Open Letter To Those Meant To Help Me.

*Very bad language, self-harm, suicide*

Open Letter To Those Meant To Help Me…

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking Through A Breakdown.

*Self-harm / suicide*

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

L”

 

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

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

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

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

Kind regards ‘X’ ”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

And a bit later, added:

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

Trigger Upon Trigger.

*Self-harm / suicide references and a lot of bad language – sorry to offend…. personal rant*

 

18th February 2020

 

I’m sorry to vent here, but it’s the only option I have…. I need to make sense of everything in my head. Today was a total headf**k if you’ll excuse me. How do I even put into words the mess I’m living right now??

 

For the last two and a half weeks I’ve been permanently triggered and in a state of extreme anxiety and paranoia. I have had to deal with this on my own. It was caused by somebody at the Wellbeing Centre. I had to wait all this time, until today, to talk about it and resolve how I feel. I went to my group. I had written something about my encounter with the person who triggered me (Z), how it made me feel… why I feel let down again and won’t be opening up anymore. I stated what it was I needed and why. It was not intended to start / continue a conversation. It was to end all conversations. It was just to let them know they f***ed up just like the previous MH service did with me.

 

I didn’t want to just hand over the bit of paper and run out, like the first time I tried to tackle my problem there. I had things I needed to add, to explain what was what, what I wanted and didn’t want, how I didn’t blame those running the group etc., that I don’t want to hear from Z again and had blocked emails from her, that I didn’t want my decision to be taken away from me to continue there…. I wanted to feel that the people running the group know my reality from now on, because nobody will see my reality if I carry on going. I will put on a front. I wanted to wear that mask today, but unfortunately before it started I was further triggered, by the people taking the group. And I couldn’t really control my emotions terribly well. Saying that, I did manage not to bawl my eyes out on the bus.

 

I have been in a constant state of anxiety for the last fortnight… going over and over what I needed to say to them before giving the bit of paper for them to read. I obsessed over it, because I was worried I’d miss something important out. I wanted to feel that sense of relief to have been heard and understood. The day FINALLY came when I could deal with this and put all that anxiety and the bad feelings behind me. I hoped so much that I would feel better after today. But no….

 

Being anxious and also afraid of my request being rejected, I wrote down ‘Sorry to do this… I have a lot of anxiety atm & actually feel scared and ashamed to ask this – but I have something important I need to deal with quite urgently, so could I please borrow the two of you at the end?’ and passed it to them. You can guess where this is going. They said no, basically. They said they’re in trouble for being late to the next group, but I could talk to someone else if I wanted to. Fair enough, but when you consider what I wrote it’s irrelevant. I wrote about my trust being damaged now. That I don’t want to talk to anyone else now. And I felt I wasn’t allowed to talk to them anymore. I talked of being a burden. I talked about closing down now. All I needed was a couple of minutes to just have one final conversation, to get some f***ing relief from this intense sickening anxiety I’ve felt … to feel I’d been listened to … to feel I wasn’t as worthless as Z made me feel. But now X (the person I have feelings for) has made me feel just as worthless, if not more…. because funnily enough he’s probably my FP (Favourite Person) at the moment, and his opinions matter. He affects me emotionally. So being rejected by him today has totally destroyed me. I already felt like a burden to him. I felt so ashamed to ask to talk to him this once more. I feared it. Because I feared more rejection and denial of what I needed, like Z had done. He wasn’t prepared to give me any time. I wanted to die. I still want to die. I have literally just screamed into a pillow and begged a higher power to just kill me. I can’t feel like this any longer.

 

And now having just broken down writing this, I’ve just phoned the Samaritans too. Not the best call I’ve experienced… lots of pauses that made me think they weren’t listening or caring, but never mind. Just one of those days I guess. At least I got some of my feelings out.  Got a sore throat now from that screaming before.

 

I had to phone the Samaritans. There was nothing else I could do. I was doing very bad things to myself, I wanted worse, and I’ve already had diazepam today, and last night, for the anxiety, so that won’t help. I ran out of options. Just have to hope it won’t feel this bad tomorrow. It’s pretty awful tonight. As people are saying I just have to wait and see what comes of what I wrote…. it’s the waiting that’s the problem though. I’ve waited two and a half weeks for relief…. I don’t want to feel this way a minute more. But there’s nothing I can do about it really.

 

Today triggered me, because it completely replicated the very thing I wanted to talk to them about. I asked to have my needs met, and it was denied. I felt like a burden. I felt alone. I felt like I was told to go away and deal with it on my own. I feared rejection in both cases and got it. Every tiny detail from the IAPT service I used a couple of years ago, is being played out at the Centre. And every single bad thing I imagine happening is happening…. so it makes me think I’m right that I will eventually end my own life. Because for the last couple of years my nightmares have all been coming true. It’s almost like premonitions. It’s quite scary.

 

The trouble I’m having is I’m now splitting on my FP – X. I’m angry with him. I’m hurt by him. I don’t want to feel this way towards him. But I do. And he and his colleague were the only two I trusted…. and Z made me feel I can’t talk to them anymore, and they’ve confirmed that by their actions today. I understand they got in trouble for some reason (which I’m now also blaming myself for, for taking their time before)… they don’t want to get in trouble. They’ve obviously been instructed by someone to not allow time to talk at the end if necessary – which is a damn shame, because that is what the IAPT service did too, and it was detrimental to my wellbeing, which I shared with X & co. once before. I do get that they have to do as they’re told. But even the Samaritans woman thought they should’ve helped me if I was asking for it.

 

Reality is I was not going to take much of their time, because I was already PAINFULLY aware of what a nuisance I’ve been. This was the very last time I would have spoken to them. I was denied that. Now I’ll never speak to them again, and I never got that final chance to. I’ve been denied a ‘goodbye’ or closure in a sense. The very problem I wrote about. They have seriously f***ed up. And I bet their response will be ‘Do you think maybe you should stop coming here?’ – as if I’M the problem and the answer is to run away. I bet they won’t stop and think they’re the problem here and can do better for me. I bet they won’t take responsibility for f***ing up. They’ll do what everyone else does and take the easy option of kicking me out and not having to deal with me anymore. I bet. Just wait and see. They do that and I’ll know they’re not listening to me. I’ve not felt this shit in a long time.

 

And all it would have taken to prevent this would have been five minutes of being heard. I hope they’ll reflect on this and realise that although they’ve been told off for being late, in this one situation they should’ve reacted differently. Now they know what the issue was, I hope they feel guilty. Because they have made me feel, like Z did, that their jobs are more important than service-users’ recovery and lives. X has managed to make me feel I don’t matter at all. What happens to me is irrelevant. What matters is having half an hour free so as not to be late for the next group. These people don’t want to bend the rules even a little bit to help someone in dire need. They had no f***ing clue the state I was in and what I’ve been through in the last couple of weeks. All they had to do was care and listen for a few minutes and I wouldn’t have reached this point right now. The point where I just want to be dead. Because nothing else will help this pain.

 

Both of them denied me the thing that would have given me ‘closure’ and made me finally STFU and leave them all alone. Z could’ve given me the reassurances I asked for in my email and I would’ve been spending the last two weeks healing. Instead all my wounds were violently ripped open, to the point I wrote about it, so that I could feel heard. I never got to have the closure and the chance for healing that I needed…. the next best thing would’ve been to feel heard and understood by X. He denied me that chance. They have both f***ed up big time. And copied each other too. I’m just so done with f***ing MH services and their lack of care for the wellbeing of service-users…. or me anyway. It feels like it’s personal.

 

All of this crap makes me wish I’d never said a damn thing to them about what I was struggling with. But I foolishly trusted them to not repeat the same mistakes as the IAPT service. But they have. And it feels a thousand times worse this time. So at the moment I HATE them, more than I ever hated the other service. And this includes the person I have feelings for. So.….

