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.

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A Prisoner

I didn’t think I’d find myself longing for the halls of residence I stayed in at university last year but I am. It always seems to happen to me actually, I hate something at the time but then in the future I end up reminiscing fondly about it. It might be a case of rose tinted glasses, or maybe, if I can paraphrase “Office Space”, every day is worse than the last so every day you see me is the worst day of my life.

My current room doesn’t have an en-suite bathroom (though to call my halls bathroom a “room” is rather a stretch) and it leads directly to the living room so I can always hear when there are people here. I hate coming out of my room when anyone is here, my housemate E, I can just about manage talking to but it never progresses beyond the tiniest of small talk, going over the same old things again and again. I think she is always just shocked to see me, it is frightening how I can live in the same house as two people but remain largely invisible to them.

The main problem I have at the moment (and something else would instantly replace it in my mind as has always happened since I was at primary school, I can never be without a big worry in my life) is that my other housemate, J’s boyfriend has started at the university this year. I am nothing like him, he’s one of the “lads” and I can tell he doesn’t like me at all and I’ll risk being admonished for being judgemental and “mind reading” if you want to use the mental health jargon and say he probably thinks I’m the biggest freak ever and makes fun of me behind my back, to which J probably half heartedly tells him to stop but without any real conviction. He’s the only person who made any negative comment about me not drinking and the way he insults other people (not that he’s a nasty person, pretty much all “lads” are like it) doesn’t give me much hope that such an easy target as myself would be spared. I don’t want to be around when he is there. I can’t talk to him, I am lost for words. I’ll admit I am very intimidated by him, and by J actually. I feel like a lower-class moron compared to them.

I’m fed up of feeling like a prisoner here. I have lost count of the meals I have missed because they and their friends have been round here, their loud conversations and laughter terrify me behind my door and I stay fixed by fear inside my room waiting until it’s reasonably late enough to assume they won’t knock on my door and I can hide in bed until the morning. I count down the days to the weekend; “only 2 more nights here” I’ll think to myself. It’s not an enjoyable existence, my health has already suffered. OK I could stand to lose weight but I’ve been finding my clothes too large because of how little I eat while I’m here. It goes without saying how messed up my mental health is becoming.

I don’t know what to do, time is running out if I want to suspend my studies for a year but I don’t think I’d be able to afford that and I don’t know if I’d have the mental strength to go back after a year away from everything.

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.

Failure

I saw the CBT guy again yesterday, we went through the standard stuff that I’ve read a million times about how thoughts and behaviour influence emotions etc and he gave me a mood diary to fill in once an hour for a week. Unfortunately it only has one square for 12pm-6am which is when most of my low mood occurs…  He also informed me that I have a psychiatrist appointment at Lincoln on Friday, I never got a letter about this so had to ask for the day off work on extremely short notice which started the afternoon off with me feeling anxious. Also my therapist is going on leave for 3 weeks so I’m on my own again (with the crisis team to call in case of emergencies, ugh). It seems like I never, ever get any kind of continuity. I hardly even get to see the same person twice. I’ve literally had over 6 GPs in the past 2 years, 5 different psychiatrists, 2 therapists, about 10 million crisis team busybodies. I hate to make excuses but having the condition that I do makes it very hard to explain everything to people. Every single time I have felt like I’ve adequately got my points across I get shunted off to someone else and have to start from the beginning again 😦

My mum and her boyfriend (they both work in schools) have finished for the summer holidays now and they’re going away for a week starting this weekend. I’ve been constantly overcome by thoughts of how this would be the ideal opportunity to get things over with without the chance of being discovered. I am a complete failure. No matter what people say to me, I still can’t find comfort in anything except wanting and planning my own death. I’m worthless even by the standards of mental people. I had to fill in a questionnaire and circle which statements I agreed with most. It said things like “I enjoy spending time with people” “I don’t enjoy spending time with people as much as I used to” well I never spend time with anyone because I don’t know anyone, and I haven’t since I was about 11. There was one about sex 🙄 how can I answer that when the idea of anyone ever finding me attractive is completely ludicrous, I’m 24 and it’s pretty obvious if that has never happened so far then it’s not going to. It asked something about whether you fell worse about your appearance than you used to; I’ve never felt anything but completely ugly. I don’t know how these tests can determine anything about your mental health or level of depression if you actually are a complete failure like me. Sure, I feel like crap and if I’m constantly obsessed with thoughts of suicide then it’s a pretty safe bet to say I am depressed, but this thing was obviously designed for normal people who are affected by depression, not utter fuck ups like me.

