Open Letter to ‘X’.

*Rant – very bad language*

 

 

To X,

 

I’m sorry for caring. I’m sorry for giving a damn. I’m sorry for worrying what the hell happens to you. I’m sorry for speaking my truth. I’m sorry I’ve yet again done the wrong thing. Now I have to pick up the pieces on my own.

 

You’ve taught me it’s wrong to care. So you know what, I don’t now. I don’t give a fuck what happens to you. I don’t want to speak to you ever again. I was going to talk to someone about all this, but now I’m not. Now there’s nothing to talk about. I fucking hate you right now.

 

You just don’t get it do you…. you’re akin to my ‘FP’…. how you interact with me has such an impact on my mental health and recovery. That last message minimised what I’m experiencing. It also told me it was wrong to say anything to you at all. So I never will again. I won’t even acknowledge you. For all you know I’ll be dead. I fucking well want to be right now.

 

At every turn you make me feel like shit for feeling how I do. I guess maybe you thought this distance from you would cure me of my feelings towards you….. it doesn’t work like that. But right at this minute I don’t feel feelings for you anymore. Not positive ones anyway.

 

Everything is black. There is no hope. There is no point to anything. Any efforts I’ve been making to keep going are fucked. I don’t give a damn about recovery now. I don’t give a damn about the help you’ve devised. I don’t give a damn about you. I’ve gone from caring and worrying so damn much, that I was in tears for how much I missed you and feared for your safety and wellbeing, to now being unable to breathe through my nose, or stop hurting myself, for simply the words ‘….to someone else in the future’. You made me feel shit for being a fucking human. Fine, you don’t want to know how I feel, then fine, you never will again. You’ll never see me or hear from me ever again. I didn’t think I’d fucking survive this anyway. You clearly don’t want me to. It’s clear you’re sick of me, even with all this distance I’m too much. So fine. I’m done. I give up on recovery. I give up on caring. I give up on worrying about you. I give up on everything.

 

I shouldn’t have said what I did. I realised after I said it. But thanks so much for handling it so kindly. This was a hard enough situation before the lockdown, when it just intensified, as this fucking Coronavirus shit is also a hard enough situation itself, and now both are even worse thanks to you. I hate you. You and your lot have no idea how this separation would feel for someone in my position. Mental health ‘experts’ have no fucking clue about this sort of thing. Someone should’ve known what this would do to me. But you’re all just glad I’m out of your hair for a bit aren’t you….. probably hope I die, then I’ll never bother any of you again. This is how you make me feel.

 

I didn’t need you to care about or worry about me too. I was just expressing what I’m struggling with, and wishing you well. But I’m obviously a fucking awful person for doing that. I won’t fucking talk to anyone ever again. Anything I do is always wrong. I’m so sick of being me. Hideous, disgusting, pathetic me.

 

Goodbye X. I’m sorry I was such a nuisance to you. You’re free of me now.

 

‘Kind regards’

 

Lily

Open Letter To Those Meant To Help Me.

*Very bad language, self-harm, suicide*

Open Letter To Those Meant To Help Me…

 

You didn’t did you….. you chose not to. You decided what was best for me. You wanted me to have the right support and you said you can’t offer the in-depth support I need. Never mind the fact I wasn’t asking for in-depth support. I didn’t need it. I was perfectly prepared to help myself. I wouldn’t even have needed as much help and support as I’ve had in the last few weeks, if you had just simply done what I asked for in the first place.

 

But now you’ve made it into such a massive deal, that I sound like a crazy, unhinged person, who needs more support. I don’t. I just need X to say he would agree with what I wrote – even if ‘only in principle’. That’s all this is about. This is about you denying something that would’ve healed so many wounds for me. This is about you destroying my trust in mental health services. This is about you making me feel utterly hopeless about a future for me now. ALL of this could’ve been avoided if you’d just casually done what I requested. Now it’s a huge issue that can’t be resolved. You fucked up.

 

It’s like you’re deliberately trying to frustrate me. And it’s succeeding. I’ve never felt more frustrated. I want to scream. In fact I’ve done so into a pillow in response to this before.

 

I tried a healthy way of trying to get my needs met. I asked. And yet again, here I am on my knees, having pleaded for one simple little gesture to help me to help myself, and I’ve been left there, broken, naked and totally pathetic.

 

I’ve spent my whole life having to beg to have my needs met. Begging for friendship, for care, for love, for apologies, for effort, for kind words… all of it. Things that others are readily given… freely, willingly…. I’ve had to ask, beg and plead for them. And still had it all denied. Sometimes the mere act of asking for these things has ended friendships / relationships, as the person takes it as criticism of them rather than what it was. Even when I ask for what I need I’m not given it. This is my life. Do you know how it feels to see others showered with the things I need, and I’m here being denied those things when I ask for them…. can you imagine that? What that does to a spirit…?

 

I’ve reached that point where I don’t know whether to accept I’m just here for others to use when necessary and to be ignored the rest of the time – a catalyst for change and relationships for other people…. that I’ll always love but never be loved…. and to give up on asking for MY needs to be met….. or whether to give up on life altogether. Because I can’t live life like this.

 

Once upon a time I was young and I would give and give but never receive…. I took it on the chin. It was my nature. They always say to not let this world harden you, or transform you from a nice, giving person into a cold-hearted, selfish one… but eventually it will happen. If you’re repeatedly giving love and care and never seeing it in return. Eventually you have nothing left to give. Everybody needs love, care, respect, remorse, effort, kindness, forgiveness…..if you deprive a human being of these things for long enough, they will run out of it themselves and have no more to give others. That’s where I am now. I’ve run out. I don’t want to be a bitch, but the alternative has run dry. When you spend your life giving, eventually resentment will form in the void left by the denial of all you require, but never get.

 

I’ve had too many experiences of coldness…. had too many people ditch me as though I was nothing…. too many people not care about me… not say a kind word to me…. give up on me rather than making things right or apologising…. I’ve never been loved…. I’ve never been understood. I don’t believe this will ever change. It never has. Seriously if you took the time and understood my past you would see this is the pattern of my life. This is my worth. To everyone I’ve met I am nothing. I’m dispensable… forgettable… irrelevant. Nobody will ever treat me differently. Believe me. And I will never trust anyone or open up to them enough to let them close enough to treat me the same again.

 

I needed you to do this one thing for me, to make me believe people could be different. That there is hope for change. To build my faith in people again. Yes it would’ve been synthetic. It wasn’t a real experience, relationship or human interaction…. but it would’ve fixed something inside me that had given up on humanity. Now that part of me is even more broken. You’ve made me totally give up on not only humanity but myself.

 

You’ve confirmed it’s wrong to ask to have my needs met. And actually the asking for it is even worse than just not having them met. Because to ask for something and have it rejected is even worse than not asking. Usually I’d say ‘If you don’t ask you won’t get’. But for me it’s irrelevant whether I ask or not, I still won’t get.

 

The trouble I have is I made specific points in the email… things I needed to hear / believe… and the refusal to acknowledge them makes a black and white mind like mine think the opposite is true. X may have said that’s not the case, but I can’t believe that now. It’s like if I ask a friend to tell me they care about me or miss me, and they turn round and say they can’t do that, it means it’s not true. It means they don’t care about me or miss me. Otherwise they’d be able to say it. Or at least be able to say something to replace it if not. But if they just say no and that’s it, then to someone with BPD it’s going to come across very loudly that there is a lack of those things, and therefore the opposite is the truth.

 

If I hadn’t asked for those specific points though, I wouldn’t now be believing the opposite is true, as there would’ve been no denial of specific sentiments. So part of me is annoyed with myself for asking. It’s my fault I now feel uncared for, worthless, disgusting, a burden, feared, ashamed, forgettable, like a number, and that it doesn’t matter what I do to myself. If I hadn’t specified what I needed in order to heal, then I wouldn’t be where I am right now. But it’s just cruel to deny human kindness and compassion to someone reaching out for those things. 

 

That’s the reality…. that’s all I was asking for. I didn’t need additional support. That would’ve been it as far as the Wellbeing Centre was concerned. It would’ve allowed me to reach out elsewhere for support if necessary – but it wouldn’t have BEEN necessary. I know my heart. I know my mind. I know it would’ve been enough to start a healing journey for me. You will never understand why. You will never know what a difference such a tiny gesture would’ve made for me. But the denial of it has damaged me far more.

 

To say that X doesn’t have the training to deal with this, is weird. Because all I was asking for was reassurance from him. That doesn’t require training. It’s a basic human concept that everyone is capable of. So I’m being fobbed off. I know it. Apparently there was concern because I’d said that X can even lie if he has to…. I said that because I feel nobody feels those sorts of things towards me, so automatically assumed I was asking too much. But it seems that gave him doubts – that I wouldn’t believe it and it wouldn’t be enough reassurance. So the answer was to give me NO reassurance. Because no reassurance is better than not enough reassurance, right?? It would’ve been better than nothing. It would’ve been enough… as I told you last week. It still would be enough. You’ve messed this up so badly, and it feels it’s being blamed on words I wrote from a place of low self-esteem. So it’s MY fault I’ve been denied what I needed to heal. STORY. OF. MY. LIFE.

 

To hear that you can’t help me…. when all I needed was a nod of the head…? Full stop. Or at the most a phrase that ‘I think those things are true’. You can’t give that? And your reason is stupid…. it’s an insult, to pretend it’s because you want me to have the right help. If you wanted me to have the right help you’d have listened to me, as I’d seriously contemplated what would help me, and you would have given that nod or allowed X to say that statement. It wasn’t a contract. It was a human being in need of healing, and you had it there right in the palm of you hand. Rather than give it to me you chose to crush it and throw it away… throw ME away as though I’m nothing. Fuck you. All I asked for was kindness, compassion and warmth – not buckets of it…. a tiny sliver of it, to make me feel you’re not robots, and I’m not just a number in a factory. But the truth is you ARE robots – your fucking ‘rules’ make all mental health workers robots. And I AM a number. I’m nothing. You’ve confirmed that over and over again. You don’t care about my recovery! You deny me the very thing that could’ve allowed it. You’ve sent me backwards. You’ve ripped every wound open and left me to bleed to death.

 

It’s sad… I watched a programme a few weeks ago, where some mental health worker was talking to a client and saying something like they’ve really enjoyed their company and they’d miss them etc., as they were due to be discharged soon…. and I thought – see, THAT’S  what I need. That’s all I asked for. If they’re allowed to say that to that person, why can’t I hear anything remotely like it myself? Especially if it would’ve saved my life. Human connection. Human kindness and compassion. Apparently when it’s me that’s too much to ask. And given that I’ve been asking too much of absolutely everyone in my life, it fucking hurts to be denied it by those meant to be helping me too.

 

My paranoia is a huge problem for me now. And my anxiety has become so much worse. Palpitations, tics, breathing issues…. all made worse by this problem. No, the solution is not to stop attending… it’s your problem to fix, or you just have to put up with me. I’m not going to make this easier for you and just leave, like you probably want me to. You broke me. You either fix me or put up with my shattered pieces.

 

But the paranoia I’ve felt, like last week when I came in to talk to X, and there was a ‘chaperone’. That screams that I’m not trusted to be alone with X. My motives are being questioned again.

 

I had paranoia about the topic discussed in the group. I voiced that and X seemed upset and offended… like I was accusing him of personal digs at me through the topic. This has eaten away at me ever since – that I upset him. I was only explaining that paranoia has been a big stumbling block for me in trying to understand and read about that topic. But he was so defensive…. maybe I was quite close to the mark…? It talked about this theory that everyone has it in them to help themselves …. and about not taking on what others think of you, as your own beliefs…. I’m sorry that what I’m going through at the moment made me see secret messages that may / may not have been there. But it felt like I was being told why I’m not being given the help I asked for – because you want me to help myself. Fuck you if so. If that’s the case you’ll need to tell me exactly what I need to do to help myself in this situation. Okay maybe I shouldn’t have voiced my paranoia… it never goes well when I do… it seems human nature to get defensive in response to paranoia – I will be writing separately about this at some point – but I said it and that’s that. I just hope for X’s sake that the others in the group didn’t pick up on his reaction and think there’s a story there.

 

Last week was very bad for me. Having a chat with someone afterwards killed me. I kept crying. I was frustrated as he wasn’t listening or understanding. He wasn’t helping me. I started doodling on a bit of paper to stop me from getting upset again and because I was angry. I felt the life drain out of me at one point. I realised this is hopeless… you’re never going to help me or hear me. It’s pointless talking anymore. I had resigned myself to my fate. I wanted to get out of there and self-harm, or worse. I walked into town, right next to the road and kept feeling a pull towards the traffic. I wanted to throw myself in front of a lorry or something. I seriously thought I would. I broke my stint of no self-harm… I’d made it 17 days without anything at all. I was proud. Now it’s all gone. Now I’m reverting back to earlier this year. You lot don’t care what I do to myself. You don’t care about helping me. You don’t meet my needs when I ask healthily. So now I’m back to communicating through pain. Might as well.

 

I’ve lost interest in things again. I’ve gone backwards. I’m trying to keep doing crochet, but I’ve buggered my hands up haven’t I… and yesterday I forced myself outside to walk 6 miles… because I’ve committed myself to doing 25 miles this month. If I hadn’t then I wouldn’t go out. But everything else I’ve given up on. I don’t care about anything anymore.

 

I don’t want adult life. You’ve reduced me to a wounded, vulnerable, broken little girl. That’s who I am now. And as such, I don’t fit in this world where I look like an adult. Well done on making me feel I don’t fit in and never will…. that I can’t live anymore because of your failures. And thank you so much for acknowledging the mistakes you’ve all made and apologising for them. That was sarcasm in case you didn’t get it. Not once have you accepted fault for anything. Just like everyone else in my life / past…. you blame it on me or just dodge accountability. It’s damaging to someone like me. Well done for reflecting my life’s pattern for me. Proof that nothing will change and this is my lot in life. You’ve finally made me give up on life. I’m back to feeling suicidal again. It’s certain to happen at some point. You could’ve stopped it all with a simple nod of the head. I hope you’ll be proud when I’m inevitably dead.

 

I thought I’d turned a corner. But there’s no such thing as corners…. it’s just a circle… the same things repeating over and over and never changing, and it’s making me sick. Now I’m just waiting for Coronavirus to come and get me. As long as it leaves my family and those I care about alone, I don’t care what happens to me anymore. I don’t exactly have a life or a future, so let’s get it over with already.

 

I wish you could’ve helped me. I really do. Unfortunately I’m the one who has to live with the consequences of you not doing so. I have no control over whether you help me or not. I only have the choice to tolerate this life or to opt out of it. Thanks for dragging me down to this point. I have no fight left in me. I’ve tried so hard the last few months. I’m not sure anyone recognises just how hard I’ve worked. How hard I’ve battled through this, alone. I can’t pick myself up this time. I’m not strong enough. I had such high hopes for this place. I thought it would be better. I was wrong. Or maybe I’m just beyond help. Maybe nobody can help me. Maybe I’m the problem. Well I won’t be your problem much longer. I’ll get through this and leave you in peace. I regret opening up. It was all for nothing…

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking Through A Breakdown.

