Forever is a very long time

So it seems sticking at things is definitely not something I’m good at. It’s like some part of me is fighting constantly against getting better. I don’t know if it’s because it knows that it’s never actually going to happen and so is trying to avoid being set up for disappointment or if it’s just plain and simple self destructiveness. I know when I take my meds and keep up journalling and blogging I do better. I know it helps a massive amount. And yet I cannot make myself consistently do it.

It’s the thoughts of the looming forever that really kills me. I’ve been extremely down, yet again the last few weeks. And through a few very frank discussions with my counsellor I found out that this is the best I can hope for. That in all likeliness due to my illness I will be struggling with this forever. The best I can hope for is to use the meds and the techniques I learned in counselling to try and hold it at a mild level of depression rather than letting it spiral into the really dark place. The thing is the dark place is always there. If I let myself stop for a moment I can feel it. Tearing and screaming. Ripping me apart from the inside out.  I want to rip my skin off, bash my head in, just make it stop. Cutting gives me peace but that’s not acceptable. It’s not normal. Healthy people working for a healthy life don’t do things like that. They dismiss the relief it overs as a trick, a symptom of their messed up neurochemistry. I want relief but I’m not allowed it. I have to spend forever struggling, pushing away the black and dismissing it as a symptom, a sniffle to be ignored.

How do I do this forever?

Just Another Date On The Calendar

Every year I tell myself that is what today will be. Nothing special or different about it. And yet here I am, struggling to breathe. I had make great plans with my counsellor to take the day back this year. Rather than mourning it, celebrating my survival. And yet as the day goes on and the clock inches closer to 3am I can feel the terror and depression consume me. I hate myself for letting him win like this but I can’t help it. He’s in my head. Like a knawing cancer eating at my insides. Every time I close my eyes I’m back there. I can feel him touching me, hear his voice in my ear. Even writing that much is a struggle. It’s been 9 years. How does still affect me so much? Will I ever truly escape him? I want to scream, cry, cut, break, end. I just want it to be over. People keep telling me how strong I am, that I am a survivor. I feel like I’m drowning. I can’t keep this up. I can’t live with him in my head. It disgusts me, makes my skin crawl. I’ll never be clean. It will never end.

Breathe Underwater – Placebo

I’ve been listening to the new Placebo album, Battle For The Sun, a lot lately. It’s their first album with an overall theme. As you may have guessed from the title it’s battling for the sun. Acknowledging life is painful and downright horrible at times but striving to always find the sun. The titular song is something I listen to a lot when I need that bit of extra strength but the song Breathe Underwater really just speaks to me (cheesey I know, but true).

So here it is:

Breathe Underwater

Here comes another fall from grace, I’m always falling on my face
This attitude that I embrace with a love I’m trying to replace
Try to kill this song ’cause the melody’s all wrong
And there’s a fever comin’ on

It’s hard to reconcile what I’ve become
With the wounded child hiding deep inside

Breathe underwater, I’m comin’ up for air
I wanna see another dawn, comin’ up for air
Sick of the slaughter, I’m comin’ up for air
‘Cause I’ve been floating here too long

Take my ego for a ride ’cause there’s nobody by my side
It’s getting hard to justify and it won’t be long till I collide
My weakness laid bare as people stop and stare
But it’s the last time I swear

It’s hard to reconcile what I’ve become
With the wounded child hiding deep inside

Breathe underwater, I’m comin’ up for air
I wanna see another dawn, comin’ up for air
Sick of the slaughter, I’m comin’ up for air
‘Cause I’ve been floating here too long

Stop breathing, stop breathing
Stop breathing, stop breathing

Breathe underwater, I’m comin’ up for air
I wanna see another dawn, comin’ up for air
Sick of the slaughter, I’m comin’ up for air
‘Cause I’ve been floating here too long

I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming
Comin’ up for air, comin’ up for air, comin’ up for air

