Tuesday 31 May 2011

Forty Five

                One step for mankind one giant leap back for me. So life’s tough hey, tell me about it. The other night I succumbed to the pain, to the noise, to the darkness. The feelings, as always, were severely intense, my head was filled with loud noise and forceful thoughts shooting all around! I couldn’t take it anymore, and then my mood flipped. I changed in to this surreal type of state, you know the kind where you would drive 100kms an hour in a 50 zone just to see what would happen. I ended up getting a razor and slashing around my wrist over and over again. It was like I couldn’t stop. I had paper down for the blood to drip all over. I wrote pain in the blood on the paper – hmm art work – but I was bleeding so much that the page filled up and the blood went everywhere. As the blood kept running from my wrist down over my blood soaked hand I had a weird evil like smile on my face, like it was funny. (I say evil because to me it does not seem very healthy). I was in a very there but not there state of mind, as I seem to be suppressing even now, and I just don’t know what I am capable of. I guess I better watch out. Thank you to all my great and wonderful supportive friends and family who are still helping through this never ending inner battle, love to you – you know who you are xx

Sunday 29 May 2011

Forty Four

                It’s been a little while since my last blog, I suppose not that long really but still. Yes I have been relatively busy but the main reason I have not blogged is because of where I seem to be at. My thoughts are spinning and crashing around like the offshore depths of the sea in a heavy storm. My feelings are equally as fast and muddled. I cannot seem to decipher one from the other. I struggle even more to concentrate. I fight harder everyday to put on that brave, progressive face. In way of bodily harm I have improved, of this there is no doubt, for I have not yet succumbed to the urges that flow through me. As for the rest of my problems, I cannot say. I struggle... struggle like I did before I came to Queensland. I feel myself slowly changing back into the shipwreck I was. Is it just habitual? Can it be changed? Will I ever mend? They say over time I will, I say in theory this is all well and good but what about the person experiencing the severe feelings and thoughts that won’t, no matter what they do, shift. Just like me and friends have a ‘T’ for TIME and you have a break, so where is that? No rest for the wicked and no rest for the worthless. The people around me look at me, even right into my eyes, and they have no idea that I am fighting away the same rushing pain with the severity increasing that I was before entering hospital. Backwards I slide down a steep muddy bank on my way to the dreaded cliff.

Tuesday 24 May 2011

Forty Three

                Today I say was pretty alright, DBT went well, doctor’s appointment went well although I did find out that I also have some psychotic stuff within – don’t freak I’m not American Psycho or anything. With all this slowly happening I can’t help but think ‘what is the bigger plan?’ I think about this often of late and it never seems to come to an end. I mean, what is the big picture? The master plan? Is there one? If not, what are we all doing here? What is the point if we don’t have any purpose other than to just exist? Deep, deep down I feel as though there is some form of power or purpose that somehow fits into a bigger plan. But I wonder, is this just what I would like to think just to give me a reason to go on? I mean, I want to kill myself so how is that part of anything? Was I just put on this earth to suffer than die? Am I really that hated? Am I really that useless... part of me says “yes you are,” while another part says “bigger picture.” I know these are not to end questions but I can’t shake them. Maybe I feel that if I was more in touch with my spiritual side I may just be able to shake this crap. I am still in a hard fight against suicide and self harm, I guess I just wonder why it’s all worth it. Either way I would like to pursue these questions, but where to start?

Sunday 22 May 2011

Forty Two

                Well last night was a bit rough. After I typed my blog I ended up behind the bedroom door in the dark bawling. I was back in the bad state of wanting to kill myself right then and there. I thought I was back to my old self, o-oh! ‘This is it, no more’ was the thought travelling through my head. Down as it seems to go, I am having a lot of trouble trying to work out how to get my mood back to what it was when I left hospital. “The new me” I called it. I’m worried it was nothing more than a tease of what will never be, my brains way of toying with me yet again. Well I fell for it and as a result I feel foolish and naive. Deep down it hurts severely and when I am still the inner pain pounds against me. I’M SICK OF THIS BULLCRAP! I cannot live every day of my life begging and pleading with thin air to ‘please make it stop I can’t take anymore!!’ Having trouble winding down of a night, having nightmares and waking up feeling like crap, nope I’m sure it’s not how life is supposed to be. Today was better than yesterday and that is thanks to family support and a new friend I’ve made plus my Bff of course.

