Three weeks ago tonight I tried to kill myself.  Got a letter in the post today asking me to make a follow-up appointment with the doctor/nurse at my surgery. It doesn't specify why but I'm assuming it's cause of that.  I suppose I should feel glad they got in touch eventually.  Instead it just seems to have made me more angry.  I don't know if it's fair to be feeling this angry at the doctors, it's not their fault I'm ill, it's not their fault I tried to kill myself, and I could have reached out for assistance some time in these past few weeks.  But I feel let down. I feel like I've had to do all of this by myself and I'm angry at them for that.  I feel like I've desperately needed help and they're supposed to help me and they haven't.  There are other reasons I haven't gotten in touch too.  I don't know how to explain what happened and where I am and discuss what to do about it in a ten minute appointment, but I'm scared of my doctor not understanding.  It feels like an impossible task so I'm putting it off.  I'm also nervous of making the actual appointment - there's normally a 3 week wait minimum to see my doctor, to see them more urgently involves ringing every morning to see if there's been a cancellation, and I can't do mornings, let alone making a phonecall in the morning.  So I'm just putting off having to deal with the situation.

At some point I should write a post about avoidant behaviours.  I'm starting to think this is a big part of my problems and has been for a long time.  I get scared of so many things, and when I try to face them I become anxious or have panic attacks, and so I avoid things, even though it causes more problems long term, because I can't cope with the short term consequences.  I've done this for a long time.  One of the main things that caused conflict at home was me not tidying my bedroom.  I spent a very large portion of my childhood shut in my room, supposed to be tidying.  Only when I tried to tidy up I would have what I can now identify as a panic attack, I couldn't cope with it, so I would read or daydream instead.  And then I'd get caught reading, or either way the tidying wouldn't get done, and my dad would shout at me and hit me and I'd get in more trouble.  I would be told what a shit person I was, that I was pathetic and disgusting and lazy and a failure and he was ashamed of me and so on, and so I think tidying just became associated with such a strong negative emotional response that I would become anxious.  And I would feel overwhelmed by it, there was such a lot to do and I just couldn't face it.  And I knew the consequences of not doing it would be unpleasant as well, and that would stress me out more.  And I'd become overwhelmed by feelings of self-hatred and disgust because I was pathetic for not being able to do this, and I would always be a failure because of it.  My dad, of course, thought that it was just lack of self-discipline and so the way to fix it was to up the consequences, shout at me more, threaten to throw away all of my stuff, ground me, ban me from using the telephone.  Make it more and more of a big deal.

The first time I planned to kill myself was because of not being able to tidy my room. Sounds kind of ridiculous, but it really was a massive deal back then.  My dad gave me until the end of the week to get my room immaculate or he was going to go in there with a binbag and throw out everything I didn't need for school.  He was quite serious about this.  I tried to get it tidy but I couldn't, because of freaking out every time I tried.  So I knew I wouldn't make it, and so that sunday became fixed in my head as, well, the end.  I was about 13 or 14 at the time.  I know things are just things, but they were all I had, everything connected to my friends, to my nanny (who was dead), the books that kept me going, all my artwork, things from my childhood. Everything of mine would be gone, and I decided that was the last straw.  I'd been struggling with suicidal feelings on and off for years, but I'd never gotten to the point of deciding to do it before, just thinking about it. But I just had no hope after that.  I couldn't see myself surviving that sunday, if that makes any sense? It didn't feel so much as if I'd decided to kill myself as that I knew I couldn't go on after that.  And in a way it felt like the only power I had left, that he was taking everything away from me so the only control I had left was to choose not to endure it.  He couldn't force me to put up with any more.  I don't remember what I was going to do, possibly hang myself? I don't know. But I remember that week passing and feeling like I was approaching a death sentence, nothing after that week was going to exist.  I'd recently gotten some new friends in the year above, who I was closer to than in my year, and they knew that something was wrong, I'd stopped smiling properly or being bouncy and fun or talking much at all, and a couple of them asked me what was wrong and gave me hugs, and one of them gave me her number and told me I could ring her whenever if I needed to talk, and that she'd gone through some stuff too, she knew things could get bad sometimes.  That meant a lot to me.  No one had ever noticed when I was depressed before.  No one had ever cared before.  I still didn't feel like I had any choice, but it meant a lot that someone might actually care if I died.

My memory of what happened at the end of the week is fuzzy.  I think my sister A turned up and helped me and we managed to get my room done after all, by working all weekend, and her forcing me to keep going, possibly my mum pitched in too.  I found it hard tidying with other people there because when I panicked I couldn't explain it or tell anyone but I couldn't escape it either.  I think there was a lot of crying involved, and them getting frustrated with me because they didn't understand what was wrong and why I didn't just *get on with it*.  That's what usually happened.  But with other people there it would at least happen, because I didn't have a choice but to push through.  That was one of the few nice things A has ever done for me - she would help me tidy sometimes if we were at a point of crisis.  In fairness, it's not that A was never nice to me, it's just that everything she's ever done with regard to reaching out to me has been to try and fix me, trying to teach me how to be a better person, how to do my hair or make up or tidy my room.  She's never given any indication of actually liking me, the person I actually am.  But I know she did used to try to help, that was her trying to be a good sister to me.

I can't remember if it was that time or another time my dad threatened the same thing, but I remember my parents having a massive row over my dad threatening to throw away all my things.  My dad was insistent he was going to and my mum told him no, and said that if he touched my stuff she would smash his CD collection.  He said if she did that then he'd destroy her father's paintings, and she was horrified at him, that he would threaten such a thing - her father is dead and his paintings are probably my mum's most important possessions, her last link to him. They were really close.  I remember being both impressed and depressed by hearing it.  I'd never heard mum stand up to dad like that before - sure they argued over things, but her actually threatening to smash his stuff to try to stop him doing something? That was new.  I'd never thought of my mum as that strong.  But then his counter-threat made me realize that it didn't matter what she threatened, he would still always win.  That he would always be willing to go further than her, to really hurt her in ways she wouldn't do to him.  Yes, his CD collection is important to him, but you can replace CDs. It would be an annoyance, but nothing more.  Destroying her father's paintings would be do irreparable emotional damage to my mum.  So I knew she couldn't protect me.  But I was glad she tried, that she didn't think what he was doing was okay.  After they argued she came to me and just yelled at me more to tidy up though, so I felt like she resented me for having to argue with him about it.