this is how I write you

This is how I write you

I'm gonna write angry
carve my fucks and cunts
and cocksuckers deep
into the pulp
this is how I write you
with broad strikes
you'd hate anything else
no pretty words
no sad but sweet
I'll write you messy
write you hard
write every cut you made in me
because we loved bloody
this is how I write you
in the wreck of us

you ask what kind of soup i've got

and i tell you and then it's quiet and

then you go and then i realise

that i was supposed to ask you something back

it's funny how things can be the best they've ever been and also 

pretty awful like am I happy is this happy or do I kinda want to die

is my life progressing growing achieveing what I want or am I

slowly eroding

So I know I haven't used this in a long time. But I need to be talking about what's in my head more. Maybe this will help.

The friend who came round for hot chocolate died, by the way. Three months after that. That was actually the last time I saw her. She killed herself.

I was just re-reading the last few posts and saw that and. Yeah. Remembered.

I blame myself. Not entirely, obviously, I know she had plenty of problems, and we weren't that close. But that's kind of why I blame myself. She wanted to be closer. She reached out so many times, and I never made the time to reach out back. She was so lonely. I could have helped. And I didn't. And I try to tell myself not to blame myself, that I wasn't responsible for her, that I might not have made any difference at all. But I still feel guilty. And I miss her.

I'm having a bad-ish day today. Not because of that, though thinking about it hasn't exactly helped. It was just one of those days where you don't want to wake up, because you can't face being conscious, being alive, having to get through another day, distract your brain until you can pass out again. It's never a good sign when the day starts that way, and it's been happening more than I'd like lately.

I've been having to distract my brain constantly, if I stop watching or reading things then I start thinking and my brain spirals downwards until I start to feel panicky because, y'know, everything is terrible forever, nothing is fixable, etc. etc. I've thought a lot about suicide these past few (months? Weeks? I'm not sure - I think months, on and off?) Not intending to do anything about it in the near future kind of way exactly. Just in a 'well, it's inevitable, really' kind of way, an 'it's the only solution, in the end' kind of way. Sort of casually, not like it's a big deal, just...it's gonna happen sooner or later, right? There's no other way out of this. It would be easier.

I don't feel like I'm in danger yet, though. I don't have a plan, I'm not preparing, not researching or acquiring stuff I need, looking up fatal doses of my meds, any of that. It's still in the abstract. I've spent a lot of my life in this place, it's not crisis level yet.

It's still not great, though.

Working is good. (Well, volunteering.) It keeps my mind fully occupied and I feel useful and competent and good things like that. I got to the end of a shift a little while ago after having a little while off and realized that I'd gone 5 hours without thinking about the inevitability of my death, and it made me realize just how much I'd been focussed on it lately.

I suppose I should do something. I've been struggling to do anything at all. Even making myself cook is difficult, even though I get hungry, really hungry, want to eat and eat and eat, but I also don't want to move. I am still eating two meals a day, I have to ;cause of my meds. I'm not leaving the house unless I really have to. Pokemon Go helped for a bit, I went out a couple of times since getting back from my trip to Wales, but my pain levels were really bad for a bit, and since then my ability to do anything has disappeared.

Doing something. I know I could try to get my meds adjusted, but it feels like that won't help, like the problem is me, is my life, I need to make a change, I need to take control of my life and my self care, need to get back on track to achieving things and having a meaningful life. But I don't know how, cause I can't do anything.

I should be applying for jobs. But it scares me so much, and I still don't know that I can do that, not really. I still need time off like every month. What employer would put up with that. But I'm not convinced I'll be able to get ESA, either. I feel like I've fallen into the gap and I'm trapped.

Doing something. I've got that psychiatrist appointment coming up at some point, but they haven't sent the replacement appointment yet, and I'm scared that it won't be helpful anyway. I could try to get in touch and say that I've worsened, but I feel like I'll probably be doing better again, or think I'm doing better, by the time an appointment rolled around, and then I'd feel like a fool, like a fraud.

And if not. I'm scared of them diagnosing me with BPD. That's a whole other post though, I should probably stop rambling and get to bed. This is probably incoherent enough already. I'm not going to come to any useful conclusions tonight, and my meds are making me a little stoned so thinking clearly is getting difficult. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Night all.

I don't know how to reconcile the man from my childhood who terrified me and treated me and my sisters and my mum like shit, who threatened me and hit me and made me feel like a worthless useless person, who drove me to the point of considering suicide when I was only a fucking kid... with the man who asks about my health and makes me cups of tea and asks if he can send me money because he's worried about me not eating well enough and gets angry at the DWP on my behalf and walks at my pace no matter how slow it is and gives me hugs and tells me to look after myself.  And it's not like the first guy has disappeared, I know he's still there, I know he comes out sometimes, if less often. I know that if I challenged him or made him feel powerless he wouldn't hesitate to threaten me with violence again.

I could deal with this shit better when I didn't think I would ever have his respect or love, not really.  But now he acts like he maybe does actually care about me and I just don't know how to deal with that.  I love him and I hate him and I feel guilty for hating him and guilty for loving him and I don't know how to have both of those emotions about the same person I just don't.

He just sent me a nice e-mail and I'm sitting here weeping.  I don't know how to handle this.

I don't even know how to ask for help handling this.  He's being nice to me.  This should be a good thing. And it is. Kind of. I don't know.

I think maybe I should unplug my landline.  Someone rang this morning again.  So I woke into a panic attack triggered by the sound of the phone ringing, and have been badly anxious all day every since.  This is not the first time this has happened.  It's always stressful when the phone rings, but it's worst when it wakes me up - it's so horrible being jerked awake full of panic and fear, my heart pounding, my chest tight, my whole body full of adrenaline.  I'm back to never being able to answer the phone again anyway, so I might as well unplug it.

Daily Mail helps write DSM V

This Week In Mentalists linked to this story about the Daily Mail concern-trolling Emily Lloyd (an actress with a histry of mental illness) because she was seen in - shock, horror - a mismatched outfit, with a 'downcast' expression.  In my comment I mused on what it might look like if the Daily Mail helped write the DSM V (as clearly they know so much about it and are able to make diagnoses based on nothing but a single out of context image!) - I thought I'd repost it here, and see if anyone has any suggestions for what the criteria for other diagnoses might be?

Major Depressive Episode

A. Five (or more) of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either (1) mismatched outfit or (2) looking downcast.