*Self-harm / suicide*

 

Right. I feel about ready to start talking about the last week…. I had a breakdown last Friday. It’s related to things I’ve written about recently. I don’t fancy going back over it all. Let’s just say I gave the Wellbeing Centre something to read, and wasn’t given the opportunity to say necessary things as I did so. I didn’t get to explain that I was not requesting what I had originally asked for from them. Nothing needed saying or doing. Only acknowledgement it had been read if anything. I didn’t get to say I didn’t blame ‘X’ for any of it and I didn’t want him to blame himself. I didn’t get to say I had blocked emails from ‘Z’ because I was so triggered by her response. I didn’t get to say the most important bit … that I needed to feel I was in control of what happened next. I needed to be the one to decide if I continued at the group and the Centre. If that choice was taken from me and made for me, it would render me powerless. And powerlessness, alongside humiliation, is one of my most massive triggers. Always has been. It would also have shown they weren’t listening to me – as the group is not the problem…. my feelings for X are not the problem…. the problem was the handling of the situation and how it made me feel. If I was told the Centre was no longer the place for me it would be the worst thing in the world.

 

So I was not given the chance to explain what I was handing over to X. I had to just throw it in front of him, sit through the group massively triggered, and then leave, knowing that was it…. after I handed the writing over I wasn’t going to talk anymore, so I didn’t get that closure I needed, and didn’t get to explain anything. It left a whole load of uncertainty because I didn’t know what they’d make of it, and without the explanation I needed to quickly give, it was likely there would be misunderstandings on their side. X said he would read it after the groups and he’d email (text) me later. I wandered around town, considering how to end my life that day. I had my first breakdown of last week when I got home. I think I’ve written about this already.

 

I waited all week, dreading a response yet longing for one too. I thought he had forgotten. Or that he was avoiding dealing with me. I had sent a text on the Wednesday saying:

 

“Hi X. If you’ve read what I wrote, then I hope you can understand just how difficult it was for me to ask to have that final conversation at the end. I feared that rejection I got.

I understand you felt you couldn’t and I know you said I could talk to someone else but you guys were the only ones I trusted. I don’t want to talk to anyone else about this anymore. I only needed 5 mins to explain a couple of things associated with what I wrote. After nearly 3 weeks of sheer hell I just needed a minute to feel heard & to relieve the anxiety I felt, all alone for the longest fortnight of my life. It’s all I would’ve needed. Being denied that was like being denied what I asked from Z… it replicated the very thing I needed to tell you about. Z made me feel worthless… like a number… a burden. Yesterday confirmed that for me. And again I’m sorry I took up so much of your time and made you late that one time. I felt awful about it. Now I pay the price for that.

So yes, I’m extra triggered now and have to get through at least another week of feeling even worse than the last 3… knowing there will be no relief because I’m never opening up again. That was to be the last time. Once I handed the writing over that was it… no more talking. So I had no closure. Everything’s a giant mess. And I don’t know the way out of it anymore.

L”

 

I waited for a response. I wasn’t even sure he received that text. I waited and waited, and on Friday at 16:59 I got a reply:

“Hi L, I understand it was difficult for you to ask for a conversation with us at the end of the group. I’m sorry you have felt rejected and not heard. As I said to you on Tuesday, we have been late for the second group on more than one occasion and you are not the reason for that so try not to feel responsible.

After reading your letters we appreciate this situation has triggered a lot of distressing feelings for you and we respect and support your decision not to talk to anyone connected to the Wellbeing Centre, about this anymore. It is sad to hear you feel stuck in your head and are feeling this badly about it all. Although we want to support people’s mental health recovery, we are unable to support your recovery in the way you have requested.

I would urge you to seek support from outside our service. Like you have suggested _______ is one possibility but there is also _____ that covers more general matters as well as bereavement. Another option would be to contact your GP and ask to be referred to the CMHT. I believe they may be better suited to support your recovery needs.

Kind regards ‘X’ ”

 

Can you imagine how that would feel? Not only was I being denied the help I needed (even though I wasn’t still asking for it – and he’d have known that if he’d given me a couple of minutes at the end of the group!!), but that last paragraph sounded very much like being abandoned by the whole service. Like being passed on to someone else as they couldn’t cope with me. The last sentence – ‘I believe they may be better suited to support your recovery needs’….. wouldn’t that make you think you’d been ditched? Especially if you were already in a heightened emotional state like I was.

 

The worst part was that I received that perceived total abandonment at one minute to five on a Friday…. and then his phone would’ve gone off and it would be too late to contact anyone else regarding this. That’s what caused my breakdown. I felt entirely rejected and abandoned, and had no options left. The Centre closed at 5pm. I knew I had to cope over the weekend by myself – entirely by myself, because nobody in my family knows about this – I don’t want them to. So it was kind of like ‘It is sad to hear you feel stuck in your head and are feeling this badly about it all… but here you go, have some more to feel bad about, stuck in your head all weekend on your own!’ … it’s what made me feel I couldn’t survive the weekend. I couldn’t even survive that night.

 

I immediately harmed myself, quite badly. But I wasn’t in my body as I did it. I was watching. I was totally numb. I felt nothing. That was really scary, as I could so easily have continued and I’d have felt nothing. I did something that was actually quite risky and I wouldn’t normally have done, but at that point I didn’t care if I lived or died. That’s the truth. I wanted to die, but what I did wasn’t an active bid to do so. It was more an indifference. But mainly I wasn’t in control of myself anyway. So it just was what it was.

 

It didn’t make me feel any better. I texted X back, knowing his phone would be off, so he’d probably never get the texts anyway, as usually if you text while his phone is off he won’t get it when he turns it on next (which wouldn’t be until Tuesday just gone)… in my mind he probably knew that, so that’s why he left it to the last minute, so I wouldn’t respond. That’s my opinion. I said:

“Guess that’s that then. Should never have said a word. This is worse than ____ ( – the other place I went to). Sounded from what you said that I’m no longer welcome at the group / centre … I’m sorry for all this. I never wanted any of it. L”

And a bit later, added:

“And my recovery need was just to know I mattered and wasn’t an awful person. I guess the opposite is true. Human kindness and compassion was all I needed. I didn’t know that was asking too much. I won’t be asking for help elsewhere. This was it. I can’t go through this ever again. I’m done. Thank you for everything. Sorry it had to end this way. L”

 

At that moment I wanted to die. I thought I was going to. That was my goodbye. I don’t know if he even got those replies in the end. I regretted sending them once I was out of my ‘dissociation phase’… but part of me hopes he did get them, so he knows the pain I was in.

 

I did many things that night that I regret… some I don’t properly remember. One was potentially dangerous. I sat in the chaos and mess for three hours, afraid to move. Too overwhelmed to begin to clear things up. I didn’t know where to start. It took me that long before I got up, washed my face and cleaned / patched myself up.

 

During those three hours I phoned the Samaritans. Self-harm wasn’t helping. I knew diazepam wouldn’t calm me down either. I was trapped. I knew I had to phone them or I’d end my life one way or another. I spoke to a man there, which concerned me at first, given the topic that had triggered the whole thing, but he was really helpful. Talking to him, and talking to someone online who’s been a rock for me lately, helped me to see things in a different light. It brought the emotions down to a more manageable level. I did end up taking the diazepam after that, as my mind was obsessing over things and I was too emotionally delicate. I needed the noise to stop. All I did was tell my family that I wasn’t okay, but didn’t want to talk about it. It was just so they knew I was fragile.

 

I talked with the Samaritans about how hard it is in that moment to see beyond that moment. The possibility of things feeling better (or different, as he said it might – rather than ‘better’) in the morning or in a few days, was impossible for me to see. In that moment all there was, was that moment. The pain of it. The despair of it. I couldn’t imagine surviving the weekend. I couldn’t see me surviving that night. I can see why people do end up taking their lives… because in that moment there is nothing else – there is no chance for change. There is no feeling better in the morning. They’re caught up in that intense moment and if they don’t reach out and get another perspective, they can’t see beyond it. Had I not reached out to the Samaritans that night I would’ve been consumed by that moment too.

 

But the next morning not only did it feel different… it felt better. I had anger. Anger at X. It’s almost as if getting that text on the Friday evening broke the spell…. if he could do that to me, then maybe he wasn’t as special as I first thought. He kind of fell off the pedestal I’d put him on. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. That’s not to say it’s a good thing. I won’t ever let them think they did right by me, by pushing me to that point I had to fight for myself. But that’s where I got to the next morning. I found fighting spirit in me. I thought ‘Hell no, I’m not going to let them destroy all the work I’ve done to recover as much as I have’. I wasn’t going to let them dictate my story. I wouldn’t let them win.

 

How it was left, I was unsure if I was even welcome at the group on Tuesday, but rather than avoid it, I decided I would be there, even if I wasn’t meant to. Even if it made X uncomfortable. I would not be forced out, without even being consulted on it. I seriously went there on Tuesday, full of anxiety at the prospect of being turned away and told I wasn’t welcome anymore. Because that’s how the text had made me feel on Friday.

 

But I turned up and everything seemed normal. It was as if nothing had happened at all. I kept quite quiet in the group. And then when it was my chance to talk I mentioned I had a breakdown on the Friday. I didn’t say what had led to it. I didn’t give anything away to anyone, but X would’ve known what I was referring to. It was hard talking about it. It’s not like I took joy in doing it, but I figured I needed to get it out there, to explain how I feel. I talked about how much I learned from the experience. I spoke positively about moving forward, putting all this behind me and starting from here. Anyone who knows me would know it is most definitely not behind me. I just said that to be able to feel more comfortable there and to be a people pleaser. I talked about giving myself the things others won’t give me – so liking myself, valuing myself, being proud of myself etc. – screw those who don’t feel that way, I’ll do it myself. That was a subtle dig obviously… I know that even if I do those things it’s not enough. Only I seem to understand what it was I needed and most importantly WHY. But I’m done explaining it to people now. They clearly don’t want to help me, so I’ll pretend to help myself. My ability to do these things for myself actually hinged on getting that validation from X. But never mind.

 

Now I will do what I said I would in my letter. I’ll pretend I’m better than I am. I’ll go there and act normal, talk about boring stuff, smile, keep people happy. It was nice to be able to go there and act normal. It kind of gave me my power back a little bit. I did what I will always do at the end now. Swiftly got out of there. Won’t be talking to them anymore. Limited interaction. They know everything now. It’s their fault for not listening.

 

I had asked to speak to someone after the group, so I did that, and I talked about the three things that happened, that if done differently would’ve saved me from a breakdown… starting with Z – if she had just been honest to start with and told me what I asked for was not possible, however…. then I would’ve known. The way she dealt with it seemed rushed, like I was being fobbed off and not being listened to… then she was off, and so was the group for a fortnight. So I had two weeks of resentment building, thinking people were ignoring what I was saying. So I wrote what I did…. the second point was that if I had been given two minutes to explain it as I handed it to X, then I would never have received the text on the Friday from him, because he would’ve known I wasn’t making a request, nothing needed doing, he wouldn’t understood the manner and tone of what I wrote, and he’d have known how I’d feel about having the decision made for me that I couldn’t attend anymore. He’d have known I’d be sensitive to that feeling of abandonment and powerlessness. And the third point was that if X hadn’t left it until the final minute of the working week to send that message, then I’d have had options that didn’t include suicide.

 

If he had done it at exactly the same time but on the Thursday, that’d be different. It would’ve allowed me to have my breakdown on the Thursday (which might not have been so bad, as I’d have not felt so trapped without options!), and then on the Friday I could’ve got in touch with someone else from the Wellbeing Centre to confirm the situation, ask if I was even welcome there still, and to talk about it all if necessary. The same could be said if I’d been contacted Friday morning…. I could’ve done something about it. It was the fact I had to wait until at least Monday to do anything at all. That’s what nearly killed me. I hope that’s fed back to him so he understands the impact that would have on someone like me.

 

So I let my feelings be known about the handling of the situation. For once it would be nice to hear ‘We cocked up, we’re sorry…. how can we fix this with you?’ But pigs might fly. Nobody takes responsibility anymore. It’s a shame, as that’s the story of my life, socially too.

 

It turns out I am welcome there… it’s just unfortunate that message didn’t shine through from X last Friday. One thing I talked to this other person about is that the IAPT service left me unhealed, therefore I feared this happening again. And it did. And now they want to leave it unhealed too. So I said I know it WILL happen again, because it’s unhealed and always will be. So I talked about how difficult it is that I’d been denied healing at the last place and now here. I can’t go through it a third time. I won’t survive that. I can barely survive this. I don’t think anyone understands how distressing and intense it is to develop these feelings in this setting. And the handling of it is so important. But because few people talk about these feelings, little is known about it or how to handle it. As I keep finding out. Apparently people aren’t usually as open and honest about it as I’ve been. Trouble is it makes me feel abnormal because they handle it wrong. So I know I must be the only one they’ve faced. I wish they could’ve helped this time. I trusted them to. Now I will leave with open wounds. And will have to avoid mental health services in the future, because I know this will happen again, thanks to the Wellbeing Centre denying me a very simple nod of the head, which could’ve prevented all of this and a future of pain for me. That’s what bugs me. It was so simple. That one little gesture could’ve fixed my whole life. Now it’ll never be fixed.

 

The thing that’s troubled me since discussing this with that other person afterwards, is I was given the sense that it was actually X who didn’t want to help me in the way I’d asked. I’d always assumed it was his supervisor (Z). It’s tough now, thinking he is the one holding me back from my recovery. Changes my view of him. But also throws up lots of questions and theories about why it is. Could it be he’s uncomfortable with his emotions? Could it be he fears me or is disgusted by me, and can’t fathom forcing words out that could heal me, because they’re such lies? Could it be he has some sort of feelings towards me too, and worries that by helping me in the way I’d asked, it would make them stronger? It feels big-headed to suggest that last one, but it’s something I’ve not really considered before. Maybe it’s not as fully one-sided as I’ve always stated. Doesn’t mean he feels the same for me, or that anything could happen. I’m a realist here. But everyone’s human. He could feel something. It may not be about me being a risk to them, but him being a risk to me… It could be to stop him falling for me and risking his own job. That’s what I mean – it’s so open, the possibilities for why it wasn’t granted. It makes my mind go haywire. It could be the one I believe most – that he wants me to suffer… he thinks he knows best and that denying me it, will help me more. In which case f*** him / them. Had that at the IAPT place, them making me push myself instead of helping me how I asked. All it did was damage my trust in them and stopped me asking for help.  Or the other possibility is that he’s just like all the guys I’ve known in my life, and likes the ego-stroke – I had mentioned that being allowed the closure might stop me from longing for someone as long as I usually do in the absence of closure. It might help me move on. Maybe he doesn’t want me to move on. Maybe he wants to know that I still want him and can’t get over him….

