I have never felt more alone and confused. Today, I felt surrounded by monsters and amidst the fear and disgust I have come to find normal in their presence, I felt the shock and horror that no-one else had noticed. How could they not see? How could they not spot the discrepancies that scream at me so loudly I can barely look.
What makes this worse is that more recently I have begun to spot them amidst my colleagues and this is making work more and more difficult for me. I find it hard to look at them, to focus on what they are saying and to answer their questions without wanting to run, or scream and call them out to everyone as the impostor that they are.
Today, work was bad and then the journey between work and home tipped me from unsettled to just plain confused and alone. Silent in my own quaking fear as I found myself picking out more and more. It has got worse over the time I have been seeing them. At first it was just one or two, the initial taking over of the odd person here and there. The silent testers, to ensure they would not be noticed, I would assume. Of course it worked. No-one notices, so they they have begun to take over more and more.
I begin to fear for how long this will go on. How many do they need before they move on to whatever the next part of their plan is. I do not know the plan and I know of no way to stop it, or them. I can barely bring myself to write this. I am too scared.
Do they know yet that anyone can see past their glamour. Can spot them for their inconsistencies and wrongness? Can smell them? I am scared of what would happen if they knew. Would that make me a threat to their plans?
I feel tearful and alone. Sad and low and ultimately scared and disgusted that this can be happening around us. Increasingly. Slowly but definitely. One or two, I could ignore, I could shake off. I can't anymore. The colleague is that way now every-time I see them. There is no come or go, no 'what if it was just me in a moment'. There are too many moments and no-one else is noticing....
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Monday, 5 July 2010
Flirting with inertia
I feel lethargic. Stuck in the vacuous cavern of my own melancholia. I sleep and I am restless, I move to try to focus and achieve an activity, for work, or play, and I want to curl up and sleep.
A restless existence that flirts with its own inertia. Constantly tidal waved by thoughts of my own decline and descent into madness, thoughts of death and how to get there and thoughts of what can be done to stop myself from swimming constantly against the tide.
I have tried to do all the things you are meant to do. I told my psych when I last saw them. I told my GP when I last saw them. I have informed HR and my boss. I have tried, and failed, on numerous occasions to call a crisis line. I have no voice for them. There is nothing but a gaping hole of a wound to my soul that I can find no band aid big enough for.
I am fast running out of fight. I know this, as I have been in this puddle of low before. I know the routine and run-of-the-mill stages of my own depression. Yet I can do nothing to stop it but watch and hold on for the ride.
I know that if this time round I reach the stage where I am taken to hospital, like last time. I want to be properly admitted. I only know this, because it is the one thing I walked away from last time, that I wish I had not. Maybe it seems odd to some people. Why would I want to be admitted to a proper ward. Simple. I want it recorded, I want it taken seriously. I do not want it brushed aside as an impulsive act or moment of indecision. Frankly, I spend so much of my life pondering ways of killing myself, it would be nice for the health profession to put as much thought into ways of helping.
I will stop now, or I will end up ranting, or crying, or both.
I just needed to write something. While it was here in my mind.
A restless existence that flirts with its own inertia. Constantly tidal waved by thoughts of my own decline and descent into madness, thoughts of death and how to get there and thoughts of what can be done to stop myself from swimming constantly against the tide.
I have tried to do all the things you are meant to do. I told my psych when I last saw them. I told my GP when I last saw them. I have informed HR and my boss. I have tried, and failed, on numerous occasions to call a crisis line. I have no voice for them. There is nothing but a gaping hole of a wound to my soul that I can find no band aid big enough for.
I am fast running out of fight. I know this, as I have been in this puddle of low before. I know the routine and run-of-the-mill stages of my own depression. Yet I can do nothing to stop it but watch and hold on for the ride.
I know that if this time round I reach the stage where I am taken to hospital, like last time. I want to be properly admitted. I only know this, because it is the one thing I walked away from last time, that I wish I had not. Maybe it seems odd to some people. Why would I want to be admitted to a proper ward. Simple. I want it recorded, I want it taken seriously. I do not want it brushed aside as an impulsive act or moment of indecision. Frankly, I spend so much of my life pondering ways of killing myself, it would be nice for the health profession to put as much thought into ways of helping.
