Not Feeling ill

It’s funny isn’t it, if I were in a general hospital on a ward staying overnight then I would probably realise that I was ill. If I had a drip in my arm and porters wheeling me down the corridors to X-ray then I would probably know that I am ill and yet when I was in the psychiatric ward over the weekend, I didn’t feel ill.

I think it can be incredibly confusing to have a mental illness, it can blur the lines between your personality and your illness and the longer it goes on the more you wonder which parts are you, which are illness and if you’re even ill. Or at least that’s how I feel anyway.

I think a part of it is that verbally I struggle with communication, particularly when I am unwell and particularly when it’s talking about the more difficult aspects of my illness. I used to not speak at all and it comes back and I find myself not telling the staff anything and often feel like the staff don’t really know why I am on the ward because I’m unable to say. I get into this cycle of doubt, of thinking that the staff must think I’m well and wonder why I am there and then wondering if I even need to be there.

It’s a confusing knot of jumbled up thoughts that end up with me on a lot of medication, in a hospital bed and yet not feeling ill enough to be there.