Dear Meredith part 2

Dear Meredith,

I just re read the letter I wrote to you the other day. It makes me look a bit crazy, in my defence I was a touch agitated and anxious at the time. It all makes sense though really, you just have to join the dots, align the metaphors as though they were the lyrics of a song, then you might understand.

It’s hard you know, faking it til you make it, really fucking hard. I can’t remember how to be a mum or a wife its all just going through the motions, if I’m ‘up’ its warm and I have my glasses on and if I’m down the world is blurry and cold  but either way the rest of the world lies behind a window. I want to go back to work but I am scared to, and I am just as scared not to. I know I couldn’t cope today but I have two weeks of holidays to allow for spontaneous mental re alignment. Work is the real world they can all function in, why can’t I? I just want to be able to do what they do without this ‘thing’ hanging over my head. I spoke to my old, old boss from the shop yesterday, I told him about my diagnosis and he said that it made a lot of sense, he remembered how I would suddenly be able to sell ice to eskimos for a few months and then not have the motivation to say hello to people for another few. But even then, in those days I was able to function – Hell I sold ice to eskimos without freaking out they were going to send polar bears after me, why is it NOW that I get so paranoid when I’m up, why not just the productive happy for months – I’m getting two weeks of happy or paranoid then I just get depressed again, it’s all happening so fast like a fucking roller coaster set to high speed. It’s tiring, I am exhausted – where’s my so called decreased need for sleep that I used to have, I’m jittery and fucking can’t concentrate I have music playing in my mind and the thinking wont.fucking.stop – which is more annoying than enlightening. I want to drink, drown my sorrows but I can’t.  And part of me wants to die again so badly, the other day when I thought the police were coming for me I made a bomb proof plan of how to get away which I will never tell because the enabling part of me is the paranoid part of me and I need that back up, ‘just in case’ but the other day, I didn’t think to kill myself, oh that would have been so much simpler. I know where that brown snake lives now… Reckon the cops would shoot me if I threw a snake at them? I don’t want to kill him, I named him Harold, I’m not afraid of him hurting me, as long as he doesn’t hurt the children or the cats.  I think I have a name for my book “Life lessons” – All of the random shit that has occurred throughout my days has had a lesson attached to it – or at least I can make it appear that way, then tie them all into a nice little philosophical bundle at the end. I want to write now, I need to send my cousin an email reply but I feel that my concentration isn’t good enough today –  She writes like I do, same words and everything – until the other day it had been 26years since we had spoken. I think we would get along so well if we were to meet up again, she lives in England you know. That is the same reason I am unable to do more on the book – concentration I mean - So instead I am writing to you, because sentence structure and content don’t matter it is easier to write a stream of consciousness instead. I hope this book does well – please don’t take this letter as a sample of my writing, I really am much better at it than it would appear right now.

Maybe I should start blogging again, fun stuff with the serious I used to be good at it, I used to have followers and comments and won some free bedding for some advertising in return, it was great. Speaking of bedding, Ikea is opening up in Canberra next month and I can’t wait! I just love the smell of the place, makes me happy – retail therapy is always good, can’t leave that place without spending at least $1000, sadly that is not money I have now that I’m not working. I hate being a dole bludger, though I suppose the same people are paying my wage now that were paying it when I was working but instead I sit on the other side of the computer.

I have some sugar free lollies that I just rescued from my car – they are chews and the heat messes them up, shouldn’t bring them in really, just means I will eat them all. Sugar free or not they still have 12 calories per sweet – that adds up really quick if you aren’t careful so I try and make them last as long as possible. I have lost a tiny bit of weight, I can tell because my jeans fit me better – another approx. ten kilos and I will fit my clothes again, it takes so much work – I can’t believe I let myself go the way I did. Never again, too painful. I think about death often still. I feel that once I have reached ideal weight I will stop my Lithium and try and induce mania, then I can kill myself when I hit euphoria- I like the idea of going out on a high, the best feeling in the world becomes the eternal one, no more pain no more downs just freedom – flying high.

Meredith, how do you feel about suicide? I am sure you have entertained the idea at some point in your life, just for a second. I think everyone has really. What I don’t understand is why people care so much about stopping it. Hey it’s your life – abortion is legal and that’s someone else’s life. The baby doesn’t have a choice, why can’t the adult make one? I agree that as a once off freak out situation they should be educated to make an informed decision, but if they had a few mandatory counselling sessions and still wanted to die then they should be able to, depression can be a terminal disease and much like cancer and the euthanasia debate, I don’t understand why we can’t let people who really want to go, go.

I wish Boost Juice made home deliveries, I could really use a ‘wondermelon’ right now – but I did just eat a lolly. Sigh… I HATE myself and my stupid rules and rituals, but I can’t disobey or I get fat. I really want to gamble at the moment speaking of vices. Ugh the lure of the trains – I want to win run away money to put into my secret account should I need to do a bunker to Melbourne or the like, just in case you decide to come with your policeman the way Jaimie threatened to do that time. I have never forgotten and now I can never ever trust any of you. I know you are going to call soon in the next few days probably and when you do I will tell you I don’t want to be a part of your organisation any more, please exit me – that way I don’t have to worry about you sending anyone to take me away. I won’t go. You won’t make me. It will be a battle to the death and I am not afraid to die. I also might just run to the gate so I can grab Harold and throw him at the police… “Catch!” HA! How fucking funny would that be! They wouldn’t know how to react, they would think I was picking up a rock or something then SURPRISE! If he bites me, he bites me Que Sera Sera, cest la vie and insert something in Italian here for good measure.

I’m cold Meredith, the fire is roaring but it’s not reaching all the way down here to my little study nook. I do love my study nook, temperature aside, It feels like my own special place, at least until the kids come and bugger it up stealing my scissors and the like. Where do scissors go to? Can you tell me Meredith? I have found that they disappear into thin air at will and particularly around Christmas and birthdays when you need them the most. That and the sticky tape. I swear though, I must have 7 or 8 pairs of scissors and I literally can’t find one when I need them.