Note: Do not include symptoms that are clearly due to a hangover or severe drug abuse.

(1) looking downcast at least twice in three years, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., gossip) or observation made by others (e.g.,paparazzi). Note: In children and adolescents, can be blamed on bad parenting.

(2) markedly diminished attendance all, or almost all, A List parties (as indicated by either subjective account or observation made by others)

(3) significant weight loss or weight gain (e.g., an apparent change of more than 5% of body weight since last appearance in magazine)

-

no weight loss or weight gain actually present but could be claimed due to unflattering clothes and bad lighting and three other symptoms are present

(4) diminished number of major film roles nearly every year, or recurrent appearance in tv advertisements

(5) mismatched outfit nearly every time spotted popping to the shops briefly (observable by others, not merely subjective reports in fashion columns)

(6) unshaved legs or lack of make up every time, or nearly every time, or just once but someone got a picture of it, when popping to the shops briefly

(7) acting ‘really depressed’ or ‘unstable’ as reported to the press by ‘close friends’ or family members in need of cash.

(8) diminished interest in doing interviews nearly every day (despite bribes or threats from trashy magazines and newspapers)

(9) being, y’know, a bit odd

Fat

Sign I'm on a downswing #246 - I think I'm fat.

I know people were worried about how much weight I'd lost only a little while ago, so logically speaking I can't be fat, I can't have put that much weight on that quickly.  But I look at my body and I hate it right now. It looks fat and spotty and hairy.  I look down and my tummy looks immense.  I feel huge.

Normally I have both a good self image and I'm against fat-shaming, I'm a proponent of Health At Any Size. But that doesn't stop me from feeling nothing but disgust for my body right now.

Knowing that this is probably crazies doesn't stop me from looking fat and horrible when I look at myself though.  Just have to try to remember this will pass.

Anxiety

I get lonely but it's my own fault. I run away from people. I don't understand why. I just can't cope with people so often.  Talking to people involves either faking being someone or actually genuinely being myself, and both are exhausting.  There are people I love dearly and I know I'm letting them down, I'm not there for them, I don't make the effort to see them as much as I should.  I'm fucking amazed some people are still my friends, I watch them make efforts over and over to see me and reach out to me and I don't know why because I still flake on them all the time.  I can't even cope with fucking fchat conversations half the time.  I will be lonely as fuck but someone messages me and I panic at the thought of having to try and talk to them.  I encourage friendships with people who cover my half of the conversation for me, or who are okay with silences.  I hide when people knock on my door if I'm not expecting someone, or try to peek without them seeing me so I know who they are.

A friend came round the other day - I'd arranged it in optimism, like I so often do - I really like her, I want to know her better, but I've somehow always ended up failing at spending time with her.  So I arranged it, I said come round, we'll have hot chocolate, I'll get the whipped cream and marshmallows you bring the milk, I've already got powder.  And then I forgot about it and she knocked at the door and I just panicked so badly.  I wasn't prepared.  I know damn well if I'd remembered earlier I would have cancelled on her, made up some excuse or other.  I considered pretending I wasn't home, but she opened the door so I had to come to the door, and she came in and sat down and I was just panicking so fucking hard at the prospect of having to interact with her for a socially acceptable amount of time. I was screaming inside my head JUST GET THE FUCK OUT I just wanted her gone. I felt trapped in headlights, y'know?  I sat there and tried to wait it out, when really I just wanted to get rid of her, or failing that just leave myself. Just up and walk out and not come back 'til she was gone.  I hate situations I can't leave. I managed to get through it, she was good at talking and we finally managed to hit on something I could talk about.  She didn't try to stick with the 'so what are you doing nowadays?' thing that so many people ask and I have no fucking clue how to answer.  'oh I'm a cripple now' apparently doesn't cut it if you don't have another conversational topic lined up to move to.  'I like to internet' is also insufficient.

I find myself sitting there in social situations trying to remember how to do conversations.  There are times when it's so natural I don't have to think about it, times when there seem to be so many things to talk about that the topics spill over one another and you can never say all the things you want before ending up somewhere else and the words just flow over one another, but they seem so infrequent nowadays.  Most of the time I have serious trouble trying to figure out how to talk to people and what the fuck to say and I watch other people's conversations trying to analyse them to figure out how I could do it.

I get upset at not having more help with my problems, but if I would just go to the places I've been recommended and ask maybe I would have that help but I just can't make myself do it. I have trouble explaining it to people. I just CAN'T DO IT.  I try to face the idea and I just slide off it and into something else.  I have to be forced into these things and sometimes I can cope with it and sometimes I can't.

My friend contacted me over facebook chat the other day and said her mum did disability advocacy stuff and had offered to help with my benefits stuff if I wanted and I said great thanks that's awesome maybe give me her email address and I'll get in touch (knowing full well I would never be able to manage that just no can't do it nonono), and luckily her mum is kind of insistent and she took over my friend's chat and just started telling me things and asking me stuff and I answered - again with the massive amounts of panic and wanting to end the conversation and run away - I felt really trapped - but I tried to stick with it, and it ended up being really useful, and I asked her some stuff I've needed advice on, and I was really glad it had happened.

Someone used a phrase recently, to sit with your discomfort, to just acknowledge it and feel it and try to stick with whatever you're doing, wherever you're at, through that discomfort, that anxiety or panic or whatever.  They were using it in a non-clinical sense, but it stuck with me, and I've been trying to do that, when I can, trying to stay where I am and not bolt.  I can't always do it, and it only really works in situations that I've been dropped into and then panic, I can't seem to get to the actually stepping up to do the things I'm scared of part.  At least not yet.

I'm starting to wonder whether my problems lie at least as much with anxiety in some form, socially avoidant disorder or something similar, as with the depression/bipolar, but I'm really not sure.  I could really do with some professional help figuring this out. I mean, socially avoidant... I really don't know. Most people would say that's not me at all, I think. But then I know socially confident me is usually hypomanic or drunk me.  And hell, I'm still not even sure whether to classify half of this as anxiety or not. 

I went to the doctor a few years ago when I was really stressed and I'd started having trouble with pain/discomfort/tight feeling in my chest that would last for hours at a time.  He told me I was having panic attacks.  Mind you, he also told me this was 'perfectly normal'.