 

Do you see how this one little decision to deny me the healing I needed, has thrown every possible explanation into the air and confused the hell out of me? Denying me what I needed to hear drags me in two very different directions – one where he couldn’t confirm the things I needed to believe, because the opposite is actually the truth, and the other one where he can’t confirm them because he has feelings too… him reassuring me of the things I asked for would’ve settled the question for good. It would have firmly told me he feels nothing for me, but he still values me as a person. It’s what I needed. The denial of that tells me he either doesn’t value me as a person or he does feel something, if he can’t say those words on a professional level. If I had been allowed what I asked for, or even a quarter of what I asked for, none of this would’ve happened and everything would be right in the world again. I know it. No matter what anyone says, it would’ve been enough for me.

 

I do honestly believe that everything I needed to hear but was denied, is now untrue. That the opposite is felt instead. I do feel inferior in the group. I feel uncomfortable. At times I felt that X was saying things broadly to the group, but as a means of saying some of the things I’d needed to hear… almost like making up for not doing it….  but I don’t know. It missed the point anyway. I accept my fate now, that I am a number in mental health services, and they don’t care that I feel that way. Because it’s a fact. To them it’s a fact. The person I spoke to at the end also said that he thinks the things I asked for are all true anyway. That didn’t help because did he mean he thinks they’re true from his perspective? Just like Z said things… or did he mean that he thinks X would agree too? That wasn’t clear. And the point is if X doesn’t think those things it doesn’t matter what anyone else tells me. They just don’t get that.

 

I’ve told them I need to turn this around because I won’t seek help elsewhere in the future. It’s fine them saying the CMHT are more suited to my needs, but that would mean I have to find someone I feel this way about in the CMHT and pray to God they will help me in the way these previous two places refused to. I wouldn’t hold my breath. The mental health team would probably reject me anyway. So I’m not being passed on just to avoid them dealing with me. The point is, going to another service to discuss how I feel about X, makes no sense. I know what it is I need. It was very simple to do. They refused to do it. There could have been a way they could’ve done it that would’ve satisfied us both. They just didn’t want to. No amount of talking about him to someone else will deliver what I asked for. And their withholding of what I asked for is cruel. It was very basic, yet left me feeling I was asking too much. That I was too demanding. Imagine what that does to the self-worth…

 

I’m not okay with the Wellbeing Centre. I’m not okay with Z. I’m not okay with X even. Yes I still have feelings for him. But they’re not all love and light now. But I won’t let them / him beat me. I will make them face me every week, reminded of how they let me down… how they destroyed my recovery…. I won’t leave. That would be too easy for them.

 

This will always hurt. I don’t know how I can cope with it to be honest. I feel so angry. I feel frustrated, resentful, paranoid, untrusting, trapped, humiliated, worthless, ignored, silenced and very, very hurt. But my options are to push on through it all, or to die. So I will fight for as long as I can. I won’t be a bother to them. I will be pleasant. I will put on a mask. I may even accidentally make them feel like they’ve helped me, that I’ve turned a corner and feel better…. but they haven’t, I haven’t and I don’t. It’s all a lie. I’m just a stubborn bitch who doesn’t give up. My heart will close now, for good. I will make others feel comfortable. That’s my aim. And I will stuff down everything I feel. If this affects me badly further down the road, so be it… they could’ve prevented it. And they will always know that.

 

 

 

“Pathetic Slut”

*Self-harm & suicidal references*

 

Wrote this the other day…

 

Wednesday 15th January

It pains me to have to write this post. I’m filled with shame and embarrassment. But I need to get this out there, to organise my thoughts and make sense of everything I experienced yesterday.

 

Despite saying I’d never do it again, I tried to tackle a problem head-on by being honest about my fears and my feelings. It backfired and resulted in the same things I experienced at the IAPT service I used two years ago.

 

I was afraid that I’d go through the same problems in a group setting again. When I started one of my groups, I was horrified that it was run by two young men. I was scared I would catch “feelings” again (which last time I referred to as ‘transference’ – but this time I’m saying that phrase is BS and invalidating of what I’m experiencing… which is simply attraction). I did indeed catch the “feelings” and now everything’s ruined… again.

 

I don’t know where to start so I’ll just dive into what I’m feeling right now. I’m feeling like a pathetic slut. Or that that’s how the world sees me. I feel these mental health services are so concerned about doing the right thing, and ‘boundaries’ and ‘procedures’ that they forget their service-users are actually individual human beings, with different needs, personalities and histories.

 

I was unable to say what the problem was, so I wrote it down. Now it’s on my record. I didn’t want it to be, but I lost control of that. That loss of control / power made me angry with myself first of all, for ever saying anything, and now I’m angry at them, for not respecting my wishes to not keep it. I feel violated. Now it’s there in black and white, how I feel and why. And I feel it’s probably led to misunderstandings of me as a person too, and that’s what I want to come on to….

 

I’m going to refer to a couple of people as A and B, as I can’t be bothered thinking up fake names…. I was meant to speak to A before the group yesterday about the issues I raised in what I wrote. When he came down B came with him and I was asked if it was okay that he joined us. I could of course have said no – but I never feel able to say no – it’s like when doctors or dentists say they have students in… I can never say how I really feel. And to be honest I read into this decision as being based on what I wrote, and that A needed a ‘chaperone’…. you know…. in case I were to pounce on him whilst alone – as huge sluts like me do, naturally…..

 

So anyway, I had to sit and talk to both of them about the issues, and I disclosed more information that explained why I was struggling with my self-harm issues at that time. It was the longest silence I’ve ever sat through, waiting for A to read it… knowing I was completely effing up my life. I was regretting it already, but I think a part of me at the time thought ‘what the hell, why not…won’t be around much longer anyway!’. Basically A was just finding out that I was attracted to one of them in the room, and the shame attached to that (which I will come on to in a bit) was making me hurt myself for being a bad person for having feelings again. B didn’t read it, so didn’t know what was being referred to when we discussed it afterwards. It was an awkward talk.

 

I’m apparently going to have help from someone else for a couple of sessions… but they said it might be a good idea if it’s a female…. yeah…. because I can’t be trusted around the male species can I?! Can’t leave me alone with one of them for five minutes or I might jump his bones or whatever the cool kids call it nowadays….. this is how these mental health services and the way they handle this sort of thing, make me feel….. they make me feel like some super slut who fancies anything in trousers. And that I’m a risk to them all and their jobs. I doubt it’s for my own safety, no matter what they say… they just don’t want a situation where they could get in some kind of trouble themselves. I know that. And that’s why I’m offended. Because they don’t know the first thing about me as a person. I’m not someone who acts. I admire people…. I may even admit to admiring them. That is the extent of it. I will never make a move on someone. I never have and I never will, because I used to be the person who admitted my feelings for guys, and they either rejected me, or they led me on, messed with my emotions for a while and then ghosted me. So I stopped making the first move. I stopped seeking a man. I stopped believing that anyone would want me. Because they never really did. If I’m ever to end up with a guy, he will have to be the one to admit his feelings to me first. I’m not going there again.

 

So while these people are so preoccupied with procedures and boundaries, I’m over here like ‘Hello? Never broken a rule in my life! Never made a move on a guy… never even had a guy…. pretty much a nun… quiet, reserved person here, hello?’ … I feel they’re assuming that I want every man. I don’t. At all. Admittedly A and B are lovely and attractive in many ways of their own. But there is only one I have feelings for. I don’t feel attracted to any of the others working in that building. I’m not a super slut. I don’t ‘fancy’ everyone. I’m very selective and always devote my attention and feelings to one person at a time. And even that one I like is under no threat from me. Even if no rules were in place, he was single, straight and interested in me too, I still wouldn’t make the move, because of my past experiences and because of the type of person I am, the morals I have and the respect I have for boundaries – both professional and personal.

 

So this concept that I must be kept away from the men… and not allowed to speak to them one-on-one…. it’s BS. I feel I’m going to be ‘watched’ from now on… it’s really bad for my paranoia and self-esteem. God help them when they offer me the self-esteem course…. not much point… I don’t think I’ll be too receptive given they’ve already trashed that.

 

I feel totally mischaracterised. I feel painted as some temptress… whose sole aim is to seduce these men, and that I must be stopped. The ‘wall of women’ must be brought out again…. ‘DEFEND THE MEN FROM THIS SEX-CRAZED HOPELESS ROMANTIC SLUT OF A WOMAN!!’… that’s how I feel. That they see me in that way…. I’m nothing of the sort. But they made me feel that way. I took it on as though it were a fact. That’s how I felt. That, and pitied. I felt pathetic last night.

 

I was inconsolable. It took scarring myself for life with the words they made me feel, to stop me crying…. to stop me wanting to die. Nothing was working. Earlier in the day I had called the Samaritans. I had taken my emergency medication. Nothing was working. I had to reach that point where the pain, the shame, the regret and everything that was tearing away at me, became anger…. anger at THEM. Anger for the way they made me feel about myself. That’s the only way I could sleep and make it to another day.

 

I don’t doubt that there are probably people out there who would make a move on a mental health professional, but I am not that person. I don’t want to be treated like I’m that person… just because others are like that. OR because they’ve had so little experience of people having feelings for them in their position – that’s just as bad really, because they then don’t know how to respond best, and I realise they don’t know what they’re doing, because it’s rare… and then I feel like a freak and a ‘problem person’.. which is the last thing I want to be.

 

I hate asking for help. I hate admitting I’m struggling. I hate asking for their time for anything. I had that conversation before the group, which overran… then I was allowed to take five minutes to gather myself before joining the group… in that time I took a couple of diazepam because I didn’t feel good at all. I wanted to harm myself. I would’ve done.

 

But I went in and I did my best at pretending everything was fine. I talked when prompted. I sounded normal. I nodded along to other people. And then as the end came along I had images of what I wanted to do. I felt zoned out by then…. I knew where I would end up if I walked out the door, and it would probably have led to me not sitting in that room again next week. I wanted a permanent solution to what I was feeling. I knew where to go to get that. The thought of the Samaritans crossed my mind, and I thought where I could go locally to phone them… even the thought of phoning them having left the building I felt unsafe. I felt I would still end up at the place I had in mind.  I knew I couldn’t leave the building. I wouldn’t make it home.

 

So I stayed behind at the end and told A and B that I didn’t feel safe. They asked what I meant. I told them I wanted to do something stupid. At least I think that’s what I said… it’s a bit hazy now. I asked if there was a room I could use in the building to sit and phone the Samaritans. They said yes. So I sat in a room downstairs – everyone worked upstairs so I didn’t have to worry too much about being overheard. A and B had to leave and go somewhere else, but they said a colleague would pop down and check on me in a bit. When this person did come down I was still talking on the phone, so they gestured to me then went back upstairs.

 

I spoke to a lovely woman. The Samaritans really are incredible people… they tend to know what to say / ask… and before you know it you’re spilling everything to them. I kept catching myself saying things, and thinking ‘You do realise you’re talking to another person right??’ … ‘You are speaking out loud….’ … it helped a little. I talked for almost an hour with this wonderful lady. I talked through what had upset me, and how I felt… some background stuff too… at that point I wasn’t aware of why I was so upset. I hadn’t pinpointed how the actions taken in response to what I said, had made me feel like a pathetic cheap slag basically… that came later that night. I cried a bit. I once again answered the suicide question honestly straight away… I never used to, but if someone asks me now if I have thoughts of ending my life, I straight away tell them yes. No more bullshitting people.

 

Once the call ended I wasn’t sure what to do… whether to just sign out and leave, or wait downstairs, or what.. so I ended up calling ‘hellooo’ up the stairs. Let them know I’d finished my call and then went. The Samaritans couldn’t stop me doing what I did later that day, but they stopped me making a permanent choice. They got me out of town and back home.

 

At home I pretended nothing was wrong. I think that made life more difficult… but I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened. I only told them today that I made the phone call yesterday. I didn’t say why. I only did it so they know I’m a bit delicate at the moment.

 

I made some bad choices in terms of self-harm… things I regret now. But can’t do anything about it now. I wasn’t fully in my mind last night anyway. I was distraught and medicated, so didn’t make rational decisions. It was a breakdown. I do really stupid things when it’s that bad.

 

It really was a bad day. Even talking to the Samaritans I told them I hate using the phone, but I knew I had to anyway. And she said I must have felt really desperate to push through my fear of using the phone, in order to call them. It’s true. Yesterday was the worst day of my life since my friend Liv took her life eight months ago.

 

Now I have to pick myself up and carry on. From now on I’m not going to open up again. I won’t ever pour my heart out or share my feelings with anyone, for any reason. The exception being telling them how it makes me feel, what they’ve done. That’s only so they might learn from it. And as much as I could write that down so they can again put it in my record, I think I’ll brave the conversation if possible and then draw a line under it. After that they won’t even notice I exist. I’ll just become a nobody again, speak only when I’m spoken to, get through the courses I’m doing, be discharged and either never ask for help again, or likely experience this same problem again the next time I need help – because yet again it’s been dealt with wrong and scarred me… it’s a wound that’s not been healed and has been made worse, so very likely to have it happen again in the future. Nobody wants to help me with this shame / attraction issue. I’m not sure anyone really can…

 

The whole point of admitting how I felt, was because of the shame attached to it – that shame was making me self-harm every day. The response I’ve had has only confirmed it’s right that I’m ashamed. That it’s wrong to feel how I do. And they may well say that in the ‘real world’ it’s fine… it’s just in this setting… but what they don’t get is that I’m attracted to someone in this setting right now…. it’s a current problem…. and more importantly, what I experience in this setting translates to what I feel about the ‘real world’. If I have to be kept away from men in this setting, as I’m thought of as an intensely desperate, pathetic slut and temptress, then what bloody hope is there for me around any man, any place?? If that’s really how I’m viewed. It tells me I should stay away from men full stop. It tells me that it’s indeed wrong to be attracted to a man. Having BPD I already feel I’ll never fit in to this world…. this experience only makes me feel the same in terms of relationships… that I’m incapable of having a man in my life. They’re doing so much damage to someone who already doesn’t see a future for herself in this world.

 

I’ve called it ‘attachment’ because of the shame of saying I’m attracted to a man. This has probably led to some misunderstandings. Of course when the time comes I won’t see him again the ‘attachment’ element will kick in and I’ll be devastated. But it’s attraction right now. And I feel it’s wrong. They’ve confirmed it’s wrong by saying I should see a female, and if I speak to a man, he seems to need a chaperone. So not only was it wrong to have these feelings for him… it was also wrong to say it. So basically, in a nutshell, I’ve f*cked everything up, yet again, just because the shame of being attracted to someone makes me hurt myself. This is so messed up.

