Life is a Rollercoaster.

I’ve not blogged for some time now…. that’s because life felt a little better for a while. Now it feels like everything is collapsing around me.

I had an MRI on Thursday, where afterwards I was told to not wait until my appointment in January to discuss the results… to chase them up. This told me that they might have seen something on my scan, that I should be concerned about… more than what I already know is there. So, I spent all day Thursday, convinced I have cancer and that I’m going to die.

I already started treatment with medication for my pituitary tumour last week… the side-effects are challenging. I get headaches, tiredness and it’s affecting my mood. I take half a pill once a week. So, I’ll have it say on Monday, have the headaches and tiredness but otherwise be fine with my mood…. but by the end of the week, the levels drop and my mood crashes…. it just so happens that the end of the last two weeks, have left me with things to be upset about… so I spend the weekends feeling suicidal and crying… thinking nobody cares and I have nothing left to live for. I’m hoping it will even out eventually… but right now it’s an emotional rollercoaster and I need support and stability in my life. I don’t feel I have that…. which admittedly could be the low mood talking. But the consistency and safety I need at the end of the week, never seems to be there…. it’s like my support system mimics the emotional rollercoaster. The depression I feel, tells me to push everyone away… stop talking to them, as they don’t care about me. And then they do care about me, and things feel better…. and then the mood crashes again, and the support wains… and the world is ending again, and I have nothing good left in my life. I’m sick of it.

I should have made sure I had a stable support system around me, before I started the treatment… but I had no idea it would affect my mood this badly. Now I just have to muddle through it and hope I can survive it on my own. I just wish I wasn’t on my own. This is a huge deal for me… having to go through all the tests and treatment again…. plus, the anxiety of ‘what is it they’ve seen, that’s so urgent I should chase them up for the result?’… I’m scared. I’m overwhelmed.

And I feel I’m in the process of losing everything and everyone, just when I need them most. The mental health team are looking to discharge me soon. And connections I’ve made, I feel are slipping away. It’s all too much. I just want to feel safe and protected again. I want to be happy. I want to go back three months. Where I am right now is unbearable. It’s too hard to face. But I will face it alone, as I’m on too much of a rollercoaster as it is… I can’t afford to throw ‘uncertainty’ and ‘loss’ into the mix, on top of everything else. If nobody will be there for me, I must be there for myself, purely for myself, by myself. I have to prioritise my health. I have to give myself what others won’t. I know full well I’m holding people at a distance now, and saying ‘I don’t need anyone’… I’m doing that to protect myself from the fact I do need someone but can’t face the rejection that comes with unmet needs. But it is what it is. I feel myself shutting down, unable to communicate with people anymore. I hate this feeling…. this is what ended my 13-year friendship in the past… hopefully these feelings will improve. If not, I’ll be right back where I started after my breakdown two years ago.

It felt so bad on Thursday night that I wished for it to be cancer, and that I’d die, so I didn’t have to endure this life anymore. That’s how alone I feel. That’s how hurt I feel. It’s how hopeless and depressed I feel. If it ends up being the case, I won’t tell anyone outside of my family… because nobody cares anyway. They may care when I’m gone… but unlikely.

I’m sorry this is so negative, but this is the reality of my mood in relation to the treatment for my tumour… this is what I’m having to endure at the end of each week. And as I have nobody to really talk to about it, I need to let it out somewhere. I did talk about all of this at the group I went to today… it helped a little, to have some amount of support, even if it is distant care and support. It’s better than nothing.

I guess time will tell if there’s something wrong…. and hopefully the treatment will help, and the mood changes will ease. I just have to hold on for dear life in the meantime.

Tuesday Journal: 02/06/20

*SH / suicidal feelings*

 

 

Things I’m grateful for:

• Again, the escapism of Animal Crossing.
• Again, crochet.
• Family.
• Board games.
• That MH site I joined last week. Not got support from it as such, but at least it’s somewhere I can actually express my feelings freely without judgement.
• Beautiful flowers I spot on my walks.
• Sleep – an escape from pain of every kind.

 

What I struggled with:

• Self-harm & going backwards in recovery & communication. Shut down. Unable to talk to anyone or express my feelings. Paranoia about people’s opinions of me / intentions. False accusations. Gaslighting. Stigma. Blame. Triggers. Trauma. Snowballing thoughts / feelings about everything – grief, loss, bullying, abandonments, way people treated me, the WC, hopelessness, never fitting in, self-hatred. I could go on, but reluctant to use my voice anymore. Only writing this for the sake of keeping a record for going back to the WC at some point. If I live that long. Otherwise done.

