It’s All Come Back.

*Self-harm / suicide*

 

I need to be honest. I’m not okay at the moment. I’ve been hit by a tsunami of pain and sadness. From the outside you probably wouldn’t tell. I’m a master of disguise. But inside, my heart is sinking…. it feels scarred by so much loss… some more recent than others…. there are a couple of people-shaped holes in it from particular people I lost from my life, and those holes are filled up with sadness and despair. A helplessness. A hopelessness.

 

I imagine harming myself badly. I crave it. But more worrying than this, I have started having my suicidal thoughts again. Some are more active than others. There’s a constant hum of ‘I don’t want to be here anymore’… ‘I can’t do this anymore’…. ‘I want it all to stop’. And then there’s considering ways to do it.

 

I feel world-weary. The concept of time is something I can’t handled. I’m thinking about the fact we’re heading towards summer… once that’s over it’s back to fireworks, Halloween, and then Christmas again…. and another new year…. and it starts all over again… It’s another year where I’m stuck in hell on this planet we call home. Another year without certain people. Another year alone. Another year wanting to die. Another year wasted.

 

I feel like a failure. All the things I haven’t achieved… I feel I never will. And if I can’t then all I am is a burden and a disappointment.

 

Yesterday I came across a note I had written during my suicidal times – I don’t recall when I wrote it or what triggered it, but it was within the last year. It was a ‘suicide note’. I don’t think I was attempting to end my life… I just went through a period of self-harm where I really didn’t care what happened to me. I was in a very dark and desperate place.

 

The things I’m finding most painful right now, other than just having to exist in this world, disconnected from life, feeling alone with no close friendships… are two things – the old ‘transference’ stuff, and losing my best friend.

 

Although it’s been well over a year since I saw the therapist I had feelings for, and I thought I had come to terms with it, I’m finding myself missing him so much right now. I just want to see him and talk to him. I can’t, obviously – but that fills me with despair and powerlessness in itself. I’m wanting to go back to the days of that course. I keep reliving it. Which brings with it all the memories of my breakdown and self-harming there. I also get all the thoughts about never seeing him again and it makes me not want to live this life…. as pathetic as that sounds. It’s like it’s all come back. There was a time I’ll admit that I saw his presence online, and it brought me some weird kind of comfort to know he was alive and well out there…. he stopped doing that a long time ago. So as ridiculous as this sounds, it’s more like a death now than before. I have nothing to grasp onto to comfort me. It’s just emptiness and utter loss.

 

I mean life wasn’t that great before I met him… but it’s been so much worse since I have. I had never felt so suicidal as I did after the course ended and I never saw him again. That lasted all of last year… until the point losing somebody else took over…. now I’m grieving them both. And I don’t want to be. I either want to have them in my life, or to not have a life.

 

I’m sick of emotional pain. I’m sick of feeling trapped. Of not being able to let go. Of feeling so alone.

 

I’ve been having urges recently to do things out of character. I feel ashamed about it. But I have to keep telling myself it’s because I’m ill. It’s part of my illness. I shouldn’t blame myself for it. It’s desperation, sadness, loneliness and feelings that I can’t help having.  And so far I’ve not acted on any of them. That’s the main thing.

 

But I feel so heartbroken, sad and lost. Nothing will fix this. And everyone thinks I’m over it. So nobody knows how I feel. That’s why I’m saying it here. So at least somebody knows the pain I’m in right now.

 

Losing my best friend is another thing that’s hard to cope with at the moment. To begin with I was driven forward by anger, and the fact I had a charity event to take part in, so I was walking every day – I had an aim. I had things to focus on and lift me up. But now that’s all over. I’ve not been too well lately, physically… and I’m feeling sad and upset at being abandoned by her. I’m writing a separate post about that later, I won’t go into all the details here… but I’m feeling the need to fix it. To sort things out, so that I don’t have to feel this way. But I tried that and kept getting hurt more. She very much seems to be a person now who hears what hurts me and does it more. She blocked me twice, and removed herself from my Facebook group, after I’d said to her husband about it. She probably thinks I didn’t notice that. Or more likely she was hoping I would. That’s what I mean, I’m struggling to come to terms with who she has become…. or who she always was, right under my nose. These are not the actions of someone with good intentions, no matter what she may tell her husband, friends and family. I’ve seen more spite from her than anyone else who ever hurt me.

 

I’m struggling to accept reality here. I feel like there’s been an endless string of knocks… loss after loss… first it was my granddad…. then the therapist…. then my best friend and my Godchildren. In life terms I have nothing left to lose. Obviously I have people I can and will lose to death. This terrifies me, especially now I have no support in the form of friendships. But in terms of things in my life, I have nothing left. Which brings on the suicidal thoughts. The only thing I feel I have to live for right now is a concert I’m going to in June. Best seats for my favourite band. Other than that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.

 

I feel like without social relationships there is no point to life. But I find them so traumatic. And the reality is I’ll likely never have them again. After the last man destroyed my self-esteem, confidence and belief in men, I no longer want anything to do with them now…. apart from the therapist obviously! And now after my best friend has warped into someone I don’t even know, and has abandoned me, I will never trust anyone again to let them that close to me. I will never want close friends again thanks to her.

 

I feel desperately sad to not have anyone close to me anymore. Sure I have people on Facebook I can talk to. Most don’t live anywhere near me. And let’s face it… we’re not ‘close’ and probably never will be. It takes a long time to grow an old friend. Nothing can compare with the sort of friendship I thought I had with my best friend. I’ll never be able to be that close to someone again, and I’m not able to find a partner either. I just feel so completely alone and lonely. This is how I felt last year. That was the whole problem last year. I isolated myself and nobody noticed. Nobody cared. Not even my best friend. She never DID put in the effort for me. I ended up being the one running after her, being the friend to her that I needed her to be to me. And she never got that I just felt so alone and needed a friend.

