Tag Archives: sleep

If you don’t want to cut, just stop it. Simple

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5

Yesterday I wrote a blog title Death, I can’t really explain what it is about because I wrote it out yesterday whilst thinking and can’t remember it that well. But I do remember that someone had commented on my facebook page and said that she wished I didn’t self-harm. She said she didn’t really understand it.

I like that she said that, so many people who don’t understand simply say, if you don’t want to cut anymore then don’t. That’s like telling someone, if you’re on a diet, don’t eat any more, if you want to quit smoking don’t smoke any more cigarettes, pretty easy answers I guess and true in ways, but if you have ever tried to stop doing something, you’ll know how hard it is and how much that thing niggles at you and you give in, always tomorrow right? To diet, stop smoking, stop cutting or whatever vice it is you wish to give up. 1044939_157099524476527_1254857261_n

I can’t answer why everyone self-harms, but I can explain why I do it.

Have you ever been lied to? I’m sure you have. I want you to bring to mind just one time, but when it was a real big lie, one that really hurt. It doesn’t matter who did it, mother, brother, wife, husband, children, best friend etc. Anyone’s lies can hurt us deeply.

Do you remember the pain of it? The way it smack you in the chest so damn hard you couldn’t breathe. The way your stomach plummeted and your heart contracted in agony, pain that shot so deeply it brought tears to your eyes and angry to your cheeks. For those first few seconds you can’t think or can’t hear, nothing but your own heart beat in yours ears.

I’m sure right now if you are thinking of a lie that did that to you, you can bring all of those feelings to the forefront of your mind once more and you can feel it and you feel angry and betrayed and for some reason still can’t fathom why you weren’t worthy of the truth.

Remember that moment. Imagine you couldn’t say to that person who had lied to you, that you knew and that you were upset. Maybe they were at work, it’s only a few hours right? But its endless, this lie and the hurt goes through your body in torturous waves and you have to say something. It won’t stay inside. Even if it’s just picking up the phone and ranting to someone else about how you just got hurt. Sometimes the hurt from it feels like it will never go away. How can your relationship ever go back to the way it was? How will you ever stop feeling this hurt? Does it sound familiar?

Now instead of a lie, change it to something else, bullying, parents who don’t understand you, or in my case, abuse. That one lie hurts so bad doesn’t it? Even now, days, months, weeks even years later, there is a lie you can recall that still hurts. I know I have one from last year and when I bring it to mind it cuts inside the same way it did back then.

But what about child abuse? When someone is hurting a child. A child is so different to an adult, they don’t have the skills to process hurt and betrayal. They haven’t grown into an adult who understands these concepts, but they can feel this hurt, and they don’t understand it. But its more than that, when it is the parents doing the abusing, how does the child let out that hurt? The same hurt that you felt when you were lied to. For the child it’s a new additional hurt every day. Given to them by someone who is supposed to love them and care for them, but their actions say they aren’t worthy.

Me and so many other children had nowhere to go with that hurt. There was no one I could tell it to. No friend I could pick up the phone. No person I could yell at and make them take it back. I didn’t have the same skills available to me to deal with betrayal. And like liars, if you have ever noticed when you catch them, they get defensive, tell you how it was your fault, they deflect the blame so that they don’t feel any guilt. Much like a child abuser. So suddenly there is this child with pain and betrayal bigger than any lie could ever cause and words that point back at them that tells them it is their fault. What do they do?

They look in the mirror and they hate the face that stares back. They get mad at it. All that hurt and anger and pain and betrayal gets pointed at that reflection. Maybe they hit them, bite, scratch, cut, burn, pull the hair, but that face in the mirror has to pay, because it is their fault that child’s parents do what they do.

Multiply those days by weeks and then months and then years and then even some decades. The child is still there, just bigger and older. The pain is inside, but now it isn’t just one time, its years and years of betrayal by the people who were supposed to do the protecting. Every morning that adult wakes up, carrying years of agony inside them. For me, so many mornings just waking up is more pain than I can handle, I’m bursting with it, and the only way I ever learnt to let it out was to let it flow with my own blood and tears. So I do.

The next time someone lies to you. Bite your tongue, don’t confront them. Take it away and let it go silently. Can you do it? Or do you know you would only last so long before you exploded?

That’s self-harm. Minutes and hours trying to hold in the pain and nowhere for it to go.

Its not attention seeking. It’s not something that can just be stopped. It isn’t even a cry for help. It’s that moment when all the things inside need to come out but can’t, physical pain makes it better. Like releasing the valve on a pressure cooker before it explodes into a thousand pieces.

Sorry this is long, but I hope it explains it.

Happy New Year

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6

happy-new-year-2014

Happy New Year to you all. I hope you all saw the new year in with friends and family. I saw the new year in alone this time, it’s been a while since I have done that, but it was okay.

