Not Well

I know I should go and get some help but I'm really struggling to get motivated to do it.

I am very erratic at taking my meds, and I know this is a bad thing.

I am tired all the time.

I am struggling to eat properly.

I am struggling to clean the flat (I do have a cleaner but she's not been in for a while).

I am struggling to keep myself clean.

I am struggling to wash my clothes.

I am struggling to keep myself motivated.

I struggle to sleep.

I struggle to wake up.

I struggle to concentrate on anything.

I struggle to keep my anger under control.

I struggle to get any work done.

I struggle to not cut.

I struggle not to drink.

I struggle to not cry all the time.

I struggle to be around people.

I need to go and get help.

But I'm struggling.

Pros and Cons

I am really struggling.  Part of it my own fault because I stopped taking my meds for a few days and started off a crash.  When I started the meds up again I moved back into my manic phases, although it will be a while before I'm actually in full mania.

Since I fucked up the meds I am, emotionally, all over the place.  Today I have been up since 5am, I didn't go to bed until 3.30am so sleep is not on my agenda at the moment.  I spent an hour or so crying, and I don't just mean a little cry, I mean full on, from the depth of my soul sobbing.  I couldn't tell you what it was about, but it was just crying and I struggled for it to stop.

As a result during the day, any sort of big emotion I felt almost brought me to tears.  I'm trying to get the flat's management company to sort out the leak in the porch.  This has been an ongoing issue for about 3 years now.  No-one now why this happens or where it all originates from.  We just know it does it.  So I am now documenting everything and emailing it all to them.  So I was talking to someone from the management company today and they are going through all the motions of what has already happened in the past.  They have sent three different companies to have a look at the problem, all of which have said three different things, and have done three different things to the porch and yet it still leaks.  So they are sending out another company!  He even asked if I had reported it before, so I found all my emails about it and read off the dates to him, and told them which ones had videos on or photos on.  I was getting frustrated at this point, and although I didn't start shouting at him, I wasn't exactly being nice to him either.  Anyway, when I put the phone down on him I almost burst into tears, but I was at work on a break so I couldn't fall apart so I distracted myself and kept on going.

I was on my way to work, went the wrong way and ended up being stuck on the motorway and was late for the meeting I was due to attend.  I was only about five minutes late, but still, I sat in the car praying that I would not cry and that I could keep on going.  I couldn't fall apart again.

I have spent three days feeling so overwhelmed about what I needed to do that I struggled to even get out of bed.  It was easier to just stay in bed and only occasionally  got out of bed to go to the loo or get some water.  I couldn't even watch anything because the thought of choosing something to watch was too much to bare.  So I put my music on random and I just had music going.  This morning it took me nearly an hour just to decide what clothes I was going to wear to work!

Even now I'm just finding everything overwhelming that I don't understand how I am even functioning.  I just want to stay in bed and never move again, but something keeps me going.

With the money I have been awarded I am going to get a cleaner, that would help me slightly.  Knowing that the flat is clean and tidy will mean that it's one thing that I don't need to get overwhelmed by.

Like I said I don't understand how I am functioning.

So far I don't see any benefits to being Bipolar!                            

Well fuckadoodledo

In March 2011, due to lack of funding, I lost my job. My mother, fortunately, allowed me to move back home with her. In August of the same year, I managed to get myself a part time job, in a college for adult SLD students. It was an amazing job and I loved it. As time went on I realised that one of the directors took a dislike to me (other colleagues pointed this out as well) and as time went on the job became tricky as everything I did was wrong in her eyes, and I was brought up to her office over the smallest of things. My colleagues rallied around me to support me and I appreciated that.

Went the two current managers started my place of work just got worse. I was intimidated and humiliated in front of other staff members. Again there were colleagues that support me during this. 

In May of last year I attempted to take my own life and failed. Someone I classed as a friend (Z) cornered me at work. She said she could tell that something was wrong. I broke down and told her about my attempt. Nothing more was said. A month or so later I hurt myself. Again she cornered me and I told her what I had done. Jump forward 6 months (give or take) and she watched me talk to another friend (L) about a problem I was have. L was a better person to talk to about the sort of problem I was having. Z, I assume, got jealous about this and went to the management team and told them that over the past 6 months I had attempted suicide no less that 5 times and that I had been hurting myself nearly every week since.

This was not the case, but management hauled me upstairs. They made me feel like a criminal, they spoke to me with distain and disgust and were condensing. once of them even saying 'I don't think you know how to be happy and I pity you for it'. The next day I was suspended for two weeks. Once I returned to work I was forced to work in an office by myself with no contact with staff or students as just get one with some work for the full 8 hours I was there. Even during the lunch break I was not allowed contact with staff or student!