I feel like a joint, I have half of one left hiding in my secret place but I am slightly scared to smoke it because I am a bit jittery right now and I don’t want it to make me freak out, chances are it would just calm me down, but you know – just in case. Maybe I will have it tomorrow then I can do it first thing in the morning when I know I will have plenty of time to straighten up before school pick up. I do like writing to you, it takes up the time I would have doing nothing in particular – can’t read, can’t concentrate – I vacuumed did the washing and the dishes, so I have done some practical stuff today. Tomorrow I can’t smoke that joint, I forgot I have to go into Town and have a blood test (Lithium levels) and then I have to go to Woolworths and Aldi to get all the stuff I forgot yesterday. Ugh all costs money and the little bit of extra cash I am making from gambling at the moment all has to go back into the “escape plan” fund. I wish it was a warm day, it would be a nice day to do some gardening – or meditating although I have been warned against meditation when a bit ‘elevated’ as you like to call it, Belinda said from her experience it seems to have a side effect of sending some people into psychotic mania…. Not ideal, then I would be forced to use the escape plan and I am not confident enough to execute it at the moment. I was thinking I should get a layby out at Kmart and pay all bar $5 off it, I would have a new outfit, a handbag, hair dye and a hat in it so I could scarper more easily – as long as I can get on the bus or train without being recognised it should buy me enough time to arrive at my destination. Yes the layby can just be picked up easily, no footage on store cameras of what is actually INSIDE the little black packaging, I can run into the toilets at the park where there are no cameras and get changed. Ha! I am too good for you and your little officers. But hopefully it won’t come to that, I can escape from here by car – I can be well and truly gone before anyone even arrives- I can have the car in the other driveway and spy from the bush if any cars come and if they do, I jump in my car and head down the road the backway. If I get pulled over by the cops I will have to die in a fireball of a car chase- oooh how exhilarating! Its tempting to stay on the highway purely to have that happen! Oh Meredith, luckily you will never read this letter – or all my plans would be thwarted – I feel like the villain in the movie who tells his evil plan to the superhero a little bit too soon. The difference here you see is that you will a.) never read this letter and b.) if you WERE reading this letter it would be because I was dead and therefor too late to go all superhero on my arse J On that note Meredith I must bid you farewell in favour of standing in front of the fire warming up my freezing legs.

Take care my dear,

Swaglady

Catch Up

 I have been through a lot in the last few months and some of my thoughts and so forth were documented over the time but they are fairly scattered, so I am doing my best to write down what happened in the order it happened and eventually get back to writing in the present tense!
I will let you know that today, I am in a better frame of mind.

Throw away the key

I'm starting to have regrets.
The Guru contacted my GP who saw me and is now contacting a hospital trying to get me a bed.

I don't want a bed. They are going to lock me up and throw away the key.

I managed to put off anything until Monday due to Sunday being mothers day and me not wanting my kids to wonder where the hell I have disappeared to and have "mothers day' issues for the rest of their lives.
Apparently I have to "let go" and get better. I don't want to get better, but I want to let go.
Right now I am done, I have made my decision, I have all my affairs in order, will done, notes done and I am ready to go.
I have a plan to use in hospital so I can die there where my husband doesn't have to find me - although I wont get to die where I wanted to.

I am feeling some guilt in relation to the kids, but at the same time I am 100% certain that they are better off without me. The way I spoke to them this morning was unforgivable and growing up with that is going to fuck them up way worse than them growing up without me.

I ate TWO bags of M&Ms yesterday. Hot chips today. Final straw.

This cant continue anymore.

Return of the Guru

After 6 months I finally plucked up the courage to contact my psychologist - aka The Guru.
I had been actively avoiding anyone at all of mental health persuasion after I had been given a psychiatrist through the public mental health team that I couldn't stand.

He would ask questions in this accusatory and smarmy manner that made me feel like he was making fun of or didn't believe anything that I was saying. I admit I didn't give him much of a chance, I only saw him one time but at that time I was so upset by his manner that I couldn't stand the thought of going back to see him ever again.

This blew up to the point of having anxiety attacks just thinking about it and after one last meeting with two of the nurses where I outright lied saying that I wasn't depressed at all while simultaneously plotting my demise. I knew they knew I was lying but paranoid of being locked up again I just avoided all contact attempts from the mental health team from that point until they eventually gave up and went away.

That depression never lifted. months later I have spiralled to a place where I am having a lot of trouble faking it. I am not even remotely interested in planning any sort of a future, couldn't care less about work, our house renovations, the holiday my hubby wants to take. But the big one is that I don't even care if they put me in hospital. I am too tired and I just don't care.

This led to a snap decision to contact the guru and see if she would still consider seeing me. I had it in my head she was cranky with me, but either I was wrong or she is very forgiving as she quickly replied to my text and offered to see me that Friday.

I went and straight away remembered why I like her, she was warm and comforting and remembered all the gory details of my past. She also knows how to handle me. We talked for a while and she said that she still feels I would benefit from a hospital stay and we talked about the pros and cons for a while. She pointed out that if I was going to off myself anyway then I had nothing to lose and I could just do it after. While I am completely aware of that point anyway and have always disagreed due to the affect that hospitalisation would have on my children and work etc.

She told me she is writing a letter to my GP with whom I have an appointment on Wednesday evening recommending that I go into one of the private facilities in town now that I have got insurance that will cover me. For the first time of the many, many times she has wanted to do this, I didn't put up a fight. I didn't freak out and bargain with her, make false promises or use my stellar sales pitch techniques to convince her that she was over reacting.

Nope, I was too fucking tired. I simply said 'fine'.

Of course me being me, she was expecting a fight, and I think that my reaction confused her for a minute and that she didn't quite trust that I would turn up to that appointment as she made me give her reasons why I would not just commit suicide first. I told her I am tired of running and honestly don't care anymore. Besides my parents are leaving for an overseas holiday and my brother is expecting his first child the same day as my doctors appointment.

