Last night was another chaotic night as Julie needed to be taken to A&E for stitches. These incidents often happen towards the end of the day when she is beginning to unravel a little with tiredness, and seems to be unable to resist the siren call of her voices to self-harm. Joe took her to A&E still in her pyjamas, where they waited four hours to be seen, and it then took another hour to put the stitches in. They finally returned at half past two in the morning; even after sleeping in, both Joe and Julie look hungover and tetchy today.
We are awfully British about these incidents in our family these days. Julie pads downstairs, says in a low voice that she has cut herself, I take her off to the kitchen to take a look (the lighting is better there and the floor is covered with linoleum). I make a first attempt at cleaning up, steri-stripping and bandaging, using my enormous bag of first aid supplies which I top up regularly. Then Joe and I discuss in very reasonable tones whether or not this is a hospital run this time or not. Even a few months ago, the decision that he had to do yet another night trip to A&E used to come as a terrible blow for Joe - he would lose it a little and bang a few kitchen cupboard doors (and who could blame him) - but these days we are both terribly low-key and stiff upper lip. All those psychiatrists would be proud of us. We even get on with the annoying tasks of cleaning blood off the carpet and tracking down and disposing of the blade she used before he sets off into the night. Once they are safely on their way I put any messed-up towels or clothes into the washing-machine and set it running, and make sure her brother gets to bed as usual. He keeps well out of the way and seems untroubled by what is now fairly routine.
Once Joe gets to hospital we keep in touch by text for as long as I can keep awake. There is no point me trying to stay up and feeling wrecked as well the next day, so once I need to sleep I sleep and, believe it or not, these days I sleep very soundly until they return. The queue is never less than 3 hours, and usually 4 hours. Joe thought it would be alright last night but then a whole load of urgent cases came in and they were at the back of another queue. For the minute they get to sit in the kids area, which is quieter, but presumably once she is 16 they may have to sit in the main waiting room with the drunks.
Once back he gives me the verdict - the stitches a grim confirmation that we were right to take her in and wait so long. If there are no stitches we feel, bizarrely, that the trip was a waste of effort.
This morning before I left for work, I wrote a note to Julie to reassure her and encourage her to carry on fighting these urges. Although we let her lie in, we expected her to go to school as usual later in the day, and for life to go on as normal the next evening. I used the phrase "a lapse is not a relapse",which I learnt from Stuart Sorensen. It seemed particularly important that she didn't start giving up in despair just because she had had this incident. When you are young, it is easy to feel that the die is cast, and the pattern cannot be broken. Giving up is a luxury we do not have.
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