Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 9 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 163 - 17th January, Friday

Keri really didn't want to get up today but was woken up by loud knocking from Clive telling her that her medication was ready. Keri forced herself up and hadn't realised that it was nearly midday which meant she needed to get herself sorted for her ward round, even though part of her was wondering what the point was going to be in going. It actually turned out a lot more constructive than she thought. She's still on one to one observation but she's been given back some escorted leave over the weekend. As long as there's no incidents then hopefully they can work on building up her unescorted leave. Her dose of Pantoprazole for her GERD has been changed from the morning to the evening to see if that helps Keri's worsening acid reflux situation. Her Diazepam has been dropped another 1mg. She was on 30mg a few weeks ago and now she's managed to get down to 28mg. The manager suggested working with him to form some kind of contract about boundaries and acceptable behaviour. Sally will do anything to sabotage that but Keri's spoken to us and she's happy to sign one, so am I, so is Clarissa and so is David. That's a start at least.

The staff have been trying to keep Keri's spirits up today and have been doing so quite well actually. In ward round she was asked to rate her mood between 1 and 10 (1 being I'm going to the bridge, 10 being life is great). Keri said 10. They actually believed her! Are these people fools? She's barely scraped herself onto a 2! At times her mood has fluctuated between 2 and 3 but is now rested on a 2 this evening. The problem is that Keri is very good at putting on false laughs and a smile. One of the staff decided to try and find humour in Keri's one to one observation and made a hat which was called 'The Bonnet of Observation'. It's for Keri's 'appointed stalker' (like she calls them) to wear as a novelty thing. Some of the staff aren't into it. Justin has refused to wear it tonight! Outrageous really. But it's better to find the laughs in it, otherwise you'd just cry.

Keri had her psychotherapy session with Fiona and Keri chatted a lot, it seemed like she'd never stop talking. I think the whole one to one thing is actually being beneficial to her as it's helping to encourage her to talk about her feelings and what's distressing her rather than hiding in her room, sneaking down for a cigarette while staff are in the office and then sneaking back upstairs again with no interaction with anyone. Fiona noted how Keri seemed a little more perky today but that's just Keri, her mood is so extremely changeable that it's crazy. One minute you'd think she was high on drugs, the next she'd be crying in the corner cuddling a teddy and not knowing why.

The highlight of today has got to be Keri's brother visiting. Jamie got the train to Bristol and walked to the hospital to visit her. Keri had managed to get her escorted leave sorted and went with Matt, who was well informed of her plan to take Jamie out to buy him his birthday present. She wanted to get him an iPad and a case. He didn't even realise it was for him until she was at the counter! Keri was quite sly and was getting his opinion on cases etc so she could buy what he wanted without him even realising that was why she was asking so many questions! He's absolutely amazed with his new gadget and is really grateful to Keri. She got a lot of hugs for that! When they got back from leave Keri sent Jamie upstairs as she had a slight blip getting very panicky while they were in the supermarket so she had some extra medication. She was seriously shaking. Even Jamie noticed when she got up to her room, her hand was all over the place while she was trying to drink her coke! Luckily the Lorazepam calmed her down and she helped Jamie set up his iPad. They managed a few games of Just Dance on Keri's Wii before he had to leave to go and get the train back to Taunton again. He's hoping to be able to visit weekly from now on. I really think this would be good for Keri. They're relationship has just gotten better and better since Keri finally realised he wasn't a demon!

She's feeling quite restless at the moment but hopefully she'll be able to sleep. She was almost on the verge of fainting at one point as her and Jamie were really getting into the dancing game. It was quite strenuous on Keri's poor little body when she hasn't had any food since Sunday! The staff aren't bothering trying to spend ages persuading Keri to eat. They're all well aware that she's fasting until Monday. She may have only been on this ward a short time but they've realised how strong willed she is, especially when it's in regards to food. Her plan is to eat on Monday and Tuesday evening, a four hour time slot where she can eat what she wants, then go back to fasting again. Whether she actually eats on Monday is another thing. She hates herself whenever she's weighed. Even if she's lost weight she still thinks 'I need to lose more'. The silver lining to this is that because she's not eating she hasn't self harmed. There's been times where she's felt like it but she hasn't actively done it. Well done Keri for that at least!

And to reveal... The Bonnet of Observation! Being worn by Keri's 'appointed stalker' at the time.

Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 8 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 162 - 16th January, Thursday

Considering Keri didn't even manage to settle into bed until nearly 6am this morning the staff didn't try getting her out of bed. She'd kept herself awake to see when the staff received their phone call, which they never received. The only reason the staff eventually coaxed her out of bed was because of the fact Keri had an appointment with Becki at 2pm. They woke her just after 1pm. Keri got up as Becki has to travel about an hour to see Keri so doesn't like cancelling her appointments with her at such short notice.

Her visit was quite good. Keri enjoyed Becki's company. They're hoping that they'll still be able to work together until Keri's 25. Normally, if a young person isn't in education then their personal advisor has to stop working with them when they're 21. But because of Keri's exceptional circumstances we're hoping that rule won't be in place as it's adding unnecessary pressure on Keri's shoulders. Gemma and Becki spent a while talking alone with each other afterwards so Keri wandered off to smoke and then go to her room.

Keri's mainly been in her room. She feels very isolated from everyone and is still hallucinating, more regularly. She's now having trouble trusting the staff as they're turning around and saying that the things she's hallucinating aren't actually there. She doesn't know whether to believe them, most of her thinks the staff are trying to trick her. She told them that five guys were outside the ward and Matt decided to go dancing outside in the car park outside her window to try and prove to her that the group of men she was seeing wasn't real. Fail. She's also been lying down a lot as this is the end of her fifth day of fasting so she's feeling pretty weak. She's still determined to continue though as she set her date for at least a week of fasting. 

Keri did actually have some good times today. I think after her crying yesterday it's taken a little steam out of the pressure cooker so to speak. But she's gone downhill again this evening, it's always the dark that starts her off. She did try and be with other patients. They had a group in the evening and for most of it another patient was telling terrible jokes! I mean they were so terrible that you just had to laugh. That helped Keri a bit trying to focus on things that weren't so negative. We're all hoping she'll take up horse riding again at her old stables so that she has something to focus on. The unit is willing to fund her riding lessons too which we only found out today.

Hopefully Keri is able to be granted some escorted leave tomorrow. She wants to take her little brother to tesco so they can get off the unit and do a bit of shopping. Unfortunately it'll mean a staff member following her around but at least she'll get out and the staff are there if something goes wrong, which can be likely with Keri's state of mind at the moment. Keri may still be intent on suicide but she's had a lot of one to one sessions because of her one to one observation and there have been times where there's been tiny tiny little sparks of possible hope that have lit and disappeared. Keri may not feel it but that hope is in there somewhere. I just hope she and Sally don't do anything stupid before Keri realises she's still got strength inside her.

Sectioned in Hospital - Day 160 & 161

Written by Fox.

DAY 160 & 161 - 14th & 15th January, Tuesday & Wednesday (23 weeks)

Keri's now finished her fourth day of fasting. She's had no food at all since Saturday night. She's found an app for her phone called Fasting Secret which basically records weight, has a timer to encourage fasts and marks trends on a graph. Keri had her obs done again today. She only had them done on Monday but in two days she's lost 0.7kg. Now she's determined not to eat, although I have to say over the last couple of days she has had no appetite.

She's still on one to one observation while out of her room. She's hopefully going to be able to go to the supermarket with Simon, the manager, tomorrow but it depends how Keri is. She's not in the best place. She started hearing those unknown voices again and spent most of her time in her room again yesterday. For the last couple of days she's been rocking constantly and pacing, the faster the pacing the worse her state of mind is getting.

Keri ended up breaking down this evening. Her hallucinations of five guys were around. They were shouting up at her from the front of the building up at her window that if she didn't run away from the unit and kill herself then someone else was going to die tonight instead, someone she cares about. She genuinely thinks this is real. Ade and Gemma spent a lot of time with her while she looked so upset. Temporary two to one obs. That was just a short time until they could calm Keri down enough to get some medication and to talk one on one with Gemma. They were in the clinic talking for ages with Keri crying constantly. It's like the pressure cooker thing. Once she started crying she couldn't stop, then she started blurting out everything that was on her mind and about what she'd been told by the guys who said either she dies or a loved one does. She even saw the guys over by the fence while she was out with the two staff smoking.

Viv has tried to explain to Keri that the "someone dying" thing is just a thought process but Keri's having none of it. Whenever Keri sees the staff she keeps asking whether anyone has rung. She's even been texting people she cares about who've messaged her after seeing her Facebook status about the fact she was terrified a loved one was going to die and she didn't want a phone call tonight. She's been given all her medication, and then some more. She's completely knackered but is forcing herself to stay awake as she doesn't want to be asleep when someone rings to say someone's died, which isn't going to happen. If it does then that's going to be complete coincidence.