I said my goodbyes and got in the car feeling ---- well still feeling nothing. Two days later I still have no care at all. I admit I do have a couple of contingency plans in place if they do put me in hospital and its too much. I have a (hopefully) fool proof suicide plan inclusive of means and opportunity which I can carry out inside the facility if need be.

It concerns me that this could be my last post, if they haul me off to the loony bin  and I am forced to take drastic measures then I will never be able to publish the rest of my story.

I really did want my complete story out there - the way it reads in this blog, well it focus's on such a small and negative part of it really - there were good times too, amazing times. I was given gifts that others could only imagine, I have both cried and laughed until lemonade came out of my nose. I witnessed the creation of life and the miracle of birth.
I look around today and see how big an impact I made on my little world and how little an impact I made on the big one.
So much experience in one life, forgotten quickly by onlookers but embraced for eternity within as we live on through the footprint of our energy. 

So many of these "good" tales, stories of the fun and fanciful, are spelled out within my other writings and blogs that now lay coated in a thick layer of cyber dust, lost within the sticky strings of the world wide web. Lost forever, and yet also permanent.

Thank you for sharing my journey, until we meet again.
Bel.

Depression Jacket

Self-awareness, it is something that I have but often choose to ignore for whatever reason. It’s funny though, when you sit back and really think about some of the more subtle signs of where your mental health is currently sitting.

I have noticed that not only am I generally stuck to my computer, I am stuck to my computer in my bed rather than my study (thank god for the invention of the lap top). A mired of empty soft drink cans, tea cups. Ice cream tubs and chocolate wrappers litter my bedside table, remnants of the most recent self-destructive binge. My hair will be un-brushed, my nails way too long and I am always wearing a blue knitted cardigan/wrap thingy. I still have a desire to connect, just that connection is only internet deep and tends to revolve around Googling suicide.

This blue knit cardigan is hideously ugly, not something that I would ever be seen dead in outside the house, but god is it warm and comfy. It is also several sizes too big, so even though I have gained a significant amount of weight it wraps around me with ease and so doesn’t make me feel as huge.

My depression jacket makes me feel safe and secure within my own misery, like an unplanned metaphor.

I sit here at 10 am – in bed of course having consumed a large chocolate Easter bunny, two pieces of toast and 4 cups of tea. I am thinking about the vegetable garden and how it won’t weed itself. I don’t even mind weeding – I actually find it quite relaxing. I am thinking about dusting off the treadmill that was my best friend for nine months of mania. It now lies dormant in its corner of the spare room filling me with guilt every time I open the door.

But the phone rings and instead of running to it to answer it I run to it and pull the plug from the wall, the last thing I want to do is talk to a person – I really hate it when the kids get to it before I can stop them and I am forced to talk to some school friends mother pretending to be all happy happy and deflecting all play dates to the other parties house because I barely have the energy for my own kids.

My husband used to complain that I spent more time on the phone than with him, once upon a time I would even jump up to grab it in the middle of sex – that always resulted in an argument (fair enough) I guess it was like an OCD thing for me. Now he is trying to convince me to call people back.  Even text messaging is a chore at least thanks to emoj’s I can fake happiness with the touch of a button.

So now I’m sitting in my bed firmly wrapped in my depression jacket writing this, Eminem blaring on the I pod and I will think again about leaving my nest in a while and make the kids some lunch, then sink back into my bed knowing I have to face the work world tomorrow and pretend everything’s ok.

Blow Up the Pokies, please?

The Whitlams haunting ballard “blow up the pokies” is playing randomly on my ipod. This song resonates with me always makes me so sad. Such a perfect description of the gambling addiction that has become too close to home.

Image from here

 

My best friend is married to my husband’s best friend – we set them up! (10yrs and 2 kids later, love it when it works!)

The funny thing about this is that her husband is a LOT like me and she is a LOT like my husband. Which is probably why we all get along the way we do. This understanding however can be slightly confronting at times. For example if my friend is upset with her hubby for something he has done/said I can frequently understand his side of the story, don’t get me wrong 99% of the time he IS in the wrong, which is hard because I also am 99% of the time in the wrong. Hearing her upset is basically knowing how my husband is feeling about my own issues- this is why I tend to be secretive.

Anyway, back to gambling. My friends other half is a gambler from way back. He does well for a while (as in keeps away, not a winning streak) and then falls off the wagon. I am also a gambler. I am however a sneaky gambler who thank god for our finances has not got a lot of time or access to venues but when the opportunity arises I lie my way into usually losing a couple of hundred bucks ( we aren’t that well off so that’s a lot of money for us). When I was home raising the kids I of course couldn’t take them to the pokies, we live out of town so we weren’t popping into town for dinner at the club. There was a period of time when I would duck to a club near the shopping centre I was working at on my lunch break, always limited by time but still able to lose my day’s pay in 30min.

Generally speaking these little splurges tended to happen when I was hypomanic and I would frequently win. For around 5yrs I was totally in control of it, I forced myself to abstain when opportunity arose. Sadly now that all the kids are in school and I have the odd day off from work during the week, I have made a habit out of going to the club after I see my mental health case worker – or any other time I go into town. This began when I was still really manic after my hospital stay and I had seen my case worker, noticed the club about 100meters away and with $20 cash in my pocket, what’s the harm? I don’t care if I lose it!

I swear you win more money when you are manic because that $20 turned into 3 hours worth of game play and I walked away (only cause I had to be somewhere mind you) with just under $300.

So of course I kept the $300 as “pokie money” and went again the next time I was in town, and the next until – I had just kept on winning so was able to hide this little habit with ease. I could have sworn I was queen of the pokies and had cracked the code.  Eventually all the money ran out and the Serequel kicked in, mania had subsided but the habit was ingrained. A bit like my issues with binging, I had a time, a place and this would happen there and then every time.

Just like I enable myself to binge, I would take cash out at the supermarket slowly over the week until I could finance my weekly gambling binge sneakily part of me is slightly glad I can’t withdraw money from an ATM in a club/pub as my husband would see it and wonder WTF and the part of me that was SO CLOSE TO A FEATURE and ran out of cash curses it.

