Meander Valley

There's just nothing to say anymore. I spend my days anxious and afraid. Hiding under blankets. Trying to function. Finding myself exhausted from the effort. Bleeding to make it better. Fixating on train suicide (Google, please stop asking me to call Lifeline, we both know that's not happening). Eventually falling into a sleep I wish would last forever.

It's so odd to be daydreaming about a future I'm passively, and in-often actively, planning not to have. I don't know what to make of myself anymore.

Except to acknowledge that I'm depressed, my meds aren't working and my psychiatrist hasn't called me back.

I'm so sorry, I tried to hard to go to sleep without the kiss of the steel; but some part of me truly needed it.

What if I'm not better

For awhile I thought that I was better. Not 'better' better, but better than before. And then I realised that I was back where I started, before there was any medical intervention + sleep. And now I'm wondering if I'm better at all.

I sleep well, better than ever before. I've stopped dreaming again for the most part. But it's so hard to get out of bed, my body will not wake, my brain is fuzzy. I sleep 9-10 hours nearly every night, I can't help but wonder that this isn't right.

Sometimes I feel like a person, awake and functioning, and other times I don't. A ball of anxiety on the verge of tears; no longer sure how to function. If I want to function. And it doesn't feel right.

It's hard to definitively decide what I'm feeling because I'm not sure what it is. But there's a dullness, an indifference that makes me want to stay in bed or on the couch doing nothing productive. I feel trapped and confused in and about my life. I don't know what decisions to make, jobs to take, life to live.

But most chilling is the small voice that simply says 'don't do it'.

Don't be around to make the choices. Don't be around to feel the panic. Every time I deal with catching trains I stand on a platform and at least once wonder if I should step in front of the train. Sometimes I think about walking up the tracks to catch the train at a greater speed. I always board the train. But not without a tiny amount of regret.

Today my back is so stiff it hurts to move. I haven't been in this much pain for months and I'm not sure how to exist with it anymore. I dared believe that I was better and now I don't know how to cope. I exposed a five year old ligament strain in my knee and some things hurt and I wonder if I should still be exercising but how else am I to feel good?

It was put to me that I accepted that I would always return to self harm, but I don't think that's true. Because I met and fell in love with you and I chose recovery. I went to see doctors, psychologists and now a psychiatrist because I wanted to be better for you. I took the meds I'd sworn for so long I'd never take because I wanted a shot. I saw myself losing you because of the part of me that is sick and I didn't want that. It's just that sometimes the desire to harm myself is so overwhelming there's no hope of waiting it out or finding it an alternative. It's problematic that it works for me and that I don't have an alternative that works as well. But I don't want to hurt myself all the time, and when I lose interest in seeing my blood run I always say 'this is the last time'. Once there's sufficient healing I fade the scars with bio oil, as best I can. And I never used to do that. When I say 'it'll happen again' when I feel triggered it's an observation and I'm triggered. Right now I do want to hurt myself. But I don't want to hurt you. And it's kind of a stalemate and that usually works.

I wish I was better. But sometimes I also wish I wasn't here.

The drugs work, mostly

The drugs work, mostly. 

I'm still prone to depressive episodes and states of total anxiety. I feel hopeless during these periods but I'm more prepared to believe that it will end. Though more and more the state of affairs in this world chill me to the bone and I wonder if I will live out a natural life. I fear the future because the cost of living is so expensive and I don't think I'm mentally strong enough to sustain a full time job. You apply pressure to me and I begin to crack, slowly at first, then I get anxious, irritable, stressed and finally properly depressed. Weak in the head and not equipped for life.

The drugs work, mostly.

But I've put on 8-10kg without noticing and before I knew it I no longer fit into my shorts, some of my t-shirts, my skirts, my jeans.... everything. I've always had such a complex about my weight, but I didn't bat an eyelid at the side effect of weight gain. You just always hope that those thinks won't happen to you. But it's so common and I was so, so naive and now I pay the price with obesity. I don't know whether to restrict my eating or purge. I tried restricting but I no longer have the discipline to maintain that. And people just encourage you to eat. There's always dinners, events, parties. Occasions based around food. Expectations that you'll eat and eat well. I can no longer see my feet due to the size of my gut.

I do pilates and I just joined a gym. I know that hard work will pay off and I miss the sensations of strength and accomplishment that accompanied a session at the gym. But it's discouraging that this is what happened to me. A slap in the face that no matter how hard I try I'll always end up fat if I slip up.

The drugs work, mostly.

I sleep at night now. I take my meds and sleep comes quickly to this reformed night owl. But increasingly it is hard to wake up and I feel foggy during the day. Like I haven't woken up in all. It didn't start out like this, with the drugs. It simply crept up on me and one day I realised I was sleeping without sleeping. Eternally tired. Why won't it end?

The drugs work, mostly.

The sticky tendrils of my mental illness reach into my relationship less. I know I'm more stable and I hope he worries less. I don't lie awake at night long after he's fallen asleep, busy with worries. I don't cry like I once did, hiding in his arms. But we both know it's still there, and we both see it grab hold and dissipate as it will. It's terrible to acknowledge it's place in what is ours, but maybe it won't be so forever. Maybe.

The drugs work, mostly.

But I still suffer. Intermittently, but I suffer.

I Quit for the Umpteenth Time

I quit therapy for the umpteenth time today. People aren't openly expressing their disappointment, but I hear it in their voices. Even she sounded lecturish as I left.