 

I’m trying not to cry right now. I feel like screaming. I feel like I’ve been screaming for two years and nobody heard me. Anything I’ve needed from others has been ignored and denied. I’m still so angry about how the therapy was handled. I’m viciously angry about that. I blame them. And now with my friend too… I’m so angry with her. I don’t understand what the hell happened or what the hell I did to deserve it. She’s broken me.  Her husband said that ‘Hopefully one day you can both put this behind you and talk again.’… but how can I put this behind me when I don’t even know what the hell ‘this’ is…?? I do not understand what’s happened and why she’s treated me the way she has. She’s been so passive-aggressive and closed up about it all, and I’ve poured my heart out more than once. I’ve tried being open and making effort to fix it, and she hasn’t met me halfway. She’s avoided resolving things and left me feeling blamed for it all. I don’t know if this was intentional because she does blame me, or if it’s just how her behaviour has come across. But it’s left me confused as to why she gave up on me. She can’t expect us to go our separate ways and then one day it’ll all be forgotten and we can talk as friends again. I don’t work like that. I work on respect and apologies where apologies are due. Not avoiding someone to avoid the blame and responsibility. No. Take responsibility for what you’ve done, own up to hurting me, commit to putting it right and follow through. Nothing less will do. I don’t think it’s asking a lot. It’s common f*cking decency. It’s being a good person. It’s putting your relationship ahead of your own ego.

 

I’ve been crying out for help for two years… I remember a year ago writing a post about this, and the fact I was drowning and everyone was just standing by and watching me go under. Now they’re not even watching. They’re not even noticing. And I’m ashamed to say I’ve reached that point again where I want to make them notice. I want to end up in hospital. I want to show everyone how desperate I feel right now. I want them to hear me. If that means doing something drastic just so they can finally understand how I feel then so be it. Nobody will know how devastating it is to be screaming into a void for two years… to not have your emotional needs met…. to lose everything…. to not have support…. to not have people take you seriously with your mental health. I want to actually rip my own skin apart with my bare hands. That’s how frustrated I feel and how much pain I’m in.

 

This might have come out of nowhere… or it could be I’ve been distracted for the last couple of months. I don’t particularly care either way. Because this is how I feel right now… and it’s such a bleak feeling. People might say that I’ll feel better tomorrow… but they don’t know that. And even if I do, this isn’t going away. This isn’t just feeling a bit down. These are major things I have to come to terms with… losses I don’t want to be reality. Losses that have already happened. I had a lot of losses around 2012, but I had my friend and the Godchildren to help me through it… I hadn’t lost my granddad…  I hadn’t met Matt. Everything’s different now. My emotions are more volatile, I’ve had an actual loss, and now I’ve also lost everything. Part of my identity is gone. More than a part actually…. three parts… who I was before my granddad died… who I was with my best friend… and who I was with the kids. I have nobody to keep me going this time. It’s just me, doing things alone to try and survive. And when my mental health was bad already and I was coming to terms with grief and loss, it’s not fair that I should be forced to face that on my own. It feels unjust. It feels like my life is one big abandonment after another. And I hate my friend for her timing.

 

It just all feels so tragic, because a lot of how I’ve acted in the last year has come from a place of love….. she’ll never know that I was just sad that I couldn’t share in experiences with her, like motherhood…. she’ll never know that I pictured the future, with the kids growing up and me still being there for them…. she’ll never know that I didn’t want to lose her and I was afraid of being replaced….. she’ll never know that I wanted to be able to be there for her and support her, but she rarely opened up to me to let me be the friend I could be. Nobody ever does that… they never let me in…. this means I never get to demonstrate the caring  sides of me, and friendships end up seeming unbalanced, whereby I talk about my problems but they never do. It ends up seeming like I take more than I give, but the reality is nobody allows me the opportunity to give.

 

All I wanted was to feel loved, appreciated and secure in our friendship. I needed to feel safe again, after so much loss. She’ll never know how much it broke my heart that she gave up on me. And she did. No matter what tale she may spin… even if she claims I was the one who took a break from our friendship, like she claimed before, it was she who made that decision. She made the decision by failing to make the decision. That in itself is a decision. If she had known she didn’t want to lose me then she wouldn’t have had to think twice about it. Her doubt gave away her true answer. But I think she just didn’t want to be the one to say it. I think I gave her what she wanted – permission to leave my life. I ultimately was the one to mention a step back. Now she can blame it on me… or at least in her mind her conscience is clear, as she didn’t have to reject me outright. But her flip-flopping and refusal to care about me, brought me to the decision to care about myself. I deserved better. That’s how I felt at the time. Now I’m in a state of questioning what I deserve.

 

I’m feeling really low today. Everything from the last few years is hitting me all at once. And it’s pushing me to a bad place. Matt once said to me about transference and he used the word ‘solace’. That’s what I want right now. I want to run to him. I want him to comfort me. But don’t worry, I know how unbelievably impossible this is. It’s just a dream. And I do dream of him. I just want to feel safe. I don’t feel safe. And just like I wanted to feel safe with my friend, she abandoned me and left me even less safe and secure. There’s no stability to life. And I can’t cope with that. I’m not coping.

 

Everything feels black at the moment, and my mind goes to the images I had to face every day last year. I feel out of control and so upset.

 

I’m sorry I’ve not blogged for a while, and it’s not been useful for a long time. This blog’s become the only thing I can confide in… and my friend destroyed my confidence in writing – I find it hard to finish posts and share them now. I feel it’s wrong of me to do so. But as I’ve been robbed of other options and been abandoned now, I don’t want to let her dictate how I deal with the mess she left me in. It’s hard to fight through that barrier but I have to try and find my voice again, and not be afraid to use it.

 

 

Raw Reality Of Transference.

I sometimes film video journals, when the pain of something is too great to keep inside, and writing doesn’t do enough to release it. This is the first of a series I’m likely to do on mental health issues.

 

I felt the knot of emotion in me, and didn’t know what to do with it. So I picked up the camera and hit record, and started talking until it all came out. No script. Just raw emotion. Sorry, it’s not pretty.

 

I just feel there’s a lack of understanding of transference, especially in this country, even among professionals. From my experience I sensed it was not something they were that used to… which when you’re in immense emotional turmoil with it, makes you feel isolated and desperate. They did what they could for me eventually… but it wasn’t enough. At my three month review after being discharged from the IAPT service, I wasn’t even asked about my feelings for Matt. Either they didn’t want to stir it up, they’d forgotten it was an issue, or they honestly thought I’d be over it by then. But they don’t know me. And they don’t understand BPD and attachment. The intensity of it. I’d love to educate these sorts of people on the reality of it all. I think all mental health staff could do with learning by hearing directly, from those affected by certain mental illnesses.