The trouble is that it’s no longer a weekly thing it’s as often as I can get away with it thing. I’m on a committee in our village and they have monthly meetings at the local pub, which also has pokies, I tend to leave $100 there after each meeting.

I left work early saying I was feeling unwell and went to the club, I am casual so I have to factor the hourly wage into what I am losing as well.

image stolen from here

I will order fish and chips to take home from the takeaway in a nearby town that is on my way back from work and while I am waiting for it to cook I will go to the pub there and somehow when Im on  a short time limit like that all I do is lose more money more quickly. I am now in a depressive cycle and the gambling simply numbs me nicely, I don’t win, I don’t even expect to anymore, I just press the buttons – even when the music plays and the machine lights up I no longer feel that sense of excitement, I just press those buttons usually too quickly to even let the music finish. I have even taken to putting money into an account my husband doesn’t have internet access too and withdrawing from that AT the club. Deception and lies. Two things not to base a marriage on.

I hate myself for this, I also see the correlation between it and my binging – its as though the tight ship of control I had for so long with my anorexic episode when I was hypomanic got flat lined through the mania, hospital, meds and now in depression and I have given away all my control to the food and the pokies inanimate objects that won’t .

Depression Impression

I never liked the word “depression” always seemed so, I don’t know – overused? Fake perhaps?

It’s the new black. Everyone has it.

So many people I know go around saying how terribly depressed they are/were and that now they are on anti-depressants and life is a fucking fairy tale again. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the diagnostic criteria for depression is only low mood for two weeks – so I am sure that all of these people have been “depressed” but I had always personally viewed depression as something that stayed with you for months generally brought on by something bad happening.

 I on the other hand have always kept quiet and generally refused to admit to myself that these recurrent low moods I experience were ever actually as severe “depression” after all, nothing traumatic had ever happened to me. Sure I had done rather a lot of things for my age but nobody had died, I had a happy relationship, job I liked and a healthy baby – for me to feel this way, was just akin to the stupid selfish bitch I was always told I was by that inner voice that never ceased. I wanted to die so badly, in many ways with no proper “reason” it was just because I knew that my husband and child would be so much better off without a fuckwit like me around.

I couldn’t tell you how many of those little survey things the doc gives you after you have a child that I lied on – its rather obvious which boxes you are supposed to tick to say that you are happy as fucking Larry and the thought of coming across as anything but happy was not ok.

Sure I felt like killing myself, off and on since I was about 8 and more seriously starting to plan the when’s and where’s at around 14.  But everyone feels like that surely, its not like I had actually killed myself yet. I was a teenage mother and had to prove to the world I was capable.

My psychologists now ask me why didn’t I ask for help? Help for what? I didn’t have a problem, I sure as shit didn’t have a mental health problem and if I want to kill myself then that’s my body and my business. I was clued on enough to the fact that I thought a touch more intensely than the other teenagers I hung around and that telling anyone that I felt that way would have given me a one way ticket to the loony bin – a place that I was hell scared of at that time in my life.

My biggest fear about an enforced stay on the psych ward as a teenager was that it would most likely be due to the slightly psychotic anorexia I was experiencing and in vicious denial about. I knew that although to myself I felt the size of a house, that all they would do is make me fat –although I thought everyone was trying to make me fat. I honestly believed that my mum was trying to poison me by adding fats to my foods and I refused to let her prepare or even walk past any meals I was making… just in case. How I managed to avoid incarceration at that point I still don’t know.

Depression was the place I fell into with a thud time and time again, usually after an intensely chaotic part of my life had started off wonderful and then brewed and brewed until it got out of control and I burnt out into a depressive oblivion.  The job I was excelling at suddenly became an impossible task, I would want to quit before I got fired because I was so fucking hopeless and the constant suicidal ideation that had subdued for months would come back with force, a voice for every action giving an equal or greater reason why my death was a better option, for me, for my family and colleagues.

I am wallowing once again in the pit of what’s the fucking point? I’ve been back here for a while now months in fact but its hitting rock bottom again, not coping with life at all - I walked out of work on Thursday after pressing send on an e-mail that involved a multitude of swear words and a “you want to know why I didn’t do XYZ in the allotted time frame? Well frankly it’s because I am a fucking loser who sucks at her job.” Not sure quite what the repercussions of this are but it’s likely to involve a meeting on Monday. I might just quit, I can’t hack the pressure. I ran out of work a few weeks back after a panic attack of sorts and ended up sitting on a cliff edge with a bottle of pills in my hand ipod playing the current list of songs I want to go out to, just ready to lie down and go to sleep forever, knowing that once I passed out I would fall off that cliff I couldn’t jump from just to make sure.

Before I got a chance to enact my plan some random guy turned up walking towards the lookout area where I had jumped over the safety fence and I had to do a quick scarper away as being caught on a cliff edge with a bottle of pills generally results in police, a psych stay and if you are unlucky a spiel on the evening news.

I drove home slowly, bumped into my parents very randomly in a supermarket nowhere near their house and arrived home that evening to find friends were visiting. I thought how different everyone’s afternoon would have been if I had been successful. I wish I could say that these thoughts deter me, that I am glad that man walked down, that I am glad my liver is apparently made of steel and no amount of drugs can kill me- but I am not.

I have never once regretted taking that overdose last year. Though I was high as a manic kite at the time and stuck rather firmly on the “flight” response, my only regrets have been that it didn’t work. While I know that the depression will eventually be replaced with a productive hypomania where I will accomplish much, solve the world’s problems and sing happily again when I’m walking around the house blissfully non suicidal. Even if that doesn’t escalate to the dizzying scary heights of Mania again where I will likely try to fly from the roof top, it will still as always be followed by a crash and continued suicidal ideation, but this time I don’t think I can handle anymore crashes.

