Category Archives: Journal Entries.

Please Turn My Life Switch Off

by

1

 

There was a man once; he was in so much agony from his illness, when he died, while that was sad, it was also a relief. His suffering was over, his eyes closed and for the first time in a long while, he looked truly at peace.

He’d spent so long fighting. He had taken all the drugs and treatments going and fought with every breath he had just to get through the day and the pain he suffered. He held on every minute of his life, even though, some days the pain was so excruciating, he would curl up on the floor crying, begging someone to please take it away and no one could. 1385972_257464541068177_1105653773_n

Occasionally the pain was so bad, he couldn’t even speak or think, all he could do was roll around in silent agony, waiting for sleep to take him and the torture to stop, just for a slight reprieve, but those reprieves weren’t long. The pain would be back, it would keep him awake through the night and he would lie in the darkness, alone, with no one who could make it better.

What a tragic, horrible way for someone to have to live, that death is the only mercy. Often we would say, this person is in a better place now, their suffering is over. And yes, while the family is upset for their loss and they would give anything to have this man back, they never want to watch someone have to live in such a way again. It is a sight that they will probably never get over.

Perhaps you think this man had cancer, HIV/AIDS or some other kind of debilitating cruel illness.

What if this was inside?

Why do people’s view change? Mental pain is just as bad as physical pain. The suffering is the same.

I see so many posts on suicide today and this last week. In September it was national suicide prevention day. Sometimes I think those posts should be labelled, keep the person alive to suffer day.

People who commit suicide are sometimes called selfish or a coward, but go back and read the above. Imagine keeping that inside and smiling outside.

I talked to a friend last night and tried to explain how it is for me. That from the moment I open my eyes, to the moment they close again, I am in such pain inside, a pain so deep and big I can’t even find the words to explain it. I wish there was a way to show people, but I there isn’t. Every moment of every day it hurts. Sometimes sleep doesn’t even let me escape and I am woken with nightmares and suffering.

As I explained this to my friend, I wish with every part of me that I could make it all go away. I wished that I could go back to a time when I was a teenager and make it over then, when it wouldn’t matter to the people it would now. I wished so hard it felt as if I could almost make it real, but I can’t.

And I know, many will tell me to look at what I have to live for, all the good things in my life, but tell that to the man above. Whatever illness you thought he had.

 

I know what I have to live for. That is why I am here typing this, because I can never give to my children the pain of losing me, but it doesn’t mean tomorrow I won’t think or fantasise about being able to turn my life switch off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haha, you’re mentally ill.

by

5

Today I asked a deaf man to listen to this great song and then I laughed when he couldn’t hear it, I also asked all my friends on my facebook to laugh too. Then I put something too high up and asked a crippled man to reach it down, it was so damn funny when he couldn’t (please note I didn’t really). Sounds horrendous doesn’t it? Yet this is how I feel when I see such stupid things as the picture I have posted at the side. I hope it creates a good laugh, and then I hope those who laugh realise how cruel that is. This illness is an illness, it is serious and debilitating and certainly not a joke. It makes me sad when I see such ignorance. 1379856_10200784363384001_904517282_n

Perhaps you want to tell me to lighten up, it’s just a joke. Have a laugh. Take it easy?

I saw on an Asperger’s awareness site a post saying put OCD on your profile for a laugh. I was disgusted, not just at that, but for something that raises awareness for an illness, can belittle another one in such a way.

Today I reach day eight of not eating. This is due to my OCD, maybe it’s funny. Maybe I should be laughing.  For me it’s a nightmare. For me I am living with a crazy person inside my head who is so afraid to eat.

I bought a coffee this morning, pretty simple thing, but for me, I try not to watch the person serving, because I know if I do, I find a reason not to drink it and to pour, probably a perfectly good coffee away. I nearly did that today when I saw the young girl pig up my cup from the top. What if her hands were dirty? That’s what my mind started at, and then onwards it went to the many disastrous things that could happen if I drank that coffee.

Sometimes I am rebellious, it is like my OCD is a separate person to me, I havre to do things to annoy it. Like put my cup to my mouth and take a sip and then laugh at my OCD as it clutched its evil little head, because now it was too late, any form of harm or germ in that cup was in my mouth, so I might as well drink it all.

