Not really THAT good
Posted by: Laura on: February 7, 2010
I have wanted to write, here. But I’ve been struggling to find the words.
I’ve wanted to say: it’s okay. I’m okay. But I’m scared, a bit, of saying it. Of writing it, rashly, and coming to regret my stupidity.
Because I am okay. More than okay, sometimes – laughing, grinning, feeling so incredibly happy.
But I’m feeling it as a fragile, tenuous thing. I feel it when my laughter seems like one step away from crying. I feel it when I feel wide awake and cheerful, but somehow can’t bring myself to leave my room.
I feel it in every minute of fear and indecision.
I feel good, but I feel like it will collapse at any minute.
I have energy but all I can think about is how it will leave.
I’m so scared of the future because I know that feeling okay won’t last, and it’s making me anxious, which is making me feel less okay, which, I suppose, makes “feeling okay won’t last” a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Every time I think about it, I just feel like crying. I don’t want to be depressed again. I can’t do it.
So I try not to think about it and that makes everything very breezy and superficial and I can’t let myself stop to think because if I do then everything will fall apart.
I’m freaking out, a bit, about the appointment with the mental health advisor. I don’t really know what to say about that, other than that every time I think about it, I get an overwhelming urge to run away.
Sigh.
Posted by: Laura on: February 2, 2010
Gaah. That’s what I have to say.
I’m irritable. I’m pissed off. I’m speaking and acting without thinking.
I’m too twitchily awake to actually do anything, but I still thought it was a perfectly good idea to volunteer to (idea, volunteer: rhyme…)
Right. I volunteered to format my group’s presentation for our seminar on Friday. I reckon it’s the least I could do considering what a bad group member I am, always missing stuff etc. and talking too loud (I could see them looking at me strangely, but I can’t make my voice behave).
Last night, I eventually passed out, only to wake up three hours or so later.
I’m very tempted to go to the doctor and say “PLEASE MAKE ME SLEEP”. But then they’d start asking pesky questions about how my mood is, and I’d probably just scream, “IT’S FUCKING FINE. JUST KNOCK ME OUT BEFORE MY HEAD EXPLODES”. At which point they’d probably call the police. And then my head would explode, which would at least prove me right.
I’m aware that I’m kind of all over the place at the minute. I’m trying to calm myself down. Trying to be still and calm, trying to think things through, trying to just laugh at myself when I’m so startled by little noises that I drop things.
It’s just…sleep. I need some sleep.
Edit: I got an email from the mental health advisor, offering an appointment. I burst into tears. I don’t fucking know why. I suppose that means I’m going to have to actually speak about this out loud. Admittedly, probably in the vaguest way possible.
I don’t know how to feel. Part of me is panicking – I don’t want to speak, I don’t want to ask for help, I don’t want anybody to know, I should never have contacted her. Part of me is upset – I feel guilty, I feel like a disappointment, I feel like I’m giving in. And a small part of me is relieved. Just that small, ridiculous, naive part of my mind that is thinking maybe something will change. And of course, that just makes the part of me that’s sad even sadder, and adds a bit of self-hating anger in there, too – I hate my hope, I hate that I can’t cope and am desperate for something else.
Sleeplessnessnessnessnessness
Posted by: Laura on: February 1, 2010
It is now just gone 4pm on Monday.
The last time I remember getting any sleep was the early hours of Saturday morning.
This is…odd.
I’m seeing everything through a vague kind of haze.
I have a distant feeling that I’m supposed to be sorting my life out, but I can’t quite grasp what I have to do.
I went to volunteering today, though. That’s a start. I enjoyed it. It’s one of the few things that seems to make sense, although I feel like a fraud, using depression as an excuse for things when for the past few days I haven’t been depressed, and today I spent a lot of time being loud and happy and funny and making people listen to me. I feel a bit like these times invalidate the others.
I got an email from my course co-ordinator, saying that as long as the essay I missed last term is submitteed by the end of this term then I’ll be okay.
I was so ridiculously grateful. And I don’t know why, but losing the pressure made me want to start doing it straight away. I wanted to reply to her and say don’t worry, I’ll get it done in the next couple of weeks. Don’t worry, I’ll get it done today.
But I calmed down.
First things first. Tidy my room. Start going to lectures again. Work out how to restart my life.
Get some fucking sleep.
Tired, scared, etc etc etc….
Posted by: Laura on: January 28, 2010
I manage to get out of bed. Hurray.
Two, three hours later, I’m so tired it’s a struggle to keep my eyes open.
How am I supposed to do anything when I feel to tired to move for seven-eighths of the day?
I filled in a self-referral form for the mental health advisor. It’s the least confrontational method of asking someone to help me. I haven’t sent it yet, though, because I know I’ll be too scared to check my email once I’ve sent it.
I have to send it.
It’s pathetic of me to sit here fantasising about running away when I don’t have the energy to run anywhere. I need to stop daydreaming about miracles and start trying to actually do something.
Maybe I should give up. It’s too late to fix anything now.
I feel like I am dying. I wish I was.
Maybe
Posted by: Laura on: January 27, 2010
Things are heading downhill pretty fast, and getting faster. Everything falls apart at once.
