Lizzie-Lu (short for Elizabeth Lucy) was somehow 'implanted' into my memory around about January 2007. I'd been hearing a voice for about 2 or 3 months at this point. So when I had this memory of Lizzie-Lu put into my head, the voice was convincing me that she was real. The memory consisted of me holding Lizzie-Lu in my arms for a short while before a shadowy woman took her from me. I find it difficult replaying the whole memory any more but it only lasts about a minute or two at most. Yet this short memory makes me still miss her, even though she's technically not real. She's real in my head, but rationally, I know that she never existed. I was first told that she wasn't real during my first incarceration (ie enforced hospitalisation) in October 2008 but never truly believed it until January 2011. FOUR YEARS after having the memory put there by dear knows what. So I suppose it's no surprise that I still miss her. She'd be six in June if she was real and born the day I thought she was. I've stopped writing letters to her and stop indulging myself with thoughts of her, but I still miss her. But I know that children at the moment are a bad idea.
If I have children, I want to enjoy them and not have to prove that I'm a good (or satisfactory) mother to some mental health worker. I don't want them taken away from me after they've bumped their head accidentally or have a bruise in a bizarre place. I've never harmed anyone else in my life (well never intentionally - I did once nearly chop my sister's fingers off but that WAS an accident!) and would never intentionally harm my children, but when it comes to mental health, the workers believe they 'Can't Be Too Careful'. Granted, I have harmed myself umpteen times and attempted suicide more times than I care to count but there's no way I'd harm my children. I had the voice COMMAND me to harm my family and was told many, many times to kill them and was given 'good' reasons why I should kill them, but I've never intentionally harmed anyone.
During my second hospital stay, virtually everyone - me, my parents, the hospital nurses and even my psychiatrist knew that I would harm myself instead of harming anyone else, yet my CPN was convinced that I was secretly an axe-wielding maniac just waiting to be discharged so I could murder thousands of people. Thankfully my CPN is no more.
Although on saying that, I haven't murdered my CPN!!! That came out wrong, what I should have said was that I no longer see my CPN! I don't actually have a CPN anymore, I have a support worker instead and I prefer her immensely over my CPN!! My council doesn't have the capacity to offer me a CPN apparently.
But as I pick up my glass to have a drink, I think once more of my daughter.
Here's to you Lizzie-Lu.
That's the one thing I hate about mental illness. People will *always* be labelled as somehow being incompetent/dangerous/not able to cope, even if there's evidence to suggest otherwise. Some people (well, some professionals) just can't shake the fear of litigation and whatever, so they're over-cautious. :(
ReplyDeleteIt kinda feels like being in a lift with someone, they walk out, you notice they farted just as they left and then another person comes in the lift and thinks you were the one who let one off. Kinda hard to shake that impression.
Weird analogy, but it made sense in my head :P