 

I’ve lost control by seeking to gain it. I’ve gained more shame by trying to ease it. I’ve given myself more reasons to self-harm by trying to stop it. I have to deal with one-sided feelings yet again, which I can do… I’m so used to it, but it’s the shame that was the problem. But I just have to accept that shame is part and parcel of feeling anything for a man from now on.  I will now bury my feelings. I won’t bother anyone any further with any of this. I let out too much. I can’t take it back. I will feel what I do for him, alone… I will keep the shame to myself and deal with it the only way I can. I just have to accept I’m a self-harmer and a loner, and always will be. I should never have reached out about this. I regret it, and it will never happen again. Even if it kills me. From now on I keep everything to myself. This has proven that I can’t trust anyone. They’re all as bad as each other. And I’m beyond help. My heart is closed from now on. No more outpouring of feelings, for any reason. I live my life on the inside from now on. There is no other way.

 

 

 

 

The Past Is Never The Past.

*Suicide references near the end*

 

 

 

Nobody accepted me at school….. they couldn’t accept that I was quiet, shy and serious… they questioned it. They thought there was something ‘wrong’ with me. 

Nobody accepts me now …. they think I’m too sensitive, “negative” and intense…. they say I make life difficult for myself by letting things get to me… they tell me to just let go of things… they blame me for my mental illness and invalidate my pain.

 

…

 

My best friend in primary school, Laura, ditched me to be friends with the girl who was bullying me, Nicola. Nicola loved to rub it in my face.

 

My best friend Lou, ditched me and replaced me with my former ‘friend’, Hannah, who essentially bullied me. It feels the same.

 

…

 

In secondary school I was psychologically and physically bullied by a girl and her minions, in front of a whole class – nobody stood up for me… not one person – even the teacher let it happen.

 

Falling out with Hannah she broadcast it to the rest of our friends, and none of them stood up for me. Nobody defended me or told her to sort things out with me.

 

…

 

At primary school I had to beg to tag along with people at lunchtime, just to not be alone.

 

I have to beg people to talk to me, chase after people, and this year had to beg people to go with me to a gig, so I didn’t have to go alone – even offering a free ticket. It’s just as humiliating now as back at school.

 

 

…

 

At school I stood alone by the wall, watching everyone else have fun without me, feeling there was something wrong with me and I deserved to be alone.

 

I stand alone, talking to myself on my wall, watching everyone else live their lives happily, excluding me… thinking I must deserve it… it must be me, as anyone else would be included. It’s personal.

 

…

 

Hannah turned against me – I don’t know why… she blamed me, rejected my attempts to resolve things, then avoided communicating with me by bitching to Lou about me, and blocked me.

 

Lou turned against me – I don’t know why… she blamed me, rejected my attempts to resolve things, then avoided communicating with me and blocked me.

 

…

 

Hannah showed no interest in resolving things with ME, her original friend from school. She wanted to have my best friend in her life instead.

 

Lou showed no interest in resolving things with ME, her friend of thirteen years. She did however want Hannah, my former friend from school, in her life instead.

 

…

 

BOTH prioritised each other over me.

BOTH saw it as too much effort to fix things… giving up at the first hurdle… didn’t value me.

BOTH probably saw me as “negative” (aka depressed / mentally ill & needing support from friends!)

BOTH failed to understand mental illness.

BOTH refused to acknowledge they hurt me or discuss it.

BOTH wanted my silence on the topic.

BOTH preferred me as a doormat.

BOTH sat back and expected me to put in the effort after they were the ones who hurt me. Weren’t prepared to fight for me or prove they cared.

BOTH communicated how utterly worthless they think I am.

BOTH prefer positivity in others – which they could both have, due to their circumstances being better than mine, and not having my mental illness, and not being hurt and abandoned by their friends!

BOTH abandoned me because of things related to my mental health…. both shallow…. and disloyal.

BOTH chose to kick me after tossing me into the gutter.

 

Now they’re friends.

Now Hannah knows more about Lou and her life than I do.

Lou doesn’t know how broken I am about this.

She doesn’t know that all I wanted was a friend who saw me as worth the effort…

That goes for both of them.

I just wanted them to fight for ME… their friend.

I introduced all my friends to each other, and now my life is destroyed as a result of that stupid choice.

They’re all friends with Lou now. She has no clue how that feels now she’s dumped me too.

I wish any of them would be my friend again right now – but that requires communicating and dealing with the issues that broke things in the first place. They can’t just sweep it under the rug. I wanted to be worth it to them.

They don’t want me in their lives though. They only want each other.

It hurts that Hannah told Lou she never wanted to hear from me again, but they want to know each other. I was innocent in both cases, and somehow ended up being the one neither of them want to talk to. I feel they are the same person now. They think the same. I assume Lou thinks I’m ‘toxic’ too. This has ruined me more than I can put into words. It’s so messed up.

They’re both happily getting on with their lives of positivity, whilst I’m left behind, completely paralysed by all this. They would never choose me now, not how I am right now… but I’m that way as a result of their actions….

Just like guys in the past – they created the monster then ran from it. They made me who I am and then ditched me because of who I am, all the while making me think it was my fault and I deserved it.

They are both responsible for what happens to me now.

 

…

 

I just feel I cannot escape the past. I feel trapped… doomed to be excluded, abandoned, replaced, neglected, alone, rejected for the rest of my life. I cannot live a life like this.

 

If people continue to treat me the same as they always used to, what hope is there? I really must be worth nothing in this world. I really must be here to just be used by others and dumped as soon as something better comes along. The bullies taught me this. My ‘friends’ taught me this.

 

Nothing and nobody can undo the damage done. It’s too late. Therapy won’t even work now. It’ll only work for a few hours… days if I’m lucky, but my mind is so unstable now, all the work done is undone within that timeframe and everything is hopeless again.

 

Just like a week ago I started writing a blog about my appointment at the Wellbeing Centre, and the positive corner I’d turned regarding past friends…. I was going to move on, learn to love myself, forget them as they were never really my friends if they treated me that way…. Now my mind leaps all over the place regarding them. I hate them. I want revenge. I want to try and resolve things. I want answers. I want to just tell them how shit it was to end a thirteen year friendship over the damn internet. I feel I deserved to be ditched. I feel outraged that I was abandoned like that. I want to apologise and chase to fix things. I want to hurt myself. It just never ends, the sickening twists and turns in my mind at 300mph…. it makes me want to end my life.

 

My mind is too broken to be mended. The damage ‘friends’ did to me, and those who stood idly by, has ended any hope of me ever recovering. The only true friend I ever had was Liv. Now she’s gone from this world. And nobody seems to give a shit about that.

 

There are so many reasons to not exist anymore. The reasons to hold on are few and losing their strength and power every minute of every day. I can’t live in this mind anymore, and it’s completely hopeless that anyone can ever help me with it, because nobody understands how damaged I am. They can’t see it externally…. it’s all happening inside my head, with a stony look on my face. How could they ever understand the chaos in my head? Until they do, I won’t believe they can ever help me. Nobody even wants to help me. I cannot be helped. I don’t have the strength to help myself anymore. I’m giving up. Just living makes me feel sick at the moment. The past is never the past for me. It’s the present and the future. I’m scarred all the way through me because of these people. I can never forget. I can never heal. And that means I cannot survive here.

How can I even live in a world where those who were meant to care about me, hurt me and aren’t even sorry about the fatal wounds they left me with? They didn’t see me as worthy of a conversation. They just used the ‘block’ button and virtually told me to go fuck myself. That’s what they honestly thought of me and the friendship I gave them for all that time. And with that and losing Liv, and my granddad, and how terrifying, unsafe and uncertain life feels now, I just can’t carry on. Why should I? It’s all too much… the noise in my head… the memories…. the abandonments…. the pain…. the anger…. the questions…. all of it. I want it to stop. But it never will. Because those cowards never gave me closure. And then they’ll wonder why I ‘hold a grudge’. I just can’t do this anymore.

 

 

 

A Life Saved… For Now.

 

 

*Suicide theme*

 

 

The other night I was left with no other choice but to phone the Samaritans, for the third time in my life. It was past 1am again, I was at breaking point… the emotions were too strong I actually felt I would explode – obviously I wouldn’t have, but that’s the point where things are most dangerous for people like me…. that’s often why we engage in destructive coping mechanisms, to try and bring the emotions down, for fear of what will happen if we don’t.

 

I don’t know what would have happened if I didn’t call them. All I know is I sat with the phone number in my phone for about twenty minutes, hesitating… talking myself out of it and then back into it by letting my feelings in. All the other possible coping strategies were whizzing around my mind and I realised none of them would work. It was basically phone the Samaritans or end it somehow.

 

As usual I didn’t know what to say at first, but I told them how alone I feel. I told them about losing my best friend because of my illness. I told them about losing my only other friend to suicide. And then I broke down.

 

She said how sorry she was about that. She then very quickly asked if I had contemplated suicide myself. And it’s the first time I’ve been completely honest about my feelings and intentions. I straight away said yes. I was still in tears, so I don’t remember everything said, but I told her how suicidal I felt before losing my friend six months ago and that now it’s all I think about. She asked if I had a plan. I said not a plan as such, but that I’m looking at ways to do it…. that I’m closer to having a plan than I’ve ever been before.

 

At one point she asked something about in three years time can I see it being better…. I was honest and told her I can’t see me being here by then. I don’t think I’ll be here in a year. I didn’t tell her I can’t even see me having another Christmas, but that might just be my immediate feelings anyway. I am struggling with the thought of Christmas this year.

 

When I talked about my grief, she pointed me in the direction of help for that. She also said that people who lose someone to suicide are at a higher risk of taking their own lives too. I was already aware of this – that’s why I’ve needed people to support me in the aftermath, as I was already suicidal and my mental illness puts me at a higher risk of suicide anyway, without adding the effects of losing someone to it.  She also said that the grief associated with a suicide is totally different to ‘normal’ grief, in that it’s more complex. Again I knew that. But it was helpful to hear it said by someone else…. it was validating of what I was experiencing. I wish the people in my life were aware of all this and could do more to help me. Maybe I wouldn’t have got to the point I had to choose between this phone call and death.

 

At one point I was talking about the anger I felt at my friend. I said it wasn’t hateful anger…. just anger at the situation I guess. She then said something very insightful and true…. she asked if perhaps I envied my friend. And I said yes. I said I wish I could’ve gone with her.

 

I have never been that honest about suicidal feelings… for fear of what would happen as a result. But these people are very respectful. She even said to me that they want me to stay alive, but it’s my decision what to do with my life, and they’ll have my back whatever I decide. Even at the lowest point if I should reach that moment, I can still have them on the end of the phone. That made everything feel very real…. like there really is the possibility I will end it in the not too distant future. It scared me. But I liked how they weren’t forcing me to stay…. there was no judgement whatsoever. She said she was pleased I made the call.

 

 

 

We talked about how my family would feel if I ended it. I explained they’re the only reason I’m still here. But I told her I almost resent them for it, and I feel trapped…. because I have to stay alive in order to not hurt them…. but it means me living in pain and a world I just can’t survive in. She said I need more reasons to live than that… otherwise it would cause me to resent the only people I have left and could make things worse in the end….

 

I talked about my Godchildren and how they used to be a reason for me to live. She wondered if I could be enough of a reason myself …  I said no. I told her how much I hate myself… and how losing my best friend, along with everything else that’s happened, has completely dragged my self-worth through the floor. I don’t currently see myself as worth continuing to live for.

 

She asked if I hadn’t lost these people from my life would I be considering ending my life right now… I said probably not as much, no. I said if my best friend hadn’t abandoned me, she could have supported me through the suicide of my other friend, and I could’ve survived it. And if that friend had not taken her life, I would have a friend now…. everything would be different…. I wouldn’t be this alone. The reality is it’s these two major losses in the space of a couple of months…. my two longest friendships of 13+ years…. gone… leaving me with nothing and nobody. That’s what has ruined me and brought me to this point of suicidality. Everything would be different, and I’d be able to live if both or even just one of these things hadn’t happened. That’s why after my friend’s death I reached out to my former best friend, as I wanted that resolved… I wanted her support and friendship…. I couldn’t cope with both things – even hours after hearing the news I had to not have both losses. She texted me a couple of times with support, but then disappeared and I’ve not heard from her in six months. That was it. I had to face both losses, even though I couldn’t. I didn’t have a choice. She didn’t want our friendship back. A traumatic loss and me being left alone to cope with it, feeling suicidal myself, was not enough reason for her to care and fix things with me. It’s how little she cared, that she could wash her hands of me so coldly. That’s what damaged me. It’s taken an already complex kind of grief and complicated it even further. My friend’s suicide gave me that feeling of how stupid it is to not be friends with my former best friend – that life is too short to hold grudges…. I honestly felt we should and could sort it out at that point. I wanted to let it all go, as some things mattered more. Now I feel more rejected than ever…. it was at least the third time I’d tried to open the door again, and had it slammed in my face. I’m a glutton for punishment. I get the message she’s done with me now, for good. She’s too busy being friends with the person who hurt me before and came between us three years ago…. Anyway….

 

We talked about grief and mental illness and how people struggle to empathise if they’ve not been there… and how they can be afraid of saying the wrong thing, so they leave it alone and say nothing at all. I told her I wish they’d just say something, like ‘I hope you’re okay’…. ‘How are you?’ … ‘Thinking of you’…. something to make me feel I’m not invisible.

 

We talked about my mental health – how long I’ve been struggling. I said 18 years…. I went on to explain the reasons it went downhill in the last couple of years. I said I’m the worst I’ve ever been. When I was a teenager things were bad, but I didn’t have real problems – I said I don’t know what my problem was back then…. she said something like ‘teenager’s prerogative’ – she gave me a couple of moments of humour to pick me up a bit.

 

We talked for 48 minutes… the longest call to them I’ve ever had. It didn’t feel like 48 minutes. Time goes quicker in the middle of the night though! I told her that although it didn’t fix everything – it doesn’t change how things are – it made me feel less alone in that moment.

 

I got through that night without hurting myself or worse. I also didn’t have to use my emergency medication. I just made the right choices for once in my life. I’m still struggling. The night times are the worst. Hopefully if it happens again I’ll make that call again. Things really aren’t okay at all right now. The feelings that led to me needing to make the call, they are still there right now…. I have to contain them as much as I can. But it’s very difficult. One person could do something to end all this pain and trauma for me. But they don’t care. They never did and never will. They’ve moved on. They are responsible for where I am now and what happens to me. They broke my spirit. And the only people I have left to try and save my life are the Samaritans.

 

I don’t even know the name of the woman I spoke to that night. But I truly thank her for giving her time to just listen and support. Two things other people just wouldn’t give me. This total stranger answered the phone in the middle of the night and talked to me, about all the things I’ve needed to talk about for the last six or so months. Whatever happens in the future she helped me so much that night, and I can’t repay her for what she did. The Samaritans are like angels – we just have to call out to them when we need them.