Thursday 19 May 2011

Forty One

                I’m crying as I type this. The pressure of the outside is ramming me into the earth’s hard exterior. BANG! Down I go repetitively. You see, I came out of hospital with this new view on how my life, if I lasted, would be. I was starting to tune in to my inner self. How I functioned was just that little bit more clear. Hope was a possibility not a distant blur. I realized I needed to spend a lot more time focusing on my well being and continuing to get in touch with what was going on within me. I felt some determination that I might have a chance, even if small. Now as I look at these blurry words I start to realize that I am losing control of my life and myself already. As I driving today it took all of my energy not to swerve in front of a big truck and hope for the best or worst, however you see it. I’ve had enough pain and I wish I could release it into the wild like the clawing beast that it is. I don’t belong here in this foreign place. Slowly I’m losing my concentration, my patience... my mind. Nobody can do a thing about it. I even feel as though I can do nothing about it also. So what’s the plan then? The saying is ‘live and let live’ but I am saying ‘die and let me die.’

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Forty

                Busy, that’s what I seem to be of late. It is helping me a bit but it is also hindering me. Keeping busy helps because it keeps me occupied and less likely to act on impulses, it doesn’t help because I feel quiet tired all the time and it makes me anxious and I find it hard to wind down. The suicidal thoughts are still suspended in my brain. Just think, if I plunged a knife through my heart right now all this bull crap could be over. No more trying to manage my messed up head and my deeply confused feelings ever again... sounds pretty damn good to me. But yes I would miss some very important people in my life, I guess I just hope beyond hope that if said event was in fact to happen, or something similar, that these people would know who they are and know and know what they meant to me, also that there was nothing anyone could have done differently to change my fate. But as it sits now I’m pressing on and waiting for something more within me to change for the better, a path to greener pastures perhaps.

Monday 16 May 2011

Thirty Nine

                Another bridge crossed. I went out over the weekend, on the town with a friend. Did I cope ok? Yes. I love hitting the town for a bit of a boogie. I think the fact that I stayed at my friend’s place helped a lot because I wasn’t alone as I was coming down from my high. I haven’t been blogging as much I know but I have been busy. I suppose that has become my coping mechanism . . . again. I try to be still and just sit with my feelings but they are so intense. It’s scary. I’m worried about what I might do and how bad the consequences may be if not handled. Cutting, cutting, cutting – When I’m awake, I’m thinking about it. When I’m asleep, I’m dreaming about it. Is this, I wonder, what drug addicts go through too? Is it the same kind of addiction? If I cut myself have I failed and taken an ecstasy tablet? Have I been too hard on and critical of these people for far too long? Just once, I hear whispering to me through the noise in my head. ‘Just one time that’s all you need, come on do it.’ AAAHHHH!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!! But who am I yelling this to? Me? I want me to leave me alone... yeah that makes perfect sense :-/ Even though I only just started, the DBT seems to be really good and fingers crossed it has some helpful tips on sorting me out upstairs, please please pleeeeaaaassseee. My mood has been average but I suppose missing all my friends doesn’t help with that. Busy busy busy until I find a better way. The only thing is that dealing with the difficulties this way doesn’t solve anything.