What I learnt from it:

• Keep my mouth shut & my opinions to myself. Safer that way.
• Don’t let anyone in. Safer that way.
• Nobody will ever understand me or my intentions. I will spend my life defending and explaining myself but it will fall on deaf ears.
• I’m alone. I deserve to be. I’m meant to be.
• It’s better to live in my own little bubble, talk to nobody, keep myself to myself, bottle my thoughts and feelings up and take them out on myself, silently. Like I used to. People liked me more then.
• I need to go back to being a doormat who never spoke or smiled. Who knew her place.
• Yeah this all sounds negative. You won’t change my views on this though. I’m beyond broken now.  I can’t do this anymore.

 

What I achieved:

• Finished May miles and signed up for June.
• Continuing my vitamins.
• Unfortunately that’s probably about it. Oh, spoke to family members on the phone and my work friend. Was a big struggle though. I’m all peopled out. I just want peace now. I’m not well. Physically or mentally. Recovery is gone. It’s all too much. Life keeps reminding me why I’ll never belong here. That I’m too messed up to cope with this world and the people in it. That it’s only a matter of time. There’s no coming back from all of this. You can’t fix a broken soul. And people will never change. Too much has happened since lockdown that’s closed me down for good. I quit.

 

 

 

 

 

I Grieve Alone.

*Suicide theme*
*Swearing – rant*

 

 

So yesterday was the first birthday of the most wonderful friend I ever had, since she ended her life last year. It was a very difficult time for me. I stupidly reached out online, to tell the world I was struggling with it. Can you guess what happened? The same as what always happens for me….. silence. I was ignored. I was invisible. My pain went unnoticed.

 

At a time when I’m feeling trapped in isolation, I needed people to give a damn for once. But they seriously don’t and never will. When I had my group at the Wellbeing Centre, I cared less about these neglectful online people. But now with this lockdown crap I have no other support. I needed the online support. I’m more aware of how utterly alone I am and how little I am valued by people who should care, and the wider population in general.

 

I can understand all my usual bumph being ignored like it is. But grief?? Seriously?? Everyone knows how it feels to lose someone. How hard is it to send a thoughtful, kind and supportive message to say you’re thinking of someone?

 

I get that there’s the possibility that seeing someone’s grief might tap into your own, and bring you pain… so you would want to avoid that. But I’m not asking for someone to lean on. I’m not asking for someone to talk to. I just needed a damn bit of compassion. To have my grief noticed. To hear ‘I’m thinking of you today’. That’s all. For fuck’s sake… if that’s asking too much then I obviously really don’t deserve to live in this fucking world.

 

This is nothing new to me. Anytime there’s an anniversary date, or a birthday, I write in the hope someone will hear me and validate my pain and respect the person in question by reaching back to me, to show they see the importance of that person to me…. every time I’m left on my damn own… the silence showing me how little I mean to everyone and how unimportant the person I lost was. It’s fucking rude and disrespectful.

 

Other people get support at times like this. I even give support to people. Even if I can’t say anything more than ‘Thinking of you’, I still do it, because it matters more than you’d think. To witness someone’s grief and stay silent, leaving them totally alone and unsupported is about the worst fucking thing you can do… especially to someone with serious mental illness… and especially at a time when isolation is putting a strain on people.

 

Do you know, the only person who ever really supported me in my previous grief, was the person who is no longer here and who I was grieving yesterday……. she would send her thoughts to me…. she’d tell me to be gentle with myself… she’d recognise how painful certain times can be. She guided me through my first case of grief. Now there’s nobody there to guide me through this traumatic loss of her.

 

I don’t have friends. She took her life. The other one abandoned me. After that there was nobody else. People don’t seem to understand how much I relied on little words of support from them…. I relied on the ‘acquaintances’ because I had nobody else. Their kindness would have made such a difference. Their silence was and always is destructive.

 

Things to say to someone who is grieving, without having to take on their feelings:

•  I’m thinking of you.
•  I’m sorry you’re in so much pain.
•  I can see this is painful for you. I wish I could take the hurt away.
•  I can see how much they mattered to you.
•  They’d be so proud of you for carrying on.
•  You’re not on your own. I’m here for you.
•  I care about you.
•  Be gentle with yourself.
•  Sending you love today.
• They’ll never be forgotten.
•  They were a special person.
• Wishing you the best today.