I’ve dropped the fucking ball again. I’ve made everything rubbish. If only I was a better person. I make it difficult for myself.
It’s too late now, but I think I’m going to do something tomorrow. Call someone. Make an appointment or ask for help or something.
Find a way to cope now, think about other things when they happen.
Fucking hell. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. Maybe this is the best things are ever going to be, and anything I do to try to change it will just make things worse.
But maybe that’s academic. Maybe, when things are this bad…maybe I’m going to kill myself anyway. So maybe it’s worth risking it getting worse, because if it does then the result won’t be any different to if I do nothing.
Maybe, if there’s even the tiniest chance that asking for help will lessen this pressure, then I should ask. Just to see.
Fuck, I’m acting like I didn’t try before. I’m acting like I don’t know that asking for help just means more problems.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know if I am brave enough to admit that I can’t cope. I don’t know if I can get the words out, I don’t know if I can tell the truth.
Maybe it’s too late anyway, maybe nothing can be salvaged.
I should try, shouldn’t I?
But what if it’s too little, too late?
I’m so fucking scared.
I don’t want this to be me.
And what’s the point, anyway? What will change, really? If I go to the doctor, they’ll probably refer me to the CMHT, which took fucking months last time. If I go to the counselling service, all that’ll happen is I will completely fail to actually say anything, and they won’t even act as evidence that there’s anything wrong until I’ve been to three appointments (which is of course understandable, but ultimately too long to actually be any use). I could speak to the mental health advisor, but probably what they will say is that they can’t help because there’s no fucking proof.
So I could call everyone who could possibly help and the chances are that nothing will change. It’s not like I’m looking for some sort of miracle solution, but it’s a bit disheartening.
And I should, but I can’t, but I can’t live like this anyway. All I really have to lose is my privacy, and I feel like I can’t live without it, but I’ve felt like that about lots of things and they’ve all been destroyed, and here I am still.
I don’t fucking know.
Maybe only dying will stop it. Maybe that’s the only real option.
I’m scared.
Maybe if there was anything really wrong with me, then I wouldn’t have survived this long. Maybe every day I go without asking for help is just more proof that I don’t need it. Maybe they will laugh at me.
Maybe I’ll get kicked out of uni. Everyone will be disappointed. Everyone will want to know why. I can’t face explaining.
Here, I think, is the crux of the matter: In my (admittedly limited) experience, getting help does not work. It’s only really the bracketed part of that sentence that’s keeping me alive. It’s…hope. It’s the thought that, one day, I will get help again, and it will make things better, and my life will be okay again. But if I do get help, and again, it doesn’t work, then what’s left?
That’s a really stupid way of thinking, isn’t it?
I don’t know what to do. Everything is shit.
Maybe I will ask somebody for help. Maybe I will kill myself. It’s got to be one or the other, eventually.
Mixed bag.
Posted by: Laura on: January 26, 2010
I couldn’t get to sleep until 2am. I know, I should be thankful. That’s an early night for me.
Then I woke up at 3:30am. I couldn’t get back to sleep.
So I stayed up. Not really doing anything. Listening to music. Reading, a bit. Watching stuff on youtube.
Then I got out of bed. I showered. I had breakfast. And I went to volunteering.
And I felt…alive. I felt like everything made sense. It sounds stupid, doesn’t it? It’s not really cool to have rewarding experiences. It was challenging and frustrating and exhausting, but ultimately, I spent every minute of it feeling like I was in my element. I worked my socks off all day, and when, at the end of it all, the person running the scheme turned to me and said, “thank you”, it felt like an extra. Like the day itself was reward enough. I must be getting soft in my old age.
Of course, with every positive comes a negative. Lately I’ve been scared of checking my email. That’s a really stupid fear, I know. But I was emailed about missing things, and a few days ago I managed to summon up the courage to send a brief reply, with an apology for the absences and “I’ve been depressed”, which feels like a lie every time I write or even think it (other people get depressed. Me, I’m just stupid, and weak, and pathetic). Anyway, I’ve been dreading the reply and as such generally avoiding opening my email account.
The reply was nice. Of course it was. “I’m sorry to hear that”, and a list of people I can speak to, ask for help.
I’m always scared, when I manage to make these brief gestures towards telling the truth, that the reply will be something more like, “you’re not depressed, you pathetic, lying bastard. You’re a fraud. There’s nothing wrong with you. Stop your fucking moaning and get on with your life”. Maybe I want that to be the reply. Maybe if someone in my life told me to shut the fuck up and sort my life out, then I’d be able to do it. Maybe all I need is a kick up the arse.
I’m too tired to really feel anything at the moment. I’m going to try to stay awake for a few more hours, so I can sleep at night. Maybe it will suddenly click and everything will make sense. Maybe pigs will fly. Read the rest of this entry »
Memory
Posted by: Laura on: January 25, 2010
I’m going to call your doctor’s surgery and ask them what’s going on.
You can’t. They won’t tell you.
You’re my daughter, I have a right to know. Why are you taking this medication? What’s wrong? What’s happening?
I told you. I’ve been…depressed. A bit. And not sleeping.