Most people seem to only consider it a panic attack if it's some completely overwhelming thing that you can't function through, whereas with mine people don't tend to even know it's happening, I don't let it show.  Sometimes I'll have to escape to be on my own, and it can *feel* incredibly overwhelming and horrible, and I often feel like it must be terribly obvious, but other people really don't seem to notice.

Sometimes it's just this sharp pain in my chest, like a breadknife slipped between two ribs, and it'll gradually get worse, my chest will get tighter and tighter, and I'll feel more and more panicky.  I can have just the pain on its own without a huge degree of panic for hours at a time.  The panicky parts tend to be shorter.

Other times I'll have freakouts that I sometimes refer to as panic attacks, where I feel absolutely overwhelmed with BAD and CAN'T COPE and curl up in a ball and need to be held if someone's there.  I don't usually have the stabby chest pain with that, although I sometimes do, and I usually get the very tight chest with them.

But I don't know whether to call the social stuff anxiety or panic attacks or anything though, they're much lower level, I don't tend to get stabby chest pains or anything, I just feel panicked and trapped.  I mostly deal with it by avoiding it and then I'll be okay.  I never know if that counts as anxiety, proper clinical anxiety, or panic or whatever, when it's just, well, anxiety and panic. No physical symptoms. I just CAN'T DO IT. Brain says no.  (Sometimes there's the tight chest and palpitations and stuff, but not always. I tend to stop at the rising panic, it's just too much and I have to make it stop.)

I feel like I'm appropriating terms that don't really belong to me.  I don't know.  At the same time it's these avoidant behaviours that are causing me a lot of trouble.  It's not *just* social stuff though.  I'll get it with things filling out forms, or cleaning the kitchen, or leaving the house.  Sometimes I just can't do things I need to do.

And then I get mad at myself because I must just be lazy.  And I hate myself because everything that's wrong is my fault, it's because I'm lazy and procrastinate and don't do things.  But then I figure if this is just laziness, if this is just my fault, why don't I just stop? Why *can't* I just stop? I want to.  I want to do the things I need to do.  I want to get all those forms filled out.  But I think about it, I try to do it and I just. I can't. Brain just slides away, can't face it.

When I'm not depressed a lot of this gets easier. Which I try to remember, and hold onto as proof that I'm not just lazy.  A lot of the social anxiety stuff sticks around though, the example I gave of my friend that came to visit was slap bang right in the middle of my relatively stable period recently.  But the being able to fill out forms and clean things and so on gets a lot easier.

I really need to talk to someone about this and get some help.  It's been about 9 months I think since my psych assessment and referral for counselling.  I feel like 6 sessions of problem-focussed CBT is really not going to fix all my problems somehow, but it would be a fucking start.  Although despite desperately wanting some help I'm terrified that when it comes around I won't be able to make myself go to the damn appointments.  I have enough trouble making myself go to my regular GP appointments.

Sometimes I think the internet is bad for me, that I spend too much time on it, that maybe it exacerbates my problems instead of helping.

On the other hand, when I have bad nights I will sit and click through tumblr and realize I am now focussing on geeky slashfic or a funny story about someone accidentally buying a giant squeaky duck toy, and for a little while I'm not fighting the urge to hurt myself or worse.  Without the internet I would just be sitting here alone with that urge and that would be worse.

Lost people

Woke up and cried again today.  This is getting to be a theme.  This time my ex wasn't the trigger, it was C.  I popped to the shops before the barbecue to grab some bits and pieces yesterday and she was there.  Long story short she was my friend and now she's not.  I've never gotten any closure on it because the last time I spoke to her we were good friends, hell last time I saw her I spent christmas at her house, with her and her husband and her daughter, and she made it clear I was part of the family.  We'd never fallen out, she'd never expressed any issues with me.  Her husband had been my best friend for a very long time and we'd progressed to being in a poly relationship, although that hadn't worked out and we were back to just being friends.  He wasn't taking it very well though, and things had been strained.  After christmas there was an incident and I said I needed space from him for a while.  I went away for a couple of weeks.  By the time I got back C hated me and didn't want me to be part of their family any more, didn't want me to have contact with her daughter or her husband.  W (her husband) told me about this.  I never got to speak to her about it.  I was just told that she no longer wanted anything to do with me, and whilst he had won out on being allowed contact with me and for me and him to try to rebuild our friendship it took a lot of arguing, and she basically saw me as the freaking antichrist apparently.  Which was very hard to understand given the last time I saw her she was so clear on the fact that I was family.  Either she'd been hiding having problems with me very well for a long time, and me wanting space from W was the last straw, or... *shrugs* I know she'd had a hard year, both with health problems and relationship stuff with W, as far as I can tell she suddenly decided all the latter were my fault, despite having been fine with it all at the time.  I made it very fucking clear that if she was ever uncomfortable with anything between me and W that I would end it, no question.  She insisted she was fine with it and that she was glad it had happened and she thought it was good for their family.  Hell, she was talking about me maybe moving in with them one day or me being a surrogate for her and W to have a child, shit like that, at points.  So either she's a very convincing liar or something changed, and I don't know what.  I feel like I'm missing some important piece of the puzzle, but I don't know what.

Anyway, I saw her outside the shop yesterday.  I focussed on using my phone and pretended I hadn't seen her when I went in, to avoid the awkwardness of her blanking me or whatever would have happened. I don't know if she even saw me.  But it made me really sad.  And today it came back to me and I found myself imagining us meeting and me not blanking her and us ending up talking and it all turning out to have been some huge misunderstanding and us hugging and it all being okay... even though I know that's not what's going to happen.  It's been made clear to me by mutual friends that I am dead to her, essentially, and so me going up and saying hello really would not have ended that way.  And I just started crying and crying.  I miss her.  She was my friend and everything's been so focussed around all the drama with W that I feel like everyone's ignored the fact that I lost a friend and I don't even fucking know why.  I mean, clearly it was something to do with everything with W, that she felt betrayed by me pulling away from him or mad that I'd hurt him or felt betrayed by them letting me into their home for christmas and me then pulling away, but none of that really makes sense on its own, to go from family to I never want to see you again and I never want you to have anything to do with my entire family ever again.  It hurts to have someone who cared about you decide you're basically evil.

I also miss their daughter like crazy.  I've cried so so much over missing her.  I'm allowed to see her again now, if it's with our mutual friend who looks after her, but I haven't seen her to arrange it yet for various reasons.