 

I’m actually in the process of making a couple of other videos – they’re in the editing phase… where I speak to the camera as if I’m speaking to them. Matt is one of those I did this with. I felt it was a way to say the things I never got to say to people. It was to try and find my own sense of closure and peace, as I was never given any. Sometimes it feels good just to let it out. Both videos I’m making are based on things I no longer talk about to anyone. That’s a lot of pressure to leave on yourself. I don’t like being on camera – hence my style of just the eyes…. hate my voice too. But sometimes you have to let go of these insecurities and express your feelings vocally. Since I have nobody to do that with, I make these videos.

 

This video below was a spur of the moment decision, as despite having made the other video, speaking to him, it wasn’t enough…. the memories of the course are weighing heavily on me almost a year on now, and I knew it was something I had to open up about. Though the pain is still there, it helped a little to let it out….

 

Here’s the link to my video on YouTube –

Raw Reality Of Transference

 

 

 

 

Haunted Love.

Sod it. I feel like I’m choking on my heart. I have poetry screaming inside me, that I am too scared to put to paper… I’m afraid to open that door and let the words out, because a whole heap of crap will come out with them. I have too much pain and love and grief coursing through my veins right now, that I have to let it out. I have to be the most honest I’ve ever been about something. I have to risk the embarrassment, the shame, being vulnerable, because this is gnawing away at me more each day.

I love you. I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks anymore. It means nothing. It’s irrelevant how I feel. I know that. But these are my feelings, and I do myself no favours in denying them. I shut them away for a long time. I stopped talking about you. I never stopped thinking about you. Not for a second. But I pretended it was no longer an issue. I still don’t talk about you, and I won’t. Because the second I do, I’ll be judged. I’ll be told to move on. I’ll be told it’s not real.

If it’s not real, then why the fuck does it hurt so much? I miss you so much. Afterwards, people said it must feel like a break-up (even knowing it was nothing like it!)… they recognised the feelings I was going through…. and I recall saying at the time it’s more than that. It was like you died. Because I knew I would never see you again in my lifetime. I knew your life would go on, so it felt like grieving for someone who was still alive. But in terms of my life, you did die.

Your memory speaks to me in my dreams. Your ghost even appeared to me the other day. And just as painfully that ghost disappeared, and I was reminded of your passing. Your ghost reminded me I haven’t grieved you. But I don’t want to grieve you. I don’t want to accept you’re gone forever. I don’t want life to be this way. I escape into my mind sometimes, where we can be together. And I’d much rather live there. You come to me in dreams, and I never want to wake up from them, yet a part of me forces myself awake, at the pain of realisation it’s only a dream. You’re gone. And I’m in pain because of it. What’s so wrong in admitting this? Why do I have to pretend it’s ‘not real’ in order to escape the embarrassment of actually experiencing such feelings? I was attracted to you in every single way possible. The first therapist to talk to me about it asked if I ‘fancied’ you. And whilst yes, I very much was attracted to you in that way, it was unbelievably so much more, and she cheapened it. From then on I felt stupid for how I felt about you. She compounded the problem.

I just got upset a moment ago, thinking about the way everything went…. wondering how different my life would be now if I had just kept it all to myself, pretending I felt nothing. What if I’d just dropped out of the group instead? My life hurtled out of control because of a stupid choice I made, and I couldn’t put the toothpaste back in the tube after that…. I had to just go with it. But it’s left me with such immense regret for my decisions. Opening up about all of this has been one of the hardest, shameful experiences of my life. I’ve felt pathetic. I’ve felt not ‘good enough’ to feel this way for you. I’ve felt hideous. Deluded. Ashamed. I feel embarrassed to talk about my feelings for you. My personal life is personal, and I’ve had to be very open about my lack of experience with such things. I don’t want people knowing the ways in which I think of you. I don’t want them pitying me. I don’t want them thinking I’m just fantasising or that I’m immature in my approach to feelings, and in my views of ‘love’.

Who is to say what ‘love’ really is.. what it means? Love is what you make of it at the time. Love is love. Sure I might meet somebody and fall in love with them, and realise that whenever I thought I was in love before, I was wrong… that this is real love. But something even stronger could come along after that….. it doesn’t mean I didn’t love before. Love changes. There isn’t one mould for love…. love isn’t something you achieve – it’s not something where you go ‘Aha! This is what love feels like! This is love, and anything before this was not love’. I used to believe that, but after meeting you I see love in a different way. There are also different kinds of love. Obviously this is unrequited love. This is ‘I love you even though I’m nothing to you’. Of course if I meet someone one day who loves me like I love them, that is what I will call real love.  But it’s a different love. It doesn’t mean the love I feel today didn’t exist. Love is an emotion. That is why I have to accept that I feel it towards you, because you can’t help how you feel. Obviously I’m not daft – the love I feel for you is different to the love your wife feels for you. I’m not totally insane, saying that ‘I love you more than anyone else ever could!’ – I have more sense than that. I try not to be too logical about how I’m feeling…. that would indicate that I think I stood a chance. I’m a dreamer – but I am a realist. I know the reality. I don’t need to get into the complexities of reality. But with the knowledge that my feelings of love are miniscule in the great scheme of things, I have to be true to how I personally feel, and accept that this is how I feel… as embarrassing as it may be. I’m working on it. I know I have to let go. I have to move on. But even though this was not any form of ‘relationship’ in the slightest, I have to allow myself to heal as though it was something. It takes me quite a time to recover from my feelings for men – I have such feelings so rarely – I become quite devoted in my affections and desires. I have to treat myself with the care I would in trying to overcome a break-up.

In some ways this is worse than a break-up, because a break-up would indicate you were together in the first place. You had your time. You had memories together. You had your shot, and in theory you could have that conversation to get some sort of closure. But with you and me, there was no ‘you and me’. There was no relationship. There was no time together, no memories. We didn’t ‘have our shot’. We didn’t have a conversation and closure, because the situation did not call for it, being a purely professional one.

This was nothing. I know that. I was reminded of that… that there’s no need for closure as nothing existed. I’m not stupid. I know I don’t deserve closure. I’ve had bad experiences in my past where I wasn’t given closure, and although this wasn’t a situation that warranted ‘closure’, it just would have been nice to be given a chance to heal those wounds from the past. To actually feel like things can be different, people can be wished well and given a chance to heal…. rather than everything always being left unfinished – wounds gaping open, and the world hurting.

