Message in an Internet Bottle

This week has been strange. Really REALLY fucking strange. I got a message on Tuesday which shocked me to my core. I’m not exaggerating, I was literally lost for words. I cried. I sat wondering what to do with myself. I checked to see if I had imagined it. It was real.

I won’t go into the content too much but basically it was regarding something which happened over five and a half years ago and that I have never been able to get over. I believe the reasons for this unexpected contact were genuine and over the course of a few more messages which we have exchanged I have started to come to terms with how things were back then and how they are now. There is still that part of me though (the paranoid side which can’t believe that anyone would ever do anything without wishing me harm) wondering when it’s all going to come crashing down, shoving me back into that pit of despair where onlookers gawp over the edge, maniacally laughing at my stupidity and naivety.

I’m am trying to stay focused on the positives though. I never thought for a second that I would ever receive this message. My previous attempts at contact had been met with less than enthusiastic responses and I had accepted that things would always be that way. I presumed that I would be forever hated and despised with no way to make amends or my apology known. Now I have a glimmer of hope that I can move on and put the past behind me. I’d really love it if we could stay in contact and maybe even one day have some weird kind of friendship again. Life does seem to enjoy throwing a curve ball from time to time so who knows…

Falling off the wagon again

It’s been over four months since I’ve had a ‘proper’ drink but now I’ve well and truly fallen off the wagon. I’ve had the odd drink every now and then but definitely had a fair few more than that on Thursday last week and now it seems like I’m right back where I started from. Hubby says that maybe I’m getting drunk to make things easier but it’s really not easier, not easier at all. Drinking seems to those who love me to be the thing that facilitates me hurting myself. This is so so so so so wrong. I drink to try to STOP hurting myself. To try to resist the voices and the urges wanting me to slash, stab and kill myself. I spent the entire day yesterday in bed trying to figure out how not to hurt myself, taking as many meds as I could to try to numb the imaginings but I was still left with an over-riding sense that I had to destroy myself. I want to die but I don’t know why.

Today I’ve saw a friend I hadn’t caught up with for ages. But you know what? As much as I love her and I always enjoy seeing her I can’t help but feel that I’m not really the kind of person anyone would want as a friend. I feel like a burden to everyone around me. I cannot possibly imagine bringing any sort of joy to anyone.

I’m in the pub on my own now with instructions to phone when I want to go home (it’s literally two minutes away) but what if I don’t want to go home? Or I want to go home but then leave again carrying the dog’s lead towards the tree I picked for hanging myself from years ago? Or I go home, go to the shed, get the hatchet and chop my hand off? Or maybe use a hacksaw to chop a finger off or two? What if I’m going to go straight into the kitchen and sharpen my favourite kitchen knife (everyone has a favourite right?) and then stab it into my heart? No one realises how hard it is to actually stab yourself with a kitchen knife though. It is SO FUCKING HARD!!!!! Believe me when I say I’ve tried. I’ve tried so. bloody. hard. It is not an easy way to die. Maybe if the knife has been sharpened to fuck beforehand that could help. Maybe not. Perhaps it’s the angle of insertion that makes it difficult? Either way it’s a shitty way to try to top yourself compared with say overdosing or gassing yourself in a shitty old Citroen 2CV.

So what does actually help when life seems like a shitty stick? To be honest nothing that I can say will be of any use what so ever. Well, maybe some things will be helpful to SOME people and maybe some things won’t.  What IS helpful is talking to those close to you (as hard as it may seem) even though it feels like it’s the end of the world. It IS the approach of the end of our world. But maybe, just maybe, it’s might not be the COMPLETE end of the world. Perhaps there is something out there to hold on for and that has to be worth a trying?

 

EDIT: I had to make a couple of minor edits to this post the following morning due to drunken mistakes and typos but here is my written-in-the-pub-under-the-influence effort. And just for the record I didn’t go home and chop off any body parts of hang myself so I guess I’m actually winning.

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Feral Facebook

It’s done. I finally bit the bullet and deleted the soul-destroying, mental-health ruining, life-wrecking app that is Facebook.  On the surface it sounds like such a fantastic idea. Catch up with your old friends! Stay in touch with family who have moved away! Send that lad you used to fancy back in high school a cheeky ‘nudge’! But what started out as a glossier version of friends reunited has grown and grown (FEEEED me Seymour) into something very different that is now seeking your soul. Want to join an online group of like-minded individuals? I guarantee there will be one for whatever your particular quirk, kink or interest. Whatever floats your boat there will be an unending queue of individuals who will think nothing of providing unwanted advice about your hair/face/makeup/physique/grammar/profile photo and how you like to live your life. Oh and that’s if they’re not hitting on you or sending unsolicited dick-pics via the connected messenger app. Apparently this is what passes for normal behaviour now and it isn’t just the guys who seem to have gone feral on Facebook. The sheer amount of anger, hostility and venom unleashed by seemingly regular girls/chicks/women/ladies whatever you wanna call them absolutely shocked me. I don’t for one minute believe that these people, or at least the majority of these people, would act like this in a real-life encounter. It seems that hiding behind a computer screen actually reduces human decency in some individuals which is quite concerning in itself. What I’m REALLY worried about though is how many people are carrying these online behaviours over into the real world. How many Permit Pattys, BBQ Beckys and ID Adams exhibit the same type of aggressive, hate-filled and just plain nasty behaviour when sitting behind their desks? Surely any platform which allows this kind of negative, rude and hateful conversation to occur not just openly but as A MATTER OF COURSE has to take some responsibility. I’m aware that some folks are just, well, arseholes, but it appears that Facebook is breeding baby arseholes on an industrial scale like a huge, twisted arsehole puppy-farm. Some might stay as purely online arseholes, some might venture outside and try their new found wrath on the general public at large. Frightening.

