Good day

Stayed at uni last night and didn’t really accomplish much (including eating 😦 ) but I went out this afternoon to meet a friend from a social anxiety forum who lives a few miles away. We’d only met once before but we went to see a film and had a fairly long chat in Starbucks afterwards. It was really nice to see her again and I think we got on quite well. I managed to talk quite a lot by my standards and I don’t think she was too bored.

Back home now in preparation for my CBT on Monday, but I’m annoyed because I forgot both my phone and my meds 😦 I found one 150mg tablet here but that’s going to have to last me 2 days.

Things have certainly improved since this time last week when I was probably at my lowest point for 6 months. I’m going to try and stay positive and keep working at CBT and aim to spend a bit more time with my flatmates (though I have a creeping feeling that I am starting to annoy them when I am around more, like they can’t really enjoy themselves if I’m in the room).

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Crisis Team Visits

Not much to report over the past day or 2, I haven’t had any strong suicidal feelings which is good but I have been quite emotional. I’m glad to have the distraction (though I’m not sure that is the right word) of uni to keep me occupied. I have managed to speak to at least some of my flatmates each day so far and I’ve made dinner (in the oven, not the microwave!) a couple of times. I even ran into a few of them in the supermarket and we walked back together, so I’m feeling quite satisfied with my small steps towards spending more time with them.

The crisis team was supposed to come and visit me here today but they phoned me and asked me to come and meet them at the car park in McDonalds because they couldn’t find anywhere to park at the uni (the only place is for disabled people and you get clamped for parking there if you aren’t) so I sat discussing things in the car with them. It felt a bit like conducting a dodgy deal and I hope no-one who knows me saw me.

They didn’t have much useful to say. I say “they” but it was only the man who spoke, he seems fairly distant and alarmed me a bit by saying that I looked much better physically today and that last time he came round I was white as a sheet and was concerned about leaving me there alone :S I don’t know if I was walking around like that for ages, apparently what I see in the mirror isn’t a reliable guide according to some people so I can’t say for sure.

I’m gonna stay at uni this Friday and Saturday, hopefully I am meeting up with someone from an SA forum who I have seen here before. We haven’t made final arrangements yet and SAers are notoriously difficult to get to commit to plans, I should know… I’m hoping not being totally alone like I am at home on Friday night might stop me from becoming so depressed. That has been my worst time of the week for a while now, it’s usually when my suicidal feelings are strongest and I’m safer here, away from any high bridges and car parks

Looking forward to my next CBT appointment on Monday, I’m glad to have been allocated a therapist who I feel like I can speak honestly with. The feeling that progress is being made is the only thing that keeps me going and keeps that small bit of hope alive, I just hope it can continue.

Crisis Team Visit #2

Two different people came to see me this afternoon, they didn’t seem to know anything about me and asked the same questions again; how is my sleep, what do I do when I have suicidal thoughts. I don’t think anything really came of it to be honest, I had written down an extract from my blog that I was going to show them but never felt like I had an opportunity. The man did most of the talking and he seemed distracted and distant, the young woman was more friendly but I don’t think I’m quite ready to hand over a piece of paper with such dark and morbid thoughts over to smiley people. 

The nights are much harder for me, I’m ok at the moment and maybe I will be today, but when I’m at home on my own and away from civilisation I feel isolated and hopeless. One of my flatmates saw them leaving and I don’t know what to say if they ask who they were. They know I have some mental health problems so I’m considering just saying they were psychologists who came to see how I was getting on, which isn’t exactly the truth but not a lie either. I don’t think that’s too weird, but I’m not sure..

In other news, I got invited to one of my flatmates birthday celebrations next month which was nice of them. I’m going to try my hardest to go, even if I only join them for the pub/bar section of the evening and don’t go along to the clubs.

Who am I, really?

I’m not bipolar or cyclothymic or anything like that (hypo/mania is thankfully something I don’t have to deal with.) My mood isn’t steady though, within 48 hours I have been the happiest I’ve been in years and back to suicidal again. I’m not over dramatising, I was cursing my luck that I left the pills at my university flat last night and the last train back had already gone.

