19 days

Written by Fox.

Keri saw her psychologist and she had a good chat. Keri has a significant day coming up that is related to something bad happening a while back and it's getting her down. Her psychologist suggested that because she currently has poor coping skills she should rely on medication to let her sleep for the day, or 'have a day off' so to speak. I think this is probably best until Keri has some better coping mechanisms. At the moment she resorts to self harm, absconding (although this place is almost impossible to run away from), ligaturing or dissociating. Besides dissociating (although I may be a bit biased!) all of these are pretty unhealthy and we all want Keri to be safe. Her psychologist has actually read some of my blogs which I'm quite chuffed about. Besides that, Keri has been napping and watching Dr. Who. What a life. I don't blame her for wanting to be out learning to drive and working her socks off for minimum wage!

Sectioned in Hospital - 2 years 17 days

Clarissa is happy. Keri got her some false nails and she put them on yesterday although Keri isn't into that kind of thing. I'm not either but we all have to live in one body! The nails only cost seven pounds. One of the staff is a beautician so she did the nails back on the ward. I have to admit they look pretty. Even better for Clari is she gets to put on Keri's makeup for her with the agreement that it's not pink. A little cooperation goes a long way to making our life easier.

Keri has been out twice in the last couple of days. She went out with her brother yesterday and out for a bus assessment with O.T. (Occupational Therapy) today. She had a pretty good day yesterday with regards to her dissociation but it's all gone a bit messed up today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Penny, Chantelle and Emmy are still pretty dominant personalities right now. It's pressing down on Keri a lot now and her healthy streak is going a bit downhill. She's still drinking water and not smoking but her food intake is getting lower. I'm hoping it's just a blip.

Sectioned in Hospital - 2 years 2 weeks

Written by Fox.

Keri has actually had a good day today if you exclude her excessive dissociating (which she feels less embarrassed about it after talking to staff). She's baked cupcakes and even ate one without my help, she's played pool, she's been playing card games... She hasn't even used her bedroom access until about 7pm this evening so she hasn't isolated herself either. She's been drinking water all day again and I've got her to eat. You don't see her wandering around without a water bottle in her hand much nowadays, it's a little obsessive. She's currently watching Dr. Who in her room and pleasantly calm. She's getting a little irritated about how much she's having to rewind the episodes while she's dissociating but that's normal for us at the moment. One staff member has actually noticed when Keri's getting a bit out of it and has been really helpful today trying to keep her grounded. Overall a pretty good day!

Sectioned in Hospital - 2 years 13 days

Written by Fox.

It was a good chance for Keri to have a better mood today as her brother came down to see her in town. She went on leave and they spent some time in Costa and also browsed shops. Keri did some retail therapy. Unfortunately her switching started happening while we were in Costa. Good on Keri's brother though for noticing when it was happening. Maybe people who know what Keri is like notice after all. She looks a bit confused and goes quiet, thinks she's in the middle of a conversation when she isn't... We've found out now that Penny constantly wears glasses so on the ward they're constantly on and off Keri's face. Chantelle has eyes that dart everywhere as she's a bit paranoid. We don't know about Emmy yet. This alter stuff is a full time job right now! 

Keri's started being really healthy physically. She's actually started trying to look after herself amidst all the chaos. She's drinking water a lot, going to the gym five times a week, eating meals (with a lot of my help), showering every day and trying to get a decent night of sleep. She hasn't smoked since 1st August which is three weeks nicotine free! Cold turkey! That's her focus while everything else is haywire. That's her control. It's a good form of control too, not her usual 'I'm not going to eat for weeks' kind of control. She's even getting up early in the morning, no matter what time she goes to bed. Her symptoms of psychosis and disordered eating have dampened down. It's only the dissociative symptoms that she's currently struggling with. The problem is, if her dissociative symptoms calm down then something else normally crops up. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that.

Sectioned in Hospital - 2 years 12 days

Written by Fox.

It's been a long time since I last wrote a blog post. It's not been long since I've been able to get back online again. I'm hoping I can get back into things. So do you guys want an update on what's been going on before I start writing about D.I.D again? I guess I should start with an update today and see how it goes. I'm a bit rusty at this writing thing. 

