Bloodletting Read Online Free PDF Page A

they would when they went out. In the recreation room,those from Acute could beg cigarettes from Eating Disorders who could be sure to get them from the Alcohol and Drug Addictions crowd.
    It was down there too, out of the way of the hospital staff, that you’d hear other people’s stories. Some were horrific and some, like mine, were disturbingly mundane.There was a hierarchy of disorders, and I’d regularly hear:
    ‘You’re not really in danger, it’s not like cutting your arm will kill you, is it? None of those scars are real suicide attempts are they? You’re just playing. If you wanted to kill yourself you’d try some other way.’
    We self-mutilators had no real tag but quickly began to want one. We wanted a name for our problem, a clear-cut category and label. That would give us an explanation and, no doubt, a quick drug-based cure.We didn’t want to hear that we had borderline personality disorder, or any other personality disorders. These were too intangible and, worse, there would be no quick solution with that diagnosis. But it wasn’t straightforward, and my treatment program highlighted this.
    My new psychiatrist, Dr G, believed my urge to self-harm was exacerbated by depression,so he ‘put’me on Prozac,as the Prothiaden clearly hadn’t worked.An antidepressant was necessary if I wanted to feel better, I was told. He also prescribed Stelazine, which I was to take to calm me down if I felt that I needed to harm myself.
    Psychotherapy wasn’t, at that point, seen as a way to solve my problems.The argument went that even if I delved back into my past and found something monstrous, knowing about it, and discussing it, wasn’t necessarily going to stop the urge to self-harm. Dr G, having decided that there wasn’t anything obvious causing my problem, decided to focus on the immediate issue: how to stop me cutting myself.The key seemed to be in breaking the pattern. I had told him how it worked.
    For days or weeks, I would resist the urge to hurt myself, and then, for some reason, I would be unable to do so any longer. I’d walk to the nearest chemist and buy a new packet of razor blades. I’d use one and then throw the rest out, horrified by what I’d done.While the wound healed I’d feel better.And then the cycle would start all over again. Dr G’s suggestions included calling someone before I went to the chemist, or walking to the nearest café instead of buying blades.
    It was apparent that he really had no idea how best to treat me.
    At the end of the first week, my risk assessment was changed, and I was allowed to go for walks. Administratively, this meant that I graduated from a blue to a red dot on the large whiteboard that was fixed to the wall opposite the nurses’ station.This board listed the first name of every patient in Acute,their room number and their bed number.The coloured sticker indicated how sick (or dangerous) the patient was. Blue meant that you were confined to the ward, orange that you could leave if escorted by a nurse or family member, and red was for those who were allowed out for limited periods of time unaccompanied. It was, in theory, a sensible system but in practice it had its problems—it was easy to switch the stickers around when the nurses weren’t looking.
    With the notable exception of those who were manic, most of the other patients were polite and quiet—an effect, I guess, of both their illness and their medication. Occasionally there were disturbances. One male patient liked to sit in his tracksuit in the common room masturbating while watching television. Many of us had reported this, but it wasn’t until he attacked a nurse that he was moved, we assumed, to a more secure location. Jessica, who had signed a contract like mine, broke it when she managed to create two sets of raw red scratch marks on the inner side of both arms, using her fingernails which she’d carefully filed.Within ten minutes of these marks being noticed, she was assessed and