Open Letter to ‘X’.

*Rant – very bad language*

 

 

To X,

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

‘Kind regards’

 

Lily

Open Letter To Those Meant To Help Me.

*Very bad language, self-harm, suicide*

Open Letter To Those Meant To Help Me…

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

6 Months Broken.

*Touches on suicide*

 

Dear Liv,

 

I miss you so immensely. You know that. You’re about the only one who knows that. Nobody else sees what losing you has done to me. They think you’re just someone I talked to online occasionally. But you and I know the extent of our friendship. Only, there’s only me left to attest to that. So I face the pain of missing you, entirely alone. I may have only got to see you once in my life… seven years ago…. something I’ll always treasure…  but I’ve known you a lot longer than that.

 

I knew you when you were about 17. We used to talk on the forum about Westlife. We’d also support each other. But Westlife was our escape from our demons. I remember sending a picture of ourselves so we could put a face to a name. Then we became Facebook friends. Our bond grew over the years. When times were tough for you I would offer words of support and remind you how wonderful you were. I didn’t understand eating disorders, so I always felt pretty useless when it came to that, but I did what I could. I didn’t know the right thing to do or say…. at times I’d see photos of you and I’d be worried, as you didn’t look well, but I knew those sorts of demons feed off of how people perceive you, so I didn’t want to make you worse. I should have said something though. I sent you some minion themed presents one time as I wanted to cheer you up. And you were always there for me too.

 

You were my biggest champion…. you never let me put myself down. You always reminded me that I mattered, that my feelings mattered and that I deserved love and happiness. You never let me feel alone.

 

You read all my blogs and watched my video journals too. You supported me when people were unkind. And when I made mistakes and said things that may have offended people, I apologised and you forgave me and acknowledged me fixing my error. You never held anything against me. You never judged me. You always understood me. I never once fell out with you. You were everything I could ever ask for in a friend. I just wish you could see what I and so many others could see in you. And now you’re not here to know how heartbroken we are without you. I say ‘we’ like I’m part of a community of people missing you…. I’m not. I’m so alone with this. There are people out there who are supporting each other in their grief… a lot appear to have just ‘moved on’ and have stopped talking about you. And then there’s me. I don’t know the other people who knew you. They don’t know I exist or how much I’m hurting now. And the people in my life never even ask if I’m okay. Friends, family… everyone…. they have no clue how on the edge I am. They don’t know the pain I’m in. They don’t mention your name, and seem uncomfortable when I mention it.

 

Nobody likes pain or grief. They steer clear of people who are experiencing both. That’s been the hardest part of losing you. As you knew, I lost my best friend because of my mental health, a few months before you went. You were all I had left. You were so good to me with my grief for my granddad. You were the one who guided me through it… told me what pitfalls to look out for, and how to look after myself. You supported me and didn’t run away from my grief. You really were an angel in my life. Now you’re gone there’s nothing. There’s nobody to take your place… they never could anyway. But they’ve all dispersed.

 

The hardest part of losing someone to death, is losing all those who are living as well…  and losing so much of yourself in the process. I’ve spiralled this year…. I’ve fallen into a pit of grief and isolation…. pain and grief make others uncomfortable, so they turn away and remain silent…. this worsens the feeling of loneliness… the grief intensifies, the mental health deteriorates and people avoid you even more…. I really have got to the point I don’t fear what I say anymore – I have nothing left to lose.

 

It’s so difficult to experience this sort of grief…. to not have my best friend and my Godchildren to keep me going….. to not have you there to help me….. to not have anyone else asking how I am, if I need anything, or acknowledging you ever existed and the pain I feel at losing you. Other people who are grieving seem to get showered with support and kind words. But it’s a violent slap of silence when it comes to me. I’ve always had this problem, but somehow when you were alive it helped…. more people would talk to me if you talked to me…. and if they didn’t then at least I had you to talk to, plus I didn’t have a whole chunk of my heart ripped out by losing you.

 

The silence is the deafening cliché. Life is empty…. yet every moment is filled with overpowering emotions, too dark and dangerous for one person to feel. I have urges to run to every person from my past – to beg for their friendship…. to beg for answers and closure…. to get revenge…. to open up old wounds and make me feel enough pain to do whatever it is you did to leave this world….. to just not be this alone. I want someone to care…. I want to do almost anything to get just one person to care. I need the therapist I had feelings for… it’s where my mind runs to every time. But I also want to connect with friends who hurt me in the past – because I can’t cope with the fact my former best friend is now friends with them all after hurting me so badly. I want to hurt her back, so much, but I don’t have the means. I’m not friends with her friends…. I can’t do the things to her that she’s done to me, to make her know how it feels. I hate I’m this vengeful person. I hate how desperate I’ve become. But I can’t do this life anymore. I couldn’t do it even before you left me behind. Why did you have to leave me behind? Why couldn’t I come with you?

 

You left me, five weeks before I would finally see you again. Before we would see Westlife together in the front row. My ‘dream come true’ became something traumatic to get through. It still haunts me that you should’ve been there with me. And that I never got the chance to see you and give you a hug. You didn’t give me the chance to save you. If I’d known then I could’ve done something or said something. I wish you had given me that opportunity. You didn’t even say goodbye. How long had you been planning to go? When we were planning to meet up before the show, did you know then that you would never see me? How could you do that to me? You said you’d go with me, after I lost my usual Westlife buddy….. but then you didn’t go with me…. I won’t go into all the detail – you’d have seen the chaos at that time. What I had to put myself through to not be going alone. It was degrading…. it was heartbreaking and traumatic, given my childhood.

 

I know you were obviously experiencing something that was too powerful to overcome. Maybe one day I’ll understand more…. it’s hard when you don’t know much about it…. when you don’t know if it was intentional / planned or if it was just self-harm gone wrong and you didn’t mean to die… I don’t know how it happened, if there was a note etc. – I’m not sure I want to know, but it makes it hard to come to terms with it all when you don’t know. So many questions flash through my mind….

 

Most of the time I remember you with love and I try and honour the memory of you in my everyday life. But as you’ll know I have my times I’m angry towards you. I know this is something you wouldn’t want, and some say it’s wrong to be angry about someone taking their own life, but sadly it’s a part of the grief. It’s all the ‘should’ve beens’ and the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘never to be’ moments… it’s feeling robbed of goodbye and of a chance to stop it from happening. I should’ve done more. But I can never do that, and now you’re gone forever. There are no second chances with suicide.

 

People who say that the pain someone feels from losing someone to suicide cannot compare with the pain someone felt to choose suicide, I unfortunately hope they experience that sort of loss for themselves, as they clearly never have…. maybe then they’ll learn what utter tosh that is to spout. Suicide breeds suicide. They obviously don’t realise that. Even people without mental health issues consider suicide after losing a loved one to it. I was already suicidal before you left me. Now it’s the only thing on my mind. It’s a given that I’m likely not going to be here in a year’s time. I’ve almost given up on everything as what’s the point? I’m making plans yet thinking it’s a waste of money – I won’t be here. There was even talk of getting a piano, and I thought … don’t waste the money… I won’t be here for much longer. Do you know how depressing that is? … Yeah, I guess you do.

 

Mental illness is a funny thing…. to an outsider you had it all…. you had your partner…. you had Squish Squish…. you had your new place… you had your job with the police finally… we were seeing Westlife back together, in the front row…. a lot of people valued you and loved you… you could see it from the outpouring of grief when you went. Yet it wasn’t enough to stay. The demons won. And then there’s me…. I have nothing…. I have nobody but my closest family…. all I have for company are my friends Grief, Paranoia, Isolation and BPD, and a heap of bitterness for having nothing else left.

 

When I go, nobody will cry… nobody will write warmly about me…. nobody will come to my funeral…. nobody will bloody notice! I’ve been calling out for help for two years, and nobody cares. You kept a lot of your feelings hidden. Your videos were always encouraging… positive… caring for others…. you were a good, kind, beautiful person with the most wonderful heart and soul…. people loved you. People loved you and they don’t love me…. because I’m brutally honest about how awful life is. I pour my feelings out and get nothing back. I feel the way to matter to people now, is to stay silent and pretend to be okay. Unfortunately it’s something I’m not sure I can do. It’s why I know my journey will mirror yours… only difference is I made no impact…. I’m a nobody…. if people feel anything when I go it’ll be relief… relief that the negativity that is me, is gone, finally.

 

I’m having difficulties with that though…. when you lose everything and everyone and your one remaining friend ends her life, how can you seem anything but ‘negative’? That’s why I know there’s no way back for me. I have nobody left believing there’s good in me. Nobody fighting for me and for my recovery. Nobody cheering me on. Nothing to live for. Nothing will ever be okay again, not now you’re gone. How am I meant to overcome grief like this when grief is what has driven everyone so far away from me?

 

I’ll tell you, as I have nobody else to tell…. I keep dreaming of my best friend and my Godchildren…. they were all in it the night before last. The night before that I saw my Godson and spoke to him – he felt like nobody liked him… I told him I did… he looked at me funny… I said ‘You don’t remember me do you?’… he shook his head. It hurts so damn much. You were the one person I could confide in and ask advice from about how to handle things…. I shouldn’t have lumped it on you probably. I’m sorry. But you helped me so much, to not give up on myself just because others did… I have nobody to ask about anything anymore. I feel so lost. My life feels empty and pointless. It feels like there’s a brick wall between me and everyone else. I feel like a ghost to them all. You would never have left me feeling like a ghost…. you would hate that people are making me feel this way. You’d do something about it. But you’re not here anymore….

 

In fact six months ago yesterday you left the world. Six months ago tonight I went on Facebook and saw people sending RIP messages to you…. that was how I found out. I vividly remember the feeling… the shock…. the devastation. I remember feeling my spirit draining out of my body. I remember telling my family and breaking down… I remember collapsing on the stairs, hugging the wall, the pain and denial I felt. I remember howling in pain for what felt like hours. I remember how sick I felt. This was all before finding out you had taken your own life. I’d assumed as much anyway. It was the worst nightmare come true. I never wanted to lose you from my life. I’ve lost a lot of friends from my life…. you are the biggest loss, and the way I lost you is the most traumatic thing I’ve ever experienced. I was so scared this would happen one day.

 

I couldn’t sleep or eat. I couldn’t stop crying. I got in touch with my former friend, hoping to have one less loss to contend with… I needed her to be my friend, to help me through losing you. I got a couple of texts, but also got unblocked and re-blocked at the worst point in my life. That was all. And now I’ve had six months without her. Six months with no support from anyone. As you’d know, I’m not coping. I can’t function anymore. I can’t go out. I can’t do anything. I’ve lost all reason to exist. I can’t cope with people – not too big a problem as I don’t exist to most of them anyway. I can’t work. I can’t be around family sometimes. I keep hurting myself, and I want to do worse. My mental health is down the toilet and I have no friends. I have no support yet – I’m still waiting for an assessment. I’m emotionally paralysed.

 

Things are getting harder coming up to Christmas. You loved Christmas so much and I wish I could get into the spirit for you. I’m trying. But deep inside I’m dreading it. I don’t want to see another Christmas. This will be the worst one. Last year was pretty bad with the fallout with my friend, and my efforts being snubbed – being made to feel invisible…. but you were still here then. This is the first one without you here. You’re not here. My granddad’s not here. My friend will not be snubbing me this year, she’s full on blocked me out of her life… I don’t have the children to buy for anymore… no reason to get in the spirit of things. When I look at Christmas decorations in the shops I feel closer to you, but I wander round in a daze, still unable to accept your absence. I feel Christmas is being forced upon me this year. I can’t cope with the fact life is going on without you…. that it hasn’t stopped to allow me to grieve. Time is slipping away and I’m expected to carry on regardless of how I feel. I even remember the job people phoning not even a couple of months after it happened…. and when I said what had happened they asked something like ‘… and it’s still troubling you?’ …. well, yes… it’s called grief. It had only been a few weeks….

 

Do people expect me to just move on and feel nothing about what happened?  Believe me, I wish I was a robot and felt nothing. The pain I feel is too much, and I have no way of releasing it. So I break down, quite often. I have to avoid life to keep safe.

 

I’m trying to look after myself and find interests again…. little reasons to survive another day… I taught myself to solve a Rubik’s cube. I’m trying to take up cross-stitch again… I’ve fetched my colouring books again… I play the guitar when I can. Tiny little steps to find ‘joy’ again. There can be no real joy… that’s how I feel now you’re gone. But if I can find this flat level of joy to just hold on until someone decides they can help me, then I guess that’s something.