Shortly after that I went of sick as the doctors said I was unfit for work.

Thus the Bipolar II diagnosis was given and treatment started. 

Spot on three months having gone off sick I was called into work to a mandatory meeting about returning to work. I wasn't near read for this. But we chatted. Two days latter I received a letter that said they were considering terminating my contract. Which caused me a lot of stress and really did not help my recovery. Every couple of weeks or so I was called in to discuss my future at that place of work. I asked them to get a report of my pdoc to say that I was able to return to work, and explain that I was doing well with my recovery.. so on and so forth. The look on their faces were priceless. So I went away feeling quite pleased with myself because I was, for the first time ever, fighting back.

During this time I very close friend (D) talked me into applying for a number of jobs including a job where she works. She could see I was ready to return to work, but also knew that the thought of going back to my current place of work was completely stressing me out and making me anxious. So I applied for five jobs and got five job offers. This week I took the job with D as she knows me and my full history and where she works have some others with Bipolar so they already have things in place.

Today I got to go to my current place of work and hand in my resignation. 

I honest thought I would be on cloud nine, happy as anything now that I am away from one of the most toxic places I have ever worked. That is not the case. I am struggling. I feel dead inside. I made the right choice. I am happy and content with my choice. D and I make an awesome team and I can't wait to start working with her. Yes, I am nervous about starting a new job (and yet another new career) but I am very confident about my choice and do not regret it at all.

So why do I feel so down. I just want to crawl into bed and stay there forever and a day. I want to fall asleep and just stay in the world with Morpheus for as long as possible. I do not want to die, just sleep. I don't want to have to get up and pretend that everything is okay. I should be celebrating my decision and it's outcome. Instead I just feel like ****. Things can only get better from here. I don't want to feel like this!

Trinity

The Trinity is one God who exists simultaneously in three persons. 

Each is coequal, copowerful, and coeternal with the other. 

Each person--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--is not the other. 

Without either there is no God. All comprise the one God

So I have come to understand that there are three parts to me now.  

There is the manic me where I have so much energy I have no idea what to do with it, so I start redecorating at 2am or cleaning my kitchen at 3am.  I go out for walks, I talk at 90 miles an hour unable to stop myself, I spend too much money, I don't look after myself properly, only eat if it's something I don't have to cook (McDonalds here I come)... I just keep moving, never stopping, sleep only happening ever few night and only for a few hours.  I socialise all the time, with different sets of people so no one can see what is happening.  I try and be out of the house for as long as possible.  I also tend to drive too fast.  I can put myself in dangerous situations like getting drunk and walking home at 3am down unlit roads.  I just don't care, life is just there for the grabbing to hell with everything else.  I wash a little bit more than when I'm depressed but not by much.  Once i've been like this for a while I start getting ratty and rude when people are  not as fast as me and are slow and annoying

There is depressed me where everything makes me anxious, where I don't like to get out of bed, where I sleep all the time.  I don't eat, I don't interact with people, I don't do much of anything.  Just lay in bed.  I don't wash, I don't change my clothes, I only munch on little things.  Anything that means I don't have to get out of bed.  I hate the phone going, I hate being on the internet, I will avoid life as much as I can and if people do notice and start calling/texting me I just get really frustrated and hid even further into my bed.  

Then there is 'normal' me.  This is the me I'm not sure about.  This is the me I don't think I have ever got to know.  I've always been either manic or depressed, never anything in between.  Now there is this third person in my life and I'm not sure what to do with her.  When I am her life is copable.  Nothing is overwhelming, I can deal with stress and pressure as if they are nothing.  I go out and be with people without upsetting them or me.  I don't want to hurt myself, in fact I don't know why i would want to hurt myself when I am this person.  This person turns up for a little while before moving into one of the other two.

So I am now trying to balance my life with these three people.  I know I have to keep taking my meds so that these three people can try and coexist in a way that does not disrupt my life as the other two have.  I'm just not sure this is what I want.  This 'normal' me is a stranger to me and I don't know if it's someone I want to let into my life.  I don't trust people normally so how the hell do I trust this one.  I know it's me, but it's not me.  All three of these people are me whilst at the same time not being me.  It's so confusing.

I haven't been taking my meds either.  I just don't see the point.  I'm not convinced I'm any better off now than I was before.  At least before I had a job (not always easy but I was getting there with it), I had a Boyfriend, I had money, I had a life... now I'm just a rollercoaster that is going extremely fast and just about staying on it's track, just one wrong move and it's all over.  I wish I could go back to the beginning of October and do it all over again.  Make different moves and most of all not confide in the person I thought was a friend who then screwed me over.