I just feel so upset right now at the way things were handled. The scars I’m left with because of this, both physical and mental. And I feel doomed to experience the same pains over and over in my life, because not even fucking therapists want to help give me hope. Not even fucking therapists could see an opportunity to fix the broken bits of me… the bits that believe I’m not worth a conversation…. that people come and they just leave – leave my heart gashed open…. that I’m a burden. I feel so upset right now. I can’t stop crying, and all I want is for you to hold me and make it go away. But that never was, never will be, and I feel sick with myself for even wanting that. I feel like a bad person. But I just want you here.

 

I wish I’d never met you. Because living without you, having discovered you exist, it’s too much. If I close my eyes in the daytime, if I don’t think of you, all I see is destruction. It’s like everything else has died. Everything is dead. The only time I see light, is when I think of you. But that doesn’t last long… it turns to tears when I realise it’s all make-believe. Even you are dead in this world I’m living in, in reality.

 

I often try to think how to describe the pain I feel about all this…. it’s not easy. It’s like a pent-up scream…. like roaring in pain and sadness, but on the inside. If you externalised it, it would be just that – a noise. A very loud noise. But because it cannot be released vocally it sends painful waves throughout my body – you know that pulling in your chest when you hear something that breaks your heart? It’s like that, but through my whole body. It’s a heaviness. A depression. It travels straight to my eyes – sometimes I can cry, sometimes all I can do is stare blankly at the floor, feeling like I’ll explode from the grief. There is anger there, and I want to punch walls because of it. But it’s a lesser emotion. Sadness, grief, despair, hopelessness, heartache…. these are my emotions. And I’m not so good at coping with those emotions. They’re less reactive emotions, and more ruminative. I find it harder to pull myself out of these emotions… they paralyse me. It sometimes feels like someone is reaching into my chest and squeezing my heart and won’t let go – it feels like my heart stops beating, like it’s giving up… and I can’t breathe. I don’t even want to anymore. It’s in those moments I think ‘How am I ever going to carry on living with this pain, and you gone forever?’ That grasping of my heart, the despair of loss… it’s enough to make me not want to live anymore. In those moments I just want the world to end. If I can’t know you, and I can’t forget you, I can’t exist with the memory of you. It’s too much. It’s just too much.

 

A Hard Day.

Today has been a tough day. I’ve just been to the garden of remembrance with family to leave some flowers for my granddad. Today would’ve been my grandparents’ 69th wedding anniversary… they reached just shy of 68 years of marriage before he passed away – something I could never achieve…. unless I live to be 100 years old… and that would mean meeting and marrying the guy like right now!!

It was okay. I didn’t get upset like I often do when I go there. I’d already had a bit of a day, and didn’t want to get too emotionally involved in it all. I was just there to comfort my nan. It was a nice sunny afternoon, and the bushes and trees are green now, which they weren’t the last time I went. The birds were singing, and as we left the place where we left the flowers, we heard a seagull flying overhead. My granddad loved the sea, so we took it as a sign that he was with us. It was a lovely moment.

Earlier in the day I had bumped into the therapist I had transference issues with several months ago. He didn’t appear to notice me. I don’t know if that was deliberate. But it stirred many conflicting emotions up. I had never forgotten him. In fact only this morning I’d realised it’s six months ago today since I last saw him, thinking I’d never see him again. I probably never will again, but it was nice to know he still exists. I wish I could have said hello.

I had just had my therapy session, which is what I want to write about here at the moment. I need to get it out and clear my mind. I wasn’t happy about the session. I spent a lot of it just wanting to get out of the room. I didn’t want to be there. I felt it was a waste of everyone’s time. I’d made no progress, and the therapist didn’t seem to really understand the difficulties I have.

Many years ago when I was mentally unwell I was under CMHT, and although they’d occasionally make me feel like a burden, generally they were there to help me. Nowadays the services that exist seem to be a factory. They want to get people in and out as quickly as possible. They say they provide a toolbox, but otherwise it’s up to you to help yourself. That’s fine, if you’re in a place where you are capable of helping yourself. Unfortunately I am not. And this is something I can’t seem to get through to anyone. I might not be quite as erratic as I was when I was younger… but I promise you I am the worst I can ever remember being. I may not look it, but it’s the reality.

I wish I could help myself – I feel like such a disappointment to these services when I have to tell them why I feel physically unable to do anything about my life! I feel like I’m wasting their time, and they see me as a lost cause. I’m not being lazy. I’m not being stubborn. But if you heard the ‘motivation’ they try to give me, you’d be forgiven for thinking they believe that! I’m constantly told I can’t wait until I feel a certain way to take action… I have to do things even when I don’t want to…. do you want to step into my body for a minute and experience everything I’m feeling and all I’ve been through and then try and achieve these goals you set me, on a bad day? I’m sorry I’m a failure. I’m sorry I’m useless. I’m sorry I can’t click my fingers and magically recover. I’m sorry I’m not perfect. I’m sorry that I’m busy trying to stay alive, and that I have very little left over after that to put to good use.

I didn’t even admit to everything that’s been going on for me, as the conversation got swept elsewhere before I could finish sentences. I didn’t admit to the punching issues. I didn’t admit to the hair-pulling.

I tried to explain the rage, but I really don’t think it got through. I was told to use my anger positively and ‘let go of the negative stuff’…. that’s fine with rising anger. But I’m talking about full-on BPD ‘flick of a switch’, ‘seeing red’ RAGE. It comes from nowhere, and there’s no way I can use that anger positively. I can’t direct it into getting a job, or joining a club, or fighting for a cause. In those moments I am not in control of my body. In those moments the only thing I feel is the need to punch the living daylights of everything, particularly myself. Or I self-harm in other ways. They say ‘use mindfulness’ – but bollocks to that! ‘Mindfulness’ when you’ve been triggered and the rage is suddenly happening, will do bugger all. Once you’re triggered, and you react, there’s no space for mindfulness. There’s not even the awareness that it’s something that could be used. It is as they say – seeing red. Everything else vanishes, and very often the only way to bring it down and make it manageable, despite what therapists say, is to punch…. that brings me back into my body and more under control. I know they can’t understand this, and that’s the biggest problem I have with these people, is they really don’t seem to understand the challenges of BPD. I feel very misunderstood by them.

They also make things sound so simple. Like, ‘get out and make new friends’….. yeah… do you even know me? I have severe trust issues because of friends I’ve had. I hate myself so much that I don’t believe anyone new will like me – I even doubt the ones who do know me like me!

