A Love Letter....

Not everyone, maybe no one at all, completely understands mine and Gareth's relationship. Most people don't understand Gareth at all. We have had to make compromises and sacrifices in order to maintain a life together with Borderline Personality Disorder. We've lost a lot along the way. But what we have underneath it all is a deep and committed love that has taken a lot of work. It isn't always obvious and it isn't always said and it often gets lost beneath the pain of living with mental illness so I wanted to remind Gareth what he means to me...or as Hafiz so eloquently wrote, "I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being." For you Gareth...

You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen
You shine just like sunlight rays on a winter snow
I just had to tell you so.

Your eyes sparkle as the stars like the moon they glow
Your smile could light the world on fire or did you know?
Your mind's full of everything that I wanna know.
I just had to let you know.
I just had to tell you so.

You're my butterfly.
Fly High. Fly. Fly. Fly.

(Butterfly by Lenny Kravitz)

Sian xxx

World Mental Health Day

Hollins Park hospital is hosting an event on Sunday 6th October at the start of the week that sees 2013 World Mental Health Day (10th October) and they are kindly letting me display a piece of art I've created as well as some poetry I've written. So here it all is:

I'm hoping you can read the poems by clicking on the pictures to enlarge them. 

If not, please comment and I will type them out under each one.

Gareth is setting them all out for me as I will be at home looking after the dogs so he will tell me afterwards whether they went down well or not. Fingers crossed!

A single rose...

Gareth was fabulous last night!!!

He started having flashbacks during the day. He didn't have a good childhood and has very bad flashbacks about it now. I'm unlikely to go into any more detail about his flashbacks than this. I came downstairs and he was huddled on the couch shivering and shaking. I spent some time checking he knew who I was and making sure I could hold his hand. His psychologist once told me the worst thing you can do to someone in the middle of a flashback is touch them as they are back in the past and would think it was someone else, its possible he would hit out, scream, be terrified. I used my voice to ground him and once I had his trust to hold his hand we tried touching the dogs ears, wiggling his feet and hands and then finally I asked if I could hug him. I just held him until he stopped shaking and he was confident he was back in the room.

As I prepared to go to bed he told me it was going to be one of "those" nights - this usually means no sleep, lots of flashbacks or psychotic symptoms and a trip to A&E. But not this time. He didn't sleep a wink but instead of phoning the doctors or an ambulance he used all his techniques to try and keep himself calm. Instead of waking me up repeatedly he let me rest while he listened to music, stroked the dogs, did some visualisation, smoked, walked, whatever it took he did it last night!

This is an amazing achievement for Gareth and I'm really proud of him. Borederline Personality Disorder is also known as emotionally unstable pd and controlling or dealing with his unbearable emotions is terribly hard. I know that one day he will be able to do this every time he doesn't sleep because he is determined to be happy, to make me happy and to get better.

This morning he came to town to get a book from the post office - "You'll Get Over It: The Rage of Bereavement" - and he came to my work afterwards bearing a single red rose with a note thanking me for all my support. I adore red roses they are incredibly beautiful flowers. Everyone has been oohing and ahhing over it all day - including me :)

Well Done!

I imagine if most people got a text from their other half saying, "Feel like taking an od cos I feel that bad." it would probably be pretty upsetting and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't reply, "well done". I get texts like this most days about overdoses or self harming. The reason I praise Gareth is that once upon a time he wouldn't have said how he felt, he just would've cut himself or taken an od.


When I first met Gareth he had a lot of deep scars all up both arms and since he's taken numerous overdoses. I've sat in A&E for hours alone whilst he's slept getting angrier and angrier. I don't go anymore. Its been some time since Gareth  Od'd but the last few times he's had one instruction: Ask them if you are going to die ring me and tell me. Fortunately most times he takes tablets that do no harm. On occasion though he will take paracetomol based tablets and I have to go with him because its very dangerous. Waiting 4 hours until he can have his bloods taken to see if any damage is done is excruciating. Wondering if this is the last night you will spend with him is terrifying. Asking the A&E nurse if he's going to die and hearing her reply, "we don't know" is numbing.

Gareth used to tell me he was going to die before he was 30 and I used to believe him. We're both 35 this year so he was wrong but he still plays with fire. I know Gareth isn't the only one. He has a friend in his 70s with a similar pattern and he knows people like himself who have been in the mental health system for years who repeatedly self harm by both cutting and overdosing. They, like Gareth, are in pain and don't know how to deal with it, how to express it or cope with it. It overwhelms him and he doesn't feel he has the ability to overcome it.

I try to make him see that regardless of how he feels it is still a CHOICE - his choice. Noone puts those tablets down his throat and he has plenty of reasons not to. Im not saying it's an easy choice, if i were in his shoes I've no idea if I would still be here, but nevertheless he has a split second choice whether or not to put those tablets in his mouth and swallow.

Gareth's made the choice not to take tablets for over a year now and for that I'm extremely proud of him. There's many other reasons I'm proud of Gareth which I will share over time but for now every time he tells me he wants to self harm instead of doing it I will continue saying, "Well done!"