I should mention that it doesn't really bother me that they told management that I had mental health issues and what I had been doing... what bothers me is the fact that the person made it sound like I had attempted suicide many times and that I was cutting myself constantly, and they started telling other people around college.  Making it all sound ALOT worse than it actually was/is.  I can never forgive her that.  I can forgive her for trying to get me help.   

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.

Christmas and Family

I do like Christmas.   Not the commercial side of it, but the spending time with the family, seeing friends and using it as a way of relaxing and enjoying spending time together.

However, this year, I don't know if it's because I'm in the wrong head space or what but I did not enjoy it this year.  I mean spending time with the niece and nephew is wonderful but the only thing that was talked about was my sister's family, her pregnancy (yep I'm going to be an aunt again), what the niece and nephew are up to, what her husband is up to and how his job is going, where they are at with selling their house, what me Mam is up to, even what my uncle is up to.   Not once was I asked how work was, Mam has asked me not to tell my sister about my Bipolar, I'm not allowed to talk about it at all.  I can't talk about work as I've been to work in a month, but my sister doesn't know any of this.  I actually forgot to take me medication to me Mam's and had to rush home to get it, but again I was not allowed to tell anyone why I had to disappeared.  When I did take the meds, I had to do it in front of my sister and my brother in law because there is not privacy to take it anywhere else.   It wasn't talked about, it wasn't mentioned.

I know I haven't told me Mam just how ill I have been this year.  She has no idea I attempted suicide in May, or that I planned it again in August.  She has no idea that I have cut myself so much this year that I've actually got scars.

I'm meant to tell my family this as they need to know what my moods are to help me deal with it, but I can't tell them.  Me mam is just one of those people where you just don't talk about mental illness.  If I had cancer or broken a leg she would be happy to tell other people and get support.  Because it's Bipolar we don't talk about it, we don't mention it to anyone.

So it was an odd Christmas for me.  I also had to double my dose of lamotrigine to 50mgs yesterday so we'll see what that does.  I'm still not sleeping too well.  Only a couple hours a night, the rest of the time all I manage to do is doze.  But still fully aware of what is happening around me.  I'm really tired, but not feeling depressed nor an I hyper.  I'm too tired to do anything.

In better news CD and I are talking again and hoping to meet up.  He's feeling better but I don't know how I feel at the moment.  I want to see him, and I have missed him but I wonder if he is the right person for me.  He needs someone who's supportive and I need someone who's supportive.  If we keep getting ill at the same time it's never going to work.  If we get ill at different times it won't matter so much as we can support each other.  The medication is also making me horney so I don't know if I want to see him because I want the sex.

Everything is so confusing and I don't know how I feel about a lot of things.  I don't know if the medication is a good thing because I don't feel like I'm me.  Without the extreme moods I feel like most of me doesn't exist.  I don't know who I am without the swings.  At some point I have to go back to work as I'm having money issues and without a full months pay I'm screwed.

In some ways having a diagnosis of Bipolar has been like a weight lifted from my shoulders, the mood swings I've gone through and the horror I've been through is not my fault.  It's not something I could control it's all part and parcel of being bipolar.  But now I have this diagnosis and I'm not sure what I should do.  I have to change my life style I'm sure of it, but I don't know what I should do.

I have many people who said that I can talk to them about stuff but none of them are bipolar, and not sure what to say or how to help me.  Someone asked me what they could do to help me and the truth is I have no idea.  I don't understand myself, I'm not sure I know who I am any more.  I know I don't really want to cut and I don't want to commit suicide so these are good things but other than that I don't know anything.  Having spent years trying to learn who I am I have to start again.  At 35 years of age and feeling so alone I'm not sure I can.

This is week 3 since diagnosis.

Fail!

Well, shit! I've had to go back on meds. Work have told me either I sort out my mood swings or I won't have a job any more. So yesterday I went to the doctors and explained to them what's been happening including the self harming and planning to take my own life. They have me on citilopram  (20mgs) with looking to double that in two weeks. I am also on the waiting list for a CPN (community psychiatric nurse) and further therapy. So that'll be fun. It's not what I want but I need to to keep my job so I can get my qualification so I can get a new job.

And on top of all this I need to have a converaation with CD about what I've been doind and what is happening. I doubt he'll stick around. I'll be single again before two much longer.

The doctor says I need to create a support system for myself which is a lot easier to say than do. I move too much and I don't let people in close enough to see what's going on and to say help is near impossible. But I know that without a support system I don't get better so what do I do? Any support groups near me only meet during the day and I can't afford time of work. I'm in this situation that a number of people I know are in. We manage (just) to keep down a full time job but when we need a bit of support there is nothing because we are working full time and there are no groups for out of work hours so we keep going. We hit crisis and then we have to take time of work, we loose money, and then we get into debt and things start spiralling out of control so I ask again. What am i meant to do?