She talks about the fact that online connections aren’t real, and I need to have real friends in real life – again, this shows how little she understands. I had to explain that when you feel isolated from your friends and CAN’T have real life friends, then it’s better than nothing. It’s better to feel connected online than to be completely disconnected from civilisation.

When I talked about the fact I sing while I play the guitar, my therapist asked if I could go to an open mic night! I said no. I do not have that sort of confidence. I already said I’m not good at singing / playing. She said if I have musical friends I could get them involved….. I had already said my friendships are limited right now.

When I said about wanting to do office work but not wanting to have to use a phone, the typical therapist answer came – that I should challenge my fears… that  I don’t want it to be a life-long thing. Why not? What is this CBT obsession of having to face every fear, and to not avoid?? Sometimes it pays to avoid! I had to explain to my therapist that doing a job where I answer the phone, and the idea of an open mic night, are throwing me in at the deep end!

The trouble is if I had a therapist for more than four sessions, they would get to know me, and would know the things that are ridiculous to suggest to me. Where it’s part of this factory procedure there’s no time to really get to know me, and to understand me. It’s not helpful to someone like me at all. I need more consistent and long-term support. Anything else is damaging or a waste. I hate to sound ungrateful… I just don’t think their methods work for someone like me.

I wanted to get out of there so much. I feel relieved I’m done with the service now. I feel reluctant to seek help anywhere else now though, as I feel they’re all going to be the same. They’re going to give me the same crappy solutions, and if I don’t or can’t do them, they’ll wash their hands of me. I feel I’ll be wasting everyone’s time.

I can’t help that I feel as bad as I do right now. Believe me, I wish my life was better. Nobody knows how dire it is in my mind at the moment. Nobody knows the carnage I see when I close my eyes… the tatters of my life. Nobody hears the cracking of my heart. Nobody hears the deafening scream in my chest. Nobody feels the force preparing to erupt in me, or the other force pushing me down… paralysing me. Nobody knows. More than anything right now, I want someone to give me their time…. listen to my depressing feelings, validate them…. show compassion and empathy…. tell me they hear me and how sorry they are that my life is so shit, and that they can understand why I feel so broken and just done with life. I don’t want advice right now. I don’t want solutions until I truly feel someone gets my reality. I want to be understood. Until I feel understood, no amount of suggestions will help… they will all be met with a feeling that nobody gets how hard this is for me.

Today was exhausting, upsetting and I’m glad it’s finished with. The rest of the week is busy, but at least I get to sleep soon. A short respite from reality and emotions. I almost live for sleep at the moment. Goodnight everyone.

xxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Six Months Ago To The Day, I See You Again.

 

Six months ago to the day, I said goodbye to you. I walked out that room knowing your life would go on but I’d never see you again. It crushed me. I finally let the other members of the group know what had been eating me up for all those weeks. It was good to unburden myself. Keeping it a secret for so long was so painful and lonely. Yes I was embarrassed, but you can’t help who you have feelings for.

That night was a terrible one. I wanted to die. It was the first time I called and spoke to the Samaritans. I guess the theory was that if I could get through that night then things would gradually get better… that with time I’d forget you existed. I haven’t. I’ve never forgotten. I think of you every day. I tend to be in denial that I’ll never see you again. I escape in my mind sometimes, to a fantasy land where I have you in my life. I even dream of you. Time will never heal the way I feel about you or about this loss.

I was thankful that my therapist didn’t ask me about you today. I didn’t want her to know that I haven’t dealt with or overcome my feelings for you. I didn’t want to have to talk about you, as I knew I’d likely get upset. I don’t talk about you anymore. I’ve locked you up inside. Nobody can get to you there…. nobody can rip you from my heart. It’s enough that you were ripped from my life, but I have to know there’s a place inside me where I can keep my feelings for you. I won’t be told it’s not real. I won’t be told to get over it and move on. This is my heart. These are my feelings, and nobody can take you from my mind. I won’t let them.

After my session I went into the shops… got to the end of an aisle, and as I came out of that aisle, you came into it… a foot to the right and I would literally have bumped into you. I looked at your eyes, then looked away, only to do a double-take as I realised it was you…. but when I looked back towards you, you stared straight ahead. I don’t know if you saw me and chose to avoid me, whether it’s policy to not acknowledge past ‘clients’ out in the world, or whether you just didn’t see or remember me.

It kicked off so many emotions in me. It shocked me. It brought a sense of happiness to me, that I’d seen your face again. Sadness that you hadn’t said hello. Pain, in remembering I’ll never speak to you again. Excitement in wanting to spot you again. Fear and anxiety that I might spot you again. I quickly got what I needed and got out of there. You probably did the same once you saw me. I didn’t see you again.

I’d say it churned up my feelings seeing you again, but they never went away. All it did was make me question if I really did see you, or if it was my mind playing tricks on me, showing me what I wanted to see. I wish I could have at least said hello to you. But the fear of ‘rejection’ got the better of me. I realised I’m a nobody to you. I can’t expect you to remember who I am or how I felt. And perhaps you were relieved six months ago, to never have to see me again. Perhaps seeing me today filled you with dread. It certainly wasn’t expected.

I was going to meet someone and get the train, and I couldn’t wait to get there. It felt too overwhelming, the appointment I’d just had, and then seeing you. I still feel churned up. I did this visualisation thing when I got home, where I ‘unscrew my mind’ and I poured my thoughts, memories and feelings into a jar, took the jar outside and released them in the garden. But who am I kidding? You’re still in there. You never leave. I might be able to forget the unhelpful things said to me in my therapy session, and how they made me feel, but I cannot forget you. Part of me wishes I could get over it as easily as you therapists seem to think people recover… I wish there was a pill I could take to forget I ever met you. But the rest of me doesn’t want to forget you. That part of me wants to remember you, and to be able to slip away into a make-believe land when I choose to, to be with you there. It’s better than the reality of never seeing you again. At least in my imagination I have something to live for.

I still remember that dream of you the other day, where you said if we’d met a few years earlier, then maybe… You kept lurking, talking to people near me. My friend told me you liked me. Funnily enough this dream took place in Sainsbury’s  – I saw you in Sainsbury’s today! Odd coincidence… I had to wake myself up from that dream, even though it was a good dream… I had to groan my way out of it, as though it were a nightmare, because it was heart-breaking that it was only a dream. I became aware it was just a dream and didn’t want it to continue if it wasn’t true….. I was quite upset upon waking up. I wrote it down so I could remember.

