Once again,
Posted by: Laura on: October 23, 2009
despite sleeping pills, I have been awake for most of the night. Even when I’ve been lying still with my eyes closed for hours I’ve been aware of every single sound, everything.
I feel completely, utterly unrested.
Do you think if I went to the doctor about not sleeping, they’d insist on talking about my mood? God, they probably would, wouldn’t they? So I can’t get help. And over the counter sleeping pills don’t work anymore, even when I take way too many of them.
I just need some fucking sleep. I can’t think properly.
Shit. I just burst into tears. No real reason whatsoever. I’m just a real fucking mess. I just need to sleep.
I’m missing my seminar. I can’t think. I know it’s the same one as I missed last week but I feel like if I go I’ll just start crying in the middle of it, begging people to stop asking me questions and instead concentrate their efforts into hitting me on the head until they knock me out.
I’m going to spend the weekend catching up. Then next week I’ll be prepared for everything. At least then I’ll be able to roll out of bed and into my lectures etc and be able to understand what’s going on. I have to catch up. I have to fucking do this.
I’ve filled in the online absence form. Told some not-entirely-lies about being ill. Just tried to make it sound like I’m briefly, physically ill. Because fucking insomnia doesn’t feel like a fucking reason.
Edit: I got an email. Subject to references, I’ve been offered the job from yesterday’s interview. How bizarre.
Excuses, excuses.
Posted by: Laura on: October 21, 2009
So, I got up, today. I’d only had about three hours’ sleep, and much of the morning was spent in a bit of a daze, but nonetheless, let it be noted that I did in fact get up.
I even managed a quick trip to town, although I felt very awkward surrounded by so many people, and kept feeling like I was going to throw up, especially on the bus.
But yes. Focus on the positives. Got out of bed. Went to town. Even did a little bit of work for my lecture tomorrow afternoon. And I went to a talk for the volunteering unit, and I want to sign up, make a better go of it than I did last year, but I can’t help but feel like the same thing will happen again – it will fall by the wayside as I try to keep my life on track.
I also got an email from my department, asking about the things I missed last Friday. They want me to fill in the online form to explain my absence. It’s mostly just ticking boxes, but if you tick ‘Illness’ then you have to explain, and I don’t know how. I don’t know how to explain the damage a night without sleep can do, when you’ve spent three years not getting much sleep and, more specifically, the past couple of weeks getting hardly any at all. I don’t know how to explain the feeling of being so depressed you can’t move, of being so sure you’re going to die that nothing matters, that you might as well miss everything, because you won’t have a future to face it. I don’t know how to explain it in a way that doesn’t sound ridiculous, anyway. Especially not in 255 characters.
So I’ll probably just put the wonderfully vague ‘Personal Problems’ – which doesn’t ask for an explanation – and hope they don’t ask questions. It’s not really a lie, I suppose. In many ways it feels like less of a lie than ‘Illness’ does.
I hate the feeling of constantly having to justify myself, to explain to people that I’m not a stupid, lazy idiot, when most of the time I feel like I am a stupid, lazy idiot anyway.
I’ve got that job interview tomorrow. Then a lecture. Then another volunteering talk.
I just want to curl up and hide away.
Edit: Slept for, I think, two and a half hours in the early hours of this morning. Got up, dressed, went to interview. Managed, I think, to do a passable imitation of myself. Whether that’s good enough, I don’t know, but I doubt it. Tried, anyway, which is something, at least (when the alarm went off I spent about 10 minutes arguing with myself in my head about whether or not I should even bother going). I was going to do the writing task for the other job I’ve applied for now, but I’m just so exhausted, and I don’t think I’m really at my best for it. So I’m going to have a lie down for an hour or so – I know I shouldn’t, and it probably fucks up my sleep even more, but when I’ve reached the point where the world is fuzzy and every time I speak to someone they look at me like what I’ve just said is the least appropriate thing ever (so no, perhaps the interview didn’t go brilliantly), I really do just need to have a bit of a lie-down. Then I’ll get up and do some preparation for my lecture, then I’ll go to my lecture. Then I’ll have two hours – I’ll do the writing task then if I feel more human, or perhaps later this evening. It has to be done by tomorrow. Anyway, at 6 I have another volunteering talk. And some time today I could really do with doing some preparation for my seminar tomorrow.
I am sorry, I am rambling. That’s my update, anyway. My mood has, perhaps, lifted a little, but I’m so incredibly tired that I’m feeling more spaced out than anything (closely followed by the vague frustration of how I can get tireder and tireder and still not be able to sleep).
I’m trying to get through today. Sooner or later I have to start thinking about tomorrows, but I’m trying to get the hang of todays first.