The Purple Coffin

She was one of those people with more personality than she knew what to do with. She stood up for the world and was passionate about everything, a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend and to me she was a colleague. Her firey sense of standing up for people’s perceived rights could be downright scary at times depending on which side of the argument you were standing. I won’t forget the blaze in her eyes as she would snarl “just try it!. Her passion it seems, was born from her own inner demons, described as somewhat formidable at times, she was also a nurturer, a care giver, gardener and breeder of small dogs.

While we had talked at work often, I think I learned more about her that day in the room full of mourners, those that had loved her than I would ever have been privy to otherwise. Her bright purple coffin adorned with the most brilliant display of flowers collected from her own garden. I was somewhat saddened that we had so much more in common than I had realised and I wondered for the conversations that might have been had time permitted.

While the taste of salt trickled onto my lips, the feeling I had in my heart was not so much one of sadness but self-guilt – my outlook on what so many were calling a wasted life, is somewhat tainted by my own experience and feelings, I was glad for her that she had found the peace she needed at that time and secretly I was jealous.

Two of her children, the same age as two of mine – their faces. The way her eldest daughter spoke with guilt wishing she had said more, or less – never imagining that once her mother had been admitted to the hospital that she would not have the chance to take back any harsh words and tell her she loved her. That was hard to hear.

I took a deep breath and with a final look at that bright purple coffin I whispered goodbye. As I drove home my mood was rather surreal. The looks on those little faces, the same ones I would likely be causing on my own kids someday. It hurt so bad. For them so many more questions than answers.

The hardest part about this for me is it hasn’t changed how I feel in the way it seems it probably should. I was supposed to look at this as a realisation that I need to stay well for my kids, to TRY and want to stay well. But it didn’t work, I understand the intellectual concept and I feel as guilty as hell that i don’t FEEL it but I can’t help my own need for peace.

A few days later with these added guilty thoughts and pit of depression I had already sunk into before the funeral, I had an internal anxiety attack at work and ran out the door chased by a team leader asking what was wrong, I lied and said nothing I had to go and drove to a spot I had always regarded as a possible resting place. A beautiful waterfall that tumbles down a sheer cliff face. I cut through the bush track to avoid the safety rail look-out area and instead climbed down the rocky stream to the edge of the cliff. I sat there with a bottle of water and a bottle of pills in my hand and my legs dangling off the edge, feelings of numbness and simultaneous peace.

The sun was warm on my skin as I lay back absorbing the rays on my face for a while feeling very close to nature. My iPod on the ‘D’ playlist. I had no paper to write a note. – oh well, someone would eventually go through my computer and find my heavily passcoded ramblings.  A little voice in my mind kept saying – ‘this isn’t fair on Cara’ – Cara, my team leader who’s final words to me had been ‘are you sure there is nothing I can do?” with a look of startled concern in her eyes and a slight wobble in her voice. I had told her ‘no, but thanks..’ with a tears in my own.

Our team had already lost one of our own to suicide in the last week, and as I lay back in the sun tears stinging in the corners of my eyes I felt like I couldn’t do that to Cara- she would blame herself for not acting on her instinct, she’s only young and she doesn’t need that, it’s too selfish.

At that moment I heard voices from up the track. Shit! People were coming down to the look out. I shoved the pills back in my pocket and bolted up the flat rocks and back into the crevices of the boulders on the side. Getting caught on a cliff face with pills in your hand probably lands you locked up somewhere I don’t want to go. I got back to the car and drove the long way back to the city.

I did something naughty...

 I stopped taking my meds.

The Lamictal, Lithium and Seroquel combination. Stopped the lot of them, cold turkey.

After some killer withdrawals for approximately 48hrs I am feeling more clear headed than I have in I can't remember how long! I actually feel like a person, heck I can FEEL - I have been numb as hell for so long I forgot what it feels like to be human. - I LIKE feeling human!

That being said I only got 4hrs sleep last night and its currently 2:44am and I am not even remotely tired that coupled with some other mild hypomanic symptoms that I have been having over the last week or so, it is possible that I am heading up.

I think that feeling like I was going up is part of the reason I have now stopped the meds, I really NEED to go up and don't want it jeopardized the suicidal zombie self was getting old and I cant live like that for much longer.

I am pretty much thinking that even if this isn't simply a lovely hypo productive plateau and if this does tailspin into a full blown manic episode in a few weeks time, its fucking worth it, heck what have I got to lose?

Best that will happen is they are all wrong, it's not bipolar and I will be fine and dandy and never have another episode anyway.
Worst that will happen is I go nuts, they lock me up and medicate me back to zombie- again.
Nothing lost, just a chance of normalcy for a while or more or at least a little fun along the way.
I hate being controlled by doctors, meds, people in general!

Nope, screw everyone its ME TIME!

Muscle Memory

Muscle memory- wake up, get dressed, drive to work. Approx half way through the journey to work the two cans of sugar free energy drink and 3 no doze tablets secretly ingested start to kick in and you wake up and wonder what the hell you are doing here, again. You swear today won’t be like yesterday, set yourself new rules, new dates, new rituals. Get to work, today is like yesterday, new rules broken, dates become meaningless, old rituals take over as though you are out of your own body simply watching you find yourself walking powerlessly through the same old destructive pattern. Tomorrow is a new day, a new chance?

Rinse, repeat.

Each day your will grows weaker, your resolve is dying, it’s too hard now, it’s too late.

The drugs that were supposed to take away the beast and set me free have taken away the beauty too. You are gone and I’m on my own, flying blind.

Stockholm syndrome.

We were too bonded, the love I had for my captor too strong. When something has become such a very big part of you, you can’t just take it away – it was the only part of you that made sense, the one that took the lead, made the decisions and…. I suppose you were the dominator. I was the submissive, I lost my voice and spoke for me when I could not. Although you caused me such terrible pain and hurt me so badly, I felt loved by you, safe.

Now my heart is broken, wounds too deep my soul disconnected and bailed out before I did. Too late for this, better things to do.

My eyes water constantly from the smoke screen I am trying to hold up, I will soon drown in the pool from these tears. Finally a chance to quietly slip away.