Saturday 14 May 2011

Thirty Eight

                It’s tough. What is this feeling that I have? I can’t identify it? It sits extremely heavy in the lower central of my chest. It strains me to breathe in and with every breath out I feel closer to tears. I got really anxious earlier and then, whilst trying to concentrate on driving, I head was full of other people’s voices. It wasn’t like one or two voices telling me to do things or that I was a superhero or something, no, it was lots of people all talking at once. It was as though I was in a big shopping complex on one of those busy days, when you have to dodge and squeeze around people just to get from a – b. It were as though I was standing write in the middle and couldn’t move and all this was going on around me and I could hear all the noise. The thing is I was in a silent car, no radio or nothing and absolutely no control over the head noise. Pretty scary actually, I mean, I’ve never heard others voices before. Now if I didn’t feel crazy before... Right, so coping... I am still here, I have ok days and I’m pottering along. The struggle against self-harming is HUMUNGUS!! I had nooo idea what I was in for when I left the big house. I want to get the razor and start calving. Even put it apart to get the individual blades out so I can cut deeper and more painfully. It’s not the pain of the cutting but also the stinging of the blade. The thing to is that if others talk or hint about self-harm, I want to do it even more I’m not sure why. Hmm, self-harm - Do I feel it this time? Will I feel it that time? Am I going to dissociate? Who knows, I suppose I just have to keep putting my all into fighting the urge and not give in.

Thursday 12 May 2011

Thirty Seven

                I AM OUTRAGED! I am sooooo disappointed and disgusted in the human race. How is it that people can be so damn cruel? I am not an angry person but after hearing about this situation I feel enraged to hunt these people down and give them the what for! What am I talking about? I’m talking about bullying, and not just any bullying, work place bullying. What gives anybody the right to think that they are better than another? School yard bullying is awful and should be nipped in the bud straight away. I know it is difficult but this sort of behaviour can ruin a person’s life. These bullies can continue this disgraceful behaviour even as adults. This is what has ruffled my feathers. A family member, who I am extremely close to, is being workplace bullied. Yesterday I spoke with them and they were so very upset. This person is the strongest person I know and here they were scared and sick in the stomach about work. They love work, always have, and they work damn hard let me tell you. How dare anybody take that away from them! I tell you what, I’m not a violent but when you listen to someone you love, very dearly, bawling their eyes out because of the situation at work, you quickly switch into protection mode. I wanted to find these pitiful people and bash the crap out of them! I’m much calmer now about it and don’t feel quite as intense as the situation is being addressed. It’s only being addressed though because this person has taken a stand. They have said NO MORE and stood up for themselves and damn right they should! I just hope upon hope that the situation is resolved. They deserve, like others in their situation, to be able to go to work without this bull crap to put up with. Some people need to grow up and get over themselves. As this person said to me “we’re all here for the same reason.”  

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Thirty Six

So I have missed two days but believe it or not I’ve been flat out and exhausted when the days over. I’ve been helping family out, as they are helping me also, and starting a new therapy group. The therapy is called DBT, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. I got the phone call Monday arvo to say there is a place to start Tuesday if I if was able. Of course becoming well is a very high priority so a big yes was my answer. Some key goals of this therapy are;
-          Reducing suicidal and self-harming behaviours
-          Reducing behaviours that interfere with the process of therapy such as not addressing problems
-          Reducing behaviours that seriously interfere with quality of life
-          Increasing specific goals to cope more effectively
-          Developing an awareness and sense of control over emotions and behaviour
-          Moving from being emotionally shut down to experiencing emotions fully
-          Building an ordinary life, solving ordinary life problems with a focus improving quality of relationships
-          Working with feelings of emptiness to develop completeness/connection    
It is a 6 month course and I am looking forward to what this could mean to my life. Could it be the changes and opportunities I need?

My mood over the past few days has been a mildly low steady flow. I was fairly anxious the night before last but I have gotten through and am managing life. This is not just my inner self fighting, it is also with the help of my family and friends – THANK YOU x
I actually feel a little better today than the past few days so whether it lasts or not I will take it while it’s here.