 

I’m just so tired of existing right now. It’s too painful. There is no relief from it. No comfort. No support. No light at the end of the tunnel. I know people care, but the person I want to care doesn’t…. that’s become clear today. And unless he does care, I don’t anymore. Nothing / nobody else matters. That’s what I mean when I say emotionally he is the key. All I needed was to believe for a second that I was worth something to him. That I wasn’t as worthless and irrelevant as I felt. All he had to do was lie. I wish these people would understand how little was actually needed to unlock my whole damn recovery and fix this f***ing mess. I wasn’t asking for much at all. But seems it was still too much. Which makes me feel worthless. I don’t deserve even the bare minimum. That’s how it feels. And the trouble is if they don’t do that little thing that was needed to help me, it creates a bigger problem that requires a bigger solution, which they will NOT give me. It’s the story of my f***ing life. I’m just not worth the effort.

 

…

 

19th February 2020

 

Made it through the night. Was an uncomfortable night because of what I did to myself, and kept waking up every hour or so, wondering what time it was. When I finally woke up I went straight into thinking mode, as I have done for the last couple of weeks…. my mind doesn’t have an off switch. The only time it’s off is when I’m asleep now. You know what sort of day you’re going to have when the first thing you do in the morning is cry, because of the day before.

 

I texted X to explain how yesterday triggered me further. I probably shouldn’t have. But sod it… I think I’m past that point of caring now:

 

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

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

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

 

I don’t expect I’ll get a response. And if I do it’ll probably only trigger me further. I’m just so pissed off because this could all have been avoided had Z listened to what I needed, or if X had given me just five minutes yesterday… that’s all. SO pissed off that all of this could’ve been avoided so simply. It feels like they’re deliberately trying to frustrate me to get me to leave. Even hearing about X’s holiday with his partner was upsetting yesterday – I thought Z said she’d mention to him about not sharing things about his personal life, as it upset me the last time…. guess she didn’t do that. Or if she DID do it then he clearly doesn’t care about hurting me, and is doing it to trigger me and make me leave. They’ll get their wish soon I’m sure. But to be honest if I leave I die. So if they’re trying to force me out then they’re saying they’d rather see me dead than help me.

 

I had wanted a resolution to this whole issue before the three week break. I didn’t get it. I wanted a resolution yesterday. I didn’t get it. There can be no resolution now. These people who are meant to be there to help me have massively triggered me… how can they ever help bring me out of that state of high negative emotions? I can’t see how they can help. X could’ve helped. But since he’s made it worse, and he was the emotional key. There’s nobody else who can help. I don’t know what to do. This isn’t fair.

 

I was so vacant during the group yesterday. And then afterwards I wandered around town in a daze. I was just standing and not knowing what I was doing. At one point I was stood between my two ‘suicide options’… trying to choose which one to do. Thankfully I did neither, and got myself on a bus instead. I figured it was better I went home and hurt myself if necessary, rather than end my life. I really wasn’t safe. I thought of every possible means to exit this world yesterday. I seriously entertained the idea of something I normally wouldn’t. How can it be okay that those I trust to keep me safe and help me, left me feeling that hopeless and alone? Why don’t they care about what they’re doing to me? They’re the ones who need to fix this. It has to be fixed and turned around. The answer can’t be to give up…. If they give up, I give up.

 

(To be continued…)

 

The Borderline See-Saw.

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

I NEED CONSISTENCY, CARE AND COMMUNICATION.

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

Other People.

*Language & self-harm*

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

The Unfairness Of Life.

*Swearing near the end*

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

100% Done.

*Self-harm reference*

 

 

I’m 100% withdrawing from everyone now. The last few days have been tough. I’ve posted things then deleted them as I remember nobody cares. I don’t exist. Wednesday was a bad one. I posted a video about how alone and suicidal I felt. I got a message in response. It was actually a good message, but my mind being scarred by traumatic experiences with others, felt threatened by it. I felt guilty for sharing it. I thought I had yet again upset and offended people. I was so ashamed of myself. I felt like the past with my best friend was repeating. Every minute detail was replaying and I seriously couldn’t cope with it.

I felt so horrible about myself that night that I got my self-harm kit and tipped it onto the bed, ready to punish myself. Luckily I was tired and put my head down on a pillow for a moment, to think, and woke up a while later. So falling asleep saved me from harming myself.

I now know the past wasn’t repeating itself. I wasn’t under threat. Everything’s ‘okay’. Only it’s not. I’m filled with self-loathing. I’m still alone. I’m still suicidal. And the anxiety I’m experiencing is affecting me physically. I can’t cope with friendships anymore. I so desperately don’t want to be alone, but I don’t want to take what shitty ‘friends’ did to me, out on innocent people.

I hate that I was ranting about nobody caring, when the reality is that they all have their own stuff to deal with. It makes me feel so selfish. I just find it upsetting because I was dealing with my own stuff, and missed that Liv needed me. So always hearing that everyone’s too caught up in their own stuff to deal with me, it’s hurtful, and I feel like screaming at them – that’s what happened with Liv. I just don’t think anybody understands exactly how lonely I am.

It’s also a fact that people I have on Facebook are not as close to me as I thought. I think in my mind I exaggerated their role in my life. Because I only allow people I like and trust on my profile… people I want to talk with, I place more value on them than they would with me. I’m a nobody to most of them. I’m an acquaintance at best. Many people have hundreds of online friends. So they won’t see my posts. They won’t notice my existence or if I didn’t exist anymore. I need to learn to not take it so personally. I just don’t mean as much to them as they did to me. I’m just not meant for ‘social’ media anymore.

It’s a difficult situation because I have lost the two best friends I had left. One abandoning me for being too mentally ill, and the other ending her own life. They both happened this year. Two friendships of over thirteen years… gone. I have nothing left now. I guess I hoped these less close friends might support me after I lost everything… but I can’t hold it against them that they haven’t. They have more important things and people in their lives than me. I have to just accept I’m alone now. Completely.

I have to continue grieving my granddad, without support – Liv was my support. I have to now grieve the loss of Liv, with nobody to help me do that or bring light back into my life. I have to grieve and cope with the loss of my best friend and my Godchildren. I lost them for reasons I do not understand. It’s unfair the way I have been treated. But I have to accept what’s happened, and that I am totally alone in all of this. It’s just the way it is. I used to be alone all the time. I didn’t have friends. The difference is I didn’t have so much pain to deal with back then. I was young. I had my mental illness, but I didn’t have the life experiences I have now. That’s why I’m so desperate to not be left all alone again. Because I’m not sure I can survive so much traumatic stuff, by myself, unsupported.

But no matter how loud I scream for help….. no matter what I say, how much I beg, I will never get true care out of anyone in my life right now. If they honestly cared they’d have said something to me by now. They wouldn’t have left me in silence, suffering, wanting to end it all. I’d get more than apologies and excuses…. I’d get care, love, support and all other things friends are about. I’d get it without having to ask for it. The second I have to explain what I need from friends, is the second I realise they’re not my friends. Friends know what to do. If I have to ask for it then I won’t believe it when it happens – the words will be insincere.

The thing that upsets me the most is seeing other people reach out at crisis point and getting supported. Being noticed. People caring. But me? Nope. I’m invisible. And the thing about feeling invisible is that it makes me feel extremely violent towards myself. Because it’s like I don’t exist. So if I don’t exist then surely it will cause no pain if I stick my fingers into my ribcage and tear my own heart out…. it won’t hurt if I scratch all my skin off and rip all my hair out. It won’t hurt it I smash my head through a brick wall. I want to violently throw myself around and cause myself so much pain and destruction, because I shouldn’t feel it….. I’m not real am I…? I’m a ghost. And if I actually screamed, nobody would hear me. So I feel very close to making quite a spectacle of myself sometimes, from the frustration of not existing to others, and being in such intense pain through it all.

