I am so over the cycle of ... well, everything. So tired. I wish I could find my plateau. I go through stages where I feel like I have and I make plans mentally and set goals and get active then somewhere, somehow... something shifts and it slowly all falls apart, quite often without me even realising until I am already in the depths the descent.
Most times, I am quite accepting albeit somewhat frustrated that I am realising AGAIN, I have a 'problem' and I haven't broken through the chains it has forced itself upon me like I have always believed and hoped I could.
Some people, in fact most people will be quick to say 'Just Do It' or 'Get Over It' or 'Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself' or more commonly - 'It's Just an Attention Thing'. I've heard it all, many times. I have also been told I am just lazy or can't be bothered. That's the general populations opinion. When it comes to professionals in Mental Health they don't deny for a moment that I have a 'problem'. In fact - they are quick to agree with me (and yes, I know they DO over diagnose, often incorrectly too). However, it seems that because I can string 2 sentences together, because I have educated myself as much as possible about my mental state and of myself in general, because I do recognise that I need help and go looking for it and that I want to get better... they seem to think that I am 'not that bad'. That I have only a 'mild' case. Look, this may be so to some degree... but just because I have a pretty level head compared to alot of people with mental illness (and also alot of people without mental illness).. it doesn't mean that 'It's not THAT bad.'
I have periods where the very next level of my descent if I got there (thankfully I haven't yet but I have been so fucking close) could quite easily be - suicide. But because I have this thing where when I describe it I say 'It's not that I would do it but I have thoughts of killing myself' it's not really put down to being suicidal. When ok at the time of explaining I may not want to do it but in the depths of my own peice of insanity I am thinking about it but deciding not to.
I can't hold down a job and have NEVER been able to. Not for more than 4 months. I get a job in my 'plans & goals' stage and go hell for leather in trying to improve my life, be somebody and drag myself out of this stupid rut I have been in for as long as I can remember (which is, since the age of 9). I love my job and am excited by it. I am sure to tell my loved ones all about it and how happy I am, how I am finally getting it together. I am unsure if I am telling them because I am trying to convince them or myself. But see, this has happened SO MANY TIMES over the years that they think it's good but know it wont last. I don't quite know WHAT triggers it but eventually I start struggling. Usually, to get out of bed. But even my opinion of it changes. I just don't enjoy it anymore. I start finding more things wrong with it than right. The list goes on. Eventually, I just don't go to work. It starts with calling in sick. Before too long I have too many sick days and I don't even bother to call in anymore, I just don't go back. It's like I just can't face it. Them. The boss or employees. Anyone.
I can barely take care of myself even when things are good. I NEVER stick to routine although I try and I want to. People will tell me I don't try hard enough. FUCK you people. It's hard ok. I'd rather die than live the rest of my life with the feeling I get from trying after awhile to be honest.
It's on the inside that is so mutilated. I heard it described somewhere recently as a 'Silent Illness'. So bloody right. Here's something that nobody can deny is abnormal. I cut myself from time to time. Only enough to draw a little blood. Often not enough to scar. I'm not looking for that and I don't much like pain, only a little when I'm hurting on the inside. Sometimes I'll get a peircing, twice I've gotten a tattoo but I can't do that too often. Yes, it does make me feel better, temporarily. It's like a bandaid. A healthier one than getting myself blind rotten drunk day in day out. Or going out and taking taking drugs and partying myself happily away (until I crash and burn of course, but at least then I'm so tired I have to sleep). I think I have kind of grown out of that now anyways. I too often think about how horrible I will feel after physically. Hell I gave up smoking cold turkey a few months ago and the one thought that has and still does suddenly erase a craving was the memory of how shithouse I would feel in the morning after smoking and how much better I feel now. Physically of course. I think after all these years of not quite knowing WHY I cut myself I have just realised while writing this that perhaps I do it because it's a visual representation (an ever so slight one) of pain that's on the inside. I am externalising it.
I swear I don't do it for attention. Not the kind of attention that 'Attention Seeking' generally labels. The most I am willing to admit it is anything like attention seeking is that sometimes... especially when I was younger it was that I kind of hoped someone would if they saw it say.. 'She isn't coping right now. She needs help.' But over the years I realised that this just wasn't what would happen. I copped alot of negative flack for it. Which of course led me to do what an alcoholic does with their drinking.. hide it. Most times anyhow. Sometimes I simply thought at the time what I do usually when I know I am about to fuck up but just do it anyway cuz I am just that screwed up at the time... 'I'll figure it out later and deal with the consequences then.' Which of course leads to more mind fucking. See for some reason the place I most like to cut is my forearm. It feels better there.
