Woah!

You're days you say they're way too long, 
and your nights you can't sleep at all

And you're not sure what you're looking for, 
but you don't want to no more

And you're not sure what you're waiting for 
but you don't want to no more

But we all bleed the same way as you do
 And we all have the same things to go through

Hold on.... if you feel like letting go 
Hold on... it gets better than you know.

Hold On: Good Charlotte

So yesterday I woke up and felt okay.  As the day went on some felt wrong, felt off.  I knew what I needed to do.  I wrote letters to me Mam and me Sister, and off I went for a walk to find a railway track.  I walked around for a fecking hour looking for one.  When I finally did there were these huge fences I could get over.  I then found a gate but couldn't open the padlock (my locking picking skills suck these days!).  So I sat down on a fallen tree and I broke.  When I couldn't get to the tracks I just couldn't decide what to do, find other tracks or go home.  I was stuck, my brain wouldn't function, I was paralysed.  Couldn't do anything.  It was a strange sensation I just stopped, blacked out.  I know when the police were talking to me I finally felt how cold it was and started shaking.  So a coat was given to me and a cup of tea.   I was disturbed my a police woman.  At that point I started crying asking them to just leave me alone.  Next thing I know there were 6 policeman and woman there.  I wouldn't talk to them to begin with, I wouldn't look at them. I just told them to leave me alone.  Eventually they got me into the car (I was cooperating) and they took me home.  Of course they couldn't leave me because of what I might have done.  So they called the paramedic in since they could access stuff that the police couldn't.  They looked for my medication and I admitted that I had been cutting for two days.  So, voluntarily, I went to the hospital... I voluntarily but I got the feeling I didn't really have a choice.

At the hospital I had to see the CMHT on duty who told me I had to see the psychiatrist. which was going to be in a few hours when the night shift started.  I told them I wouldn't stay that long since it was only 7pm.  I was told that I could leave, but the police would be called and I would be taken to a psychiatric hospital. No choice in the matter.  While I was cooperating I still had some control over the situation!  So I stayed, although every part of my body was telling me to leave.

So I chatted to the psychiatrist who was pushing for me to admit myself.  I told him my suicidal feelings had past (which was sort of true) but I'm more than likely going to cut myself again.  He said he could live with that since they are technically superficial, I don't need hospital treatment and they never get infected.  So he called a friend of mine to see if they could pick me up, unbeknown to me, he was having a. carefully worded, conversation about what had happened and her thoughts on it.  She said that if they hospitalised me it would be the worse thing they could do with me, especially since I was saying I didn't want me mother to be called.  So begrudgingly and because my friend said she would be on the phone to me when I got home and visit the next day they allowed me to go home.  NB did you know hospitals have an account with taxis to help patients get home if they have no money with them!  I didn't, do now.  I didn't cut I just went straight to bed after talking for two hours about random crap with me friend on the phone.  Still didn't sleep but I felt quite calm.

Today my friend came over and I told her what had happened and there were parts of the story that made us laugh, like I didn't know where the railway tracks actually where and spent a long time looking for them, not being able to get to the tracks because of a huge fuck of fence and forgotten lock picking skills.  She said that with everything I have going on it's surprising I haven't had some sort of mini break down already.  She told me off for not giving her a call or let her know what was going on.  If I could call people when I get like this life would be so much easier.

To be honest I really hadn't thought about it as such, it just happened.  I just found myself writing letter and going out to find the railway tracks.  That was it.   I was asked a lot why I felt like this, what had happened and truth be told I have no idea.  I haven't been abused, I haven't had bad relationships, I haven't been raped... nothing like that, I'm just broken.  I just get into crappy feelings/moods.  I can never put into words how I'm feeling, it's the same when I start cutting.  I can't put into words why I do it or what triggers it.  I just know it's time to do it.  It's the right thing to do.