The diary thing makes you list your activities each hour and he wants me to rate my mood from 0-10. The handout says that people rarely do “nothing” even though it feels like it and are probably more active than they think which is why it’s important to have a record of it. Well mine makes depressing reading so far, I really do “do nothing” for most of the day. Half my waking hours are spent lying sleepless in bed or mindlessly browsing the internet. I don’t have any friends or anywhere to go, I don’t have any hobbies or activities and there is nothing around where I live except houses and a school. Nothing gives me any pleasure or enjoyment, all that takes away the pain is thinking about how it could soon all be over.

Psych Appointment

I have the first of my stop-gap psychologist appointments for while I’m back home over the summer today. I really don’t know what to do, I’m an accomplished enough at hiding the truth about how I feel that I could get away without saying anything. The alternative would probably be undesirable. I don’t want to deal with the crisis team again. I can’t have them coming to my house and still be able to tell my mum that I’m ok. She’ll start crying again and wanting to come up with a magic quick fix and just flat out tell me that I’m wrong about myself. She has no idea.

5 pills in. 12 hours left until dosing time.

Obsession

Triggering, I guess. Just like the rest of this blog.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I am obsessed with my own death. I eye up buildings and balconies wondering if they are high enough to provide a fatal drop. I keep looking at the fire escape on one of my university buildings and wondering if I could make it to the top before someone spotted me. The pills are still in my cupboard, the sheer volume of them is daunting though. I bought anti-emetics. I wrote down what times I’d need to take them in order to stop me puking the lethal ones up.

There’s no single event that is making me feel like this, it’s a chronic thing, not an acute crisis. I feel like the walking dead, it feels weird that I can walk about campus and talk about next year even when I half expect not to be here. When I’ve discussed these things with the crisis team in the past, they asked what stopped me from doing it. I told them I didn’t want to hurt my family but I’m not really sure if that’s true. Maybe it’s hugely selfish of me, to put them through that pain to end my own but when was the last time I did something purely for myself? Don’t I deserve to have my way for once? Do I owe them a lifetime of suffering?

It is futile seeking help for this, I know there are only a few outcomes. 1: The same thing as before, they ask me the same old shit and can’t comprehend how I feel and what it’s like to live like this and I end up with intrusive busybodies coming to my house for a few days. 2: They lock me up, that’d cause my family as much pain as if I did it and I don’t think I could take it. 3: They increase my meds and continue the status quo. I don’t think they really believe I am serious because I don’t cut myself and I haven’t taken any pills as far as they know. How can I sum up my entire life’s experience and answer the question “Why do you want to kill yourself?” I’ve written thousands of words on this blog, probably enough to fill a small book and that doesn’t even tell the full story. How can I, with my limited vocal expressive capabilities even start to explain it all?

Don’t read if you don’t want to hear about suicide

As for what is really stopping me, I don’t really know. I feel like I owe people an explanation but I don’t think I can do it justice. I have written a suicide note for my family but it doesn’t tell the full story. I don’t think I want them to know just how pathetic I really am. What about the few people I could vaguely call friends? I don’t want to leave them wondering but I don’t want them to know what a miserable excuse for a human I am. Should my secrets die with me, only visible to those few who read this site? 

I notice on the news whenever someone dies prematurely, family and friends always describe them as full of life and “everyone liked him/her”. I don’t suppose it’d be much of a surprise to people if I went through with it. You could say “Well I always expected it to be honest, he never smiled and barely said a word to anyone. Nobody liked him or will even notice he’s gone”. You might think I’m exaggerating, but I’m really not. I’ve been here a week without people knowing I’d even come back one time. What a great loss to humanity I would be, a loner who does nothing but drain away the resources of everyone around him, emotional and material. A waste of opportunity, a waste of space and energy.