 

I could go on…. but you get the idea….. words. Actual words make a difference. They say ‘I see you…. I understand…. you’re not alone and worthless… this person mattered…. so do you’. Other people get it from each other. As usual I’m left on the floor begging for things like this and still being denied them. Doesn’t matter if it’s people who know me (Facebook), or people who don’t (Twitter)…. it doesn’t matter how privately (Facebook) or publicly (Twitter) I share my feelings of grief and sadness, the result is the same….. nothing. The most anyone will ever do for me now is ‘like’ my posts. And that’s a miracle if they do that!

 

The only time I communicate with others is when I pretend everything’s fine. When I focus on things like photography on Twitter. So that’s what I’m going to do from now on. Pretend I’m not grieving. Pretend I don’t have a mental illness. Pretend I don’t want to kill myself again now. Pretend, pretend, pretend. Fake smile. Fake positivity. Clam up and never talk about my feelings again. Nothing is worse than opening up about your most inner feelings and hearing only silence in response. Nothing.

 

So I am on my own with the pain, the sadness, the loss, and everything that comes with all of that. I’ll be one of those statistics…. where ‘nobody saw it coming’… because I put on an act. I pretend I’m fine, because nobody cares when I’m not. So I will focus on the good. I’ll pretend nothing is wrong. They’ll never see it coming. One day I’ll just disappear from the world and if they even notice, they’ll wonder why I never said anything or reached out for help. They won’t realise the amount of times I did, and was met with frosty silence. They’ll never understand it was their doing.

 

No it’s not imminent, but yes I’m back to believing I will die by my own hand, eventually. It feels certain again. During this lockdown people are probably fearing the virus and thinking that will kill a lot of people. It won’t be the virus that kills people like me, it will be our mental health. It will be the isolation and the hurtful lack of care from others during this time. It’ll be our own minds. I’ve gone a long way backwards since losing my group. I can’t see myself getting back to where I was. It’s all so hopeless right now.

 

Yesterday was Liv’s birthday. Next month will be the first anniversary of her death. People will support each other in the mental health community. Nobody will support me. I’m a nobody. I dread next month. I will probably opt for staying offline… that way I won’t see everyone supporting each other and mentioning it. And I won’t have to face the pain of reaching out and not being noticed. It’s better to keep it all to myself.

 

I had hoped to reach out for bereavement counselling before these two dates, but this damn Coronavirus thing cocked that right up didn’t it. It’s too late now. I needed the support before, to be able to cope with it on my own. But never mind. Just got to try and survive it now, in silence. Nobody wants to hear my grief. That’s what I’ve come to realise. People don’t care. They don’t want to know. It’s probably a case of ‘we all experience it…. suck it up buttercup’. But if we all experience it, then why not show a bit of human warmth and compassion when someone speaks out about their suffering? That’s the bit I don’t understand. If I knew how upsetting something can be, and I saw someone else experiencing it, I would reach out to them to let them know they’re not alone. Why won’t anyone do that for me? The answer always comes back to…. because it’s me. Because I’m worthless. Because they all want to neglect me to my death. It has to be. The way people treat me, or rather don’t treat me…. consistently…. as a larger society…. the only thing they all ever communicate to me is my irrelevance and their desire to see me dead. Otherwise they’d speak to me. They’d make an effort. They’d care.

 

I know everyone has a lot to think about right now with this pandemic, but it would be nice if they could not entirely forget those who need them. You see all these posts about reaching out for help…. or checking in with your friends etc. – I reach out = silence. I have no friends to check in on me. Nobody else will check in on me. I’m a casualty in all this. I’m the forgotten one. And nothing I do will change this fact. It doesn’t matter how loudly I scream… it doesn’t matter how many times I tell people what I need from them…. it doesn’t matter what I do – I could post a video of me with a knife to my own throat – these people will never care, never support and never reach out to me. I will die alone without any one of them giving a damn. This is not depression speaking. This is not my mental illness tricking me into thinking nobody cares. This is consistent evidence that they don’t. And I’m powerless to do anything about it. You can’t make people care. Not without being controlling and manipulative. And I am neither of those things. So I just have to accept I will never matter to anyone. My grief will never matter to anyone. My illness will never matter to anyone. I could literally have a terminal physical illness and these people still wouldn’t talk to me. That’s how worthless I am in this world. Why the fuck am I here? I give up.

