Category: shame

What do I actually think is going to happen?

[suicide]

If I try to kill myself then I will probably fail. It’s the main thing that is stopping me trying. I hate failing but I really, really hate other people seeing me fail. Even in the best case scenario of people being empathetic and compassionate, that hurts like a motherfucker. Their kindness hurts. Of course, their indifference or cruelty hurt too. Everything hurts.

If I see the man from the hospital then other people’s reactions and judgements will hurt. If I don’t see him then I will hurt because I miss him.

If I take off and go on a trip then I will be anxious and overwhelmed. I will not know what I’m doing and I will be alone. It is risky as I might lose control and not know what to do. I might get into serious trouble and humiliate myself. It might cost a lot of money. While I want to run and get away, I don’t actually want to be sitting in an unknown room in an unknown country. I don’t want to stay but I don’t want to be elsewhere either. There’s a good chance that I would go on my trip and then just come home early feeling even worse.

There are no good options.

I have forgotten how to decide things. I can still sometimes feel like I want something, like I want to hug the man from the hospital, but my automatic reaction is distrust. If I want something then it must be wrong. If I want something then that means I shouldn’t have it. I am so tired and confused and lost.

I wish I had someone to talk to. I email the Samaritans sometimes but they don’t talk, they listen and reflect back. Which is lovely. But not enough for me. I suppose I could get a private psychologist. But I’d have deal with the anxiety of a new clinician and learn to trust them which I find painful. The hospital consultant talked to me about trust and made me realise that I don’t trust anyone. I don’t know how to trust people anymore than I know how to decide things. Doesn’t work. Had enough.

Keep hearing in my head, “I want to go home” but I am home. Think it means that I want to feel safe. But there’s no such thing as safe. Fuck, I was really pretty agitated last night and it’s still here this morning. My thoughts are screaming. I can feel the pressure in the back of my throat, my neck shoulders, chest. The monster is awake and writhing under my skin. In the old days, I’d cut. In the old days. I’d drink and take drugs. In the old days, I’d sleep the day away. In the old days, I’d run. Now I just sit. Sit with my utter helplessness. It’ll pass or it’ll not pass. Each second that passes is another second that I never have to do again. It doesn’t matter how much I fuck up and doesn’t matter what anyone else does to me, those seconds are gone and keep going. I am always, always moving closer to the end. I will be free. The seconds keep passing.

Back to the future, again

[eating disorder, suicide including method]

My eating is out of control again. Sometimes I get wee thoughts like “at least I’m not eating until I nearly throw up”, “at least I’m not eating until I am worried about gastric rupture”, etc, as if it’s not that bad really. I am not logging my binges because I am not logging anything. I was always shocked when I logged them at how large they really were. I think “oh that wasn’t so bad” but I bet it was.

Now it’s 2-3 times a day which is back to its worst. I feel totally helpless in front of them. I say “no more” then the next thing I know I am binging. I feel like it is already decided and my attempts at stopping are just laughable.

I am piling on the weight. It’s everywhere. My abdomen, my breasts, my arms, my legs. I feel grotesque and huge. I feel like a monster. Wearing clothes two sizes bigger. Bits of me disproportionately distended and massive. Feel like discontinuous parts. Not human, anyway. I realise this will make me sound crazy but honestly, my body is shaped so wrongly now that it does not look human anymore. I think this is another one of those things that only makes sense on the inside of my head.

All this nonsense about a body a bit bigger. It’s not a few extra inches round various circumferences. It’s what it means. It’s means more and more people are starting to treat me like a fat person again which is not intrinsically or fundamentally a bad thing in itself. But here and now, where I live and who I know, it is unsafe. It’s men thinking I must be ‘easy’ or ‘desperate’ and not accepting no. It’s having “fat cunt” shouted out of cars. It’s fucking doctors. It’s people looking down on me.

Things are nowhere near as bad as they were when I was ‘morbidly obese’ but it’s starting. And I can’t bear it. Which makes me feel desperate which makes me binge. Round and round. (There’s a joke in there about me getting rounder. Can’t work up the energy.)

What do I actually want? If I disregarded everyone else’s opinions, what I want is to go back in time to the hotel and put the bag and elastic over my head with the noose and sink down and let it tighten. Actually do it. I want none of this to have happened. No traumatic hospital stay, not meeting the man on the ward, not thoughts getting even more batshit, not eating out of control again. Not all this relentless, overwhelming pain.

I have absolutely had enough.

Running away

I want to run away. I have this strong feeling that I have to get away. Run fucking run. I want to be free. There is no freedom here as my life is dominated by my ‘mental illness’. But I could sit on a beach or in a park in another country and know I was miles from anyone I could possibly know. That would help. I think that is all the freedom I am going to get.

