Retrospective

2009 wasn’t a good year for me, in fact I’d say it was probably the worst of my life since I was in the institutional torture centre known as school. Obviously the spiralling depression and series of events that led to me finally trying and failing to kill myself in the summer was a particularly low point. I did some things that I should probably be ashamed of if I could feel anything other than hopelessness. I lost most of the few connections I had with other people because I, foolishly in hindsight, wrote to them to let them know what had happened to me. I honestly thought that I wouldn’t be coming back. For months i researched methods and bought hundreds of pills which sat ominously in my drawer while at times I desperately tried to overcome the feelings that death at my own hands was inevitable and that it was the only way to stop the agonising dull pain of living a failed life, wracked with guilt because my own cushy life would be welcomed with open arms by 99% of the worlds population.

10 years ago, I was almost 15 and probably at the height of my psychological bullying and trying to deal with the uniquely fucked up family situation I found myself in and blamed myself for. There was a lot of talk about the future, what with us entering a new millenium (although not strictly true, you pedants) and I somewhat foolishly hoped that the next ten years might bring some changes to the unhappy awkwardness that was my teenage life. It is a thoroughly disheartening thought to realise that not only am I more unhappy than ever, my social skills and any semblance of a “life” are even worse.

I saw the end of a TV programme the other day, some talking head was going on about how teenage girls spend inordinate amounts of time talking and thinking about their first kiss with a boy. It deeply saddens me in many ways because it is a constant reminder of how far I’ve been left behind socially.

This kind of observation usually prompts comments like “life isn’t a race” and so on. This is no consolation because it is usually said by people who have no comprehension of what it’s like to be so isolated and the mental desolation of being consantly alone with no connection to other humans. I recently struggled to explain to some mental health types that I simply cannot fathom the idea that I could ever be in a relationship, it’s unthinkable that I could even have friends. Every single day I am forced to spend around normal people just reinforces further the massive deficiencies in my own personality and I just cannot ever imagine being capable of the basic social skills that are required to get on in the world.

This post has kind of gone off the rails, I apologise. It’s 2.30am and I am sitting here wondering how I am going to be able to carry on the facade, pretending that I don’t wish I had suceeded in killing myself. Not only this but I have to struggle with the increasingly hard university work. I started looking at pills again and got to the checkout stage. I know how I could make it work now, I just can’t let anyone know until the time when I could be “saved” has passed.

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.

Losing Control

The past few weeks have been pretty unbearable, I haven’t been able to summon the energy even to complain on this blog. I’ve been feeling completely trapped and hopeless, several times a day I’ve been on the edge of breaking down into tears for reasons that I can’t easily explain.

One thing that’s been causing me considerable anxiety and fear is the group project I’m going to have to do at university which involves me working with randomly chosen people on a project that will last most of the year. The lecturers are making this out to be the most important thing ever, and with each dire warning they give about the importance of communication etc I only become more and more hopeless of being able to cope.

I’m terrified that one day I will break down in class and not be able to continue. I already feel so awful that I cannot face anyone, but even at my house I can’t seem to escape being disturbed by my housemates. I’ve tried explaining to one of them about my anxiety and how I get so stressed out but understandably, she obviously doesn’t realise the extent of my idiocy and how even the slightest thing puts me on edge for hours.

I’ve lost so much weight that my family have noticed and my clothes no longer fit properly, I only managed a proper dinner once last week, the other days I was unable to face the shared kitchen. I can’t stand the people who come round to our house. My housemates boyfriend, D, is now at the university and spends a lot of time at our place. He’s the exact opposite kind of person to me; confident, loud, outgoing, self assured and not afraid of offending people. The other night all of his Halls flatmates came round and woke me up after they’d been out drinking. I was so glad to be in bed away from their hideous shouting and insulting. It was a stark reminder of how much of a misfit I am and how I could never ever be accepted by people and nor do I want to spend time with people like that again. I’ve had enough of that in the past, putting up with being a metaphorical punching bag for their constant insults.

I don’t think I can cope with things, I feel like dropping off the face of the planet. There’s literally no hope for a person like me who cannot handle the easiest of lives.

I spoke to my tutor about the problems I’ve been having and he told me that it would be possible to suspend my studies for a year, but I don’t know whether I’d be able to go back after all that time off, I’m not sure I could manage it. Even more pressing is the financial situation, I only have 2 years (including this year) student support left so I’d have to pay the full amount of fees myself for the 3rd year and I’ve already signed a contract for the rent of this house which I wouldn’t be able to do if I wasn’t receiving my student loan.

There’s nothing I can do, I’ve got to try and muddle through until I fall apart at last.

I’ve become obsessed with finding places to jump from again 😦 I read a news story about some girls who jumped from a bridge in Scotland and tried to find out  how to get to it. I don’t know if I will end up doing that, I really don’t want to take any chances being “saved” this time.

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.

Numb

I have been awake since midday on Wednesday, the last few weeks attempt at sleep have generally me lying there tossing and turning until the wee hours before giving up and downing a zopiclone, which are become ever less effective as tolerance builds (that’s my own fault for taking them longer than Dr recommended). Wednesday night I decided to try and reset my body clock and just stay up until I felt ready to sleep, and I’m only just feeling drowsy now. I don’t know if the increased (30mg) paroxetine/seroxat has anything to do with it. My GP doesn’t think so but all I know is that it hasn’t helped whatsoever with depression/anxiety and the embarrassing side effects are there.

I can’t help but feel I am just treading water, running out the clock before I finally get the motivation to write an adequate explanation for killing myself and getting it over with. I can’t see what I have to live for any more, life’s passed me by and no matter how hard I try to play at being a real person, I just can’t do it. I don’t belong, I don’t fit anywhere.

The student loan company has decided not to lend me any tuition fees again next year, my mum’s boyfriend lent me vast amounts for the first year and he’s giving me some towards this years but I have to make up more of it myself and I don’t know how I’m going to do it. How can I go to a job interview and sell myself when inside I am wondering how I am going to be able to find a place where I can be undisturbed for 36 hours while I die. I can’t bring myself to make plans for the future because I half know that I won’t be here and it seems futile. I’ve exhausted all options from the mental health services besides being locked up, and I can’t see how that will help me at all. Maybe I am a danger to myself, but what if I always will be? I strongly believe suicide can be rational and I don’t see many counter arguments to say why I deserve or should want to stick around in this world for much longer.

I’m off to try and sleep now.