 

 

The Borderline See-Saw.

 

 

It’s all ‘too much’ at the moment. Everything is hurting my heart. It seems everything I do is ‘wrong’. And I’m overthinking every minute detail, within seconds. Someone doesn’t reply to me… they don’t like me. Someone drops out of a conversation…. I said the wrong thing. Someone takes a long time to answer a question…. I came on too strong and made them feel awkward. Someone doesn’t look at what I’m showing them… they’re bored and I’m being annoying. Someone doesn’t respond when I talk to them…. they don’t care about me.

 

Every tiny moment is analysed within seconds of it happening. I can’t switch it off. I’m programmed now to notice rejection everywhere I go, from every person I meet and none of them ever let me down with that.

 

Did they get the message? Did they pass on the message? Did I say the wrong thing? Are they sitting back expecting me to talk to them before they’ll ever message me again? Do they not want to talk to me ever again? If so why the hell are they ‘friends’ with me online? I’m invisible, to everyone, all the time. And I don’t know what I’m more upset about – people treating me as though I don’t exist, or me being upset about it. I’m sick of reading so much into other people’s lack of words or actions. But this is what life has done to me.

 

I don’t know how many times and different ways I can explain how this feels to me, and what I need from people. But I’ll try once more.

 

 

I NEED CONSISTENCY, CARE AND COMMUNICATION.

 

 

The biggest of all is consistency. Because after so long of people ignoring my existence, if you come along and notice I exist, I’ll come to life again… but the minute you switch back to nothingness, you’re dropping me from the edge of space.

 

I can’t stand the ups and downs. I can’t stand the hot and cold treatment…. because picture for a minute Bipolar Disorder…. the highs and the lows. These tend to happen at a slower rate (or so I believe – I don’t know much about Bipolar myself so I’m sorry if I’m mistaken)… people have periods of deep depression and periods of mania. BPD is similar in some ways, but the speed and frequency of the mood changes is scary. It happens in reaction to what’s going on around us at any given moment – we’re more reactive to changes in our lives and interpersonal issues. If you treat me like you care one minute and then drop me the next, you are triggering those mood changes – the ones that make me feel sick of experiencing emotions altogether.

 

I once really liked a guy but he was the king of hot and cold. He’d show interest in me and then ghost me for months at a time. This had me messaging him over and over, trying to keep him in my life and get him talking to me again. Usually every year on his birthday he’d start talking to me again, but the pattern always repeated. It was all likely a game to him, feeding his ego and I bet he was laughing about how desperate I was, and how much I ‘wanted him’. Little did he know it was one of the symptoms of my illness…. that fear of abandonment. He was constantly triggering it.

 

I’d had people disappear on me before him, but he was the one person who blew hot and cold so much I think it actually made me unstable emotionally. If someone feels intense emotions in reaction to external stimuli, namely the state of a relationship with you, and you turn on the charm one minute and ghost them the next… lather, rinse, repeat… you’re going to destroy their spirit. That’s what he did to me. Until one day, three or four years ago, I stopped going back. And that was the hardest thing I had ever done until that point. I cared about him so much. He never appreciated that. I still care. I know he’s lost someone close to him recently and I feel deeply for him. I feel sad about it. I wish I could reach out to him about it, but I will never open that door myself again. Ever. I will never beg for attention and I will never be accused of running back to him. I don’t feel that way for him now. He hurt me way too much and was never even sorry about it. He was just like everyone else in my life – they’ve all hurt me and didn’t even feel bad about it. They all taught me I’m nothing. So I have certainly moved on from the feelings I had. Of course I still care when something like that happens… I’m human and have a heart. And I’m not ‘over it’ in the sense that it ruined my life, so it’s hard to trust men anymore. It’s hard to feel anything for anyone anymore. And it’s hard to feel good whilst talking to ANYONE now, because the moment the conversation just stops, it feels like I’m being toyed with again, like he did to me. He broke me. And right at this minute I’m so sad and hurt by this.

 

If you treat someone to care, kindness, attention or anything good, and then drop off the face of the planet, you destroy their hope, their trust and their happiness.  You need to be a steady support for someone with BPD. We need to know you’re not going anywhere. I don’t have that luxury anymore. This guy might have not liked the symptoms of my illness that his endless abandonments and flip-flopping brought out, but had he treated me better, more consistently, it would never have set in my anxieties and doubts. If people want to see the best in me, they have to be the best of themselves, and if they can’t bring that to the table they should be honest about that. They should tell me they don’t want to hurt me… that they don’t want to mess me around…. that I deserve better. Then they should walk away and never entertain toying with my emotions again. I hope he’s grown up and learnt more since that happened. I never will see an apology for what he did to me. I have to accept this, and do my best to undo the damage it caused inside my mind. If I can’t undo it, I have to just try and survive it.

 

I really do hate that when people talk to me and I suddenly get all invested in them, as someone actually noticed me and doesn’t hate me, I have to stop and tell myself to calm down, don’t say the wrong thing and scare them off. Life shouldn’t be like this. But it seems to be for me. I live in fear of saying the wrong thing, coming on too strong (in a platonic way I mean) and putting people off. I’m extra-sensitive to everything at the moment… and I do interpret silence as a bad thing. I can’t stop these paranoid thoughts racing. I can’t stop feeling like people dislike me and want to avoid me. I try my best, but if I break my own silence and talk to others and have periods of communicating with people, I start to expect consistency, and nobody seems capable of maintaining that (I can’t really expect them to if I can’t do it myself….), so it triggers what would be considered the ‘depression’ phase in Bipolar. It’s like getting your hopes up and being let down, but this happening every day. It’s sickening. I don’t know if I’m explaining it well enough…

 

It almost feels better to have no expectation or hopes…. to expect the worst from everyone… to believe nobody cares about me….  because the minute I think maybe I’m wrong and someone does care, I’m just as quickly dropped back to Earth when they ‘reject’ me again. I can’t take the see-saw of emotions and the lurch in my stomach and the suicidal feelings that come from falling back down. I just wish people would stop picking me up only to drop me again. I hate being alone and wouldn’t wish for people to just eternally ghost me and leave me alone, but I wish if they picked me up they’d take care to not drop me, as I’m incredibly fragile at the moment. I need to be handled with so much care, and the problem is most people can’t manage a drop of care for me.

 

I feel it’s better for other people if they stay away from me at the moment. I don’t want this. But I’ll only end up mad at them for letting me down… and as nobody so far has been ‘all in’, and they have all been half-hearted about it, they’re only going to make me worse right now.  I don’t know the answer. I do know a lot of people with BPD reach a point they feel it’s better to not have any friends, as the relationship issues that stem from this illness are too much to bear. I want friends. But I want friends who are consistent, open in communication and who truly care about me. I think anything else right now is damaging to my mental health. Maybe isolating myself isn’t the best thing, but getting my hopes up at the slightest ‘like’ or word someone says to me… it’s breaking my heart slowly… because the truth is I’m alone. I have no friends. I’m nobody’s friend. And nobody cared enough to give me a conversation. They all walked away, whether by hurting me, just ghosting me, or leaving this world, none of them cared enough to give me closure. None of them.

 

I live in silent pain… unable to move on… unable to actually live. And nobody knows how lonely I feel, but how trapped I feel too… I have to be this lonely, because hoping for anything more only hurts me. I can’t even think of forming new friendships, because I believe I’m only tolerated at best… I hate every single thing about myself now. I hate how I look, I hate my voice… so much… I hate the way I walk. I hate the way I laugh… I just hate everything. I hate my personality. I hate being who I am. I’m still haunted by the beliefs from school – that I’m boring. I feel I’m an embarrassment to be seen with or to know. I feel so ashamed of so much about me. I feel judged for my illness. I feel misunderstood. I feel I’m not good enough for anyone. And I can’t trust anyone anymore. I doubt people’s motives. I believe people only use me when they have something to gain, otherwise they won’t talk to me.  I believe people will drop me as soon as they find out about my illness. I am such an ugly person inside and out, and I hate that I’m wasting oxygen while good people are dying. There is nothing good about me anymore. Anything there was, was killed off by people who never cared.

 

There’s too much damage to fix now. I have to keep people at a distance because they will hurt and abandon me. But none of them want to be closer anyway… proving my point. I just want someone in my life who looks at the horror that is me, and sticks by me regardless. Someone who sees something in me that I can’t see. Someone who won’t let go of my hand during the storms. Someone who has my back every time. Someone who reassures me of their care without me having to ask for it. Someone who communicates consistently and wants to soothe my emotions, not trigger them. I want this. I need this. But I can’t have this. Because if it was anyone in my life currently, they’d be doing this already. The only person I had who did this was my friend Liv… but she’s gone now, forever… there’s nobody else. So it means reaching out for new people – I can’t trust new people. I will never believe that anyone could like me or want to be my friend. The scar runs too deep. I’ll never believe anyone ever again.

 

I feel defeated tonight. I just want it all to go away. I want to not be me anymore.

 

 

 

Tried But Failed.

*Self-harm & suicidal references, as well as bad language*

 

 

I’m trying my best to get to the end of this month without self-harming…. it’ll mean I only had one incident this month. But it’s so hard.

 

Last night I was researching my options for leaving this world. Today I see all the political news, plus our side of the argument is turning on itself. People are posting the same thing as me and getting likes and comments of support, whilst I have silence… nothing. Someone asked me if I was going to go back into my place of voluntary work, and when I said not at the moment their look and ‘Oh’ was like a stab in the heart. It was like a sign I’m a failure and a disappointment… like I’m just being lazy or a coward for not going in. The reality is the last time I went in, before the holiday, I had someone’s bad mood taken out on me. I felt unappreciated. I felt I was in the way and doing everything wrong. I self-harmed. So I don’t exactly feel up to facing all that shit again right now. I can’t pretend to be okay. I know this person doesn’t know how not okay I am – nobody does, that’s the problem. The only people who know how bad things are for me are people who read this blog. But I’m not okay.

 

I want to not be here anymore. Admittedly my emotions are likely up the wall at the moment for reasons probably only women would understand… but I feel I need to hibernate this week…. I need to stay off social media, avoid the news, avoid work, avoid everyone and everything…. but that one look of disapproval this morning makes me feel trapped. I feel I’m not allowed to keep myself safe. I’m expected to carry on and push myself. I now feel guilt for not going in to work, and for not caring if they’re okay with it. But I’m struggling so much and can’t do it. I could go in, to appease the disapprover, to stop my guilt, but I’ll be coming home with new scars probably… In fact I was just asked why I’m not going in…. in order for them to know so as not to put their foot in it….. bit late for that. It should be obvious the reason I’m not going is my mental health. If they can’t see that, then WTF!? They just keep digging the hole. As someone else said it’s none of their business. They should just accept I’m not going, as any questions about it will only make me feel bad for not going. I’m sick of all this shit.

 

I’m not ready to get on that merry-go-round of work. The never-ending stress machine where I embarrass myself and then can’t go in, then come back and struggle to cope and feel shit about myself. Where things are expected of me, people talk to me in tones I can’t handle because I’m right on the edge of ending my life, where one nudge and that’s it. I can’t do it. But then I feel I’m not allowed to not do it, because not going in makes me a disappointment, a failure and a burden to my loved ones. They don’t understand how bad I am right now, so they don’t understand why going in to work right now would kill me.

 

And I just feel the pressure building – from work, from home, from the job people imminently going to talk to me…. from myself, from time. I just want the world to stop so I can grieve. So I can recover. So I can want to live life again. Then I’ll continue and not miss more years of what should be ‘life’, to this mental illness. I’m just sick of existing and having to go through the motions just to keep others happy. And I’m sick of having to feel like a fucking failure for being unable to go through the motions. And I’m sick of not being able to TALK to anyone about the fact I can’t do this life anymore.

 

And then there’s my ex-friend. She doesn’t know what it’s like to always be the one who is abandoned…. left…. she made the choice to turn her back on me. She didn’t even give me the option. I tried to work things out with her. I put in effort. I told her the next steps. She just didn’t want to take them.

 

So now she’s free of me. Her life is probably improving without me in it. It’s allowing HER to heal. It’s allowing HER to move on. It’s allowing HER to distance herself from the hurt and the guilt, so that MAYBE one day we can be friends again as she’ll be in a better place. Utter bullshit, as I won’t be. Her leaving me without even talking to me has destroyed me and any chance of us ever being friends again. Whilst she’s out there healing and improving her life without me, I am paralysed. I cannot do the same because I have nothing left. She may be able to switch off from my existence and move on with her life and let go of the hurt, but I never will. Her way of ‘coping’ is a way of killing me.

 

 

^ ^ ^

Wrote the above this morning. Unfortunately something bad happened this afternoon and I’ve now failed to make it to the end of the month without hurting myself. My choice was either to do that or to throw myself out of a moving vehicle. This is the second time in two months I’ve found myself in this situation, and if it continues then I’ll opt for the latter. Almost had a crash earlier caused by some idiot on the road, which was terrifying enough, but it’s what happened afterwards that was the problem. I don’t think certain people get how awful it is for someone with BPD to be TRAPPED inside a vehicle, with no control, with raised voices and not being allowed to voice their feelings or fears. It’s NOT okay. I WILL fucking jump out next time. This has to stop or my life will stop. Simple as that.

 

So yeah, very shit day. Was shit before that, but there we go. I was going to continue on from earlier by saying I feel so completely isolated that I’ve considered getting in touch with people from my past… friends who hurt me in the past…. simply because I have nobody now. That’s how bad it is.

 

Oh and now we have another extension and no sign of a General Election anytime soon….. Parliament might as well hold the blade that kills me. They might as well push me off that ledge. They’ve pissed on my vote for the last time. I hope they all fucking rot in hell for the traitors they are. I’m as invisible to them as I am to supposed ‘friends’ and family. I’m irrelevant to everyone. I’m nothing. My voice means nothing. My voice should be ignored. I really am at a point of saying ‘FUCK THE WORLD AND ALL THE PEOPLE IN IT!!’ – I hate being that person, but I’ve put up with so much more than anyone should ever have to put up with. I hate everything and everyone, and I’m just done.

 

I’ve had my diazepam today. Not sure how much it’s helping at this point. I’m really annoyed I haven’t earnt my star on my calendar today. I’ve worked so hard to resist the urges to self-harm. I didn’t have another choice in this situation, and I’m SO angry with the person responsible for doing that. I’ll never forgive them for what they do to me with their anger. Never. They will be the death of me.

 

I really wish I could hibernate. I wish people would leave me alone, not give me any responsibilities or make me feel any guilt for just hiding away. I want to do that. I need to do that to keep safe. Why can’t I just be left to do what I want for a couple of weeks, alone? Why? I’m just so fed up with life right now. And people are an endless source of misery, pain and stress. I need peace. I need a break from life…. please.

 

 

 

 

A Black Day.