I hate being ill enough to fuck up work but not ill enough to get any real support. I don't know what the answer is or what I can do about it but it plays on my mind and makes me worse as a result. I should be reducing my stress levels not increasing them.

The mental health system  (like a lot of systems in this country) is fucked.

Well that esculated quickly.

I know I was struggling to keep the depression under control but I was doing it. I felt like crap but I went out, I was social, I was nice to people.

I had two weeks holiday from work and I was broke ao I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. All my normal groups got cancelles due to school holidays or illness. This meant I was sitting home alone all day every day. The guy from christmas was also having a hard time and was trying to talk to me about it. I couldn't cope. I took a painkiller/alcohol concotion (once) and I started cutting myself (almoat daily for one week, but kept on going for a few more weeks). It felt fantastic and I still don't regret a thing. It made me feel better.

At my Friday gaming group there is a new guy who has started and he makes me laugh. He makes me feel good about myself. He flirts with me and I like it. It doesn't scare me.... except I don't know if he's flirting because he's that sort of guy or because he likes me. He asked for my number having only known me for two weeks and, shocked myself I gave it to him! We are now facebook fruends and have spent the weekend chatting.  I'm trying to rearrange things so i have the petrol to see him on Friday.... and every friday. I don't want ti be that sort of person and I don't know if my feeling are real or a biproduct of the depressive state I am experiencing. After three weeks (two of them knowing this guy) I have stopped cutting. After our first meeting I reduced the cutting, even the number of cuts when i did.

I wish I wasn't so screwed up so I could enjoy this more. I should stop worring and enjoy what I can for as long as I can.

For fucks sake.... I've had enough now.

My life can do one right now.  

A week ago a very, very drunk man tried to break into my flat, then tried to steal my bike.  I called the police who picked him up and took him home.  As a result of this I lock my house up as tight as I can. I have found myself getting really nervous about the smallest of noises. So I have locked everything I possibly can and actually moved things in the way of doors just so I can get a few hours sleep.

It's insane how one person can really effect how you view life, and break the safety of your own home. He didn't do anything except made me a little scared.  I wasn't hurt, nothing was broken... I'm being really silly and I know I am but I can't help it.

On top of all that a woman at work is making life as hard as possible.  I try and be nice to her, I try and do what I can to help her out at work, and yet she is a back stabbing bitch who just plays mind games and trys to fuck everything up.  She has been bullying a colleague for months and work have done absolutely fuck all about it, because as usual they don't give a flying fuck about their staff.  I hate going to work but I can't leave, I'm stuck there with no way out because I can't afford a pay cut without loosing the place I live or getting a lodger.

There is a lot of press at the moment saying that there should be more money put into the metal health sector... that's fine, but how about support for those of use who are desperately trying to keep our lives together, to be normal and all the time our brains are screaming at us, tell us that we're crap that life isn't worth living and the best thing for us is to just die.  Where is our support.  Currently if I try and get to a counsellor I have to wait 10 weeks until I see a counsellor and then all I get is 6 sessions, IF I want something more substantial I would have to wait seven months!!! In that time I could have done anything and no one gives a shit.

I do love the idea of just ending it all, and I really wish I could.  I don't want to live anymore, I really don't but I haven't got the courage to try and kill myself... not that I'm any good at that. Four attempts and each one has failed.  I wouldn't be able to do it right now, even if I tried.  I suck at everything, so in the meantime my life can fucking do one, the people in my life can fucking do one.... whilst I try and find the courage to do the one thing I really want to do.

Die!

Suicide and me

If you hate the world around you.

And you hate everything that you see.

And if what you see makes you happy,

Then fuck off cause we're all out of time.

So follow me.

Suicide Silence- Fuck Everything

I have attempted suicide a number of times before. Needless to say I have failed each time, and each time I failed part of me died a little more because it was yet another thing I failed at.  A number of times each year I think about taking my own life, how I'm going to do it, what I leave behind. I write a note that tells my family what I think, how I feel and who gets once.  I always keep it until the next time I think about taking my own life, then I tear it up and write a new one.  

I have known a number of people who have taken their lives and wish to God it was me rather than them who had died.  I hate them because they managed to do something I failed at, I then hate myself for failing to do something that would make everything better and ultimately it sends me into a downward spiral.