I know I don’t matter to anyone. I’m understanding now that I’m not as close to people as I thought. But I still don’t understand how anyone could keep quiet when someone is visibly not okay. Even whilst being in the worst state ever, I try to reach out to people who need support. I’m getting a bit of a complex now though. Because anytime I do that, it’s either dismissed or completely ignored, as though I said nothing. Even people disappearing… going offline, leaving me thinking it’s something I said…. not only do I feel invisible, like I never said anything, but I feel that it’s not appreciated, and actually not wanted. It’s a rejection. And it hurts to be honest. I don’t have a problem with anyone at the moment. But I am finding myself in the situation I was in last year with my paranoia and anxiety, and I can’t take it anymore… not at the moment.

So I need to distance myself from everyone. Don’t reach out for help. Don’t reach out and help others, because I’ll be rejected. Basically I don’t want to do anything where I could get rejected anymore. I’m not going to. Let’s put it that way. I have to protect myself. It means being alone. But I am alone anyway!

No more ‘attention-seeking’ online, fishing for care. No more chit-chat. No more advice / care from me. I’m sorry that means not being there for others… but I feel it’s not appreciated anyway – people tend to have lots of others offering them support anyway, not like me. So hopefully everyone will be okay without me.

My paranoia makes me feel physically sick. I’m aware that people on my profile do not deserve to be casualties of my mental illness. I’m not sure that I can recover from this illness now. I feel that this paranoia can never go away. I will never trust anyone. I will never like myself again. I will never believe that anybody truly cares. I will always feel people are out to get me and hurt me. I can’t see a way past that now.

It’s like my former best friend probably thought she could push me to the back of the shelf and bring me out again later, when she’s less stressed and I’m ‘better’. But this is flawed thinking, because how anyone can expect someone to recover when they’ve just lost everything and everyone, in very traumatic and violent ways… and to have to do that recovery whilst totally isolated – it’s insane. It’s never going to happen. How could she ever think I’d get better without her friendship? Yeah I ‘took a step back’ – or at least was going to, that was because she refused to make up her mind whether I was worth anything to her or not. It was to try and help my paranoia and preserve our friendship, but she didn’t give a fuck about that. She blocked me without a word. As you would expect, this increased my paranoia – as I didn’t understand such passive-aggressive behaviour… I didn’t know her motives. I assumed she never wanted to hear from me again. I still assume this. Everything surrounding the loss of her makes me feel sick. In fact life just makes me feel sick right now.

If by some miracle I recover from this intensely dark period of illness, I won’t want her back in my life – she walked away when I needed a friend the most. She left me with none. She saw the worst of me and turned away. I can’t just forget that. Likewise, how am I meant to forget the pain of nobody being there for me? How do you recover from a breakdown like this? How do I learn get over everything that has happened? Some would say you don’t ‘get over it’ you ‘learn to live with it’. But how can I possibly learn to live with everything the last year has shown me? How do I live without Liv? How do I live without my best friend and Godchildren? How can I ever be okay with myself when everyone abandoned me in the depths of my illness? How can I ever trust anyone to care about me enough to not leave me? I’ve seen a different world – one that isn’t safe. I can’t un-see that.

I feel so scarred by everything, I feel I can’t forgive anyone for their contributions to my state of mind right now. I feel upset and angry at a lot of people, and then guilty for feeling that way. That’s why I have to distance myself now. They don’t deserve it, and I’m not getting what I need from them anyway. So what’s the point if there’s only bitterness and resentment? Everything feels toxic now. Plus I’m analysing everything people say and don’t say…. nothing they do is good enough – that’s because the damage done is too massive…. I don’t believe it can be fixed. I don’t know what it would take to fix it all. To fix me. I feel I’m beyond help now. Yes I’m angry that people let me get to this point without intervening. They only had eighteen months to do so….. I was begging for the them to help me as I was going down a one-way track to hell. They all sat back and watched me drown. Now there’s no way back. It feels too late. I feel lost, powerless, hopeless.

I feel I will not recover. It feels like a fact. This is my life now. But there’s no sense bringing everyone else down with me. So I’m done with them all, as I’m done with myself. It’s better this way. For everyone. There was never any hope anyway… that they could save me…. not really. I’ll fade away quietly. Hopefully this way the rejection will stop. There’s nothing worse than silence, to a heart in pain and a mind in despair…

It’s just me now. Me and my blog.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Just An Update.

 

 

Just needed to update my blog with what’s been going on and where I am.

 

I’ve done just over 19 of my 50 miles. It still feels a long way to go. I thought it would be easier than this. It could be just unfortunate that it coincides with stopping chocolate and cutting down my medication…. that’s all kicking in more now.

 

I went for my walk today and felt so anxious. I had to stand at the front door psyching myself up to open it. And when I was out I felt on edge. The last couple of walks, noises have made me jump and feel panicky – the other day it was when three motorbikes went by – they were so noisy I felt scared and had to dig my nails into my hand to calm down. For the first half of today’s walk at least, I felt as though I was being followed. It kept sounding like there was someone behind me. On a couple of occasions people were there. I let them pass as I didn’t feel safe. I felt so self-conscious and really didn’t want to be outside the house. I don’t know if this anxiety is caused by withdrawal, or what.

 

I’m starting to wonder why I’m doing this walking thing… I know it’s helping me get fitter and feel more positive. But that’s not the point. I’m meant to be raising money for Parkinson’s UK, and other than closest family I have no other sponsors and don’t expect I will. I’ve loosely asked around, but I don’t know many people anymore. It’s hard to ask them to sponsor me. It’s getting me down a bit, especially at the moment, as it was also in memory of my granddad. So having raised nothing feels like a failure. It feels like people not valuing him or my love for him. And it hurts right now as I’m just a few days away from the second anniversary of the loss of him.

 

Last year I reached out, hoping to have the support and care of friends for the first anniversary. One person said something. Nobody else. This year I won’t make a big deal out of it. It’s setting myself up for even more rejection and neglect. This time last year was where my mental health deteriorated rapidly… the splitting and paranoia kicked in. That sealed the fate with my former friend.

 

That’s weighing on my mind a lot right now. I attempted something recently in the hope of finding peace as I moved on. I don’t think it’s really done any good. I’m still blocked. I’m still angry. I don’t believe the story I’ve heard. I still believe it was vindictive. I still believe they meant me harm. My paranoia is alive and kicking. There’s only one way it would ever be resolved… the friend realising how their actions have hurt me, undoing it and making up for it with the same effort I tried with them. Direct communication. And taking responsibility. That’s one thing that I’m unhappy about now – the inference that I’m somehow to blame for tensions between them and other people. No. If they argue with other people as a result of messing things up with me then that’s their fault, not mine. I take no responsibility for how they interact with others as a result of their inability / refusal to interact with me. I’m angry. I’m anxious about the whole situation and I wish I’d left it alone. I got upset about it today… about how they turned into this person. I never thought they’d treat me the way they have. It’s hard to accept.

 

Another thing is I still have such a problem with self-harm. People would probably assume I’m doing better now and therefore not doing it. They’re wrong. Yes I’m forcing myself to do my volunteering. Yes I’m forcing myself to go walking most days. Yes my diet is different, I’m coming off my medication and I’m finally taking some vitamins! All positive steps. But I still self-harm. Even when I have no reason to. Even on the ‘good’ days.

 

Because self-harm can be like that. It is like an addiction. Sometimes it’s all my mind can think about…. when can I next hurt myself and how? I don’t know why I’m doing it and why I don’t want to stop.

 

I feel all the old shame again. Because I’m trying to hide the fact I’m always doing it. I reckon people think I’m better than I am. I already know the people at work don’t understand and think self-harm is a one-off thing. So if they were to see the bandages on my arms they’d be like ‘Have you done it again?’ Well yes…. of course I have. It’s an ongoing problem. It doesn’t just happen once and then you get over it. If only.