Looking back on the events I'm not scared exactly  but it was an eye opener to how ill I have gotten.  I have to start facing up to things if I want to have some resemblance of a stable life.  I know that for the rest of my life I will have ups and downs but if I can get the right medication and the right life style should help me to keep stable but right now it's not happening.  I really don't believe that the medication is working.  Apart from feeling like part of me is missing I don't really feel much different from before I started taking it.  My normal psychiatrist told me it might not be until I get to the 400mg mark that I'd feel anything definite but I'm still a good month away from that.  It's such a long time in my world at the moment.  It really doesn't help that I sit in the house all day every day, I do try and go out for a walk every day but it depends if I can face it, and then evenings I only go out if I can face it, but a lot of the time I just can't.  So I'm on my own for a great length of time.  Now I love my own company, I love being on my own, but there are times when I get ill that having another person about would not go a miss.  Just to talk crap with or sit and watch TV or play some games.  It's not about talking about how I feel, it's just having another person there.  I think if there had been someone in the flat with me, I'm not convinced yesterday would happen, but I don't know that for sure.  It still could have, I just don't know.

I came so close to being hospitalised/sectioned.  I was very fortunate that I wasn't but I was close.  The choice was almost taken out of my hands, my brain managed to kick in and take control to let me go home, and it does freak me out a bit.  I don't want to be hospitalised either voluntarily or via sectioning I have to be more careful in the future, either plan things properly or talk to people before I get to that point.  I never want to be sectioned/hospitalised ever!

I gave in

Sweet and divine

Razor of mine

Sweet and divine

Razorblade shine

Day after day

Cutting away

Day after day

But anyway

Wake up it's time

We need to find a better place to hide

Make up your mind

I need to know I need to know tonight

Razors: Foo Fighters

Well after thinking about it for a few weeks now I finally gave in and I had a cutting session.  It felt so good.  I really needed it.  I know I have to tell my CPN but I really don't want to, I want it to be mine, I don't want to have to share this.  I hate the fact I am meant to report everything to the CPN and Pdoc.  My moods, my thoughts, my feelings... but they never really seem to hear me.  They sit there, making notes on the computer and then I go on my way.

But to cut was a truly calming experience and I am hoping that it means I get some sleep tonight I usually do manage after a cutting session but I can't guarantee it. I do feel better for it though, but as always when I start I have a hard time to stop.  I just want to keep cutting until it all just stops.  I know I should go to some support groups but I just can't leave the flat all that often.  When I try and leave I do believe that something bad is going to happen.  I can;t tell you what but I know it's going to happen. So I stay at home where it's safe.  I don't like people coming into the flat either.  I tolerate my mother because if she know how ill I am she would never leave me along ever!  There is one other person I don't mind having in the flat but that's because he'll quite happily sit there not talking and just watch TV or work on his laptop without talking about anything.

Cutting is so therapeutic and everyone tells me I need to stop.  It's the reason I'm not at work at the moment, it's the reason I don't have sex but I don't care I like it.  I want to keep this  for myself, so that I can cope.  I don't know how to make myself feel better without it, I don't know how to cope with life without it so why do people want to take it away from me.  I don't want it gone, I want to keep it.  It's the one thing that makes me feel better.

People are telling me that it's not good to cut, that in the long run it won't do me any favours and if I hear it often enough I almost believe them.  Then the need arises, something inside me tells me that to cut will be a great idea and that it would make me feel better.  That something never lies to me.  It does make me feel better so if something is making me feel better and helping me to cope with this curse called 'my life', why should I give it up.

This curse doesn't not get any easier, the meds and seeing the CPN and Pdoc is meant to make me feel better, help me turn my curse into a gift but it never happens.  I get the help, I do the steps but it never gets any better.  I was trying to tell that to someone to day and all they did was shout at me and told me to buck up and fight.  I don't want to any more, I am too tried, too fed up and so bored of living with mental illness that giving in is a very comforting idea.

It's been 5 weeks since diagnosis and nothing has got better.

Severing Ties

Where are the stars? Where is the sky?

Where is the chart to guide us by?

Where is the map?

Where is the part where I melt your frozen heart?

Frozen Heart from Goddess

Depression is a funny thing.  It's full of contradictions and paradoxes, it never makes much sense to those on the outside.  When people ask me about it I find that I struggle to explain what is going on with me in a comprehensible language.  Even I don't understand my verbal and written language when I explain things.  If someone was telling me what I write and talk about I would get so confused and really frustrated with them.

