I feel so lost.

And so disorganised. It's so hard going from the structured environment of hospital back to home, where there's absolutely NO structure. I've been thinking I should have chosen to go into respite instead, but it's already been done now.

I can't impose my own structure in the environment because there's too many other people and life here is just so . . . messy. It's bad for me. It's bad because I find it really hard to sustain recovery/wellness when my life has no structure. So moving - it's going to be a really good thing for me.

I'm going to ring my team tomorrow and let them know that I'm interested in doing DBT. They're probably going to die of shock because I've been incredibly resistant to the idea up until now. I just think that, even though I'm aware of and have practised most of the things involved, doing the course may help me gain control over my risky behaviours when I'm in a bad impulsive place. I am, however, going to ask that I not do diary cards, because when I do diary cards, I get all caught up in it and I can't separate stuff.

Issues with separating stuff is part of why my psychiatrist chose quetiapine for me, for the record. I find that when I'm high, all my thoughts are scattered and far away, almost like they're happening outside of my head and I can't reign them in. But when I'm low, it's like all my thoughts are one big messy pile, and I can't separate one thought from another, and I end up just feeling blocked, because it inhibits my ability to communicate, among other things. I also fixate on suicide and self-harm when I'm low. When I'm high I just do stuff for the shits and giggles.

I intended to get up at a regular time today, but it just didn't happen. I let my cat out at about 9am, but it didn't occur to me that I should be getting up then, so I just went back to bed.

I'm still dreaming oddly. Like, somebody who's usually nice to me was really cutting and hurtful in my dream last night. I've been having unusual and negative dreams for about a fortnight now - since just before I went into hospital. I don't know when they'll stop, if they're a symptom, or a side-effect, or what. I just know that my dreams are unpleasant at the moment.

It's raining. We had a week of rain that I pretty much slept through, then a week of sunshine, and now it's raining again.

My first week in hospital - I struggled with everything. I pretty much lived off cups of tea. It was 5 or 6 days between when I was admitted and when I ate a proper meal. I actually lost weight because I had no appetite. I'm pretty sure I've gained it back, it was just kind of shocking to me that I actually lost weight. I couldn't concentrate on anything. Everything felt like too much. I constantly dwelled on possible ways to commit suicide. I stole a knife from the lunch tray one day so I could break it and self-harm with it. Luckily for me, nobody found out. I could hardly talk during that first week. It was just . . . intensely low. Probably the most depressed I've been in a long time. Jens (my psychiatrist) said that being stoned contributed to the severity of the moods this time. Which I guess is just re-stating what Melodie said about cannabis not really being an issue with the general population, but causing a fair bit of trouble in the mentally ill population. Still, I'd rather be stoned than be depressed.

I don't know where my gym shirt is and I need to find it before Wednesday. Rowena said we would "need to talk" about me coming back, so I've decided I'll just tell her to table my resignation. She should have done it before, if I hadn't continued coaching, I wouldn't have got anywhere near as bad as I did - I've been stressing out about competitions and judging and my boys not winning - and me not coaching very well - and I've been hospitalised 4 times in the last 9 months. It's just best for everyone involved for me to leave, and I don't feel bad about it, I just feel like resigning from gym is the right thing to do. I mean, it was clear to me that when I came back at the end of April/beginning of May that the boys were actually doing much better with someone else coaching them, so I'm not entirely sure why I was roped back into it anyway. It's clearly not a place where I belong. I just need Rowena to understand that and actually LET me resign.

I was going over in my mind last night the times I've been healthiest and coped best. And the first half of 2009 was when I was at my healthiest mentally, healthier than I was before and than I have been since. At the time I was studying part-time, working part-time, and living independently. Also, the work I had was very flexible. Gymnastics is very rigid, there's no give and take with hours, and there's also not a lot of hours for me because basically every other coach coaches better than I do.
So I've come to the conclusion that I need part-time work (probably at McDonalds), to move out of home, and to potentially go back to study.

I need to finish my community work before any of that though. I also have to get my moving house cleared with probation, because it means I'll be changing which community probation office I visit, and yeah. Supervision blah blah blah. Judy (my keyworker) reckons that the move will be all good with probation but we'll just have to wait and see.

Things feel very messy at the moment. :/