 

No matter how hard I’m trying to pick myself up and push myself forward, I still can’t stop hurting myself. I’m even worried that family won’t understand that I’m still doing it, even when I seem okay. So I hide it. I know nobody would understand this mentality. I keep saying to myself it’s mental illness. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s an illness, in that it’s something that’s got a hold of my mind and drives me to do what I do… to need it… to want it and to think I deserve it. But it feels like weak excuses. Nobody would understand unless they also know that feeling, having been there themselves.

 

In better news, I had a great night at the theatre last night, just as I had a good time at a gig last month. I’m halfway through the good things I booked up for this year to keep me going. They are so anxiety-provoking but I’m trying to learn to have good experiences again, and trust that things don’t always end badly. I’ll be honest I’m a bit scared of what happens after June…. once I’ve got through them all and there’s nothing left to aim for. It is playing on my mind a bit. Nothing to hold on for. Hopefully by then I might get some community support…. I’ll be contacting the Wellbeing Centre and Recovery College this week to see if they’ll help me. As much as I’m trying to help myself, my mind is still sick, so I know I still need the help.

 

Friend-wise, I’m all over the place. I’m extremely doubtful of anyone’s intentions to be my friend. I don’t think anyone truly wants me in their life. I’ll talk with people about meeting up and it never materialises. And as much as I could just suggest it to them again, as maybe they feel they’re annoying me by asking me again, it’s not what I’m able to do at the moment. At this point I actually need others to take the lead and invite me on a particular day, or tell me what we’re doing and when (as long as I’m free). I hate to admit this as it probably makes me sound needy and demanding, but I’m not going to initiate anything with anyone at the moment…. for two reasons…. first because I’ve been made to feel a burden, unwanted, uncared for and invisible for so long that I’d rather stay in my quiet little world of loneliness than to bother others and risk any more rejection. But secondly because I am scared. I’m scared of getting the ball rolling and people expecting too much from me. I’m scared they’ll do what someone else did with me last year, and keep messaging me before I can reply… I’ll then get overwhelmed having to respond to so much, and put it off…. and then I’ll apologise for taking so long and be made to feel shit for it. Which then makes me pull away as I think I’m such a rubbish friend and people deserve better than me. It’s true, they do. But I really struggle with interaction at the moment. I struggle with small talk. Got something to discuss? Great, go for it. Got a question? Ask it. Need my help and support? I’d be only too willing to help. I’d be thrilled that you asked me. But idle chit-chat I just can’t do. Just talking for the sake of talking…. and I know it’s what you do in a friendship, but right now I don’t have it in me, and I don’t want to hurt anyone by not replying. If I’m honest, as much as I post online, I’m in isolation mode again. Thinking nobody cares about me. I feel lonely not having a close friend anymore.

 

But I have someone in my life whose close friend has sadly passed away recently. A part of me feels I lost my friend at the time I did, to be able to sympathise on some level with this other person. It’s a different sort of loss, but we both have nobody close anymore. So I can imagine what she’s lost and how it might feel. I’m trying to see that things happen for a reason. It doesn’t mean it’s good that these things happen. But you can create meaning out of most things in life. You can turn a negative into a positive… even if it’s just using your awful experiences to help others who are going through the same thing.

 

I’m trying to be positive. It’s a little harder right now to do that. But it is a particularly difficult time for me at the moment and there’s a lot going on. I hope I can keep going as I have been and that things get easier. I feel like I’m paddling at the moment…. I’m not quite sure whether I’m getting anywhere or not…

 

Anyway, that’s just a round-up of what’s been happening. Hope everyone’s well.

 

xxxx

Mixed Bag.

*Just getting stuff out of my head tonight… haven’t proof-read – just blurted*

 

 

I have a mixed bag of feelings at the moment. It’s like a re-ordering of issues. Some things are losing their importance and others are returning. Grief is something that goes up and down… I have my moments where I still can’t believe it’s true and I’m flooded with emotions. We’re approaching the two year mark, so I’m finding that difficult… thoughts of what we went through in the process of loss.

The therapist I was ‘transferring’ on (had feelings for) has reappeared in my mind – I don’t know why… and I miss him a lot. It’s not because of grief, as was explained to me. The feeling lessened because something even more difficult took its place – losing a friend… so now that’s done and dusted, the feelings from before are coming back. Think I might do some work on all that old stuff again, just to sort out my feelings. The key will be not fighting against it… I feel it for a reason, I just need to work out what the reason is and what I can do about it.

The friendship I lost was a big deal. I cannot explain what it did to me. But at this point I don’t actually care anymore. She fucked up. She made the wrong choice and time will reveal that to her. I have my recovery to focus on.

I’m trying to come off one of my medications at the moment. I’ve been on it a long time – over ten years and I’m on the highest dose, so I’m doing it gradually as I really don’t want to risk the withdrawal symptoms possible with it. My focus is on this and managing any problems that come up as a result. I dropped too fast the first couple of days and felt ill and had headaches, so increased by half a pill since… I mainly just have a slight nagging headache every evening. Other than that I’m not sure what else is because of coming off the pills or just because that’s how I am at the moment. I’m trying not to think too much about symptoms. I’m trying to be positive about the step that I’m taking. I’m also hoping for the weight I’ve put on to gradually come off too….

Alongside coming off the medication, I’m about to give up chocolate for Lent, for the third/fourth year in a row… AND I’ve just started my charity walk of 50 miles in 50 days for Parkinson’s UK, in honour of my granddad. Any amount I can raise will be wonderful, but I’m doing it for him and also to help my physical and mental health at the same time, which I know would make him so happy. He would want me to be well – for my mental health to be okay. Getting out every day and walking at least one mile is my attempt to achieve that. I’ve only done three days of it so far, but it does help.

It may seem an easy task – most people walk over a mile a day in their everyday lives right?? But my mental health deteriorated last year to the point I would only leave the house for appointments or to visit family. I don’t socialise. I don’t do the shopping… only occasionally. I became a hermit. I was too scared and too depressed to leave the house. I’ll be honest – I was too depressed to leave my pyjamas most days. That’s how crippling my mental illness has been in the last year. I couldn’t bring myself to open the front door and be seen by people.

So for me to go out every day is a big step. It’s something I don’t really want to do, but I’m determined to because it’s for charity, and it’s for my granddad. I don’t see it as a choice now. I have to get it done. Right now it’s tiring… I’m hoping by the end of the 50 days I’ll be fitter and feel better mentally, so much so that I want to continue for my mental health and weight loss. That’s just a dream at the moment. I can’t imagine wanting to do this – but time will tell.

So I’m trying to focus on doing what’s needed to get me well. I’ll be looking into the Wellbeing Centre and Recovery College side of things next week. Stepping away from a hesitant friendship for the time being was another way of looking out for my mental health. So I feel proud that I’m taking the right steps at the moment, as hard as they are to take.

In one respect I’m feeling more positive. But I’ll be honest … I still struggle with my ‘paranoid’ thoughts that nobody actually cares. It could be because I’m approaching the time from last year where people failed to show they cared about my grief and didn’t support me. Maybe I’m predicting the same lack of care again… or maybe it’s because people don’t interact with me as much at the moment. I see people on Facebook who have likes and comments on most of their posts – that’s because they have between 300-500 friends. I have a very small group of them because I prefer privacy and sharing my feelings with people who I think / hope care. I guess in my mind I put too much pressure on them to care and talk to me. This is something I have to work through.