Time To Stop Pretending

Well anyone who has visited my blog over the last couple of months may have noticed that I seemed to disappear off the planet. I got a couple of worried comments for which I feel a little guilty. I apologise to anyone who thought I may have hit bottom one too many times and taken my own life. I started a new relationship in the last few months and after a very long relationship filled with immense pain that ended in a soul crushing way it was blissful to get lost in the glow of a new and shiny relationship. It was far too easy to just focus completely on spending time with him eating ice-cream and joking around. I wanted nothing more than to forget all about my problems and lose myself in this new found happiness. Unfortunately that never works and it puts an overwhelming pressure on a new relationship. I needed him to constantly be around so I never had time to sit alone and let the bad thoughts in. That all came to a head on Thursday when the relationship nearly ended with an overly dramatic and passionate argument. He quite reasonable wanted more time for himself and I flipped out and turned it around to being all about me. I told him I couldn’t talk to him about anything and took all my deep seated issues and flung them in his face. Thankfully I’m extremely lucky and he was incredibly patient. He stayed calm and let me just vent absolutely everything on him. And was still waiting there to hug me when I’d finally exhausted myself and broke down crying. That was a first for me. Someone actually just being understanding and not abandoning me or turning on me.

On the subject of people understanding what it is that goes on in my head I had the crazy idea of having a family therapy session. The amount of pain my family can manage to cause me with one caustic comment is unbelievable. The event that caused me to think of the session was a horrible evening with my brother. He used to be the one person in the family that I could count on. The one who was gentle and understanding. But he is going through some stuff himself lately and it has turned him into an obnoxious git. He has lost a lot of weight and was boasting about how easy it is to lose weight and anyone who can’t is just lazy and not really trying. I’ve put on a good bit of weight due to the medications I am on and it has caused my bulimia to flare up terribly. I had actually just been sick before the conversation with my brother. I got quiet as it was hard for me to listen to him. He attacked me for getting thick for no reason so I tried to explain to him from my point of view how painful that topic was. Instead of trying to understand he turned it on me. Told me I was being ridiculous and unreasonable. Pushed me and pushed me in a way that I cannot bear. No amount of me explaining that while I know it may be unreasonable that doesn’t make it any less painful. And all the while my sister just sat there listening. Not wanting to weigh on either side and so leaving me to be reduced to a gibbering mess.

So I thought a good solution would be to have a family session. One where we could sit in a room with a qualified professional and have them explain to my family the extent of how easy it is to hurt me. That when a person is depressed the smallest comment can make them feel like you stabbed them. My family are not the types to give anyone special treatment. They would think it is ridiculous that they have to try not to say what they think, even if it is something that I find incredibly cruel and will result in my cutting or throwing up. My sister was all for the session and I was quite happy with her reaction. The real problem is my mother. When I asked her if she thought it was a good idea she said whatever I wanted to do was up to me and asked if attendance was mandatory. In therapy I’m learning to not have expectations of my family as it will just lead to pain. The problem is it’s extremely difficult not to wish your family would want to go to something that will help them understand you better. Something that could hopefully improve our relationship and make it so that I don’t absolutely dread spending time with them.

I need to learn they’ll never change. If I don’t they’re going to continue to have the power to break me over and over and over again.

Learning To Be Angry

It seems counter intuitive, learning to be angry when generally the issue is learning to control your anger. However, when it comes to me I’m the Ned Flanders of anger. Growing up in a house over flowing with repression and the constant need for everything to be perfect it’s something I never learned. Not anger specifically, but any form of expressing emotion that opposed the appearance of a perfectly happy family. Now that I’m older and somewhat wiser I understand that my mother, having had a rather traumatic life herself which she never processed did not have the emotional maturity to tend to the emotional needs of her children. That’s all well and good to know logically but it does not change the impact on me. Growing up with the perception that there is something wrong with you if you do not just magically get over any ‘misfortune’ in your life led me to turning all the pain and anger inwards. Which in turn, I’m told, directly resulted in my self harming and bulimia. I’m quite literally taking all my repressed anger out on myself.