I know it’ll make me sound weird, and nobody understands it, but I need to say it… for my own peace of mind….. and to acknowledge how I truly feel…… I miss you. There’s so much more I could say, but let’s leave it at that. I miss you, and it hurts.

 

Always in my heart…
Lily x

‘Trauma’ & ‘Triggers’…

*Bad language, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and a personal rant but with real cause for concern*

 

Part of me feels I shouldn’t be writing this, because me having a voice pisses everyone off. I break their belief that they’re perfect, and that I’m a worthless piece of shit. I know nobody wants me standing up for myself, they never have, but it’s about time people take responsibility for their shitty behaviour. So here goes…

 

Yesterday I posted an opinion on Twitter, about this £10,000 pay out to 25 year olds, and how it won’t heal a generational rift, it will cause one… that old people worked hard all their lives, paying into the system… they weren’t handed everything on a plate… people strived and struggled to have the things they own. My humble opinion is that people should work hard… it makes them stronger. Getting the old to bail out the young isn’t right. That’s all I know. I know people disagree, and that’s fine. I accept that. I hope my views will be accepted too, as mine. Anyway, someone called Tara then pounced on it, arguing it. I admit my reaction may have seemed like an ‘overreaction’, but given that just a day earlier I had the same problem with a friend, and both instances tapped into some traumatic shit from my past, going all the way back to childhood, the feeling of being ‘publicly humiliated‘ is a big fucking trigger for me.

 

 

 

After she argued my views, I asked her to stop, said it was just my opinion, and my mental health couldn’t take it atm. I told her I’d removed the tweet she disagreed with. I muted her. But I saw she’d said it was just starting a discussion (I wasn’t inviting that to happen), wasn’t a personal attack on me, and she was sorry I felt it was…. a false apology.

 

 

 

I wrote out an explanation for why I seemed to overreact earlier. And I wanted to tell people about the trigger, and that I sometimes need to release my feelings about things, but don’t want to debate – my nerves won’t take it.

 

She then retweeted it on her timeline, and said it was aimed at her (which nobody would’ve known, as I didn’t mention her name before & deleted evidence), it was uncalled for, saying she’s not responsible for how I respond to a ‘reasonable tweet’. And see below for my reply. I then blocked her. It’s not up to her to decide was is ‘called for’ or ‘uncalled for’ on my own Twitter feed. Given that it was not solely about HER, I think it was extremely called for – to warn people of where I’m at, and how delicate I feel at the moment. Surely a therapist / counsellor would agree that communicating my needs is a positive step, no? Does she believe that I should suffer in silence, put up with people crossing my boundaries, and continue hurting myself? I would hope not in her profession. She has no right to dictate what is right for me to do, to cope with a traumatic experience for me…  she may not understand my trauma, but that does not diminish its existence for me personally. If I had called her out, used her name and pointedly attacked her, and only her, then maybe… but as it was a general thread about my feelings and needs, it is wrong of her to tell her followers that I shouldn’t have posted it. Although if you think about it, she was telling her followers, many of whom suffer mental illness, or work in that field, that she thinks someone going through an intense episode of mental illness and reliving trauma, should not talk about it… should be quiet and take it out on her own flesh. She’s basically adding to the stigma. So… if that’s her choice….

 

 

 

Something that needs saying, particularly with Mental Health Awareness Week coming up, is that Tara is apparently a ‘trauma therapist’, and psychology undergraduate. Good fucking luck to anyone who has the misfortune of being treated by her! She showed a total lack of awareness of TRAUMA and how it affects people!!! She’s meant to be an expert in it, and having explained my trigger being ‘public humiliation’, she went on to tell all her followers my name by retweeting me, and totally humiliating me, opening me up to potential abuse from those who follow her. It is shocking that someone who apparently knows about trauma, and specialises in trauma therapy, has no clue about ‘triggers’.

 

 

 

I have to admit that I did ‘overreact’ to her challenging my opinion. But I explained why that was. I wrote something along the lines of:

“From time to time I will express an opinion that some of you may not agree with. And you have a right to not agree with it. You have a right to express your views on your own page. I also have a right to voice my feelings about subjects, without fear of being shouted down by the opposition. I do not post to debate anything. I post to express my worries, my frustrations and my emotions. I post to connect with people who feel the same. I post to not feel as isolated as I am atm. So when I have people jump on my tweets, arguing them and trying to show me up, whilst making themselves look/feel better, it makes me shut down and feel even more isolated. Many people would think ‘If you can’t take criticism don’t share your thoughts online’. But I have a right to an opinion just as much as anyone else. And I don’t understand why so many people nowadays seem to think they HAVE TO argue with opinions they disagree with. Why not scroll past? Or balance it out with your own view on your own page, without involving mine? I have been experiencing isolation that nobody could ever understand recently. I have also had my opinions attacked by other people very recently. My nerves cannot take this anymore, with the depth of my mental illness right now. So please have some consideration – especially if you are supposed to understand mental health, either as someone with mental illness, or as someone working with those who have it… think about how your need for winning arguments, and scoring political points could impact on the mental health of someone else. I just turned my hands black and blue and shouted the house down, in tears because of this – I’d hate to think the neighbours heard what I said. Anyone who thinks it’s okay to make someone feel like this will be blocked. I have a right to speak and be heard. Sometimes I might be up for discussing things, and I do understand freedom of speech includes the freedom to disagree, but I’m not mentally up to it atm. Consequently I removed the tweet that started it… to avoid any further upset. People say to ignore the haters – sometimes I can do that… sometimes I’m more sensitive, and they just hurt me too much. I try not to join in hashtags, so that I don’t invite people to attack my views. So if you’re a follower of mine, particularly one who’s in the know about mental health, please show me the respect right now, of allowing me to express myself. Because the alternative is I shutdown and internalise everything. My outburst before was because of a feeing of public humiliation, which is one of my biggest, if not THE biggest trigger for me. And given the state of mind I’m in currently, I can’t take any more of it. If you follow me and don’t like my opinions, please just unfollow me – I’d rather that than be made to feel like shit for using what little voice I have left. People have been systematically shutting down my voice in the past couple of weeks, and I now don’t feel safe airing my thoughts on Facebook, Twitter or on my own blog. I can’t talk to friends either as they’ve abandoned me at the worst time of my life. So I have nowhere to speak and release my feelings. I’m not looking for pity. I’m looking for understanding and a bit of kindness. I will try and keep my opinions to myself. But if by chance you happen to see one, and you don’t agree with it, please do what I do to your opinions, and just ignore them and go about your day. Disagreements don’t always need to be aired. And I would appreciate it if for the time being at least, people refrain from debating with me. Some people are made for debates. I am not. And I’m fragile right now. But I’ll try my best to keep my feelings to myself. It’s safer that way.”

