Chalk it up as a Win.

Today I visited my GP for a review of my General Practice Mental Health Treatment Plan. This is not new to me, having been formally reviewed under this process on a 6 monthly average for the past 6 years. The questions are always the same and in the exact same order; the only thing that changes are my responses. On account of having a very stable but also good few months, I was happy when I was able to answer each question in a very different light to any pervious occasion.
I know how I feel, whereas others don't know unless I tell them. My GP has often been on the receiving end of many of my low moments and bordering on grim correspondence from both psychologist and psychiatrist.
Today, as most days over the past few months, I felt good. Today's answers reflected that. At the end of the exam my GP pushed her chair back from the desk and took a deep breath. She said in a quiet voice, "I think we just need to take a minute to appreciate this moment".
I smiled, quietly proud as she turned to me with a very faint glint of tears in her eyes and said, "We finally did it".
Yes we did. It only took 6 years. I just hope it will last.

Sunday Secrets 08/06/2014

As much as I hate this, it's not what I hate most.

Polar Opposite

I don't believe that I have ever experienced mania in the true sense of the word. All that I can describe is how it has seemingly presented to me. Aside from the soul crushing/chest explosion/gut wrenching anxiety, it really is quite wonderful. And as far as I'm concerned, Diazepam was invented for a reason.
Whilst being in this hyperactive and buzzy mindset, I managed to achieve more than I would have expected of myself in a month, in just 3 days. No task seemed too big or intimidating, I would take on as many projects that presented themselves, often never completing the previous simply because the desire had faded and my memory let the entire event disappear from existence in my mind.
I constantly felt as though I was on the verge of having 5 brilliant ideas all at the same time. Many never came to fruition, but the excitable energy of inspiration was enough to keep me charged. Some of my brilliant ideas where not actually brilliant at all, but no-one could have possibly convinced me otherwise in that moment - I Facetimed my mum at 11pm to show her how amazing my new shower caddy was. I couldn't understand when she wasn't as excited as me?
Sleep was a burden, in that I couldn't. I tried to maintain good 'sleep hygiene' but would often lay in bed wide awake with a hive of thoughts buzzing in my head. I would have an overwhelming desire to clean the bathroom ceiling at 2am, with the only thing stopping me being the idea of playing right into being crazy. Eating a full meal only slowed me down. I explained to my best friend Yass one day that I didn't need to eat, because I was feeding on pure awesomeness. I honestly believed it at the time.
I rediscovered my love for musical theatre and played Broadway soundtracks back-to-back. I would sing the carefully rehearsed lines at the top of my lungs, anywhere and everywhere - in the car, shower, whilst putting on makeup. I performed the entire Wicked score to my cat wearing only my underwear. 'I'm defying gravity, and you can't pull me down'.
Oh, but didn't they try? It seemed every health professional that I saw was worried about a problem that I couldn't see as existing. In my mind, I have been deeply and darkly depressed for so long, how could a switch in mood such as the one I had experienced be so unwelcome? Sure, some of my social interactions needed some filtering on my behalf, but the person I had become was surely a much better rounded and excitable individual than the melancholy and suicidal version of myself? Apparently I have a 'reputation to maintain', and my safety is imperative. Look, I get it. I just don't understand how safety is more of an issue when I am more elated compared to when I'm legitimately suicidal to start with?
There seems to be a fine line, and wherever it is, I have again crossed it. Getting out of bed requires copious amounts of energy, I find myself listening to any playing music with no desire to sing along despite knowing the words back-to-front. I am in tears all day, sometimes because a house is going to auction on the news and sometimes for no reason at all. I have an eerie awareness of all the weaknesses and voids in my life and a returning little voice in my head that is convincing me that those things will never change. For the first time, I am aware of all the hanging points in my house. What does that mean? It means just that - I am aware.
Charlotte Dawson died a week ago today. In the words of Alex Perry she was 'a beautiful, bright shining girl' who also suffered terrible depression. She took her own life last week, and aside from the devastation of a beautiful life lost, there is the confronting fact that if 'big, tough Charlotte' can lose her battle, then what hope do the rest of us have? RIP darling.

I have nothing else.

I chastised a co-worker for spoiling us with such lavish morning teas only to get the response,
"You are all that I have. I have nothing else."
I instantly felt a sorry for her, until I really started to think about myself. If I stopped going to work everyday, what would I have?
"I have nothing else."

The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.

Bubble Girl

I feel invisible. Invisible to everyone but myself. People keep on talking, walking; whatever it is that they were doing when I arrived. My calls ring out, and my phone lays silent. My house is stagnant with the memories of last week when I made the mess that I must sit amongst.
Yet it is now that I am more aware of myself than ever before. Perhaps because there are no distractions or moments of peace that I can escape from this sinking feeling in. I feel as though I am living in a bubble. I struggle to push it through life whilst trying to co-ordinate my feet in time with its rotations. All the while the passers by side-step this cumbersome object slowing them down, and don't bother to acknowledge the dying soul inside. That's not just how I feel; that's just what I am.