Let's hope someone can get through to her so she can get some sleep tonight. She's got plenty if opportunity to talk while on one to one!

Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 5 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 159 - 13th January, Monday

Well, it's Monday, which means it's physical obs day! Keri's obs were a bit odd considering she's not been eating. Matt did her obs in the end. He noted how shallow her breathing was so her resp rate was slightly elevated. Her oxygen sats were perfect. Her blood pressure was getting a bit on the low side. Her temperature was elevated, still within the normal range but on the high end. She didn't feel feverish. If anything she felt the complete opposite! Her pulse was over 100 as usual. Her peak flow was 300, it should be above 400 at least. She was also weighed. Her plan is to fast until her next weigh in, which will be in a week when all the physical obs are done again. She also had blood taken for various reasons. I think Matt was just ticking random boxes!

So this is day 2 of Keri's fast and she's feeling very drained and getting severe abdominal pains. Normally, people would eat at that stage but Keri? It makes her even more stubborn to not eat and force herself through it. Apparently the first three days are the hardest or something like that. I don't know. Keri's the expert on all the food stuff. I personally love food, especially when it's cooked by our foster mum. I don't care about calories! Is it a crime to eat food? Well, according to Keri it is!

There were a mass of phone calls today trying to sort out management. Her observation levels have had to be kept the same; hourly checks while she's in her room and one to one whenever she's out of her room. All her leave is still suspended so Simon kindly went and got Keri some nesquik and diet coke from Tesco before he left to go home. That was nice of him.

I'm afraid I have to say it's a good job Keri's observation levels weren't changed! It was early evening and complete dark outside and Keri started hearing unknown voices. I don't know what these voices were as I'd never heard them! Plus they weren't coming from our house in Keri's head. They were coming from external things and telling Keri to kill herself, that she was worthless, that she needed to die, that if she didn't do it then someone she loves will get hurt. In the end these unknown voices (presumably auditory hallucinations) got Keri building up like a pressure cooker. Normally Keri wouldn't leave the unit if she didn't have permission but after frantically pacing out in the garden with cigarettes and Andy trying to talk to her to see if he could help, she walked straight inside through a different door to Andy and walked straight out of the front of the unit. She speed walked down the pavement and was clutching at her head shouting for these voices to shut up.

As soon as the staff saw her leave they tried calling her but she couldn't hear them over the noise. Just as she was close to getting off the grounds, two of the staff from Alder ran up to her and stood in front of her to stop her going any further. Keri was staring at the ground, listening to these voices, unresponsive to anything the staff were trying to say to her. She just stood there hyperventilating, moving from one foot to the other, completely disconnected. She was in the same state she gets in if she's found wandering aimlessly across railways without even realising she was on any.

After several minutes the staff seemed to get through to Keri that they weren't going to let her go any further. Adam was waiting at the unit to see if he could help when they managed to get Keri back. They did eventually get her walking back to the unit, still clutching at her head and not quite realising where she was walking. If a car had started driving towards her then the staff would've had to pull her out of the way. She was completely gone. 

Instead of sitting in one of the small lounges like she was told as the staff took her inside, she made her way to her room, still clutching at her head because of the noise. Adam followed her upstairs and Keri sat on her bed rocking back and forth and crying. 

"God, I just wish there was something I could do Keri," he said. "You look so distressed at the moment and I know things are really hard going for you right now."

While Adam talked, Keri started listening partially to what he was saying.

"I... need to go," she suddenly said while Adam was mid-sentence.

"Keri, we can't let you go," he said.

"They won't stop talking!" she cried. "They won't stop until I'm dead!"

"Are they pressuring you into doing these things?" Adam asked sympathetically.

With a sad glance at him she nodded. He got her some medication and Keri went down to smoke. Two staff stood outside with her while she paced up and down. They were well aware that Sally could jump the fence in a flash, so assumed Keri could do. Keri was too revved up and probably would've been able to get over as easily as Sally normally did.

Keri absconded at about 7.30pm. An hour after her Diazepam and 15 minutes after having additional medication, Lorazepam. After she was brought back she was then given - in the space of two hours - another dose of Lorazepam, Promethazine, Quetiapine, another one of her Diazepam doses and Mirtazapine. Give it 40 minutes and she'll be back downstairs having her sleeping tablet! Why is this girl not unconscious right now? 

Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 4 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 158 - 12th January, Sunday

Keri was actually up before midday! She wanted to go back to sleep but her headache had gotten pretty bad. Her depression was telling her not to get up. She's still suicidal but doesn't want to do anything while she's on one to one observation. Sally hasn't come out today but Keri's head has just been getting worse and worse. If she doesn't come out this evening then it's got to be tomorrow or something. There's only so long Sally can control herself before she explodes.

Because of her headache and feeling tense, Keri's started rocking quite a lot and pacing around quite quickly. There's a lot of nervous energy that she needs to let out but she still feels tired. She doesn't went to pace yet does anyway because she can't help it. She'd prefer to be sat in her room watching movies, huddled in bed rather than feeling compelled to sit there rocking back and forwards.

Keri's illness that she had yesterday has triggered off her disordered eating again. She had a nice hot meal last night when her stomach stopped rejecting all food but then woke up this morning and decided this was the time she was going to get back down to her 'target weight'. She's even gotten to the point where she's going on a forum promoting disordered eating behaviours. She's been a member since last year but forgot about it when her eating wasn't so bad. Now she's back on it and has already joined a group of people who are going to start a fast tomorrow. Keri's already fasted today so she's getting in a head start there. I don't want her becoming really underweight again. She's already been on the brink of fainting today! Luckily she's stuck to Guitar Hero and hasn't started all her exercise yet.

Keri had a one to one with Matt and they went through my blog. Then Matt decided to have a go on Keri's Guitar Hero! He's never played it before and didn't get through a single song without getting booed off stage which I found quite funny. Giving him credit though, he did pretty well considering he's never played it before! But still terrible. That's the basis of Keri's exercise at the moment, standing up for so long though makes her dizzy. If the physiotherapist turns up tomorrow there's no way she's going to be able to take Keri to the gym to do her exercises, that's if she can get Keri to say yes anyway! Does the almost-fainting urge Keri to eat something? No. She sees it as a sign that she's doing well and losing weight. WHY CAN'T SHE UNDERSTAND SHE IS NOT FAT. She's either starving herself or deliberately making herself sick. Can't we find a happy medium? Apparently not. 

Hopefully we'll have good news tomorrow whatever comes out of this review thing. Everyone's still unclear about what on earth is going on with Keri, her placement and her obs levels. That'll be interesting tomorrow if she gets her leave all given back. May as well give Sally a free ticket to do what she wants and give Keri a suicide ticket. They can't keep her on this level of obs permanently though. It totally defeats the object of a rehabilitation unit. If the worst comes to the worst she'll be sent back to either the acute ward or the secure ward. 

Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 3 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 157 - 11th January, Saturday

Keri didn't even get out of bed until nearly 4pm. Unfortunately her stomach wasn't good and she was spending most of her time throwing up in her toilet. She felt better by the evening but she had to get some fluids inside her due to all the vomiting. 

When she finally went downstairs she found out from the staff that the manager (one higher up than the manager of Alder Unit) had been in touch. The police don't want yet another missing person report and to prevent this happening, Keri has to be kept on one to one observation whenever she's downstairs. This may be invading Keri's privacy but the choice is partly being taken out of the staff's hands at the moment. Sally's quite annoyed with the obs level. It won't necessarily stop her disappearing but it makes it slightly less likely. According to staff, if Keri left the unit (technically Sally would've left) then they'd set of their alarms and arrange for a PMVA team to take Sally to one of the seclusion units. For those that don't know, PMVA means the Prevention and Management of Violence and Aggression. Hopefully it doesn't get to that point but Sally might test her luck on that one. I feel so sorry for Keri if that happened. She would find herself in a strange secluded room, locked in, not knowing how or why she was there. It would be made worse if the nurses dealing with her were completely DID ignorant!

All her leave has been cancelled too. No unescorted leave, not even any escorted leave with staff. She's confined to the unit. Looks like their 'positive risk taking' idea doesn't seem to be being used at the moment!

Keri had a DVD evening with the staff today. They finished watching Yes Man and then watched the first Hangover movie. It was just her and the three staff. The other patients all seem to have disappeared. They're probably tired from their trip that they had to Weymouth yesterday. It's been very quiet. Although there's only 6 patients here at the moment; 4 on leave, 2 technically discharged.