 

Sorry to ramble on… I don’t have anyone to talk to anymore. You’re the only one who really cared about me. I feel so alone without you here. As you know, I felt alone before you went. Now the isolation is excruciating. I feel I’m being punished for grieving and being ill. That’s how the last year or two have felt. People don’t get that I’m in enough pain as it is… that I’m suffering enough…. being left alone, with nobody even asking how I am and genuinely caring about the answer, it hurts even more. I honestly do feel I’m being punished, and if I’m that bad a person that I deserve this, then I don’t deserve to live. I don’t want to live. I want to be where you are. I really don’t think I can ever heal now. I don’t want to. The pain, the rage, the powerlessness, the loneliness, the resentment – all of it coursing through me…. all I want to do is rip the world apart, tear a hole in it and throw the people who hurt and abandoned me through that hole, robbing them of their lives just as they have robbed me of mine. I want to destroy everything and everyone. And then I want it all to stop. I want peace.

 

I hope you found peace Liv. I hope you found your mum and that you’re happy together again. I’m so sorry you had to live with that loss for so long and you couldn’t carry on any longer. I don’t blame you. I couldn’t do it. I can’t do it having lost the people I have lost. I just wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish you hadn’t left me. I needed you. I admired you. I was so thankful for you. And now I’m nothing without you. How do I go on when you couldn’t?

 

I’ll be seeing Westlife without you again next year, twice…. if I survive that long. I should be excited. I am, but I’m also upset. I have to go alone to everything like that now. My friend has ditched me, and now you’re not here. So I really am alone. It’s upsetting everyone booking tickets with other people and I’m just left as a loner. I’ll be seeing them on my birthday next year – I’ll be celebrating it on my own as I have nobody to go with now. People don’t realise how that sustained level of isolation affects your self-worth, and therefore your desire to live in this world.

 

I hate that you never saw them perform together again. You never heard their last two songs. I know in the grand scheme of things people would think there’s sadder things than you missing out on Westlife…. I don’t doubt that at all. I know that. But these are personal things to me. Even then, there are more important reasons it’s so tragic you’re gone. It’s as though a light has gone out. There’s one less angel in the world. You really were a blessing to everyone who knew you. You had your demons to fight, and I’m proud of you for how long you fought against them. You inspired me. The strength you showed after your mum died gave me hope I could survive my first loss a couple of years ago. The support you gave me to get through that – by using your experience of loss and mental illness – it was more helpful than you’ll ever know. Now I have nobody to help guide me through losing you. And losing someone to suicide is so different to normal grief. People will dispute that… until it happens to them.

 

I’m thankful to have known you for such a large portion of my life. The rest of the years without you will be the hardest of all to live. I used to tell you how wonderful you were. I wish you’d believed me. No matter how angry I might get at what happened, nothing will change the incredible person you were and how special you were to me. I wish I could be more like you were as a person. You deserve to be here. I don’t. I wish I could’ve taken your pain away and made it bearable for you to be here. So many people are missing out now Liv.

 

I hope you’re with me now and then. I know there’s places you’d rather be – people who mattered more and are in more pain than me. I sometimes feel like a fraud in that sense. My mind sort of minimises my grief, as though I shouldn’t be this broken by it, since others were closer to you or may have even been the ones to find you. I pray for whoever that was that they can heal from the trauma. I can’t even imagine. My feelings of loss must be tiny compared to closest friends and family. I shouldn’t make it about me. I guess my mental illness and the isolation don’t help. When you went I was left with nothing and nobody, so it became harder to deal with than if I was supported. But the reality is you really mattered to me. And I hope I’ll see you again one day.

 

Until then I’ll play Westlife and believe you’re there with me, enjoying their new music. Someone once said to me that you’ll see everything I see through my eyes. I hope they’re right. I love you Liv and I’ll miss you forever my beautiful friend xxxx

 

 

Letter: I Did It For You.

Dear Liv,

 

So I did it. I went to see Westlife, without you here. A month ago I couldn’t have imagined going, not after losing you. I was fortunate to have a wonderful person and good friend step up and agree to come with me in your place. She was just the right person to go with. She turned something tragic and heartbreaking into something fun and uplifting.

 

Yes of course I was sad. I had my moments where my chest ached because you weren’t there watching them with me. But I really tried to make the most of it and enjoy it… for you. I hoped you’d be proud of me for going and enjoying it. I have never been as absorbed in anything before…. I was so into it that I almost completely forgot there was anyone else behind us. It was like our own private show. If I annoyed anyone behind me, or if anyone was judging me, I just didn’t care.

 

I sang, I ‘woo’-ed, I laughed until my cheeks hurt. I took way too many photos – I wish you could see them, you’d love them! Nicky was looking at me and I waved at him – he gave me a nod and smile – and I have someone to back me up on that this time! Nicky is my favourite – it’s decided… he’s the only one who’s ever acknowledged me out of the four of them. They all looked and sounded so great – even better than the last time we saw them.

The O2 has changed a lot…. there’s a shopping centre upstairs! The place we met before was no longer there. They have a dedicated merchandise zone. It’s all different. The checks were more formal.

 

We were stuck in a lot of traffic so we were running late. We were in the toilet queue with 15 minutes until Westlife came on – we missed the support acts… I don’t mind. I hate having to sit through things like that and pretend to appreciate it! We only just made it really. It was unbelievable being in the front row…. being that close to the stage. Knowing that in just a few minutes they’d be in front of us. I think turning up late was good in a way…. it stopped me having too long to really think about the fact you weren’t there. We kind of just went straight into the excitement and enjoying it.

 

I won’t say much about the show – I hope you were there with me, watching from wherever you are now… so I hope I don’t need to tell you. The medley was brilliant wasn’t it? The boys really seemed to enjoy it a lot more than in the past. I got utterly covered in confetti… as did my drink – couldn’t drink it as it got filled with little squares of paper! Money wasted! And the flames – so hot!! Did you see the Westlife babies…. the kids…. sat in front of us near the end, playing with the confetti? We think it might’ve been Nicole sat in front of me.

 

It was a special night. A bit of a blur – sometimes it didn’t feel real. There were moments I couldn’t take it all in. Times I let go and had fun. Times I held on to the locket and remembered you, saying I wish you were here. It all went too fast.

 

I had such an amazing night. I didn’t cry. I didn’t get home until 3am…. and didn’t get to sleep until 5am. I could hear birds singing outside… through the ringing in my ears. By this time the thoughts of you were creeping in, and the sadness. Looking at photos and videos… thinking you were meant to be there too. I had to go to sleep at that point, to stop this great night becoming something upsetting.

 

I miss you Liv. I wish you were still here. I miss having you to talk to about the show. If I share any photos etc. you aren’t here to comment on them or chat about it. That’s just the immediate impact of you being gone. When the hype about it all dies down, there are much bigger reasons I’m devastated you’re not here. You weren’t just about Westlife for me. You were my friend for over twelve years. You were my biggest cheerleader and my rock. That’s a much bigger loss than just not having someone to go to a concert with.

 

But I guess right now the main thing was getting through last night. I didn’t think I’d be able to. The last few weeks have been nothing but stress, on top of the crushing grief, of having to find someone to go with.

 

It turned out alright in the end. I went with someone I wanted to go with. Through the grief, the trauma, and also in the face of losing my best friend from my life, I went to see our boys, and I had the most fun I’ve ever had at a gig.

 

What happens after last night I don’t know. Today hasn’t been a good day. I won’t go into that here. I feel quite flat and down. Emotional. Delicate. Rejected. And like people don’t realise how big a deal yesterday was to me. The biggest thing of this year is over. The reason I had to keep going is over. It will be hard to continue on with life now. But I hope the good memories from last night will help a little on the difficult journey forwards. I hope you were with us. I hope you saw the show. I hope you saw me fight to be happy. And I hope I made you proud.

 

I hope you’re at peace now, wherever you are, my lovely friend. I miss you xxxx

Liv

 

 

There are some things in life we so desperately don’t want to be true, and yet they are. On Wednesday night I learnt that a good friend of mine, Liv, had lost her fight with her inner demons, and had taken her own life. I will be writing about my feelings and grief separately, probably on my other blog about grief. I want to dedicate this post to Liv and the wonderful woman she was and will always be remembered as.

 

Lovely Liv,

 

My heart is completely broken. I can’t process the fact you’re gone and I’ll never see you again. I’ll never hear from you again. You were one of the best friends I’ve ever had. We only ever had the chance to meet once in this lifetime, in 2012, at the last Westlife concert we both went to. But I knew you for over twelve years… I forget exactly how long, but I knew you as long, if not longer than I knew my best friend. We were on a forum together – I adopted you as my ‘Little Sister’. Kiran was my ‘Purple Pot Plant’ and Lanny was my ‘Sparkly Donkey’. Oh such silly times! We bonded over our shared love of Westlife. We started a thread about them, and always defended them against those who said it wasn’t ‘cool’ to like Westlife.

You were always so supportive of me. I forget whether I was ever as helpful to you as you were to me. I don’t know if it’s normal to remember the love you received from someone, and to think you never did enough for them in return… We’d always chat about things, if not giving support then talking about Westlife – it was our shared hobby!

One day we decided to add each other on Facebook, and suddenly we could put a face to a name. You became a real person to me, and I to you. I remember you saying ‘You are very beautiful x’…. I just wish you could have seen your own beauty and what an incredible person you were inside and out. You called me ‘Lovely Lily’… to me you were and always will be ‘Lovely Liv’. I’m so sad I have to live the rest of my life without you here.

You always gave such brilliant advice if I needed someone objective to talk to, and you never once made me feel like a burden. You had such a giving, kind and generous spirit, that you’ll be remembered for… I just wish life had been kinder to you. You deserved the very best in life. It always rains hardest on those who deserve the sun.

You are the only person who was ever consistently there for me through everything. The only person who never once gave up on me. You always saw the good in me, even when I couldn’t see it in myself. You understood my illness and never thought badly of me for it. Thank you.

On the first anniversary of my first loss, you were the only person who said anything to me, to let me know I wasn’t alone. I spoke for too long about ‘nobody being there for me’, and because I closed my account at the time, I forgot that you were… I didn’t put enough emphasis on the fact that you were the only one there for me. I’ll never forget the part you played in my life and how you never let me down.

You were the one person who never made me feel invisible. You frequently said you read all my blogs and watched the videos I made. You kept encouraging me to write about my feelings – that my blog was my space to be myself and write my truth, and that others can choose to read it or not. Whenever I felt discouraged you would always know what to say to get me to open up again. I will keep writing, for you… I just wish you were still here to read my posts and talk to me.

I feel so alone now. After losing my best friend from my life, you were the one I was closest to. The one who talked to me and commented on things I posted. I feel empty without you. It feels pointless being online, as nobody talks to me… nobody will care as much as you did. I feel so lonely and broken, and I don’t have you to turn to anymore.

You were the one who helped me through my grief. You used your experience to tell me what to watch for, how to treat myself and to reach for help if I needed it. You were full of so much compassion and empathy, something I wish you could’ve shown to yourself more. I wish you were here now. I need your guidance and words to help me deal with the loss of you. I have nobody else to guide me through this. It’s new territory for me too. I’ve never lost anyone to suicide. It’s throwing out new emotions for me. It’s scary. I don’t know how to get through it, not without you.

I saw you in 2012 at Westlife, and I was set to see you on the 14th June to see them again, together this time… we would’ve been in the front row for the first time ever… we were so excited to be going together. You said you couldn’t think of anyone you’d rather be going with. I felt the same. Now I don’t know if I can go… not without you. You should be there. I have nobody else to go with now. It was hard enough to have to go and see them, as I used to go with my best friend… this would’ve been the first time not going with her. But I was okay, because I was going with you, another super-fan! Now I have to go alone or not at all. My life is very small… it’s been getting smaller for the last couple of years. I’m heartbroken you won’t be there with me if I go.

 

 

 

I can’t believe how excited we were…. we were planning to meet before the concert to have something to eat or look around. The original plan was to find somewhere halfway between where we both live and catch up a few weeks before, but that changed to being on the day. I wish we’d met up now. I never got to see you a second time. And you’ll never see Westlife again. I know some would say I have to see them for you. That you would want me to go and to enjoy it… I just don’t feel that way yet. My world is in chaos without you now. I feel lost, confused and too broken and numb to look forward to something like that now. Just seeing about their tour makes me start crying again.

I’m so sorry that you were in that much pain to do something like that. I wish I had known. I should have known. But I was too wrapped up in my own despair – that I wasn’t really talking about either. My mental health had really slipped in the previous couple of weeks. I’m sure there must have been signs you were not okay. I feel so guilty for missing them.

I was in shock when I found out… I thought you were so happy. You were the happiest I’d seen you in a long time. You had your new job that you were so proud to have. You’d moved house. You had your partner and your doggy who you loved to pieces. It wasn’t fair that this had happened at the best time of your life. I couldn’t understand it. But that’s the thing with mental illness… we often can’t see what’s going on underneath it all. I have no doubt that you were happy. That was real. You’d found love, a purpose, a place in the world. Maybe your demons told you that you didn’t deserve any of it. Who knows? That’s the worst part about it. I’ll never know the reasons. Suicide leaves people with so many unanswered questions. It’s a different sort of grief. Nothing can prepare you for that.