It’s odd, wanting something. Usually I don’t and just drift. I have been drifting for years and years. Sometimes I think “there is no point wanting anything because I’d never get it” and my feelings are choked off at the start. But I think mostly it just doesn’t occur to my brain to want things. I blame the antipsychotics. I used to be very driven and ambitious when I was a young woman.

I think what my problem is that I feel so incredibly, overwhelmingly ashamed. I am ashamed of my life and how badly I manage my ‘mental illness’. I am ashamed of how ridiculous my recent ‘episode’ has been. Honestly, I think anyone would be embarrassed. I don’t understand what is going on. Why am I acting like such a fucking tool? Why can’t I get a grip? When I play over in my mind all the people that have been so kind to me then I get this tsunami of bad (so goddamn articulate) that I can feel physically and can only get to subside by saying “yes, we’re running. How about Friday?”. It’s like a panic. All I hear in my head is I can’t stay here. Seriously, I cannot stay here. The wave has broken over me and I have to get away. There is no air left; I can’t breathe. Run fucking run.

I talk a little to my friends and now I feel even more stupid and like a burden. I talk a little to the crisis team and now I am even more convinced that they think I am an attention-seeking waste of space. Run FUCKING RUN. Even as I try to talk, I feel the tsunami of bad about to overwhelm me. I had to back off in my appointment yesterday as I could feel myself losing control entirely. Holy crap, that is a frightening feeling. Long way of saying: there is an plenty of help here but I can no more access it than zip up a size 8 dress.

I think I am premenstrual too. I get particularly batshit then. My period started after two days of being in hospital last time.

I just had this thought that I am not doing too well right now. Pause, empty brain. I want my Mum. She used to talk to me and I remember I would feel pissed off but things would feel clearer and safer. Like “yeah, this is crap but it’ll be okay”. Why did she have to die? Why did she have to leave me so alone? This is why I want the man from the hospital. I don’t feel alone at all when I am with him. I feel safe and home when he wraps his arms round me. Something is happy and complete. It’s been so long since I felt that. But the more I get to know him the more I find out that he has been dangerous to women in the past. So I have more shame that I have allowed myself to be played and what will everyone think. Run fucking run. More evidence that I am a fucking tube and deeply, thoroughly pathetic. Everyone knows. I can’t even do the basics of adulthood like keep myself safe. So useless.

I can’t do this anymore. This maelstrom. I broke a long time ago but even broken parts swirling in the madness have limits. I am running. Fucking running.

I hate fixed head showers

Yeah, I’m in the bin.

I feel like such a fucking fool. Such an incredible fucking fool. I used up an ambulance. I was in A&E taking up a bed. I am using up a psychiatric bed. I can’t seem to stop crying. I am so ashamed. I can’t face anyone. Oh god, I can’t believe I am in hospital. I absolutely cannot face anyone. How the fucking fuck did I let this happen? I had so many choices. So many chances to choose differently. It is all my fault. I don’t deserve all the care that I’m getting. It hurts so much that people are being nice to me.

And I’ve lost my escape route. It’s all gone.

I have mixed feelings about being in the bin. One fight over, another one starts. It is such an odd feeling knowing I can’t kill myself (well… if… says the little voice, it is immortal). I am so relieved that the dogfight in my brain is dead because one side has lost everything (at least for now). I am trapped and I am free and I am trapped and…

It was sunny today and I sat on the grass in the garden. I wanted to touch it so I did. It was beautiful. I had said goodbye to all this but it’s still here.

My hand touching the grass.

I’m frozen

[suicide]

I am in a hotel. It is the middle of the night. I arrived yesterday evening. I have put black bin bags and towels down. I have set up three of my methods (the fourth won’t work as something has gone wrong). I have cleaned and organised my house, as best I can though I couldn’t get everything done. I threw out everything (url NSFW) I don’t want my family to see. I don’t have a Will but I printed out my wishes for my affairs, a list of household accounts with contact details and a list of people to contact. I organised all my paperwork and identification and put it together. I deliberately didn’t write a suicide note. I walked round and said goodbye to my favourite park and some other places. It was beautiful in the sunshine. I had my favourite dinner. Everything is ready and I thought I was too.

I started one method and stood there waiting to take the final, tiny step. My head was empty. I just didn’t. I just stood, Something took my hands and we moved away. (That reads as utter nonsense but I am not talking about details of methods because I know for a fucking fact that that will stay in the minds of my fellow mad people and might rear up when they are next ill. So nonsense it is.) I didn’t feel that disheartened as I have my backup plans. I emailed the Samaritans. I have been emailing them for weeks. They have been so good. Then I lay on the bed and put on the Headspace meditation about how you are not your thoughts and or your feelings, you are the blue sky (sorry sorry will explain another time) and I felt sleepy afterwards. I was surrounded by all these tiny steps to death, I had made it as easy as I could for myself to just get over the line this time and… I had a nap. Yes, I am laughing, a bit hysterically.