I do go through these periods of people not interacting with me as much and me thinking they don’t want to know me anymore. That I’m invisible. And it’s time like this where I usually withdraw from people more. I isolate myself as they don’t notice I’m there anyway, so they wouldn’t notice if I disappeared. I’m fighting those thoughts at the moment. It’s hard. I don’t know if they’ll win this time or not. I just feel so much that I don’t matter to anyone. It comes in waves – I’ll get people’s support, care and attention in bursts, usually all at the same time… but then I’ll get silence from them all at the same time too…. it makes it feel like a rollercoaster… there’s no consistency… stability… it’s scary for me, because it affects my emotions so much. It affects my self-worth. I feel stupid appearing to talk only to myself 90% of the time. That’s what makes me withdraw. I feel nobody cares to hear what I have to say. That I shouldn’t be so egotistical to think that what I want to say is worth hearing, and that I should be heard. And I know people would say they just have their own lives and it doesn’t mean they don’t care… I know that. But I’m talking about paranoia. I really am trying hard to tell myself this. It then makes me feel like a selfish person for wishing not to feel invisible. It’s a constant battle in my head. But I’m trying to win that battle at the moment.

It’s good to have things to focus on though, like walking and medication changes. And I’m also trying not to self-harm. This month I managed eight days in a row, followed by four days where unfortunately I did, and then I’ve so far had another seven days without it at this point. My aim is to get to nine days at least, to beat the last ‘record’. It feels like it’ll be hard to achieve though as tomorrow will be difficult for me to get through. I’m tempted to take a diazepam to get through the day unscathed. But not sure….. I’m also feeling extremely irritable tonight. Everything is pissing me off – even I am pissing me off. I don’t know if it’s because I’m worried about tomorrow, or if it’s everything else…. or if it’s coming off my pills…. I’m mainly just accepting my reality at the moment. But it’s annoying to be so moody like I feel tonight.

 

So yeah… a mixed bag of thoughts and feelings. Just needed to organise them.

 

 

 

Full Stop.

 

I’m struggling at the moment. It’s a difficult time of year for me. It was hard enough last year, not having the support I needed from friends. I’m anxious about that happening again and that I’ll end up isolating myself again. But this year it’s even worse. Not only will my best friend not be there for me, she’s given me even more to think about by blocking me.

I am so angry with her at the moment. I hate her for what she’s done. But that anger comes from feeling hurt, confused and frustrated. I don’t understand what the hell happened to us. I know I’m far from perfect. I’ve made mistakes… probably more than I would like last year, as I was having a breakdown. But as far as I see, the only thing I was guilty of last year was… being mentally ill … and trying to express my emotions and explain my thought processes, to help others understand why I am the way I am and how they could help me. I did nothing to deserve being treated the way I have been, and I really don’t understand what’s going on.

She said to me that I must think she’s heartless and doesn’t care about me … I’m afraid to say she’s very right at the moment. I didn’t think she was heartless until she blocked me. Who does that?? I had just expressed hurt at feeling rejected by her, and she thought the best response to that was to block me – the ultimate rejection of a friend.

I’ll tell you just how hard I’ve tried. Anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows just how ill I was last year. I was isolating myself. I was experiencing paranoia for the first time. I had no support, professionally or socially. I was splitting on everyone. Despite being too ill and too at risk to myself I pushed myself out of isolation and through paranoia, to talk to my friend, to try and save the friendship. Any effort I made was rebuffed. I WAS rejected by her a lot. And that bloody hurt me. It made me isolate more and made me more ill. I feel like she found every symptom of BPD and triggered each one off. And in my paranoid mind I feel this was deliberate. I do feel she did things to deliberately make me feel insecure, jealous, hurt and angry. If she read this she would be offended, rather than appreciating that her behaviour contributed to my state of paranoia. Rather than feeling bad for me that I felt a certain way, I think she’d be annoyed that I thought such things about her, and particularly that I SAID them! The only reason I’ve talked about these things is to explain my thought processes… so that she and other people understand how I form my beliefs… what they’ve done to make me think such thoughts and how it makes me feel. It’s never been about attacking her, and I’m so annoyed that it obviously came across that way to her. I just feel no matter what I say, nothing will ever make her see things as they are. And in my over-active mind that is because she’s just done with me and wanted an excuse to ditch me. So she’ll never listen to reason. Just like a previous mutual friend…. she didn’t want to change her view of things because she’d already discarded me. She obviously feels her life is better without me. So here we are.

But I fought for her. Even when I had very little fight left in me for even myself. I put our friendship ahead of my mental health… because she mattered that much to me. As soon as I said to her I had to do what was right for my mental health and take a step back, she blocked me.

I told her what she meant to me… I told her she was like a sister to me… that I loved her, cared about her and worried about her and all the family. I signed off my last message to her saying I miss having my best friend. She blocked me.

She didn’t like that I blogged about my feelings. So I stopped. At Christmas I wrote to her directly. She didn’t respond… I chased her up on it, putting in yet more effort for her that she would not reciprocate…. we discussed things a little…. I talked about feeling rejected a lot by her. She blocked me.

I sent her and the family cards and presents at Christmas along with a letter. The letter was for after Christmas. She read the letter, but didn’t open the presents. She didn’t give the kids the presents I made and bought for them. I wanted them to have them. I didn’t hold our falling out against the kids. I don’t understand why she did. This really upset me to hear. I had wondered why I heard nothing from her about it. She had snubbed me over Christmas. No card for the first time in however many years we were friends…. no text…. no thank you for the presents – no acknowledgement at all. I guess she thought if she didn’t open them she wouldn’t have to acknowledge them…. she was wrong. It was rude and very hurtful. I expressed being upset about this. She blocked me.

She told me she runs away when things go bad. I expressed concern about this as my illness means I have a fear of abandonment and rejection. I also expressed sadness that she could work things out with other people she’s not known as long as me…. so why not me? Was I not worth it? She blocked me.

I told her I needed to take that step back so I couldn’t see her posts anymore, as they were feeding my paranoia, and causing me pain seeing her move on happily with her life and her other friends, whilst dithering over whether to be my friend or not. I think this was not only quite reasonable but actually a sensible and mature decision to make. She blocked me.

I do not know her reason for blocking me. But as you can see above there are many possibilities. It could be because I was going to unfriend her. Maybe she thought ‘Well if you’re going to do it to me, what’s the difference me doing it to you?’… there’s a huge difference. I was only going to unfriend her. I hadn’t yet done it. So I was still friends with her when she blocked me. It was also done without an explanation from her, so was taken as yet another rejection / abandonment. It was quite a ‘final’ action. It’s a bit like slamming a door in someone’s face or sticking your middle finger up at them. I had explained quite reasonably why I was taking the action I was. It was to stop my paranoia and preserve a future friendship. It was for both our sakes. It was so she could continue to write freely about her better friends, and it wouldn’t hurt me. Win-win. Had I been able to do it that way I would have been the one to make that choice, and the paranoia would’ve ended. By blocking me she took away my choice. I had no say in if and when I could communicate with her again. She’s effectively said she never wants to hear from me again. I was afraid she could unblock me at any time and say something hurtful. Then I discovered you can block people who block you. So I can now take my power back. But she still ruined everything. Because where there was going to be an end to the paranoia she has denied me that. By doing something as stupid and dramatic as blocking me, I now have an endless amount of chaos in my head… so many bad thoughts about her and what her motives were. I wish she hadn’t blocked me. If she’d just accepted what I said and agreed it was best for now, we could have had a peaceful break and come back together again. But because of what she’s done I don’t think I will ever feel good about her again. She has spun my paranoia and splitting out of control. She can’t expect to close that door on me like that, move on happily with her life and then reconnect with me again in the future, with everything being flowers and rainbows. Blocking me was at least a passive-aggressive action…. if not an aggressive one.