I will stop now, or I will end up ranting, or crying, or both.
I just needed to write something. While it was here in my mind.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
Maybe November
I have not been in a while - Again. I suppose I spend so much time thinking away from the computer that by the time I log on to write it all down the thoughts have become too tangled and mixed. A stream of consciousness that no longer makes sense.
I am still going to yoga (most weeks), and am still trying to jog. I am still struggling with my moods.
I saw the psychiatrist, my once every six month review, that reviews little and concludes less. They want me to go on the Anxiety therapy course and will not review my meds until they know that has not worked. It leaves me sitting and waiting, again. I am not always sure how long I can sit and wait.
I have already begun building up the amount of tablets I take in one go. Re-building up to an amount I know will do harm. Part of me knows it is wrong to do this, but that is the lucid part that wants help, that lets people know what is going on for me. There is also a part of me that just wants this to go away. To curl up and let it fade away. To step across that line and no longer have to believe in a reason to take the next breath.
I have had a date in mind for most of the year. I know the when, I know the how, I know the why. That part of me is strong and a planner - It has been at these stages often enough now to have learned from past mistakes. This time, it says, there will not be mistakes.
I write here now though, lucid and knowing how harsh and illogical that sounds. The thoughts do not leave though. I dream of methodology and consequence. I panic about what can go wrong and try to ponder ways to get around it.
I say to others all the time that they have to grab hold of the part of them that is lucid, that shinning light that fights and glows through the darkest thought and says: you can get through this. I do my best to do that. That is why I go to Yoga - to nourish that part of my soul and allow it a moment to breath, free of the deep, all engulfing sadness.
My fight has been shaken recently by the unsettling news that my boss is leaving in November. I am a Personal Assistant - so this means that in effect my job will change. I will have to get to know a whole other persons way of working and try to fit to that. The part of me that has a date in mind is glad the date is prior to that. The part that fights is looking at other jobs while waiting to see if maybe, just maybe the new person is someone I could work with. Either way, it will be a new person.
I have felt upset. Jealous of the people in the place that my boss will be moving to and conflicted by feelings that somehow it proves I am not good enough at my job. Every time something has changed in my role there, people have left me and my team has shrunk to the point where at the end of November it will just be me left. I feel deserted.
These are all as irrational as my dreams about jumping of roof-tops to a lack of witness and assistance. I will fight them in the same way, distract myself and keep on going. Keep working, keep jogging, keep moving on and hope that somewhere along the way there may come a miracle that helps everything suddenly fit and not feel so chaotic and broken.
My thoughts may swirl and spin and confound, one after the next - too fast to record or make a logical, grammatical sense out of. Maybe one day they will be given a path that helps ease the knots they bring.
Maybe.
I am still going to yoga (most weeks), and am still trying to jog. I am still struggling with my moods.
I saw the psychiatrist, my once every six month review, that reviews little and concludes less. They want me to go on the Anxiety therapy course and will not review my meds until they know that has not worked. It leaves me sitting and waiting, again. I am not always sure how long I can sit and wait.
I have already begun building up the amount of tablets I take in one go. Re-building up to an amount I know will do harm. Part of me knows it is wrong to do this, but that is the lucid part that wants help, that lets people know what is going on for me. There is also a part of me that just wants this to go away. To curl up and let it fade away. To step across that line and no longer have to believe in a reason to take the next breath.
I have had a date in mind for most of the year. I know the when, I know the how, I know the why. That part of me is strong and a planner - It has been at these stages often enough now to have learned from past mistakes. This time, it says, there will not be mistakes.
I write here now though, lucid and knowing how harsh and illogical that sounds. The thoughts do not leave though. I dream of methodology and consequence. I panic about what can go wrong and try to ponder ways to get around it.
I say to others all the time that they have to grab hold of the part of them that is lucid, that shinning light that fights and glows through the darkest thought and says: you can get through this. I do my best to do that. That is why I go to Yoga - to nourish that part of my soul and allow it a moment to breath, free of the deep, all engulfing sadness.
