Five years on

warning: contains frank discussion of suicide

It is five years ago since I tried to kill myself. In some ways a lot has changed in that time. I just read back on some of my posts from around that time, something which is difficult because I honestly hate myself more after reading what I was thinking around that time.

I can’t remember exactly what was going through my head in the days leading up to it. The pills must have really done a number on me because there is a total black hole in my memory (which is otherwise very good) from that point up to a couple of weeks later. The only record I have is what I posted on this site. One thing that surprises me is how many people commented and offered their support. God knows why, I really don’t think I deserved it. It looks like I had some kind of upswing right before crashing and it scares me to think about how I don’t even remember what caused me to actually start taking the pills. I remember quite clearly the fact that I had researched what I intended to do and had the stuff stockpiled for months in advance. There wasn’t any major event that tipped me over the edge.

The thing I have often thought about since is how I feel about the fact that I wasn’t successful. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to die and had done for quite a long time. Do I wish that I had died? To be completely honest, despite the fact that I have had some good times since then and even knowing that I did finally manage to graduate, I still can’t deny that I do. I will concede that at the time there may have been some part of my subconscious that wanted me to be discovered and that’s why I slipped up, but in retrospect I just wish that I had been more thorough.

My situation is no better, in fact in a lot of ways it is objectively worse. I still live in the same place and have no friends or life to speak of. I am older, more in debt and I have nothing to look forward to. If you showed me back then how my life had turned out then I would have been more sure than ever that there was no point to carrying on except for other people’s benefit. Upsetting my family was the only thing holding me back for a long time and I don’t know how much pain I should have to silently endure to keep them happy.

I don’t feel as actively awful as I did back then. The acute feelings of despair are less frequent and I mostly feel a dull all-consuming ache rather than a desperate desire to be dead. I can tread water for a while longer.

There is no future for me though. Each passing day is another wasted one. I have missed the boat on ever having anything like a successful life, wasted whatever potential I may have had. People like me just aren’t compatible with what the world wants.

I don’t want to worry anyone who may be reading this. Please believe me (and I am always honest on here, even if it does make me seem terrible) that I am not in any danger right now. I can’t really describe what I am feeling right now. Disappointment, maybe. Melancholy.

I don’t have anyone to talk to. Nobody wants to put up with someone as permanently miserable as me and I cannot convincingly act as though my existence is constantly permeated sadness for very long. I may finally be getting closer to going back to my doctor. They have a new appointment system where you have to speak to them on the phone first which is awful for me, but I am tired of being stuck just spinning my wheels. It’s sad really but I have slid backwards so much. I remember sitting here in this exact spot at the end of 2007, contemplating the fact that I was going to be alone at new year and making my first forays into contacting some other people with social anxiety. Since then I made a few online friends and even met some of them but that has all slipped away from me and besides a couple of people I occasionally talk to on twitter, none of whom know anything about my problems, I am back where I started.

For some reason this is the hardest thing for me to write about, but I want to be able to see some way out of all this. I don’t know how I can ever be able to be free from these feelings or if it’s even possible. By admitting this to myself I am opening myself up for more disappointment, hope is more dangerous than giving in to despair. Maybe there is some way for me to survive. It’s painful to think about, but I hope that there is.

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Zero Self Esteem

I’ve been feeling extremely down for the past couple of days. Someone who went to the same school as me and who is 2 years younger than me moved in to the house next door. I never really spoke to him when we were younger but we know who each other is. The other day, I was walking back from the bus stop and ran into him and he ended up talking to me as we walked back to where our houses are. He said something like “I think I’m living next door to you now. You still live there don’t you, with your mum?” and a bit later asked how old I am and what I’m doing. I don’t know whether it was intended to be malicious but I think it almost certainly was a jab at me. It made me feel upset but then is it really any surprise that people think I’m pathetic?

I often think the worst things possible about myself, I genuinely dislike and resent who I am but even so, I simply can’t handle criticism from other people about it. It is probably the main reason I avoid so many things. Every nasty thing people could say about me is true, so how I am supposed to handle that? It’s hard to know how to deal with being a loser. I’ve read things about dealing with low self esteem but they seem to rely on the assumption that the person reading them actually isn’t worthy of derision.

It has been a long time since I’ve felt this low and I am back to the point where I can’t see a future for myself. At least not one that I want to be a part of.

Frustration

The last few days have been overwhelmed by frustration. I went for my CBT appointment on Thursday and my therapist seemed much more impatient than usual. I know it must be difficult to deal with me and I have apologised before for being such an awkward patient (which he of course denied I was), it takes me a long time to vocalise my thoughts or explain things which I find embarrassing. A lot of the time I sit in silence and he rattles off suggestions of how I might have felt until he says the right one and  I nod. It’s a slow process indeed.