With a headache starting up, it's probably good that her obs level is the way it is. It's now after 1am and I wouldn't usually write so late but I like doing my blog posts. It's weird as there's 3 members of staff working tonight. That hasn't happened since Keri arrived! Must be another management thing. Even when Keri's been brought back by police, even if still dissociated as Sally, there was still only ever two staff working. It's odd. Nothing has really been explained very well but as long as the weekend goes by without any incident, maybe we'll find out what's happening when they have another review meeting about Keri on Monday; whether we are invited to that meeting or not is still unclear.

Well, better let Keri back out. She's keeping herself well distracted but her headache keeps reminding her of things that could potentially happen and she's worrying about it. So far she hasn't told the staff. I hope she does by the time she goes to bed. There's some things that are fine being kept secret but when a trigger warning like her headaches start up then she needs to tell people about it.

Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 2 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 156 - 10th January, Friday

Another late morning though I can't say I really blame Keri. Her hallucination of a non-existent crying baby kept her up most of the night. She didn't get to sleep properly until gone 7.30am, then the staff had to wake her up before 12pm so she could speak to Dr. Harland. Less than 4 hours sleep and Keri's spent half the day trying not to just go to bed. Now it's gone midnight and she's wide awake! I took the opportunity to have a cigarette before writing the blog and the body feels tired. I think it's Keri's mind that's racing a mile a minute that's keeping her awake.

She had a one to one with Dr. Harland instead of going into a ward round. I think she seems a nice woman. She definitely seems willing to learn more about DID so that Keri can be kept on this ward rather than be moved. There were a few moments where Keri just thought "well, what you said is just crap" but not as many moments as I thought there would be considering it's only the third time Keri's met with her.

Matt and Keri both reviewed my blog post from yesterday. Keri's not happy because she knows I'm honest about things that she'd like to keep quiet. For instance, the staff didn't know that if Keri seems unusually perky or happy that is normally quite a bad sign. Now they know. Which has also led to Keri's unescorted leave being taken away from her for the weekend. Let's face it, if Sally's going to walk out and help Keri with her suicide, she's going to walk out. Keri doesn't have the guts to leave without permission unless extremely distressed but Sally couldn't give a damn about the consequences. If I'm honest Keri would probably be glad if Sally got her to that remote bridge again. The downside to this is that it does take a while to get up there, even if Sally gets Keri up there without getting lost. At least the staff know that Keri understands her leave has been taken away so if they see her walk out the door then she'll have dissociated. God help them if they call "Keri" back inside the unit again!

Keri's psychotherapy session was actually quite constructive. Keri doesn't even have to express her depression or suicidality in words anymore, you can just tell by her posture. Her psychotherapist noted how unusually tense Keri looked compared to most of the other times they've had appointments together. People have been talking a lot about hope and stuff today and Keri's just not interested. Dr. Harland actually asked Keri whether she'd considered jumping off that bridge when she last ran away when there was no trains coming, the answer was an obvious yes. It appears, according to Keri's psychotherapist, that looking at the video that was recorded Keri had actually been sitting on that bridge for a while, not just the fifteen minutes we'd thought. She talked about how she'd been sitting perched on the edge just staring down at the tracks and how peaceful they were. Her psychotherapist said that it's possible Keri could've slipped into some kind of dissociative or trance-like state so that a lot of time went by but Keri didn't even realise. Put it this way, she was so fixated on that track she didn't even notice when a group of police officers gathered behind her did she?!

With spending a lot of time in her room, Keri's been struggling to stay awake so her key nurse, Emma, suggested getting one of her DVDs and putting it on in the main lounge and watch it with the staff. Most of the patients had gone on a day trip to Weymouth. Besides Keri, there were only two other patients on the ward, both of which were in their room a lot of the time. It was unusually quiet.

It's weird hearing Keri and Sally talking together at the moment because they're actually agreeing with each other! Agreeing on the wrong thing I'll admit that much, but they aren't arguing. That's one stressor gone. Although I prefer it when they're arguing, at least it shows Keri's got a bit of fight in her. She's playing on her guitar hero at the moment on her Wii. It's gone midnight and suddenly Keri's no longer tired. How the hell does that work? She needs something to be able to slow her mind down, although with the amount of medication she's on you'd think it would've been slowed down to the point she was a zombie... At least playing on her wii is keeping her distracted. So far, no hallucinated baby cries. Bonus.

Quick note, we still haven't heard anything back from the meeting that happened on Wednesday. The police haven't visited to talk to Keri and the ward manager. I'm probably right in assuming we probably won't know much about it until Monday. Everyone skives on a weekend!