My fight has been shaken recently by the unsettling news that my boss is leaving in November. I am a Personal Assistant - so this means that in effect my job will change. I will have to get to know a whole other persons way of working and try to fit to that. The part of me that has a date in mind is glad the date is prior to that. The part that fights is looking at other jobs while waiting to see if maybe, just maybe the new person is someone I could work with. Either way, it will be a new person.
I have felt upset. Jealous of the people in the place that my boss will be moving to and conflicted by feelings that somehow it proves I am not good enough at my job. Every time something has changed in my role there, people have left me and my team has shrunk to the point where at the end of November it will just be me left. I feel deserted.
These are all as irrational as my dreams about jumping of roof-tops to a lack of witness and assistance. I will fight them in the same way, distract myself and keep on going. Keep working, keep jogging, keep moving on and hope that somewhere along the way there may come a miracle that helps everything suddenly fit and not feel so chaotic and broken.
My thoughts may swirl and spin and confound, one after the next - too fast to record or make a logical, grammatical sense out of. Maybe one day they will be given a path that helps ease the knots they bring.
Maybe.
Friday, 14 May 2010
Baby Steps
I will start with the larger 'Yay' of the week. I managed to stay in my Thursday evening Yoga class for the full 90 minutes. Yes, I didn't do all of the postures - I am still working my way up to that. Staying for the first time though was a goal for me and I achieved it. Simi, the teacher, was pleased for me and I, of course, felt the buzz of success (which means I got a bit less sleep than perhaps needed).
There is a key to Yoga that appeals to me. It focuses on breathing and posture, but also on listening to your body and only pushing it as far as it can go. No further. Therefore, the fact that for the first two classes I had to leave before 90 minutes was not a bad thing in the mind of the Yogi, more a sign of gradual development. That in my third class I stayed, showed progress and I am sure that over time, my progress will move more to the postures themselves, as I manage to do more of them (by which I do not mean perfect, more, actually take part in.)
I am a great believer in baby steps. In small, gradual improvements or adjustments to the self that build up over time. Some of them are barely noticed until the moment you take a pause and look back. Human beings are not built to with-stand sudden change. It throws of the equilibrium and leads to all sorts of changes in mood and metabolism. Much better to move gradually and fluidly at a level your mind and body can accept.
I sometimes look back and accept that however much I may complain of being under-the-weather, depressed or tired, I have still come quite a long way.
My social anxiety at one point in my life, meant I had no real friends, rarely left the house for more than school and the occasional family visit and refused to answer the phone. My depression has led me to attempts at killing myself, at least one of which nearly worked and stripped my body to the core in terms of health and coping abilities.
When I look at now, versus then, there is a change. Subtle, but still significant and achieved in the very baby steps that means I would not always be aware of it.
I am a PA. I answer the phone and talk on it, not just in work, but at home as well. I have met people, made friends, lost friends, moved my body from barely functioning to a state where I can begin to deal with some of its complaints. I am going to Yoga. Doing that alone means braving two tubes and a hot room full of people. Yesterday, I managed not just to get through the tubes (packed from delays) and stay in the class, I also spoke to people afterwards. Made friends.
These are not big things to most people, so why - some might say, make a fuss? The answer is simple really. It is a confirmation for me. A baby step - but one that means more in retrospect than it may looking at it by itself.
There is a key to Yoga that appeals to me. It focuses on breathing and posture, but also on listening to your body and only pushing it as far as it can go. No further. Therefore, the fact that for the first two classes I had to leave before 90 minutes was not a bad thing in the mind of the Yogi, more a sign of gradual development. That in my third class I stayed, showed progress and I am sure that over time, my progress will move more to the postures themselves, as I manage to do more of them (by which I do not mean perfect, more, actually take part in.)
I am a great believer in baby steps. In small, gradual improvements or adjustments to the self that build up over time. Some of them are barely noticed until the moment you take a pause and look back. Human beings are not built to with-stand sudden change. It throws of the equilibrium and leads to all sorts of changes in mood and metabolism. Much better to move gradually and fluidly at a level your mind and body can accept.
I sometimes look back and accept that however much I may complain of being under-the-weather, depressed or tired, I have still come quite a long way.