It’s been a while since I have posted here. It’s been a while since I’ve really bothered talking to many people. I’m not really sure why that is, I think about doing it, saying hi, nudging, inquiring how people are, but then I always come back to what is the point? I’m better off quiet I think. I thought very hard about shutting this site down and my facebook pages too, but then I know that those who support me need somewhere, and so I don’t do it. Perhaps there would be some way to fade into the shadows and not be seen, to just be there and observe, so that people could forget me.

I realise how depressing this post might sound, I’m not really depressed. Just fighting and tired from it. Fighting to eat or not eat. I can’t make my mind up which I want to do. Today is a not eat day. I ate so much over Christmas. I fight to keep my OCD down, from it’s torturous voice. That one is winning at the moment. I’m back at university on Monday and I’m afraid. The voice of my BPD confirms to me when I look in the mirror, why no one is around. Self-harm is winning. Three days of the new year, three days of self harm. At least my PTSD has been a little more under control recently. So many things to fight.

I wonder if when I see the next new year in, my father will be here. I’ll be surprised if he is. His cancer has progressed, although that doesn’t seem to stop him in his ways. My own stupidity on Christmas day saw that I turned my back on him, I didn’t think, it allowed him to grab my head and ram it down twice into the roof of the kiddies play house. Then he tried to kick me, but I moved and his foot only just brushed passed me. Some lessons I really need to learn.

I wish all my friends peace and happiness this year.

Take Care.

 

Rock myself to sleep.

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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.

 

Alley Kid Fourteen

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3

We drive. I don’t really have a destination in mind. Where I want to be is just not here. I want to be away from everything and everyone. It doesn’t matter where.

I keep to the side roads to avoid anyone seeing us. I know them so well, it will take me nothing to drive fast and get us away if the police should be around.pill_bottle_and_pills1

Karla tries to talk to me, she twitters on about something from work, but I don’t care. I nod and say yes in all the right places and she thinks I am paying attention, but I’m not. I don’t have anything to tell her. I light another cigarette and offer her one. I take it in deeply and the phet rises up my back again, in little bubbles. I smile and Karla thinks it’s for her. She squeezes my knee as if it’s supposed to mean something, but it’s just fake affection to get what she wants from me. I have no doubt that if I were important to her; it would be about more than just sex.

“Where are we going?” she asks me. I glance around and tell her I don’t know. I just drive until we drive to the junction between motorway and country lanes. I could go either way, but I chose the lanes, dark and out of the way. It feels like we’ve escaped the world and no one is around to see us.

There is a lane just near the fuelling station. I’ve been there before. At the end is a field high up, and it’s like looking out over the world. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to jump. Could I feel like I was flying even though I was falling? My dad would bring me this way sometimes, when I was a child. We would take the dog for a walk and she could run around. I always used to get scared that maybe she would run off the edge, but he said she wouldn’t. I didn’t let her go near it anyway, just in case he was wrong. I didn’t want to take the chance.

He always told me that she would die at home. She was ill and one day, we would wake up, and she would are gone to heaven. I never wanted her to die alone and I didn’t want her to go to heaven. I didn’t like heaven when I was little. It had all the people I liked.

I stop the car at the end of the lane. The field is guarded by a locked fence. No tourists at night, not when drunken teenagers can play games and fall over the edge, and kill themselves. We don’t get out of the car. Instead, we climb in the back. I’m useless on the phet for what Karla wants. No sex for her, but that doesn’t matter, it’s only for her own pleasure and not mine. I give her everything else until she lies there leaning on me, and I smoke cigarette after cigarette.

The hours go by so fast, I don’t even notice them. Karla is tired. She dozes a little and I can feel the phet wearing off. It’s making me feel heavy. The darkness tugs at the sides of my vision, threatening to take me down once again. I could get home and buy more. I’m sure Froggy would give me some phet if I asked.

Karla gets herself dressed and straightened up. Like everyone, she is pleased to have what she wants from me and I can take her home. We get back into the front seats and I start the engine. The sun is coming up, but it hasn’t cleared the night away just yet. The darkness seeps from the outside into me and I try to drive before it takes over entirely.

I don’t know what is in front of me. Its sudden; a cat or a dog? Something small, I have no idea. I twist the steering wheel to avoid it, but the front wheel of the car catches a ditch and takes control from me. We land in the hedges with the car, a hedge that is hiding concrete wall.

We both sit there, still and staring.

“What do we do?” Karla asks after a moment and I try to make my tired mind work and answer her. I can feel my hands shaking. I feel clammy and tired. I can smell the phet on my skin.

“Are you okay?” I ask her. It’s the first thing I can think to say.

“Yes.”

I know what will happen if we call someone. It’s not my car. The police will come and I’ll be arrested.

“We need to run,” I tell her. “Now.”