 

I miss you Liv. I wish you were still here. You’re the only one who ever cared about me. Now nobody does. To be honest right now I don’t even want anyone else – I just want you back. Without you nothing else matters anymore. But I’ll see you again, in time. It’s just a question of when. Until then I live this nightmare I’d started to escape before the pandemic. I speak into the void, talk to myself and matter to no-one. I’m done with this world and the people in it. Life just isn’t for everyone. You’re always in my heart Liv… until we meet again xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

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…

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: My Prison Soul.

 

 

My Prison Soul

 

I almost tasted freedom from this prison of emotion;
The closeness of you, my key…
You came so close to saving me.
I peered through the lock, awaiting your arrival,
Beholding the light of you,
And a world free from these shackles of darkness.
Your radiance shone through the keyhole,
Straight through to the cold, murky walls of my prison soul;
That ray of hope kept my fighting spirit alive.
I waited for the sound… the turning of that key;
Through the lock I watched a shadowy figure approach –
The silhouette of a woman blocking you from view,
Ushering you away, and there was nothing I could do
But wail after you –
“Come back! Don’t leave me in here! I need you! I need your light!”…
Helplessly I watched you fade out of sight;
The woman jangling the bars of my cell
As she forbade me farewell,
And doomed me to this relentless hell;
Withholding my liberty,
My chance to escape…
She bound my hands
And sealed my mouth with tape.
Left here to rot in silent solitude
And to never complain
Or ever again
Ask to be released.
She will not be satisfied until I am deceased.
It won’t be long my dear –
My heart beats its final beats
As the will to endure perishes.
Nothing can live forever in the dark…
‘The prison guard’ ripped my light away,
Now I’ll never see the dawn of day.
My only companion is the voice in my head –
The one saying I’d be better off dead…
Is this what you wanted?
For me to die?
Left to fight to the death – my demons and I?
I shall not win, for my wounds run deep;
If abandonment you sow
Only death will you reap.
My mind and body are weak;
I have not the strength left to even speak.
The pleas for help die in my mouth –
They’re swallowed by my heart;
My insides ripped apart…
These bones break on the walls of frustration;
My blood runs cold on the floors of isolation.
My recovery shot,
My name they forgot.
If willing was enough, then my heart would stop this minute –
For what is life with no light in it?
She trapped me and gagged me, and threw away the key…
Now, without your help I will never again be free.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Forgotten & Fading.

So this week has consisted of me feeling extremely depressed, suicidal and isolated… reaching out about how I feel and getting zero back…. contacting my doctor because the chemist said there was a shortage of my medication, only for the surgery to then tell me the chemist have my owing medication in (nice of them to inform me!)…. talking to someone on Twitter about politics, only for them to come  back saying ‘Sorry don’t know you (etc.)’ as if to say ‘I don’t know you so your opinion is irrelevant to me’… ‘Who are you and why the hell are you talking to me?’… oh and then today expecting a call from the Job Centre – they never called.

 

So to sum it up – I feel entirely invisible. Whilst waiting for my phone call I started wondering if I am in fact real…. or if I’m dead… I even started thinking maybe I’m actually a figment of someone else’s imagination.

 

Facebook ‘friends’ didn’t notice my pain or me needing them.
The chemist didn’t see fit to tell me my medication was in.
First person I try and converse with in ages is like ‘Don’t know you’.
And the Job Centre forgot our appointment.

Oh yes, and it feels like the Wellbeing Centre have also forgotten I exist… that or they think I’m too messed up for them to help. I was told it’d be a 3 or 4 week wait until I hear from them…. it’s been 6 and a half weeks so far.

 

With my best friend abandoning me this year too, it just feels every single person on this planet has given up on me. They’re all rejecting me, forgetting me, blanking me. It’s almost impossible to not take that personally when you’re as ill as I am. I feel I don’t exist… and when I don’t want to exist, it only pushes me closer to that reality.

 

But hey, in good news… yesterday I finally left the house…. I may have plotted my demise on my long walk home. But at least I got out.

 

The loneliness, the grief, the powerlessness, the silence… it’s all hurting too much. I’m really not okay… and nobody even asks me how I am anymore. Nobody knows how bad things are for me, because they don’t talk to me. They don’t want to know.