We are now in a secure hospital and have been for the last ten months. It's a lot different to our last hospital. Overall it's gotten a lot better in the last couple of months. During the first several months we had serious problems but we are making progress now (although right now we've hit a bit of a blip). We now have home leave every two weeks and Keri sees her brother every week as well. I'm glad Keri is seeing her brother so frequently as it does her good, so does seeing her foster parents every fortnight. Her brother travels a few hours on the train to even get to Wales to spend time with his sister. If you're reading this then I'm grateful that you do that for her!

Her switching between us is a bit problematic at the moment. There are several of us coming out and constantly changing. I can't even make heads or tails of it let alone Keri! She's spoken to her forensic psychologist about it and she's confused too. I'm only coming out with David to try to regain some control. Several of the alters are quite subtle in their switches so it's hard to tell the difference. I don't think Keri's foster parents are even able to tell the difference as she's switched a couple of times when she's gone to visit them. It's frustrating Keri as no one is able to tell her what's going on. I'm normally her first point of contact, along with David, but we only know the names of the alters. We don't know them very well at all. They're called Penny, Chantelle and Emmy. We don't even know the day or time anymore! If anyone knows how to deal with this then please get in touch as Keri hasn't had switching and amnesia this bad since she was quite young.

I hope you're all well. Me and Keri are back online to answer messages and to date the D.I.D page now. Unfortunately no one can do any videos as cameras aren't allowed into the hospital.

Sectioned in Hospital - 1 year 2 months

Written by Fox.

Keri has spent half her time freaking out over her hallucinations and flashbacks. She keeps getting restrained. In less than a week the staff had to hold her down on the floor so that they could inject her with sedatives, this happened twice on different days. She's convinced that her dad has associates working inside the hospital to keep an eye on her and she's also made a 'friend' called Charlie. He's a hallucination but she doesn't realise. She's being sucked into another stress induced psychosis and no one is doing anything! When she's not being restrained she's still trying to search the hospital for her dad as apparently Charlie has told her he's hiding in a room at the end of the men's corridor which means the staff are repeatedly having to put her in safe holds and take her out of the corridor and try convincing her she's safe. Seriously, the staff talking to her is like talking to a brick wall. She hardly even knows where she is most of the time and is getting pretty disorientated a lot.

Yesterday she finally snapped because the staff kept saying Charlie wasn't real and that she was being paranoid. She thought they were being 'patronising twats'. She ended up on top of her wardrobe again and refused to go near the staff. It took a lot of persuasion but she did finally get down as soon as IH mentioned that if this all keeps happening and her mental health doesn't improve then they'll have no choice but to transfer her to the psychiatric intensive care unit next door to the unit we are on at the moment. The staff and Keri (and me for that matter) all know that if she's transferred over there she will get even worse. Sally also classes that as a threatening environment and she will fully take over Keri's personality which means things will end up involving a bloody forensic hospital!

On a good note, Keri's face is starting to heal up. It's still obviously very scarred but she's also given up smoking! It's been a whole week since she last had a cigarette. Her psychiatrist has prescribed nicorette patches and she has her electronic cigarette as well. She's doing amazing considering the horrible time she's been having. Honestly, there's no point in even arguing with her delusions as she starts getting really defensive and upset, especially if anyone uses the word 'psychosis'. She's on the maximum dose of Olanzapine anyway so I don't understand how she is still experiencing all this! Hopefully when she has her CPA tomorrow her psychiatrist will do something about it as everyone is very worried about her.

She's pretty much out of money until Friday (she spent a fair amount on cigarettes before she gave up and gets paid every two weeks), so she's also worried that she can't buy one of her family a birthday present and get it to him on time. Though hopefully she'll be allowed a home visit so she can give it to him. She's got until 13th October anyway so I think I need to tell her to stop worrying about it! 

Sectioned in Hospital - 1 year 1 month 2 weeks

Written by Fox.

Keri's been freaking out again today. She hasn't gone out at all as she was too scared to as she's seeing her daughter during the day now. She had her psychotherapy appointment which was mainly talking about the contact ban between her and her biological mum. She also had her daily physio and is still unfortunately having to remain on crutches whenever she has to go off the ward (she doesn't do much walking on the ward and they can be used as weapons so that's an issue too). The physio has started taking her to the gym now to strengthen her ankle so she'll be able to use it again properly without walking with her foot pointing out to the side.