I saw this also today in a group, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. What an awful name. Perhaps they will instruct as that poster said, Nike, to make running shoes for the paraplegic.

Today

by

8

Today, I woke this morning after a slightly difficult night. Half an hour into sleep and I woke thinking the bad man was there again, if someone asked me to swear on it, I’d be almost positive he had been standing right there, watching and waiting. I kept waking because I could feel his hand on my back.

Today I self harmed as well. I’ve been doing well. I think it’s been a good two weeks since the last time. Just yesterday I had mentioned it and then this morning I gave in and ruined it.

Today as I saw the traffic lights turn from green to amber and a truck coming the other way, for a split second I thought to chance it. I thought about how that truck could end it for me. For a split second I almost pulled out in front of the truck, because it had the right answer.

Today I helped my granddaughter when she started choking at the dinner table and her face went read as she couldn’t breathe. I picked her up, bent her over and forced her food out, causing her to vomit, but for those few seconds, when everything slowed down, I had fear in my heart.

Today marks day five of not eating. I keep trying to, but I can’t do it. I eat small bits instead, but not enough to satisfy the hunger I need to feel. I deserve it. I deserve to feel the hunger.

Today I sit on my bathroom floor with the door locked, typing this instead of self harming some more.

Today I wish I could feel normal.

Maybe tomorrow is pointless.

20131011-195105.jpg

Rock myself to sleep.

by

4

Rock myself to sleep.

I’m sick at the moment, start of University, stupid cold, fever, sore throat the works. It’s no more annoying to me than anyone else I’m sure, but I find many things about having a cold trigger me.

I can’t take nasal sprays, vapour rubs, the smell of them sends me back to being very small. One in particular that makes me feel drowsy can have me convinced that the bad man is there. Right there, just at the other side of the door. I can feel my mum rubbing it on my chest, feel my eyes get heavy from the vapour of it and as I drift off to sleep, he’s right there.

I can’t take medication because its triggering, I have to be really at the point of I can’t stand what I’m feeling anymore, just so I can get past that barrier, but medicine has me afraid of vomiting. I can’t take tablets, that’s a big no, no, my throat won’t even swallow them, they go into my mouth and my throat feels like it closes right away. Sometimes it just isn’t worth the heart ache.

Lastly, when I am sick, I rock myself to sleep. I used to do it as a child, when I was alone and didn’t feel very well. No one would come. There wasn’t the motherly hug to make me feel better, or the father checking on me. When I was ill I was probably more of a pain to them, it made them mad so I tried to hide it. I’d wrap my arms around myself, hook my feet together, close my eyes and rock myself to sleep.

I still do it now. I did it last night when I was in that semi-conscious stage. My other half even told me I was whimpering in my sleep. I guess this morning, it explains why I woke feeling alone, even though I wasn’t.

 

A Waste of Time

by

8

I’m sorry for the swearing and any typos in this. I don’t have it in me right now to go over it and correct them.

A waste of time.

That’s what I am. that’s what I feel. I had an friend just recently tell me that our friendship for almost for the last few years had been a waste of time. A waste of her time. For years she used to tell me i was worth something and that i meant something to her. She encouraged me and helped me, but in the end, it was a waste she said. I guess it’s true. I look back at our friendship, then i look back at my parents too and everyone that has followed them. I was a waste of their time too. I seem to be a waste of everyone’s time. They knew, right from the start. They saw it. They knew I wasn’t worth loving. They knew all along, they were right. I should have listened to them. Parents are always right.

I keep asking myself why i am still here. I don’t want to be and it is clear throughout my life, that aside from my children, it would probably be better if I wasn’t. People try to be my friend, but i hide away. I don’t want them to see the badness that is there. Its always been there. People who read my books just don’t want to see it, they see an innocent child. But its a lie. He’s a lie. I’d hand him over to all those people again myself if i could go back in time. He deserved it. He deserved everything.

I hear his cries in my head and i want to scream at him to shut the fuck up. This is what he deserves. It all is. Because, as people say or prove. He is just a waste of time and so am I.

