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.

Advertisement

Hate

I gave up on my plan last week, I was too scared to go through with it and be discovered. I need time alone to make it work. Some people tried to talk me out of it and I felt so guilty that they care about such a useless person as me. I don’t know why I should bother hanging around this shitty world, in this shitty life. I’m beginning to think I’m incapable of being happy, the only time the pain relents is for a matter of hours and then it’s back again.

Why should I want to live? Everyone would seriously be better off without me. The same could probably be said of a lot of people, but I don’t want to be here. I wish I could give my opportunities and resources to someone else who deserves them. I’m sick of myself and how weak and pathetic I am. Nothing can change, the damage has been done and I’ve fucked up everything. I threw away a life, I can’t deal with the consequences.

Escape Plan

DISCLAIMER: I am fully aware of how easy I have things as a white, western, straight male with no physical health problems. I feel guilty every day because despite being born into lucky circumstances, I’m still a failure. I know other people have things much, much worse.

It’s been a while since I posted properly, I apologise for that. Life is wearing me down mentally and physically. I still cannot sleep like a normal person, I’m awake until the early hours of the morning about 50% of nights and then I’m fighting to stay awake the rest of the following day. I’ve stopped myself from sleeping during the day time and I walk a couple of miles each day to try and get myself back into a regular pattern but it just isn’t working. I have to drink caffeine to concentrate at work, even though I’m only in 4 hours a day.

My new job is several orders of magnitude better than my old one for many reasons. First of all it pays more and is much less demanding. Secondly, I don’t hate my coworkers and they don’t spend every day coming up with new ways to insult me. I’ve only had to endure minor taunting about how quiet I am so far. The thing that I prefer most though, is that it’s only part time. I struggle to manage even these small amounts of hours though. It reminds me of the fact that one day I will be forced to work full time, most likely with people who hate me and I just don’t know if I can stand it.

One month of this was enough to push me into my first serious suicidal mood back in 2006. The first time I wrote my family a note and looked up the most effective way to kill myself. Thankfully over circumstances forced me to leave that job but then followed over a year of depression, unemployment, worsening anxiety and isolation before another crisis forced me into returning to university. I know I’m not going to have that option again in the future (my life certainly won’t be worth living if I drop out again) not many people get a second chance and very, very few get a third and I’d be way too old.

I keep wondering what the point is. I’ve been like this since I was a child, as far back as I can remember I have always dreaded obligations, right from playgroup at age 3 up to going to work. I get the same sick feeling in my stomach, that I have to face the people out there makes me feel ill.

Is life worth feeling like that? What’s so good about life if you have no friends, no-one to share things with, nobody who loves you. Is it really worth me hanging around for 10,500 more of the worthless days? I don’t see why I should want to live, other than guilt.

Don’t read on if you don’t want to see vivid discussion of suicide

I keep staring at the motillium, I have it all planned out. 36 hours of anti-emetic regimine before the amitriptyline and sedatives. I haven’t ever told any medical professionals about my new found tendancy towards pills, they know about my plans to jump but I can’t let them know about this. They’ll want me to get rid of them and I can’t do that. I need my escape route, I’ve gone down that path of no return.

I think suicidal ideation is addictive. Once you have accepted that it is a viable option and your life isn’t really worth living, it’s comforting to have the escape plan in place. I find myself thinking about it every single day, despite what I have told doctors. I see little point in discussing it with them any more. They only have limited options at their disposal, sending the stupid, interfering crisis team round is not going to help me. I can’t relate my entire life story and expose my most deep fears to someone I am probably never going to see again. What good does it do? I’m rarely in an acute crisis anyway, my condition is chronic. 1 hour of chattering isn’t going to change a fucked up life around.

I don’t think I’m unjustified in considering this as a serious option at this point in my life. There’s nothing that gives me any real pleasure or happiness at the moment. I’ve gone through 2 years of crappy drugs that don’t work. I’m sick of being jealous of everyone for having a life, knowing that I’m not a real person and will never be accepted as one by the rest of society. I couldn’t deal with that anyway, it’s easier to be a weirdo, at least I have no image to keep up.

It’s very difficult to explain to people who desperately lonely and disconnected I feel from humanity. I’m sure most people reading this have had feelings for someone but never got to do anything about it and the pain of that. I have experienced nothing except that. A long time ago I stopped even thinking of myself as a person capable of relationships. I’m a hopeless cause, a complete write off. What reason is there to live like this? Would you want to be in this situation?