Things started getting hard around 5PM. She started hallucinating. She distracted herself by decorating her walls with her drawings due to the fact she's going to be here at least another couple of months. The distraction didn't work for long and the staff found her huddled on top of her wardrobe again. It took medication and one of the staff talking to her for an hour before she finally got down and walked down to the nurses station to sit in there with her iPad and catch up on some programmes on iplayer. The staff were very good with her. There was someone there constantly and she got plenty of cups of tea! She was there for a good couple of hours but there was a stage where she freaked out again from hallucinating and shot underneath the desk crying as she was so scared. The member of staff who talked her down from the wardrobe managed to do the same thing talking Keri from getting out from underneath the desk and getting her back onto one of the chairs to carry on watching her programme. He even gave her one of his bars of chocolate! He's a lovely guy. He's the one that Keri's little brother has a crush on!

She's been on one to one smoking all day and isn't allowed her lighter. This has stopped her burning herself during the day but since the night shift started she's now burned her face three times and it's not even midnight. The staff come out and light her cigarette but she's lying to them and saying she's fine out there on her own. How the hell are they believing this?! It's barely 11.30pm and she's already burned three times! Hopefully the staff will catch on to that. They aren't idiots but sometimes I really get tired of them trying to take risks to assess Keri's capability of taking responsibility for herself. I know they have to so they know but Keri's not exactly going to wave her face at them and go "HEY LOOK WHAT IVE DONE". She'll just keep her hood up... Although even that doesn't really hide the burns very well.

She's got Family Guy on again! I'm beginning to love it. I like the world dominating baby and the talking dog. I don't know their names. Keri's obsessions are starting to rub off on me! In fact it's on now while I'm writing this!

Sectioned in Hospital - 1 year 1 month 13 days

Written by Fox.

I bet you were hoping I was going to write that things were getting better. No hope! She had brief respite when her brother came to visit yesterday. He distracted her and they were having a great laugh playing charades for a couple of hours but things got a bit dodgy when Keri started hallucinating. Her little brother was really good with her though and while they were at the desk he put his arm around her shoulder while she leaned his head on him. He was very reassuring and didn't seem to bat an eyelid even though she was hallucinating. He is truly Keri's rock.

Keri had a really good catch up with our foster mum as well which definitely lifted Keri's spirits for a few hours. I think she needed a good phone call. Our foster mum is still recovering but she's a lot better than she was! Keri is going to talk to the support worker here who does home visits that need to be escorted and hopefully they'll have a conversation about a home visit. Fingers crossed. Although with Keri's mental health at the moment it may turn out a bit awkward than normal. If anyone takes Olanzapine, I'd love your feedback about dosage and how it helped or effected you with psychotic symptoms.

Keri's still been burning her face every day with the exception of today. She's freaked out twice due to her hallucinating. She even ended up on top of her wardrobe shouting at her hallucinated daughter and throwing boxes. The staff had to get her down and get some medication in her as she was getting really upset and distressed. Her bedroom was then locked and Keri was out in the communal area with her iPad and headphones. It happened again a couple of hours ago when she went into her bathroom to wash. She hallucinated again and shouted out to the nurse just outside, despite the fact she was half naked... That's how freaked out she was! Dignity wasn't even an issue! Everyone's quite worried about Keri's mental health slowly getting worse. A lot of them have commented and have said they really don't like this. I don't blame them. She's back on one to one smoking. She was off it for a couple of days but due to the events of today the staff have had to take charge and responsibility as Keri is currently incapable of doing so.

Just have to keep praying that things will be okay. I read her care plan earlier and it mentioned that if Keri can't handle the responsibility of having her lighter etc then it's been discussed that she may have to be moved to ECH which is the psychiatric intensive care unit next door, otherwise known as a PICU. Let's hope it doesn't get to that point.

Sectioned in Hospital - 1 year 1 month 9 days

Written by Fox.

****** TRIGGER WARNING - Photos I took of Keri at the bottom again. Stop scrolling at the line of stars at the bottom of the post if you feel you may be triggered.