People seem insistent that I should be the “happy” me and that when I’m down it’s the fault of depression, cause unknown. What if I am the sad person and when I’m happy it’s an aberration? Even when I’ve been in a good mood, I don’t suddenly find life wonderful and valuable. I don’t thank my lucky stars that I didn’t kill myself 2 weeks ago, or even 3 years ago when I first seriously planned to. Things are better than they were back then but not so good that I’d willingly go through it again.

Maybe I’m just one of those people who is always going to be unhappy, it seems more likely to me every day. I can imagine that if I won the lottery or something then I’d still be miserable. Perhaps it’s just who I am, but I don’t want to be that person.

I don’t know when I’ll feel suicidal next, it could be tomorrow or even later this evening. (I wrote this next bit in an email to someone, hope they don’t mind me reusing it) I am worried that if I feel like that again, I might go the whole way next time. Each time I have gotten closer and to be honest (if you ignore the fact that I wouldnt be here to say this) I wouldn’t be hugely regretful if I had killed myself a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t suddenly found life to be wonderful, I just don’t feel quite so crushed that action needs to be taken to end it. I have the energy to carry on for a bit more, but I don’t really know why I’m bothering other than I am worried about an OD going wrong or being paralysed if I jump. It’s hard to explain how I feel and I’m not sure a rational, sane person would understand but that’s the best I can do.

I wish my family hated me so I didn’t have anything holding me back, I’d honestly rather get this over and done with if it wasn’t for the fact that it’d upset them. As things stand, I’m just edging closer and closer towards the point where wanting to escape becomes stronger than not wanting to upset my family. I wonder how long they want me to keep up the pretense that I enjoy and want to live.

The crisis team are coming to see me tomorrow afternoon, the right thing to do would be tell them this, but I realise I can’t verbalise it properly. I feel ashamed that I want to die because I have things so easy compared to people with real problems. Perhaps I could write it down but I still have bad memories of trying that on my first GP appointment and him refusing to read it. I’m pretty sure I know what their answer will be; “The CBT will help you address this”. But I have major doubts it will change my attitude to life.

I don’t want to come over all nihilist, but I don’t see any value in my life. I want to know why people want to live so much, I fear I already know the answer and it’s because they experience things I have never and never will, things like true friendship, feeling a part of something, having someone who loves you.

Last night I annoyed one of my online friends by talking about this. I have a hard time believing that a fat, ugly, boring, inexperienced, lifeless, suicidal, depressive, quiet, immature, loner who has never managed so much as a kiss on the cheek in 24 years of life will be able to find a girlfriend. I can back all those adjectives up by the way.

What on earth would any girl want to do with a person like that? There isn’t really much more I could do or be in order to become less attractive.

I remember another boy in school who used to get made fun of because he never had a girlfriend when we were 15. In retrospect, that was pretty harsh and at that age being in such a situation probably isn’t too uncommon. The thing is, there will be girls around that age who haven’t had a boyfriend either and even the ones who do won’t expect much maturity from teenage lads (if they do, they’ll probably be disappointed). At 24 though, things are rather different. I suspect discovering that a guy who was still a virgin at that age would raise a lot of red flags, there must be something wrong if it’s not for religious reasons (I could make a point about the foolishness of such reasons but I don’t want to get even more sidetracked.)

I think women in their mid twenties have justifiably higher expectations from men than teenage girls. My friend tells me that it’s never too late to catch up, but I don’t see how it’s possible. When my parents were my age they’d been married 5 years, I know of people that went to my school in years below who have families now. It’s almost impossible to explain how utterly inadequate these things make me feel.

That 15 year old boy was probably nervous the first time he kissed a girl, but the odds of his partner being in a similar situation (according to the data I’ve found, assuming they are the same age) were reasonable so there would be the benefit of knowing that they were both in the same situation. I have to ask myself what girl (assuming they are insane enough to get past all the other crap and somehow like me) would put up with such inexperience from a person of my age? That’s just one simple example, I have no idea how to be in any kind of relationship.