Trying to explain my lack of anger to people quite often just makes no sense to them. I was raped. A man quite literally with one vicious and cruel act effectively destroyed my life. Left me completely shattered. And I’m not angry with him. I suffered completely alone afterwards. While still living at home with my family, the one place you should feel safe and loved, I suffered from post traumatic stress completely alone. I was in indescribable pain, I could barely breathe. I had panic attacks, flash backs, nightmares and I could barely stay in a room with people for more than 5 minutes without leaving the room to break down in tears. And no one noticed. It got to the point where I was too depressed to leave my room and my mother’s solution, instead of to ask me what was wrong, was to throw me out of the house. Proving beyond doubt that a parents love is indeed conditional. My mother’s condition was that everyone play the role of a happy, normal person. Even when I finally broke and told my mother what had happened, hoping and praying to finally have her support, all I got was €50 to go shopping and a hug. It was never mentioned again. Can’t have anyone rocking the boat.

I should be angry. I should want to rage and scream. I was violated by a stranger and then betrayed by those I love. I’ve been hurt and broken and mangled beyond recognition. I can feel it sometimes, buried deep down. Bubbling, begging to be released. The feeling terrifies me. I think if I actually let myself feel that anger in it’s entirety it would consume me. Anytime I do allow myself even to feel just the edge of it I become overwhelmed with guilt and self loathing and end up self harming. I know it needs to come out some time. I know I will never be able to properly move on until I process it all. But I have no concept how to go about it without losing myself in it completely.

Free Association

I haven’t had the inspiration to put together a coherent post the last couple of weeks so I thought I’d let the blog live up to it’s title and post some free associative ramblings from my journal.

Unemployed. Again. Really just feel like I keep getting kicked over and over and over again.

Completely cut off and numb. Empty. I can’t see beyond the surface of my own thoughts. Flighty and scattered. Can’t hold a thought in my head. I know there’s an analogy that would work perfectly but everytime I feel it’s just there and I try to ‘look’ at it, it runs away.

I’m having nightmares about being raped. Generally my nightmares are about running but in these ones I’m trapped. There’s no escapre.

My life feels unreal, like I’m merely an observer. Catching glimpses. Everything is illusive. Vast nothingness. Shallow. Uninteresting. Fake.

That’s what I am. A fake. There is nothing there. Just an empty shell.

Rapid Cycling

Up and down and round about we go. It might sound a little arrogant but I don’t think any subset of people is more aware how transient happiness is than a person with BPD. Weeks of depression followed by a glorious high which is snatched away from you all too fast. Moments of happiness that at times only last hours or at best weeks. Every day is lived in complete uncertainty. The party that sounds like such wonderful fun while high can be the ultimate torture when low. One day milling through your work at your most efficient, the next barely able to get out of bed.

I will be seeing a new psychiatrist next week. This one will hopefully be my regular doctor and fingers crossed he will start me on a suitable form of therapy. What I’m most hoping for though is to convince him to take me off anti-depressants. The suicidal thoughts I’ve experienced while on them have been completely out of character for me. It’s almost like they surpress who I am so completely that all that is left is this little dark nagging voice telling me to end it all.

Tabula Rasa

What would you do if you had a completely blank slate? All the pain, suffering, mistakes, worries, stress, responsibilies just disappeared? Nothing bad had ever happened to you and you could do absolutely anything you wanted?

The cloud of depression has started to lift and at my counselling session this week my counsellor raised an interesting point. The reason for committing suicide is to make everything stop. Everything in your life has just become too overwhelming. It all just hurts too much. So you consider taking you own life to make it all disappear. So what if you could commit suicide and then go on living afterwards? You’d erased everything painful in your life and now you could do absolutely anything you wanted. There was nothing to hold you back. No pain. No worry. No panic or anxiety. You were completely free.