As I say it one more time, I get from the car and she does too. I realise I am hurt. My chest aches and so does my knee. I must have smacked them off the steering wheel and column. I can hear the sound in my head. The way metal on metal sounds, but I know that is not this car. It’s one from long ago; the one that took my mother, and one I should have died in too. All the sounds mingle together.

My knee aches as we run, but the fear of being caught, presses against my back and forces me to keep going. We get to the fuelling station. There is a couple of taxi cabs sat there. One of the drivers is just reading his morning newspaper. We stop for a second, and I catch my breath. Karla is okay. She grips my hand tight, letting me lead the way and not saying a word. She has tears in her eyes. I guess she cried, but I didn’t notice. I knock on the window of the taxi and nod my head at him to ask if he is free. He nods back and folds his paper and we climb into the back seat.

It doesn’t take long to get to Karla’s and drop her off. After, I give the driver my address and he takes me back there. Joanne is still asleep when I let myself in. I don’t think anyone noticed that I was gone. I dump my clothes down at the foot of the bed and climb back in beside her. My chest hurts from the seatbelt, and it hurts inside, too. My emptiness is there once again.

“Where have to been?” Joanne asks, as I let my eyes close.

“To buy cigarettes,” I say to her.

It isn’t unusual for me to do that. The petrol station near where we live is open all hours, and I don’t sleep very well. She accepts my answer and moves closer to me, resting her arm across my chest; I try not to wince under the pressure.

She is like Karla and everyone else. She’s being nice to me. I know what that means and what she wants. I just want to sleep, but to do that I have to give in. I let her hand slide down my chest and body. I don’t say no to her as she climbs up on top of me. The phet has worn off, my head is pounding. I don’t think she notices I am not interested so much.

Afterwards, she slips out of bed to take a shower. I tell her I want to stay in a bed a while. I don’t feel so well. I listen as she leaves the room and goes to the bathroom. She turns the shower on and I hear the doors open and close.

I roll onto my side and listen as she showers, the way the water falls, the way it hits the shower doors, and the low hum of the radio she has playing. My head feels heavy, as if it is too much to lift it from the pillow. I lie there thinking about the next day and wonder what the point is. What is waiting for me in the next day that is so important for me to get to?

There is a bottle on the bedside table. Joanne’s painkillers that she had been taking for a twisted ankle. I reach for them without thinking. I stare at the label. Who would really care if I took them? Whose life would it affect other than mine? Will is too young, it won’t matter. There is no one else to bother.

I haven’t swallowed tablets since I was a child. Not since I nearly choked on one of my mother’s made-up pills, but I know this is the answer. Two by two, I swallow them until my throat wont take anymore, and as I swallow the last one, I feel ashamed. Not at what I have done, but at the thought that people might assume this is a cry for attention. It isn’t. I just want to slip away unnoticed.

Maybe Joanne will find the almost empty bottle, The thought that Joanne will find the almost empty bottle, fills my mind with fear. I don’t want her to know what I have done. Not yet. I’m not stupid enough to think she won’t find me when it’s over, but I don’t want her to stop me, or call an ambulance. I stuff the bottle down the back of the bed where she won’t find it without a search. If I put the bottle back on the bedside table, she’ll see it. It feels like it would draw attention to itself and she would just know.

I lie back down after the bottle is hidden. Joanne finishes in the shower and the water goes off. I hear the shower door open. I close my eyes and let the darkness of my sleep take me. Maybe I won’t ever open them again.

Please God, don’t let me wake up.

A Bed

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5

I feel like someone different today. I’m not sure I can work my moods out. I guess numb is probably the word for it. A sort of pre occupied, don’t care kind of mood.

I’ve had a strange thing in my mind of late. Perhaps it’s weird.

My grandfathers bed.

He had it for years and took to it for about a month before he died on it. It was old and broken and the springs were coming through the mattress on both sides, but it never got changed.

I didn’t have a bed. Not for the first nine years of my life. The only time I slept in a bed was with my parents or when they put me up on a fold out sun lounger at the bottom of theirs. I don’t know why I didn’t have one. I never really questioned it.

My parents moved out behind my back when I was seven and then took me back when they got a new house when I was nine. I even got my own room in their new house, and rather than buy me a bed, they gave me my grandfathers.

I’ve never been able to work out if that’s wrong of them. Should I have been given the bed, mattress and all that my grandfather died on? Was it strange of them to do that? Perhaps it’s just another example of how I was nothing. They couldn’t even get me a new bed, or at least replace the mattress. I used to wake daily almost with my leg torn to shreds from where the sharp bit came through, of course I learnt to avoid it in my sleep somewhat and the wounds got less.

Does this just prove how little I meant? I wonder, if my grandfather hadn’t died, would I have got a bed at all?