 

I’m spending most days not looking after myself – eating or drinking enough. I have headaches every day at the moment. I often can’t sleep – I’ll be wide awake at 2/3am, unable to turn my mind off… unable to even move because of the mental paralysis caused by my emotions and memories. And then I can’t wake up in the morning… it’ll go 10am before I wake up. I can’t work. I hardly ever go out. I’m just trying to tolerate every hour of every day and just survive. I’m always inches from the edge. I had a breakdown yesterday, because I have so much pain and loneliness inside. I have to keep it all to myself. I hate myself. I hate life. I feel so disconnected. I can’t cope. I try and hold it all inside and then it bursts out when I’m alone.

 

I’m in limbo at the moment. And I’m invisible too while I’m there. And in agony. I’m slipping through the fingers of faith. There’s no hope for me, only blind faith that something or someone will help me at some point…. and I just have to hold on until that point…. I’m losing my grasp every day. It’s almost too late. I can feel it. And I don’t care anymore. I just want the peace of feeling nothing… thinking nothing… remembering nothing. This isn’t the life I was born into. I don’t know how to live it. But for now ‘survival’ is the best I can do. I just hope at some point one person in my life will stop ignoring my pleas for help, and will notice me, save me and give me a reason to live again. I really don’t want to right now.

 

 

 

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?

 

 

 

 

Soon.

*Suicide theme*

 

 

I never recovered from Adam disappearing on me.
I never recovered from the things Nick said.
I never recovered from the things Joe did.
I never recovered from Gill’s betrayal, and losing her and Sam.
I never recovered from how Hannah treated me.
I never recovered from losing Grampa.
I never recovered from therapy and my attachment to Matt.
I never recovered from being neglected on the first anniversary of my loss.
I never recovered from all the abuse online last year.
I never recovered from the way you treated me.
I never recovered from you ghosting me, like everyone else did.
I never recovered from you blocking me.
I never recovered from Liv taking her own life.
I never recovered from your absence in the wake of that.
I never recovered from losing Chloe and Logan from my life.
I never recovered from losing you.

 

I never recovered.

Not from any of it.

Do you get it now?

Do you understand why I changed?

Do you understand why I’m desperate to end my own life?

I never recovered from any of it. The experiences I had, built up and became too much.

I wasn’t just battling one thing at a time. I was being hit by all of these things over and over again, each time a new loss, a new traumatic event or anything remotely painful occurred.

I can’t recover from any of it. I never will.

And you turning your back on me when you did, that was the terminal moment of my life.

That was the moment I knew I’m destined to take my own life sooner or later.

When I had you I had at least the hope of recovery. I had something worth recovering for. I had the kids. I had someone I thought cared. I had someone who never gave up on me.

But you did.

You gave up on me too.

Now there’s nothing left.

To fight against that mountain of loss and trauma is hard enough.

To have to do it without your best friend by your side is impossible.

To have your best friend jump up and down on top of that mountain, increasing the load, is unbearable.

The worst part is that you never were to understand the layers of trauma and pain I felt.

You could never sympathise, as you didn’t know the mountain of memories and emotions on my shoulders.

You didn’t know the burden I had to carry.

I carried it alone.

I didn’t want to burden you or anyone else.

And somehow I still did.

Even keeping my distance from you, I was still ‘too much’.

You walked away.

In my mind and heart I feel you never thought of me again.

You were happier.

You were free.

You forgot all about me.

You were friends with Sam, with Gill, with Hannah – you replaced me with her.

What a win for them all… to know we’re not friends anymore… that you cut me out.

Eight months… eight months since you blocked me… the first time.

You blocked every way of me connecting with you again.

You moved house, and told me nothing of it.

Can you not see the pain that would cause?

What did I do to deserve all this?

I can’t recover.

I won’t recover.

This is too much.

I have no life to return to if I do recover.

Everything is gone.

Liv is gone. You’re gone. The kids are gone.

Everything has changed.

All the people who were once my friends have grown up and created lives for themselves. You would know – they’re your friends now.

And I’m stuck here. Powerless. Paralysed. Unable to change. Unable to survive. Because you all destroyed me. You all took my trust and my care and crapped all over it. You left me a broken mess on the cold floor. You left me too traumatised to even move anymore.

With you in my life I could see a little light.