Lovely Liv… you had such an impact on this world in your short life. I hope you know that. You can see it through the outpouring of grief and love online… on Facebook, on Twitter – you trended on Twitter on Wednesday… that’s how loved and valued you were. You touched so many lives and your passing has brought together so many people, with a shared appreciation of everything you are and everything you’ve done. All our hearts are broken as one. Your memory will live on forever. You were a great advocate for mental health and did so much work with the police, talking about your experiences of being detained, and your suicide attempts in the past. You only have to see the tributes from the police force and all those in the mental health community, to see how valuable you were to them, and they will make sure they use what you taught them, to make improvements in the future for others… that will be your legacy.

I wish this hadn’t happened. I wish you were still here. I’d do anything to have you back. A part of me is missing. You can’t ever be replaced in my heart. There will never be anyone like you. You had a fantastic sense of humour, you were a clever, beautiful, special and inspirational woman. I was lucky to have met you, and so proud to call you my friend. You gave me hope and kept me going. You were my rock. And I don’t know if I ever told you the words ‘I love you’… but I did, I do and I always will xx

You couldn’t find peace and love yourself in life. I hope in Heaven, with your mum by your side you find that peace, and know only love. I’ll miss you forever, and though it hurts too much right now, I’ll try and live for you, knowing you’ll be by my side and always in my heart. Rest in peace Lovely Liv. Sleep tight my wonderful friend, until we meet again.

Lily xxxx

 

 

 

When All Is Said & Done…

*Personal post, but the message behind it will be used in an upcoming post about those of us with a mental illness & the expectations we should have of our friends, and that they should have of us*

Dear ______ ,

 

Okay, I’ve reflected some more and I’ve read back the blog I removed. I understand entirely how it would’ve come across to you. I understand and accept it hurt you. It’s not ideal how I communicated my distress. Although I removed it and apologised, I cannot take it back. I appreciate that. And I guess I can see why you blame me and can’t let go of it. I would find that hard too. I spent a lot of yesterday mentally beating myself up… thinking I deserved to be abandoned by you. Thinking it was all my fault. Thinking what a terrible person I am. I know how awful it was to post my feelings ‘publicly’ like that, and I regret it.

 

That being said, I have to draw a line at that and say I’m not taking all the blame here. Whilst what I did upset you, it was as a result of things you had done that upset me… we had problems long before that. I’m not saying you deserved it. What I’m saying is that I was not of sound mind…I was isolated… having a breakdown, was suicidal almost every day. I felt neglected, rejected and a burden to you, because of the way you spoke to me and weren’t talking to me. I had paranoia, which you didn’t understand and took personally. I felt you started doing something more once you knew it hurt me. I was calling out for friendship and support, and received none. I thought you didn’t care if I lived or died. And having rejected me and having made me feel like a burden, you were then sitting back and waiting for me to get in touch with you again – that was never going to happen… it was impossible for me to do that. The ball was in your court. I needed you to make the effort. But you never would have. Had I not blogged, you would never have spoken to me again. I couldn’t speak to you. So while it was not ideal that I blogged about it, I honestly didn’t know what else to do at that point. I did what I thought was best. Even if looking back I can see it wasn’t best, in that moment it was the only thing I could think to do, to break the deadlock and try to maintain our friendship.

 

I know that backfired, but I didn’t think it would in that moment. I did it with the best intentions in the world. I did it because I didn’t want to lose you  (fear of abandonment with BPD makes you do desperate things to avoid being abandoned… some that don’t make sense), but I needed you to understand that I couldn’t get in touch with you. I admit that my words didn’t come out in the best way. And for that I am sorry. But what I need you to understand is that I was in a very desperate, dark, lonely and painful place – I was being abandoned by my one last friend… I felt I was losing everything … after all my grief and mental illness over the previous year, I was now losing my best friend. It was gut-wrenching. I was hurt. I was scared. I was paranoid and splitting – I know you don’t understand how that feels or what it means.

 

I wish you could have read that blog and rather than seeing it as an attack on you, I wish you could’ve seen the pain in my words… the loneliness and desperation. That is all I’ve ever wanted from you… for you to put yourself in my shoes and understand why I feel how I do and why I do the things I do… to know there’s no malice there whatsoever. That I’m reaching out in that way because I care, because I love you and I’m scared of losing you. But you don’t see things in that way. You don’t appreciate my emotions. You choose to see the worst in me. That’s how it feels.

 

I’ve said before, my mental illness is not an excuse …  if I hurt someone then I have to be accountable for it… and I am … I do feel remorse and I do apologise. I know that my intentions were not cruel in the slightest. I know the purpose of what I wrote. And I do know that a lot of what I said was twisted by you too. But all that being said, I accept I caused you pain and I never meant for that to happen. I’m sorry. While my mental illness is not an excuse, I hope it is an explanation. That’s all I want – I don’t want to escape responsibility when I do something wrong… but I want you to understand why I do the things I do…. I need you to know that I’m likely to make mistakes when I’m in a high state of despair and desperation. And I need you to not abandon me because of it. I need you to cut me some slack when I mess up. I need your forgiveness.

 

My paranoia had me thinking that you meant me harm. That you were trying to hurt me. That you hated me. That you were playing mind-games with me… like others have in the past. Whilst it’s not your fault that I had paranoia, you were capable of helping to ease it, by reassuring me and calming my fears. But you didn’t do this. You took offence at everything and got funny with me…. this made my paranoia worse. You did feed my paranoid thoughts. I’m not blaming you. But equally I don’t want you blaming me for having paranoia… I didn’t choose it. It’s hell to go through. My paranoia played a big part in what I blogged. I can see it in the words I chose…. that I honestly thought you were a threat to me. If you cannot understand paranoia then you will never be forgiving of what I wrote. You’ll never appreciate that what I was experiencing was not reality… but that I DIDN’T KNOW THAT. I needed you to be forgiving and understanding. And while you may not have wanted me to do it again, you needed to work with me on how we could avoid the same situation arising in the first place… I needed you to understand the part you yourself played, and to learn how to help me earlier… how to communicate better and be pro-active.

 

I needed you to learn about my illness… to show an interest in finding out how best to protect our friendship. To not blame me for being mentally ill. I was experiencing new and terrifying aspects of my illness last year… I also needed stability, consistency, and certainty, and you weren’t offering me any of those. I felt out of control, and completely alone.

 

 

 

While what I wrote was something I wish I hadn’t, please try and understand that it came from a place the furthest from nasty. It was a moment of desperation, using the only skills I had available to me in that moment to deal with overwhelming pain and fear. I’m not making excuses. I’m not making things up to escape accountability. I’m just saying this was my reality. I do regret it, but I didn’t feel in control of it at the time… it was not done with any true ill-feeling to you. It was done with hurt in my heart at what my sick, paranoid mind was telling me about you. It was done to try and rescue our friendship from eternal silence. I wish I’d left it there now, as the hell it unleashed has done more damage to my life than anything else I’ve ever experienced. But please try and see it from the perspective of someone afraid to lose you, and who thought we would never speak again, and realise that I would’ve been right. You were waiting for me to speak to you. You have to accept that was never going to happen. And you need to accept that’s because of the things you said to me in the previous message. You had made it so I could not approach you again, and then you were sitting back, expecting me to do just that. It was an impossible situation, and I was trying to rectify it. It just went horrifically wrong. Please have some sympathy for that, if nothing else.

 

I tried to make it up to you afterwards. I admit, I didn’t feel it was my fault. The message I got in response to my blog was hurtful, because I knew what my intentions had been, even if they didn’t shine through in my words. I’d wanted to open the lines of communication, but I had no idea they would open so harshly. I felt attacked and misunderstood. I never wanted to talk to you again. But I took time to consider things from your perspective. I understood that your words came from a place of pain, and whatever you had going on in your own life at that time…. this was all I wanted from YOU. For you to understand where my words came from. I wrote to you, to explain, to apologise, to fight for our friendship. I extended the olive branch at Christmas. I sent cards and presents, knowing full-well you probably wouldn’t do the same for me, if you believed such awful things about me. But I still made the effort (which was the level of effort I had needed from you all year but didn’t get…). The whole point was nobody would make any effort for me. All my life I’ve been the one making the effort, chasing after people, begging for care, love and friendship. You don’t know what that’s like. I needed people, particularly my friends, to give it freely… especially at a time when I needed them, like I did last year.

 

So I sent to you… and all over Christmas I was met with silence. Not a card. Not a text. Nothing. It was only a month later when I chased you up yet again, that I learnt you had not opened the presents. You hadn’t given the kids their presents. This deeply upset me. I hadn’t held our disagreement against the kids, but it seemed like you had… I’d gone to a lot of effort choosing things, making things – I don’t know if you’ve opened them now and can see that, or if you’ve done what it feels like you did anyway, and smashed the lot and burnt it… that’s what I’d do if you sent it back to me. It feels like you’ve already done that by rejecting it anyway.

 

I had tried to resolve things. I’d fought for you where you wouldn’t fight for me. I had understood the pain in your words where you refused to do that for me. I had explained my mental illness and yet you still seemed to be holding it against me.

 

 

 

When it came to it you couldn’t decide what was best. You had said to me in your message that ‘nothing will ever be the same now’. You had talked to _____ about that and said you weren’t sure if things could ever be the same between us now…. you weren’t sure what you wanted. I accept that things wouldn’t have been the same… ever since you said they wouldn’t be, you made sure they never would be. But just because it wouldn’t be the same, it doesn’t mean a friendship couldn’t exist. You don’t just give up at the first hurdle. Look at your relationship – did you give up on it at the first argument? No. You fought for it…. because it mattered to you…. he mattered to you. Every relationship – romantic or platonic, has bumps and arguments…. you use them to make you stronger. You don’t just give up on the person. If YOU do, then it really is best you’re not in my life. I need to know people aren’t going to just up and leave when things get tough. I need that stability in my life, that I know people won’t leave me if we have a disagreement. I aired my feelings to Hannah about how something she did hurt me…. she handled it so poorly that I became afraid to address issues with friends again, in case they left me. And you’ve done just the same.

 

Do you honestly think that if I make one mistake that’s the end of the friendship? Do you know how that makes me feel? It makes me feel I don’t deserve friends. Please look at how you treated me last year, and this year actually – and realise that I still wouldn’t have given up on you. I was still there fighting for our friendship, knowing it wouldn’t be the same as before, but that you don’t just give up on someone. I may be the ‘mentally ill’ one, but I think my values are sound, and I understand the concept of ‘friendship’ better than many who don’t even have a mental illness!

 

Yes at this moment I feel far too hurt and angry with you, and in a sense I have given up on you. You have no idea what it took to get to this point though. I never gave up on you… until you blocked me. Twice. And then you removed yourself from my poetry group, just after finding out that it would hurt me if you did. I see that as malicious. There’s no good explanation for that. That was the final nail in the coffin. That’s when I feel I saw your true colours. And it was very upsetting to realise them. You probably thought I wouldn’t notice…. or maybe you hoped I would …

 

Even when I said I was taking a step back, and unfriending you, I didn’t give up on you or our friendship – I stated that. I said I was doing it for my mental health and a future friendship… I said when you were ready you could get in touch and we’d go for a coffee. But you cut off that option by blocking me. And then you claimed to have done it so I couldn’t see anything that would make me angry at you or resentful. That isn’t the truth is it? Because me unfriending you would’ve done just that. That was the point. You have a private account, as I do. There was no need to block me. The real reason you did it was to get back at me… to feel like you were the one in control. To have the power. You did it to punish me, and so that I couldn’t talk to you again. It was unnecessary, as I wasn’t going to talk to you again. I had put the ball firmly in your court for that. It was your move. You made the wrong one in blocking me. Then you doubled down on it, doing it on the old account, and removing yourself from my group. That felt spiteful. That felt like you had removed yourself from my group to get back at me for talking to _____ … like it was your only way to lash out at me.

 

At this point I don’t want you as a friend – not the way you’ve been behaving. As much as I miss our friendship, I now don’t know who you are because of what you’ve done this year. That being said, if you were to get in touch with me and apologise, and work your arse off to make it up to me for how you’ve behaved, then yes, I would consider our friendship again. I’ve only given up on it now because it seems pretty dead to me, from your behaviour. And because you’ve hurt me so much and seem to have no remorse about it. If that were to change then fine. But I don’t see it happening.

 

I understand you’re holding that blog against me. I can understand why… but at the same time I’m desperately sad that you couldn’t see the emotions and illness in the words I said. That you can’t forgive me and move past it like I tried to do with what you did to me.  You have no idea how many times I’ve had to forgive you for things in the past. I doubt you think you ever did anything wrong towards me. But I’ve always let things go for the sake of our friendship. That’s why it hurts that you gave up on me at what you see as the first hurdle. Because it’s not the first hurdle and I didn’t give up on you.