That can’t be all of it, that’s not all the details. WHY are you depressed?
I don’t know. I just…am.
But there must be a reason! I know, Laura, I’ve been depressed too. So what is it, have you fallen out with one of your friends?
No. I don’t think there is a reason for it.
You’re lying again. Why are you always lying? Why don’t you trust me? I just want to help you.
But you’re not helping. You’re making it worse.
No, you’re making it worse by lying to me. How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know the details? Your doctor will tell me more.
But what about confidentiality?
It doesn’t matter. I’m your MOTHER. They have to tell me.
No, they don’t -
- they do. And if they won’t, I’ll find out anyway. You know I work at the hospital, you know I have access to all of the notes. You’ve heard your dad telling me my test results before my appointments. It’s all on a big system. I’ll be able to read everything.
Please don’t.
Then tell me. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me why you feel this way. Stop lying to me, Laura. Stop hiding things. You know I can find out anyway, so you might as well just be honest.
I don’t know what you want me to tell you.
That’s not good enough. Read the rest of this entry »
Today, I…
Posted by: Laura on: January 22, 2010
- Got out of bed, despite only having slept for about an hour.
- Showered.
- Went to my seminar, in which I had to do a small part of a presentation.
- Went to my volunteering meeting.
It’s not much, I know. I went to one seminar, but missed the other. And in the one I did go to, I spent a rather embarrassing amount of it either gazing into the distance, or seeing other members of the group talking and immediately thinking, “THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT ME”, and wondering whether it would be more productive to confront them or run out of the room weeping. I did neither. I just felt very uncomfortable and hurt and I left as soon as the seminar ended so that I could get away from ‘those nasty people’.
I can’t help but feel that what I’ve managed today is far too little, far too late, but the fact remains that it’s been easily a fortnight since I’ve been able to do anything.
I hope that this change is a sign that things are going to get easier.
For the first time this term, I’ve been writing things I’m going to do in my diary, as if there’s a decent chance that I’ll be a) alive and b) capable of actually doing things.
I considered, again, making a counselling appointment. Another failure on that account. Because a) if things are getting easier, then I’m not depressed, so I don’t need help, and b) there’s a part of my brain that’s screaming “CANCEL!” before I’ve even made the call. I know that the correct response is a) Laura, you are a deluded imbecile if you think that, even if things are getting better, they won’t get worse again in the forseeable future, and perhaps it’s better to get help when you are actually capable of speech and movement, rather than when you are once again utterly paralysed by depression, and b) “SHUT UP!”. But ‘knowing the correct response’ isn’t quite the same thing as ‘immediately extinguishing all worry and doubt’.
Maybe I’ll call next week. Maybe I’m a stuck record. Maybe I’m never going to actually listen to the sensible part of my brain. Being sensible, it is of course very quiet; a problem not faced by the screaming, irrational part of me.
I don’t even know that I’m going to stop being depressed. I mean, yes, okay, I managed to do some of the things that your average human manages on a daily basis. But that’s hardly a shining indicator of a future – however short – without depression, is it?
That said, I do feel a bit more…normal. I mean, with regards to the things I listed above, I could – and should, if I wanted to be accurate – have included “had a little weep” in between each of them. It’s not like things are good.
But I’ve been sarcastic. I’ve been scathing and cynical. I’ve been ranting, a little, to a friend online. I feel a bit more like myself.
In different, but related, news, I continue to be completely and utterly exhausted. I napped, earlier, for about half an hour, and I when I woke up, naturally – I hadn’t set an alarm or anything – I felt like I’d been awake for about a week. I’m pretty woolly-headed, my vision keeps blurring, my legs feel weird and tingly, and I keep almost falling over because I seem to have forgotten what vertical is. This is of course a worry, but I genuinely don’t know what to do about it.
Oh, insomnia….
Posted by: Laura on: January 21, 2010
I didn’t really sleep last night. I spent most of the night panicking and wildly thinking about running away.
Now I am so tired. So very, very tired. I can’t really walk in a straight line, or keep my mind on any particular thoughts. Even just writing these few sentences, I have to keep going back and adding in words that I’ve missed out.
I suppose one positive is that I’m so tired I’m not really feeling anything. Everything is vague, blurred. I find that I’m a little reluctant to give that up. There’s a kind of relief in the smooth edges of everything, the way nothing really sticks. That’s a stupid reason to stay awake though. I’m sure it’s not good for me to use exhaustion as an emotional anaesthetic.
But even now, feeling like this…I lie down in my bed with the lights off, I close my eyes, and sleep still doesn’t happen.
I should sleep. But it’s only just gone midday. I worry that sleeping in the day will just make things worse, make me even less likely to sleep at night, mess up my body clock. I feel like I should just power through the day, then collapse tonight, and then everything will be fine. But I’ve tried it before. If I don’t sleep when I’m tired, I stop being tired. Even when I do sleep, it’s never for very long, and I find myself waking in the early hours and unable to get back to sleep, and everything’s still messed up.
Everything feels…dreamlike. I find myself wondering if I’m not already asleep. I have to concentrate, hard, to feel anything at all.
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