I woke up an hour ago. What have I done for an hour? Other than cried. The Samaritans emailed back, a warm, compassionate email that hurt so much, why does people being nice to me always hurt so much, and they have offered to phone me and said it’s okay if I just cry and can’t talk because at least I won’t be alone. Crying again. I want my Mum back. Maybe I can try again. My thoughts are breaking down. You’ll never get peace till you’re dead. Look what you have done, over and over. All you are doing is causing pain. Everyone you touch, you hurt then. You are bad. You’ll never be free till you’re dead. All that is left for you is shame, guilt and pain because that is all you deserve.

I have been a psychiatric patient for twenty-five years, off and on, and I know what to do right now. I take diazepam. I put on my clothes and pick up my handbag and abandon all this stuff and walk out the room. I phone the number and cry down the phone. Fuck crying on the street. I am a manic depressive: I am a goddamn veteran of crying on the street and having everyone not-look. I could do that.

I could phone the Samaritans. I could phone one of my friends (no). I could take diazepam and sleep some more. Wake up and try again.

It’s a good thing you’re used to incoherence on this blog.

Another list

After the list I posted earlier today, and because I like to torture myself, here is a list of things I could do to rebuild my life and try again:

  • Get a dog or some other pet for company and love
  • Do a second day at the charity project I go to for more structure and company
  • Alternatively, or in addition to the above, volunteer to do something useful and try and build some self-esteem
  • Get a private psychologist and really talk and open up (I am very lucky that my obsessive need to control my spending, after getting into the worst kind of trouble in my twenties, has had the beneficial effect of allowing me to build up some savings. I am the only person I know of that has been this lucky.)
  • Start running again and be brave and try new routes but cancel the gym and admit I never enjoyed it
  • Do the Open University Access course I have been eyeing up for… uh… years to give me a little hope that I could possibly have a future
  • Get a tattoo and do the other recommended things to start reclaiming my body and stop despising it

Comparing this list with my earlier list: there are major areas not covered. I don’t think those things can be solved or ameliorated. Which is why I am eating nutella and butter sandwiches and booking a hotel.

A nutella and butter sandwich.

Lists

[suicide]

I have so many bastard lists on the go at the moment as I try to get organised. My memory is hopeless just now so I am using lists for even the most basic things. Here’s a list from ten days ago that I am referring to frequently, for comfort, reassurance and to torture myself (impressive résumé for a list):

  • I feel guilty for the terrible things I have done which I can never fix or undo
  • I hate and despise myself; I am a terrible person
  • I have never achieved anything and I am intensely ashamed of that
  • I am a burden and I drag down my family and friends; I know for a fact that they will be better off when I am dead
  • I will never have someone to hug and hug me
  • I will never have someone to love and love me
  • I will never have someone to cuddle in bed with
  • I have feelings of intense loneliness which are very painful
  • I will never have someone I feel safe enough to have sex with
  • I am putting all the weight back on and everyone is laughing and looking down at me
  • I am ashamed that I can’t manage my eating
  • I hate my body and want to rip it apart and set it on fire
  • I am ashamed and horrified that I didn’t apply for the ordinary degree that I had credits for and so ruined even that faint hope for a future
  • It really hurts and I feel intensely ashamed every time I see someone talking about managing to be a doctor or medical student with a mental illness
  • I am a waste of the Earth’s resources; one less human is better for climate change
  • I am a waste of NHS resources
  • I am a waste of taxpayers’ resources
  • I am ashamed that I can’t manage my mental illness
  • I am ashamed that I so desperately want people to like me
  • I want to be free (though I don’t deserve that)
  • I want to be at peace (though I don’t deserve that)
  • I want to be finished and gone and in the past so that the harm I did can heal

It was hard to write but I felt better for it as my head felt clearer and emptied out. It is like cutting into raw, burnt skin when I expose this intense, overwhelming shame. If it wasn’t for the fact that I will be dead in a few days I wouldn’t be able to. I don’t know why I am publishing this. It eases something and makes these last days less painful, I think. I have no right to ask or hope for that of course. Also, it’s a kind of proof to myself. I would never, never, never talk about these things if I thought anyone I knew could even remotely possibly find out. There is always a possibility that you can be outed from an anonymous blog. But it doesn’t matter if you’re dead.

Photo of starling murmuration from the BBC. It has nothing to do with this post; it’s just beautiful.

