“Oh, angel lost, where do you go? In this cruel world, you feel so low.” AiMusic, “She Was an Angel “

I am not okay, and I have not been okay for a long time. As Alanis Morissette, a fellow HSP, sings in “Diagnosis “, I no longer give a damn about things that used to matter. I don’t give a damn about my life, and I’m beyond giving a damn about what anyone thinks of me. I will take packets of drugs. I will go to the park at 2am in winter and skinny dip in the lake. I will dance without needing alcohol to loosen me up. I will go into public in my PJs. I have found posts written in caps lock I made while having a rage episode on Facebook the other night. As someone commented on a Florence + The Machine music video, the only way to be at peace with death is to live your life without fear and make full use of it. Earn your eternal rest, because death halts for no one.

There are still some things I care about. I care about this planet. I care about keeping the mountains where I live leafy. My mum and I have been trying to fight a big, ugly, concrete medical centre which are bullying their way into the neighbourhood. They have bought a block of land just down the road. There was a big, lovely, native tree on the block which we’d pass whenever we walked down the road to the shops. It would provide shade for those waiting at the bus stop. They were meant to keep the tree, but this week they cut it down. It smashed the neighbour’s garage when it fell. When I saw that it was no longer there, I was overwhelmed with sadness and rage. I didn’t sleep all night. At 6am I drove to Woolworths and bought some chalk. I then chalked messages on the road and pavement outside the site: “CORRUPT”, “SHAME ON YOU COUNCIL”. When I got home I realised I’d written the message on the road the wrong way, so it would be upside down for the cars coming that way. This irked me even more and I couldn’t get to sleep. I sat up listening to angry songs. I then found the song “She Was an Angel”, which cut deep to how I really felt, and released some tears in me. 

My body is still fucked from my last overdose. It has been a month and I still have a tremor and chest pain. When I go to bed I try to find a position where my body doesn’t tremble. It jolts and shakes. When I wake up the next day it’s shaking, like gates of hell welcoming me back to this world. My sleep has been fucked for a very long time, and during that period between wakefulness and sleep I often feel like I’m dying. It feels like I’m dissolving, disappearing into a vacuum. Rather than being a peaceful end, it is terrifying.

I am far more suicidal than homicidal. I have all this angry energy which I turn in on myself. I am battling urges to get my weight down again, even though I know I am already skinny, and make another suicide attempt. Sometimes it feels like I’m under demonic influence. That is kind of how I felt that night I took all those drugs. I hardly recognise myself anymore. Someone I met in an autism group and I want to get a gun and shoot ourselves. We are looking for reprieve in people I never imagined myself having anything to do with. Over the road is a wood lopper. He brings home trees from work and chainsaws them at his place. His kids are equally as loud and obnoxious, often riding around the yard on motor bikes. My mum told me the man has a gun and has threatened the neighbours before. He also does drugs. The guy I met in the autism group calls him “Mr Guns and Drugs” and we want to ask him for some heroine. We don’t care if he shoots us; he’d be doing us a favour if he did.

As “velveteenpirate” writes in their zine, Beyond Amnesty, “You don’t need a gun to kill someone. You don’t need prison walls to make a prison”. Loneliness does just that. The health risks of loneliness are the same as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, and even greater than those associated with obesity and physical inactivity, research has found. At least I can be assured this will not be a long life. I realise more and more each day that I don’t really have friends. I have acquaintances. I am not close to anyone. I never hear from the woman I always considered my best friend anymore. She never asks me how I am. Meanwhile other people suffocate me. This week I had a lot of people pressuring me into contact. People often follow up their messages with question marks when they don’t hear back from me, even after a day. Anyone who knows me would know that I am an introvert and suffer chronic illness. My mood swings are violent. I can be texting someone and in a matter of minutes my mood can plummet so low that I want to kill myself and am bed ridden. My playlist swings from songs about suicide such as “forgive me” by lil happy lil sad, to “Dancing Crazy” by Miranda Cosgrove. There is no need to keep demanding a response from ANYONE, but especially a person with chronic illness. I explained to this person that when she followed up her message with a question mark when she didn’t hear back, I felt overwhelmed and pressured into responding, which I couldn’t as I am really unwell. I told her I got some sad news which has put me in a bad headspace and I’m still not right physically from the overdose. I often have people offloading on me too when I am not coping myself. I wish people would ask if I am in the headspace to listen before launching into their problems. Often, like the other night, I just don’t have the bandwidth to absorb it all. I am coming to the sad realisation that very few people actually care about me.

I am not coping. The only place I can hack is my bedroom or being in a park away from everyone. I tried to pick up a few tins of coconut cream from the local IGA today and even this was too much. I felt like I was going to collapse. On my way home I almost had a car accident. It was dark and wet and everyone was coming back from work. I was blinded by headlamps. I just wanted to get home, but missed the turn off which is not well lit. I turned too late, and was then stuck in the middle of the road. I tried to reverse and turn around and just about backed into the stream of traffic. Someone blasted their horn at me. A part of me wants to go back to hospital, but it’s hard finding a hospital that will let me sleep during the morning. I thought about rocking up at the emergency department today, but I know they will only give me a 48 hour admission at best with nurses who don’t give a shit. One of the nurses told me once that “everyone has problems” and she “has mortgages to pay”. Sometimes I hear car doors shutting outside and hope someone has come to rescue me, but there is no knock on the door.