Now there’s pitch black.

There’s only the desperate urge to end this life.

There’s silence.

No friends. No connections. Nothing.

Just emptiness and anticipation of death.

You did this to me.

I wish you could’ve understood the weight I carried in my heart and my mind, from all that’s scarred me forever.

I wish you would’ve helped bear the load.

I wish you hadn’t added to the pile.

I remember at therapy, with my attachment to Matt, saying that I knew I was facing another loss, which would add to the pile of loss and pain… the unresolved trauma. I was right. That’s what happened.

A lot has happened since then, to add to that ‘pile’.

You.

Liv.

So much more.

What makes it the worst is I didn’t want any of this.

I didn’t want to lose you.

I mentioned stepping back for my mental health and our friendship.

I never would have blocked you.

You made it permanent.

Why??

Why do you hate me so much?

Do you not understand what you’ve done to me?

Do you honestly want me to kill myself?

Is that it?

Because if not then you’ve gone about everything so utterly wrong.

Do you know that I’ve written you a note for when that time comes…. and something I wanted the kids to know too….God knows how I’ll get it to you, now I don’t know where in the world you live.

But do you really want me to leave this world thinking you mean me harm and hate me? Do you want to have to live with that on your conscience for the rest of your life? That you could’ve sorted things out with me and not pushed me towards this certainty with your cruel abandonment, when I was already breaking under the weight of everything else in the last ten years…

How will you live, knowing you could have done something to prevent this?

I deserved more.

I deserved enough respect to talk to me, and not just abandon me so casually.

Did thirteen years really mean so little to you?

Did I mean so little?

In the last three years a lot has happened…

I had to learn to live in a world with grief in my heart. Real grief. My first loss.

My world changed. I never recovered from that.

I had a breakdown at therapy and went down a slippery slope with my self-harm. I never recovered from that.

I was neglected by everyone… I was isolated whilst experiencing this new grief, and the breakdown of my mental health. I never recovered from that.

I felt you pulling away from me… a long abandonment over about a year. I was right to fear losing you. That fear affected me in ways I never expected. I will never recover from losing you and the kids.

I lost Liv…. five weeks before I was finally set to see her again in person. It would never happen. I’ll never get to talk to her again. I’ll never get over that….. now I want to be with her. I don’t want to exist in this hell of a world, where nothing is right, and nothing is left, and I’m buried under that mountain of hurt and loss. That mountain you stuck your flag in, to claim a victory over me, as you blocked me… taking all the power for yourself to decide when I may talk to you again.

You won.

You defeated me.

Well done.

You were in control.

All the good it’ll do you when I’m gone.

But I feel you don’t care an inch about that.

But let me tell you, from experience…. losing a friend to suicide is one of the most traumatic things you could ever experience…. all the words you never got to say to them…. the questions unanswered…. feeling you could’ve said or done something to stop it happening. It’s a brief moment and they’re gone. You can’t change it. You can’t get them back. You have to live with the burden for the rest of your life. It’s a burden I can’t carry…. not on my own…. not now I’ve lost you too.

But you’ll be alright. You have lots of other friends to help you carry ‘the burden’ of losing me, should you feel anything about it when it happens.

You’ll never have to feel what I feel now.

You’ll never know how alone I’ve felt.

You’ll never know the weight I carried in total isolation.

You’re lucky.

You’ll quickly recover.

You don’t have my illness.

You weren’t screwed over by everyone you ever trusted.

You don’t have my memories.

You’ll survive.

You survived losing me as your friend. You chose it. You’ll survive losing me forever. As far as I know this is it for us forever anyway…. that’s how it feels. So you’ve already adjusted to my absence. It won’t make much difference my being gone.

And you’d better not cry, or come to the funeral – not that I’d have one… nobody would be there.

You could’ve done something… all you had to do was care. All you had to do was put our friendship ahead of your pride. All you had to do was talk to me.

You just had to not walk away from me at the lowest point of my life and treat me like I was nothing.

But then I guess I really am nothing.

If I was anything to you then you would’ve stayed and fought for me, like I tried to do for you.

You wouldn’t have given up.

You wouldn’t have run away.

Everyone runs away.

It’s the biggest sign they never cared.

Nobody ever cared.

I was just a game to them all.

A game of ‘power’.

I’m done being a pawn in a game of ‘control’…. simply used to boost the ego or get something.

I may not deserve more.