 

I will always beat myself up for that blog, thinking is that the reason I lost your friendship…. I will always think that’s why you abandoned me. It may be true. But it’s not the real reason I lost your friendship. I lost your friendship because you didn’t have compassion for the state of my mental illness. Because you weren’t there for me. Because you didn’t communicate. Because you gave up when things got hard. Because your heart just wasn’t in it. If you had truly cared about me, then no amount of difficulty would’ve stopped you fighting for us. If you were that heartbroken about losing me then you would’ve accepted my efforts to mend our friendship. You would’ve put in any amount of effort for me. The reason I don’t think you did, is because you blamed me. You were angry with me for the blog so you didn’t want to be the one to make effort for me. You didn’t think I deserved it after what I did. You thought I was nasty and intentionally hurt you. You thought I was the one who owed apologies and effort. And like a chump I did that for you, and it was all rejected. When the whole problem in the first place was your lack of effort for me. That was all I needed from you… effort. And I ended up being the one to show it, for you.

 

So I know that our friendship died through lack of effort on your part when I needed it most – when I was newly grieving after my medication wore off, and I was having a breakdown. You know, when someone has a breakdown they don’t always know what they’re doing… they don’t always make the best choices or feel in control of themselves. You need to be more forgiving of people with severe mental illnesses… we’re doing the best we can. And I tried to fix things afterwards. But no more.

 

At one point I said I didn’t blame you, and I didn’t blame myself – I blamed my mental illness. Well now I don’t. I can’t blame my illness – it’s beyond my control. I don’t blame myself. I do wish I hadn’t written that blog, but things were bad before that… so it’s not the cause of the demise of our friendship. That would be you. I was mentally ill. I couldn’t help that. You could’ve helped how you responded to that illness. One day I hope you’ll look back on the things you said and did, and realise that given the state of mind I was in, they were unhelpful and only worsened things in my mind and in our friendship. You’re not ready to see that yet. You said you didn’t blame yourself for where we were…. oh to have a clear conscience. I envy you. You continue to blame me if it makes you feel better. But blaming someone for being mentally ill is about as low as you can go. And that’s what you’re doing by holding this against me. I never took a break from our friendship. Never. I left you in peace because you had too much to think about to deal with me. I will not take on blame for being rejected by you. This was all your fault and your choices. You knew how I felt, and you chose to avoid me. You chose to tell me your priorities. You chose to not talk about things early on. You chose to react to my blog like you did. You chose to snub me at Christmas. You chose to not give the kids their Christmas presents. You chose to give up on me. You chose to block me, twice. You chose to leave my group. Your choices brought about the death of this friendship. Not me. Not my illness. Your choices. That’s why I’m hurt, and that’s why only you could ever revive this friendship, and I deserve no blame for it. I did all I could to make up for the one mistake I made while I was having a breakdown. I pushed myself through paranoia, isolation and splitting to try and sort things out with you. I chased after you on more than one occasion. And this is what you left me with. Silence. Friends don’t do that. You gave up on us. This is all on you.

 

I’m not going to spend the rest of my life blaming myself for losing you. I made a mistake during the depths of my illness. Any good friend would understand my illness and forgive me, knowing it’s not who I am. They’d understand when I push them away I need them to pull me closer… it’s then that I need love the most. Any ‘friend’ who gives up on me because of one mistake made out of desperation, paranoia and despair, a mistake I tried to make up for, was never truly my friend to begin with.

 

I always regret the bad choices I make during my BPD ‘episodes’ and my breakdowns….. self-harming at therapy…. begging and pleading with guys to help me after their behaviour made me feel unsafe…. ruining people’s days because I storm off…. degrading myself so as not to lose people I care about…. there are many things I’ve done that I wish I hadn’t. And they often replay in my head during my worst times… convincing me I don’t deserve to live as I’m that awful and pathetic… but I have to accept they are as a result of my illness. I am in extreme distress when these things happen and I need to learn not to kill myself over them. Everyone makes mistakes. My worst ones happen when I’m at my worst with my mental health. And they almost ALWAYS come from a place of love, fear or rejection. They do not come from a bad place. I know I’m not a bad person. I need friends who know that too, and remind me of the good in me. I’m sorry you weren’t that friend. Just be thankful you will never know the level of distress that drives me to do the things you think are unforgiveable. You’re lucky.

 

 

 

Now I have to face the consequences on my own. You’ve left me with nothing. It’s going to be hard to believe in myself again… or in friendship. I don’t think I ever want a friend again. I have to try and rebuild my life alone now. With no hope, no trust… nothing.

 

I may have hurt you with my blog…
But nothing hurts more than a friend who can’t see a mistake born of mental illness as just that, and holds your illness against you… using it as justification to abandon you. Nothing. This illness wasn’t my choice. I sometimes feel I’d rather die than live with this. I didn’t choose it. You chose to do the things you did, with the exception of your response to my blog – that I can understand from a place of pain. Everything else was deliberate. Your choice. Your fault. I will not be blamed for this. You destroyed me. You broke me at a time I needed my friends to help mend me. I was already broken… that was the problem… and instead of fixing me you tore me to shreds and scattered me into the wind. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from this. You gave me abandonment when all I needed was love. That’s harder to forgive than any words I could’ve said in a blog. You broke my heart.

 

We will never agree on what happened here, or who was at fault. The only difference I can see is that I was prepared to own up to my mistakes and fight for our friendship, whilst your choice was to blame me and give up.

 

If I’m wrong about you and all of this then I apologise. But I was paranoid. I was splitting. Your actions have only backed up everything I believed. You can’t blame me for my interpretation of events, when you wouldn’t communicate properly with me. If you really didn’t blame me… if you really didn’t want to lose me…. if you cared about me… if you felt guilty about your actions…. if you didn’t hate me… then you should’ve communicated that to me. By not doing so, and by ‘ghosting’ me, you communicated the opposite and affirmed my suspicions about you. I may be ill, but this is a hole you yourself have dug. Only you can get yourself out of it.

 

I will always be sorry for hurting you. That won’t change. But this is about so much more than that. You abandoned me at my lowest point. You killed our friendship. I’m very sad and hurt about that. And whilst I’m sorry for my part, I’m not the one who owes apologies or effort anymore. It’s the very least I deserve from you. I know I will never get it… but until then, you deserve my silence.

 

I wish I had mattered enough to you, to fight for us. Now I have to fight for myself and regain a shred of self-worth. I lost that and so much more when I lost you. Except I didn’t lose you…. you lost me. I hope you realise that in time.

 

 

 

 

Letter Of Self-Compassion.

Dear Me,

 

You got through Tuesday … well done. It was difficult. It was draining and emotional. But perhaps now you might feel better, knowing that someone believes you about the intensity of your illness… knowing that there is help out there for you. Maybe it’ll feel better now you understand why your mental health has deteriorated…

 

Having your medication increased before Grampa passed away was a mistake. Funnily enough it did what you wanted at the time – it numbed your emotions. It made you more subdued. It got you through the initial loss, more or less. But as it was pointed out to you in your assessment on Tuesday, numbing your emotions isn’t the answer…. it stopped you being able to grieve properly. For all the time until your body adjusted to the new dosage and the pills lost their effect, you didn’t experience your feelings fully…. you didn’t grieve. You already know you didn’t grieve – you were staying strong for other people. You didn’t know what grief felt like… it was your first experience of it. So in the initial aftermath when friends were there for you, you weren’t truly experiencing the full effects of grief. By the time the ‘benefit’ of the medication wore off and you felt the true and full effects of the loss, people weren’t there anymore. Life had returned to normal and it felt like everyone forgot you were grieving. It’s no wonder you’ve struggled all last year…. your medication wasn’t working, and nobody was there anymore, at a time you needed them more than they could have known. You needed them more last year than you did the previous year, when he passed away, because your grief was delayed.

 

So it isn’t right how you were treated last year. You didn’t deserve what happened. And hopefully in time she will regret hurting you. You needed care, compassion and support. And it’s perfectly understandable to be upset that at a time you needed that, you were met with silence and eventual hostility. It doesn’t matter what people had on. You can be understanding that others have their lives so can’t be there, and still feel upset that you were neglected. You don’t owe anyone an apology for being angry at how you were treated.

 

Your anger comes from a sense of injustice – knowing you didn’t deserve it, and from a place of frustration…. not being able to make her understand. Just being honest about your emotions and having that ignored and being made to feel like a burden, and being blamed for the state of the friendship… it’s okay to be as furious about that as you are.

 

You were the one with a serious mental illness…. you were the one experiencing paranoia and splitting – which you know are not rational patterns of thinking. She clearly doesn’t know this fact, so took things more personally than she should have. It became about her defending and explaining herself, when you just needed her reassurance and care. Her responses to your paranoia and splitting only confirmed the things you falsely thought. You needed people to not take it personally, to see it as a symptom of an illness… one which they could have helped with by proving those thoughts wrong – not through explanations but through love. She didn’t do this. Fact is, she was supposedly the ‘rational’ one of the two of you, therefore she was more able to communicate and to protect the relationship… if she’d wanted to. She was capable of reassuring you and forgiving you for your behaviours. She had the potential to be reasonable where you couldn’t. The bad things you felt about her were as a result of your illness, not a reflection of her… you made that clear… they were irrational thoughts… ones you didn’t want to have. The bad things she thought of you were her actual rational opinions, based on the symptoms of your illness that she did not recognise as such.

 

Yes you perhaps should not have blogged about your feelings…. it led to her being hurt. But you know how unintentional that was. You know the motive behind your own blog. You know how much she misconstrued what you were saying. You accept you could have worded a couple of things differently and you have as such apologised for the pain you caused. It’s more than she has done. You accept that sometimes when you’re in deep despair you don’t always make the right choices. It doesn’t make you a bad person. You need to forgive yourself – it wasn’t the crime of the century. A mistake perhaps, but not even that. The meaning was misinterpreted and you had a lot of things thrown in your face as a result of her misunderstandings… at a time you needed love and support.

 

I know why you’re so upset… You feel sad because none of this was your fault. This was suppressed grief worsening your mental health at a time when people couldn’t be there for you. This made you split and be paranoid, which you cannot help – you can’t just switch off paranoia with rational thought! Even today you still feel paranoid about some things. It’s hard second-guessing reality. Your mental health took a nosedive…. you couldn’t make the effort for her. You made it clear all year that you needed others to make the effort for you, as you were struggling. You explained your illness all year, and you said you felt like you didn’t have friends…. instead of being offended by that, you needed people to assess their behaviour and consider if they could do more to make you feel you had them as your friends. You needed reassurance. You needed effort, care and love. You didn’t get that.

 

You got distance. This may be for very legitimate reasons, not related to you at all… but she needs to accept that the splitting and paranoia surrounding her, which is off-the-scale now, contributes to your beliefs…. they may be irrational thoughts, but it’s what results from lack of reassurance and being attacked unfairly…. it solidified the split and made you doubt her intentions even more. So you are bound to think that everything she did was to upset you or have some emotional effect on you…. it’s okay to say that. If she thinks that makes you sound self-absorbed, selfish or it upsets her that you think these things about her, then that’s not your problem and illustrates perfectly what the problem is. She’s the one who needs to learn that paranoia and splitting is not within your control… that it may be irrational…. the things you think and say may be untrue …  but she is the ‘rational’ one – she has the power to dispel these beliefs… and she will only do that by being nice to you. By being reassuring, caring, kind and not holding it against you. She is not in that mindset currently. She had a chance to do that before, and she was simply defensive instead… she thought you were attacking her in that blog and went on a counter-attack as a result. Only time will teach her that you didn’t genuinely think bad things about her – her behaviour since may have changed that. You didn’t want the friendship to end. You were simply suffering with your illness and your grief, and felt powerless to get anyone to give a damn about you… you felt so alone. You just wanted her to understand and to show some level of concern or care for you. And every time she failed to do that, it compounded the irrational thoughts. And those irrational thoughts upset her, and pushed her away. She gave up on you. Because she thought you honestly felt that way about her. One day she’ll realise that wasn’t the case. One day she’ll understand how much she hurt you… what she did wrong… and she’ll know that she walked away from and gave up on someone who would never have given up on her. No matter what you may have said in the last year… the things that may have given her the impression you didn’t want her as a friend… you know and you wish she knew that those were the cries of a desperately isolated, helpless and paranoid person, quietly pleading for her friendship. You never gave up on the friendship…. you just felt she had. And her inaction proves it.

 

At this point you have given up on her. Because you’re not getting the care you need and deserve. Because she’s hurting you more than helping you. Because you’ve now done all you can.