The death of Robin Williams is no exception.  Depression is a debilitating illness which I fight each day and yet if I try and get help, if I try to talk to anyone I am told that I need to have a Positive Mental Attitude or that I just need to buck up and get over it.  If I broke my leg people would offer to help me, if I had cancer I'd have people tripping over themselves to help me out.  I say something about Depression, and I get told I'm broken, that I need to buck up and that I should just get over it.

I envy Robin Williams, I wish I could successfully take my own life.  I know that there is not much that could have changed Robin's mind.  He made a decision and he ran with it.  A suicidal person can not be watched 24/7.  If someone wants to take their own life they will find a way.  Some people will get angry at Robin because they don't understand, some people will be sad because they won't get to see anything more, there are others who will say he's selfish.  Some people will pity him because he felt that this action was the only action left to him.  I, on the other hand, hope he has found peace and if he can hear me can he please hold me and give to the strength to follow him.

It doesn't matter how great things are, or how bad things are or even how mundane everything is, I don't want to be here. I don't want to breath. I don't want to wake up in the morning. 

I just want to stop.

Let me go

Wish I could be
Perfectly free
Wish I was a creep
Wish I'd make you bled
Cos it's a beautiful day
In a magical place
Beautiful lives
Perfect and strange
Beautiful days
In a magical place
New dreams are born
New creeps have come
Beautiful Days: Venus

I think I am in real trouble, the problem is what to do about it.

I have depression, this is common knowledge. What isn't is how much I must face and fit it on a regular basis. I have such terrible thoughts of how I see myself, of what I would like to do to myself and sometimes to other people. These are thoughts I am use to, these are thoughts I deal with daily.

They are getting worse. Not about what I would do to others, but to do to myself. There are a number of truths about me that I have come to accept
1. I will never know what it will be like to have sex
2. I will never know what it is to be a parent
3. I will never have close friends, only friends who I see occasionally
4. I will always be a negative person, my depression is to strong for me to be anything else
5. Regardless how ill I am with any other illness, my depression will always get blamed
6. I will always be lonely

The other night I found myself dreaming. I haven't done that for a while. It's not the first time I have had this dream and it certainly won't be the last. I dreamt that I had a complete breakdown, that I went off the rails, I got stoned and went to work. I told my boss to fuck off and that she is a heartless bitch who will get her comeuppance when people realised that the project she runs is barely legal.  I then decided to drive on the motorway the wrong way. I got pulled over by the police and tried to start an argument  with them, hitting out when I could. I got sectioned and I enjoyed it. I woke up really wanting to give it all a go and see if I could totally fuck up my life.

My life at the moment consists of sleeping between 10-13 hours a night and then going to work and starting the cycle again. Two nights a week I go and try and do something but it has to be said that it wipes me completely to do it. I am becoming a hermit because it's all I can cope with.

So I find as time moves onwards, I want to breakdown, I want to be hospitalised. Hell, in truth I want to dead, I'd be better of dead, my organs can go to those who want to live. I just haven't got the courage to die, I wish I did but I don't.  I really need to break about now, a break from reality, a break from being me, a break from breathing.

The worse part is the fact I know I am wasting the life The Lord gave me. He wishes us to do good on Earth, to be loving to one another, to love ourselves... I can't do any of this. All I can do is pray each night that the sun doesn't rise on me again, that I can just fade away from existence and from memory.

I know that I am going to become a danger to myself, and I want it to happen. I want logical me to back of and let the depression take over my life, allow me to crumble, allow me to fade away from existence and memory. I want to scream at the world tell it to stop cos I really want to get off it now.

I don't know what to do, where to go. As with so much I am limbo and there is nowhere for me to go.

Weather

I feel that the weather changed at the right moment for me. Without the change my depressive state would have continued and I dread to think what state I would be in at this moment.

Looking back on what was happening to me I am extremely grateful for the support, and in some cases.the protection, they provided to help me cope with my work and everything else.

My depression cycle is something that I will never be rid off but with friends like I have discovered recently that I have make it just a little easier to know that I will make it through.

P.s. can I please have the sun and heat back.

He's back!

Speak to me friend.
Whisper...
I'll listen.
I know, I know you've been locked
out of sight
all these years, like me
My friend...

You there my friend
Come let me hold you.
Now, with a sigh, you grow warm in my hand.
My friend!
My clever friend...
Rest now, my friends.
Soon, I'll unfold you.
Soon you'll know splendours
You never have dreamed
all you days,
my lucky friends
'Til now your shine was merely silver.
Friends, you shall drip rubies, you'll soon drip precious... rubies

I finally worked it out.  It doesn't matter how much I fight the depression, it doesn't matter how hard I try to keep myself well and a part of 'normal' society, the depression will always win because I will always get screwed over.  I will always get dragged down and I will always be pathetic, always there for people to walk over me and let me know just how worthless I am, so it really doesn't matter. I don't need to fight. I just let the depression take over and let it take me.  It doesn't matter.