I am in a real slump at the moment.  I have moments of uber energy where I can get things done, so I take advantage of those by doing some cleaning or going for a walk or even going shopping just as long as I'm in solitude.  I also have moments where I don't even want to move, so I just sit on the sofa with the TV on and I couldn't tell you what I am watching, I just sit there waiting for I-don't-know-what.  I just sit, on my own, not doing anything, not thinking, just staring at the TV.

Regardless how I'm feeling I just don't talk to anyone.  I don't go on to facebook much, if someone texts me I just leave it or if someone messages me I just don't answer.  I don't want to interact with people, it's too exhausting.  People want to talk about my feelings about stuff, be it my illness or what I have been watching.  People ask me if I want to go out and I can't make decisions about anything so I ignore the messages/texts.  And yet I am desperate for someone to come to my house, to hold me tight and just sit there with me in silence.  To sit there holding me for those times where for some unknown reason I burst in to tears.  To take my hand and lead me back to the light.  People take everything for face value.  I want to be left alone and I don't want to be left alone.

With how things happened at work because I told someone what I was going through I am finding it really hard to find someone I can talk this stuff through with, so I use this instead.  To write about it, to try and make sense of what is going on in my head and it does help to a point.  But it's missing that interaction with a living, breathing being.

CD and I broke up, no big surprise and I get why we did, I'm not angry about it just disappointed.  I can't help though thinking that the reason he didn't fight was because of the Bipolar and I told him about the cutting.... don't think I told him about the suicide attempts.  But it makes me wonder, is there someone out there who will ever understand about it, who would be there to support me in this.  To take the ups and downs, the me who gets manic, the me who get's depressed, the me who gets irrationally angry, the me who is anxious, the me that doesn't make sense and contradict herself constantly.  Is there someone out there who would even try and understand all this and love me regardless.  I am defiantly better of by myself.  I can't get betrayed, I can't get hurt and most of all I don't have to try and put into words stuff that doesn't make sense to me a lot of the time.

I sit here in the grey, knowing there is light somewhere but not sure where it is, knowing that the darkness is easy enough to find.  Hating the fact I have to take medication every day, that I have to see a CPN every week, knowing that this is here to stay.  I am alone in this, I can only rely on myself and I don't think I can even do that any more.  I don't trust myself.

I know I have to take it one day at a time at the moment.  Looking to the future is terrifying and overwhelming so right now I don't do it.  It's too much.  But one day at a time is too hard.  I honestly don't know what I should do.

I tried doing the Beating Bipolar website.  There are a number of videos to watch that help someone to understand what Bipolar is and how to manage it but there is an emphasis on the idea that Bipolar is something that can beaten but it's not.  It is something you learn to integrate into your life so that it has minimal impact.  It's not easy and there are always moment that regardless how hard you try it rears it's ugly head and support is required.  So how can you beat it?

I have read how important it is to have trusted people around you who can recognise when you get ill again and encourage you to get help.  Me Mam won't talk about it, not allowed to talk about it with me sister so that rules out family and I've stopped trusting the people around me.  I just don't know what to do.  I am on my own.  This is not going to change any time soon, so unless I manage to recognise I am ill, which historically I don't because I am so good at compartmentalising it thus cutting myself off from it so I don't have to acknowledge it, so somehow I have to reverse this.  Can't see that happening any time soon.

There is so much uncertainty in my life and I wish I could find something I could hold on to something.  Faith/God doesn't comfort me any more.  It's all just too hard.  I wish someone was holding me telling me that everything was going to be alright, because right now I don't believe this in any way or form and I'm really considering to stop fighting, stopping the meds and just see what happens.

Faith

Years ago I had the most amazing faith, I felt God in my life all the time.  I trusted God, I prayed about everything.  Every decision I made in my life I prayed about it first. I thanked God every day for the life I had and what had happened during the day.  I prayed for strength to continue in my faith and walk the path he had given me.

Over the years I have found it harder and harder to keep that faith.  I falter all the time.  I'm now at a phase in my life where I find it impossible to find him.  I pray and there is nothing there. I pray for the strength for the fight I need to have but I'm finding it harder and harder to fight.

I've been watching 'Touched by an Angel'.  A wonderful show about angels who walk the earth helping those  in need.  I listen to what the angels say, about God and how he doesn't forsake you, how he loves you and sends you angels to be with you.  Some days I watch it and find comfort in what they say, but most days I watch it and what they say makes me angry and makes me realise that God is no longer here.  He is gone.