For anyone who actually does read this (which I highly doubt anybody does... I'm on a bit of a rambling downer rant).. so you (HOPEFULLY) see that this is real and not a fake attention thing, I first cut myself at the age of nine, on my thigh where I could cover it. What nine year old does something like that? It is also the age of which I had my first thoughts of suicide. My first thoughts of 'What's the fucking point.' I wrote a poem at the age of 10 or 11. It was written in the first person. As though I were living it. Each verse was about a possible method of a suicide attempt and the last line of each verse described why I couldn't do it that way.
- Cutting my wrists - Afraid of the pain
- Taking pills - Afraid of stomach cramps (As I've grown older - I was only 9 - I learnt that you generally pass out)
- Jumping - Afraid of the falling feeling
- Swimming out so far into the ocean that I could not possibly have the energy to swim back - afraid that I would be eaten by a shark instead (I was 9 remember)
And THAT has been my fear of hanging myself. That is really what has stopped me from doing it. Being afraid that I will realise only too late that I don't want to die. But I won't be able to do anything about it.
I WAS 9 YEARS OLD AND THINKING THESE THINGS IN DEPTH, and I still do. But the fear IS (very very slowly thank goodness) getting less and less.
How THE FUCK do I not have a problem that needs to be taken seriously. The difference between me and someone who has the same diagnosis yet is treated with kit gloves is that I do fucking soldier on. I am patient and wait my turn to be treated properly. A turn that never comes. It's fucking hard ok. It's hard because I know I appear to be normal in so many ways on the outside but on the inside I'm not. I seem to have alot of common sense compared to most people 'with my diagnosis'. I am SO tempted to let it all go and go HERE - THIS IS ME - THIS IS CRAZY and completely give in to it all and just let myself go.
But I don't. My little descents and outbursts and what have you are not me letting go. They are my little explosions as a result of holding it all in and trying as best I can to be normal.
Lol... when I started this blog I was determined that I would keep all this kind of stuff out of it. That I would make it a happy place. Even a humurous place. Also, I don't particularly want anyone I know to stumble across this anyway... let alone with a detailed account of 'the truth'. But - ah well.
You know what actually inspired me to start blogging? And I know in some way to someone this will sound bad but I just never really knew what a blog was.. BUT, I was sitting next to my friend at her place and she told me of this woman her friend in QLD told her about. The QLD woman was a blogger and a blog she followed written by a stay at home mum had an entry saying her husband had a psychotic episode and had done something out of character and was now in a coma and that they were going to turn of his life support. As my friend went to this blog to have a read, it made me think of my own friend that was admitted to ICU only days before and was also in a coma due to him hanging himself. I texted the friend that had introduced him and I in the first place and asked for an update of the situation. She replied that they were going to turn off his life support machine that day. I told the friend that was sitting next to me (as she was still reading) and she asked me what his name was. I told her and she kind of looked at me funny. She was reading his wife's blog. We live in NSW. Coincidence huh?! I have since been following it and feeling for his wife. But not wanting to comment or anything. Just kind of silently watching. I want to comment but in a way I don't feel like I have the right for some reason. I just want to let her know I am thinking of her and her 2 small children. Anyways... that's how I came to writing a blog.
I almost feel guilty though.. about it. Because of the depression thing. What also kind of is affecting me in some way.. although I am not yet sure how... The Mister told me when we very first started seeing each other that around 4 months prior he has tried to hang himself twice but he was really drunk and the rope wasnt tied properly or something so it didnt work. He has struggled with depression he says for about 2 or so years. He is also an alcoholic. But not an in an offensive way. If he hadn't of told me I seriously wouldn't have known. I can't even now that I know him well, tell when he has been drinking. At most I think he might have been?
He has been showing signs of his depression worsening for a little now. Yesterday he said to me that he felt like he didn't know if he wants to burst into laughter or burst into tears. He said he felt like he is heading for some kind of break down and that he was going to have a mind snap. Then he said something that scared the shit out of me. Because of what he told me happened 4 months before we started seeing each other and also because of my own friends recent death (5 or so weeks ago). Also possibly because when I was 16 my uncle tried to hang himself and is now quite brain damged. He said he just hoped it wasn't a really bad one.
I asked if he meant now in the car, in a few days or weeks or months or what? What did he mean? He simply replied, I don't know I'm just putting it out there.. or words to that effect.
I can only hope he is like me in this way like he is like me in so many other ways... that he wont do it really. But how do I know? I don't obviously.
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THIS!!
It's not that I am thinking I CAN'T deal with this. That I am struggling myself so it's too much. IT'S NOT. I just don't know how the fuck to do it. What I am supposed to do. I am too scared to do anything because I fear I will make it worse. And I am too scared not to do anything for obvious reasons. I just don't know WHAT to do.
This is not at all the reason for my current descent. I promise. And it's not keeping me down there. It just is.
No comments:
Post a Comment