I wish she could’ve communicated with me like an adult. I tried my best to do that with her, even though I wasn’t up to it. She didn’t know what the next step was. I told her it was to meet up. She wasn’t ready. Funny that…. I was the one who was wronged and yet I was prepared to meet her and talk, to save our friendship. Yet she needed more time. I don’t understand why she needed more time, but it’s fair enough if she did… I had to make that call in the meantime though. It wasn’t fair to leave me hanging, like certain other people did in my past. I deserve better than that. That’s why I did what was best for my mental health. I just wish she hadn’t crapped on that by blocking me. Right now my mental health is no better than before, because of her stupid action.

 

 

 

I’m frustrated because I don’t understand what the hell was going on in her head. And it was having such a huge impact on my life. And I was expected to keep it all to myself. She has a support network. She has other friends, a husband a big family. I only had her to confide in. It was unfair to expect me to know how to cope with things totally alone. I’m frustrated because no matter what I did I couldn’t turn back time. I couldn’t make things better. I couldn’t understand her or be understood. She wouldn’t listen to me. She wouldn’t be compassionate. She just kept getting colder and colder. I’m frustrated because I didn’t deserve that. I needed warmth. I needed love, care and compassion. I needed effort. I didn’t get it. But I damn well put it in, especially recently. I gave the effort I wish she gave me. And not only was it wrong that I did that when she wouldn’t do it for me, but she didn’t appreciate it at all. This tells me she gave up on me ages ago. And what frustrates me is I don’t understand WHY.

I can only assume it’s because of my mental illness. Either that or she just got bored of me. A lot of people do. I clearly didn’t mean much to her. She was prepared to let me go without a fight… thinking she hated me. She interpreted me isolating myself as not wanting her friendship, despite me repeating over and over again that it meant the opposite. I was pushing people away to see who cared enough to notice and pull me back. I wasn’t doing this knowingly or in a manipulative way… but it was a protective thing… to find out who I could trust and count on. Those who pulled me back I could then feel safe and secure with, and those who let me go were never really on my side to begin with… it saved me being abandoned further down the road. I needed more than anything to feel safe, secure and certain about the people around me. Nothing else in my life feels certain. With my illness nothing feels certain. It’s unpredictable. I don’t always feel safe – from myself, but also with my paranoia I don’t know what’s real.. I don’t know who I can trust… or what I can trust. I feel like people mean me harm. But also since my granddad passed away two years ago, nothing feels certain anymore. It’s changed the way I see life and the world around me. I need people around me who add stability and security to my life. I thought she was one of those people. But when I pulled away she made that wrong assumption, against what I was saying, and just let me go. I cannot express strongly enough just how much this hurts me. It is a hard pill to swallow, realising that someone who had been my rock all those years suddenly didn’t have my back at the worst time in my life… that they’d let me slip away without a fight. It’s not okay. I hope any reasonable person would understand why I’m upset about this.

When my granddad passed away I had just had my medication increased, so my emotions were numbed. I truly felt this. And at the time I was grateful for it. I’m now informed that this stopped me grieving fully until the effects wore off. By the time that happened other people had moved on and forgotten I was grieving. But for me it was new grief. It was all the things I hadn’t felt before when I was newly medicated. So a year ago, in the lead up to the first anniversary of his death, I needed my friends’ support more than they knew. So when nobody (except one person) was there for me it started off a spiral downwards in my mental health and how I related to other people. That’s what caused me to split on absolutely everyone and isolate myself as a result. The problem though wasn’t that my friend wasn’t there for me on that date… it’s that I didn’t hear from her for a couple of months and it was a reluctant message when it came. She thought I was annoyed with her when my problem was more with everyone else. I didn’t feel it was with her at the time. But it became about her as she appeared to assume it was so didn’t talk to me! We met and talked and said we’d never go through this again – we’d talk to each other next time…. fat lot of good that talk did! I saw her once more, this was in June last year, and then things started getting worse.

Any time spent apart was time for my paranoia and splitting to convince me that she didn’t really care and was simply tolerating me. She’d go weeks without talking to me at all. I was still isolating very badly. It was next to impossible to reach out, to anyone. It was nothing personal. I had to send the kids their birthday presents last year as I didn’t get to see them after February and only saw their mum in June. It was kind of her to post me my birthday presents, but at the same time I read into it that she didn’t intend to see me. It was bittersweet. I felt at that point she was done with me. I’m sorry but that’s how paranoia works. It infected my mind, and every action and every word was seen through the lens of paranoia. It was not a very nice way to feel about her. It’s partly why I kept to myself because it wasn’t fair to inflict that aspect of my illness on her. I knew that. It was not deliberate and it actually distressed me.

One aspect of the paranoia I found particularly distressing was in relation to her other friendships. This did not come from being possessive and thinking she shouldn’t have other friends. It came from insecurity about our own friendship because she didn’t show the same appreciation and effort for me as she did for them. We were rocky – not talking most of the time, and she was writing about the great time she had with other people – the great company and laughs etc. – I wasn’t jealous but I felt I was being replaced. And I actually started to think I deserved to be replaced. This is because I felt so badly about myself. My self-esteem and self-worth were six feet under and I felt inferior to these other people. I felt my friend deserved better. I thought she preferred the other friends – that they had more in common, being married with children, plus they aren’t as completely messed up in the head like me, and could be more supportive to her, more than I was able to be last year. I was also scared of losing her. She meant such a lot to me and I was afraid of losing her…

I wrote about this… about the fact that the fear of losing someone can actually lead to it being manifested. I was right. When I blogged about this – about paranoia, my fears and insecurities, I don’t think she was very happy about it. One thing I noticed after she read it was that there was definitely an increase in her writing about her other friends. Even a rational person would be forgiven for thinking it was deliberate. I was paranoid, so of course I was going to think the things I did. I thought she was doing it to punish me for not meeting her right away to talk about it (I couldn’t as I was overwhelmed and terrified of her. I thought she was angry with me and I felt under threat, so left it a week) …  I thought she may be doing it as a way of saying ‘I’ll do what I want’… as though me expressing my feelings about her posts was me saying she shouldn’t do it. This was not the case at all. All I was doing was explaining what was going on in my head and heart. I was pretty much seeking reassurance if anything. That’s all it would’ve taken. She gave none.

Every post since that was ‘evidence’ that she was trying to hurt me. Posts about Christmas with all their favourite people were digs at me, telling me I’m no longer one of her favourite people…. hinting about moving house was to make me feel abandoned and like I was going to be left behind now we’d fallen out…. the point was everything was hurting me. I didn’t want to stop her posting what she did. But equally I had to protect myself from it all. Taking that step back seemed a logical thing to do. I don’t understand her reaction to that.

She’s confused me so much. She twisted many things in her mind… thinking I asked for space when she was the one who told me her priorities, as though I was a burden. I gave her space she needed. This is a fact. She made it seem like the opposite. It worried me that she would never have spoken to me again based on this misunderstanding. It tells me how little I meant to her.

I knew that the only way to clear everything up and sort things out was to meet up and talk. We couldn’t afford to write to each other anymore as there appeared to be too many misunderstandings as a result. I felt far too upset by her to resolve anything in any other way. Things would only spiral further downwards until we met up. But she wanted more time. More time may have helped her be ready but it would also have made our situation worse, as it would’ve added to my paranoia and illness. Time is not going to heal this for me. Effort is what will heal it for me. Her effort. Time will only add to the ‘hatred’ I feel towards her. I’ve been put off for long enough… time is not what is needed… a difficult conversation is. If she didn’t have the balls to do that then that’s too bad. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it myself. But I knew nothing would improve until it happened. In my mind the next step wouldn’t actually have been meeting up. It would’ve been making up for what she’d done. Acknowledging where she went wrong, apologising… thanking me for the presents… and maybe making some sort of gesture to match my efforts. I feel that her reluctance to do that, or to know that’s the next logical step shows that she doesn’t think she did anything wrong. That she thinks it’s all me. That I’m the one in the wrong.