What's Going On...

This YouTube video appeared in my Facebook News Feed this evening. Although I'm not feeling strong within myself right now, I wanted nothing more than to throw my arms around him and take away his pain and sadness, even if it meant sacrificing myself.

A Million Little Hates

Despite my exhaustion in every way possible, I was unable to sleep last night. I picked up A Million Little Pieces, the book I am reading (when able) by James Frey and felt these words jump out at me:

I don't want to be alone. I have never wanted to be alone. I fucking hate it. I hate that I have no one to talk to, I hate that I have no one to call, I hate that I have no one to hold my hand, hug me, tell me everything is going to be all right. I hate that I have no one to share my hopes and my dreams with, I hate that I longer have any hopes or dreams, I hate that I have no one to tell me to hold on, that I can find them again. I hate that when I scream, and I scream bloody murder, that I am screaming into emptiness. I hate that there is no one to hear my scream and that there is no one to help me learn to stop screaming... I hate that what I have turned to in my loneliness is killing me, has already killed me, or will kill me soon. I hate that I will die alone. I will die alone in my horror.

I have so much noise in my head, churning away trying to break out, yet I have no idea what or how to say it. One would think that as time goes by, practice would have made prefect in 'acknowledging these thoughts and feelings, labelling them and pushing them aside' and getting on with whatever it is that I am supposed to be doing. Today proved that is not the case.
I knew that I was off my game. I knew that everyone else had noticed. I knew that my mood was corrosive to those surrounding me but I felt that I was no longer in control of my state of mind. When asked at morning tea how my morning was going, I replied honestly "I will implode by the end of the day."
Silence followed. Maybe it's because people aren't used to my honesty. Maybe they weren't really listening, or worse still; maybe they didn't care.
I struggled on. There was one point where I buried my head on the front desk and used all of my will power to not crawl beneath it and cower like my spirit was doing on the inside. People gave me a wide berth and I eventually gave up trying to tie the loose ends I had left for the next shift and just walked out.
I made it to the car before I started to cry. Apart from being so confused as to why I felt like I did; what had caused it, what it meant and what it could eventually contribute to, but I also had a feeling of overwhelming isolation. I felt at that moment that I had travelled down a long, windy, treacherous road and had finally made it to the end only to read 'No Through Road'. It was dark, I had run out of petrol and had no mobile coverage.
No one could possibly understand the feeling, nor could they change it even if they did. No amount of listening or hand holding or kind words could evaporate the helplessness or pull me back from the brink of suicide, but at least with the warmth of another's shadow the chilling isolation is lessened.
I don't expect anyone else to fix me. I don't expect anyone else to even get me. All I ask, is that someone acknowledge me.

I am trying desperately to stay afloat in what has become an ocean of hopelessness. In doing so I am becoming increasingly sure that my only life buoy in sight is one made of lead; designed to pull me under quicker than my energy takes to fade. I can see it in my future, and am now swimming towards it with my eyes on the prize; calm and feeling ironically, in control.

Soul Secrets

This may very well be my favourite Postsecret video by far. There were so many secrets that made my heart scream "MINE!" You can watch it here.

Under My Bed.

When I was little I spent a lot, perhaps a little too much time under my bed. I felt safe under there, as if it was as far away from reality as I could get and a place where no one could ever find me and drag me out again. I'm sure my parents knew where I was but they never pulled me out, but waited for me to appear on my own accord. It was a good place to hide, and only this evening I reminded myself of this.
Trying to win a now lost case, I burst into tears as soon as I was out of the line of sight of others and shut myself in my room preparing for the flood of tears that followed. I had forgotten what crying felt like; how the frames of my glasses filled with a mixture of tears and mascara, make-up dripped off my face like milk from dirty cereal bowls and my lungs forgot how to breathe leaving me gasping for breath.
Finally, it all subsided and I was left with burning eyes, a dripping nose and the taste of salty water in the back of my throat. I turned off the lights leaving only the fairy lights of my Eiffel Tower aglow and sprawled across the carpet in near darkness. After another series of tears and deciding the carpet smelt like the vacuum cleaner, I instinctively crawled into the space under my bed. There wasn't as much room as I remembered and the company of dolls houses had been replaced with a well-travelled suitcase, but it felt exactly how it used to; safe. I felt that if the world came crashing down or if the noise in my head got all too much, I had found my refuge. I will make a note of that.

I am possessed by a thought. Perhaps not even a thought; rather an awareness. It started as a spark as the light bulb inside my head flicked on one unidentifiable dark day. It couldn't be extinguished. The darker the days grew, the stronger it glowed so that now it has over powered anything else I have ever experienced and sits within my core, reminding me of its existence with every beat of my heart.
At first it terrified me, but with time was downgraded to a bother. I'm not sure when or where, but at some point I accepted and found peace with this new found awareness. I'm not happy about it, and never will be because it's a demon I would be better off without, but at least by accepting it it's one less thing to fight against.