In my whole life I’ve never talked about sex with anyone. I can’t remember when I found out the mystery of where babies come from but I wasn’t so sheltered that I had to learn in year 8 science class. People have made me feel as though I’m not allowed to think of myself as a sexual being though. That is a laughable thought. I’ve never talked to any of my “friends” (post coming about them later, it’s ok you can return from the edge of your seats now) at school about girls because to everyone there I was a non-person. Just a laughable entity who worked and got made fun of occassionally. During the whole time I was at high school I never once started a conversation with a girl and I only spoke when spoken to.

It was incredibly difficult for me to write that paragraph, I still can’t see myself as a person who deserves or is capable of forming that kind of relationship with a person. I am human though and I’m not assexual. I have a lot of issues, obviously and it seems to me that as I get older and older the chances of coming across someone who can accept such immaturity and inexperience are becoming exponentially less.

Changing Psychiatrists and Trying to Make an Effort

This might be a brief one because I’ve been working really hard on my uni assignment, it’s not that good but I had to look up and cite a ton of references since I had no idea about the subject beforehand. Ah well, at least I got the extension and didn’t have to muddle through it while I was in actively suicidal mood.

I went to see the psych consultant on Monday but had a shock when I entered his office because the SHO (junior psychiatrist I think) weirdo who I had such a bad session with last time was also sitting in there and I had to explain why I thought I couldn’t express myself properly to him :S That didn’t turn out too badly though, they seemed to understand that seeing someone new is stressful and so on. I managed to discuss the fact that I’d been feeling suicidal and about my constant obsession with throwing myself from high places, I didn’t tell him about my pill stash though. We talked about the difficulty of me being in 2 different cities throughout the week and came to a joint decision that it would be best to transfer me to the mental health team in Lincoln, where I go to university. I already see the GP there who is one of the friendliest and most helpful doctors I’ve come across so I’m pretty pleased about that.

I got a call from them this morning and I went in to talk things over with my GP and she’s putting the referral through for all the various things, CBT and psychiatrist etc. I also asked about a care co-ordinator since nobody had ever explained that to me before and she said that I would probably get one once I get into the place she’s referred me to. In the mean time they’ve passed my details on to the crisis team here who are coming to see me tomorrow morning. I’d much rather see them here where my mum won’t be hovering around worrying that her son has gone nuts, or whatever goes through her mind that stopped me from wanting to involve the team at my home town.

I felt a weight off my shoulders after talking things through and I really think that it would benefit me to have someone impartial who I can discuss things with when I get the suicidal feelings again. It’s hard to suffer in silence and try not to let anyone know what’s going on inside your mind when things feel like they are falling apart.

Overall I was quite happy knowing that things are moving forward and I managed t have a good 30 minute talk with my GP today who saw me before clinic hours started (possibly triggered by the fax my psych sent over..) but she made me feel a lot better.

Over the past two days I’ve been spending more time in the kitchen with people as well, on Tuesday I helped one of the guys from across the hall set a game up on his laptop and we chatted about football for a while, I didn’t feel like he was looking down on me or thinking bad things which was a big relief. Sometimes I build up such a big idea of how important and superior everyone else is to me and it can be unrealistic, I know that now. I also sat with the guy who lives with us (who I’d barely spoken to before) and we talked for a while and worked on our coursework, it was nice to spend some time with a couple of people and not feel like a spare part. We even planned to go and watch the local football team play one night, hopefully that will actually happen.

I decided to try and carry on the trend this evening and I made dinner and sat with the girls and managed to contribute a bit to the conversation, which is a fairly big achievement for me. Eating in front of people is one of my fears that I don’t talk about on here much (been facing much larger problems as of late…) but I managed ok and didn’t spill anything down myself. 

Over the past couple of days I think I have done some good work in repairing the damage done by constantly hiding away from my flatmates. I really don’t want them to think I dislike them because it’s not true, but I can see how it might come across as that. I’m going to try my best to keep up with the effort (although it sounds like everyday things or even a boring time to most people, it takes a conscious effort for me to be like this) and hopefully things will continue to improve. Obviously I’m not expecting miracles but if I can make small steps like this every now and then, I might get further than I think by the end of the year.

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.