Originally i was going to blog about something that felt like a victory to me this weekend. I had bought fresh chicken, touched it and cooked it. Having OCD, that was a huge challenge for me. But today I think why. What kind of idiot cant even buy a chicken without standing for 10 minutes in the supermarket and trying to hide the upset and turmoil inside about which one feels right. Which is the one that wont cause something bad to happen. And i look at myself and wonder why people don’t see how pathetic i am. I see it.

This morning at 4am, i woke up from a bad dream and the first thing i see is the bad man from my childhood, stood opposite me, on the other side of the room. Of course he wasn’t there, i was just having a flashback. I closed my eyes, unable to move, told myself i was safe. That he isn’t there anymore. He isn’t real. Isn’t that stupid? I’m a grown up. An adult, and still i get afraid of the monsters in the dark. Why cant I just be normal? Instead of this god damn stupid freak that i am, who is a waste of time. To everyone.

I gave in and self-harmed this morning. Isn’t that as pathetic as everything else? It didn’t even help. I can’t do it properly, like I need to. I wish I could cut through my own skin. I wish i could cut so damn deep that i wouldn’t be able to feel anything else. I wish i could do it until i was totally gone and then i wouldn’t need to waste any time for anyone else.

I wish i could go away. I wish that child had of died.

 

Silence

by

2

It’s funny how, after finishing a book and releasing it, I always feel quiet. Not that I don’t have things to say, just that I have said a lot and I feel guilty. I feel immense guilt at telling the world about my parents, as if I have betrayed them. It makes me even more quiet than normal; this of course gives me time to think. Not just about my writing, but many things.

A friend who will ignore me in a desperate time, yet issue cruel words when I  give up and walk away, or the father who offers me many things, only to take them away when I reach to take them. Now reprimands me, when he offers, and I say no. photo(1)

I seem to be learning many lessons, but for every lesson I learn, comes another consequence.

Each day is a fight.

One day in the last couple of weeks, I don’t know what day it actually was, I sat in my car, just pulled up and looked out at the river in front of me, a place I like to go and spend time. I felt like I was ready to jump. I couldn’t for one thing, think of a good enough reason why I shouldn’t end it right there and then.

I knew I couldn’t because of my children, but it left me pleading inside someone to help me and make me go away, because in that moment, I just couldn’t stand the pain of many things, things that I will never understand.

The only thing at the moment, that is letting me breathe, are the days I give in and self-harm. Yet as much as I self-harm, I can’t dig in deep enough. I daren’t even try, because what I am fighting with at the moment, is the child that doesn’t want to be here anymore, because he took his heart out, and realises it is broken.

Goodbye Teddy

Goodbye Teddy

It’s her shame, not mine

by

4

Today

I feel so bad today, inside it feels like I can’t breathe, I want to cut so badly. I even visualise it, not just doing it, but the pain that comes from it, like unzipping my skin to let myself breathe, the same way one might do to relieve the strain on a tight pair if jeans.

That’s what I need to do. I watch the blood in my mind, it rolls down slowly from where I have cut, it’s warm and soothing, like a miniature carrier, it’s transports my pain to the outside.

I try to ask myself why I’m feeling this way, what’s causing it. Things are happy, I should feel happy. I shouldn’t feel this emptiness inside, but I do.

Then I realise, maybe it’s the child inside, the one fighting and hurt with so many things going around my mind and no one to sooth him.

A dream from a couple of days ago, one of a memory and I think, I can’t share that. I can’t tell anyone. But I can. It isn’t my shame. It’s my mothers it’s all hers. She did it to me, not the other way around.

I feel like I’m choking in the memory of her telling me to touch her tongue with mine, and her doing the same. Hers so much in my mouth that I couldn’t breathe.

It’s not my shame. It’s hers. She did it. Not me. Not me. Not me.

I think about the things she did. Where her hand went, the way she laid on me. I can feel it there, almost like it’s right now.

I get afraid to share this. I want to hide and run away.

But it is not my shame.

She did this to her child. The woman that was my mother. Not me.

20130822-201337.jpg

I’d Be Better As A Hermit

by

2

I hate my illnesses. Some days I hate them in a way as if they were physical and I can see them. I hate how they make me feel or act. I hate the way they affect my life. Like they are always waiting in the shadows ready to jump out and attack at the slightest smallest thing.