*Depressing post, mentions suicide. Bad language also*

 

 

Today’s a black day. A sickeningly lonely day. A day of remembering. A day I’m paralysed by life. A day I can barely move for the bleakness in my mind. Although I’ve been pretty motionless today, it intensely contrasts the state of my mind today. It’s a very loud kind of day…. too much to think / feel and no way of releasing it…

 

So here I am yet again, speaking into the void of the internet… feeling as flat as a pancake. Sitting in the dark, having barely moved all day…. not seen anyone all day. Here I am writing stuff that could never save my life, as it’s all so disconnected from the people in my life who I need to care. Nothing can change the way things are.

 

I cannot have my best friend back. I will never understand what the hell I did to deserve to be ditched in such a callous way. I will never forgive it. I will never recover from it. I will never get through what I’m now going through, because of it.

 

I will never get over losing Liv. Not being able to talk to her ever again in my life. Knowing that she’s gone for good. That I should’ve known and done something. I never got to see her again. I’ll never be able to say all the words I should’ve said, and I’ll never understand what happened and why.

 

I have nothing left.

 

The loss I feel is too intense. Over ten years ago I was starting to come out of my shell. I went from having no friends or connections, to feeling accepted by people. I was doing DBT, I had three individual friends, then a group of people…. I was finding confidence… I even did karaoke during one strange phase of my twenties…. wine was needed though. But I belonged. I felt normal. Men were occasionally attracted to me. They were pretty much all jerks who only wanted one thing from every girl, but this also made me feel better about myself to start with.

 

2012 all of that changed overnight….. I went from having a social life to virtually nothing…. most of my friends hurt me. The guy I liked hurt me. I lost everyone but my best friend.

 

Life changed. No more social life. No more getting out meeting people or building confidence. My life became about my best friend and her impending child… the blessing… the one thing that kept me alive through that awful time of betrayal and loss. Life then became about her and her family… I became Godmother to her two lovely children. They were everything to me. Life was different though… it took a lot of adjusting to.

 

One of my old friends reared her ugly head in 2016, driving a wedge and thread of doubt between me and my best friend. And then my granddad got ill and passed away eight months later. I almost lost another family member to a heart attack in that time. Life became so real seemingly overnight. Until then I never believed I’d lose anyone in that way. Suddenly life was a waiting room… waiting for the next person to die. It was a scary, dangerous and uncertain world….. I needed certainty and stability around me in the form of friendship. I didn’t have this.

 

Last year my friend was so absent from my life. I could literally feel the abandonment in every cell of my body. I was right to feel that way. Voicing my fears only sped up the process… that’s the most sickening part. Due to grief and mental illness I made mistakes. I wasn’t in control of my thoughts or actions. It was terrifying. She held it against me. We fell out. I  extended an olive branch at Christmas but was totally snubbed.

 

This year she wouldn’t make up her mind if she wanted to try and save our friendship or not…. I deserved better than that. In the end I had to make a decision for the sake of my mental health and paranoia. I had to take a step back by unfriending her on Facebook – that way she was free to write what she wanted and it wouldn’t affect our friendship or my mental health. I never got to unfriend her. I told her my intention and the reasons and she immediately blocked me. She blocked any way of me ever reconnecting with her. She made it so I couldn’t message her or re-add her when I feel better (which I never will now). She made it permanent. She made it perfectly clear that she wants nothing more to do with me and never wants to hear from me again. She moved house without telling me a thing about it. I found out through someone else on Facebook.

 

My bond with my Godchildren is broken now, forever…. you can’t get back two years, not at that age. They won’t remember me. But I have to live in this world for the rest of my life having lost them. And I fucking hate my ‘friend’ for doing that to me, at a time I’m grieving my first loss and also the loss of my only other friend to suicide. It’s unforgivable. I cannot live life now because of this. It’s too much loss. I have nothing left.

 

The pain I feel in my heart, thinking about the early days with my God-daughter…. holding her for the first time at a few days old…. seeing her smile at me for the first time…. her learning to walk…. her trying to say my name…. to having actual conversations with her. The bond we had…. it’s gone, forever…. all I have now are photos and videos – and they just break my heart now. My friend would never appreciate this, but losing them was the closest thing to losing my own children. I may never have kids… especially if I’m right that I won’t even be alive in a year… but I loved them like they were family. So to have them ripped away from me, because of some unknown issue between their mother and me – something I don’t even fucking understand myself, it’s not fair. It’s not right. And I violently hate that woman right now. She has destroyed any remnants of my life.

 

I have had identity issues throughout my life, as part of my illness… I’ve gone from being a loner, to having a social life, to not having a social life but having the responsibility of my best friend’s kids, to losing them all – at a time I’m experiencing the most traumatic loss and grief I’ve ever known. I’m left with no friends or support. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m nobody. I’m nothing.

 

I had this last year… I expressed to my friend that I had lost ‘fun Lily’… I didn’t know how to be ‘fun Lily’ for the kids anymore – because I hadn’t seen them for six months at that point. I felt I wasn’t good enough to be around them if I couldn’t pretend to be okay, which I seriously wasn’t okay…. The remedy would’ve been my friend saying they’d love me whatever, and helping me to find that part of my identity again. She didn’t. She did the opposite. She took it as me not wanting to see them anymore. And she didn’t see me either. So I ended up misunderstood and isolated. Forgotten. Neglected. Abandoned. I kept losing more and more of my identity as a result. Now everything I had is gone I feel there’s nothing left of me. I have nobody to remind me of who I am either.

 

Living with BPD without a support network is fucking impossible. I can’t do it. I want to scream right now. I close my eyes and see violence. I see myself raging inside – smashing things up… tearing my skin off and that of others…. deafening the world with the pain I feel…. I want to make the whole world know how far from okay I am. I contain it most of the time. I wish I didn’t. It’s hell.

 

Nobody talks to me. Nobody replies to me. I don’t exist. Life is awful. I feel too much pain. I don’t want to carry on. Nothing changes. Yet everything has changed. I’ve lost everything. And no amount of talking about it will change that or make anyone else pay attention or care about me. They just don’t and never will.

 

I’m hanging on now, just waiting to see if the Wellbeing Centre will be able to help me. That’s all I’m living for right now.

 

I even give up on ‘Brexit’ now. I hoped I would get to see how it turns out… that I’d still be alive to see us leave the EU. I don’t think I can hold on that many years. If it’s overturned I’ll be going anyway, as it’ll show just how irrelevant I am. But even focusing on Brexit doesn’t help anymore. I’ve got to the point I feel none of it matters…. nothing matters, as I won’t be around much longer. I’m just weary of everything. Nothing feels right.  I want everything to stop.

 

Even when I was on holiday I thought about walking out to sea…. I didn’t want to come home to the reality of life. I’m hanging on but I have nothing to hang on for. My life is empty. The way my ‘best friend’ treated me has left me hating myself, hating her, feeling powerless and frustrated. I have no way to let that out other than to blog or self-harm. This is my existence now. I’ve been using stars on a calendar to mark days I don’t self-harm. I’m good in that there’s only been one day this month, so far, where I haven’t earnt a star. The trouble is I struggle so much with the level of despair and sadness I feel today – that’s harder to cope with than just anger….. it’s an incapacitating emotion and usually leads to me feeling suicidal. Anger can be released and let go of…. this state of mind can’t.

 

Days like today I wish ‘happy pills’ existed…. nothing else would lift my mood right now. In the past with friends I’ve lost, my ‘revenge’ would be me moving on and forgetting them – but I always had other friends to move on with and was able to forget and find happiness. This was my best friend…. my only real friend and she turned her back on me, for reasons I don’t understand at all…. Liv is gone… I have no other friends. It’s impossible to put on a front and get my revenge by moving on. I can’t move on. I have nothing to move on to… nowhere to turn and nothing to survive for. I’m too ill to move on. I want revenge. I hate that I want revenge. I’m not a nasty person. But I’m fucking hurt, and I don’t understand why this all happened. It’s not okay and I have no way of moving on or communicating with her or anything. I’m fucking stuck, and she knows that. That’s why it’s so vindictive of her to cut me out like that. She knows what it would do to me. And she didn’t give a fuck. So I no longer give a fuck about her. I want to move on and be happy and for her to regret losing me but that can never happen. So I have to go for hating her at this point. My only other options for myself when I close my eyes are extremely graphic and disturbingly violent ones.

 

I just wish I could take a pill and forget everything and everyone I’ve known and lost. A pill that makes me happy, and makes me able to trust people therefore form new friendships. I wish I had friends. I cannot survive without any. I used to be in this state, but having had years of friendships and support, and a sense of belonging, I cannot go back to this level of isolation…. too much has happened in my life for me to be able to survive without friends. But any friends I had either hurt me, ghosted me or died. I can’t take anymore pain or loss. I can’t trust anyone. I don’t believe I’m even likeable anymore let alone lovable. And life is loss… therefore life is pain. I can’t face that pain alone. So how am I meant to live in this world?

 

 

 

 

Other People.

*Language & self-harm*

 

 

Today was so bad. It links into my previous blog post about instability too…. one little thing can totally switch your mood….. I didn’t see this coming. I went into work (I volunteer), in as good a mood as I could muster, given how life has been lately. I didn’t want to go in. I never do at the moment. But I keep pushing myself. I knew it was the last time before having a couple of weeks off. So I went in… in a helpful, hopeful state of mind… ready to do whatever anyone wanted me to do. I wouldn’t call it a good mood. It was a fair / decent mood. It was mainly a front – a mask I wear at work.

 

I didn’t anticipate how other people would affect me. I wasn’t prepared for them to not be in good moods. The trouble is when others are in a bad mood, sometimes they can’t help but take it out on me. It might be unintentional and no harm is meant, but I can feel those vibes. Empaths pick up on energy. I was receiving a lot of negative energy today. Everything I did was wrong. Filling a bag too much – when I was explaining I was getting to the end of a bag of stuff as I was so close to finishing, and then I was going to get a new bag and move some stuff over – but they didn’t want to listen to me. Then it was me moving something a few inches from where it was left. Then I kept getting in the way. Then I put things in the wrong sort of bag. Every single thing I said and did seemed to piss this person off. I almost left. I wish I had now. But I didn’t know how to excuse myself. I felt trapped there. So I’m afraid I opted for hurting myself in order to carry on. Every minute there was excruciating for me today. I could feel the energy being sucked out of me.

 

I know it wasn’t my fault. I know I did nothing wrong, and it was the other person. I know this because when I was working backstage, it was silent outside – the other staff weren’t talking at all. Usually if these things happen I might consider it’s ME in the bad mood, as everyone seems in a bad mood – but at those times they at least talk to each other! There was a very definite atmosphere today and I didn’t like it. Even with a customer they seemed off. So I did my best to treat them in the way a customer should be treated… even though I felt like hell myself and didn’t want to be there. I hated this other person today and couldn’t muster up any sort of conversation or anything for them anymore. But the customers don’t deserve to have it taken out on them too. So I did my best.

 

I was praying for home time. I now don’t want to go back after my break. I’ve never experienced that before. It wasn’t me just being sensitive. I was being spoken to as though I was one of the new volunteers who can sometimes be a nuisance. So either I was really pissing them off, or they were in a foul mood and taking it out on me. I’ve been there a few years now. They’ve never spoken to me like they did. They spoke to me like other staff members once did, where I once considered leaving because of them.

 

I understand if they have something going on. Maybe they were having a bad day or not feeling too good themselves mentally, but even when I feel like shit I don’t take it out on other people. It’s like how people deal with headaches differently – I take myself off away from others and rest until I feel better. I don’t inflict myself on others. Whereas some people bark at others… they snap and take out their temper on them. Why can’t more people be more like me? I’m not meaning to sound big-headed by saying that. I just mean why do people take their shit out on me when I don’t deserve it, and when I wouldn’t take my shit out on them?! It’s not fair that I try and take others into consideration when I feel shit, yet they don’t do the same for me, so end up taking their shit out on me when I’M feeling shit myself. They take it out on me and seem completely unaware that that’s what they’ve done. I think that’s what it is – awareness. I KNOW when I’m in a foul mood, and I wouldn’t take it out on others. Maybe some just lack self-awareness, that’s why they take their moods out on you and can’t understand why you respond with upset or hostility yourself.

 

The trouble I had was these little things built up very quickly. And then I reached a point I couldn’t come back from. Once I’ve got to that ‘I’m not wanted here, I might as well go home’ stage, I can’t come back from that. This person triggered off my paranoia among other things. I felt every syllable from their mouth and every action, was full of annoyance and disdain towards me. I could sense a different tone towards me than to other people. I could’ve imagined that but what I’m saying is my paranoia kicked in, and I didn’t want to be around them or say anything, as I felt all I was, was a nuisance and thought anything I said or did would be wrong. I felt mentally and physically absent after that. I couldn’t reconnect with my settings. I was scared to be near customers as I wasn’t grounded. I felt sorry I existed today. Sorry that I was in the way. Sorry that I was breathing. I wanted to come home… but I was scared to say anything to excuse myself. So I had to just tolerate feeling like a worthless piece of shit.

 

Oh well…. I had one of my emergency pills when I got home, as the thoughts and memories around it were too intense and causing worse self-harm urges. So I’m not so bothered now. It is such a shame though that at a time when everything’s rubbish and I have nothing left, the one thing I had is now problematic. That it came just before my break, which will make me not want to go back. Right now I’m not sure I will go back. Not for a few weeks probably. I’m too delicate at the moment. Too many more wrong moves by people and I won’t be here anymore. It’s safer to stay away from everyone, at least until I can get some level of help. My confidence at work was knocked a couple of years ago now after my breakdown at therapy. I didn’t go in as much and felt like I was starting all over again. I didn’t feel as capable of doing things. I didn’t feel useful. I felt more of a burden than anything. I’d recently started to feel a bit better there, but after today I feel I don’t belong there. I didn’t feel like one of them anymore. That upsets me greatly.

 

But never mind. Seem to be losing everything at the moment, so what’s one more thing? Need to stop writing now, as it’s erasing the effect of the pill I took. Best not to think on it. Just need to enjoy my break and not think about that place or the people in it. None of it matters.

 

 

Unstable.

*Suicide theme*

 

 

It’s the instability aspect of “Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder” that troubles me the most at the moment. It’s not a rollercoaster. People enjoy those… supposedly. The build-up and then the rush when you come rocketing down…. you see…. with a rollercoaster you see it coming…. you feel the anticipation build as you wait to hurtle towards the ground. With EUPD/BPD you don’t see it coming. And it’s not a rush when it happens. To many who go on rides (which I don’t), the best part is the drop. With BPD it’s the worst part. It comes out of nowhere and threatens your life.

 

Just yesterday I was more or less okay. I don’t really remember how I was. I just know there was nothing particularly wrong. Next thing I know I’m sat writing suicide notes, crying my eyes out and having palpitations. I don’t know what triggered it. All I know is I was meant to be writing a list of things to take on holiday… not writing suicide notes.