Happy Birthday to Me

A Birthday Present

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?

Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!

It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.

Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed -- I do not mind if it is small.

Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,

The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.

I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.

But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.

Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million

Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine --

Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,

Must you kill what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.

It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center

Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.

Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death

I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.

There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter

Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.

It has come to my attention that I have a tendency to surround myself with people who aren't emotionally available. Is this a subconscious choice I have made when deciding who I like and don't like? I reject the idea that it is my choice. Everything that I think and feel becomes so amplified in my own head so that I often find it impossible to escape. I crave being able to sit alongside someone and be distracted with things from their mind and the world around us and feel able to say I'm sad, I'm scared or simply I need to be held; to remind myself that this isolated place that I live in really is a part of something bigger and that as hard as it is for me to see sometimes, I still mean enough to someone for them to sit beside me in the first place. Now I just need to find that person.

J'adore Coco

Is it enough that I must live to see these shoes in my wardrobe?

General Anaesthetic

After months of toiling over the perfect ending, I seemingly stumbled upon it in a small operating theatre with a cast of only 3. The gas smelt like illegal chemicals and I could feel my brain cells being shut down one by one. A few breaths later my memory died.
It would have been perfect if it could have been left at just that, but of course something pulled me back. The return of my memory taunted me with what a beautiful ending it could have been, if those people with the drugs and the gas would have just let me be.

IPS

For some completely unknown reason my boss decided today that I was just the right person to special a scheduled patient after an attempted suicide who remains in an almost catatonic form of depression. Seriously?
When she started to cry I asked the stupidest question, and as soon as I said it I wished I hadn't.
"What's wrong?"
What's wrong? What the fuck? What do you think is wrong? She is so unhappy that there's no way out? She's fought for too long and finally wanted to be beaten? We're preventing her from finding peace. And I asked what was wrong? Anyone would think I was too naive to understand. Oh I understand, I just want to pretend that I don't because maybe if I tell myself that for long enough I might start believing it.
She broke my heart. She asked me, rather, pleaded, for me to help her. She wanted me to end it. "Give me a big needle that will make it all go away."
I told her I couldn't. That I wouldn't.
"I want to die, and I even failed at that."

That is my fear.
After all the hell you go through, in your head, your heart and your soul, when you finally pluck the courage from a place inside you that you never thought you'd find, and you do the thing that is to be your final action... and fail.
It's not something you can practice. It's not even something that you can study up on or gather others opinions over a mid-week lunch. It's something you work through in the silent darkened hours of the morning when you're trying to fall asleep as bakers and garbage trucks begin their day. You grind over each possibility until it's smooth and flawless and almost praise yourself for being so ingenious. There is just one thing missing. The courage to jump.

And so she tells me again, with tears in her eyes and quivers in her voice, that she just wants to go. I couldn't say what I was thinking. What else was I to do? Under the eyes of a student nurse, a physio and an unknown doctor, I lied through my teeth and told her that it could only get better. She called me wise for someone so young. I called myself a liar because I didn't believe it and don't feel that I ever could. When people say that to me I get angry. Fury bubbles up inside me because how can anyone know? I have heard it too many times only to prove them wrong. Now I've become one of them.
Deep down I know the system will heal her; heal her to a satisfactory level to get the stamp on that bit of paper. I can almost see her future though. She will slip through the cracks in that same system by setting herself free and becoming just another medical record to file under 'deceased'. I know she won't be at peace with herself until she finally wins.

What makes someone worthwhile? What qualities form the basis of not necessarily likability, but a level of tolerance?
One would assume that sharing a gene pool would help, but it appears not. If I were to model myself into the smallest form of acceptability where would I start? Shorten my hem, lighten my hair and lower my standards?
Perhaps my level of acceptability is higher than others? Maybe that's why I feel so isolated. Why I find it hard to really fit in. Why boys don't ask me out and why there's always an extra inch of space between my friends and I that I can't work out how to fill?
My mother always said that if you have no expectations, then you won't get disappointed. Then why do I feel so disappointed not having the things that I don't even know that I want yet?
Maybe the feeling isn't really disappointment. Maybe it's worthlessness or anger or guilt or anxiety? But for now, it just feels sad.

Should I find it odd that I experience things that no one else talks about? How I can see things change colours or can watch something move when really it is sitting still? I smell things that no one else admits to, and see people that weren't really there in the first place. I feel things touch me; the weight and texture and sensations one would expect, but actually, there's nothing there. The only people who claim to have experienced these things are labelled. Some as Schizophrenic and others just plain insane. I wonder how long these things have been happening? Perhaps for years and I haven't noticed until now, when I'm feeling particularly vulnerable and looking for people and things to blame.