 

I was trying to explain how I felt, rather than harming myself again. I’d already punched the living daylights out of my hands as a result, but I thought if I calmly explained what was going through my head, and what I needed from people, they might actually respect that, and respect me. But no, just as with everyone else, she decided to take it personally, make it about her, and tell all her followers what a crazy, bad, out-of-line person I am. She decided to tell everyone that it’s MY fault. That she did nothing wrong. Now, fair enough she probably didn’t actually do anything wrong. I admit that. I admit that it was a trigger for me, so it made me relive a lot of traumatic experiences, which any legitimate trauma therapist SHOULD understand for God’s sake – so my reaction appeared out of the blue to her. Now, I used the word ‘attacked’ because that’s how it feels to me. Whether it was meant as an attack is irrelevant. In my mind it felt like it, not because it was, but because she’s not the only one who has done that to me recently. Anytime I’ve built up the confidence to say something I’ve had somebody argue against it. To somebody mentally healthy they’d probably just shrug it off, but I’m the most ill I’ve been in fifteen years. I’m isolated. I have no support system. I’m having to cope with everything alone, and I’m in so much pain. I feel so worthless. And I’ve been shut down by people. It triggered me. It knocked my confidence. It made me feel worthless and like I don’t have a right to speak. I felt as if the only words everyone wants to hear me say are these below:

 

 

 

She said it wasn’t a personal attack, and she said she’s not responsible for how I respond to a reasonable tweet. No. But she is responsible for retweeting my explanation of my trigger, and further triggering me in that way… to ‘get back at me’. But you know what, she did worse to me, than I did to her. Because in my explanation I made no reference to who she was. It was a general message to my followers so that they understood what I needed, and what my boundary was. She took it personally – that’s her reaction to it, which to quote her ‘I am not responsible for‘. But she chose to post about me on her twitter feed, quoting me, so that I was not some anonymous person. And if she even read it, she was fully aware of my trigger being ‘public humiliation’ and she CHOSE to do it. She IS responsible for that. 

 

She is supposed to be a professional. She should be aware of the consequences of her actions… this includes online. I immediately cut my arm, slashed at my leg multiple times and injured my hands even more. Now, people would argue – ‘You’re responsible for self-harming… you made that choice’. But let me tell you, very often I can make that choice. When my emotions are heightened to that degree, and someone is deliberately triggering me, it’s like seeing red. It was a BPD episode, mixed with an anxiety attack, as I was shaking, felt sick and my heart was all over the place. In those moments I do not have control over myself. In those moments there is no choice. In those moments I am not responsible – the person who upset me to that degree that I have no power over myself, is responsible for what I do. Ultimately I am responsible, because I am the one who has power to learn better coping methods. In my calmer times I can replace self-harm with less destructive behaviours. I can try and stop self-harming. But I’m in a place at the moment, where I am not recovered. I am not even recovering. I’ve been steadily going backwards in my recovery. I admit I am not even trying to stop self-harming at the moment. I have no psychological support. I have no close friends. I’m trying to cope with this shit of a life on my own. I know she would attack me and say I made the choice to cut myself, it’s not her fault. But that is so unprofessional, and she shouldn’t be working with vulnerable people, if she can’t understand trauma, BPD and self-harm.

 

 

 

I know in a logical mind that I should not be blaming anyone for ‘making me self-harm’. Nobody can make you do anything. But given that I don’t have any other way to cope right now, this was going to be my go-to action. And she must have known the effect it would have on me to publicly humiliate me by posting about me. As a mental health professional she should not have done that, and I am going to report her, advising people that she needs more training in trauma… the very thing she specialises in. A mental health professional needs to be compassionate, tactful and considerate… and display empathy. She showed none of these things.

 

It terrifies me, the sorts of people they allow to train to be mental health professionals nowadays. One of the other people who hurt me last year in this same sort of way, is training to become a counsellor. She was vile to me. These people don’t tolerate a different opinion. Tara claimed that she was just expressing a different opinion – trying to paint herself as the victim. But actually by arguing MY opinion she was showing she couldn’t tolerate that different opinion. An opinion is just that, and it should be accepted. It should be allowed to stand there unchallenged. If someone argues it they’re showing they are intolerant of that person’s belief and ‘have to set them straight’. If you don’t agree just carry on with your life. I don’t understand this need on the left to argue with people you disagree with, it’s crazy. She also said it was starting a discussion… no it was starting a debate, as it was a different opinion. She also implied that I’m naïve – now that is a personal attack. She was trying to backtrack and appear like a victim. I wish people could see something they don’t like, and either just move on and let someone feel how they feel, without feeling the need to challenge it… or that they could say ‘Well, I disagree but fair enough’.

 

Okay, she didn’t know when she commented on my tweet, that it would trigger me. She clearly doesn’t read my tweets or my blog… otherwise she would have known. She did a false apology, in the sense of ‘I’m sorry you thought it was a personal attack’. That could’ve been it. That could’ve been the end. That could have been forgiven. I would’ve calmed down and seen it more rationally, and realised I overreacted. In fact I had calmed down. I thought it was over. But clearly my explanation triggered her. I thought I was doing the right thing by explaining why I overreacted and what I require from followers. I thought it was a good thing. She decided to open the wound up again. She had ‘apologised’, I had explained. She went into victim mode, and attacked me, properly this time. She deliberately chose to do that. If by some miracle she’s the same as me, and doesn’t have control of her reactions when emotional, then should she really be working with people who experience trauma? Honestly?