Keri has destroyed her face now all because of her being haunted by her daughter. The staff temporarily put in place that she couldn't have a lighter and had to go out on one to one while smoking but that still didn't stop her so now they've just given back her lighter. They know she'll do it even if they try putting things in place to stop her so it was pointless just restricting her more and more if things aren't helping. A lot of the staff do try doing one to ones at night though. On a couple of occasions Keri has dissociated into a trance and started rapidly writing all over the floor not realising what she was writing. The staff take a while trying to get Keri's attention as she's normally unresponsive until someone touches her but then she freaks out so I'm very glad the staff have gotten used to this and know to say who they are and where she is and give her some medication to keep her calm.

In her last ward round the psychiatrist has said that there's two locked units that he's going to refer Keri to. One is called Heatherwood Court (which is the preferable option for both Keri and the rest of her mental health team) and the other is St. Andrews. So it's a waiting game for a few more months again. Her psychiatrist also changed a lot of her medication in one session. He put her Diazepam back up to 30mg instead of continuing to wean off, he's put her straight onto 10mg of Olanzapine instead of Quetiapine, he's added another 50mg to her Sertraline dose... It's ridiculous. I'm wondering why Keri isn't in a coma half the time and why she still isn't sleeping! At about 11pm she was given 10mg Olanzapine, 10mg Diazepam, 2mg Lorazepam and 50mg Promethazine. Maybe I'm wrong but shouldn't Keri be asleep by now even though it's only been half an hour? They have given her a lot as she was crying and crying.. Staff even made her a nice hot chocolate. I can't emphasise how much they're really taking care of her. Plus she's still alive! Despite another ligature attempt.

She had a surprise visit from her old respite carers the other evening which was really nice for Keri. I haven't seen her laugh properly for weeks but they were really good at cheering her up. They've even offered to take her with them to their caravan once her mental health is better which Keri will love. 

I hope very much that Keri gets better soon. I know she's got a long way to go but at least getting her out of her depression and suicidality (including the stress-induced psychotic symptoms she gets). She's definitely not going to get any unescorted leave now it's decided she's going to a locked ward. Sally will take any chance to run.

And look at this! This arrived today for Keri. It was Jyestha's emergency care package that she sent. It's nine packets of timtams! Her brother might actually get to taste some on Saturday as Keri is pretty much fluid fasting, even though she just gave in to a cupcake her one to one brought in with a hot chocolate! Her body was craving sugar I think due to her crying.

At least we now know where Keri will be going and the waiting is the hard bit. The nurses are supportive and her bathroom is still locked and supervised. At least she's alive but at times it's just like she's a walking zombie. She spends most of her time lying or sitting on her bed. Her social life is limited as she's keeping herself withdrawn. Keep messaging her guys! Maybe it'll bring her out of her shell!

Will catch up with you soon guys!

**** Trigger Stars! Stop scrolling if you feel vulnerable. **************

This side is still swollen 😞

Sectioned in Hospital - 1 year 1 month 4 days

Written by Fox.

*****TRIGGER WARNING: Photo of Keri at the bottom of this post with the second-degree burns she's done over last night and the night before.*****

Well, with even more sleep deprivation I think Keri's setting the world record of how many times she can break down into tears in one day with staff having to try calming her down! She's very emotional right now which is another common side effect of not sleeping enough. After falling asleep at gone 3am she was back up before 6am. She was trying to force herself to stay awake but fell asleep for another hour at 8am. She's in serious need for some extra temporary sleep medication. The nurses said that even if the medication made her do nothing but be in bed for a few days it might calm down a lot of her symptoms.

Like I said last night about being very doubtful Keri was going to get through the night without any more burns on her face, well, I was right. I managed to get out for a minute or two to quickly nab a photo. That's why there's a trigger warning at the beginning of the post. The photo was taken this afternoon so won't include any damage tonight and, considering how much she's been crying about how horrible she is as a human being, I'm thinking she'll be adding more. I hope she doesn't go to the extent of having burns all over her face! I hate to see her in this state as it is!

