Emergency Break- A&E (Headcase Checking In...)

The 'thump, thump, thump', started in the Hilton coffee shop in Milton Keynes.  It had nothing to do with the number of roundabouts, giant cycle paths and distribution centres navigated on the way there.  It had something to do with the old bloke unfortunately resembling Stalker 69, sitting opposite me in the foyer; it had somewhat more to do with meeting work before I was ready.

Having now been on sick leave for a month, I was being 'formalised' under the  sickness at work policy.  I'd never taken a day off sick in my life (not even a pretend one) and here I was with a virtually fablonned biff chit (aka laminated sick note) meeting with the Unit Head to discuss stress risk assessments and occupational health formalities.  Unfamiliar territory. Thump. Discussion moving on to return to work date. Thump Thump. Discussion moving on to likely organisational changes. Thump, thump, thump. How did I feel about all of this? Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, get me the thump out of here.

I drove home badly.  Wrong lanes on roundabouts, I wasn't seeing the colours on the traffic lights, I was completely disorientated.  I pulled into Tesco's after missing the turning twice because I couldn't find my usual reference points.  There was a pharmacy there that the doctor thought might sell Melatonin supplements to help with the circadian rhythm balancing.  I came out with Montmorency Cherry which was apparently close and may help my body with producing melatonin. Might do the trick- every little helps, right?  I got back into my car. There was another Stalker 69 in the van parked opposite me eating his lunch.  My heart rate went through the roof and I remember gasping out loud completely involuntarily. Stalker 69. He was everywhere.  Why?  Was this paranoia?

Thump, thump, thump.  The pressure in my head increased steadily over the next two days. My right eye was watering and I just wanted to lie absolutely still.  Except I couldn't sleep.  I'd flipped from over-sleeping thirteen hours at night and three hours in the afternoon to feeling wired.  Absolutely wired as though I could run and run and run or lift the heaviest weights possible in the gym.  Lying down made the thumping worse so I sat up, made cups of tea, raided the fridge, tried to read, iplayered everything, googled stress symptoms a million times  on a hundred different sites and was glad when it finally started to get light.

I thought someone was going to kidnap me.  I locked the door and locked down.  Paranoia?
I thought if I went to sleep I wasn't going to wake up.  Thump, thump, thump.  Paranoia.

And then I started to cry.  And cry.  And cry.  And cry.  I cried for fifteen hours straight without stopping.  The pressure in my head was so intense I thought my brain was going to explode out of my skull.  There was constant, jabbering white noise playing on a fast forward loop inside my head and the only way of getting it to lighten up at all was to 'tune in' to it.  I couldn't eat without wanting to be sick.  Thump, jabber jabber jabber, thump thump, jabber jabber jabber, thump, thump, thump.
Someone bought me a ticket to A&E.  I checked in with all my baggage.

No brain tumour, no bleed.  Acute stress that wasn't going to get better unless I took strong medication and rested. Ok.  I'd gone cold turkey on the Citalopram and tried to do this myself; I'd got it wrong.  I left A&E, still crying like the boiler that bursts in the flat above, and started on the Mirtazapine.  I left my baggage on the carousel and checked out- perhaps the bomb disposal unit would kindly blow it up for me later. Thump, thump, BOOM.