 

 

 

This may seem like I am now attacking her. But I am furious that a so-called ‘mental health professional’ would treat me so badly that I harmed myself as much as I did yesterday. I had a breakdown. Thankfully my mum was with me, otherwise I probably would’ve done something permanent. But I wanted to die. I wanted to hurt other people (never actually would, but the thoughts scared me). I wanted to check out of reality. I wanted to be sectioned. I felt it would be the only way to keep me safe. I’ve never felt like that before. I didn’t know what I was saying. I didn’t know what I was going to do. And it was terrifying. Anyone with BPD will know what I’m talking about. They will know how scary it is experiencing one of these episodes. And nobody should be pushed to that point – not by a professional. This post would also be deemed ‘uncalled for’ by her, but I assure you it would not have happened, had she not crossed a major boundary and deliberately triggered me that second time. My initial response may have been blown out of all proportion – that’s trauma for you. But I feel totally justified in discussing this issue on my own blog, after actions intended to upset me, and which caused me a lot of injuries.

 

As she had the knowledge it would upset me and I’m a self-harmer, it was the equivalent of me standing on the edge of a cliff, wanting to jump, and instead of talking me down and pulling me back, she gave me a little nudge and boasted to her friends as I plummeted to my death. That’s how it feels.

 

A mental health professional should know where to draw the line. The fact is, I deleted my tweets…. so nobody would have known I was referring to her. Nobody would have known. I didn’t specify in my explanation who it was… it was a general comment. Hers was targeted. I feel like it was an abuse of ‘power’. In that she is a professional and I am a ‘patient’ (though thankfully not hers). And she didn’t like that I wasn’t ‘in my place’ -below her. So she wanted to make herself feel more powerful by tweeting about me and hurting me. Again, that’s how it feels. It’s the ‘I know better than you’ manner…. but if she did know better than me, which she should as a professional, she wouldn’t have deliberately triggered me again. She would have understood that I’m experiencing trauma and a perceived ‘threat’. And she would have respected my feelings and my wishes. 

 

 

 

Some people think of trauma as sexual abuse, rape, war, crime, natural disaster etc. But trauma can come from a range of different experiences. I was publicly humiliated routinely at school. I was bullied in front of the whole class with nobody intervening. I had a teacher grab my arm after I accidentally burnt my hand, shouting that I was a stupid girl, upsetting me instead of letting me treat it. I had friends a few years ago who hurt me badly by dragging other friends into disagreements. I’ve had trouble with this trigger last year, and also this year… a week ago. And so many more examples, which I talked about on a post recently, explaining the trauma I went through that left me with this mental illness, BPD. Every time I experience the same feeling of public humiliation, I relive ALL of these experiences. That my friend is what TRAUMA is. It’s flashbacks. It’s a build-up of experiences that mirror each other. That’s why it seems like an ‘overreaction’ because it’s not just about that one incident, it’s all of them. Any well-trained trauma therapist should know this. And if they don’t they should not be in the job – they are damaging to already ‘damaged’ people.  Sorry, I’m very angry about this. Mental health professionals should want to help people to get better…. they should not be allowed to make people feel worse. She has only added to my pile of traumatic experiences, and to the number of my scars, and now someone else will have to fix what she’s broken in me.

 

She might not think that I really have a mental illness – try telling that to my mum who sat with me through it all yesterday. She was validating me and telling me it was right that I was cross about it, and upset. That the things I shouted when I was breaking down were okay. She knew I didn’t mean them. She knows all about the shit I’ve been surviving through in the last couple of months, alone. She was telling me it’s not right, the way people are treating me. She kept me safe. After my second bout of self-harming she encouraged me to use my fidget cube and spinner, and tried to make things better for me. And whilst Tara may think my response was an overreaction, and silly… and ‘wrong’, my family know exactly why HER reaction was wrong, and the damage she’d just inflicted on me. They understand about triggers, and why it wasn’t a kind thing to do to deliberately trigger me. I think they understand better than this ‘professional’. Or perhaps it’s more that they understand me, and my illness, and my past. This girl didn’t – which I think is all the more reason to be kind to people and try not to hurt them. I guess I have to forgive her, as she doesn’t know the shit I’ve been through in my life and how close to ending it all I am currently. All I can hope is when I report this she’ll learn from the experience and not traumatise vulnerable people anymore.

 

Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life, and I’m in a lot of pain today. But I feel calmer. I feel safer, as I’ve protected my tweets now, so only my followers can see them… not that it would’ve helped in this case as she was one of my followers! But if anyone ever makes me feel that way again they’ll get an instant block. I only want people who respect my right to be heard, my wishes, my feelings and understand mental illness and wouldn’t wish to hurt me.

 

The good thing about yesterday were the people on Twitter who supported me, and understood that I was upset. I’m grateful to those people more than they could know. They gave me a glimmer of hope, and a determination to not give up on life entirely, not yet. I won’t give unkind people the power to destroy me completely. It’s going to take a long time to recover, but I will rise from this and use it to educate mental health professionals about mental illness, and things they should bear in mind when speaking to people who experienced trauma, and who self-harm. This was just one of life’s cruel lessons, but so far I have survived it, and I will put it to good use and won’t allow this person to ruin my life. She’s not worth it.

 

Even writing this blog I feel hyper-alert to potential threat. I feel I’m going to be criticised for this. I’m scared she’s going to search me out and attack me. I can’t afford to lose control and harm myself again. I’m worried other people will have a go at me for speaking out about this. But this was a highly upsetting encounter for me, and having no safe place to express myself, I choose to listen to followers of this blog, who say this is my space and I’m free to voice my feelings. I am terrified to do so though. Everything I’ve done lately seems to have been ‘wrong’. But I’d like to see how anyone else would handle what I’m going through right now. I’m not doing it to be a bitch. I’m doing it in order to discuss the concept of trauma and triggers – and highlighting the understanding that it seems even mental health professionals lack, around the behaviours of those with a painful past. I hope people will have the compassion and understanding I need. I’m not coping at all with life right now, and I don’t want to do it. And incidents like this, especially coming from people who should be compassionate and understanding, don’t exactly inspire me to stay alive. But I’ll try for now. If things get any worse I’ll have to re-evaluate.

 

My next blog will hopefully be about validation and the necessity for it with BPD – this person was incredibly invalidating, but I received much-needed validation from other sources, and that’s what brought the intensity of the crisis down. I want to start blogging about helpful things again, but sometimes life gets too much and I need to vent. I hope people will be forgiving.

 

Thank you to all those who continue to support me, and defend my voice. It means a lot. And I owe a lot to my family. They gave me a beautiful plant and chocolate today, to cheer me up, and I feel so much love for them. I wouldn’t still be here without them.

 

xxxx