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 12^th 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 12^th 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.