Summer Car

I like sitting in the car in the middle of summer, It’s nice to be alone in my own space. A place I can cry without being seen, it’s like I have my own invisible force field protecting me. There is also something really comforting about the heat, it’s like a warm if not slightly sufforcating hug.

Perhaps it’s in the knowledge that if I sat here long enough the heat could swallow me up forever.

 

Two days, two moods, two options, too hard to choose.

I wish I could drag a blade across my flesh and watch the blood run down my arm. Let all the sins and sadness seep slowly from my wrists and pool upon the floor.

Forbidden wishes are usually only denied because they frighten the naive – similar to people who were enslaved because they were not understood, I wont be held against my will so I am instead chained within my own shell. Please release me, set me free.

Be careful what you wish for...

I like to think that im not generally a violent person.

Well not towards others anyway.

There are very few people in this world that I have truly wished bodily harm upon – in fact there is pretty much only one. One person whom I honestly have contemplated taking a hit out on, lucky for the person in question I have never had the money or the means to do more that wish him harm with all my might.

This morning I got a text message informing me that he was in ICU in hospital on life support. I had this immediate rush of emotions that made me shiver deep into my core. It had actually happened.

I suddenly felt guilty for feeling so deeply… well I don’t even know… maybe a combination of extatic joy, excitement, disbelief and sudden sadness for the 11yr old daughter he has caused so much emotional pain to – she was already feeling guilty and conflicted about her increasing dislike of her own dad as she had grown older she was becoming more aware of the narcissistic games he would play against her mother hurting his own child along the way, her emotions just collateral damage.

I wondered what she was making of it, I worried that she would be blaming herself in the way an 11yr old will when something bad happens to someone they hate. She, such an emotional child already, so very at risk for developing long term psychological scars, she the talented young lady I had watched grow from a newborn baby into an independent thinking intelligent young women.

I hate to see her hurting, I am fiercely proud of her accomplishments as though she was my own child. I think of her like a neice and her mother, my best friend, like a sister.

I still sit here typing, despite the guilt I am still so desperately hoping that he never regains consciousness. I don’t wish him any pain, despite the amount he has caused others, but just to gently slip away to a place where he can no longer hurt anyone, I think particularly his younger daughter who has not yet reached an age where she can be permanently affected by him – While I know she will be saddened forever to not know her dad, the loss of a parent is a terrible cross to bear. But the reality is that she is the winner in all of this, only remembering her father through photographs and the kind words of strangers – after all, nobody speaks ill of the dead.

Hypocrite

I seem to be spending an awful lot of time at work referring suicidal ppl to social workers, telling them how we will help them and that they are amazing just for trying.

Fuck I’m full of it, I hear the words come out of my mouth and I want to throw up a little. As a bystander I have to assume that these ppl don’t want to die, that they just need help. Doing this makes me realise that that is the same for the ppl that try to ‘help’ me – they don’t understand how well thought out my actions are, that it is more than a freak out to a situation.

Currently trying to come up with a decently practiced argument to support my decision, one that ppl will realise is my actual thought out choice, not something thrown upon me by a devilish mental illness hell bent on destroying me. Really, if we spent less time stopping ppl killing themselves we would be breeding a stronger race ;-)

I suppose I have become an accidental non practising Buddhist – I have hit nirvana and have no further business here, I’m impatient to become one with the earth again. Every day that I live is so fake – going through the motions – I don’t really see any benefit in it at all, I am done, quest complete. The date I was aiming for isn’t going to work unfortunately, the substitute date is the last possible option – I suppose that makes sense really, of course it is – whatever the date is it will be the last option, cause there are no more options once you’re dead LOL.

Just like the object you are looking for is always in the last place you look!

The School Of Life

We all spend hours, days sometimes weeks pondering the meaning of life, finding the point of it all, I mean surely there is a point to it all, right? The trouble is while we look for the meaning of life we are constantly focusing on all the negative aspects such as Aunt Joan died of cancer, why? What was God/Allah/Buddah’s plan? When we focus on the worst parts we are turning a blind eye to the many good things that occurred before this event. One might say that so many people were devastated by Aunt Joans death that the funeral was packed – rather than thinking how wonderful it was to have an opportunity to share a part of their life with a wonderful person like Joan who had clearly touched so many peoples lives.

The meaning of life isn’t about the great plan from a higher being, it is actually very simple:

It is to simply live. No different to the ants or the sunflowers we are here to live, just that we as humans are lucky enough to have free will over our decisions and surroundings, intelligent enough to influence the world around us and emotional enough to love, laugh and cry.

That thing you are doing when you are not asking ‘why?’ the thing you do unconsciously every day. That, is living and that IS the point to it all. When you are looking at the negatives, you are blinding yourself to the reality of what you have, the positives that are all around you and the lessons you are able to learn and the fun to be had in Earths playground it is the school of life.

You only get one shot at this life, make the most of it until your lessons are learned, then retire to pasture or wave farewell with dignity.

They look at me...

They look at me, judgingly and then they ask "why?" What the hell is so wrong with your world? And it’s a hard question to answer, well perhaps it’s actually very easy to answer – There is nothing wrong with my world. Its picture perfect actually, the only thing that is wrong, is, well me.

You see the thing is that I have become a ghost, just a ghost that everybody sees… and I cant go on haunting myself forever – and I will, because I am the unintended master of self sabotage.

My head is fuzzy from the exhaustion of living, eyes too heavy to lift. The drugs only a mast to the outside world so perfectly fake that although I know the watchers are always watching, nobody really sees what is hidden beneath.

If I could have convinced myself, things may have changed but now my workds are the only relics left from the invisible demons of my mind. Demons so consuming and buried so deep within that nobody could ever find them.

If you’ll excuse me know, I need to go and put some music on. These lyrics in my head are killing me even faster than before. Although, perhaps there is time for one last cup of tea before I lay back on the cool earth and let the sun go down around me. After all, the only real proof of life having even existed at all is in the memories of its time and the wallowing of its death.

Terminal Mind

I see depression as a terminal illness, responding to treatment for a time, but for many it inevitably comes back more aggressive than ever. The cycle continuing, drug after drug until eventually one day the medications will stop working altogether and quite understandably, one simply loses the will to fight any longer.