She had a quick appointment with the physio today who gave her some mobility exercises to do for the next three days for when the physio starts seeing her again when she comes back into work on Tuesday. Her therapy session with her psychotherapist wasn't too successful. Keri went into a dissociative trance again and subconsciously started drawing while Fiona read to her for an hour. The rest of us could hear what Fiona was talking about but it felt like hearing it all underwater. She was trying to talk about coping with crisis. Despite Keri burning her face and trying to get away with ligatures, she's coping okay. Some people would be gobsmacked that I'd say that but considering what Keri is capable of doing, it may still be a terrible position to be in, but it definitely could be worse.

She managed to get out with staff again and get her nice sugary costa cooler thing. She's had a lot of sugary drinks today as she's now decided to start fluid fasting until she manages to get down to 40kg again, which will ruin the progress she made working to get her weight up to 50kg! Keri's seriously gone passed caring now though.

There was outrage when Keri heard about the professionals meeting yesterday. It was the psychiatrist and other staff from the ward. Her psychotherapist, personal advisor and care coordinator weren't there. Keri was so angry! You should've seen her shooting to Tesco on her crutches with staff to get her costa! The adrenaline was unbelievable! She's definitely crash landed though. She's short-tempered, agitated, exhausted, suicidal and overall, crap. Though staff spoke to her after reading the minutes of the meeting and apparently it went well and everyone is fighting to get her into a specialist placement for dissociative disorders, even if it takes several months to find somewhere suitable. Keri was glad that they were concentrating on her primary diagnoses of Dissociative Identity Disorder and her psychosis, rather than looking at her secondary diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. Me and David were very relieved to hear that! Now we've just got to get Keri through the next few months...

I really hope she doesn't do any more damage tonight. She's going to be on one to one every now and again so that she's kept a close eye on. The staff don't want anything to happen to her, especially trying to kill herself using bloody shoelaces!

************************

Sectioned in Hospital - 1 year 1 month 3 days

Written by Fox.

Keri had yet another sleep deprived night and only fell asleep properly around 11am this morning which meant she was in no condition to get out of bed to do her physio for her ankle today. She's seeing Keri every day anyway so she'll be back tomorrow morning.

Keri's managed to go out a couple if times with one of her most trusted staff again which has been nice getting Keri off the ward. He managed to lighten Keri's mood a little bit temporarily which I'm quite glad of. She's definitely built some upper arm muscle! She's finding being on crutches a lot less tiring than it was a week ago.

There's been a lot of people talking to Keri today about how she views herself. When asked about why she burned her face and her replying that if she's a monster on the inside then she should look like one on the outside, the staff have all said to her that she's not a horrible human being and not even close to being some kind of monster. Unsurprisingly this hasn't changed Keri's view of herself. She's now back to starving herself, vomiting, and ruining her face with more cigarette burns. It's a good job that the night shift staff are so supportive (and the day staff of course), especially when it means Keri needs to be on one to one obs for a while if she gets very distressed and scared.

Turns out the people working tonight are people that know Keri is having a terrible time. She's on one to one at the moment in her room with a member of staff to see if they can make sure that she doesn't burn her face again, unfortunately those thoughts are very strong in her head. I'm highly doubtful that by tomorrow morning Keri won't have additional burns on her face.

Sectioned in Hospital - 1 year 1 month 2 days

Written by Fox.

If things get much worse then the psychiatrist is going to have no choice but to send Keri to a psychiatric intensive care unit like ECH which is next door. She's still not sleeping well at all and can't concentrate on anything. When her psychotherapist came to see her on Monday, she was there for fifteen minutes speaking to Keri but she wasn't listening to a word she was saying. All she did was zone out and nod at the appropriate times. If I have to, I'll have to see the psychotherapist myself on Friday!

The night before last Keri and Sally decided that it was a good idea to commit suicide. Keri planned out how to sneak her dressing gown robe into the bathroom before her shower and also figured out how and where she was going to tie it for maximum effectiveness. A member of staff was sat outside while Keri had her shower, calling out to check she was okay every few minutes. Halfway through her shower she got freaked out by her hallucinations again. She didn't even dry herself off and just dumped some clothes on. She went straight to where she tied the noose she'd made. It was a very hard fight. Keri and Sally were fighting against me, David, Clari and five other alters. It was very hard to do but luckily after a couple of minutes when Keri stopped responding to the staff outside, all four of the staff on the night shift ended up opening her door and checking what was going on. She was in tears on her bathroom floor next to where she'd tied her ligature. The staff managed to pick her up and take her out to have a cigarette. Two of the staff went out with her while another went and got some additional medication. It took a long time for Keri to calm down and even drugged up to the eyeballs she was still being freaked out. After a couple of hours she did calm down a little, the medication made her body feel like a ton of bricks. The staff untied the noose from her bathroom and took it away obviously so she no longer has that, however she has a lot of stuff in her room!