My social anxiety at one point in my life, meant I had no real friends, rarely left the house for more than school and the occasional family visit and refused to answer the phone. My depression has led me to attempts at killing myself, at least one of which nearly worked and stripped my body to the core in terms of health and coping abilities.
When I look at now, versus then, there is a change. Subtle, but still significant and achieved in the very baby steps that means I would not always be aware of it.
I am a PA. I answer the phone and talk on it, not just in work, but at home as well. I have met people, made friends, lost friends, moved my body from barely functioning to a state where I can begin to deal with some of its complaints. I am going to Yoga. Doing that alone means braving two tubes and a hot room full of people. Yesterday, I managed not just to get through the tubes (packed from delays) and stay in the class, I also spoke to people afterwards. Made friends.
These are not big things to most people, so why - some might say, make a fuss? The answer is simple really. It is a confirmation for me. A baby step - but one that means more in retrospect than it may looking at it by itself.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Dissociative Thoughts
I have been spending a lot of time thinking. Not that that is anything unusual, or amazing, just that that is part of why I have not been here to post - Strangely enough. I have been thinking and re-thinking over the same thoughts and trying to mesh them in a way that does not sound wrong.
Frankly, I have given up trying. So will post it, however it happens to tumble from my brain and through my finger tips onto the keyboard.
Someone said to me recently that I am 'qualified' in mental health. Not in the 'I have trained and gained some form of Masters' sense, but in the 'certifiable' sense. This, and the recent pledge campaigns of some organisations, got me thinking about mental health and my own stance on it.
I am very very vocal about the fact that I do have 'issues'. I think in some ways this is a good thing - As it means people are less stunned on the occasions where I fall apart and it all goes wrong. I do not have a why or a how though - So am very reticent about giving details on those things and I think that in the long term, people get pissed off with me and want me to just 'get over it'.
I have had that said to my face more than once in my life, so it would not shock me if it was the general opinion of many human beings that I come across in my day to day life.
I have done a lot of reading, a lot of research and have talked to and chatted on forums with many people with large variations of mh issues. I am a supporter on one forum. So know that I am often surrounded by it.
I can not say that means I understand it any more than I did when I first started out though. Mostly, it has given me terminology. A way of defining some of what I feel and think and experience so that I can express it in a unified way. I think this may also piss off the 'get over it' crowd. As they somehow feel, if I really did have these things, they would have been dealt with by now.
Sometimes I wonder if I have made myself the way I am. If my Mother is right when she says I 'take on' the symptoms of what I have read in some 'way of gaining attention'. I wonder if this is the true nature of myself. An attention whore. Then I realise that at my worst, at the times when I am really struggling, my instant reaction is to dissociate, to curl up in a feotal position, often in a fit of tears and hide from the world. Somehow in the hope it will go away and leave me to some semblance of peace.
I have dissociated a lot lately and it has left me feeling tired. I spend a lot of time fighting to bring myself back and stay 'grounded'. It is mostly only mild, but there have been a few times this past week or so when I have 'stepped away' for long enough to feel a distinction.
Dissociation - for those of you that do not know, is like a circuit-breaker in the mind which switches when the mind feels like it can not cope with an overload of stimuli, emotion, or experience. In my case, therefore, it is mostly when I am very stressed or upset, or if I am out in crowded places. Everyone dissociates to some extent - some believe that is part of what day-dreaming is. It is when everything gets that little bit hazy and you can't quite remember what happened during those five minutes. Where the world feels like it is being viewed through a bubble and is that little bit more out of touch.
I only bring it up as I have come to the conclusion this is what has been happening, gradually more and more frequently for me. It took a fair bit of research to reach that conclusion. Mostly because if you look online and google dissociation, you will be pointed towards Dissociative Identity Disorder (once called Multiple Personality Disorder) and PTSD and the suffering of some major trauma or abuse....
The most trauma I ever really had in life was a four and a half day coma at the age of 4 - when I was diagnosed of diabetes. Seconded only by the death of my Grandmother when I was 11.
That is it. Honestly. It is almost impossible to find information that does not somehow suggest there must be some onion ring in your life that needs peeling away at to find. But I digress and know this is something I have mentioned before.