In answer to why I want to kill myself; There is nothing in my life that makes up for all the shit. It will only get worse from here, why prolong the “suffering”?

edit: taken first one

New Psychiatrist and Self Loathing

After a 1 hour 20 minute wait with the Daily Express for company (ugh) I finally got to go in and see the psychiatrist I’ve been transferred to. He seemed like a pleasant enough guy, he listened patiently while I answered the same questions that I’ve been asked seemingly hundreds of times. When, where and how I get anxious, what I was like at school and so on.

One of his questions threw me though. He asked whether I was sexually active, something nobody else has felt necessary to enquire about (it’s evident that I am not just by looking at me) and when I responded no he asked when I last was. I thought the uncomfortable silence and throat clearing might have tipped him off but I had to say the horrible words myself; “I never have been”. He seemed rather taken aback by this and later on asked if I have or ever had a girlfriend and later on made one of the most ludicrous suggestions I have heard yet. “You should have sex” he said. As if it was something so simple, that I could go out and do on the way back after I pop out to the shops or something. I don’t know whether he has some kind of logical disconnect, I’d already explained to him that I cannot even talk to or form friendships with the people in my classes whom I see every day.

It will improve your self esteem, he tells me. You will enjoy it. No shit. I want to scream out in anger and furious jealously every time someone talks about having relationships, one night stands or whatever like anyone can just go out and do it. This stuff made me feel that horrible pain deep inside. Not the dull hopelessness, the “I want to kill myself right now rather than live another second as this pathetic creature” feeling. He commented on my age and told me that I need to change and stop accepting other people’s opinions of me as 100% accurate and form my own opinions about myself. At this point there is no difference though. I don’t know if there is a philosophical term for how I feel, but to me, nothing matters except what other people think. If all that mattered was how good you felt about yourself then insane people who think they are Napoleon or whatever would be considered the worlds most sucessful and aspirational figures, not the talented and attractive people we actually do look up to.

I was too saddened and quite shocked to explain to him the grim reality of being such a loser. It doesn’t take long to find examples of what a crap situation I am in. Even the examples in these sites (there is very little material out there that doesn’t refer to that film which name haunts me or religious claptrap about older virgins) don’t address the extra layer of utter pathetic inexperience that I unfortunately possess. I am a million miles away from even kissing a girl and I’m twenty-fucking-four. Has anyone ever been so god damned sheltered, ugly and such a loser and recovered from it? I sincerely doubt it unless a lottery win was involved somehow.

I really honestly want to kill myself whenever this topic enters my head. I’m probably about to make myself sound like a horrible snob here but I feel seething jealousy whenever I’m in my local town, which is a grotty place full of single teenage mothers and chavs and I see prospectless, petty criminals who manage to have some kind of relationship and I know that I never will. It’s times like that when I HATE myself for not realising earlier what life is all about and what you need to be successful. Hindsight is so wonderful. I wish I could travel back in time and tell my 11 year old self that being “clever” doesn’t count for shit in this world. It’s all about making connections with people and being outspoken and confident. Don’t waste fucking time being a goody good and thinking that not getting involved with usual teenage activities makes you superior. It makes you liable to turn out into a fucked up waste of a space that I am now.

I seriously might as well be a robot. I doubt anyone would notice. I have no capacity for forming relationships. I’m far too ugly and un-humanlike to ever have any hope whatsoever of getting with any girl. I can only bear the crushing realisations and watch my dreams torn down in front of my eyes in quiet reserved fashion for so much longer. I’m like the shy teen that never grew up, everyone else around me became adults and now people 5 years younger than me have overtaken me too.

I’m sick, so fucking sick of being such a useless sack of shit. Why do they want me to live like this? So I’ll devastate my parents if I kill myself, do they think about how devastating it is to live every single day as me? I wish I could make them try it for a few months. Days and days on end with not so much as a conversation, let alone any physical contact. Respect and being treated as a social equal? Forget it.

I genuinely wish I hadn’t left my pills at uni, it’d be risky being discovered too soon here but I really don’t think I can take much more of this. Damn that stupid bridge barrier.

Despair

I’ve tried everything that I’m supposed to do. I’ve had a month long back and forth email conversation with Samaritans, tried to distract myself, talked to my family. A few months ago I went to the hospital of my own accord and told them I felt like I was in danger of killing myself and they spoke to me for a while and sent the crisis team round afterwards. None of this has changed anything in the long run. The problems are still there and they are deep lying and in some cases insurmountable.

The time has come when I can’t stop thinking to myself “Why bother?” I don’t think the pain is worth enduring any more. Life is no fun at all for me, I get no enjoyment from anything and I see no future worth looking forward to. Everything from now onwards will be a downward spiral of misery, loneliness and ever-increasing mockery and disgust from others.