Last night she went nuts again. She was thinking about acting on her suicidal thoughts again but decided to go to the desk and speak to staff about how distressed she was and her hallucinations. She didn't even really need to talk as you could tell just by looking at her what state she was in. There were two staff at reception, one of them went to get Keri extra medication. While Keri waited she saw the little girl again and she was shouting at Keri. When the staff came out with her medication she was well passed listening. The girl was getting louder and louder before Keri just lashed out and then ran into the staff area and huddled under the reception desk in the corner. This then involved all four staff having to try coaxing her out as she was too terrified to move. I've never seen her this bad while she's been regularly taking all her medication! Her ward round was pointless as her usual psychiatrist wasn't there and Keri's attention span is close to non-existent. The longest she's managed to keep most of her attention was when she phoned our foster mum today. Although it's been several hours since the call and Keri has pretty much forgotten everything they talked about. Her memory is terrible which is also a side effect of the sleep deprivation. She can't remember half the conversations she's had, though she's used to it because of dissociating anyway and with the way she's feeling she honestly doesn't care!

Another four weeks and Keri will get off her crutches and I think the first thing to happen will be Sally or Keri absconding! If I haven't mentioned why she's on crutches it was because she spent five days persistently pacing around the garden for several hours a day. She hurt her ankle after about day two but continued anyway. She's been seeing the physio every weekday and thankfully her ankle is improving but it won't be completely mobile for at least a few weeks from now.

Well, the night shift has just come on. Keri's already getting agitated. Hopefully we will have a calmer evening than the last two nights though. And hopefully Keri sleeps!! Send us some sleepy messages!

Edit: Keri has now gone and burned her face because she feels like a monster and wants people to think she's too horrible to go near. This is of course not true as she is not a monster. She's holding other people's responsibilities and guilt that she in no way should have to hold onto yet she can't see the other perspective. She is a loveable and funny woman and people love her company. Her self esteem has never been lower. The only times she's self harmed on her face is while she was psychotic last year and tried cutting a bug out of her head and one other time when Sally was angry and wanted to teach Keri a lesson which resulted in Keri needing stitches on her face. She's never done it deliberately like this before, and the pain she felt did disappear but only temporarily and now it's back. Relief only lasted a few minutes if that!

Sectioned in Hospital - 1 year 30 days

Written by Fox.

Wow, I didn't realise it had been so long since I wrote a post. I've almost forgotten how to blog! Sorry for the lack of posts but we've been pretty preoccupied with Sally. Since last posting she's now come out a few times and staff have had to restrain her, inject her and put her in seclusion until me and David are able to get Keri back out again, which is normally only possible right now if Sally's a bit drugged up. Luckily they have an intramuscular injection written on her chart in case of these emergencies.

Her eating? She was doing very well. She even managed to get her weight up to 50kg which, according to staff and the dietician is a perfect weight for her. Though because her BMI wasn't under 17.5 and is now in the healthy range she's now extremely annoyed that they haven't taken the eating disorder label away and have said she's bulimic instead! She thought it would disappear and the staff wouldn't think about it anymore. Unfortunately quite recently Keri's eating has got progressively worse and the only time she eats is after a severe flashback or panic attack and she needs sugar (I don't know about you guys but that's what Keri's body craves after that kind of thing happens).

Keri's section has now been renewed. Considering it's now the third Section 3 she's detained on this one doesn't have to be renewed for another twelve months whereas the first two were only six months each. No one has any idea where Keri is going or what treatment she's having. She's had a medium secure assessment and a forensic assessment, both of which have ended up in written reviews which will be discussed at Keri's CPA on Tuesday. She's terrified as all of this has been done behind her back. She wasn't even told about the assessments until an hour before any of them arrived (which were only four days apart!). Her psychiatrist will have the letters they've all written and a decision should be made during the part of the CPA Keri isn't allowed into. The forensic assessment didn't go very well and Keri got more and more passive aggressive the more she got annoyed. In the end she called the guy retarded and incompetent and then walked out...