 

You sent her and the family Christmas cards and presents. You wrote to her, to apologise, to explain, to show compassion and to make amends. You should never have had to put that effort in for her, when effort was the very thing you needed all year from her. When that compassion was what you needed. She should have been doing the running, not you. It’s always you. This has to stop now. Stop chasing after people and fighting for people who wouldn’t do the same for you. Grow some self-worth. That effort was wasted on her. Don’t ever do it again. It was not appreciated.

 

For the first time in over a decade you didn’t even get a Christmas card…. or a text to acknowledge you or to even thank you for what you sent. You were completely snubbed over Christmas and the New Year, and there’s been only silence since. No matter how hurt you felt and how much you didn’t want to hear from her, that is plain rude and disrespectful. It’s unforgivable and the final nail in the coffin. And it seems like it was done to punish you…. for that horrendous crime of writing about your feelings…. which she misinterpreted. She wanted you to feel bad… she wanted you to feel like you were the one in the wrong and didn’t deserve her. Don’t start to believe that. I know you thought it all year anyway – you don’t need people to make you feel that way… you naturally feel you don’t deserve anyone. That changes now. I know it made it look like you were the one in the wrong – there she was blanking you, pretending you were dead to her, whilst you went running after her, saying sorry and wanting to fix things… it makes it look like you were trying to make things up to her. Don’t worry what it looked like. You know the truth. You know that you sent what you did in the full knowledge of your innocence and knowing she had totally misunderstood you and hurt you as a result. You were being the bigger person. And you know what? You are. Because despite being the hurt party and being mentally ill and suffering as much as you were, you still made that effort for her. You took hours making those things for the kids. Days. You didn’t have to do what you did. But you did because you are not petty. Because you were willing to forgive her for her misunderstanding. Because you have a good heart. Because you thought you owed it to each other to not end things on terms like that last message you received. You deserve better than that. The message she sent you indicated she took no blame for the state of the friendship…. she didn’t like that you expected her to make amends with you (even though that was a misinterpretation of you what you said anyway)…. and she was worried people would think badly of her and would think she didn’t deserve you.

 

I’ll tell you who deserves you…. the person who questions if they do deserve you. The person who looks at their behaviour, can reflect on it, consider your emotions and do the right thing, without making you feel guilty for expecting it. You need to build yourself some boundaries young lady. Some standards, and stick to them like glue. You might lose people you’ve known all your life because of those standards you set…. let them go. The people, not the standards! You are not a doormat. You are allowed to use your voice and say when you feel you deserve better treatment. You may need to consider the way you go about voicing those feelings – as you well know you are not perfect and can always improve – you’re not so arrogant to think you are never wrong… in fact you’re frequently wrong and feel genuine remorse about it. You deserve people who show genuine remorse towards you too. People who would do anything to not lose you. You deserve that. People who are not too proud to admit their mistakes and apologise. People who remind you of the good in you when you cannot see it in yourself. People who tell you how they feel towards you…. without you having to put words in their mouth. They say it because they feel it and they mean it. You deserve relationships and friendships like that. You need it. Do not settle for less. I’ll kick your arse if you do.

 

Let her think what she does of you. What others believe about you is not your concern. Your concern is picking yourself back up…. gluing yourself back together… holding your head up high and carrying on with you life, with or without her.

 

You have to accept that it is highly likely this friendship is dead. No matter how much you don’t want it to be… if what you did (however misunderstood), upset her that much that she says nothing will ever be the same now, and punished you by snubbing you, then how long would it survive if resurrected? It would always be in your mind that she holds it against you, along with her interpretation that you gave her an ultimatum. It will haunt you that she saw the reality of your illness and said nothing will ever be the same now, because of one misunderstanding / ‘mistake’. That she gave up on you that easily. That she was that petty and that rude to snub you, when you had gone to a lot of effort for her…. How would that last? Think about it… seriously… I know you don’t want to lose her – the whole point of last year was because you were afraid of losing her. The reality is that she was not afraid of losing you. She must have let go of you a long time ago… you’re always the one left holding on long after others walk away. Don’t do this to yourself any longer than you have.

 

The simple fact is that you can’t go back and undo everything that’s happened. You have ‘trauma’ issues. Undiagnosed but possible I would think, that you have C-PTSD. And this means that you cannot let go of hurtful things that happen. Or rather they won’t let go of you. What has happened has scarred you…. in more ways than one. That damage is done. Equally you cannot go back and change what you have done. You cannot go back and unblog your feelings. You cannot change the words you said to make it clearer what you meant. You cannot go back in time and change how you reacted to the Hannah stuff. you cannot unwrite what you wrote back then… you cannot unbeg for her to consider your emotions. I don’t think you should to be honest. If someone won’t consider your emotions then sometimes they need to be told about them! But if you had known it would lead to accusations of ‘ultimatums’, then in hindsight you would not have approached it in that manner. You cannot undo that. And the past won’t go away.

 

People do overcome difficulties in relationships and friendships…. people do forgive and move on… but the difficulty here is her level of understanding, and your emotional needs do not seem to match anymore. Her actions or more importantly inactions demonstrate that she will not forgive you for what she thinks you did wrong, because she sees things less compassionately than your illness requires her to. Perhaps in her mind it is unforgivable and she can’t forget it. That alone is reason enough to call it a day. You don’t need to beg for forgiveness. You don’t need to suck up to her. Because you know the story. You have apologised. Do not make it all about what you did to her… that you wrote about things that involved her, without naming her. Because if you do that, it sweeps over the things she did to you. It absolves her of her sins. It makes it seem like you are a piece of crap on the floor, you don’t deserve anyone or anything, and you’ll grovel to anyone to keep them as your friend. You have already done more for her than she has for you in this situation. Stop giving. It is her turn to fight for you. To apologise to you. You have tried being compassionate and forgiving to someone who hasn’t sincerely apologised. And she appears to be unforgiving to someone who has apologised.

 

Reality is that the whole debacle was because you are mentally ill and struggling so much with it. It’s because you are grieving without support from friends. It’s because you were abandoned when you needed people the most. It’s because you felt you were misunderstood, judged, blamed and punished for the symptoms of your mental illness. That is purely wrong. It’s okay to say it is. Call out stigma where you see it. All people make mistakes… even her….  the bit that shows how redeemable someone is, and how fixable a relationship is, is willingness to admit those mistakes, apologise for them and show dedication to making up for them. I wouldn’t expect it from her. Not now. She is moving on… by the sounds of it she’ll be moving, probably far away from you now she doesn’t need to stick around for you anymore – what a way to find out you’re potentially being actually, physically abandoned by someone you care about – online. You used to be the first she’d tell about things. Now she hints about them (in your paranoid mind, to hurt you). It makes you feel excluded from her life. So she clearly doesn’t want you in it anymore. She’ll move on and like with Hannah, you will be painted as the villain.

 

Even this post would be used as ammunition. It would be all about what you did wrong here, rather than admitting that this is as a result of how she treated you…. that this is about self-compassion and fixing what she broke in you. That it’s not about her, it’s about you. It’ll always be about making you feel guilty and like you have to apologise for what you do, without her taking responsibility for how she’s made you feel. But you know what is true. And one day she will regret it. It is her loss. No matter how sad it makes you to lose her, the kids and a long history…. if she cannot see what she has done wrong, and won’t do what is needed to fix it, then you’re better off. Because one day you will recover from this mental illness. You may look back with regret at some things you said and did in the midst of your breakdown… but ‘you will still be you’, as Grampa always used to say. You’ll make it out the other side of this breakdown, and you will be the same person you were before you went into it…. you will be the same person you know you are right now. You know you’re still in there, and you needed your friends to look into your heart and recognise you as their friend. You’ll know that she let go of a loyal, caring, thoughtful and honest friend… someone who would never have given up on her. Time will reveal the truth to her. And she will one day regret losing you. But not right now…. right now she hates you. And that’s okay. She’s entitled to. She doesn’t know what you know.

 

Always hold on to who you are. Don’t ever let anyone make you doubt that you’re a good person. Don’t keep punishing yourself for mistakes you make… other people don’t punish themselves for their mistakes – they take it out on you instead!!! Put the anger and the blame where it belongs. Stop inflicting pain on yourself. Stop hitting yourself…. stop trying to break your hand and your arm…. stop cutting and bleeding for people who don’t even blink at the thought of hurting you or losing you. It’s crazy. Focus on your recovery. Focus on getting well again. And cherish the people who are around you, supporting you, loving you and who remind you of the good in you. The people who never give up on you, especially in your darkest time. Forget what you have lost, and focus on what you still have. You will get there. Just stop letting the opinions of others become your reality. Forgive yourself, focus on your health and one day this will all make sense on a higher level. Love yourself first. You’ve got this.

 

xxxx

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Grampa…

Dear Grampa,

I miss you so much. I wish you were here with me. I wish I could see your face, and hold your hand, and hear your voice. Life hurts without you here. It’s a pain unspoken. Life has carried on, people have forgotten. They’ve forgotten I’m hurting, and that for me there’s a hole in the world. They may not think you were that important to me, but you were. You were such a lovely, special man, and the world is a worse place for the loss of you.

I’m not coping without you. I’m sorry. I wanted to make you proud of me. I said I’d be okay. I said I’d look after everyone, but I can’t. I can’t even look after myself anymore. My life has fallen apart. I’m sure you know. I’m sure you’ve seen it all. I’m sorry you have to see me so upset so often. This wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted you to know I was alright. But you know I’m not. I’m so close to just wanting to come and be with you Grampa. I can’t take living anymore. And it seems like my friends wouldn’t even notice I’d gone. I miss you, and I want to see you again. I don’t want this life. I can’t stand the pain. I’m in so much pain.

I don’t know what to do. Please, come and see me in my dreams… tell me how to cope with this life. I have to keep living, for everyone else, but it’s not fair, because the world’s too cruel and harsh for someone like me. It’s not fair to ask me to keep living in it, when all life is, is pain and loneliness.

I’m never going to have anyone. I’m never going to be happy. What is the point of life? I’m so sorry you never saw me happy. I’m sorry I never got married in your lifetime. Seems it’ll never happen in my lifetime either. I don’t feel my lifetime will be particularly long.

I’m so sorry, that I’m giving Mum more to worry about. She’s upset enough at having lost you. And she’s having to watch me talk about wanting to die. She’s got so many of us to worry about. I’m so selfish to be like this when she’s suffering enough. But I don’t know what else to do. I can’t cope with anything anymore. Everything hurts. I feel I have no friends anymore. They left me, when I needed them. I needed them to get through the anniversary of your loss. They weren’t there. They haven’t been there since. I can’t cope anymore. I just want to turn to Matt… you’ll have seen how I feel about that. And the pain of that loss is still raw, just as the loss of you is. I can’t deal with any of this, because I don’t have support. I’m so alone. And it makes me want to not be here anymore. It’s too painful, and nobody even cares.

I’m so sorry our family is splintered. You wouldn’t have wanted your death to have that effect on the family. Family was so important to you, and you’d have wanted us all to pull together. It’s what I thought would happen. So far, every notion I had about grief has been debunked…. extended family haven’t been there… friends soon forget and aren’t there for you… I thought in time things would feel better. They don’t. I don’t feel they ever will.

I’m being punished for my mental illness. I’m being punished for my grief. I’m being punished for my emotions. That is the world telling me I’m worthless and a doormat. I try and hold on to the love you had for me. I try to remember that I mattered to you. But you’re gone. I may never have heard it, because I never said it, but I know in my heart you loved me Grampa… it showed in your worry for me, in your smile, in the little gestures. The book you gave me of positive quotes, that will be with me forever. I just wish you were with me forever. I need you here. I can’t breathe without you. Nothing has been right since you left. Life is no longer certain. It’s not safe. It’s two years since my world changed, and you got ill. It still hurts… the memory of what we went through when you were in hospital… something you’d never remember. It was traumatic. And I feel scarred by that last night I saw you and said goodbye. I’m so fortunate to have had the chance to say goodbye. I just wish I could have said the things I said, while you were still conscious, and could talk to me. I’m so sorry how you spent the last years of your life. That hurts me. You deserved better than that.

I’m sorry… you gave me such good qualities, and I’m not showing them anymore. I’ve lost myself. The pain is too much to cope with alone. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve let you down. I’m sorry. I wanted to live for you, and live in such a way it would keep your spirit alive. I’ve failed you. I’m sorry. I’m just not strong enough.

I need you Grampa. If I can’t come and be with you, I need to see you, please. Please send me a sign. I need to know you’re with me. Nobody else is.

xxx

Open Letter To My Friends.