Saturday 7 May 2011

Thirty Five

                I know it’s still quite early to be blogging but when you need to talk, or rather write, you do. I am undecided about how today will be for me but I am hoping it goes up even a little so I can have a bit of a breather after yesterday. Last night I had another bawling session. At first I was just teary and I had a hug then went to the bathroom. After I shut the door, I just dropped to my knees and started bawling my eyes out. I ended up in the fetal position. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying, I guess the inner strength I need to stay sane, as much as I can, is taking more out of me than I thought. My head talk is negative and my visions are graphic. As the night proceeded the pictures in my head became more frequent. I wondered why my negative thoughts had gotten worse since leaving hospital. I mean, I knew it was going to be a challenge but I guess I underestimated it. All I wanted to do was get a razor and slash my arms over and over again as hard as I could! I didn’t feel that I belong... I still don’t. My family and friends are a great support to me, but it’s really up to me. I wonder if I have what it takes.

Friday 6 May 2011

Thirty Four

                My thoughts seem to be very dark at the moment. I had an intense moment last night. You see, I’m down the coast with some family and we are staying on the 12th floor of the hotel building. If you know or are getting to know me then you will be able to imagine the danger and temptation I face with this arrangement. Don’t get me wrong, this place we’re staying at is amazing! It has great views, lots of space and is near beaches and shops. It’s like a hollywood dream place or something. So, it started when I went out onto the balcony last night to open the privacy doors. As soon as I looked down my head started yelling “JUMP, DIE. JUMP, DIE. DO IT DON’T DO IT, YES, NO, YES, NO, YES!!!” It was my first night out of hospital and it was extremely confronting. I went back inside where a family member, who I’m very appreciative to, helped me calm down a little bit. Later, after we got back from tea, I was trying to explain to this family member what had actually happened. I was part the way through explaining when they started to get easily distracted and start talking about off topic things. This hurt because I felt that I was not important. When we got back, I sat in my room looking out of the 12th floor window and just bawling. I thought ‘this isn’t going to work.’ I wanted to jump and they didn’t understand! When they saw me crying they came over and cuddled me. We just sat there hugging while I was crying and telling them that this wasn’t going to work and they don’t get it. I mean this is my life, my whole life, one wrong movement from me can = bye bye forever.  They replied by telling me that they might not understand ‘yet’ but that this is a big learning curb for them and that I’ve got to try and be patient and that we can learn from each other to make it work. This is rightly so. I am very sensitive when I’m in said frame of mind. I feel worthless straight away, I believe everybody thinks I am too and that I should just die because that’s what I deserve. By reading this hopefully you can understand how quickly and to such a drastic level my mood changes. I do need to try harder to understand that they don’t know. We both need to communicate a better. I need a LOT of support and I mean a LOT, to get through this and I am worried they might be in for more than they bargained for. They hugged me and wouldn’t let go until I was feeling a bit better – thankyou x. I don’t feel like this is fair on them at all and deep down I’m just not sure what to do about that. I love them and they’ve been great to me. I don’t want to be a burden and bring them down with my negative crap. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Thank you to them for their support, it means a lot, really.

Thursday 5 May 2011

Thirty Three

                Have you ever spent ages just wondering what it would be like to be hit by a car? You can’t be distracted from it. When you think about it, you’re momentarily obsessed. Imagining all the different speeds and what the damage would be and how it would feel, if you were alive to feel it that is. I do. I daydream about it fairly regularly of late, the reason? I’m not sure. I ruminate how far I think I would fly through the air at 60km, the highway is a bit of an obvious one but I still imagine in my mind what that might look like. For some reason when I think about it I actually feel quite excited.  BRRRM BRRRM... SMASH!! I’m trying to concentrate and talk with people and its there in my brain. I am trying to accept that yes, I am thinking about it, but I do not have to act on it. We’ll see how that goes. This is pretty messed up. Do people think I’m a sicko? I can’t worry about that at this stage. It is a fact that I do think about these things so either way it changes nothing except making me feel worse. Last night I was cutting the tape off the boxes, I seemed to get more and more wound up, as in excitable – psychotic, and in the end wanted to slash myself to bits. Everywhere, arms, legs, stomach, the bottom of my feet so the pain would be there every day when I walked and the deep cuts would reopen and bleed. It was crazy. I’m crazy, or as a dear friend of mine to be says, ‘quirky.’ I am leaving today and will just see what the day brings.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Thirty Two