Her bathroom is being kept locked due to her strong suicidal intent (she tried to kill herself with a ligature but thankfully staff stopped her). Since then her bathroom is locked unless she's supervised, which means any toilet or shower requests are done with a member of staff (female normally) standing just by the door. During the day she also keeps her bedroom door open as she's on ten minute obs and if something happens during those ten minutes the staff will hear. This is also the case at night and on the rare occasion that Keri does actually fall asleep the staff close the door until she wakes up. She was on one to one during night hours for a while but is slowly being weaned off depending on the situation. The situation at the moment isn't great as for the last four days she's had less than three hours sleep each night and is in severe sleep deprivation mode which the staff have noticed. It's got to the point that even though Keri is on the maximum dose of her antipsychotics she's started hallucinating again. It freaked her out so much this evening that she's been sat with staff talking about it and actually stayed out of her room for a whole three hours! Unbelievable isn't it?

The good thing is Keri is getting out each day to have a Costa, normally with one of her most trusted members of staff, she is still getting to see her brother who visits every week, she has 24 hour support from the staff and they've taken precautions to stop her doing serious harm to herself (which isn't a good thing in Keri's eyes but it is in mine!). I'm hoping to start blogging more now as I'm getting stressed trying to help David with Sally and this is my only way to vent. I know it's my safest way too as it not only gives people an insight into the life of someone with D.I.D. and other mental illnesses but it's safe for me to do on my own as Keri doesn't read any of the blog posts. I hope you guys are okay. We are definitely struggling but taking one day at a time as we're worried about our foster family too. Our foster mum had pneumonia and is slowly recovering, her foster dad has injured his back, one of her older foster brothers had an operation on his knee, and her other older foster brother had his business ruined when some selfish idiots went and robbed his place and stole all his motorbikes, quad bikes, tools, aka anything that was valuable and they could get their dirty little hands on.

To those that are also struggling, Keri is repetitively listening to a song by Nickelback. It's called Lullaby. It reminds her of people that care about her and sometimes she's listening as if those people are singing it to her, like her foster family or her brother. 

Keri is now seriously freaked by 'walking ghosts'. She's going to be on one to one with a member of staff soon after they get her a hot chocolate so I'm quickly adding this on. She thinks she's seeing dead people. Very upsettingly she's seeing a six year old girl who is claiming to be her dead daughter and asking Keri "Why did you let him kill me?" Keri, me, David and some others know about the story behind this but I'm not going to tell it. Both for legal reasons and from the point I really don't want to go there. What I can say is even though it's making Keri cry it's one of the first times I've seen Sally on the verge of tears as well. With a psychotherapy appointment booked tomorrow, everything could end up like an explosion, that's if Keri doesn't refuse to see her psychotherapist or if she does see her, actually listen to a word she's saying instead of sitting there in a dissociative trance... Let's just say Keri hasn't found her therapy sessions very useful recently and is starting to just disengage with everyone and deny that she even exists. 😞

Sectioned in Hospital - 6 months 1 day

Written by Fox.

DAY 186 - 9th February, Sunday

Keri's kept herself deliberately secluded and avoided talking to anyone, kept her head down and has been getting frustrated. Much like me! I really can't concentrate very much so these blog posts are going to be short. Keri did have a happy moment this evening when she got on the scales while the nurse was sorting out her medication and found she'd lost over 2kg in two days. Looks like that binge Clarissa had kick started Keri's metabolism. I think that'll mean that Keri will eat something in a couple of days. Maybe. Oh my god I can't think! It's taken me half an hour to write a paragraph! I'm feeling really emotional when normally I'm calm.

Sectioned in Hospital - 6 months

Written by Fox.

DAY 185 - 8th February, Saturday

It has been such a long day. It always is on a Saturday or a Sunday on Lime Ward. Keri didn't surface until about 2pm and she's spent all day fighting with Sally again. She's been pacing, she's been rocking, she's been punching things. Sally even came out and climbed onto the top of Keri's wardrobe to try jumping off to break one of Keri's arms but luckily David intervened and there was a twenty minute fight before David managed to fully come out and get Keri down from the wardrobe. Keri was put on hourly observation yesterday so the staff don't even know about that. 