 

To my friends,

 

I’ve been distancing myself from you all, and from ordinary life. I wanted to take the opportunity to explain and apologise for this. I think all of you are aware of my mental illness. I’ve always had this illness, so it’s nothing new. But having said that it has not been this bad since long before you knew me. This has been a steady, slow-building problem, but predominantly worsened by the events of last year. The combination of family troubles, my first loss and my struggles at therapy have dragged me down lower than I can remember. Ever since I had my breakdown during the therapy group in week three, my life has changed. I am under the control of self-harm again, and although I had been harming before that happened, I had control over it, not the other way around.

 

My depression has worsened. This has changed me into a person I no longer recognise. I feel ashamed. I feel hopeless. My self-esteem is under 6 feet of earthworms. The depression I feel has triggered off the worst parts of my BPD. It has convinced me that you all hate me, you’re sick of my negativity, you’re all going to leave me (stop talking to me), that I’m an awful friend, an awful person, and nobody cares. This in turn made me defensive. This made me push you away, to force what I saw as a done deal.

 

I tried reaching out in the earlier stages of this, but I went unnoticed. I took this as proof that nobody cared, and that I’m as irrelevant and worthless as I feel. Before I pulled away from everyone I went through the first anniversary of the loss of my granddad. I posted about this a few times, and I’ll admit I am upset that none of you commented, messaged me or anything, to show support. I guess having not personally gone through this experience before, I expected that’s what people do, as I’d seen them do with other people. Perhaps I’m wrong. That’s what upset me though. It felt like nobody had my back, which triggered a whole wave of memories for me. It also felt like nobody saw the value of my granddad. I now realise it doesn’t matter, because I know his value, and my family do. It just would have been nice to feel supported at that difficult time – the first I’d experienced.

 

It made me ‘split’ on you all. It made me think you were ‘bad friends’. And I’m sorry for that. I haven’t reconciled it with the truth yet, as I’ve still not spoken to any of you. But you’re not bad friends. This was just unfortunate. People get busy, and have their own issues. I know I’m not that important in life. And to some I’m probably viewed as ‘an acquaintance’ more than I am ‘a friend’. So I’m expecting more from people than is reasonable, based on that fact.

 

I didn’t come off of Facebook to make people care, or get attention. I did it, because being on there, feeling invisible and still resentful that nobody supported me, and seeing everyone chatting to each other while I felt ignored, was making me feel worthless. It was like a dull stab in the heart every time I logged in. So I had to protect myself from that feeling. I found refuge on Twitter and on my blog, because my voice felt more heard there. I didn’t feel as irrelevant as I felt on Facebook. My blog became my outlet for my emotions, as I tried to not be taken over by self-harm. It’s saved me on several occasions… but in the process I fear it may have damaged relationships with some of you. This has made me scared to come back, and to talk to you again. As I’m in a paranoid and guilty state, I detect things like a change in ‘tone’, or I notice things that aren’t said. I make assumptions that you’re upset with me. Or that you’re despairing of me. And it makes me shut down, as I don’t know what to say in response. I don’t know what to say to you. I’m not ignoring you because I’m mad with you. I’m not ignoring you to upset you. I’m ignoring you because I can’t see a way out of this mess I’ve created in my head. I haven’t found the right opening yet, to free me from this mental prison. I need reassurance, care and warmth – but I feel undeserving of it at the same time, for the way I’ve been these past weeks.

 

 

I came off to protect myself, and avoid negative emotions. But there hasn’t been a lack of negative emotions… because unfortunately nobody seemed to notice or care that I’d gone. Nobody checked in to see if I was okay. I understand by coming off Facebook I made that harder, but there were other ways to get in touch. And the resounding silence was shocking. One person asked if I was okay on my old Facebook account. That meant a lot. And another I’ve also had contact with on Twitter. So thank you to those people for noticing my pain when nobody else did. Anything else feels too little too late. I know my motto should be ‘better late than never’, but it’s hard to know how to respond to anyone once you reach that point of no-return. For anyone interested, I’ve not spoken to anybody about what’s wrong. Even those who did reach out to me – I was unable to put it into words. I’ve been in shutdown mode. Like I said, the only outlet I’ve had has been the occasional tweet, and my blog. It’s been the only way to organise my thoughts and state them. I don’t talk to my family about any of this. So I have had to cope with a heavy burden totally alone. I’m not asking for sympathy here, I’m just saying it’s hard to know the right thing to do when you have no sounding board. When you have nobody to validate your feelings and challenge your beliefs, it’s hard to know what to do, how to cope and what to say. So I don’t always make the best choices when left alone in my head for so long.

 

I know that I overvalue people. I give them more importance than they give me. It’s wrong of me to assume I mean as much to you as you mean to me. At this point I wouldn’t blame you for having the thought ‘I mean something to you?? Doesn’t feel that way!’… I agree. I’ve been a rubbish friend lately. And here’s the honest bit – I’m probably going to continue to be a rubbish friend for quite a while yet. I don’t enjoy it. I promise you I beat myself up for it constantly. But I’m not coping very well.

 

It’s been so long since I’ve been this unwell mentally (the physical illness isn’t helping much at the moment either!)… I’ve forgotten how to cope with life when feeling this bad. I’ve forgotten how to pull myself out of such a bleak depressed state. The last time I did this I think I had professional support, and I had my support network – my group of friends. So I’m struggling to do this alone. In fact that’s a lie. I’m not struggling. Struggling would imply effort to do something. I have given up. I know that on my own I can’t beat this. So after pulling away from everyone, I’ve given up on life. I now just sit in the deep black hole I fell into. I just sit there twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the end. I’ve given up fighting. 

 

 

I know that you must feel frustrated with me. You must feel helpless. You must have no clue how to help me. Just know that I feel the same. I’m so utterly frustrated with myself. I don’t know how anyone can help me. I’m not actually asking for you to fix this. I’m asking you to tolerate me at the very least. I’m asking you to, if you can – love me, care about me, and stick by me, giving me the support, validation and reassurance I need, to make me feel safe and secure, and like there’s some hope left for me. I have people on Twitter and on my blog who tell me I’m not a lost cause… they validate my feelings…. they are consistently there, noticing my existence, comforting me with kind words. This has been invaluable to me in the last few weeks. But I need this from my friends. I need this from you. Please. I know I’m unbearable at the moment. I’ve given up on myself. What I need is for you to not give up on me too. I need reminding of what I mean to you, and why. I need reminding of who I am. I need reminding of what matters. I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m not digging around for attention, or trying to inflate my ego. I’m asking for help to feel better about myself and about life. I’m having to ask for this, because it’s lacking in my life. I’m not someone constantly in need of praise. I’m not egotistical and lapping up admiration. I’m feeling neglected, and I’m asking for that to change. It’s not meant as a criticism. It’s just me trying a more constructive way of asking for what I need. If that makes me too demanding then so be it, but at least I tried.

 

I am sorry that even if a month ago you said something nice to me, and made me feel like I had a friend, sometimes life happens, my depression gets worse, my doubts creep in, my low self-esteem strikes and I forget what you said. I forget you care. I forget that you are a good friend. It doesn’t mean you’re not a good friend. It simply means I have a mental illness and it plays tricks on my mind. But the best thing to do when you can see this happening, is stop it from escalating to the point of no-return. Remind me of what you said to me. Remind me of your friendship. Remind me that you care. To me this is bog-standard thinking. If I saw my friend spiralling out of control, hating herself, feeling she had no friends, feeling suicidal, and thinking nobody would care if she disappeared for good…. I can’t imagine sitting back and hating her. I can’t imagine staying silent and confirming her belief that I don’t care. I can’t imagine denying her the reassurance, validation and caring that she needs. That is neglect. That is what many people with BPD experienced as a child. They didn’t have their emotional needs met. I’m not talking about my upbringing here, because that was not the case for me. But denying someone the emotional care they require is abuse at the worst, and neglect at the very least. I may not have been denied what I’ve needed. It could be people didn’t know what I needed. It could be I have offended you, and therefore my punishment is to not have those needs met, as I don’t deserve it. I accept this. But with my depression and my paranoia towards everyone right now, I feel I have been deliberately denied support… warmth… compassion. And that puts me on edge when people do eventually talk to me. I don’t believe they really wish the best for me. I don’t believe they actually want to talk to me.

 

I just wanted to explain the process that goes on in my head at times like this. It’s a vicious circle, and if I did what I learnt in therapy, I would try to break that circle, but like I said, with nobody to help me it’s been difficult. I guess this is me trying to break the circle by approaching it differently. Ideally I’d speak directly to people, but I’m not ready for that. I need to give you all the chance to understand me better first. So that you know where I’m coming from.

 

I’ll understand if you’re all done with me now. I would be too. I know I’m toxic right now. I know I’m draining. I know I’m a burden and don’t have a lot to offer you just now. I can’t promise when I’m going to be back to my old self. I’ve not felt this awful for at least ten years, I don’t know the way out. It feels an impossible climb right now. I don’t see an end to it.

 

I’m not good at replying. I’m not good at socialising at the moment. I won’t reach out and ask you if you want to meet up, because I’ve done that with people over the past year or two, and it never happened – it was empty words of ‘we should catch up’, without substance, so eventually I stopped asking. So if you want to see me, then I need you to ask me. I might not be able to meet, but I still want to feel included. This is important to me, because of what I experienced as a child at school. I was socially excluded and isolated, and this damaged me more than words can explain. It’s probably the reason I am how I am now. It’s that thing whereby someone wants to be alone, but they don’t want to feel lonely. And they want to stay at home, but still want to be invited. If I turn down meeting up, it’s either because I’m busy, or more likely because I’m scared. I have no confidence at the moment. I don’t like going out and being around people. If you can help with this fear then great – if you can meet me off the bus, or we can go somewhere quiet, or anything else you can think of that might help, I’d really appreciate it. Going outside the house is a huge deal at the moment. It’s been years since I’ve been such a hermit, and ‘socialising’ terrifies me right now. I want to feel safe and protected. Sorry if that makes me sound pathetic at my age. I’ve taken huge steps back in my recovery, and my anxiety is getting worse now too. I don’t do social gatherings that involve eating food, as I have social anxiety which makes me feel uncomfortable eating in front of other people, unless I know them well and feel comfortable. Drinks are okay. I have to use public transport, and doing so on my own at night fills me with dread, as it’s been so long since I’ve done that – besides, the public transport here at night is non-existent. Group meet-ups are overwhelming for me at the moment. But one-on-one meetings would be nice. Same with discussions – group ones overwhelm me. Private ones are welcome.

 

 

It might seem like a rollercoaster with me – one day I’m chatting and laughing with you, a couple of days later I’m talking about not having any friends. This is most likely a series of events that happened inside my mind. And depression has a way of lying to you. A few days ago I felt angry that I had to explain this concept to you – I’m ill, why should I have to tell you that my illness tricks me into thinking things that aren’t true?? You should read up about these things, and KNOW it. If I wasn’t so self-aware people would understand it more! Why do I have to explain myself when I’m too ill to give a crap?!  – But in the process of writing this letter, I realise that if you don’t understand mental illness and depression, then you’re seriously not going to understand that it’s like having a bully by your side 24/7. I don’t hear ‘voices’, but I do have a voice inside of me, that masquerades as my friend but is my enemy. It’s a part of me that’s intent on self-destruction and self-sabotage. If you don’t have that part, you’re lucky, but you’ll also never understand someone like me. It’s constantly there, telling me nobody cares, I’m worthless, I mess everything up, I deserve to be as alone as I feel, I’ll never be loved, I’ll never succeed, people would be happy if I killed myself. This isn’t a separate being telling me these things. This is me. It’s the ill part of me. And when I’m not so ill it’s easier to challenge these thoughts, and feel happier feelings to balance it out. But when I’m as ill as I am now, those thoughts are facts. And those are the times I NEED my friends…. to make me see they’re not facts, and to counter those beliefs with the truth, in the form of care and appreciation.

 

What has happened here is that voice in me has won. And by having nobody fight against it, and you all leaving me in silence, it’s given power to that voice. It’s made me believe what it says must be true, as ‘where are all my friends??’ It honestly made me believe you’d all be happier if I was dead. And if that’s not true for instance, then I need you to tell me that. I need you to tell me how you’d feel if I WAS dead. I need you to tell me what I bring to your life that you’d lose if I wasn’t here anymore. The things you appreciate about me. I don’t want to have to ask for this. I shouldn’t have to ask for it. And I believe I’m not worth the effort it takes to say nice things to me. But if you’re my friend and you care about me, I need you to prove me wrong. Prove I’m worth the effort. Prove I’m not a lost cause. Prove I matter. Because at this moment in time I’ve never felt more hopeless or worthless.

 

I might not be very giving at this time. But once upon a time I was. I used to put in so much effort to friendships. I was always a very giving person, until a time came where I realised my friendships weren’t balanced. People took me for granted, and since then I started holding back more. And then of course I was hit by this wave of mental illness, and now I feel incapable of giving, as I’m running on empty. I hope in time I will be able to give back, but I hope you will be patient with me and be willing to accept whatever I have to offer for now, even if it’s only my company. I realise I’ve become selfish. Part of that is feeling like nobody cares about me, so I have to care about me – but the thing is even then I still have that half of me (more than half actually), that doesn’t care about me either.