For the first time in four years I cut. It was amazing. I have missed him. I will have more.... and who the fuck care, I sure as hell don't.

I'm back!

Sometimes
I feel like going down and so disconnected
Somehow
I know that I am haunted to be wanted
I've been watching
I've been waiting
In the shadows for my time
I've been searching
I've been living
For tomorrows all my life

In the Shadows by The Rasmus 

I am not in a good place right now.  I don't know what's going on in my head, I wish I could just scratch the surface because I swear if I could do that then I'd be able to sort myself out... although I wonder if I would.  I talk about the fact I'm on the edge, I know the crash is coming, I can feel it within me trying to push its way out.  I try and tell myself that it won't come and that it will only come if I talk about it or admit to it.

It's coming. Although I'm not crying right now I have had tears falling most of the night.  I can't imagine how I'm going to be at work tomorrow.  Part of me tells me I'm tired and that's all it is, the logical part of me says it's not because I've been sleeping well this week and there is no way I can be tired.

I want my razor.  I want to feel it slice through my skin.  I want that comfort.  I want to know that somehow I can find comfort.  Comfort from what I don't know.  I know that this has been coming for a while.  I know I should have planned for it.  But I haven't and now I'm alone apart from my blog.   I wish I wasn't living with Mam, then I could cry, I could get high, I could cut, I could go for my midnight walks.  I just don't want to be here where Mam could find me, could see the tears.  She would ask what's wrong.  I have absolutely no idea what is wrong.

That's bollocks I know what's wrong.  I have a chemical imbalance in my brain.  Just as I have to take medication to keep my asthma under control, I have to do the same with the depression.  I spent a session with a client talking about depression and the fact in many ways its no different that asthma or diabetes.  I know this, but the thought of going back to the doctors and asking for pills is just too much.  I know that this is the time I need to fight it, I know this, I honestly do.  I just can't. I really just can't.  I have a job I love, that I never want to loose, I have a new niece or nephew on the way, I have an amazing family who love me... I have things to fight for.

I just can't.  How do I find the energy for something that almost killed me last time (and still surprised it didn't).

Help me find the Vulcan me.

"I'll keep you my dirty little secret

Dirty Little Secret

Don't tell anyone or 

you'll be just another regret

Just another regret

Hope that you can keep it

My dirty little secret

Who has to know?"

Dirty Little Secret: The All American Rejects

Long term readers of my blog (either this one or blog-city) will know that emotions are a complete mystery to me and it's only in the past few years that I have taken that step to discover what they are and how they inpact my life.

I thought I was beginning to make sense of them and then G came into my life.  He's a new member of staff and I must admit, here in the safety of the anonymous blog, that he is cute and if I could I'd go for him.  However he is married with two children so he is off limits.  I'm fine with this. I really am.  Until he starts flirting with me.  Touching me in little ways, teasing me, staring at me.

The other day we were playing in the snow with our students and he rugby tackled me into the snow and sat on me stopping me from moving, he then covered me in snow.  We stared at each other and I sware to God if it wasn't for the fact we were at work, for the fact he's married we would have kissed.

I have to be careful.  Emotions are a mystery and something I'm not so great at controlling any more.  I have lost my vulcan-ness.  Something I miss grately.  I'm not sure life with emotions is all that it's cracked up to me.  I really want to go back to vulcan-ness then G would not be an issue.

It's all made worse by the fact I'm sorta seeing someone at the moment J.  I don't have the feelings for him that I have for G. It's driving me crazy.  J is everything I thought I wanted in a partner.  We are so alike it's lovely, I can completely geek out with him, it's awesome.  But I feel no romantic attachment to him.  G on the other hand he makes me laugh, when he touches me my skin feels as though it's on fire. Just thinking about him now just makes me shiver.

I want to be a vulcan where things like this don't matter.  I won't act upon my emotions, I won't brake up a family that's not me.  I don't ever want that to be me.  I want to be vulcan. I don't want to feel like this.  I had my issues when I was a vulcan but at least emotions were not too big an issue.  If I could be stable as I am not but with the emotional cut off that I had, I'd be content.