But missing C led to thinking of my sister who's also in the last year decided she wants nothing to do with me.  That really really fucking hurts.  And again over pretty much nothing.  There was this stupid thing over G+, when she told me how fibromyalgia isn't a serious disabling condition and I could control it with exercise if I just tried, and how she *wished* she just had such a mild condition like that that she could fix so easily, instead of having arthritis as well, which is a *proper* disease.  I disagreed, provided sources, pointed out the errors in the article she linked about fibro and exercise, and said that I had no interest in playing the 'whose illness penis is bigger' game.  Which I thought was pretty restrained. But apparently this was me bullying her, and I sicced all my friends on her (some of my friends also posted on the open G+ thread to disagree politely with her - this all started from me posting a '10 things not to say to someone with fibromyalgia' thing, and her immediately posted to say most of them).  Anyway. I figured this was just a stupid little falling out and things would be back to normal soon after - we're not close, we see the world very differently, so our interactions are mostly birthday and christmas cards and presents and small talk when we see each other at family things, when she makes thinly veiled digs at me and I try to find non-controversial areas of interaction or avoid her.

But this time she persisted, she didn't send christmas cards or presents - I sent hers as usual, via my mum, and my mum reported back that my sister had been very surprised, as she thought we were having some kind of feud or something, but that if I wasn't going to be petty she wouldn't either. Then she got pregnant and didn't tell me, I found out eventually from my mum.  She set up a website to put all the scans and then later baby photos on, and instructed my parents not to let me know about it (my dad let slip).  She didn't tell me when the baby was born, again my mum let me know, and I didn't see any baby photos.  I finally met the baby when I came down to visit for my dad's birthday, but she didn't let me hold him.  She didn't send a card for my birthday.  I asked my mum for her address so I could send presents for my nephew and my mum embarrassedly told me that actually she didn't think A would want me to have it, so if I wanted to send anything it would have to be via mum and dad.

I KNOW that she's the one who's acting like a kid here, I know this all started with her saying hurtful things to me, I know it's not me in the wrong here really.  But it still hurts and I still miss her. I don't like her very much, she's often a pretty unpleasant person. But she's my sister, and I thought no matter what she would always be my sister.  But apparently she's decided she doesn't really want to be my sister any more.  My mum says she disapproves of the choices I've made in life. I'm not sure which choices those are.  I think the ones where I didn't just buck up and get over my fibro and get back to work probably.  I know she disapproves of me roleplaying and stuff - it's kids stuff and I should have grown up by now.  I don't know what else. She pretty much just disapproves of me. All of me.  She's never liked me. She's done nice things for me, but her attempts to reach out to me when I was younger were always attempts to fix me, to teach me how to be better, how to be more like her.

I still can't help feeling guilty though, feeling like this is all my fault.  I pushed her away.  She knows I don't like her just as I know she doesn't like me.  As a kid I was always closer to my other two sisters and I didn't really hide it.  I've fucked up and forgotten her birthday and shit like that lots of times (I also forget other people's birthdays, it's not just hers, but yeah it was probably hers more often than others). I haven't always responded so well to her attempts at friendship (generally cause they were so full of her judging me and trying to fix me, but still).  My other sister put a thread up on g+ with a limited circle complaining about some things she'd done (which were pretty fucking out of order) and how frustrated she was and part of my response was that I'd given up on her.  'Cause I kinda had, I'd given up on her ever understanding me or acting in a way that I would want my sister to act. That doesn't mean I'd given up on her being my sister though, or that I'd stopped loving her.  It turned out she'd messed up and my sister's partner could see the whole thread.  He agreed not to share it with her cause he thought it wouldn't be helpful for anyone, but I'm worried in case he did and she decided to give up on me because of that.  And my little sister S said that when the whole G+ thing happened A (the sister in question) had mentioned an e-mail one of my friends had sent that she considered me to have been behind.  I haven't been able to find out who sent it or what it said or even if it really existed (S wasn't sure if she'd just misinterpreted A talking about the G+ comments) - but I worry about what might have been in that, if that's what's caused all of this, given she thought I was behind it.

I don't know. I just know that she's my sister and I don't want her to hate me.  I still love her.  I may not like her very much but I still love her, and I don't think she loves me any more.

The last time I saw her before everything fell apart things went really well, too, the best they've gone in a long time.  She'd arranged this birthday party for my mum's 60th, and we all came down, all the family and friends, and I helped out wherever I could, and me and A actually got on pretty well, she didn't snipe at me for the whole day, and I remember it felt so fucking nice, I was so glad to have us actually feel like we were on the same side for once, like she didn't despise me for once.

And then it all went wrong, and it doesn't feel fixable this time.  I'm trying to just be the mature one, to wait it out, to still get her birthday and christmas presents, to still make things for her son (my nephew - I want to be part of his life, but I'm pretty sure a big part of this is that she doesn't want me to in any way be a potential influence on him - she thinks I'm a failure and she doesn't want him to be like me).

Anyway.  I've been crying on and off for the past 2.5 hours because of C and A and just generally all the people I feel like I've lost in the past year or so - W is still technically my friend but nothing like before, and my ex, and C and A and C+W's daughter, and I'm still mourning the loss of Y - my best friend from school. I feel like I'm trying so hard to do the right thing and to be a good person but I still just keep losing people because of who I am.  Which is reinforcing my feeling of being a complete failure and pretty much worth despising right now.

Passing protractors

This isn't about crazies, but I just wrote it for my G+ and it occurred to me that it would make sense to share it here too:

Y'know, it's funny the memories that stick. Tiny little things that were important.  In my Year 9 SATs, around 13 years ago now, John passed me his protractor.

We were taking the higher maths paper and there were only about five of us.  The school hall was set up to accommodate a regular sized exam, so it was full of tables and chairs in rows, and there was a weird atmosphere when we got there.  Me and Jenny and John and I don't remember who the other two were. John was the undisputed maths genius of the year.  He was just John the rest of the time, lanky, spotty, his voice had been mid-breaking for what seemed like forever, he wasn't popular but he wasn't picked on.  He was part of the group. But everyone know he kicked ass at maths. The rest of us were just the people that were top in everything, we had no special aptitude for maths in particular.  

