"So get me out of my head,
Cause it's getting kind of cramped you know
Coming ready or not
When the motor gets hot
We can do it again.
The papers say:
Johnny won't you come back home
Cause everybody knows you don't
Want to give yourself up
Then tell the truth and God will save you"
Bulletproof Heart by My Chemical Romance
So the other week at work, I had my termly review. This consists of me rating myself against some national standards, my boss (P) doing the same thing and the vice principle (VP) and then we sit in a meeting and discuss everything.
Now last time I did this I got told off because I gave myself very low marks, so when I asked if I could train to be a tutor I was told that I needed to work on myself before that could happen. Now since then the tutor in my room got fired, and I was asked if I would take his place. I did. So this time round the review is different. No longer as a teaching assistant but as a tutor.
The meeting went very well, I gave myself some good marks, P gave me good marks, VP couldn't make the meeting. We talked about my depression and how it effected me, we talked about the job and how I was coping with it (especially as I've hit the ground running and have no real clue what I am doing, especially since I have no quals or experience in teaching. Youth work is very different). I came away quite positive, and P was very complimentary on how I've been coping, and even my little melt downs are okay because I'm honest about them, I freak out because I'm not sure what I am doing is correct and I need people's support. P likes the fact I ask for support when I need it, and sometime ask for help over the tiniest little thing because I've got myself confused or lost. She likes the fact I'm honest about where I am.
P likes the fact that when I scored myself, on the whole she agreed with me. She even marked me up on somethings, and only marked me down on one thing. Mainly because I confused myself with what it was asking. There were some I didn't understand at all and just gave up on, and she was fine with that as the jargon they use is jargon I am not use to and therefore rightly confused by it. She said she was proud at how far I had come since my last review/supervision.
The thing is I think I lied. Things are going so well at the moment, and God knows I am trying to enjoy it and trying to take one day a time (hey I even might be dating someone, first date went well, just waiting until after new year to make a second date). I want to enjoy it, I want to accept it for what it is, I want to find happiness from it all, I want to really feel what people perceive me as being. The problem is I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall. I'm waiting for the crash, it's got to come soon. It always does and I really don't want it. I don't want to go back to that place but I know it's coming and that nothing I do can or will stop it. When I fall this time, do I have the strength to stand up again, will I fall as deep as last time. I know one thing for certain I need to find a support network or I really am screwed. P thinks that I tell her how I'm feeling, she thinks she can read me and knows what I'm thinking and how I am doing. It's a lie. I know it is. The mask is so automatic it's taken me the Christmas break to recognise it's there. It was only when I was doing some automatic* writing that the truth comes out. I've tried to convince myself that what I wrote was crap, it was just the old insecurities coming forth and muddying the waters. I wonder if it is though. Through out my life I go in cycles, I do well, I am up and then I come crashing down. When I'm down I'm really down. I know I need to get the support network or else I'm in BIG trouble when I crash. It's not like my mother would ever understand. P can't really help as she keeps personal and business separate so what help is that to me.
I have these dreams, so vivid, so lucid almost memories but I know they are not. In my dreams I am screaming at the top of my voice "I'm not okay, can you not see that, why can't you see I'm not okay". People walk past me, until someone gags me, pulls me to the ground. Others hold me down, all whispering something, with everyone whispering at once I have no idea what people are saying. I'm trying to get free, people are watching what is happening but move on. The harder I struggle the tighter people hold on until I'm suffocating. I usually wake up at this point gasping for breath and a feeling of doom and dream permeating into every cell of my body. Makes it hard to shift.
I am doing so well at the moment, I don't want to loose it, like really don't want to loose it. I know I will have to have some rough patches, it's just what life is. But to come crashing down, going down to where I used to be. I don't have the strength to do that all over again. It almost killed me last time. In fact I'm not sure how or why I survived last time. I had no right to survive. I never did, and still don't understand, why is it I don't have kidney failure or liver failure, why my heart still beats, how I am so well and there are no side effects from all those times I took pills and alcohol mix. I used to take 8 paracetamol with a BIG bottle of WKD. The paracetamol alone was enough to kill me, so how the hell did I survive. I just don't understand.
I shouldn't concentrate so much on these things, I know that. It quicken the spiral down. What I need to do is to start creating a support network, I just have no idea how to do that. Anyone who asks me how I'm doing, I say I'm doing great, life couldn't be better, which isn't fair off the truth at the moment. But it's what comes next that I can't talk to anyone about and it scares me shitless. Once this year something happened and I planned how I was going to die and even bought what I needed to carry out the plan. I choose a location, a time and a date. I could still do it... at this moment in time I really don't, but what if I go back there again. What then? What will stop me? No one really knows me any more, no one can read my signs. Only a handful of people ever could and they are not part of my everyday life any more. I have no one who can help keep tabs on me.
I really think that when I fall this time, I will fall and never get back up.
*For those who don't know automatic writing is when you start writing something like a journal entry and you just write what you're thinking and what you're feeling. Sometimes if there is a lot to say or you've suppressed something the pen with the aid of your subconscious takes over. When this happens some home truths come out. Always put what you write away for a few days before reading over it, or else you'll just dwell. Read it again and work out what you need to deal with, what to ignore and what's just crap.