                I woke this morning and did not know which way my day was going to go. Is it going to be crappy or pretty decent? Its 11:00 and I still sit undecided. I don’t feel as though I have the strength today for it to be a crap one though. Things are lingering around in my mind. Touch... it is a real struggle at times. The fear that I can get is so intense and triggerish, I don’t want to ruin relationships with it, but I already am aware of how much it interferes. I must fight through it – I say in my mind – the past is the past. I like that; the past is the past. I am trying to ingrain that into my head. If there was only one thing I needed to truly acknowledge, this would perhaps be in the running. The thing is that I know this on a conscious level, obviously, yet negative and deathly signals are sent painfully shooting throughout my body (perhaps subconscious). I’m fighting with a big part of myself and I will be working double time on this for sure. Also, I am getting out of hospital in the next few days. I will be released back into the wild. I now have the song ‘the lion sleeps tonight’ stuck in my head. Challenge after challenge... that’s what will be driving me and pushing me trying to get me back down and into bad habits. When I leave, I will be seeing temptations from all around me. I have to try my hardest to be stable and strong and say to myself, “No, walk away.” How well this works is beyond me but I have to treat every time, I don’t give in, as a success. You see, how my mind has worked previously is that I have felt like a failure for even thinking such negative, morbid things. So basically I have been a failure before I’ve even given into such thoughts. I must learn to except that yes I do feel like this and I am thinking of that, that’s just the way it is, but what I physically do with that is a whole new can of worms. I also need to except that I am only capable of so much. If I slip back a little I just need to say to myself “it’s okay I will try to do better next time” and try not to beat myself up about it. And remind myself every day that any success, no matter how big or small, is good progress.

Thirty One

Delving too far into things can be a tricky business; I just need to start with one thing at a time. I’m not disclosing anything I just need to get a bit of it off my chest. This, to me, is a very difficult and tender topic. I wasn’t sure how to approach it so I decided to write a short poem. 
Growing up was tough, for I did not know,
Despite your tough exterior, you loved me so.
Everyone else always seemed to come first,
For your attention and affection, I had a great thirst.
An abundance of years you were perfect to me,
When I grew up, just like you I wanted to be.
I know there are times when we had great fun,
For the rest of the time though, the damage is done.
When I needed you most, you were not there,
The burden I held was too much to bear.
I will always have trouble with my own self-worth,
But to me you’ll always be the best one on earth.
It’s amazing how much people can change or even just have a wakeup call or reality check. I had to get this out there; it’s such a big thing to me. And at times it is can be intensely raw. The next one I wrote is of the now.
Out of the darkness you came to support me in my fight,
I needed help and here you are with all of your might.
You have been a great blessing in disguise,
It’s now clear to see the truth beyond your eyes.
I fight hard every day and you don’t leave my side,
Without your devastated face in my mind, I would have died.
Our relationship has grown bigger than anything I’ve ever looked on,
It will never be taken away, torn apart or stomped on.
This is a poem I wrote to show you I care,
And that I am appreciative right down to my last hair.
There is so much more for both of the poems but for now that’s plenty. If you read this, I love you always xxxxxxxxxx