We didn't hang out as a group, and it felt odd to have just us few together for an exam.  Me and John weren't really friends.  I don't mean we disliked each other, or even that we were in different friendship groups.  We were in the same friendship group, we just... never really talked.  I had a bit of a weird relationship with boys back then still anyway - they were kind of an alien species, and I mostly had crushes on them from afar - but I had a friendship of sorts with Chris and Nicky and Dave.  We could talk about stuff sometimes, I walked home the same way as Chris and Dave sometimes, and me and Nicky even had long phone conversations.  But me and John never clicked.  He was painfully shy, which didn't help.  He was friends with Jenny though, they hung out all the time. And I still hung out with Jenny quite a bit then too.  So sometimes the three of us would hang out. But somehow it was still me hanging out with Jenny, and John hanging out with Jenny.  Just at the same time.  

So it's the day of the maths exam and we're in the room between the cafeteria and the hall, where the cubby holes and coat-hooks are, putting away our bags and getting out our calculators and pencil cases.  I wasn't really well prepared - organisation wasn't my strong suit. Nor was pretty much anyone.  We'd had so many exams over that week we'd gotten kind of blase about them.  I had writing implements and my calculator. I might have had a pair of compasses? Not sure.

The time came, and we filed in in silence, John first, then me and then the others. They'd placed the papers on a single column of tables by the exit.  It didn't feel like a real exam, given how few of us there were, and the teachers weren't really treating it as one either.  They told us no talking, no mobiles, but didn't bother with the spiel, just let us sit down and get on with it. 

So we did.  And halfway through I hit the question that required a protractor.  We never needed a protractor.  It just didn't come up.  Ever.  But bam, there it was.  So I left it for the time being and moved on. I was about three quarters of the way through when I heard my name whispered and looked up to see John looking back at me. He looked back to the front and then nonchalantly passed his protractor back to me.  

The teachers weren't paying attention, and christ, we were hardly cheating anyway, but it FELT like such a huge deal.  They made a huge fuss out of telling us ANY communication would lead to being failed not just for that exam, but ALL of your exams, just in case you'd cheated in them too. And it just didn't seem like John to take a risk like that, especially not in maths, and especially not for me.  

I took the protractor.  I used it.  I passed it backwards.  It travelled down the whole group, as no one but John had remembered to bring one.  I don't know if the teachers saw but didn't care, or if we were sufficiently sneaky about it. But not a word was said.  

I just remember that feeling of suddenly being linked.  We were now a group.   It was pretty fucking rare at that point for me to feel properly part of a group, not just tolerated, not the outsider.  We were all in it together.  And John made us that group, and made me part of it.  And that meant a quite disproportionate amount to me, so much so that I still feel happy when I remember it.  Hell, so much so that I still remember it, despite my sieve-like memory, despite not knowing what I got in that exam, despite having had to piece together all the external pieces of where it was and why and what was happening.

It's just one of the moments that mean nothing and a great deal all at once, so I thought I would share it with you all.

Sorry for lack of updates.  I've had ideas for posts sometimes but haven't been able to put any words down.

I was remarkably stable for a few weeks - not entirely sure how long, but much longer than usual.  Definitely doing the best I've done in a long time.  Kept my flat relatively tidy (by my standards), was getting up and getting dressed most days, wasn't having suicidal dips or intrusive thoughts about self harm.  So it was good timing to get the letter through saying I've been found fit for work.

Well, I suppose there's no good time to get that letter, but it could have arrived at a much worse time.  As it was I was upset and angry, I cried and I ranted, but I didn't sink into despair like I would have done a couple of months ago.  I managed to research appeals, rang and requested the form and the report and requested a reconsideration, and began filling it out.

I think it might have disturbed the stability I'd achieved though - my mood dropped over the following week. Still not as badly as it's done before, but I was tearful a lot - not over the ESA decision, other things.  Mostly over missing my ex - we've been broken up nearly a year, but it was a four year relationship and we were very serious - we were trying for a baby just before everything went wrong.  I think it was for the best we broke up, and we've remained friends to some extent, but sometimes I just miss him like crazy.  Over the past week I've found myself weeping pretty much out of nowhere over missing him at least four times now.  I think that's less about missing him and more about my mood dropping though - I would be weeping over something else if it wasn't him probably.  Anyway, things have been less good.  The flat had started to get messy anyway for Reasons, and over the past week my ability to tidy up seems to have disappeared and it's turned into a pigsty.  My ability to do anything productive seems to have vanished.  The urge to self harm came back.  My self esteem dropped - I realized that I didn't understand how anyone could actively like me - I mean, I could be convenient, I could listen when someone needs to talk, and I can be not-unpleasant to be around, but I'm not actually interesting or funny like other people, there's no substance to me.  Mostly people stay around because they pity me because I'm crazy now.  There's no way my ex could miss me because there's nothing to miss.  I managed to identify this and that it sounded like crazies, but at the same time I couldn't find a way to believe it wasn't true.

Today though I seem to have come up - I've been in a somewhat silly mood.  Still not able to do anything *productive* really, but very excitable and enthusiastic about other things, pissing about on the internet and putting lots of ALLCAPS POSTS ZOMG and talking SO MUCH and faster and singing silly songs even though we were in public and so on.  My pain and fatigue are still flaring though, which has put a lid on it somewhat.  I wanted to skip and pull my boyfriend along by the hand and dance around like a mad thing and talk about all the things but I hurt too much and now I'm lying down resting and I feel very tired and I have a headache and I've calmed down some.

Again, not nearly as bad as it gets, and my brain feels fast but not really racing and tangled yet.  It's still at that kinda nice stage.  Although I'm a bit concerned about tonight - I've got a game with friends (Serenity roleplay) and I know I'm going to be silly and unable to concentrate and won't take things seriously and the gm will get annoyed with me :/ Pain makes concentrating difficult *anyway*, this really won't help.

Ah well, see how it goes.

Kicked off ESA

So the letter finally turned up. I have been awarded either 6 or 0 points, depending on where in the letter you read (it contradicts itself), and found fit for work and my benefit stopped.

I raged and cried and raged some more and then I wrote a song. It's dedicated to the DWP, ATOS and the Tories.

It's called 'Fuckweasels'

(And yes, I will be appealing - the list of reasons included lots of blatant lies that directly contradict the evidence I provided and the answers I gave to the assessor.)