It’s actually a tougher question than you’d imagine. When your whole life is nothing but worry, pain and depression it’s hard to visualise anything else. Would I go back to college? Study interesting topics just for the sake of knowledge? Travel the world. Experience everything there is, see sights more beautiful than you thought possible. Work as a volunteer in the poorest nations. Give everything of yourself and get so much enrichment in return. Live on the beach in a secluded paradise or in a penthouse in Hong Kong. Read every book, watch every film. Climb mountains, jump out of planes, sail across oceans.

Once you get started it’s amazing how many things come to you. And I guess that was the point of making me consider that question. Once you close a door on your pain and let yourself truly consider the future there are so many possibilities. So many things not done. So many experiences to be had. A great reminder of the huge sacrifice you would be making if you just gave up.

Slipping

Slipping, sliding, falling spiralling. Whatever way you put it I’m rapidly headed back down into the dark place. I can’t believe I’m back here again so soon. It feels like I just did this. I did just do this. Seeing a counsellor and doctors and taking the meds and doing what I was told was supposed to change things. It was supposed to make things easier. Stop the spiralling.

Everything is just overwhelming me. Swallowing me whole. The smallest task is a struggle. I’m exhausted. Outright bone tired and I just don’t know how much longer I can do this. The doctor screwed up this month and didn’t write on my prescription that I was only allowed 4 days worth at once. So now I have a drawer filled with a lot of very strong drugs calling to me.

I had a session with my counsellor today and towards the end all I could think about was going home, taking them all and finally getting to sleep. To rest. To just be done. Finished.  I admitted it to her and she made me promise to meet one of my friends and have her take them off my hands and sit with me for the evening. I rang my friend and asked her to come meet me but she was having dinner made for her by her boyfriends flatmate and apparently couldn’t pass that up. I’m fairly certain she could tell from my voice that I was in a bad way but I think all my friends are just so tired of my problems and jaded from the last time in A&E that they’ve had enough. And I don’t blame them.

I really just wish it would all stop.

Psychotic In-Laws

I have always been quite close with my brother. Much more so than any of my sisters. That is until he met his wife. I will freely admit that I probably have high standards for who is good enough for my brother. I love the guy dearly and I’m very protective, who isn’t when it comes to family? As my brother is the one family member I truly get along with I made the effort to become friends with his wife. However, when it comes to the point that you know the person 5 years and they still refuse to utter a word unless specifically asked and walk around with a general look of disdain you know you’ve failed.

Christmas three years ago I was woken at 1am on Christmas morning by my frantic mother. She had received a sobbing phone call from my sister in law saying we had to come. No explaination, just sobbed something about my brother and insisted we come straight away. So at 1am on one of the foggiest nights I’ve seen we drove the most torturous 10 miles of my life. Both convinced of the worst. Expecting to arrive and see my brother lying there dead. Instead we arrived to find a very aggravated and perplexed brother and a sister in law with a bloody fist. Convinced my brother had been flirting with her sister he woke up to the sound of her putting her fist through a double glazed window.

Now that story may seem like a random segue but it sets the picture for why I am currently so worried. With everything that has been going on lately I haven’t exactly been eager to home and visit my family. So I invited the brother up for a visit. At which point he broke the news that he had decided to end his marriage. He had been miserable for a long while. So a few weeks ago he told his wife it was over. They talked and shouted and all the rest and the result.. she refused to leave. She has decided that she does not accept it is over and that is that. She quit her job and has not left the house in nearly four weeks. She has also begun threatening my brother. Saying if he leaves her she will take her own life or that she will trash the house. The final straw in this story came for me when he said she had come at him with a knife.

I really am not one to judge when it comes to mental illness. And from everything I have heard it seems that she really and truly does need help. But any level of empathy is outweighed by my current terror that in a fit of madness she will do something to seriously harm my brother. I can’t bear to think of him trapped in that house with her every day. I really just do not know what to do.