The reason I quit the arsehole factory is that my mental health hasn’t been doing too great lately and it’s becoming increasingly hard to switch off from all the negativity and I’m finding myself getting angry at other users lack of tolerance, discrimination or whatever has pissed them off so royally. I’ve got more than enough anger as it is so ditching the extra which has no use to me just makes good sense. One of my warning signs that things aren’t going well is that I also get really paranoid. There’s so much stuff/shit on there from the past and at the moment I’m not strong enough to stop myself from looking at it. I know it’s ridiculous but seeing someone who is part of my life now ‘liking’ or commenting on a picture from someone who isn’t anymore actually feels like my heart is breaking. The worst of it all is that I KNOW IT’S NOT RATIONAL. Why should I care about something that happened over 5 years ago? Maybe I’m subconsciously punishing myself by comparing myself less favourably to the other person? Maybe I feel like I shouldn’t have a nice life as I pretty comprehensively screwed theirs over. Who knows. I certainly don’t and no Psychologist or Psychiatrist has been able to pick it apart yet despite the fact that I could not be more sorry for how things turned out. So Facebook has gone. I’ve deleted the app from my phone and there seems to be a gaping hole. I actually feel a bit panicked. Thats what this bloody social network has done to me. I’m leaving my account open for the time being so that if anyone wants to follow my blog they can find me. Next stop Instagram…..

Weekends and Bleak Days

Everybody’s living for the weekend. I’m fucking not. Saturday equals being sat at home alone all day, feeling like shit, aching everywhere and not being able to go out anywhere even if I wanted to. The alternative to this is to leave the house at midday, drive 30 mins, turn around and drive home again then repeat about 8 hours later. This could be interspersed with sitting around the edge of a field trying to put on a brave face and be ‘social’ so no one thinks I’m a complete bitch/antisocial cow/weirdo. I wish I could just remove Saturdays from the calendar. Instead I re-watched the entire first series of American Horror Story. On Sunday I managed to drag my bones out of bed to walk the pup with hubber. This completely knackered me but to try to find some meaning in the day (and to leave my pit for a while longer) I got myself showered and we went into the city. After picking up a couple of bits we needed we took a nice stroll down the river. Hahaha. If I could have chopped my feet off then I would have, but I was trying my hardest not to moan. I know I’m no fun but when my body feels as though it’s been through a mangle it’s hard to be perky. I don’t like shops anymore either. Their windows reflect the horror that is my image back at me in all its glory. I’ve realised why I don’t look in the mirror at home anymore. Anything I put on looks like a bin bag on a dumpling. I went home, took some extra meds and went to sleep.

Today I have woken up feeling the same weight pressing down on me. I am determined to do something about how fat I am and it’s a good day to start as there isn’t much food in the house for me to gorge on and the depression nausea has kicked in. My confidence in myself is non-existent and old demons return to taunt me. I try to resist but my willpower can’t compete with the lure of the forbidden. Did curiosity kill the cat or was it hatred? I can’t make sense of it. I’ve tried doing some chilled out yoga but I still want to send myself into oblivion however I can. I feel trapped in a body that isn’t mine with a mind that I can’t control. Can it control me?

The Body or The Mind?

Things have been a bit more settled in my world since my last post. My mind seems to have fallen into a routine of not feeling much at all for most of the time. There have been glimpses of madness and glimmers of happiness but mainly I’ve been ok. Ok. It sounds like a word I should be pleased to use to describe myself. It isn’t though. Ok to me actually feels like my feet are stuck in tar. Nothing bad is going to happen but nothing good is either. It feels like I am existing but nothing more. I suppose when I experience feelings and emotions so deeply that to just be ok means not really feeling anything at all.  Maybe that’s the aim of the game? To numb the debilitating highs and lows by removing everything.

On another note, after my recent regular blood test to check my Lithium levels and thyroid function I was called back for a repeat test. Turns out my thyroid levels are elevated and need further investigation to establish whether my medication has caused hypothyroidism or if it’s my body playing about. I’m booked in for the repeat test in a few weeks and I’m dreading it. What if it turns out my medication is the cause? Will my psychiatrist change it or stop it all together? The last two occasions I have tried to reduce my dose of Quetiapine I have ended up in crisis and in hospital. That’s without stopping it completely or reducing the Lithium. Although I’m not happy with the way my meds have made me fat and numb I’d take that to the alternative every time. Maybe if my thyroid is knackered that would explain some of the weight gain though… or the fact that every joint and most muscles in my body ache… or that I am so completely exhausted most of the time that I can’t really do anything much at all. I suppose only time and some more blood tests will tell. And on the plus side if my thyroid isn’t working properly and I have to take thyroxine I will get free prescriptions. Yep, an illness that is treated with one tablet a day equals an entitlement to free prescriptions. Another illness, which requires antidepressant, antipsychotic, anti-anxiety and mood stabilising drugs equals a great big prescription bill. I honestly can’t see how this is considered fair. I understand that if someone with hypothyroidism doesn’t take their one tablet a day that they can become very ill and even die. However if I don’t take any one of my four medications I also become very ill and could die, albeit by my own hand. Maybe those in charge of issuing prescriptions for free are hoping that people with mental health problems, many of whom are already in financial difficulty because of their health, will skip buying their meds, bump themselves off and save the NHS the hassle of dealing with them? Maybe not but it just doesn’t seem right to me that one life-long condition receives free medication when another equally damaging life-long condition doesn’t.

So now I wait. Wait for the next blood test, wait for my psychiatrist appointment, wait for life to seem less meh. I distract myself with detective dramas on Netflix. So far Hinterland has been done, La Mante is started and Whitechapel is ongoing. Perhaps seeing death and life portrayed in these programmes reminds me that I’m still alive.