Don’t ask me to be ok, I can’t and knowing that only makes it harder.

After struggling with general existence for so long, the thought of suicide becomes so ingrained in your being that it’s not even a thought in it’s own right anymore, but as unconscious as taking a breath of air.

For such a long time, dates are important. Timing, is important – not too close to a birthday/anniversary/special holiday etc. Then eventually you realise that there is never going to be a good time. Much like having a baby there is always a reason to put it off even though your heart aches for it so. One day you will find that the pieces simply fall together at just the right moment and you will take the plunge. And much like making a baby, once the deed is done there is no going back, it is done forever.

As I write these words I have a sense of guilt. I feel like I should be offering my readers some sort of happily ever after, a traditional phoenix from the ashes story.

Sadly, much like Lithium the truth can be a bitter pill to swallow. There is no happy ending here, It always was and always will be a roller coaster ride. The best I can offer is a retelling of the lessons I learned throughout my journey.

The highs are like buying cocaine that you can’t really afford. It’s so damn irrisitable but there is a terrible price you will have to pay later, one way or another.

…and the siren song of Mania lures me in deeper still. Now I am standing at the crossroads, I can still make a choice but of course, I already know that I will choose the path in the wrong direction. It’s impossible to say no as you feel the clarity wash over you, nothing matters now anyway, after all you have a world to conquer. Places to go, people to see! The consequences? Laters’ problem.

 

………….After all, we cant sue god because the world didn’t come with a trigger warning.

I wish I was allergic to peanuts...

People comment about being worried that they are feeling suicidal, I guess maybe I have been suicidal for such a long time that I am completely used to it, that it is just who I am. Perhaps I want to want to live, but I don’t want to live, I want to be suicidal. All the time. When I am not feeling actively suicidal I am plotting and planning, enabling myself for the next time I am hit with the god awful energy depression must-die-now rush that comes with a mixed episode.

I had a fairly hypomanic day, I unfortunately bought a whole stack of useless crap and knik knacks, then I got home and started coming down a bit, as I was making dinner and remembered that I ate a litre of icecream this morning for breakfast which along with the glass of wine I used to wash down my morning meds was like a weeks worth of calories for me. I chucked a mega tantrum (poor hubby) and went to bed crying just wanting to die, of course I couldn’t sleep and my mind was going a bazillion miles per hour, so I ended up getting up to watch a movie with hubby, couldn’t sit still and then started binge eating. Again. L

We went to bed after the movie but I still couldn’t sleep, plotting all the ways I could escape and off myself should my Psychologist/GP/Shrink try and commit me. Then I decided to combat the binging I would write a menu plan, so I got up and over the last few hours I have been simultaneously looking at you tube videos, facebook, the news, pintrest, writing lists of stuff I want to sell on e-bay, writing a menu plan for next week and now typing this. I don’t quite know how the browser in my 4yr old laptop is coping at the moment! (Shout out to Toshiba)

Bloody rapid cycling, its doing my head in, have to see the GP tomorrow morning, don’t want to confess my actual thoughts, maybe I should. If I do get locked up there are SO MANY things that will come with that that are worse than death, not that I am frightened of death anyway – when I took that overdose I didn’t regret it, even a few days later when I was warned my liver could fail – I was still hoping it would, I was high as a kite, happy as larry and still completely fine with the thought of impending death.

 I wish I was allergic to peanuts, imagine how easy that would be? Tombstone could read "She died with a snickers in her hand..."

Suicide attempt and the week that followed

Hi people,

I have just uploaded the below posts which I had stored on my computer but never posted. I decided to upload them all and start doing this blog properly as in the past writing has been good therepy for me. If you are reading this in order I need to add a pretty big TRIGGER WARNING. If you have any thoughts of suicide AT ALL, this is NOT the blog to read. Stop, turn around and leave now!

Quick.... off you go!


I will wait.....


Ok, now that the crazies are gone ( I can say that cause they aren't supposed to still be reading),
The most recent post below was during a mixed transitional state which peaked out the next morning (Monday) when I couldn't handle being in my own skin anymore.

I tried to crash the car twice (ended up being harder than it sounds) and ended up just damaging it and then I went to work where I promptly lost the last of my marbles in the car park and ended up ODing on the only available substance I had with me at the time which was paracetamol, I took enough to do the deed and started feeling nauseous pretty quickly. I had been under the impression that it took several hours if not days to work so I was a bit taken aback by how fast I was affected.
I went into my work, told them I was sick and had to go and went back to the car.

I was quite disoriented at this point I drove (very stupid and unsafe decision) I wasn't sure where to go but was feeling increasingly unwell, I thought I would head out to a look out area I like around 40km from my small town, unfortunately (or fortunately upon reflection) I was getting dizzier and dizzier and realised I wasn't going to make it. I reached the small town before my small town and started vomiting uncontrollably, this is not ideal whilst driving and made a huge mess of the car while trying not to swerve into oncoming traffic.

The vomiting probably saved me as I think I threw up a large portion of what I had ingested, I managed to make it home and had a bit of a freak out regarding the children coming home from school and finding me, I even contemplated calling a friend to take me to hospital so that wouldn't happen but didn't want to risk them saving my life.

At this point all I could think about was crawling into bed, which I did and slept for what must have been a few hours. I woke up - this in its self upset me greatly - and promptly threw up again, lay in bed feeling god awful for a few more hours, started to feel more alive and pulled out the lap top to google how long liver failure takes etc and did a vlog entry.

Long story short, hubby came home and I had to confess due to my pitiful state, he was AMAZING about it ( I am SO lucky to have him) and took me to the GP. She took blood tests, organised hubby to stay with me and I managed to talk my way out of being sectioned although I could see she wasn't happy about it. I came home and started to feel better physically and mentally, went to bed and SLEPT until morning.