Keri's been getting very frustrated today. She was talking to Carmel and said she felt it was pointless that we have to be locked in this ward for two weeks only to go back to Alder. She said all this admission was going to do was irritate her and 'piss off' Sally (which was proven when Sally decided to snap and climb on Keri's wardrobe). Keri doesn't even know about the wardrobe incident but after switching back from David she felt really distressed and overwhelmed. Thankfully she spent some time in the communal area tonight with her iPad but she still feels depressed. All she's thinking about is suicide and escape routes (which she ended up telling staff as she had started ranting so things kind of just spilled out). She also mentioned how annoyed she was over the fact the female gardens were being kept locked so her escape routes were a lot more limited... She has absolutely NO leave. Last time she saw Dr. Wilke was the day she arrived on Monday. He said she had two half an hour escorted leaves a day. Sally came out an hour or so after that so I'm assuming Dr. Wilke took it away as, even while escorted, the staff have said that the way Keri is presenting at the moment means it's too risky to go out because of dissociating and absconding. It's giving us all cabin fever but if that door opens then Sally's gone like a bolt of lightning. 

I'm still really restless and I really don't like it! I haven't felt like this for ages. I feel like I'm the one that helps hold everyone together. If I get distracted or upset then the whole family gets unsettled. As soon as things become unsettled it's really hard to settle things down again. 

Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 30 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 184 - 7th February, Friday

Could Keri have gotten up in any more of a restless and annoyed mood? No! And now I'm feeling really restless and miserable which means poor Jimmy and Daniel are being neglected as I couldn't give them the proper attention that they wanted! I don't want them coming out in this hospital. Can you imagine a 4 year old wandering around an acute ward? Especially with some of the patients here.

Keri had her appointment with Fiona today but I couldn't pay much attention to what was going on. I really struggled trying to distract Jimmy and Daniel so David ended up having to help me. He even said I should go off and rest for a bit and get some help. I have no idea why I feel so off. Maybe I should see Fiona on Monday during Keri's next psychotherapy session. 

Well, Keri got up in a mood and as the day went on things seemed to get progressively worse, especially this evening as Sally has started partially coming out so Keri's starting to feel short tempered and angry. This little old woman kicked Keri tonight (although it wasn't even hard enough to leave a bruise but Sally still got annoyed). Keri just shouted "What the fuck was that for?" The woman then walked to the other side of the room where they were smoking and started muttering under her breath. Keri felt herself getting really angry so threw away her cigarette and went straight to her room. She spent nearly 20 minutes arguing with Sally as Sally wanted to come out and beat the little old lady up, whereas Keri knew this woman has dementia so tries not to take things personally (which is hard when Sally's quite dominant). Things are not going to be good tomorrow. One wrong word from someone and bang, Sally's going to ballistic. Although maybe that's a good thing. She needs to vent, even if it gets Keri into trouble. 

Good news though, Keri's found a replacement for her iPod. Well, actually Natalie mentioned it to me when I was trying to get her to the forefront of everything. Keri can sync all her iTunes music to her phone so can use that to plug her headphones into but it's just a pain for her because of the battery. The battery life of an iPod nano is a lot better than an iPhone 5s!

Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 29 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 183 - 6th February, Thursday

Keri spent a lot of time with her mum and her partner today, mainly playing Uno and chattering away. They're coming by next week. It was good for Keri to be with people that aren't involved with hospital stuff! They also brought her some coffee, coke, cigarettes... The mainstay of Keri's diet! There was definitely a self esteem boost as her mum seems to be terrible at Uno! Keri also tried a cigar that John brought in. Very dignified! She's got another one for later on. Next time they visit maybe John will be smoking a cigar!

There's been a lot of tetchiness going on this evening because of Sally. Keri has a psychotherapy appointment tomorrow and because Sally blames Fiona for us now being on a locked ward. Seeing Fiona = more anger. That's bad, but maybe the silver lining is that Sally won't be able to contain herself and will come out in the appointments.

Short post again! Hopefully it's all calm again tomorrow.