I started Yoga recently. The first class, I think this was one of those times when I dissociated and was most aware of a feeling of vulnerability. In its most child-like state. Fragile and panicked and unsafe. Scared of everything and wanting nothing more than to curl up and protect the self. That is, after all, what the feotal position is for.
I would raise it as an issue or mode of thought with someone from cmht, where it not for the fact that I no longer see anyone from there... I think I am due to see the Psych next in July or something.
Beyond that... Nothing. No-one. So I will write here. To put it down. However fragmented it may seem.
Frankly, I have given up trying. So will post it, however it happens to tumble from my brain and through my finger tips onto the keyboard.
Someone said to me recently that I am 'qualified' in mental health. Not in the 'I have trained and gained some form of Masters' sense, but in the 'certifiable' sense. This, and the recent pledge campaigns of some organisations, got me thinking about mental health and my own stance on it.
I am very very vocal about the fact that I do have 'issues'. I think in some ways this is a good thing - As it means people are less stunned on the occasions where I fall apart and it all goes wrong. I do not have a why or a how though - So am very reticent about giving details on those things and I think that in the long term, people get pissed off with me and want me to just 'get over it'.
I have had that said to my face more than once in my life, so it would not shock me if it was the general opinion of many human beings that I come across in my day to day life.
I have done a lot of reading, a lot of research and have talked to and chatted on forums with many people with large variations of mh issues. I am a supporter on one forum. So know that I am often surrounded by it.
I can not say that means I understand it any more than I did when I first started out though. Mostly, it has given me terminology. A way of defining some of what I feel and think and experience so that I can express it in a unified way. I think this may also piss off the 'get over it' crowd. As they somehow feel, if I really did have these things, they would have been dealt with by now.
Sometimes I wonder if I have made myself the way I am. If my Mother is right when she says I 'take on' the symptoms of what I have read in some 'way of gaining attention'. I wonder if this is the true nature of myself. An attention whore. Then I realise that at my worst, at the times when I am really struggling, my instant reaction is to dissociate, to curl up in a feotal position, often in a fit of tears and hide from the world. Somehow in the hope it will go away and leave me to some semblance of peace.
I have dissociated a lot lately and it has left me feeling tired. I spend a lot of time fighting to bring myself back and stay 'grounded'. It is mostly only mild, but there have been a few times this past week or so when I have 'stepped away' for long enough to feel a distinction.
Dissociation - for those of you that do not know, is like a circuit-breaker in the mind which switches when the mind feels like it can not cope with an overload of stimuli, emotion, or experience. In my case, therefore, it is mostly when I am very stressed or upset, or if I am out in crowded places. Everyone dissociates to some extent - some believe that is part of what day-dreaming is. It is when everything gets that little bit hazy and you can't quite remember what happened during those five minutes. Where the world feels like it is being viewed through a bubble and is that little bit more out of touch.
I only bring it up as I have come to the conclusion this is what has been happening, gradually more and more frequently for me. It took a fair bit of research to reach that conclusion. Mostly because if you look online and google dissociation, you will be pointed towards Dissociative Identity Disorder (once called Multiple Personality Disorder) and PTSD and the suffering of some major trauma or abuse....
The most trauma I ever really had in life was a four and a half day coma at the age of 4 - when I was diagnosed of diabetes. Seconded only by the death of my Grandmother when I was 11.
That is it. Honestly. It is almost impossible to find information that does not somehow suggest there must be some onion ring in your life that needs peeling away at to find. But I digress and know this is something I have mentioned before.
I started Yoga recently. The first class, I think this was one of those times when I dissociated and was most aware of a feeling of vulnerability. In its most child-like state. Fragile and panicked and unsafe. Scared of everything and wanting nothing more than to curl up and protect the self. That is, after all, what the feotal position is for.
I would raise it as an issue or mode of thought with someone from cmht, where it not for the fact that I no longer see anyone from there... I think I am due to see the Psych next in July or something.
Beyond that... Nothing. No-one. So I will write here. To put it down. However fragmented it may seem.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Words that reverbrate in my heart
And I'm still waiting for the rain to fall
Pour real life down on me
'Cause I can't hold on to anything
This good enough
Am I good enough
For you to love me too?
Pour real life down on me
'Cause I can't hold on to anything
This good enough
Am I good enough
For you to love me too?