 

I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was a safety valve. Picturing me not being here anymore. Maybe it helped ease whatever I was feeling.

 

The other day I wrote something I wanted my former best friend to see. I felt so positive I was going to send it to her (somehow…. not sure how, as she moved house and didn’t tell me where to, and has me blocked online). The next day I decided against it. I now feel the next time she will hear from me will be after I’m gone. Unless she makes the move to sort things out with me in this lifetime, we won’t speak again until I’m dead. So I wrote her a letter for when the time comes. I don’t know if I honestly want that to happen or if going through the motions of it just allowed me to release what I felt towards her, in a more raw way, without all the BS.

 

I started writing other ones too. It was upsetting. It was very hard to wake up this morning and pretend this hadn’t been my reality last night. I thought I would have to take my emergency meds last night, but managed to get myself through without them. So it ended up being a success story anyway. But I am still unsettled by it all.

 

I wanted to reach out to people last night, and earlier. To tell the truth about how low I felt. Yesterday I typed out a status for Facebook. But I backspaced it all. I don’t ‘attention-seek’ anymore. Nobody cares what I have to say about my mental illness. I keep it all inside. I sort of feel if I write notes and then go straight online and talk about it then it’s just for ‘attention’. It’s not real. But this was real. Or the most real it’s ever been. I still feel incredibly low from what I wrote. Because what I wrote is my reality. I’ve spent so long talking about ending my life and not doing it, so I’ve stopped talking now. This being the exception.

 

Looking through my CMHT assessment letter I see “You described thoughts of not wanting to be around however there is no intent to act on these”…. “Fleeting suicidal thoughts with no intent and plan”. Of course that was in January. We’re in October now, and I lost my only remaining friend to suicide in May. These thoughts are not ‘fleeting’ anymore. I’m unsure of ‘intent’ now… I can’t guarantee anything. Same with a ‘plan’… no fixed plan, but ideas… it’s coming together. Planning ahead. I’m beginning to think about what I want people to know when the time comes. When… the time comes. Not if. That’s how things have changed since my assessment. It feels like a certainty now, that I will leave this world by my own hand. I just don’t know when. That’s how dark my mind has become. I see no other way. The death of my friend and the cold abandonment by the other friend, it’s all changed me forever. There’s no way back from that.

 

But like I was saying, it’s the instability that gets me. I can be plodding along just fine and then be swamped by painful emotions, or even numbness. It’s like a great looming suicidal cloud wafts in and takes over everything for the rest of the day. But then today, I was doing some tidying whilst people were out, and dancing like a maniac to some great music. Now I’m sat writing this blog… feeling the weight of depression and despair behind my eyes. Feeling paralysed by reality. Feeling detached from it all. Feeling I’m already dead.

 

Part of me sometimes feels hopeful, now I’ve finally taken the first step to getting some level of help. It’ll probably be at least a month to wait for an assessment, but at least it’s something to hope for… that they can help me want to live life again. I just don’t see how they could possibly fix someone this broken. I just hate how there are times I feel there’s a bit of hope. That I can do this. That I have to do this, because I have plans next year and want to be better by then…. and then there’s other times I’m certain I won’t be here for those plans. That none of it matters…. that it’s only a matter of time until I go.

 

It’s never been quite so extreme as it has been this year. In the past people may have noticed me seeming happy one minute and then being down the next…. feeling so lucky to have such great friends, to nobody caring about me….. but this is more dramatic than that. The highs aren’t high at all. But the lows would fool you into thinking there were great highs… I fall so hard and fast, and so far below where I used to fall. Having a day where I don’t contemplate ending my life – that is a ‘high’ point for me now. Though maybe I do feel happier than that sometimes, and just can’t see it right now, as I’m in one of my ‘lows’ again.

 

I have this difficulty that when things are bad I can’t ever remember them being good. I actually found the term emotional impermanence once – at least I think that’s what it was…. the idea that you can’t recall a previously felt emotion in its absence. I was looking at that from an aspect of relationship problems – that if someone isn’t showing caring towards me, I feel like they don’t care. They may be kind and say nice words at one point, but if they then go off the radar for a month or two and never check in…. that kindness, caring and those nice words no longer exist. They weren’t permanent. They were fleeting. I remember saying in a video journal I did sometime last year, about friends saying they care about me, and my thought was ‘How long for? A message? Then back to radio silence?’ – that’s one of the problems I have…. it’s why people like me need so much reassurance when we’re ill. We forget. We need reminding. It’s what I needed from people last year…. reminders that people cared. Rather than people assuming I know they care and are there for me, as they offered it once upon a time, I need them to remind me when I’m struggling. Because when I’m most ill I truly feel nobody cares. I need evidence that they do. Current evidence. So for the last year I probably seemed like I was ‘attention-seeking’ by saying nobody cared etc. – that was me asking people to reassure me that they did. So yes, I was seeking attention… but not to feed my ego or whatever, but because I honestly couldn’t remember the feeling of being cared for. I still don’t know how that feels. Kindness and positivity feel alien to me now. It’s like there’s a shield around me whenever anyone tries it. I can’t connect to either. I wish people would think of it like amnesia or something…. they wouldn’t blame me for not being able to remember something they said a few months back, if they offered support. But they expect me to remember it when I’m struggling with my mental health. I can’t. If something isn’t happening right here right now, I don’t know how it feels and find no comfort in sentiments that may no longer exist.

 

It’s like people saying to remember the good times with my granddad and how it felt. I can’t. I’m detached from my feelings. Apart from lacking actual memories with anyone, I can’t recreate feelings that are gone. Like looking at old photos – I can’t connect to them on any level. I have to trust that was me and I did those things. I sometimes do think I have some sort of amnesia. I look at photos and think I had a wonderful upbringing and was loved. But I’m basing that on photos and how much I love my family. I don’t recall how I felt growing up. I don’t know what sort of childhood I had. I have no memories of it. It’s like it wasn’t me. Sometimes I feel like an imposter in the body of this girl in the photos. I feel like a separate entity that has taken over her body but does not share her memories. It’s weird and slightly terrifying.

 

And my former friend… I miss her. I keep thinking about everything we’ve been through together and never will do again…. there isn’t a possibility in my mind that she ever really cared about me. A lot of the troubles towards the end came from me needing her reassurance and her not understanding this, so rather than reminding me she cared about me, she made me feel like a burden to her, and the distance kept widening between us… when all I wanted and needed was her to care about me, because I couldn’t remember a time when she did. The more silence there is, the more I split and forget how people once felt about me. She then effectively ghosted me and I’ve never been the same since. It was the final nail in the coffin of my sanity. I was left to fill in the blanks with my paranoid thoughts. I was left not only with an absence of her, but an absence of her care and supportive words, and worse than that, a feeling of being nothing to her but a nuisance. I see our whole history differently as a result. I don’t see any care in the highlights my mind offers me. I see detachment. I feel used. I feel tolerated. I feel pain and hatred. And all of this because about 12-14 months ago she couldn’t say ‘I care about you….. you matter to me’ and give me an hour of her time to show she still cared about me. None of this would’ve ever happened if she could’ve just reminded me of our friendship and who I was to her. That’s why I’m sad at the moment.

 

That and my recent loss. I remember Liv saying that the 4-8 month mark was bad for her mental health after her loss. It’s been almost five months now since she left. And I’d agree. I don’t know how I’m going to cope with this. I don’t know how to get through it. All I know is I can’t talk to anyone about any of it now. They’ve all made sure of that. I suffer in silence now.

 

My circumstances are the hurdle to me recovering. Having one friend ditch me and another take her own life…. leaving me with nobody…. no support network…. no safety net…. no rock to keep me going…. no reason to live…. I’ve never had to pull myself out of a place this deep and dark, and I’ve never had to do it alone. I know that will be the point… this has happened so that I can prove my strength to pull myself out of this wreck… and if I can survive this I can survive anything. The trouble is I don’t think I will survive this. Not right now. And if I do, then what? What am I surviving for? What life am I trying to get back to? I have none. I have nothing. I have nothing to aim for. If I somehow manage to survive and get well, I will be starting my life all over again…. but at a time where I’m also likely to face more painful loss all alone, as nobody’s getting any younger… which will just knock me back down again. It feels like a hopeless uphill struggle right now. I can’t see the light. I can’t even tell which way I’m facing or where the ground is.

 

I’m taking blind steps at the moment in terms of seeking help. It took me ages to send off the forms because I couldn’t fill in the box about my goals, and what I hope to get out of using the service. So in the end I was totally honest… told it like it is. Said how bad things are, that I can’t see a future so can’t say goals… listed all the problems etc. Obviously this worried them so they want me to see my doctor while I wait to be assessed. I have a tendency to put things off. I’ve been seeing my doctor every month for the last year or so…. there’s nothing she can do to help me. She knows how bad I feel. What’s the point in going back to see her to tell her ‘yep, still feeling suicidal’…? All it does is make me feel like a burden. I don’t like worrying people. I can’t do it in the next two weeks anyway, so not much point. It’s nice that they cared though. It’s an odd feeling, that unsettled me. Brings back memories of therapy two years ago… a problem in itself. But yeah I’m just going to have to put blind faith in them to help me find my feet. I’m just worried I’ll be beyond the realms of support they can give…. and I know CMHT won’t see me until they help me… so I’m kind of stuck at the moment. Too ill for anyone, but CMHT don’t want to help at the moment, plus the grief stuff kind of effs it all up too. Who the hell do I see first, and what for?? I don’t know how to solve the chaos inside me at the moment. I’m hoping talking to them might clear that up for me. It’s good they want to know why the mental health team didn’t refer me themselves and left me to self-refer. Gives me hope that they’ll do the right thing by me and get me to the right place.

 

It’s a long way off though. Many suicidal days to survive first. It’s exhausting. Especially hiding it from everyone and pretending to be ‘normal’. But I can’t open up anymore in real life. It’s impossible. Have to just take it a day at a time and put up with the unstable emotions and raging thoughts. Don’t have another choice. If I could sleep for a long time and wake up when I’m healed and life is better, that would be great. But sadly that will never happen. I have to tolerate this existence or opt out. Although my mind is preparing for it, I’m not ready to quit yet. So I must battle on.

 

 

 

 

Burdened.

*Strong suicide theme*

 

 

My head is packed full of noise at the moment and I can’t tell what’s what. I don’t know how I feel, what I think or what to do. I don’t even know how to begin unravelling the chaos inside. I feel like I need to write it out but I don’t know where to start. How on earth do I explain everything I’m experiencing? It’s not possible.

It’s been a tough week and nobody even knows about it. With World Suicide Prevention Week, it’s triggered a lot of memories and emotions surrounding the loss of my friend to suicide four months ago. Seeing all the posts / tweets about suicide has been upsetting. Oddly enough the thing that upset me the most was people saying ‘suicide isn’t selfish…. those who think it is are the selfish ones’. I thought, how lovely it must be to see things so simplistically. I have news for people – we’re ALL selfish. Every single one of us. If we’re not then we’re not living life correctly. We all think about things from our perspective. Have these people ever really considered what they’d be like if they lost someone to suicide? They have this view that you shouldn’t make someone’s suicide all about you. I’m sorry but it is about me. It’s about everyone her life touched. Yes she was in pain and couldn’t go on. It’s about her pain and her tragic end to her life. But the moment someone completes suicide it ceases to be about that person anymore and their pain….. it becomes a new wave of pain for everyone else. To say otherwise is to say we shouldn’t grieve the loss of them…. and to not grieve is to deny ever loving them.

Some people have the view that the grief and sadness someone feels at losing someone to suicide, cannot compare to the pain someone feels to want to end their life. I disagree. I don’t think those people can legitimately say that unless they have experienced both. I have experienced both. I am experiencing both right now. Very often those preaching about ‘not judging’ suicidal people and calling those bereaved by suicide ‘selfish’, are people who only have one side of the story… quite often their own experiences of suicidal feelings / attempts on their own lives. They tell others not to judge unless they have been there, whilst judging those who are grieving the loss of someone to suicide. They haven’t been there, they cannot understand how it feels.

I do not think my friend was genuinely and deliberately selfish. I know suicidal feelings like the back of my hand. I understand it. I know it’s part of a mental illness. A symptom that claims lives. It’s something that robs you of your ability to think and see clearly. It distorts reality and makes you feel and believe you are a burden, nobody cares and the world would be better without you. It is an illness. But it can still be seen as selfish. It doesn’t mean the person was selfish. They likely weren’t in their right mind. But it is perfectly normal and natural for loved ones to see it as selfish. I’ll tell you why, from my own feelings in regards to my friend:

1. She didn’t give me the opportunity to help her. If I had known how she really felt, I would’ve done anything for her. But she denied me the chance to save her life. And I have to live with that forever.
2. She didn’t give me a goodbye. She just went. I had no closure. I had to make that closure by going to her funeral to say my goodbye. But she didn’t respect me enough to say goodbye or that she was sorry for leaving me. She abandoned me.
3. She knew how alone I was and what I’d been through. She left me with nobody and nothing, and I’ve now completely shut down and closed off from everyone.
4. I was due to see her five weeks later – we were looking forward to a concert together and finally seeing each other again. She left me with nobody to go with initially… I had to go round begging people to go with me. I also had to attend the event whilst grieving… having gone to her funeral the week before. I never got to see her again. It felt like I was worthless…. she couldn’t hold on long enough to see me. It felt like a ‘rejection’ of me. It felt like she didn’t want to see me. Like she didn’t care about me.

These points would make some on Twitter bark at me that I’m being selfish, making it about me and not caring about her suffering. I would totally lose it at those people were they to do that. My point is that I am grieving. It’s perfectly acceptable for me to have these thoughts and feelings. They’re not often talked about as we have to appear a certain way, to avoid ‘stigma’. But those who have lost someone to suicide are faced with stigma too. They’re made to feel guilty for having the sorts of views I have just listed. They’re made to feel bad about their anger and for blaming the person. Ultimately I know her suicide was not about me in the slightest – it was about the torment in her own mind. I know that. But I haven’t reached that point in my grief yet – it’s only been four damn months! It’s a process. It takes time. Right now it feels like something done to me. I shouldn’t be shamed for feeling this way, especially by people who have no clue what it’s like to lose someone to suicide.

This last week has taught me I’m fighting the wrong battle. I no longer associate myself with the ‘mental health community’ and fighting stigma against mental illness no matter what. I will fight against it, but when it crosses over into stigma against others who are suffering (e.g. those grieving due to suicide), I will side with the bereaved. I know how suicidal thoughts feel. At this moment I want to end my life. I don’t want to exist anymore. I do not see me being here in a year. That’s why I’m reluctant to buy a ticket for myself to see my favourite band on my birthday next year… what’s the point? I won’t be here then. I know suicidal feelings too well. I know what hell I exist in right now. But what gives me the right to say that what I feel now is worse than what my family would feel if I took my own life? You cannot compare pain like that. That in itself is selfish… thinking your suffering is worse than someone else’s would be.