EditEdit: Argh. Actually slept for a little while, missed the beginning of my lecture. As, I suppose, any idiot who was running on more sleep than only that which is strictly necessary to remain alive would know. Good things: did writing task, went to talk. Now I’m going to have food, curl up with a book for the evening, take some sleeping pills, hope they work, and get up in the morning for all the things I have to do tomorrow. Argh.
Crumbling
Posted by: Laura on: October 20, 2009
Quietly, invisibly, I fall apart.
It is always night-time, but I hardly sleep. The darkness holds no relief. Not that it matters; all relief is transient. It always goes away.
Eating and drinking occur occasionally, when I can raise the energy.
I don’t remember when I last spoke.
I do nothing. I sit in darkness, blank, staring at nothing as hours pour away. The blankness only gives way to bouts of despair, of crying and fear - or, occasionally, short bursts of restlessness, of irritation. But mostly I am wrapped in this blanket of nothingness, this feeling of not-feeling.
All the hopes I had of working hard, of succeeding, have melted away.
Determination was never going to be enough, and I’m not sure I even have that anymore.
Time moves too quickly. It’s slipping through my fingertips. The longer I am still, the harder it is to get moving again. The more time passes, the harder it will be to catch up.
I have walked, deliberately, into a dead end. Even if I had the strength to carry on, there would be nowhere to go.
I regret it all. Every single moment. I wish I could undo it all. Nothing good has come of it.
There is no longer any yearning after something better, something more. When I have the presence of mind to yearn at all, it is for total nothingness. It is to be gone, to be dead.
I am trapped. There is no hope of ever escaping this.
It is too late. I am broken, and unfixable.
I need to find a permanent way out.
Thanks a fucking bunch, past self.
Posted by: Laura on: October 19, 2009
Just over a week ago, back when things were good, I had a brief phase of rather compulsively applying for jobs. Because, y’know, it’d be fun, and it’d be something to do.
Only, of course, as it always does, my past enthusiasm and motivation have come back to bite me on the arse. Because now (and if you’ve read any of the self-indulgent twaddle I’ve been writing here for the past few days, you’ll know what kind of a state I’m in now), I’ve been getting emails from the people responsible for the jobs I’ve applied for. And it turns out that, in my ridiculous frenzy of last week, my applications, covering letters, etc. weren’t perhaps as garbled as I’ve been imagining in the time since my mood turned for the worse. Because I’ve been getting emails. About being on shortlists (shudder). And (really massive shudder), they want me to do things, to prove I’m the best person for the job.
So, on Wednesday, I’ve got an as-yet-unspecified writing task to do, in order to progress to an interview. Which isn’t so bad, I suppose – unless they ask me to write about my thoughts or feelings, because I think you know what kind of drivel that brings out in me. And on Thursday, I’m taking a short (pfft! Two and a half hours!) trip into one of the more menacing circles of hell. A trip involving the triple horror of “a group exercise, written questions and a short individual interview”. A trip for which I am asked to dress “smart/casual”, which I can only presume means something other than the pyjamas and increasingly-lank hair of the past few days.
And I’m more than a little tempted to send them brief but polite emails saying that I’ve changed my mind and don’t want to be considered for the jobs anymore. But I’m more than a little terrified that they might ask for reasons. And also, perhaps if I do it but get turned down, then any future self will be a little bit more reluctant to go around throwing me into shitty situations. And there is the fact that, should the currently-seemingly unlikely happen, and I decide to actually stay alive, then I probably do need to actually try to have some form of employment, because I could really use the money (I get so frightened and ashamed of asking for my parents’ help), and should I actually become a completely different person and decide to stay alive for any meaningful amount of time, then it’d be useful to have some sort of evidence that I am capable of holding down any sort of employment.
Only, I’m not, am I? And my chances of getting a job when I’m half-convinced I’ve forgotten how to speak, when I can hardly raise the energy to get out of bed, and when I can think of few more frightening things than interacting with strangers, are slim.
Gaaaah. Nightmare.
It continues…
Posted by: Laura on: October 19, 2009
I’m so tempted to pack up my belongings, throw away my textbooks and call up my parents and ask them to take me home. Then spend the next few weeks, months, years – however long it takes – curled up in my bed and just forgetting. Read the rest of this entry »
Arrrgh.
Posted by: Laura on: October 17, 2009
Bad, bad day.
Finally got to sleep at 8am. Woke up at 10:30am, having missed seminar, where I was supposed to do a presentation. Had a bit of a panic, followed by a bit of a cry, followed by quite a lot of lying very still and not thinking much at all.
And that’s it. I spent all day in my room. I didn’t get dressed and I didn’t do anything and all I’ve been is spaced out or crying my eyes out or feeling like my heart’s about to burst out.