It's been over a month now. My fibro flare-up seems to have ended, and all the bruises are long gone.  My tooth is nearly back to normal (it's not wobbly any more and only feels a little odd when pressure is put on it, and I don't taste blood in my mouth often any more).  My mood is pretty stable, comparatively.  I'm far from sane, but I'm about as good as I've gotten in quite a while.  I think it's only been a few days though, I'm not sure.  I know my mood's been low and high at various points over the past month, so I haven't stopped swinging or anything, but I am at least getting some relatively moderate periods, and on the whole I've been better than I was.  I've been unmedicated for this past month, and I'm still undecided about what to do about that. Given I tried to kill myself it seems sensible to try upping my meds, but given I've been the same or better since coming off them I can't help wondering if I should stay off.  On the other hand, my moods are still swinging, and sooner or later I'm likely to drop back down badly again. It might be sensible to go back on meds now and start ramping them up.  I was on a potentially sub-therapeutic dose before, only 300mg carbamazepine daily, when the normal lower end for bipolar disorder is 400mg I believe, so it might be worth going back onto them but at a higher dose.  I'm nervous of doing anything that could affect my mood while I'm doing better though.  I know I should go see my doctor and let her have some say in this, and I do need to go back, but I'm nervous of going without knowing what I want to happen.

It might sound silly, but I'm nervous of going back now I'm doing better in case she doesn't believe how bad it was.  It would have been best if I could have gone back right after, when I was so obviously a mess, but I couldn't cope with it then.  It's how it pretty much always works, I can't cope with seeing a doctor at the time when I probably most need to, so they never really get how bad it is.

My friend has been to Mind for me, and she's arranging a meeting for me with them at the beginning of next week.  They might be able to help get the fee for obtaining my notes down, and they can help me make my complaint. I need to bring notes on what happened.  Which means going back through the posts I wrote on here and writing a concise version.  I'm kind of nervous about it, because I know reading it all through again is likely to put me in a bad place, mentally.  But it needs doing, and better to do it while I'm in a relatively stable place than have to try to do it once my mood's really low again.  Probably best to leave it for tonight though.  Do it tomorrow or Sunday, in the afternoon, I guess.

My mood's in a melancholy sort of place at the moment.  I've been relatively stable lately, compared to how bad it gets, but sometimes I just feel very down and lonely, but in a peaceful sort of way.  Not a desperate angry despairing down, just a deep sad wish for something more, for my life to be better, for life to be better, to be not broken, to be not alone, to have some idea of how to pass my life in a way that will have meaning for me.  To be not crazy.

Sometimes I feel like I accidentally fell off my life and I don't know how to get back on.

The Blue Room

When I was about seven or so I moved upstairs, away from the yellow room with my little sister. My parents let me pick the carpet and the colour for the walls and I chose robin egg blue for both. They took out the top bunk bed, and put a skylight in, and I picked the blinds – white with a pale green grapevine pattern that made me think of the grapes in the tiny raised swimming pool at nanny and granddad's. In summer we would sometimes bring an inflatable boat and row the two strokes from one end to the other and back again, and the sun filtered through the roof and the vines and our voices echoed in the small space.

They took the top bunk out when I moved in, but the steps remained – wooden sides painted a thick white, and carpeted steps up to the top of the shelves. There were two shelves and a hollowed out upside down triangle cubby hole that I filled with stuffed animals. The shelves were thick and wooden and white as well, more part of the wall than furniture – they'd been constructed out of the space where a false wall had been, and made thick enough to match, and several feet deep, so I could crawl onto them, high up in the corner of my room, if I wanted. To start with I did, they were part of my playspace, although it hurt my head when I bumped it on the artex ceiling. I hated that spiky texture and became weirdly afraid of it – I hated to touch it at all, and it had a sense of evil to me that in retrospect seems an odd quality for a ceiling to have. After a while I converted the top shelf into a museum, placed all my treasures there and arranged them into sections and labelled them. I loved science and history back then, loved the long latin words and the ordered sections and sub-sections, the stories and explanations, the history. Age was magic to me, anything older than I was was an artefact, a relic, it had weight and importance. I loved the hidden backgrounds behind everything, the idea that any stone or shell I might find had a story, it had a name and relatives and a derivation. I looked for fossils everywhere. The carpark by the lake where we fed the ducks had slate shingle that occasionally offered up a tiny fossil, and every time we parked there I would dawdle and examine them for treasure.

Beneath the steps was a little alcove where I put the books I was in the middle of reading, where they could easily be picked up and discarded from bed. I frequently had five or six books on the og at the same time, and books I'd recently finished would pile up there as well, waiting for me to return them to the bookcase. I kept Growler there too. He was the teddy bear my nanny gave me as a birth present, that growled when you tipped him on his belly. His fur was coarse and rough now, bare in places, and he'd become misshapen from years of hugging, but he was my most treasured possession. I used to pretend he was my twin, in my mind he came into existence the day I was born, so he had to be my twin. I read a lot of stories with twins in, and I wanted one. A twin was someone closer to you than anyone, that would always be close to you, that understood you and you understood them. With a twin you could never be alone. I talked to Growler in my mind as well as aloud – it didn't make much difference. I knew he wasn't really alive but somehow it felt like blasphemy to acknowledge it, and I treated him with respect and care – I couldn't leave him facedown because how would he breathe? I would acknowledge to myself that I knew he didn't breathe, but it was somehow sacrosanct, a little pretence that was important to maintain. I told Growler everything, and when I felt sad sometimes I would put my face into his fur and breathe deeply, because he somehow still smelled of my Nanny's house. I know he couldn't possibly have really done so, he probably wasn't even in their house for more than a couple of weeks at most, and he'd been in my possession for years. But somehow the smell of Growler was the smell of my Nanny's house to me, so potently, and I saved it for when I needed it. I was afraid I could use it up if I sniffed it too much, that the smell would go away and I would lose that last connection to my (now dead) Nanny.

I remember after my dad hit me and I was allowed to go to my room to cry, P would follow shortly after, and check where he'd hit me – usually the bum – to see how bad the mark was. It never bruised, but for several minutes afterwards there would be a bright red handprint wherever he'd smacked me. It was a kind of ritual, and I had this impression that there was a line, some measure of how bad it was that legally he wasn't allowed to cross, how long the mark was allowed to last, or how bad it was allowed to be, and that was what P was looking for. Patiently waiting for evidence that he'd gone too far and we could do something. And she would hug me. And sometimes she'd tell me off for whatever I'd done and sometimes she'd have sympathy, but either way I'd know he shouldn't have hit me, and that was why she was there. So I'd know it wasn't okay.