Suicide spreads. Those who lose someone to suicide are at risk of trying to take their own lives too. They can be left traumatised. They can develop a mental illness as a result, and end up down the same path. And having people say not to make someone’s suicide about you, is the worst thing you can do. It tells those people to shove it down, not talk about it and this will only compound their own struggles with mental illness. Suicide is a silent killer and many die as a result of not talking about how they truly feel…. so for mental health advocates to invalidate people’s feelings and grief and telling them to say nothing, and not be open about how they really feel, it’s damaging and they’re perpetuating the silence of suicide.

 

 

Those who talk about such things probably don’t know what grief feels like. How it tears your world apart and leaves a hole in your heart. That is just ‘normal’ grief. Grief from suicide is more complex and traumatic than any other loss. It’s a known fact. That’s not to diminish grief from other causes. All loss is traumatic and the worst pain you can imagine. But unless you’ve been affected by someone’s suicide, you have no idea how that feels.

Personally as well, if you haven’t lost someone to suicide then you don’t know what that’s like… to have to cope with that whilst having BPD, where your emotions are more intense. And throw into the mix already feeling suicidal yourself…. and having no friends left, so having to deal with it all on your own. Or rather not deal with it on your own.

How can I then be expected to not make her death about ME…? The point is whilst suicide is not intentionally selfish it does have consequences for other people. I remember someone even saying online before the funeral, if you’re coming then don’t make it all about you, and act like the ‘best friend’. I let that go, on accounts of them grieving. But I took that to heart. That really pierced down to the bone. That was another instance of ‘don’t make it about you’ – i.e. don’t be ‘selfish’. I had no intention of it. And it hurt that it could even be suggested that I would. It may not have been aimed at me, but as I was ‘uninvited’ it felt like it was a pointed comment. I felt they were trying to put me off going. Like I wasn’t welcome. I wasn’t ever going to act like the ‘best friend’ – I never was her best friend. She was the BEST friend I’ve ever had, in the sense that nobody could be better than she was. And I did know her since she was seventeen at least…. she was a huge part of my life, even if we only met up in person once. There’s a gaping hole in my life without her. Nobody has a right to deny that for me. It just felt as though I was being told I didn’t matter to her, so don’t pretend that I did. And when my whole issue in the past year had been that I felt I didn’t matter to anyone, and she was the only one who ever cared about me, that damn hurt. It was torture. I let it go, as I said, but months later it still stabs me in the heart when I think of it. I went to that funeral to show her family she was loved. To show support for them as I felt it’s what my friend would’ve wanted. She may never have expected for me to go to her funeral, but that’s what friends do. That’s how much she mattered to me. I wouldn’t have done that for just anyone. Our friendship mattered…. she wouldn’t want people to make me feel I was nothing to her. I know that. I went to a new place completely alone, for a couple of hours to say goodbye. I had to see her one more time. I never got to see her a month later as planned. She denied me the chance to see her and say goodbye. So I had to go. It was horrible to have to do. It still vividly haunts me today. But it was necessary. I didn’t make it about me. I popped in and ducked out just as swiftly. Yet I beat myself up for weeks afterwards, feeling guilty for intruding. She would hate that I felt that way. I’m not who people may have thought I was. I didn’t make it about me.

But now I’m left entirely alone to survive, I think I’m allowed to make this loss about me. It’s not just about me. But it has impacted on my life, and I shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for admitting that. I have nobody to talk to now. I’m invisible. She always made me feel visible. She’d always remind me what a good person I was. Now I can’t believe I am as I have nobody to help me believe that. There’s no permanence with what’s wrong with me. Sentiments only exist as long as they are said. She’ll never say those words again, and there’s nobody else to say them. So to me it doesn’t exist. I’m not a good person. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. And I don’t matter to anyone now. And she’s not here to reassure me otherwise.

Her taking her own life has left me wanting to take my own. Feeling it is a certainty now. I see no way of recovering anymore. I’ve lost the two oldest friendships I’ve ever had, both of them early this year. There’s nothing left for me now. To start with I had people telling me what she would want for me… and that she wouldn’t want me to do that… but if she did it, then there’s no reason I shouldn’t. The only thing that stops me from doing it, is thinking how it would affect my family….. the belief that it IS selfish is the one thing that stops me from taking my own life. So I think it’s actually DANGEROUS for mental health advocates to send out a message that it’s somehow courageous and selfless to take your own life…. because you think you’re doing everyone a favour, not being a burden to them…. this is dangerous information to put out there. There needs to be balance.

 

 

I think people who are suicidal need to be told they’re not bad people for feeling that way or for attempting to end their lives…. BUT they need to hear the reality. I understand it, I really do…. I feel like the biggest burden to everyone right now. It’s why I isolated myself last year and this year. So often I think about ending my life to unburden other people – but this is based on distorted thinking….

No matter how much of a burden you think you are with your illness, you are NOT a burden to your loved ones. They would rather you were here, asking for help, and being in their lives, than to never be able to see or talk to you again. The thing that burdens people the most is ending your life. That is the heaviest burden known to man. I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my days, however many that may be. Her family have to carry that burden forever.

I am mentally ill. I feel suicidal. And I am carrying the weight of suicide by my one remaining friend. I don’t feel it can get worse than that. I have to live with that loss forever. This doesn’t encourage me to get better. It makes me want to die because the burden is too much to carry on my own, but that’s where I am in my life now because of her, and because of my best friend who turned her back on me a couple of months prior to my other friend dying. I have no reason to recover.

So suicide does impact on other people. And in that way it can be viewed as ‘selfish’. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with feeling that, if you are bereaved by suicide. I think people who have no clue of suicidal feelings, OR losing someone to suicide, and just sit on a train complaining about being late because of a ‘jumper’ – that’s wrong. Those people should be challenged. But when people are fighting stigma against the suicidal among us, they ought to remember that some of us are grieving and grief brings out all sorts of emotions, and beliefs. There may come a day when I defend my friend and say suicide is NOT selfish at all. I am not there yet, because it’s only been four months.

But right now it is unintentionally selfish. Some people take their own lives to unburden others. They think they’re helping other people by doing it. But a lot of the time people want to end their lives just to end their pain. Everything else goes out the window. That’s why people believe it is selfish, because they think we’re only thinking of ourselves and our pain, and not considering those we’d leave behind – and sometimes that’s probably true – we probably do forget about them and their potential pain. Or we think they’ll get over it. Or that they don’t care enough to grieve. And sometimes we do think of those we’d leave behind, but that thought isn’t enough to survive what we’re experiencing inside. So ultimately the thoughts of ‘self’ win.

It’s okay to be selfish. It’s okay to feel that suicide is selfish, but not think badly of the person themselves. I know that’s hard to comprehend. But you can think something is selfish yet is not a bad thing. Look, people think I’m selfish for my grieving process and for ‘making it about me’….. and I think those people who judge me for things like I’m writing here, they too are selfish. Because they’re thinking about themselves – their own opinions…. and they’re intolerant of a different view. They don’t stop to question the reason I might have this view… why I might be upset by people saying ‘suicide isn’t selfish’. It’s not a black and white case of me thinking that therefore I’m an ignorant, judgemental prick. But there are genuinely people who would read this post and think that about me. But the REASON I’m upset by that statement is because I have personally lost someone to suicide, therefore I know how it feels. I have conflicting views about suicide. It’s very confusing for me, and it’s a part of grief. So having people tell me it’s wrong to feel a certain way, is damaging in my journey to healing from loss. I’m not one of those ignorant people who don’t know what it feels like. I know perfectly well how it feels. Exactly four years to the day before my friend took her own life, I considered jumping off a bridge. It was the closest I had come to doing something like that.

So I know all about it. I’m also feeling the most hopeless and helpless I ever have. I’m strongly considering suicide myself. I haven’t quite reached that point where anyone needs to immediately worry. But I have an unhealthy obsession with not existing anymore. That’s why reading endless tweets about suicide was very triggering for me.

All these stories about ‘It really DOES get better… look at me now’…. they all felt empty. It may well get better for a lot of people, who have lives to return to…. but I feel like the exception. That’s what I felt when watching a programme about how to help people who are suicidal. I felt all those suggestions would work for someone else but not me. I felt people would care and be there to save other people, but not me. I felt like others can be saved, but I am the exception. I felt dead inside watching that programme. I feel it’s too late for me to be helped. No help can bring back what I’ve lost. I have no support around me anymore. The safety net I once had has morphed into the noose around my neck. The two friends I had left, who could have saved me from this pain and this certain fate, they abandoned me in one way or another. They are the reason I don’t want to exist anymore. I have nobody else to catch me. Everyone else willingly watched me drown or just didn’t even notice I was drowning. I didn’t exist to any of them. So I’ve cut everyone out now. I’m on my own.

I used to see my Godchildren as a part of my future…. it was the one thing I was certain of – that I’d always be in their lives and watch them grow. But when my best friend turned her back on me at my lowest point, she took them with her. So any hope for a future I had, it’s gone now. I’ve not seen them for over a year and half. The bond I had with my God-daughter is broken, along with my heart. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from the pain of that lost bond. My Godson has started school now apparently. My friend moved house apparently…. all of this happened without her telling me anything about it. She cut me out of her life well over a year ago. It was a long drawn-out abandonment and it destroyed me. I have no reason for living anymore. I have too many traumatic experiences from the last couple of years. I have nothing to aim for. And even if I could conjure up some new friends – it takes a long time to cultivate the sorts of friendships I’ve lost this year. And I never will be able to, because I will not trust anyone again, thanks to my former best friend. I will be expecting abandonment and rejection from everyone I meet now. If my best friend of over thirteen years can give up on me because of my mental illness, then nobody else will stick around. They’ll only tolerate me if I pretend to be okay. As long as I never show my reality people will humour me, at best. I used to hide my mental illness from everyone. After my breakdown at therapy two years ago, it let a lot out, and I could no longer hide how I felt. The more ill I got publicly, the less people wanted to do with me, including her. Once the mask of wellness slipped and she saw the true face of depression and BPD, she didn’t want to know me anymore. That’s how it feels. So my self-worth is non-existent now. I don’t believe anyone will ever truly like me. I know for a fact that no man will ever see me as attractive ever again. So I’ve accepted I’m going to die an old spinster…. assuming I survive that long, which I highly doubt right now.

I just feel too broken. Too traumatised. Too alone. I’m a lost cause. I’m feeling too hopeless, that I’m not even doing things I’m meant to be doing. I’ve not approached anyone for help yet… because I don’t believe I can be helped. This feels too big an obstacle for anyone to help me. I need grief counselling… but the problem is not just grief, it’s the mess that’s left behind – my mental illness, my grief, it’s all wrapped up together. Being abandoned by everyone… that affects my mental health and my grief…. my grief affects my mental health and vice versa, and then people abandon me because of it…..which makes me paranoid, which pushes people away…. makes me feel unsupported in my grief…. more mentally ill……. want to die….. see no future – seriously when I picture it, it’s black. There’s literally NOTHING in my future now. Because of abandonment. Because of grief and loss. Trauma and broken trust. Being made to feel worthless and not deserving of a goodbye or a conversation from my best friend. If she didn’t value me who the fuck is going to in this life? And if nobody values me and I’ll be made to feel this shit forever, then I don’t want to live a minute more. What have I done to deserve this?? I feel enraged about it. And then I beat myself up for it, thinking of course I deserved everything that’s happened. I’m an awful person. Another reason to die. But I can’t die, because it’s selfish and would hurt my family. My family are all I have to keep me alive. And even they don’t know how I feel at the moment. I can’t talk to them about any of it. This is how alone I am. This is the most I’ve talked about my feelings in a long time. And my mind’s telling me I shouldn’t have done it. I should keep it all in and let it build until I end my life.

 

 

Mental health services have changed so much in the last ten years, since I did DBT. They won’t help me until I’ve been through ‘lesser services’. But they all are about ‘recovery’ – you have to want to get better and put the work in. The trouble is I’m beyond that now. They left me too long and too much has happened since. I don’t ‘want’ to get better….. because I cannot see that possibility anymore. It’s impossible to focus on ‘recovery’ when you cannot see the point in it. When you just can’t exist in this life anymore. When no matter what work you do on yourself, your circumstances will still be the same… you’ll still be utterly alone at the end of any work you do. You’ll still be grieving and have lost everything. You’ll still have wasted years of your life and be a failure. What is the point? And people won’t suddenly treat you better than they have. I’ve been trodden on too many times now, I feel it’s my lot in life. And I don’t want to participate in that anymore. I want it over with. I honestly feel even DBT won’t help me at this point. I have no clue what would – because my problem is not just my mental health or that I’m grieving… it’s the people I had around me…. you can’t force people to care about you. I have nobody to care about me anymore. You can’t replace that. And without that, I can’t recover. This world is what is killing me. It’s the reason I can’t live in it. The people. My irrelevance. And everything people have put me through in the last few years. You can’t erase that amount of emotional trauma. And I can’t live in this world with all of that inside me. So tell me…… who do I turn to, to help me with that?

Bereavement counselling won’t touch it. Mental health services will see my mental health as complicated by grief, therefore signpost me to bereavement counselling. There is nobody in this world who can help with the scale of this problem. And even if there was… I wouldn’t believe they can help me. I won’t believe that I can be saved. How do you help someone like that? How?? I’ll always believe people will give up on me, if I don’t seem to be ‘engaging’ with their attempts to get me to help myself. That’s what it’s all about – I have to help myself. That’s what services are like now…. they don’t help you. They help you to help yourself. So what would they do with me? Write me off as the lost cause I feel I am? Or would they overcompensate with nauseating positivity…. ? I’ve had that before. You just feel misunderstood and invalidated. Either way I end up feeling a failure and a burden… like I’m wasting their time. I’m not even in hell anymore. I’m below that. I can fully understand why my friend made the choice she did four months ago, if this is the sort of thing she felt.

I have nothing and nobody to lift me out of this. There is no joy in life. No hope. Nothing. I really want to fall asleep and not wake up. I can’t exist in my head anymore. I’ve had enough.

And that’s without the political situation unfolding in this country now too. I don’t exist to anyone in my life… I’m invisible…. and now Parliament want to treat me as though I’m invisible too…. just overturn my vote, deny me an election and rob me of the one achievement in recent times – winning that referendum. I won’t say much on politics now, but it just destroys me that MPs are treating me just the same as everyone else. Like I don’t matter. I actually tweeted to the Prime Minister the other day, admitting that Remainer MPs are making me even more suicidal than usual. I’m usually quite restrained on Twitter, but that’s going now. I’m beyond the end of my tether. And the political situation is worsening my mental health at a dangerous time…. they’ve created an environment too toxic for people like me to live in… another reason to opt out of life. I just feel the odds are stacked against me, to survive. And I’ve lost the will to care.