Tuesday I woke up manic, as you do, but physically fine, organised a week and a half off work and we went to the shops and bought some things we needed, hubby kept watch of my money spending and had lunch together and talked. It was actually a really nice day! That night I ended up in a mixed mood again and was starting to really freak out but was eventually able to contain it by running on the treadmill for half an hour with my headphones up full bore.

Wednesday I went out with a friend to the movies and was flying high but still reasonable, spent a bit too much money, ate too much and didn't care until later that evening but then as I was manic I continued to binge ALL night because I didn't go to sleep.

Thursday I went out by myself - I was manic as hell at this point and bought a STACK of things, ate too much, GAMBLED (very very naughty for me) luckily I ended up $200 richer. Went and looked at new cars I cant afford ( I am going to have care salesmen bothering me for months) Met a friend for coffee and headed to my GP appointment.

My GP has been awesomely trying to find me a new Psychiatrist and generally being very helpful. All my blood work came back ok even the liver function test - which was surprising.
So I have all these plans in place now for in case of more nervous breakdowns, my hubby has been given phone numbers and strategies for him to use on me if I happen to lose it when he is around.

Knowing myself, when I am in that state the chances of me calling anyone are pretty slim as I don't want help, I want to die. When you WANT to die, you don't tend to make phone calls to people who will stop that from happening.

Just glad to be still fairly hypomanic today (Friday) but not off my rocker and rested as I actually had a real full nights sleep last night!

I will leave it there, but that's an update on my mixed episode instant suicide attempt.

Can't take it anymore

Well that fucked up. I don’t know what the fuck I want right now, part of me is angry most of me is sad – suck at life, suck even more at death. I have EVERYTHING, the best life anyone could hope for so WHY don’t I want it? Why do I just want to dissolve away into nothingness?

Why when I ask that question does it not change my thoughts at all? I cant stop moving, thinking, I wanna run, I wanna scream and I want to curl up and go to sleep. My mood is varying between agitated as fuck and euphoric, I have been anxious all day because of ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING! I have nothing at all to be sad, angry or anxious about. I should be euphoric all the bloody time, I have everything that everyone could ever want. I dont know! I cant fucking handle it, Im so damn shakey I just want the whole thing to end, except I SUCK at suicide. I keep remembering and forgetting everything, EVERYTHING from why I walked into a room to that its my sons birthday next week so WHY WOULD I TAKE THOSE TABLETS THEN????? I sure as shit don’t want help for it.

Followed by fuck I keep waking up and the tablets havnt bloody worked, I will take more… Oh wait its my sons birthday next week, I FUCKING FORGOT AGAIN!!!
I guess im in a mixed state at the moment. Cant stop thinking, its like a runaway train – I cant think rationally – which brings me to my next point – if I KNOW I am not thinking rationally, then how do I know that they are actually wrong – I may not want to kill my self later, however if I go ahead with it I wont br able to regret it because I will be dead. So it wont matter.

I would love this fucking lithium to work, I would love this lithium to keep supressing my appetite. I would love this pressure neck head thing to stop – I don’t know if it is anxiety or the lithium causing it – only get it when taking Li but by the same token I am generally taking Lithium when I am rapid cycling/manically mixed state and by definition anxious.

God I just need it to stop, if if wake up tomorrow and this is still the same I don’t think I will be able to go to work. It just needs to stop – the fucked upedness is that this will NEVER TRULY GO AWAY. I cant live with myself knowing that my family, my perfect fucking family should be subjected to a crazy wife / mother / daughter. I cant EVER deal with the in laws finding out about this, which means I cant be truly honest with my Psych or GP because I know they would hospitalise me. Frankly I am aware that this is what I really need, but I cant be hospitalised because then the family would find out. NOBODY can find out. Its not ok for this to be me – I don’t care if other ppl have mental illness and I would jump up and advocate for them in a heart beat, but not me. That’s different.

If I end it they will never have to live with the shame, I wont have to live with the shame. I don't want to go to work tomorrow I don’t have the ability to cope with the pressure of the new training that I didn’t see. I bought new dresses to wear to work – this should mean I am subconsciously happy about going but I think I was just spending money cause I could, and besides I keep eating like the fat whore I am and this means those dresses wont fit much longer anyway. Another tick in the pro suicide column, I can die skinny – that would be so much better than having to become fat again. I CANT become fat again. Essentially I think that answers any question I have left. But again then I remember that its my sons birthday next week. OH GOD the original date is SO CLOSE, if I can just hold out until then. But I don’t think I can, if I make it that far it will mean that I will already be fat and I will already have suffered through work. I just want to quit, I have already written my resignation, its sitting on my desk top waiting to be sent. I cant be there, I jst want to cry and there is no reason for that either – they have done nothing, but I just cant help it, I cant be there. There has got to be a way to escape it other than the obvious – until after his birthday.

This is too hard. Way to fucking hard.

Que Sera

There isn’t much time now and I must get ready to say goodbye. In the end everything turned out exactly as it was always meant to.

By chance I was able to see or reconnect with almost everyone that I intended to and please know that this brought me great peace.

There is a playlist in my music folder marked ‘funeral’ it has the songs that I most related to and is in my preferential order.

I want to be cremated with all but a handful of my ashes scattered across the back paddock at the farm (the one near the back neighbours place at the area just before the trees start) facing west on the spring evening of a red sunset. (not that I’m picky or anything).

For the last handful of my ashes, take me to the top of my magic mountain near where I grew up on a warm breezy day and stand overlooking the mountains. Feel the wind on your face as you lean forwards and hold your arms back until it feels like you are soaring high across the valley below. There you must let the last of my spirit fly one final time. This is a sacred place to me and was the place where I first learned of the destiny of my soul.

Despite the challenges along the way, I wouldn’t change a single thing. The way a story ends is not always an accurate summary of the chapters lived between.

Thank you, all of you for such an amazing ride. Nobody could hope for a more fulfilling life with their soulmate, a wonderful family, great friends and the opportunity to understand and achieve their destiny.

Take care, remember que sera sera, cest la vie. Let peace be forever in your hearts and I will see you on the flip side!

xx