I remember her coming into my room, years later, right before I moved to the orange room. She was at college by then, and she'd been to the Citizen's Advice Bureau to find out if she could take me and S with her if she left home, if we agreed to come. She wanted to know if I would want to. I think I said yes. I remember telling her I hated our parents, and her being surprised. She told me she hated dad, but not mum. And I felt guilty, because I didn't really hate mum either, and I wasn't sure why I'd said it, but didn't feel like I could take it back, because then she'd think I'd just said it to impress her. Maybe I had, a little. Not consciously. But I was angry and hurting, and I did hate dad, and I was angry at mum because she didn't stop him, and I wanted P to know I was on her side. I wanted out, and I wanted her to think I was grown up enough to make that decision. She didn't want to push me into it at all. I remember she seemed surprised that I felt able to say it already, that I hated him, and she said something about how at my age she'd still been confused about it all, it had taken her a long time to realize she hated him. She seemed impressed that I had already figured it out.

It never happened, of course. Whatever the latest crisis was settled down, and P left for university and I stayed until it was my turn to go. He stopped hitting me not long after I moved to the yellow room (although he didn't stop threatening me).

I remember the day I realized it could end. My mother was in hospital – I don't remember what for this time, she had all sorts of medical problems. I think it might have been for her bladder this time, I remember her carrying around a catheter bag. We were all there I think, although I don't remember S. There was some kind of row, I think dad was mean to mum, and A and P took mum's side. And my dad threatened to hit them, and they told him if he laid a finger on them they were calling the police, that they were over 16 now and so it was assault. And he didn't hit them. There was bluster and shouting and we went back to the car. And I remember looking at them and realizing they had power now, they could stop him hitting them. And so when I was 16 I would get the same power.

My dad hit me less once I was in secondary school. It still happened sometimes, I remember my best friend coming over once, and me her and my dad were messing around with a ball, and me and dad both went for the ball at the same time and our heads collided. It was an accident, but my dad's immediate reaction was to blame me, so he hit me. And then we stopped playing with the ball, and my friend looked really uncomfortable. After that she didn't come round again, and told me it was because my dad scared her. I was mad at him for that, but I preferred going to her house anyway, so we did that instead.

I don't know why I focus on the hitting all the time when I talk about my dad being abusive. It was only one part of it, he didn't even hit us that hard really, and it was mostly just on the arse. Sometimes he'd hit us round the head, but mum didn't like it when he did that, she thought we were going to get brain damage or something. I'm fuzzy on the details, I just remember that there was some medical reason she didn't think he should hit us round the head.

It was more the fear. The hitting us was more of a warning, that he could always hit harder. He was a big man, an athlete, although he got pretty fat for a lot of my childhood as well. I have always been terrified of my father. It used to be a protective kind of fear as well, knowledge that he could always protect us, because no one could ever be bigger or scarier than our dad. But mostly it was just fear of him, knowledge that no one could ever protect us from him, either, because no one could ever be bigger or scarier than our dad.

I remember when I was little – I must have been about five or six, I was walking to school with my mum and we were going to the front entrance, which means Reception or Year 1 – realizing that I must be a bad girl. Getting hit was a common occurrence when I was in first school – I remember figuring out that it happened about once a day, but I don't know how accurate that is, my memory has always been dreadful, and I could well have been extrapolating from a particularly bad week. I just don't know. But it was common. And I knew that I only got hit if I was naughty. So I must be naughty a lot. But I didn't mean to be naughty. I didn't remember ever deciding to be naughty. I realized that I was just a bad person fundamentally. I must deserve it, or they wouldn't do it. I didn't have friends at school, and my sisters told me all the time how I was an annoying little brat, and my parents hit me all the time because I was naughty. I must just be a bad person. A pathetic, annoying little shit.

Later on I would challenge the assumption that I deserved it. I became aware it was maybe not okay, but at the same time I think that underlying knowledge that I basically suck has lingered and festered and swells up every time I get depressed. I still often feel grateful and surprised that people actually like me, and I still often expect them to change their mind once they actually get to know me. It's better than it was, I think. Having some friends that have stuck around for years has helped a lot. But that sneaky voice still turns up whenever I'm crazy, telling me I'm disgusting and pathetic and Bad. That I'm a failure and I always will be. That no one could possibly like me if they really knew who I was. I've worked hard on fighting that voice, and I think for a while I was winning, before everything went to shit again.   I often think I'm beating it and then I find it underlying things that I didn't even realize were there. Maybe I'm making progress again though.

So apparently they can charge me fifty fucking pounds to give me a copy of my medical records from a one day visit to hospital within the past month.  Fucking great.  I DON'T HAVE FIFTY FUCKING QUID.  The letter says I can go in and view my records free, but I don't know whether I'm allowed to make copies myself or what. Not to mention I'm somewhat terrified of going in myself because I don't want to meet any of the people involved in my care.  I'm scared of going back to the fucking hospital at all.  Partly 'cause of my memory gaps, so I won't know if anyone I'm talking to was someone that was there.  It's hard to explain why but that makes me feel horrifically vulnerable and exposed and weird.

So I don't know what I'm going to do now.

Things are going rapidly downhill. Today I woke up and just started crying for no real reason.  Well, no reason and every reason.  Everything is just suddenly terrible and I'm a shit person and I've lost so many people and it's all my fault and I miss them so much. Everything I thought about just made me cry harder.  I think the thing that tipped me over into tears in the first place was thinking of my sister.  My mum had to tell me a couple of days ago that she can't give me my own sister's address, because she doesn't think she'd want me to have it.  I don't even like my sister and I don't expect her to like me but she's still my fucking sister and I miss her and I love her and I kind of always thought it was would be the same for her but apparently instead she gave up and decided not to bother having any kind of relationship with me at all.  And now I'm crying again.  And thinking of her made me think of the other people I've lost.

I've been crazy for much of the past few days.  Yesterday my anxiety got really bad in the evening, really suddenly, and it kind of turned into depression and everything became terrible and wrong and messed up and I was disconnected from everyone.

I'm scared because I don't want to go crazy again. My head feels all tangled again and like everything is wrong and I can't fix it.  And I'm scared because I don't want to get back to where I was, where the only option was to kill myself. I'm really really scared of that.  Not of the killing myself part, but of feeling that bad, and that isolated and full of despair.  I don't want to be there again.