Now it’s nearly 1 in the morning and I still can’t sleep. I’ve tried reading but the words don’t seem to make any sense. I try listening to music but I don’t even have the vague concentration required for that, it just becomes background noise. I can’t concentrate on anything, so nothing really reaches me.
The list of things I have to do grows. The longer I avoid it, the bigger deal it is. But I can’t shake the lethargy or the feeling that none of it matters anyway.
I can’t imagine being alive much longer. It hurts, so badly, the thought of hurting other people. But I’m falling apart. I don’t have the strength, anymore. There’s not enough of me left to crawl back to something resembling normality.
It feels like suffocation.
I can’t do this.
Thoughts
Posted by: Laura on: October 16, 2009
I think, I feel like I am drowning, but that’s not quite right. If I was drowning then it would end. Nobody takes three years to drown.
And I think, I should be able to cope, and I think, this is weakness, all weakness.
And I think, every minute that passes and I am still alive is another failure, and the minutes pile up, more tally marks on the side of failure, and all there is on the side of success is got out of bed.
And I don’t recognise myself when I look in the mirror, I can’t connect the person I see there with the person I remember being. And I can’t connect the person I see there with any kind of future.
And I think, grow up, learn to deal with it, stop being so weak. God knows I’ve tried, but I can’t do it, and every moment of pretense is exhausting.
And I think, I wish I was dead, and I think, so does everyone else, probably.
And I want so badly to feel like a real person, to be happy sometimes, to be able to plan for the future – to be sure that I have a future, and to know that I’ll be able to cope with what I plan.
And I think, I am locked inside myself, and every time I’m with people I act as normally as I can and nobody questions it. And I think, maybe if I could be a bit more open, I wouldn’t be so lonely. Maybe someone would understand. But the locks and bolts and bars within me are a part of who I am, they are a natural thing that I can’t overcome.
And I think, I don’t want to hurt anybody, and I think, but if nobody knows me then they can’t be hurt by losing me, can they? And I think, whoever it is they would or wouldn’t miss if I died isn’t me, it’s just whatever imaginary person they’ve stuck on to me for their own reasons. And these feelings are a high price to pay for a lifetime as a mannequin. And I think, if anybody really knew me, they’d be looking forward to my death.
And I think, maybe if I was a better person, I’d feel better. And I think, maybe if I was a braver person, I’d be dead already. And I think, maybe if I was a stronger person, I’d be able to cope with living.
And every thought comes back to this: I cannot live.
I am not a good, strong, brave enough person to live. I do not have the energy or the motivation. I do not have a future to aim for.
And I sit in the dark and cry because I shouldn’t have been born. The longer I live, the more I disappoint. The longer I live, the more I fall apart. The longer I live, the harder it gets to keep doing so.
And I wish I was someone else. I wish I could experience the world as someone else. Someone happy, and calm, and constant. Someone with the strength and energy to make the most of their life.
And I wish I remembered how it felt to just be okay.
And I wish I understood why I feel this way. I wish there was a simple explanation. Well, a complicated explanation would do. As long as I could say, “this is why I feel like this, so in order to feel different, I need to change this“, and I wish that this was something changeable.
And I’ve given up the hope of success or happiness, and all I really hope for anymore is an early death.
Because somehow, for all my vague wishes, I can no longer separate the thought of life and the thought of the knot in my stomach and the hand clenched around my heart and the emptiness of my slow, useless brain.
This is what living is. And I cannot do it. I do not want to do it. And I wish so hard that I had never had to do it, and I wish so hard that soon it will end.
Blank
Posted by: Laura on: October 13, 2009
I don’t understand what’s going on.
I was happy. Elated, even. Then I was irritable. Then I was angry, pissed off. Now I am blank.
Good day
Posted by: Laura on: October 12, 2009
A conversation in the kitchen. All of my parts are spoken really quite quickly.
Me: (rambling on about something or other)…I like friendliness!
Flatmate: Yeah, I’d noticed…you’re very bubbly.
Me: What, in a bad way?
Flatmate: What? No -
Me: Because someone can be bubbly like…nanananana (doing a little dance), but bubbly can also be like…NANANANANANA (doing a more aggressive dance), you know?
Flatmate: Yeah…erm, no. You’re not overpowering.
Me: So I’m like Dove?
Flatmate: What?
Me: Well, some smells can be nice, but then there’s too much of them and they’re not nice anymore. But with the smell of Dove, you can never have too much, it never gets overpowering, no matter how much there is, it still smells nice, don’t you think?
Flatmate: Erm. Yeah. See you later.
I really quite a lot wish I had more people to talk to/at.
Also, today I applied for three jobs.
What people think.