This time however, he just seemed to be out of patience. He set me the task of asking a stranger for the time and asked how that would make me feel. I knew it made me feel scared, but I couldn’t put into words exactly why and what I was afraid of. Having had some time to think about it; I guess what I’d be worried about is the person wondering why I’m talking to them. Why did I choose them to ask? They might think I’m coming on to them or trying to distract them while someone pickpockets them or something. Another more likely thing is that they’d just ignore me and walk past, because nobody wants to be stopped and hassled by a weirdo like me. I don’t know, it’s hard to express these thoughts aloud when they are so embarrassing. Even though I realise that none of these things would be harmful, I’d still be scared to do it anyway.

Assuming the best case scenario, I manage to do this tiny activity and report back next week, I’d probably be given something larger to do and so forth. But how long would it take building from being a functional retard like I am now to becoming something resembling a normal human being? It will be in the order of years even in the best case. I don’t know if I can handle being such a loathsome wreck of a person for that long. I’ve already wasted almost a quarter of a century, some of the times in a persons life when major personal development happens and, by and large people find to be an enjoyable time.

I don’t really know how to end this post. I think I’ve gone past a point of no return regarding suicide. Once you get it into your head that it is not only a viable escape from the pain, but the best and most immediate one, then it’s hard to take your mind off it and stop your thinking from going there automatically. I don’t know if it’s possible to stop doing that. They’ve tried using guilt on me, but there will be a point (in fact there already was a point) when the pain is too much for that to hold me back. What can I do? Become a permanent inpatient and doom myself to a life of being constantly sedated and under lock and key until I die alone? What a great life to look forward to.

Spiralling

This might not make much sense, sorry in advance. The last few days I have felt like I am spiralling out of control, one day blurs into the next I forget when it started exactly. I have been seriously considering reckless things that I shouldn’t be (not talking about suicide) and I’ve hit 4 of the symptoms of hypomania. Not that I am suggesting that I am bipolar, I’ve never had this before and yesterday I realised I forgot my meds 2 days in a row which probably didn’t help things.

I haven’t eaten a proper meal since last thursday, I’ve been getting through work on red bull, had to call in sick one day last week because on top of everything i had a splitting headache and terrible cold and I couldn’t take it.

I’m scared about what I might do. I had tried to convince myself to stop looking towards suicide as the answer, but if I wreck up my life even more I might not have any other option.

Last night I told the person I’m closest too about how I am feeling and what crazy things I had been planning to do and I think she should have been disgusted with me and never wanted to speak to me again but instead she just wanted to reassure me that it’s my illness. I don’t know if I can lay the blame of much more at the feet of depression, I have to take responsibility at some point.

What upset me most is that she said that she felt like she has been talking to a person with a terminal illness for the past few weeks 😦 I hate to think that that is how I am thought of, I don’t deserve any sympathy, everything wrong with me is my own doing and I don’t HAVE to die, it’s all self imposed. I feel guilty as hell.

this is an extract of some things i have written down for my therapist (still got to wait until the 17th to see him)

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I am a wreck. I feel like I want to cry but no tears come, there’s nothing there. I’m so sick of being such a worthless excuse for a human and heading down the inevitable path of failure.

(cut)

I am so starved of affection and I crave it desperately even if it is not real. I long for someone else’s touch. It is so incredibly hard knowing you are disgusting and repellent to everyone and that closeness and intimacy are unattainable. I plan on killing myself soon, I’d rather my inevitable suicide be seen as a tradgedy and maybe a waste of potential than people wonder “what took him so long?”

I honestly don’t know what to do. What can I do? Call crisis? They can’t help, I’m too entrenched for half an hour with a stranger to make everything A-OK. How could I possibly explain everything that is wrong to yet ANOTHER person I don’t know? I don’t know if there is any help available for the chronically suicidal.

Time is running out

Things feel like they’re crumbling. I have to pay for my uni fees again this year and I’m almost financially tapped out. Unless I can open another student bank account with an overdraft, I’m going to struggle to make rent. I’ve been hunting around for things to sell on eBay and for a job, but just looking at my C.V. reminds me of what a complete loser I am. 24 and only 4 months of real work experience and almost a years worth of unemployment. I’m going to be straight to the bottom of the pile/bin for whatever I apply for, especially in today’s economic climate.

The more I am forced to think about real life the more I realise I can’t cope with it. I’m just too weak, mentally. Some people say they over analyse things, but I do this so much and to such an almost psychotic level that it stops me from doing almost everything. I can’t even think about doing things because I don’t want to consider how badly I’d screw them up.

Everything from what clothes to wear to how I walk, what my facial expression looks like is a pain that drives me crazy. Can you imagine someone that is thirsty but daren’t go in a cafe to buy a drink because they have some malformed idea about not being “good enough” to go in a place like that? That’s what I’m like. I can’t even explain it properly, my brain is just broken.

