Return of the Psychiatrist

Posted by: mutedchatterbox on: February 9, 2012

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I had my first ward round with my usual psychiatrist today after her two weeks of leave. I had hoped that she may discharge me, or at the very least give me home leave, but no, that was not on her agenda for today.

She discussed my impending eviction hearing and has decided that I do have the capacity to instruct a solicitor but that I lacked capacity at the time when all of the forms needed to be filled in. I don’t know if this will help but I suppose it is better than nothing. When I asked if she would discharge me she implied that she would not discharge me as I may very soon have no home to be discharged to, but I said that she couldn’t keep me there until the next eviction hearing as we don’t even know the date yet. She agreed with this but she still didn’t bloody discharge me!

At the moment I’m changing anti depressants, from Venlafaxine to a relatively new anti-depressant called Agomelatine. This is in order to try to get my chronic insomnia under control and to get me off of the zopiclone that I have been taking for almost two months. This means slowly reducing the Venlafaxine while introducing the Agomelatine over the next couple of weeks. She wants me to stay in hospital until this is done. She also told me that the Personality Disorder Service have rejected me for their programme as a result of my dependence on drugs so she is hoping that I can begin to work with the CMHT psychotherapist before I leave so we can develop a relationship that we can build upon once we are discharged. I have seen this psychotherapist before but I get the impression that she doesn’t want to see me as she stopped coming to speak to me a few weeks ago after she decided that my problems were down to emotional dysregulation, aka BPD. Another issue is that her accent is so strong I can barely understand a word she says so I don’t know how I can have therapy with someone who I don’t understand.

The only slight positive to come from today’s ward round was an increase in my leave from two hours to four hours per day. This means I have time to come home, have a cup of coffee and write boring blog posts. No cannabis though as I’m being drug tested every day. This is the longest that I have abstained from cannabis ever but I honestly don’t feel any better for it. The only things that put me off of smoking is the prospect of losing my leave and the dreams that I keep having. I keep dreaming that I have smoked and I’m so intoxicated that I can’t stand up and I feel really ill with it. I keep having to remind myself that this isn’t what happens and if I have a spliff I’ll feel all mellowed out and chilled and just generally really nice.

So ward round was pants really as it didn’t go as I hoped. The psychiatrist did say that I’d be out by the end of the month, all being well, but I was hoping things would move more quickly than that. I have my tribunal on the 28th so we’ll just have to see what comes round first. I can’t see any tribunal agreeing that I need to be there but then again what do I know…

Tags: Agomelatine, BPD, CMHT, Discharge, Hospital, Mental Capacity, Mental Health Tribunal, PD Service, Psychotherapy, Section 3, Sleeplessness, Venlafaxine, Zopiclone