Everything she’s said and done has painted that picture that I’m the one in the wrong, and that she needs more time (to forgive me presumably)… it is usually the hurt party who ‘needs more time’. She acknowledged there’s a lot of hurt and upset, but it wasn’t clear whether she was taking accountability for that hurt and upset or whether she was blaming me for it. I hate that it looks like I’m in the wrong…. that she snubbed me, whilst I was chasing after her apologising and trying to make amends… I made effort for her… she showed indecisiveness about progressing, and then she blocked me, as though I was harassing her or something!! It pisses me off.

The fact is I was mentally ill, paranoid, trying my best not to inflict that on her or anyone, kept out of her way, felt shit about myself and inferior to others, thought she deserved better, wrote about my symptoms, apologised when I was in the wrong, kept a lot to myself… I was hurt, rejected, neglected, misunderstood and abandoned … blamed for everything…. yet I still made the effort, extending an olive branch at Christmas, which she snubbed…. I further chased things up, for peace of mind…. when she couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted my friendship or not, I made the tough decision of stepping back for my mental health, whilst leaving the door open to talk and meet when she was ready…. and then I got blocked.

It doesn’t make any fucking sense. It’s confusing. It’s not fair. I feel angry that everything she’s done has made me feel like it’s all my fault… even if that’s not how she feels about it, that’s what her actions have communicated to me, and that just adds to my paranoia and splitting and makes me hate her, for lumping that shit and blame on me, when the above paragraph is the truth. When I was the one who put in the effort for her that I needed from her. I get blamed and blocked. It’s not right. And I’m rightly upset about it.

I will not accept the blame for any of it because I know the reality. I was trying to communicate the reality. She knows her reality for sure, but wouldn’t level with me. It’s like in her mind she knows her truth and that’s enough to make the decision to ditch me. And I feel like ‘How dare you blame it on me?! Just admit you don’t want to be my friend anymore. Own it. Say it’s your fault. Don’t abandon me and then make me feel like I deserved it’. … I’m just at a loss for what to think and how to feel.

I’ve been unable to put it into words for a long time. I’ve tried. But because she misconstrued a blog post before and had a go at me for it, I lost my confidence in writing. I felt anything I said would offend her, so I started censoring my posts so much that I didn’t get the feelings out and it was a total waste of time writing them, so I gave up. None of my posts have ever been or will ever be about attacking her. They’re about explaining what the fuck’s going on in my head. It’s exploring my thoughts and feelings and making sense of why I feel the way I do. Sometimes I’ve wanted reassurance and understanding from others… it has been to communicate… communicating my needs. But if people are on the lookout for insults they’ll see them where they don’t exist. It upset me that she saw attacks where there were none. I remember the post that upset her she said that people will think she’s a total bitch who doesn’t deserve my friendship…. I was baffled by this because I had just written about the fact I felt she deserved better than me. How could anyone interpret from that that she didn’t deserve me. I have to understand though that she was obviously in a delicate place herself and on the defensive, so prepared for battle with me on anything I said.

I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I know it was a misunderstanding that got out of hand. I would’ve forgiven it had she had the courage to admit it and make up for it. But blocking me was the exact wrong way to go. Trouble is I’m an understanding person… I give people the benefit of the doubt… I defended her and made a lot of excuses for her that she’ll never know about… and I’m doing it now. I’m thinking about how she might be stressed or struggling with her own mental health at the moment, and has her own fears that manifest in the wrong way too. But I’m sorry… the time for making excuses is up. It’s been two weeks since she blocked me. That was a bad choice. I’m not responsible for her choices. I’m responsible for my recovery, and that’s something I need to focus on now I don’t have to worry about her. I spent so long fearing being abandoned, and being paranoid about her intentions that it was making me more ill. Now she has officially abandoned me and solidified the split and the paranoia, as upset as I am about it, I have to see it as a positive… no more uncertainty. I needed certainty… although I don’t know the reason she blocked me, blocking me is a sign of certainty. It is a ‘goodbye’ (more like a ‘fuck off’ but yeah…). I wanted certainty, I got it. Just unfortunately the opposite of what I wanted. But now I have to move on.

She may or may not regret the mistakes she’s made, one day in the future. It’s not my problem. That’s her problem. And if she wants to make things right one day then it’s 100% up to her to do so. I will make no more effort for that girl. I did enough and got snubbed and blocked for it. The loss isn’t as big for her – she’s only lost me. She has other friends. I don’t. She was my one and only real friend. I won’t ever have another like her – even those who say they’ll always be there for you will eventually let you down and walk away. I can’t trust anyone anymore. I can’t afford another loss like this. Not when so many wounds from losses are still wide open like they are today. I lost her, the family, the kids, my one and only friend… it seems like a bigger loss for me… I definitely think it’s more traumatic for me based on that alone. But I’m being told it’s her loss. Because she gave up on someone who wouldn’t have given up on her… someone who cared about her, put in effort for her… tried to be understanding and forgiving… someone who fought for her even whilst I was very ill. And she just let me go. So I’ve lost someone who doesn’t see me as worth fighting for… someone who refused to understand… someone who didn’t appear to care…. someone who didn’t put any effort in and who needed telling what to say and do next…. someone who just gave up on me. I’ve heard it said that ‘Is that really a loss?’

The loss I feel is the loss of the kids. I will never bond with friends’ kids again. It just means extra loss when the friend abandons you. I loved them so much and always will, and I’m heartbroken that I may never see them again. I already missed a year of their lives…. they won’t remember me. That bond was special and made me a better person. They were ripped from my heart against my will and it’s hard to not be angry at my friend for that, as I couldn’t see them if I didn’t see her. I need to take time to grieve for that loss. No other kids will ever be as special to me as they were… only my own if I’m ever lucky enough to have any. Even then, they’ll always be so important to me. They taught me a lot about myself and made me so proud to watch them grow. I hope they turn into lovely people. I’ll miss them so much. I wanted to be there forever. I never saw things ending like this….

 

 

 

This is a very difficult time. I find myself feeling similar to how I did a year ago… but I have to try and remind myself that’s in the past. Yes I’ve lost this friendship, but it doesn’t mean other people don’t care. And I’m going to start branching out soon hopefully too. All I can do is have faith and hope that things won’t feel this awful forever.

I’m trying my best to battle on… trying to return to volunteering again… physical illness seems intent on holding me back, but I have to try and push through. I am doing better than a few months ago. Heck I even managed to go to a concert on my own a few days ago – had to take a sedative to do it, as my anxiety was through the roof, but I actually enjoyed it and had a good night…. I then had a better feeling week… I even managed eight days without harming myself in any way. Yeah I’m annoyed that that’s all I managed at this point, but I’ll aim for nine days without it next time. Progress is progress. And I’m trying my best. That’s all I can do.

Nobody will ever know how hard the last year has been for me. It’s a miracle I’m still here, breathing. I guess pain means I’m winning… that I’m still alive and fighting… Trying to frame things more positively. It’s a work in progress!

Hope everyone’s well, and I hope to get back to blogging more soon… this one was about breaking out of the shell I was forced into, and assessing my feelings. I know it will have offended at least one person should they read it. But it’s helped me start to make sense of something that’s messed my head up entirely. It helps to let it out. I don’t ever want to let someone silence my voice again. It’s dangerous to stuff it down. I should know… it’s what I do best.

 

All the best to you all,

 

 
xxxx

What’s Real??

 

 

*Self-harm mentioned*

 

 

Struggling so much at the moment. People probably wouldn’t know this. I’m not really opening up about it as much. I’m battling with my own mind.

 

I’m paranoid that the mental health services are fobbing me off. Despite what they said at the assessment, that they’re not doing that, and that I could access DBT in the future, just not right away – that I have to follow the ‘pathway’ by doing the Wellbeing Centre first…. I can’t help feeling they’re lying to me.