I remember a shop that I wanted to go in a while back when I was at college. I used to walk by every day but I could never get the “courage” (it seems ridiculous using that word in this way) to actually go in there. I take self consciousness to an extreme new level, I’m honestly amazed I can go outside at all. I barely did for about a year but being inside gets too boring and mind numbing.

How is such a messed up individual supposed to cope with the world? I started listening to the audio series on overcoming social anxiety by Dr Richards, and he introduces himself as a former sufferer of SA and how he used to be scared to go to the mail box in case his neighbours saw him and talked to him. I can relate to this somewhat, but then he goes on to talk about how anxious his job as a high school teacher made him. This is the problem I always find, it seems like everyone always has at least some normality about them. How do you get a job like that if you are as bad as me? When I talk to other people with SA it’s always the same story. The line that consistently makes my eyes roll is when people say “I’ve got no friends except my boy/girlfriend”. Well how the fuck do they manage that but not be able to make a regular friend?

I just have too much wrong with me and I’ve been to lazy and scared to fix things when it was possible. I don’t care what people say, 24 is too late to start a life from scratch. I’m a fucking write-off.

Things feel like they’re crumbling. I have to pay for my uni fees again this year and I’m almost financially tapped out. Unless I can open another student bank account with an overdraft, I’m going to struggle to make rent. I’ve been hunting around for things to sell on eBay and for a job, but just looking at my C.V. reminds me of what a complete loser I am. 24 and only 4 months of real work experience and almost a years worth of unemployment. I’m going to be straight to the bottom of the pile/bin for whatever I apply for, especially in today’s economic climate.

The more I am forced to think about real life the more I realise I can’t cope with it. I’m just too weak, mentally. Some people say they over analyse things, but I do this so much and to such an almost psychotic level that it stops me from doing almost everything. I can’t even think about doing things because I don’t want to consider how badly I’d screw them up.

Everything from what clothes to wear to how I walk, what my facial expression looks like is a pain that drives me crazy. Can you imagine someone that is thirsty but daren’t go in a cafe to buy a drink because they have some malformed idea about not being “good enough” to go in a place like that? That’s what I’m like. I can’t even explain it properly, my brain is just broken.

I remember a shop that I wanted to go in a while back when I was at college. I used to walk by every day but I could never get the “courage” (it seems ridiculous using that word in this way) to actually go in there. I take self consciousness to an extreme new level, I’m honestly amazed I can go outside at all. I barely did for about a year but being inside gets too boring and mind numbing.

How is such a messed up individual supposed to cope with the world? I started listening to the audio series on overcoming social anxiety by Dr Richards, and he introduces himself as a former sufferer of SA and how he used to be scared to go to the mail box in case his neighbours saw him and talked to him. I can relate to this somewhat, but then he goes on to talk about how anxious his job as a high school teacher made him. This is the problem I always find, it seems like everyone always has at least some normality about them. How do you get a job like that if you are as bad as me? When I talk to other people with SA it’s always the same story. The line that consistently makes my eyes roll is when people say “I’ve got no friends except my boy/girlfriend”. Well how the fuck do they manage that but not be able to make a regular friend?

I just have too much wrong with me and I’ve been to lazy and scared to fix things when it was possible. I don’t care what people say, 24 is too late to start a life from scratch. I’m a fucking write-off.

I'm still here

I’ve been sleeping terribly, up for days at a time (I know other people have it a lot worse but I am dead after 3 days) even after taking sleeping tablets. I’m coming off zopiclone now though, haven’t had any since that first night.. I can’t remember when it was, days have merged into one long mess. I can’t concentrate, I’m too hot, one of the only people in the world who I can talk to with relatively little anxiety has gone back home so I won’t get to see her again for ages.

The pressure to get a job is mounting and the whole process just fills me with a mixture of dread and sickness. My thoughts constantly revolve around killing myself, I doubt an hour goes by when I don’t think of it once. I almost started taking pills this morning (after being awake all night again) but if I want it to work I have to make preparations. I can’t risk failure, my life wouldn’t be worth living anyway if I survived, it’s lose/lose.

I hate myself, I disgust myself. I can’t bear to look at myself because I am so repulsive. I’m so wrapped up in my own world that I am impatient and snappy to my own family. My mum keeps asking what’s wrong but she doesn’t really want to know. She wants to fix things but nobody can do that, it’s not like when I was little and could count on her to get me out of things. Every time real life rears it’s ugly head, I fall to pieces. I’m simply not good enough in every possible way.

I don’t know what to do, some part of me must want to be here still otherwise I would have done it already. I wonder how long I can put off the inevitable crushing reality.