What reasons do I have to carry on? I can’t think of any particularly good ones. Sparing my mum the grief is all I can think of that is stopping me right now but I don’t know how much longer that will keep my alive. Is saving her that pain worth keeping myself miserable and utterly despondent for however long she has to live? I don’t know, maybe for once in my life I will be selfish. I have no friends to leave behind, my funeral will be an empty place. Whenever you hear about a young persons untimely death on TV, people always say “He was so full of life and always laughing, everyone loved him”. If anyone was asked about me they’d probably think “He was so withdrawn and sullen, I was in his class for 10 years and he never said a word” before lying with a similar cliched load of rubbish. I can’t say anyone’d be surprised, I’ve always been “that guy” wherever I’ve studied, lived or worked.

I’m getting tired of thinking about the future. It’s a black hole of pathetic loneliness for me. I don’t want to rot away in some single bedroom flat, holing myself up in there day after day like I have done for the past 20 odd years. There are people on the social anxiety forums who are in their mid thirties and forties who are in that position, some of them still living with their parents and I can foresee exactly that same thing happening to me. I can’t live that life, I won’t let the people who laughed and tortured me have their theories proven right. I’ll take eternal nothingness over that.

The jealousy I experience every day is getting too much. When I went to the arboretum in my home town, there were lots of people around my age there sitting together in groups and just chatting or reading. It makes me want to cry because I’d love so much to be able to do such simple (and probably mundane to most) things. Instead I walked alone, trying to avoid looking like a drug dealer or homeless crazy person. Being an outcast is intolerably painful because there’s no end to it. The only solace I ever got was becoming a hermit and never seeing anyone or what I was missing out on. I can’t take that any more though, that was the cause of my first suicidal break down. I think it was 18 months with no human contact other than my parents and sister.

What triggered my break down was seeing a documentary about older virgins and a guy who decided at 23 (now younger than I am) to pay an escort to have sex with him. I realised how pathetic and what a monster people think of such losers like him. He was a joke, the whole point of the program seemed designed to mock and make a spectacle of these weirdos who were so undesirable they had to pay someone to like them. I’m not proud of this but after about a decade since puberty and having no experience whatsoever (I don’t think I even started a conversation with a girl when I was in secondary school, I can’t remember ever doing it anyway) kind of gets to you.. I considered doing the same thing briefly. The more I thought about it, the worse idea it became of course. Beyond the moral ramifications, I realised that even a woman who was being paid would probably refuse to come within 2 feet of me.

I don’t want this post to make me sound like some kind of sex crazed maniac, I’m far from it. I think humans have a need to express affection and love though. I need which I have never and will never get to fulfill. I’m far, far to messed up in the head and monstrously ugly to ever know what it’s like to hold another person close, despite how much I crave it. The agonising pain of seeing every girl I have ever liked go off with someone else, never realising I existed will always be there. I have no redeeming qualities and it would be delusional to think otherwise.

It’s been a long time now and I’ve given a lot of thought to it. It’s not a rash decision, I think tonight may be the night. I don’t feel like crying, just numb. I have the pills, I just need time alone.

Mixed Feelings

I came back home today and found a letter from the psychotherapy place, they’ve offered to put me on the waiting list for cognitive behavioural therapy but couldn’t tell me how long it’ll take until I can see someone more specifically than “several months”. I’d hoped that it would be sooner than that, although I suppose I’m lucky to get the opportunity at all without having to pay for it. By the time it starts I’ll probably have finished university for the summer, which puts me in the bizarre situation of being back at home but not being around anyone who I know.

It’s going to be difficult to make any progress when I don’t even have to opportunity for any socialising, at least when I’m at uni I could see and say a few words to a person I know every day if I wanted to. When I’m at home, there’s nobody except my family, who I have no problem talking to. I dumbfounded my psychiatrist by telling him this last time, I wouldn’t accept that there was no-one I could ring up and arrange to meet. “No friends? How about a friend of the family?” Nope, sorry doc. I’ve told them this before, I’m sure they don’t listen or they think I’m exaggerating. I really sat at home and didn’t speak to anyone outside my family for months and months. Nobody wants to know me, it’s obvious to me why that is, but they either don’t listen or don’t care (probably both). The place where I live doesn’t help things either, there is literally nothing but houses around here. There isn’t even a shop any more, you have to walk for about half an hour to get to another housing area where there is a Spar. Hardly a vibrant and inspiring place. The local town is a rough area and pretty much consists of £1 shops and bookies. If you tried to strike up a conversation with someone there you’d probably get knifed.

It’s very disheartening to think about how long this would all take if I try to stick with it. I’ve already been waiting over a year since I realised CBT is what I need and it’ll probably be another 6 months before I’d even get to make a start on things. Another package arrived today as well, a way out. I’m not sure how long I can stop myself from using it. I walked around the house with a suicide note in my pocket for 4 days last week, distraction only works for so long.