I knew my mood was going to drop again, I know this is how it goes, up down up down up down I KNOW but I guess I still get caught up in feeling happy and start thinking maybe it will last this time. So fucking stupid.  So I had my week or two (I really don't know how long it was :/ It feels like everything after a day or two just fades away and there are patches of memories, knowledge of things that happened here and there, but I don't know when or what connects them and it all feels very far away.) of being able to do things and think vaguely clearly and now it's being taken away again.

TWIM

Feel strange about my blog being mentioned on This Week In Mentalists. I was hoping it would be, because I would like if people read this and commented and things, although didn't really think it would be - there are a lot of awesome blogs out there and, well, I ramble a lot so I'm not entirely convinced anyone's going to be interested in making it through all the shite I write on here. :P I've been trying to stop lurking and start actually commenting on the blogs I read, too, try to actually get involved instead of just kind of watching.  But I also feel weird knowing that there are people out there I don't know reading this now.  Mostly good, but weird.  If anyone is reading this please please feel free to comment and say hi and stuff. *waves*

Anxious

I'm feeling kind of anxious today, and was for much of the night.  I think the situation with my ex is what triggered it.  I haven't been having trouble with anxiety much lately at all, up until last night.  Very long story short he's upset because I'm with someone else now, even though it was about 7 months ago we split up and we were only together a few months (although they were admittedly a very intense few months that were the result of having had feelings for each other for years), and he doesn't want to be with me anyway (in his words, L is welcome to me - said with vehemence). He told me in person and then messaged me further online afterwards. I told him I was sorry he was hurting and I hoped it would get better and I didn't really know what else to say.  Apparently this was me 'acting like we never even fucking knew each other' and he decided 'fuck this noise' and went to bed.  I got apologies by FB message this morning.  This wouldn't be such a big deal if this wasn't such a familiar pattern.  Him doing this, being hurt and angry and lashing out at me and then apologising the next day, repeatedly, was one of the reasons I ended up cutting off all contact with him for 6 months.  We recently tentatively started trying to be friends again, and things were going well, aaaaand now this.

And then in my sleep-deprived anxious state last night I started worrying about everyone else I might have somehow hurt with this.  I kept trying to remind myself I have no reason to feel guilty.  No one else wants a relationship with me (to my knowledge) so I'm not rejecting anyone by doing this (not that I should feel guilty for that anyway, you can't choose who you like, but this is crazybrain we're dealing with), I have been single for 7 months so neither of my exes have a reason to feel like I'm being inconsiderate, there's been a good gap, we've told people pretty much immediately as soon as it happened, I even told one ex (the one that freaked) in person first before we announced it on FB so he wouldn't find out via the internet.  There is no reason I should be feeling guilty. I like a boy, he likes me, no one is getting hurt.  And I had just been feeling smiley and happy about it all.  And then after W last night I felt crappy and stressed about him hurting over it and just started thinking of all these reasons people might be upset or hurt by it, that my other ex who I was getting on really well with last night might be hurt, that maybe it's really bad timing, that he was trying to reach out for us to be friends again and now doing this will make things weird and awkward, that he'll be upset I didn't tell him in person before announcing it on FB, there are people I'm worried will be hurt I didn't tell them personally or warn them it was going to happen (even though I'm not bloody psychic, I didn't *know* it was going to happen, nor do I have some kind of obligation to inform them), that the guy that was my play partner will be upset because I'll have to take him off my fetlife relationships section, even though we haven't played in over 6 months cause he left town and we just kind of left it up cause we figured we might play again if we were ever in the same place so what does it matter?, that my friend I slept with a few times last year will be upset because he'd still like to sleep with me (even though we're not sleeping together atm anyway so me being with someone else doesn't change anything) that my sister will be weirded out by it because he's younger than she is, that people will judge me because of the age gap or that I'll end up hurting him somehow that I'll go off him suddenly after leading him on and end up breaking it off and making him feel crappy or saddling him with some kind of insecurity or neurosis or ARGHHHHH. My brain just wouldn't shut up all night.  I kept trying to think about other things, kept reminding myself this is all silly and I have no reason to feel guilty, that I'm not doing anything wrong, but it just kept running back down the same tracks over and over and over.  I wouldn't even realize I was thinking about it until I realized how stressed I was feeling - I was in that half-asleep state where you can't really control your thoughts, they just kind of slip around and drop in and out of things, rather than following a coherent train, and so I just had this barrage of stress and accusations pounding away at me no matter which way I turned.

I'm feeling better today, I don't believe any of those things, I don't think I have any reason to feel guilty, and I don't really think anyone other than W is going to be hurt by this, and if they are then it's not my fault or my problem, and anyone who wants me to feel guilty for having a relationship with someone I like (given we're both available and have no obligations to anyone else) is not someone whose opinion I should be caring about anyway.  But the anxious feeling in my chest seems to be lingering.  It's not really bad, it's not up to stabby chest pain levels, it's just kind of like a fist around my heart squeezing firmly all the time.

It's also making me avoid things.  L said to text him when I wake up and he'll head over, and I want to see him, and I'm feeling smiley about the thought of seeing him, but I don't feel capable of facing the day yet, of dealing with people and making decisions and things.  I need to ring my parents, urgently, and we need to make plans for tonight - might be meeting up with another friend and watching musicals this evening - and I just feel... unready. For life. And people.  And so I've been putting off texting him because I'm not ready for today to start yet. Even though I've been awake since 9am.

In fairness I'm also tired - was up until 6am by accident. And then slept badly due to anxiety, and woke up early at 9 and couldn't get back to sleep.  That's probably not helping with my levels of cope.

On the plus side, I'm not depressed.  Just anxious :) Anxiety is vastly vastly preferable to depression, at least for me.

L just came on FB. Easier to message on there than text somehow. He's heading round after lunch :) Still feeling anxious and scared of the day starting but glad that the decision's been made now.

ESA evidence

Thought - I'm on ESA, I've had my medical assessment and am currently waiting to hear back on the decision.  Does me trying to kill myself count as a change of circumstances/evidence of the severity of my illness that I should tell them about? Or is it too late now to provide further evidence, and I should wait and just use it in my appeal if they find me fit for work?  I'm guessing the latter?

Although given the hospital said I was faking I guess it could work against me, if they asked for my records off the hospital or anything. Maybe best not mention it.  Bah. I don't know.