 

I was told they won’t diagnose BPD and that I don’t need a diagnosis. Then how come so many people ARE getting diagnosed with it? And are on waiting lists for DBT and yet I have to start at the bottom? Is it because I’ve done it before in the past? Does everyone have to follow this pathway? Or is it just me, being told something different to everyone else, as usual?

 

This isn’t helping my paranoia. I can’t let go of this feeling like they’re lying to me just so they don’t have to help me. Look, they got out of having to do so…. I’m off of their caseload already, after one assessment. I’ve been directed elsewhere…. yes, it could be because that’s the pathway… I have to try this other thing first…. but I cannot shake the feeling they are telling me that to get out of helping me….

 

And that they’re telling me they won’t diagnose what’s wrong with me, and that I don’t need that diagnosis, because they know that once I have that diagnosis, they will have to offer me more intensive help. Not diagnosing it means they aren’t expected to do anything. This might not be the case, but I have paranoia about everything in my life right now. And when I see other people seeing psychiatrists, and getting diagnosed and I’m being told the opposite and directed elsewhere, I can’t help but feel angry, resentful and rejected…. like they’re picking on me ….. like they don’t want to help. Nobody wants to help.

 

Having read the assessment letter I feel they minimised everything – the self-harm… saying it was ‘minor’ – how do they know?? They didn’t see it… they didn’t ask….. ‘minor bruises’ – actually I’ve still got great big lumps (hematomas) left on my arm from two months ago! I’ve deformed parts of my hands, and I’ve possibly even fractured things along the way but haven’t sought treatment for any of it…. I don’t personally think that’s ‘minor’. Do you?? It’s like when they say your cuts are ‘superficial’. This does SO much damage. My response to reading ‘minor bruises’, was to violently attack myself again, saying ‘I’ll show you ‘minor bruises’!’ … it’s as if they’re saying it’s not bad enough to warrant help or to be taken seriously…. it makes you do it worse. It’s like with the cutting – that’s not ‘superficial’. If I’m bruising tendons and having to steri-strip my wounds then I don’t think that’s superficial. The language around self-harm has to change. I will write separately about this soon.

 

But I felt like they tried to paint a better picture of me, to present at the team meeting, than was true. My eye contact was good because I couldn’t understand what he was saying…. his accent was too strong, that I had to look at his face to lip-read. I may look better than I am and relate well to people, because a part of my problem is I don’t let anyone see my reality. I always try and be nice, polite and friendly to everyone. I’m the girl who had her BCG injection at school, got up afterwards and said ‘thank you very much’ for God’s sake! How I appear has nothing to do with how I am and what I’m experiencing. I won’t go outside the house without putting my make-up on or doing my hair. Yes, I did that for my assessment. But it overlooks the fact that 90% of the time I don’t even go outside the house, so do not bother with these things.

 

 

He said I was present etc. – but what about when I told him that I didn’t feel I was really there…..? That it didn’t feel real…. I felt disconnected from everything. I said that. He also obviously didn’t notice me digging my nails into my hand. He didn’t mention the fact I burst into tears, which he robotically ignored at the time… distressing me further.

 

Yes, towards the end of the assessment I felt we understood each other more and I started to relax a bit. I helped him with trying to get the printer to work…. I may have even laughed a little. Is this the snapshot he took, to report to everyone else? Overlooking the rest of it? That seems unfair to me. I’m a people-pleaser. I don’t like to make others uncomfortable.

 

I felt he played down the self-harm and the suicidal feelings. Why do people do that? Every single time in the past, when I’ve been asked whether I would act on my feelings I have, I’ve said no…. because I’m a people-pleaser! And I was scared of their reactions. This one time I was prepared to be honest and say ‘I don’t honestly know if I would act on it or not anymore…. because I don’t feel as in control of myself as I used to…’ and I don’t feel that opportunity came up…. so I don’t feel they had the full picture when making the decision….

 

But would the decision have been the same regardless? Were they always going to turn me away?

 

And it comes back to… would I have been given more help there and then if I had the diagnosis? To be honest I don’t feel that ‘BPD’ is my only diagnosis…. I feel more and more in recent times, that perhaps C-PTSD fits my life. I would have liked them to look at that side of things…. to understand that everything is traumatising me…. and it feels like a great mountain of pain, loss and trauma that I can’t get over… it just gets higher and higher with each hurtful or difficult event in my life. When I talked to him about what I had experienced in the past he said they didn’t want to know about that – that they wanted to know what my problems were in the here and now….. this is what made me upset in the assessment – they were invalidating my experience and my feelings….. they were saying my past is gone, it isn’t important. But the fact is that my past is why I am in such distress in the present. I needed them to help me with that. I’m not sure they will. I’m not sure anyone will. Even the IAPT service made it clear they deal with the here and now, not the past – WELL WHO THE FUCK CAN HELP ME WITH THE TRAUMA OF MY PAST???? If people keep telling me the past is not the issue, then soon I’m going to kill myself. Because it proves nobody understands what I’m going through. If nobody will help me heal the past then how the hell am I ever to have a future?

 

I wanted help with that. I wanted help with the paranoia too… but I feel that was glossed over. It’s a huge problem for me. It’s new. I don’t know how to cope with it. And as you can see, it’s now causing huge problems for me with mental health services too. I feel stranded at sea to be honest. And feel sick from all the waves of uncertainty and doubt.

 

I also have to make a personal decision soon too… and I’m struggling to do so, as I’m splitting and paranoid with that situation too…. I have nobody to discuss it with. So I can’t make a decision based on facts. I have to base it on how I feel. But my feelings are not centred in reality necessarily…. I don’t know what’s true and what is paranoia. So how do I decide? I also don’t feel it’s my place to decide…. the whole point is I want someone else to make the choice for me…. I need them to take the initiative… be pro-active… choose me and make the effort. I have to know they’re willing to do the things that are needed. But I’m seeing doubt and inaction. I know they may not know what to do, but it feels odd that I have to tell them. I feel I’m in this friendship alone… playing both parts. It’s crazy. And given that things are so unreal and uncertain for me at the moment anyway, it’s frustrating to have to convince someone to make an effort for me when it should be forthcoming.

 

Things are uncertain in every way right now. My mental health feels out of control. With the paranoia, splitting … and then the CMHT stuff and the friendship stuff too…. All of this and life generally feels too uncertain, unstable and unsafe since I lost my granddad two years ago. My grief was delayed. This is how it has manifested. Nothing feels the same anymore. I’m struggling to cope with this new reality. It’s not reality to me yet. Nothing feels real. So having to cope with anything extra is very hard to do. Making choices with friends…. knowing what’s right about mental health services…. being attacked online last year so many times, and then by a friend too after it all… it’s broken me. I’m struggling to adapt to life after loss… I’m paranoid…. I don’t feel safe in this world… and I need people to be supportive, caring and to make me feel safe and secure. I shouldn’t be sat here, having to decide whether someone can do that for me or not…. I should see it in their actions and their words…. I should be given these things without asking for them…. so I’m beginning to think I have my answer…. but then I come right back around to paranoia…. am I assuming things because of my illness? And then straight back to – ‘but if they wanted me in their life they would make the effort on their own’….

 

I am fighting between my head and my heart…. between reality and paranoia…. I don’t know what to do about anything …  and it’s making me sick.

 

 

I have moments where I feel more positive about things, but they’re so fleeting….. before I know it I’m self-harming and a ball of anxiety about life. I do feel alone at the moment. Even if I do occasionally talk to other people… I feel isolated and like I have to cope with what I’m experiencing all on my own. And when people misunderstand you and you doubt your own mind, that makes it all the more isolating…. Being stranded and isolated in a world that doesn’t feel safe or stable anymore = dangerous. But what more can I really do…?