 

I’m insecure nowadays. People backstabbing me, letting me down, standing me up, playing with my feelings, abandoning me, crushing my heart and overall being arseholes, has led to me being uncertain of people’s intentions. I don’t trust. But if I appear to have any trust at all in you you’re lucky. My paranoia is a troublemaker for me at the moment. It causes conflict in relationships, because it makes assumptions about what you’re thinking – what you think of me, what you’re saying about me. I hate it. And it’s not something that’s really featured in my past with mental illness. It’s relatively new. So it’s hard to know how to cope with it. Keeping away from people tends to be the best way. But even then my mind doesn’t shut down. It continues overthinking things.

 

The bottom line is – if you notice I’ve disappeared, or I sound like something’s really up, then please say something to me. Don’t ignore me. Don’t leave me to stew in my own thoughts. Don’t leave me alone in my head for too long…. if left alone too long I will end up in a place I can’t escape from. Like right now. This could have been stopped if one person said enough, early enough. The turning point was nobody saying anything on the anniversary of my granddad’s passing…. or for a further week after that. That’s when I decided nobody cared. There were warning signs, and I wish someone could have noticed them and said something before it became too late. I only hope it’s not too late to salvage friendships now.

 

 

I’ve never felt so alone, and I hope to never experience this level of isolation again. Although I felt abandoned at a time I needed my friends, and I was hurt, a lot of this has been in my head. So ‘my fault’. But that’s mental illness for you. That’s why I’m opening up in this way and explaining to you all that this will happen sometimes, and saying what I need from you if it does happen. I can’t blame you for not knowing what’s going on in my head. I can’t be mad at you for not being mind-readers, even if I did suggest I wasn’t okay, you wouldn’t know the full extent of the chaos in my head. I can’t blame you for not understanding a mental illness you likely don’t have. Although I wish people would just learn about these things and I didn’t have to explain it, ultimately if I want the support then I have to make my friends understand what support I need and why. I’ve not been good at communicating my needs, and I hope this is at least a small improvement.

 

I apologise for the ways I’ve handled things in this difficult time. I was upset, and unable to express that in the right way. I couldn’t reach out directly to any of you, as there’s a block there. I struggle with conversation right now. My paranoia tells me I’m an outsider, a nobody, an unwelcome freak. It’s hard to fight those thoughts. My inner voice stops me talking to you all. And I find communication quite stressful so I just avoid it if possible. But I do care about you. Life has just become too much to bear. I’m sorry that my inability to cope with life may impact on you and on our friendship. I was doing the best I could. But believe me, I know it’s not enough. If you can forgive me and give me another chance, I will try harder, but I will need your help. In order to preserve our friendship you may need to learn more about my mental illness, to understand that I’m not trying to be ‘difficult’, I’m finding life difficult, and hopefully a good chat will explain what you can do to help me in the future.

 

If this helps make sense of what’s happened, and you’re prepared to help me going forward, you know where I am, and what I need. If there’s too much water under the bridge, then so be it. Mental illness is an endless, tiring, draining experience – for those who suffer with it, and those who support them. Nobody chooses to have a mental illness. But you can choose whether to support me or not. And there’s nothing to say you have to. It’s not easy. But I will always remember the ones who did. The ones who never gave up on me. The ones determined to help me see the sunshine again.

xxxx

 

 

Open Letter: Thank You.

To everyone I know,

Thank you for caring. Thank you for checking up on me. Thank you for answering my pleas for help. Thank you for noticing I was drowning, and for choosing to reach out your hands and save me. Thank you for valuing my life when I couldn’t value it myself. Thank you for noticing I’m gone, and for worrying about me. Thank you for being my friends. Thank you for including me. Thank you for talking to me, and inviting me to meet up. Thank you for telling me you care. Thank you for reassuring me you’re not going anywhere, and that I’m not an awful person. Thank you for letting me know you miss me.

Thank you all for passing on your wishes and letting me know you were thinking of me, on the first anniversary of the death of my granddad, my first loss, it meant a lot to know I wasn’t alone in my grief. Thank you for letting me know that people are there for me in hard times. Thank you for the sympathy when I was so ill I was scared I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Thank you for showing concern about my worsening mental health. Thank you for not taking my behaviour personally, and for seeing it as me needing your support. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for forgiving me and helping me improve my life. Thank you for your great communication and advice. Thank you for not hating me.

Thank you for understanding my mental illness, or at least taking the time to learn about it if you didn’t understand it. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for validating my feelings, my experiences and my way of thinking. Thank you for not acting like you know my own illness better than I do. Thank you for making me feel safe to open up to you.

Thank you for not taking sides against me. Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. Thank you for being so compassionate. Thank you for your patience and tolerance of the difficulties I face because of BPD. Thank you for understanding my fear of abandonment and for not putting me through that fear, by leaving me for weeks and weeks at a time, isolated, thinking you all hate me. Thank you so much for easing my fear. Thank you for putting my mind at rest. Thank you for rallying round me at the shittest point in my life. Thank you for remembering who I am outside of this mental illness. Thank you for wanting me to stay alive, and caring about my desire to end my life.

Thank you for sharing with me. Thank you for opening up to me, and letting me BE a friend to you. Thank you for being close to me and for giving me a hug when I so desperately need it. Thank you for seeing that I’m in need of that kind of contact, having nobody for myself I don’t have an emotional connection, so it means a lot. Thank you for putting me as a person before my political beliefs. Thank you for seeing my worth. Thank you for making sure I see my OWN worth. Thank you for wishing the best for me. Thank you for hoping I find my own happiness with someone one day. Thank you for understanding the loneliness I feel, and making allowances, and making a tiny bit of time for me, to make me feel less alone. Thank you for actively doing things to make me feel better, rather than just saying you wish there was something you could do. Thank you for taking the initiative and doing something nice for me. Thank you for appreciating the things I did for you. Thank you for understanding why I can’t be there for you right now. Thank you for telling me you’re not going to leave me. Thank you for seeing my good qualities and reminding me of them when I’m being hard on myself. Thank you for giving me hope. Thank you for encouraging me. Thank you for your silent presence when I don’t want to talk, but don’t want to be alone. Thank you for making me feel good about myself. Thank you for not seeing me as a lost cause.

Thank you for all the effort you put into caring about me, and for not being indifferent towards me. Thank you for making me feel you can’t live without me. Thank you for leaving me in no doubt that you’re my friend. Thank you for your consistency, your loyalty and your empathy. Thank you for standing by my side through everything and never forgetting I’m your friend.

Thank you.

Thank you for thinking everything I’ve just said is true, when it’s the furthest from the truth it could ever be.

xxxx

Open Letter To MH Professionals, From Someone Lost In The System.

*This is in no way an attack on MH services, as I’m sure you all feel the same. It’s an expression of helplessness, and a plea to the powers that be, for something to be done, not just for me but for millions of people in this country, denied the support they need*

 

Dear mental health professionals….

I know you’re under pressure. I know you’re underfunded. I know you have rules and tick boxes that prevent you from doing the job to the standard you wish you could. You work hard and do the best you can, and I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the majority of you, who have chosen a career based on helping ease the suffering of others. It’s admirable. But can I just share with you my experience of being on the other side? Because whilst you may have the option of walking away from your job if it ever gets too much, I cannot walk away from my mental illness. So I’d like to share with you the struggle of existing in this world with this illness, and nowhere to turn for support……

Nine years ago I was doing a couple of courses of DBT. Little did I know at the time I was actually being treated for Borderline Personality Disorder. I hadn’t heard of this before, and was offended at the suggestion that I had this – especially as I had not been told I had it. I thought it meant there was something wrong with my personality… it felt like an insult. I now know that not to be the case at all! A couple of years later during individual therapy sessions I would be given the opportunity to see a psychiatrist, and get the official diagnosis… but it was suggested to me that it may not be a good thing to have this label, due to the stigma around it. I worried it might affect my chances of working. So I decided not to.

I left the care of CMHT and had to try and cope on my own. I’ve had a good five years surviving on my own as best I could, and coming to terms with the fact I do have BPD. But the last couple of years have been the worst I’ve experienced and my mental health has deteriorated. And now I find myself in a bit of a predicament….

You see, I cannot get the support I need. I saw the doctor, who said I’d probably not have success with CMHT, as I wouldn’t meet the criteria to receive their support. There’s no counselling service in existence unless I go private. And given that I don’t work, I can’t afford to pay to go private. So I tried an IAPT service… unfortunately I experienced a problem during this, which wasn’t handled urgently enough or in the best way, and further worsened my mental health… I felt more suicidal, my self-harm increased dramatically, my self-esteem plummeted. And I’m now trying to pick up the pieces alone. I’m not convinced they were set up for someone like me. I feel they’re more for those with mild/moderate depression and anxiety or phobias. This resulted in me feeling like a burden, and too difficult… ultimately a ‘lost cause’.

So I have nowhere to turn now. I cannot afford to go private. I shouldn’t have to. There used to be support for people like me in CMHT, but now it’s like those with BPD have been abandoned. And given that one of the major issues within BPD is abandonment, I find this incredibly troubling that we’d be subjected to that in a therapeutic setting.

 

 

I know some people with BPD are under CMHT. But this is probably because they have the diagnosis. I am trapped, because I do not have that diagnosis, as I rejected it all those years ago. Now I cannot access the services to see a psychiatrist to receive the diagnosis. So I will never get the support I need. I know those with the diagnosis often don’t get the support they need. But I feel even more stuck, because it feels like nobody understands my battle.

This is one aspect of my mental illness I want mental health professionals to understand…. I am very good at pretending to be okay. I have a lot of pride and dignity, and I contain how I truly feel, because I don’t want people to see me how I really feel. I don’t want to upset / disappoint / trouble other people. I want to maintain control over myself. I’m a very introspective person… I read up about my illness, to make me feel less alone with it and to make sense of it. So I seem knowledgeable / ‘intelligent’. On the outside I may look calm, collected, ‘together’, and even confident and happy at times. This is a mask. One I can’t wear much longer.

All my life I have had this problem – people couldn’t understand why I could do some things, and not others. They couldn’t understand my anxiety, or my difficulties. Because it wasn’t blindingly obvious. They probably thought I was making it up. I never show my reality outside of my house. I don’t like to cry in front of people. I don’t like to get angry. I don’t like people to know I’m struggling. I don’t want them to know about my suicidal thoughts and self-harm.

I may look ‘normal’ to the naked eye, but if you could see the storm underneath… if I could show you how I’m really experiencing the world, you would be shocked. You would be horrified and probably deeply upset by it. But I cannot externalise any of this, because I don’t want to lose control. I don’t want people to see me that way, for fear they will never see me any other way. I don’t want to hurt those who love me. I don’t want people to look down on me.

 

 

But because I don’t have public breakdowns…. because I don’t try to throw myself off a roof…. because I don’t slash at my arms in front of people, screaming “Just let me die!”…. people don’t know that’s how I’m feeling inside. They think I’m more capable than I actually am. They expect more from me, which overwhelms me and when I can’t do it, they can’t understand why. Just the mere fact I can verbalise what my inner experience is, makes people think I’m fine, when I’m not – I’m just trying to express the inner turmoil in the only acceptable way I know – with words. Because I can’t release it physically, I hope that talking about it will ease the burden… but the burden is actually keeping it physically hidden. And nobody takes it seriously. ‘Actions speak louder than words’. So it feels like it’s going to take me giving up control and losing the plot completely, for my pain to be taken seriously. And what if I still don’t get the support I need? Do I spiral until I end my life? I won’t have control any longer, and that puts me more at risk of acting on my urges. I’m scared of letting go. But it feels like mental health services don’t know how to help if they don’t see someone standing, bleeding in front of them, incoherent.

I actually had a therapist tell me to go away and think what help I wanted from them, as long as it’s within their skill-set. With all due respect to you all, you are the mental health professionals…. you know what your skills are, therefore what you can offer. You know all about mental illnesses and what therapies may help an illness. Yes, I am an expert in my own BPD as I’ve lived with it all my life… but I don’t know what options I have. I don’t know what help there is. It’s not my job to know. I’M THE PATIENT. If I had a total breakdown and showed how I feel inside, you would have to help me. You would know HOW to help me. You would take the lead, do your job and try to heal me. But because I stuff it all inside, so nobody can see, you think I’m capable of doing your job for you and deciding what will help me best. I am the patient, you are the professional – please tell me how you can help me, and if you yourself cannot do it, then please point me in the direction of someone who can.