I will never have more.

But I’m done.

I won’t be used anymore.

I won’t be ignored anymore.

I won’t be mistreated anymore.

I won’t BE anymore.

Soon.

 

 

 

* Just expressing feelings. I do feel all this, but it’s not imminent,
so nobody worry about me…. not that people tend to…*

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.

 

 

 

The Unfairness Of Life.

*Swearing near the end*

 

 

I have just realised why nobody talks to me anymore. For so long I’ve wondered why…. what I could possibly have done to them all. I thought of every reason – from them having their own stuff to think about, to not knowing what to say to someone grieving and suicidal. But it’s finally hit me…

 

They don’t talk to me and don’t want to be my friends because I blog. Because I’ve blogged about what I went through with my former best friend. They think if we were friends and they fell out with me I would blog about them too.

 

I can totally understand this thinking as well. And I don’t blame them for it. I can see how it’s my fault that I’m alone now. And I feel I deserve to be alone. That being said, I am not to blame for everything. As much as this goes against what I’m saying, I do blame my former best friend… for all of it. She may have decided to abandon me for a blog I wrote last year. That may be where she’s pinning the blame. But we had issues before that blog. She was neglecting me before that. I was ill and paranoid and grieving, and dealing with all that alone. The initial blog that caused issues with us was not about her. It was about paranoia and how it manifests as jealousy and possessiveness rather than the insecurity and fear it is. I was talking about self-fulfilling prophecies. I was right to talk about that as it’s exactly what happened. What happened after that was a misunderstanding. I felt rejected by her and like a burden to her. So I gave her the space it sounded like she wanted. But that’s not how she took it. She thought I asked for space. So she was waiting for me to approach her again. I couldn’t do that. I’d been rejected. I couldn’t put myself out there yet again. I was locked within myself. I did the best I could at the time and used my blog to break out of the bubble and communicate. Perhaps my pain and desperation stopped me wording it right. I know a lot was misinterpreted by her. But that’s the blog that offended her and she’s used as a scapegoat to ditch me.

 

But that blog was not the cause. It was the effect. Her abandoning me was the cause. The pain was the effect – and I used my blog to express my pain. I was also using it to fight for our friendship, though it clearly wasn’t received that way. I could’ve done what she was doing to me and stayed quiet…. never spoken again….. let apathy and indifference win the day. But because I bloody cared…. cared too much…. felt too much pain at losing her…. I had to say something. I had to get her to talk to me, as I couldn’t talk to her. It just went horrifically wrong, which led to her attacking and blaming me for everything. That’s what killed our friendship. That, plus snubbing me after I extended an olive branch at Christmas. And then blocking me etc. But I reckon I’m conveniently getting the blame, for blogging. I blogged because I was in pain and had nobody to turn to.

 

But now I think blogging my truth has cost me everyone else. And I’m angry with my former friend for that. Because had she treated me well, understood my illness and intentions, communicated with me properly and not run away and abandoned me at my lowest, I’d not feel so desperate that the only way to stay alive is to blog and let it all out. But nobody wants to know me now, as they think they’ll be the next topic for my blog. Well yeah…. as things stand at this moment in time I’m beyond being able to cope, and if they are like everyone else and refuse to treat me with the love, care, consistency and respect I need, and intend to hurt me then yes, they would probably end up being blogged about. But if they were decent people and intended to treat me well, then that’s a different story altogether.

 

 

What it’s demonstrating to me, yet again, is that some of us are destined for a life of pain, betrayal and abandonment. Life and the people in it will not let us move on.

 

People have endlessly hurt, betrayed and abandoned me…. unfortunately not everyone can bounce back from that. So I talk about the pain I’m in, and people don’t want to be there to prove I didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Because they think they’ll end up being talked about too.

 

It reminds me of how guys don’t want to be with a virgin. So you never get to change the fact you’re a virgin, because nobody ever gives you the chance to be anything other than one. So nobody will ever want to be with you because of the inexperience … and it never ends.

 

Just like I used to be thought of as ‘boring’. But nobody ever gave me a chance to prove I wasn’t. They never wanted to be my friend, spend time with me and see I wasn’t as quiet as I seemed, and I knew how to have fun. They chose to judge me on the opinions of others.

 

And the biggest of them all – when you are mentally ill and deteriorating, people want nothing to do with you. They only want to be around positive energy and those who are recovering.  It’s been the most sickening lesson of all in the past year or two…. as I have become more ill, people have talked to me less.

