"Suicidal ideation and the NHS"

Despondency is a familiar place. I'm bipolar. I've attempted to help myself die twice, for which I have been hospitalised in a lock up ward. A danger to society and to myself, they said. That was in South Africa, in 2006, resulting in a 3 month stay in hospital

I am able to see when a depression is heading towards total despair, and this was the state I found myself in at the start of April 2023. Feeling up or feeling down are normal, but feeling like it wouldn't change anyone's life if I didn't exist is a really bad place to be, and then to work out that it would only be when the gas ran out and the curtains not opened for a month, that anyone would discover my body.

Somehow, even tho I have attended two different churches where I live, not a single person came to visit for the whole of February, and most of March. No one asked me to join them in some outing or a project. No one needed my help for anything. It was like I didn't mean anything to anyone. 

I found myself looking at assets I treasure and deciding which to give away to whom, as I wouldn't be needing them anymore. I saw no hope for anything to change, and this led me to go to Livilands Resource Center to ask for antidepressants in April. 

I was told my psychiatrist was on holiday, and the earliest appointment they could give me was in June. There was no offer of someone else to see, or somewhere else to go. Just an appointment in 11 weeks time.

I was stunned. I sat outside wondering what to do to stop thinking. In other countries I've been able to ask for antipsychotics, and slept for a week. In other countries I've had friends offer to feed me for a week just so I can come right. 

In Scotland, I have no access to the medical center - when I was in homeless, and placed here, a doctor my medical practice even said they wouldn't prescribe me anything lest it contra'd with the psych medication,  and no access to the psych - I don't even know where the nearest A&E is, to go when I'm thinking self harm.

People hear that you have problems making food, but they don't put two plus two that I live in a place where there are no take away places that deliver. No, here if you have no family and you've upset the community, you're stuffed. 

The only alternative that works to get out of a maudlin state if you can't access meds is to get motherless drunk. So drunk that you feel sick for days, in the hope that by the time you feel better, you can't remember you mean nothing to anyone. The challenge with this is that, in order to stay alive (ironic to think like this when considering suicide) one needs to have food in the fridge or someone who cares enough to feed you.

I'm in despair because there is no food, no way to get food, and so there's no way out. Eleven weeks to wait to ask for antidepressants. I order frozen foods to be delivered, and I feed the birds, they need me. It's feeding the birds that keeps me alive.

I cancelled the June appointment because I didn't want to be put onto new medication to find it made me sick and there wouldn't be anyone to tell for months. They then asked if I wanted to be discharged, at which I said no, any support is better than none.

So I have another appointment on Thursday, where the NHS text tells me I'm to ask for options about my care.