I'm beginning to crack.  Something I hate doing in front of people more than anything else in the world, is to cry.  To cry in front of someone is showing weakness, vulnerability and it's just plain wrong.  The other day at work I don't know what happened but I was sitting in a meeting and this wave of darkness hit me and permeated within every cell of my being, digging and sinking toward my soul.   After the meeting I went to my classroom it was empty.  I focused on packing up for the night.  My boss came in and asked if I was all right.  It started before I could stop it I started crying.  She hugged me and it just got harder.  So I pushed her away and told her not too.  I told her some bullshit about how I felt I was failing in my job, I was overwhelmed with the paper work and she fell for it hook line and sinker.  How can I tell someone who just weeks earlier I was telling that I am more stable now than I have ever been that I'm cracking.

To be fair I have told her but I'm not sure she believes me.  I wrote her a letter.  I couldn't tell her in words how I was feeling but I could write it.  When I handed her the letter there were rules.  No talking about it.  No acknowledgement of the letter.  No feedback.  Nothing.  She went and sent me a video in response.  But she read the letter so she should have some idea of how I am feeling and yet I stood in my classroom and she believed what I was telling her.

The whole time I was talking I had the song "I'm not okay, I'm not O-fucking-kay"  I just wish someone could see the cracks that are appearing.  The high I've been on, which I always suspected, was temporary and fake.  I was in hiding.  This time though I haven't got support.  I don't have the Vulcan-ness to protect me and I can't cut as my mother would notice.  I can't get high.  My mother would notice.  So what the hell do I do.

Oh sweet Vulcan. Come back. I'm so sorry I got rid of you. Please come back. Be part of me again. Save me. Keep me safe. Let me not listen to others. I want to back so much. Protect me again.

Music and it's healing quantity.

"Never made it as a wise man
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing
Tired of living like a blind man
I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling

And this is how you remind me
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am"

 How You Remind Me: Nickleback

I was reminded this week how healing music can be.  I've been a bit down this week, more than anything because of being off work for so long and with nothing to do. One day I felt so bad I got in the car and started driving.  I had my own mix CD in the car, I put the music on loud and drove for about three hours. I felt so much better after that.  What it did remind me though is that I need music to help me with my mood.  Music also can help me to put into words how I feel, sometimes it might be the lyrics other times it might be the feel of the music, sometimes it's a mix of the two.

I really do enjoy putting on my headphones (SkullCandy thank you so much for having amazing headphones!) and put the music on, probably  louder than I should do, but I lay in bed and just allow the music to just completely consume me.  Sometimes I sing along, sometimes I just mouth along and sometimes I just let the music take over and I get lost in it.

It made me go through my music and just see what they would stir within me.  To begin with it was amazing and I remembered things I thought I had forgotten, but then there was the music that brought back feelings that I didn't want to remember and thoughts I didn't want in my head.  So I went back to music I know that help me through. 

The funny part is that two of the songs that really do help me and mean the world to me actually trigger memories of a time in my life that wasn't good, and yet they make me feel better and I'm sure it's because I beat things that time.  Slowly but surely I beat things, and perhaps that's why they help me and make me feel amazing, 'cos I know I can fight some fights.

Not sure it's going to help with the big one that I'm due.

However, the lesson I have learnt (or should I say re-learnt) is that the right music really can make a HUGE difference in ones life.  I really need to find the soundtrack that allows me to fight, the big one as well as the small one.  Music might just be my way out of the mess that is coming my way.

Bulletproof?

"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.

Medication

I wanted freedom
Bound and restricted
I tried to give you up
But I'm addicted

Time is Running Out: Muse

Many years ago I was but on Tramadol for chronic back pain.  Tramadol is a powerful painkiller with some interesting side effects.  As always side effects can vary from person to person.  For me my appetite was suppressed to the point I actually managed to lost weight (which on my diet is quite impressive).   Which made me feel amazing.  I didn't sleep but I was more productive and actually accomplished a lot more than I currently do or have done ever before. I was in awe of what I managed to do and who I became.  I miss the me on Tramadol.  I had some majorly bad back pain earlier in the week. I  had no painkillers so I went to the doctors and got some of my tramadol again.

My appetite was suppressed, I was actually stoked to try and get some work done and have got a load of work for my new role done.  I felt good, I felt human, I felt amazing.  Would it really be wrong of me to try and get put on tramadol on a full time basis so I can be a better person, so I can be more productive in all that I do, that I can start to fit in my clothes again!  How could it ever be wrong to take something that allows you to be a better version of yourself.

I have taken anti-depressants to help me out when things get really bad for me, that is semi-social acceptable to do, so why can't I take Tramadol on a permanent basis and use that as my anti-depressant.  