But it wasn't working. The thought of going turned me into a snake; prepared to strike with harsh words, lie maliciously in silence and give a cold, hard, evaluative stare. I was shitty throughout the sessions and it overarched the experiences of any workable emotions that I needed to have. We didn't connect. She never once made me want to go and want to talk to her. Instead I employed the classic "I lose if I speak first" tactic and it's an hour of her time wasted, two hours of my time wasted, money wasted, and a rage inside me that need not be stoked.

I understand the importance of talking therapy and not bottling up my emotions, I do. But every fibre of my being was resistant. And it always has been with therapists. I don't know if it's because they challenge my stunted ability to articulate my feels or that I just don't connect with them. Perhaps it's a combination of the two.

It's definitely an issue that I find talking about my feelings difficult. I don't use the word stunted as a joke because much of the time I am completely unable to make the words leave my mouth. In my mind I find them and form sentences and understand them, oh how I understand them. But then when I go to communicate out loud there is a block.

Last week while away with my boyfriend I was unable to explain to him what I was feeling. It would have been so much easier if I had of been able to just say 'hey, my hormones aren't playing nice with my depression and are making me a crazy lady this week' or 'look, I really just need to be physically and mentally alone right now' or even just 'I'm sorry that I'm violently hot and cold. I don't mean to be, I love you'. But none of these things were said. He got unwarranted and unexplained anger, irritability, tears and silence instead.

Even when my other Mum expresses concern for me or asks if I'm okay I immediately turn prickly. I'm an emotional hedgehog - I bare my spines the moment I feel any threat. And I know that this is terrible. I feel awful and sad and so very, very guilty every time I snap at someone unnecessarily, but I don't know how else to act.

But this isn't the only reason why therapy has never worked for me. All experts agree that there needs to be a connection between counsellor and counsellee. I have never had that connection with one before. So not only am I grappling with expressing my locked away feelings, I am being asked to trust them unto someone I don't know nor particularly like.

It is an extremely challenging exercise for me as it requires me to bring down all my safeguards. Safeguards that I'm just not prepared to jeopardise for someone who makes me sensationally angry.

So I quit therapy for the umpteenth time.

And I felt instantly better.

But I am still plagued by the niggling knowledge that I will have to do it again and that I will have to break down my safeguards.

I must learn to communicate. But only for the right people.

Medications and other Fuck Ups

As if the lines between each mental illness were not blurry enough, those afflicted are also punished with the horrifically inexact science of finding medications that work.

Pre my suicide attempt I had been started on an anti-depressant that, with the power of much hindsight, I truly believe is the reason that even happened. I mean sure, suicidal ideation is not new to me. But I don't ever remember being that unable to function for that amount of time (and it was a few days) in my life. I couldn't speak, I couldn't eat. I just cried, read and literally told people that I didn't want to live anymore. The lack of intervention is also disturbing in hindsight, but the fact that this occurred just under two weeks into my time on Lexapro tells me that this is why I became so negatively extreme.

When I was eventually referred to a psychiatrist he immediately and decisively decided that the Lexapro was not a solution. So it stopped. The withdrawal period was horrible. I immediately stopped sleeping and I went mad. I was away from home, alone and I got it into my head that I needed to die again. I got increasingly agitated and started watching documentaries about suicide for I don't even know what reasons. When company arrived again I was cagey and loathe to admit that I was having these feelings and hid behind pain problems. Withdrawal kicked my arse and the five days til I started the new medication couldn't pass quicker.

I was started on Mirtazapine, which was much more successful than the Lexapro. Not only did it put me to sleep, but I stayed asleep. No longer waking constantly between 4am and 9am as I had done before. I was less negatively extreme, though I was prone to sudden and dramatic shifts in mood. Little things set me off. I was angry, I was so angry. At my Mirtazapine review my psychiatrist listened and came up with a new plan, instead of simply upping the dose. He prescribed Cymbalta to not only aid the Mirtazapine, but to also try to control referred pain from my disc issue in my lower back. He also prescribed Epilim to control my mood swings and to further help me sleep.

I had very mixed feelings about the two new additions. I was and am at the point where I don't want control of anything and so was just going along with professional discretion. But being regulated by drugs has never led to anything good in my short life and I was, at best, not happy to be controlled by them once more. During the difficult week in which my system did it's best to adjust to the new medications, I found myself wondering why I should even be alive if I needed three drugs to make it so. My sense of self became and continues to be severely impacted by the use of these meds.

My body eventually accepted the new ones, but the Epilim over-sedated me and waking up in the morning once again became a tiresome ordeal. I became negatively extreme again and at the review earlier this week the experiment was deemed a failure. I was taken off Cymbalta and Epilim cold turkey and day two of withdrawal has been arduous. Last night I slept that worst I have slept since Lexapro, despite the Mirtazapine sedation. And I have been fragile, on the brink of tears for no reason and easily crushed. But I've also been prone to outbursts of frustration and anger.

I know withdrawal ends. I know that. But I also know that there were reasons that there were additives to Mirtazapine in the first place. So I feel like best case scenario at the review is an upped dose. Worst case, new and unhelpful/counterproductive additives.

All of this is meant to be for the best, but it's like being spun around and spat out constantly. My body is being forced again and again to adjust. Be regulated. So I can be "normal".

But I'm not "normal". I never was and I never will be. I'm broken. I'm not meant to be.