 

 

I need to feel there are options for me. Because right now I don’t. I don’t see a future for me. I can’t see me getting through this, because I have nowhere to turn. I feel isolated. I can’t get the level of help I need as I don’t have the diagnosis, and can’t get the diagnosis because of lack of access to the services… so I have no ‘label’ to explain my emotional turmoil…. on top of that I don’t let it show, so people probably question if it’s really as bad as I say. So in a sense I feel I constantly have to prove I’m as ill as I say, but I can’t do this by showing them, I can only tell them… but if they don’t SEE it they don’t BELIEVE it. So I’m also stuck in that way. I’m trapped within myself. And I’m trapped within the mental health services. Nowhere to go. Nobody can help me. And that makes me feel suicidal.

Another thing I want you to note is this: If you ask me if I have thoughts of suicide and I say yes, but that I wouldn’t act on them, don’t just believe me and carry on as if it’s not a risk. I am afraid of the consequences of admitting to wanting to act on these thoughts. So I’m never going to tell you that I might do it. This is how people end up dead. They tell professionals they’re okay, it’s accepted and then they act on it. When I was on a course recently I had a conversation with a therapist, and they asked me if I could keep myself safe that night… I was the most honest I’ve been about it, and said that it would be difficult. I said I would try, but I went home and self-harmed, ending up at the MIU. I knew this was going to happen but didn’t tell them. I don’t want to burden people. And I don’t want them to judge me. I want to seem like a rational adult. 

I self-harmed during my course, and this was discovered by one of the therapists, who had to treat me and advised me to go to the hospital. It was NEVER my intention for anyone to know about it. I was hidden in the toilets trying to treat it myself. That was the closest I’ve ever been to revealing my reality. They saw me crying, panicking, they saw my wounds and scars…. I was a mess that night, and I felt ashamed to have let the barriers down, and let someone see the mess inside me.

This is what I mean…. I feel ashamed of the thoughts I have, the emotions I feel and the way I would behave if I felt it socially acceptable. I know some would think if you’re really that bad you’d have no control over it – well the incident at therapy was one example of when I lost control. You might think it can’t be controlled, but you don’t know me. I have major issues with control, and I guilt-trip myself into maintaining a certain image. I think I would be letting a lot of people down if I didn’t give a damn anymore and behaved how I wish I could. Control is possible, whilst being very unwell. I’ll tell you how I know this… because I can feel it slipping away. I am about to lose control. And it terrifies me. I don’t know what is going to happen when I lose that control. I don’t know what I’ll do, what the consequences will be, and I fear losing myself in the process.

The control I exert over my own mental illness is such a heavy burden. It is like I’ve got myself chained up inside. Like I’m holding my reality hostage. So believe me it’s there, and it’s possible. It’s why every single time I say “I can’t do this anymore” I become one step closer to not doing it anymore…. not hiding it anymore.

 

 

I know that when I finally lose control, I will feel so ashamed that I will not want to live anymore, and I need to know there will be a safety net to catch me. I need to know it’s safe to let go and lose control, and fall apart, and someone will keep me safe. Otherwise when I finally show you all the pain I’ve locked up inside, I’m not sure I will make it out the other side. And I don’t really want to die. I just want life to not hurt so much. I want people to care about me. I want to have something to live for.

It shouldn’t be that I have to reach utter crisis point to get the help I need. The help should be offered to prevent that risk to my life. That’s what makes me feel totally worthless – that I’d be left to reach that point where I might die, before you’ll help me. It shouldn’t be that way. But I can see in my case that’s the way it’s going to be. Because nobody understands BPD unless they’ve had it. And nobody can understand a mental illness that they can’t see. If the only visible sign I have are my self-harm scars, then nobody could ever understand what leads me to cause them. This is my personal interpretation of ‘quiet borderline’. I know many don’t agree with me on this, and I’m still forming my own opinion on it, but my BPD is so hidden most of the time, that nobody would believe how much I’m suffering.

 

 

With most illnesses the strategy seems to be to treat the symptoms… but if I hide the symptoms, and only write about them, then those wanting to treat them cannot do so. And I’m neglected. I just want one mental health professional to stick with me while I fall apart. I want them to believe what I’m experiencing and let me express it, whilst protecting me from myself. I just want to feel safe and supported. And I really don’t right now. I don’t know who I can turn to. I don’t know what to do. I feel powerless.

You see we’re not all that different – you feel powerless to help me, I feel powerless to get help…. the only difference is, to you I will just be one more person who couldn’t be saved… a statistic….but for me, I will be no more. Gone. Dead. So please, will someone do SOMETHING to provide the help and support people like me need in this country? I don’t want to die. I need help. Someone please create that help – don’t leave us all to an ugly fate. There may be some misconceptions out there about those with BPD, but I know from talking to many of them, they are the loveliest individuals with a heck of a lot to give. And to lose all those lights from the world would be a tragedy.

I know you try your hardest to help us where you can, but more people need to unite to get help for those of us lost in the system… those of us in the middle, who are ‘too ill’ for IAPT services and ‘not ill enough’ for CMHT to help us… at least that’s what I was told. Where are we supposed to turn? BPD puts us most at risk of doing harm to ourselves, or taking our own lives… we are desperately in need of support. Please value our lives enough to do everything you can to get us that support. I don’t know what my ‘rights’ are as a service user. I don’t know what’s on offer to help me. It feels as though different sectors of the NHS can’t agree on what help there is for me. Can you please start to communicate with each other and come up with a strategy, so that when someone in dire need comes along, they can be directed to the right support? I feel like I’m floating around in the system and don’t belong anywhere, which is a reflection of my experience in life… the feeling I will never belong, that I’m worthless and a burden. These beliefs are being mirrored in my experiences of trying to get help. It feels like my life doesn’t matter. And too many others have this experience. Things need to change.

 

I want to start campaigning for more support for those with BPD. And when I feel mentally stronger this is something I will look into. In the meantime, I hope those within the profession can do all they can to change things from the inside. I know it’s a huge ask, and not something that can just happen – it takes a lot of work and money. I’m just asking if you have a voice within the profession, please use it to save lives. Those most in need are being left behind. This cannot be right. I know that most of you would agree, and are just as frustrated at the injustice. Hopefully enough of us can take action to try and bring about a change.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

xxxx

Love & Loss: An Open Letter.

*Contains swearing, suicidal thoughts etc*

 

Dear Matthew,

All I wanted when I sought your advice, was to know how to let you go…. to know how to stop the pain. I just want it to stop. Why wouldn’t you help me…?

Nobody knows this burden I carry. Yes they now know about it, but it’s not spoken about anymore, and even if it was discussed, nobody can ever comprehend what I’m feeling. Can you understand it? What it’s like… to be wholly enamoured with someone… someone you know you can never have… to be heartbroken with this realisation…. but on top of that to never see or speak to them ever again…

I can’t do it Matt. I can’t do it. I thought I could. Look, I’ve already made it through three weeks without you. I survived Christmas. But it’s having to survive however many years I’m given to live. I know this makes no sense to you, to my friends and family, to anyone, but I cannot do this. I don’t understand why I feel how I do, but this is how I feel. And it’s unbearable.

I wish I never met you… just so I didn’t have to lose you. I don’t know how to recover from this loss. I don’t know how to stop ‘loving’ you. I don’t know how to stop wanting you, missing you and hurting for you.

I dreamt of you last night. It was a nice dream. But I awoke having thoughts of ending my life. I can’t see any other way to stop this bomb of emotions ticking away inside me. I need to scream into a valley and let the pain echo over the land. I need to cry and collapse in a puddle of tears. I need to be held and protected from myself.

I haven’t harmed since that night I lost you. But the scary thing is, I feel I’m beyond that now. Harming myself won’t stop the pain. The only thing that will stop this grief is to see you again. And that will never happen. So do you see the predicament I’m in? There is no other way out of this mess… this torture. And that’s why my mind turns to that dark place.

I’ve started having visions again, of me standing on the bridge. I call your number, just to hear your voice one more time, on the answerphone. But you answer instead. I tell you goodbye. And after that, I don’t know what happens. I don’t know if I jump or if I’m saved. But if I’m saved I want the pain to stop. I want to forget you.

Knowing you has scarred me forever. Not only physically but emotionally. You are my living ghost, haunting me day and night now… I can’t even escape you in my dreams. I just want to forget you. How do I forget you?

Why didn’t you help me? Why did you have to be so cold and distant? Forget the job, haven’t you a heart? I saw it in the penultimate week… when you spoke to me and seemed to understand more – why couldn’t you have shown me that compassion earlier? And why couldn’t you have allowed me closure? Don’t I deserve just one fucking ounce of closure, just once in my life?! You’ve added to the pile of crap I already had to live with. You’ve taught me all people, particularly men, are the same. And I am not worth a conversation. I know, I know… I’m too demanding. I don’t have rights to ask for these things in this situation… you have to do things ‘by the book’. Screw the book – I’m a human being, you’re a human being, couldn’t you just burn the book for a moment and treat me like a person in need of a little human understanding and warmth? I guess that really is too much to ask, of anyone… But do you see how being made to feel that way is adding to my shit sense of self-worth? This is what I mean about being failed by you lot…. I have come away worse off… thinking I’m a burden, a nuisance, an attention-seeker, demanding, needy, stupid, pathetic, immature, completely fucked up in the head and beyond help. I believe you and everyone else there are pleased I’m gone, and no longer an issue for you. I believe none of you gave a fig about me as a person. You all detested me.

And that fills me with such intense rage, I want to throw my computer out of the window, and punch the wall next to me, until I break my own hand, or there’s a hole in the wall – whichever comes first. I want to trash the whole room. I want to harm myself. It’s not your fault I was stuck with a shit therapist, who didn’t take any interest in my struggles, made me feel like an idiot for how I felt about you, and ditched me immediately after the course…. but the fact that happened makes me hate, not only her, but also you. Because you didn’t help me. You robbed me of that option, and made it so I would have to discuss the problem with my therapist at the end, and did she help me? NO. You dodged the issue yourself, made me think I would have support afterwards, and I didn’t. So it feels like you lied to me. You avoided helping me, you lied about the support I’d get. And now none of you have to care what the fuck happens to me. I could throw myself off a roof tomorrow and none of you would be any the wiser. And if you knew, you wouldn’t care!

Do you know how painful that fact is?! That you don’t even give half a shit about me, and I feel 100% emotionally invested in you! I know you can’t help how I feel about you. And my God I wish I didn’t feel it. If it was a physical part of me ‘loving’ you, I would cut it out this instant…. but this feeling for you permeates through every single cell in me. It exists in every bone, every muscle. It’s in my blood and the air I breathe. It’s in my heart and my mind – I can’t cut this out of me… no matter how many times I’ve tried. You’re a part of me now, and I can’t get rid of you. A part of me doesn’t want to be rid of you. I want you in my life, in some capacity. But then I just sound pathetic… for needing someone in my life so much, and feeling like I can’t live without them, and you probably don’t even remember my name by now. This fucking sucks.

I asked you weeks before I lost you, how to detach from you. You never gave me an answer. I wish you had. I needed to prepare for losing you. All you said was about remembering my values. How does that help me? What, remember the fact I’m a ‘good person’ and would never be ‘the other woman’ – this isn’t even the issue – it was never that kind of issue. It was never something I’d have to consult my values about. I know full well that I am a decent woman. I would never in a trillion years go after a married man. I knew this was hopeless and unrequited from the start, I made that clear. My values don’t even enter here. Remembering I’m a good woman doesn’t help me to not have feelings for you. It’s quite possible to have strong feelings for a married man and yet not act on them! I wanted to know how to let you go. And thinking ‘Well, he’s married’, wasn’t and isn’t enough to do that. This doesn’t change the fact that I know it’s one-sided and that you’re married and happy and about to have a child. I know that even in a perfect world where these things didn’t exist, you would never choose me. I know that. This isn’t about whether I can have you or not, and whether I’m a person who would cheat with someone or not….. this is about intense feelings of love, and immense grief and sadness that I’ve lost you, forever. It doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to make sense. I feel these strong feelings for you whether I can have you or not…. whether you’re in my life or not…. this is how I feel. And I can’t just stop feeling this way. I wish more than anything I could. If I could fall asleep, wake up in the morning and have no memory of ever meeting you, my life would be that much better… I’m sorry to say. You’re a lovely guy, but to have known you and lost you, is worse than to have never known you existed. I wish you and other people could understand this concept.

Meeting you has further ruined my life. Because I’m sat here in pain, trying to cope with essentially the ‘death’ of a man who I never had, and who never knew how I felt about him – yet he’s still living life happily, and blissfully unaware of the mess I’ve been left in.

I’ve been left with a whopping great gaping wound on my heart, that nobody can help mend but you. And since you’re gone from my life forever, I have to hope I don’t bleed to death before I find a way to heal it alone.

xxxx