I know me being sick has nothing to do with God, it's one of those things that happen in the world.  God is meant to be there to remind us that we are amazing human beings and can cope with a lot, especially if we turn to him for help.  However, I have never felt more alone in my life.  I could be with friends and yet  I am alone.  I have tried praying, I have tried reading the bible, I have tried many things but God is not in my life.  There is no angel walking with me.  It's just me trying to fight every day and I'm tired.  I always thought that God had a plan to me, it's why I hadn't died yet or had more long term issues with the amount of pills and alcohol I consumed.  I should have kidney or liver failure at the very minimum.  But now I just think he has an evil sense of humour and is just toying with me, and I hate him for that.  I'm beginning to believe that I don't want him in my life any more.  It's just all a farce.  We are on our own, there is nothing after death.  There is nothing for me.  I am what I always believed I am.  Nothing.  There is no point me being here.  There is no plan, there is no future for me.

I am tired of the medication side effects, I'm tired of my CPN not actually hearing me. I am tired of my pdoc thinking he knows all that I am and making (wrong) assumptions about me.  I am tired of my family not wanting to talk about my Bipolar.  I am tired of breathing every day and knowing that nothing will ever get better.  I am tired of worrying about money.  This is when I wish there was someone else in my life to make me fight, to care for me until I can start the fight up again for myself.  I can not keep this up, it's too hard these days.  I'm not saying I want to take my life but I don't want to do this any more.  I can not do this any more.  I don't know what to do about it.  

I hate life at the moment, and I want to curl up in a ball and just stop.  

Slow Motion Car Crash

So I've crashed, but it has been a slow come down.  I could see this happening, I could feel it happen and there was fuck all I could do about it.  I would rather have the quick crash, which could happen almost over night.  At least I couldn't see it coming, that way I would just go with it.  Of course it's bad when I'm down because I can get suicidal (thoughts and actual), I can start cutting, I pull away from everyone and push people away, I don't want to get out of bed, I sleep all the time.

However, this time I am down, I have pushed people away, I have been thinking about suicide and cutting, I don't want to get out of bed but I don't sleep. I get maybe an hour or two a night.  But it makes me tired for the rest of the day.  So I don't do anything, which makes me worse, but I don't sleep.  It's a vicious cycle.  I really want to cut at the moment, and the only think that stops me is by having a drink.  But I'm not meant to drink until I settle into the medication.  I tried to talk to the CPN about it but she wasn't in the mood to listen, and certainly didn't ask any questions.  I don't really get on with her, I miss my old CPN but I was living in a different area and I think he's retired now.  He was the best thing I have ever come across when dealing with my mental health.  I wish he was here now.

I know the meds are meant to be a good thing, that over time they will balance me out but right now I do wonder why I bother to take them.  For example, if I take seven times longer to crash does that mean that the down time will be seven times longer and to come up takes seven times longer.  If that's the case I won't cope with it.  My down periods are already around 3-4 months taking 7 times longer is just horrifying.  I couldn't deal with that.  I rely on the hyper moods to help me through.  It's during these times I create support networks and friends.  Then I crash and people know what's up and keep an eye on me.

That won't happen this time, one 1 person from work has made any sort of contact with me.  I haven't talk to any of my 'friends' in over 10 days and no one has noticed.  No, that's a lie, 1 person has but he doesn't do well on his own and his girlfriend on the other side of the world for the next month.  When he's on his own he depends on me for support.  Which, as the Muppet I am, I keep giving him.  This time I told him to grow a pair, learn to be on his own and leave me the fuck alone.  Which he has.  Other than that no one has noticed I'm not around.  I know it's been Christmas and new year but no one has got in touch.  Maybe I don't have the friends I think I have.

I'm also crying at every strong emotion, happy, sad, angry, confusion, frustration etc.  I'm watching TV and I cry.  Something wonderful happens and I cry, I watch Russell Howards Good News and I cry.  It's insane and I don't like it.

I don't know.  I am so confused about everything. How I feel? How I want to act? What this new me is going to be like.  However, I'm still debating weather this is all worth it.  Perhaps I should just give it all up and go back to the way I was.  Lose my job and see if I find something else, or just give up entirely.

Decision making sucks!