My illnesses make me look as though I am selfish, possessive, clingy and many other things that I am not, they are like masks that I wear, but they are nothing but lies. I try very hard to take them off, but sometimes I am just not strong enough and that is when my illnesses affect others.

They are all bad in their own ways. BPD (borderline personality disorder) borderlineprobably is the one I hate the most. That’s the one that has an effect on my relationships and friendships. That’s the one that makes me look as though I am clingy or possessive. It rears its ugly head whenever there is even the slightest kind of abandonment, which isn’t actually abandonment at all, but that is the way my mind and emotions see it.

Even just yesterday a small, nothing came up that meant someone had to do something else, and off was my BPD with the many words it likes to whisper in my ear, and then suddenly I have the feelings of the child that once stood and watched his parents drive off to their new house without him. It comes to the surface and makes it so I can’t breathe. I have to hide from the people around me because what has set it off is so small they wouldn’t understand the devastation I am feeling in that moment. Just because someone cancelled or needed to do something else.

I think it makes me a bad friend. I get snappy when I am trying to control what BPD is making me feel inside. I stand wishing the other person could see the crashing inside my head and understand it. I wish they could see it so much that they could stop it. I wish they would notice and ask me what’s wrong and then fix it.

It makes me feel that a life without friends would be easier. At least then I wouldn’t have to go through more trauma and risk showing the other person the ugliness inside.

Some information.

indexBtmOFF_r1_c1

BPD diagram

Living with someone.

by

1

Living with someone.

When is the right time? Is there a right time? It’s a hard decision to make whoever you are, but what about when you suffer from various forms of mental illness?moving

I try to hide my struggles as best I can from my partner, of course that is hard at the best of times. It’s different though when living with someone. Not only do I have to try all the time to keep my issues hidden, not because my partner is cold or judgmental, quite the opposite actually, but more for my own shame. I know I am ill, but I don’t like to show it to the people in my everdays. I don’t want them to see that I am struggling. So I have tactics to hide things. Ways that I have adapted myself to cope with my illness and hiding it.

When my I have to wash my hands more times than normal, I do it out of sight, when my partner has to go somewhere unexpectedly rather than crumble into a mess of abandonment I seek an extra hug, another kiss or just a touch and allow myself to know that this is okay. That my partner is coming back.

My partner of course doesn’t know of my books. I have not talked of my abuse. It is very hard for me to be able to share the events of my childhood with those that I have to look at. So I don’t, but for me this means that I have to watch my issues, because my partner does not know why they are there or where they came from.

At night I sleep with the light on, I have to admit that I do not like the dark. I have to have the door shut tight and things in certain places to ensure that I can feel safe enough or as safe as can be to go to sleep. Living with someone, it interferes with all of my coping devices. It pushes the boundaries I have set in place for myself so that I can feel okay. I have to adjust, not just my problems, but to the needs of my partner too.

However, it is the right decision and maybe after opening my home I will be able to open the door to the inside of myself too and let my partner fully in.

It’s like a new adventure in my life. 🙂

To Mum and Dad

by

8

To Mum and Dad

I’m sorry. I just needed to say that as I near the end of writing the last book of Teddy. I need to tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry for writing. Sorry for the way it makes you both look to the world outside, one that doesn’t know you the way I do and doesn’t understand. I just needed to get these things out. They’ve stuck in my mind for so long that they are part of my everyday thoughts, I couldn’t keep it all inside anymore. I’m sorry. im-sorry

I don’t write them to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you at all, not ever. I know you’ll be upset if you ever saw my books. Probably deny everything too because you’d read the words the same way any reader, reads them, like it’s your fault. And I know it isn’t. I know these things that I write about are as much me as they are you. I know deep inside if I had never been your child you would never have partaken in the activities you did. I created you just as you created me and I’m sorry.

I wish I could go away, not now, but in the past. A long time ago when I wouldn’t matter to anyone at all. I didn’t matter to you because I was so bad. Why did you not just go that step too far? Why did you not kill me for the things I did and the things I made you do?

I want so very much just to cut through my skin and make it hurt, to stare at that face in the mirror like I did as a boy and watch him suffer. He deserves it, but the face isn’t little anymore. He’s hiding somewhere I can’t reach him. I’d make him pay if I could. He deserves it.

I’m sorry for showing the world our secrets.