The post came early

[suicide, no mention of methods because I am not that fucking irresponsible]

If you have been unfortunate enough to have read the recent nonsense on this blog then you’ll know that I am planning to end my life. Sorry, that was a bit abrupt. Should have paid more attention to those Breaking Bad News workshops. Actually, they did come in handy when telling all my Mum’s friends that she had died. I didn’t cry once. I don’t know if I should be proud or ashamed. Anyway. My thoughts are bad these days and it’s hard to create a chain of thought. My thoughts are like trying to grip water in my hands: I can see they’re there but I can’t hold them.

Blah, blah, blah, tl:dr; had enough.

I set another date as last weekend fell through (yes, that phrase is doing a lot of heavy lifting) and have started lining the practicalities up, eg finishing food, distancing myself from people, “tidying up loose ends” as the nurses put it. I adapted my plan (have a series of plans to try to account for my inevitable fuck ups) and was waiting for something to come through the post which was due the middle of next week. It arrived today. I’ve had a lot of psychotherapy in my life so I now quite often find myself observing myself as my life happens to me. (Psychotherapy never has any disadvantages or harmful effects.) I watched myself go from “oh fuck, I don’t know what I think about this” to the sudden delighted excitement of “I could be free today!” to despairing “I bet I fuck this up again”. It was lovely and awful and overwhelming. Is it odd to say I felt some hope fluttering about in my head?

Hope Butterfly by The Kismet Kollection. (Hope, butterfly, watercolour; I’m borderline trolling you, aren’t I?)

I calmed down and opened up my post. Only half the order with the rest due the middle of next week as originally planned. I definitely felt some relief. I feel bad for admitting that. Does it mean I’m not committed to my plan? Am I going to fuck up again? Am I going to pull out? I don’t think so. I feel quite steady and settled in my decision to die. It will most likely be horrible but there’s nothing I can do about that; will just have to thole it. It will pass. If I don’t kill myself now then I will have years of this pain to get through. My friends and family will have years of pain of having to deal with me. I think it is natural to have a little bit of trepidation or regret about big decisions (I think I learnt that in psychotherapy) but you have to be resolute too. I’ve been certain that I was going to succeed only to fail in the past. I just have to keep trying.

Cower brief mortal

[suicide]

I’ve never been brave. Never really stood up against authority. Never really fought for anything. Never really created anything. My funeral is going to be really boring and probably embarrassing for my family.

A skeletal figure, wearing dark purple robes, with a scabbard at his waist and holding a scythe. At his feet a skeletal rat, also hooded in a purple robe. From Wikipedia.

There is too much pain in my head taking up all the room for me to change. I am in too much pain to ask for help. Two friends today have sent me messages with soft invitations to talk. I can’t. I can’t bear to. I am too unbearably and overwhelming lonely to be able to manage being around people. I have turned down two invitations for today despite not seeing or speaking to anyone for days. I can’t cope with it. My thoughts and feelings will tear me apart. I can’t have anyone see that.

I can’t undo the terrible things I’ve done and I can’t make them better. I can’t even say sorry, not that that would make it better. The only way for those things to heal is for me not to exist in the world anymore. I need to be in the past and forgotten.

I can see that I need to do something or I will die. The hotel is booked for tomorrow. I can’t die today as it is my friend’s birthday. I have a multi-layered plan with backup options if there are fuck ups. I have learnt from my past experiences and other people’s. I think it will work. I will keep trying until it does. I have a list printed out of all my financial and household accounts with phone numbers and websites and a list of people for my family to contact. My house is not completely organised but what’s left won’t take long. I could be free. I could be at peace. Finished and gone.

There’s still a little part shouting that there’s a chance left to rebuild my life and this time maybe make a life where I feel happy sometimes. I remember the last time I felt happy: it was about four or five months ago and I was playing with my sister’s children. We were dancing round the kitchen laughing and shouting and I felt this creaking, old thing open up in my chest and head and suddenly realised I felt happy. Pretty much as soon as I named it, it disappeared. Then it fluttered back to life about ten minutes later for a few seconds. I recognised it as happiness but maybe it was joy. I don’t know the difference. I remember nearly crying and feeling embarrassed. I also remember thinking that I couldn’t remember the last time I felt that. Very long way to say that I don’t know how to feel happy. I don’t know how to create a life with happiness in it. I don’t even know where to start.

When I consider my life and weigh up the times I’ve felt happy and the very little good I’ve done against all the pain I’ve felt and terrible things I’ve done there is no contest. The average manic depressive lives to their early sixties which means I’ve probably got another twenty years of this. No. I won’t do it. (And you can’t make me.) I have had enough. I have to die.