Sleep and Anger

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21

Sleep and Anger.

This will be one of those posts that isn’t really about anything. Nothing more than getting the crap out of my head after an awful night. 

I’m angry. Im not angry at anyone but it’s making me angry at everyone. Anyone that dares speak to me today is likely to get the head bitten off. I’m sure that I’ll be full of apologies later, but there’s all this anger inside and nowhere for it to go, so it’s going here, via my insane ramblings because it’s all I have.

And I’m tired. I just want one night where I sleep. One might where I’m not afraid. Not even 10 minutes last night and I was startled awake by the stupid crap that goes around in my head. Then it was a night of terror. I have no one to get mad at for it. No one to shout and yell and ask why the hell I have this. Why did this have to be my life and what I got?

I wish he’d go away. I wish the bad man would leave me alone. I’m tired and I’m done with him. I don’t want him here anymore, but there’s no way out. No way to stop it once it goes dark.

Sometimes I think it would have been better if they’d have just took it that step to far. Put me out of my misery at the time. It would be better than this.

All I see is faces. His face. I feel his hands. I see others. Tables. Children. Trees and darkness. A million memories I can’t quite reach. They feel like a movie in my head that I can’t get rid of.

I’m bound to everything.
Bound in silence.
Bound here.
Bound in memories.
Bound to tables.
Bound in darkness.
Bound while they watched.
Bound while my mother laughed at what was happening to me.
Bound to everything.

I wish my mother were here. I wish there was a way I could take all this out of me and give it back to her. I wish I could show her what she’s done.

I can’t even show my father because I see him and he shows me how it’s my fault and it makes me feel bad about it.

There’s no where for it to go and I’m not going to self harm today.

I’m not.

I won’t cut it away. So I’m writing here and trying to make it disappear, but all I feel is anger.

Dreams

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2

Dreams

Funny things, dreams. Everything from calming pleasure that brings a smile to your face to breath taking horror that leaves you for a moment wondering if your dream was real or not.

Seventeen minutes of sleep. That’s it. I wake startled, jump up so fast, my breath catches and my heart pounds and just for a split second I’m a child and the bad mans here.

Of course he isn’t, not really. Not anymore, but my mind doesn’t seem to accept that. Vague flashes of some dream go through y head as I try to decide what’s real, what’s a memory and what’s just made from years of fear. My hands are shaking and my hearts racing so fast as my eyes scan the room over and over, sure that any moment something’s going to happen.

I lie almost still except for the phone as I tap out my thoughts, my body’s expecting. The anticipation in my mind like an attacks just around the corner. Already I can feel nails, teeth. Fingers wrapped in my hair holding me in place while I scream and no one listens.

I wish it would stop. I wish I knew for just one night what it felt like to feel safe enough to sleep. I’ve never had that. I can’t even escape into my dreams. He haunts me there. I’m tied. Mentally, how great it must be to climb into bed, pull the covers around yourself and enjoy the silence of a safe and peaceful moment.

I don’t ever remember feeling safe at night. Not ever. Not once. Always huddled in the corner, watching the door and waiting.
I try and tell myself that it’s not real any more. He isn’t here, but my body’s taken over by the fear of a five year old, all because I had a bad dream.

I feel like I’m in a room filled with snakes, stood in the middle, trying desperately to keep both feet of the floor; with every possible part of me hidden as I imagine the feeling of their bite. It builds up so big inside that I’m sure to explode with the fear and perhaps it would be better if it was just over and done with so I could find some kind of moment to relax a little.

All the while as I write this,I lie here and wonder, maybe he’ll be real again. Maybe tonight he’ll come, because tonight, I typed this and talked.

 

My Voice Is Silent

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5

My Voice Is Silent.

​ My voice is silent. It has been that way for days, yet today, feels worse. I cannot shift the feeling of being in the wrong for talking.; for letting my secrets out. It is six days, I think, with no real sleep. Maybe it is more. I don’t really know.

​I am floating from one day to the next without having the time to stop and enjoy it. I am just watching . Somehow, I got knocked back inside my head and I am not sure how to come out again. I make myself write this so I can see what I feel and understand myself.

​I was out of bed, in the middle of the night, in a frightening moment when my mind protected me. I was yelling to be left alone before I had even woken up. Suddenly, I was in the memory of a five year old, and the man I do not know was stood by my bed in the dark once more, like he always is and always was.

​I was not dreaming of him. I was not even thinking about him. I had laid there in the dark for almost an hour, getting annoyed with the inability, once again, to fall asleep. I closed my eyes; I must have drifted off a little. When I opened my eyes in half sleep, his face was in front of mine. His hands were on my bed. I didn’t think, I just reacted. It wasn’t until I was at the other side of the room crouched against the wardrobe with my arms in front of me, telling him no that I realised it was thirty years later and he was not there.