Secrets, videos and struggles

I think I'm drowning, asphyxiated

I wanna break this spell that you've created

You're something beautiful a contradiction

I wanna play the game I want the friction

You will be the death of me, 

Yeah you will be the death of me,

Bury it, I won't let you bury it

I won't let you smother it

I won't let you murder it

And our time is running out

And our time is running out

You can't push it underground

We can't stop it screaming out

I wanted freedom But I'm restricted

I tried to give you up but I'm adicted

Now that you know I'm trapped,

Sense of elation

You'll never dream of breaking this fixation

You will squeeze the life out of me

You will suck the life out of me.

 Time is running out: Muse

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, and although I have really wanted to blog, I've wanted to write.... I couldn't and to be honest, I'm not sure why.  I compose it all in my head but when it comes to logging on and writing things I can't bring myself to do it.  I will surf the net until the early hours of the morning but when it comes to wanting to write something stops me.  Something blocks me.  I can't figure out what.  Even now I can feel something fighting against me.  I want to write, I am writing, but the distractions are great, and I know they are unreal. Even now it's only with the help of this song that I can push through what ever I've fighting.  I don't like it.

Things are going well on the whole.  I'm now completely of meds and doing okay.  I thought I would freak out and struggle, wanting to go back to the old ways but I don't.  In fact I can't imagine ever wanting to cut or get high.  I find it tough to imagine myself ever being in that position in the past, it's such an alien idea to me that I wonder were it came from.  I was 21 when I first cut.  Just found out about my friends suicide and a few months later I smashed this glass thing I owned (accidental) but I picked up one of the pieces of broken glass and the rest you can say is history.  ten years on and I have no idea where I got the idea of picking up that piece of glass and cutting myself for the first time.  I can tell you that at no point did I have a concious idea of picking up glass and cutting myself, just that I did it.  No thoughts, no feelings, just did it.  It's just peculiar concept.  I could understand it if I had heard about it before but up until I did it I'd never heard of it, never thought about it.  I was years later that I realised that I was not alone in it.

However, an old, old, old compulsion/addiction has raised its head.  This one has been going on since my teenage years.  Technically, I suppose, it's nothing that would be deamed 'self harming' but I think it is with the amount of time I allow it to occupy my thoughts and feelings.  I can't stop it though.  I fantasize about being kidnapped, tied up, drugged, gagged, held hostage, perhaps even brain washed.  It's not that it would or could ever happen but it occupies my thoughts and dreams.  I even go on you tube and download things from TV shows.  I know that this is just horrible, and I must be screwed up in the head for wanting it, but I can't help myself.  I have found numerous websites dedicated to this subject matter and yet it's not enough.  I need to experience it.  I can feel it inside me constantly, some days it's stronger than others.

I am a freak on so many levels.

The unexplainable that is my life

What a few months I have had.

Started a few months ago, when due to a bad judgement on my part, I honestly thought I would loose my job.  There is a bit of a thing at work where 'if your face don't fit your contract is not renewed'.  So when this misjudgement happened, I thought I'd be told that my contract would not be renewed.  However, I was most surprised to discover that I was doing to have a letter of disciplinary on my record for the next two years.  Which I have to say that all things considered, I can live with that.  What really scared me about the whole situation was the fact, that I planned to kill myself should I have lost my job.  I wrote a will and I picked out a place, got all my affairs in order, the works.  The only thing that stopped me killing myself the night I discovered that I was under disciplinary review was the fact I was the main role in a play and I could not leave everyone in the lurch.  So the plan was on the final night, after the final show.  I would say fair well to everyone, and go off to my location and that would be that.

We also had at work, this week, our PDRs (Personal Development Review).  I hate these things at the best of time as I always score myself low, this year was no different.  I actually got told off in my meeting about this as I really underestimated myself this time.  The tutor I work with scored me sevens and eights, whilst I scored myself 3s and 4s.  I got told that I'm doing a damn fine job and I need to believe in myself and be stronger in what I am doing.  Easier said than done but still it was an interesting meeting.  I actually lost sleep over it for no reason really but there you go.  That's me all over isn't it.

I have also been told at work that I can go near enough full time.  From five half days to 3 full days and 2 half days, which means I get to keep the two morning a week job I have.  I am also changing classrooms, due to the fact 'I could teach other staff lessons about how to sit down and just get on with the work we have to do'.  However there is a rumour that those who are changing classrooms are on their last chance, and if it doesn't work in the new class room then that's it.  Job gone.  I don't think that applies to me due to the PDR I got but you never know.

The not so great thing is that my business I have started up is going nowhere fast.  Not one single customer.  I'm heartbroken.  I thought that by now I would have a slow but steady stream of clients, especially since when I was practising and looking for guinea pigs volunteers I got them in abundance.  Now I can find no one.  Frustrating as all hell.  But never mind, no doubt the business will start off at some point.  Even if it is not going as quick as I had hopped.