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Thirty

                I am feeling pretty decent today. The rough days are made slightly lighter knowing that I can have days like today. I want to leave but I have a fairly definite problem. I feel that self-harm is going to be inevitable. It’s like I already know I’m going to do it and that it’s just a matter of time until I do. I keep trying to get the point across in my head and think ‘no, I can’t, I won’t take that step backwards.’ But I crave it like an alcoholic craves after grog. I know it sounds sick, craving cutting myself and watching the blood pour out. Then you cut again and again. Once you start it’s very hard to stop. It becomes a very strong addiction and while fighting all these other difficult things am I able to fight another on top of all that? You see, I can try to heal myself of all the hurt and pain that I’ve felt over the years. Trying hard to change and be as good as I can be. But that’s my point here; I can be a good as “I can be.” You see, the damage to me is done. I can’t change it. I can’t erase it. It is always going to be with me, ‘til death do us part.’ I am starting to come to terms with the fact that I’m always going to be a little messed up, that’s just me. I, for lack of a better word, fantasise about self-harming as soon as I see an opportunity arise. I was given a list of alternate actions you may take instead of the bumpy road of self-harm such as – snap my wrist with a rubber band, squeeze and ice cube in the palm of your hand or where on your body you want the pain (this apparently gives the same sensation as burning), etc. If you want to see blood some of the options are – draw on yourself with a red marker, use a piece of ice to draw where you want to cut (got to be premade as red ice) etc.  There is a more descriptive and longer list but hopefully you get the gist of it. My mindset has not altered too much when thinking of me making a decent recovery. I am putting a lot of effort into this, as a lot of others are, I both improve and get somewhat through this or I’m dead. I am not doing this again and that’s it.

Monday 2 May 2011

Twenty Nine

           Last night I went to sleep feeling pretty average. This morning I woke up feeling very average. Funny how it proceeds into the next day, as in it can’t be slept off, damn, wouldn’t that be nice. So today, yes it was a bit of a struggle, but I do know that there will be ups and downs and the important thing will be how I respond to these times.

        Out and free another day on leave. To me these days are becoming like a type of test trial for me to distinguish whether or not I will be able to cope in the big, wide world. Most days I think ‘yes, I will be able to manage myself with a plan and a good support network.’ Even though I have some very troubling thoughts, especially when feeling like I do today, as I become more confident I will be able to take these suckers on. I am safe enough in here but the problem is that I don’t have anyone to have a good, long, decent conversation with. The ones I have become close to have improved, somewhat, and left. They are doing remarkably. I miss them. I get lonely fairly easily so you can understand my dilemma. I feel sorry to my friends and family because when I do get out or get them on the phone I am usually that excited, when I feel more up, to have a familiar human contact I’m just like ‘blah blahblah blah blah.....’ It’s as though I haven’t had a decent conversation in years not days or hours. I do hope to be discharged in the near future and make my way back in to society where I hope I will somehow fit and feel worthy of the space I will occupy. Worth... that is something I am worried I may never feel. Also getting out from my new found “safe place” there will be another cloud hanging over me also, this one is called failure. I don’t want to fail anymore in fact on days that aren’t crap like today I actually want to win. I want to say ‘BRING IT ON SUCKERS, LET’S DO THIS THING!’ I just have to get through the fog up ahead of ‘if’s’, ‘buts’, what’s’, and ‘how’s. I still do not know the magic answers, nor can I crack the code, but on the days when I’m feeling not to bad I have a bit of fight back in me and that is more than I have had in a long time.

Sunday 1 May 2011

Twenty Eight

           Today I woke up, obviously, and actually didn’t think ‘damn it!’ as a first response. Huge news hey! As scared as I am of all this, my thoughts are that this might be what recovery actually feels like. “Hold on tight crew we’re about to enter some mysterious, unchartered waters!” As I said yesterday, self-harm is a tricky little devil. Even just unpacking the dishwasher today was a little bit of a tempting challenge because of all the fun toys, or rather, different shapes and sizes of knives that were there. Hmm, so there it is. I am still twisted in the head but I will work on it. I don’t think that will ever really completely go away but I guess it would be nice one day to actually find a lovely lady who can just love me for me... I suppose I have to get to the stage where I feel I deserve that kind of happiness first. And of course, sort myself out so I won’t ruin it. I will keep this one short and sour only because I’m knackered and it’s my first day of my girlies so point taken hey, thanks.