 

They don’t want to be around people who are depressed…. I heard as much on my therapy course two years ago – it was the thing that caused me to walk out the room until the break. Being mentally ill is tough enough without feeling people won’t want to be around you if you show how you feel.

 

I’ve spent years not showing my reality. Hiding my illness and depression behind a smile and a mask. I’d probably fit the profile of someone ‘high-functioning’. Not so much nowadays. Now my meltdowns are more public. I’m spiralling out of control and struggle to do life like before. I can’t pretend to be okay anymore. And people aren’t okay with that.

 

Even my best friend of about 13 years didn’t like my reality when she saw it. Yes I wore the mask for her too…. afraid I’d be alone if the reality of how I felt was known. I wasn’t being deliberately two-faced though. I knew no other way. I’m the person who got up after a BCG injection, gave a smile and said ‘thank you very much’. I’ve always wanted to be polite and to not make people feel uncomfortable. I don’t want to worry people or upset them, or bring them down. I’ve always felt like a burden. The fear of disappointing people or putting them out is the only thing that’s stopped me putting myself in hospital. The three times I’ve needed treatment were horrible for me emotionally. I felt so ashamed and guilty. But since the last two times – two years ago nearly – I’ve never really improved mentally. I have however become better at hiding things to some extent… usually until the point I explode. I’ve become more volatile…. unpredictable… unstable in my behaviour – because I’m trying to pretend to be better than I am, because I know nobody cares how I really am… but it’s harder to do now, so I very quickly slip into my ‘episodes’.

 

But it’s something I have noticed before – if you post about achievements despite your illness, or you talk about progress, people like it and encourage you. But if you say you’re not doing so well they give you a wide berth. Well they do with me for some reason. I notice they don’t with many other people. That’s why I think it’s personal against me specifically … being ignored is seriously increasing my paranoia… which makes me more ill… which makes people stay away even more. It’s a vicious circle.

 

We were taught about vicious circles in therapy, and about breaking them. The only way I can break my vicious circle is to miraculously not be mentally ill anymore! To not be traumatised! To pretend to be okay! I cannot and should not have to do this. People should care. And even if I did pretend to be okay now, it’s too late – these people will never be my friends. They’ve seen too much of me falling apart. The people in my life now will not want to know me anymore. It’s ruined. For good.

 

So I’m going to have to leave them all behind. I don’t see any of them begging me to stay in their lives. I won’t be missed. I’m alone anyway, so it won’t make any difference to me. I’ve been talking into a void for the last few months, with nobody noticing or replying to me, so I’ll keep talking to myself, like every sane and rational person does!

 

I don’t think any of these people I considered to be my friends will ever understand just how embarrassing and humiliating it has been to have such a public breakdown… to not be able to contain it…. to lose control of it and for it all to unravel and get worse and worse, and no matter what you say or do you cannot make it better again…. they don’t know what it’s like to feel like they’re all standing there watching me drown, and they’re not even considering reaching out a hand to save me. I think they’re willing me to drown. Alone. And that’s what I will do now.

 

I have a choice… I can choose these people, who don’t talk to me and don’t appear to care about me as a friend, or I can choose blogging. They’ve made my decision easier. I choose blogging. It may have caused a fuck-load of damage, but given there’s nothing left now – I’m so far down this path now I might as well keep going, these people aren’t here for me, the damage is done, I can never imagine liking myself again, let alone them liking me again, and the only one that’s ever been there for me, besides my friend who killed herself three months ago, is this damn blog. I choose the fucking blog.

 

Maybe one day my life will start afresh… with people who haven’t seen what a total freak I am…. people who care…. people who include me….. people who never leave me feeling I might as well be dead….. but then pigs might fly! I don’t see that happening. I don’t see anything other than blackness, screaming, pain and death. Nothing can undo these past few months. I can’t forget what I’ve experienced with people. And they won’t forget what they’ve witnessed in me. So there’s no hope of recovering anything that’s come before. The only hope I have, which I honestly can’t see at this point, is to build myself up as a new person, with new relationships. But this illness will always be a part of me. I fear I will never survive in this ‘social’ world as long as I have this illness. The pain is too much to bear. And I will never rid myself of the memories and scars of the past couple of years. You cannot escape the past. And my past will be the death of me.