Extract from lyrics to Good Enough - Evanescence (vocals by Amy Lee).
I am not sure of my lucidity, so won't say more for now. The above says more than enough, I think. It matches my thoughts and my tears.
Friday, 9 April 2010
Ultimatums
There are moments in life that act as ultimatums. Something has to give, one way or another and as much as we may all like to bury our heads in the sand from time to time, it will always come back and bite us with its inevitability.
I have, today, been having one of those days when the inevitable has been staring at me with steely eyes, waiting for me to make my move. One way, or the other.
My depression feels very much like it is winning today. All the signs have been there. My focus and attention has been off. I have been tearful and avoiding people and sounds, flinching away from them like something painful will come from the vague awareness of their presence around me. I have begun stock-piling, medicines and ideas, plots and methodology.
My body sickens me. My BMI is 30.8, which makes me obese for my height and age. I need to loose at least 30lbs to be considered back in a healthy weight range. I am constantly achy as my joints are not designed for this amount of blubber and walking a 15 minute route from my home to the train station reduces me to tears.
Part of me is thinking that the extra weight will help gravity as it pulls me down to the ground from where-ever it may be that I eventually leap. The other part is planning a diet, a proper one that is due to start in earnest tomorrow.
It is that, or listen to the side of my brain that says I am fat and ugly and worthless. Because I am. Because I can give nothing to this world at the moment. I struggle to focus on anything for longer than ten minutes at a time before I have to switch away.
Part of my mind wants to curl up into the foetal position in a dark place somewhere and cry quietly to itself. It has been doing that for a while now.
Something has to give and soon.
I can not shake the feeling that whatever shifts is going to soon, one way or the other.
I can not stop the whirl-wind of thoughts and feeling. The constant gnaw of panic and anxiety chipping away at my soul, tearing it to shreds in sheer hatred and frustration. I barely sleep for the constant back and forth between one thought and another. Would this be the best? Or this? Would anyone miss me? When is the right time? What should we wear?
I have decided somewhere, amidst all this, that I need to loose weight. I need to do something to keep the 'keep going' part of my brain focused on the positive. As without that, I do not have any fight left.
I am in one of my lowest states and I know that the moment that fight stops, the moment I allow a pause, I will end up in Hospital.
Something has to give. That is my ultimatum.
I have, today, been having one of those days when the inevitable has been staring at me with steely eyes, waiting for me to make my move. One way, or the other.
My depression feels very much like it is winning today. All the signs have been there. My focus and attention has been off. I have been tearful and avoiding people and sounds, flinching away from them like something painful will come from the vague awareness of their presence around me. I have begun stock-piling, medicines and ideas, plots and methodology.
My body sickens me. My BMI is 30.8, which makes me obese for my height and age. I need to loose at least 30lbs to be considered back in a healthy weight range. I am constantly achy as my joints are not designed for this amount of blubber and walking a 15 minute route from my home to the train station reduces me to tears.
Part of me is thinking that the extra weight will help gravity as it pulls me down to the ground from where-ever it may be that I eventually leap. The other part is planning a diet, a proper one that is due to start in earnest tomorrow.
It is that, or listen to the side of my brain that says I am fat and ugly and worthless. Because I am. Because I can give nothing to this world at the moment. I struggle to focus on anything for longer than ten minutes at a time before I have to switch away.
Part of my mind wants to curl up into the foetal position in a dark place somewhere and cry quietly to itself. It has been doing that for a while now.
Something has to give and soon.
I can not shake the feeling that whatever shifts is going to soon, one way or the other.
I can not stop the whirl-wind of thoughts and feeling. The constant gnaw of panic and anxiety chipping away at my soul, tearing it to shreds in sheer hatred and frustration. I barely sleep for the constant back and forth between one thought and another. Would this be the best? Or this? Would anyone miss me? When is the right time? What should we wear?
I have decided somewhere, amidst all this, that I need to loose weight. I need to do something to keep the 'keep going' part of my brain focused on the positive. As without that, I do not have any fight left.
I am in one of my lowest states and I know that the moment that fight stops, the moment I allow a pause, I will end up in Hospital.
Something has to give. That is my ultimatum.
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