I think a lot of people can relate to wanting to be someone else. If emotions were paint colours, what I’m feeling right now would be a mixture of red hot anger and cool blue sadness, making it purple. I guess you’d call this feeling jealousy. A therapist I saw ten years ago told me that there are no bad emotions and all emotions have a purpose. Jealousy shows us what it is we want. It is like the Mirror of Erised in Harry Potter, showing us “the most desperate desire of a person’s heart, a vision that has been known to drive men mad.”

As I wrote in previous posts, I am no longer able to stay in my friend’s beach house as her 18-year-old daughter and daughter’s boyfriend are living there now. I am jealous of her daughter and have developed a bit of an obsession with her, like the obsession Olivia Rodrigo sings about in “obsessed”. I found her on Facebook, though her profile is locked. I gawk at what I can see of her profile picture, even though it hurts me. It is of her and her boyfriend at the beach with their arms around each other. I also dreamt about her last night. I don’t know why I envy her. She hasn’t had an easy life either. My friend adopted her. She has similar mental health diagnoses as me. She was diagnosed with BPD as well, and would be shattered when my friend didn’t finish her texts to her with lots of loves, kisses and heart emojis. She tried working as a waitress but had a panic attack after dropping a plate, which was “the end of the world” to her as my friend put it. I played badminton with her and her anxiety was often so bad that she’d have to go home. I remember one time she arrived with her boyfriend and couldn’t play as she had heart palpitations. I envied her for having such a caring boyfriend who held her during those moments. I have always been alone in dealing with my mental health, and those few times someone did offer to be on the other end of the phone, a wall would come down where I was not able to get any feel-good emotions. I am lonely and fantasie about being held, but in reality I hate people touching me.

My friend’s daughter, like me, has tried many different psych medications. I watched her put on weight, which is a common side-effect of anti-psychotics, but she is still incredibly attractive. She has blonde hair and rosy pink cheeks and has a cute, high-pitched voice. She is impossible not to love. I would trade lives with her any day. While she’s had a rough start in life, she is incredibly fortunate to have been adopted into such a loving family who have even generously given her their beach house to live in. She now lives an idyllic lifestyle on an island by the beach. The beach is literally a minute’s walk down the road and you usually have it all to yourself. Her trauma has not prevented her from getting close to people, as it has prevented me. While I have also been diagnosed with BPD because of the way I’ve related to therapists, I believe Schizoid Personality Disorder is the more accurate diagnosis. I wrote a bit about Schizoid Personality Disorder in a post here. BPD and Schizoid Personality Disorder are a nasty combination. The BPD makes you long for intimate connections, but the Schizoid Personality Disorder prevents you from forming them. I am 31 and have never had a romantic relationship.

Now, my loneliness is actually the least of my problems. I would just be glad to feel comfortable in my own body. For years I have been tormented by a buzzing sensation on my head. It started when I was given the antidepressant Effexor. According to this article my mum sent me, buzzing sensations are often the result of chronic, long-term anxiety. However I believe it had something to do with that drug I was given. I find antidepressants actually increase the physical symptoms of anxiety in me, and, tragically, they don’t go away after I stop the drug. Lately I’ve been trying to numb the area with clove oil, and placing magnets and crystals on my head, but to no avail. I don’t want to talk about the buzzing sensation too much as I am trying to distract myself from it, but it is incredibly distressing. It has been stopping me from sleeping, and I started wondering if I had a microchip in me. I started looking up pet microchip scanners and thinking about getting an xray. At night I have been trying to deliberately invoke an out-of-body experience so I can get some relief.

Right now, I think I need to begin what will probably be a long journey towards healing my body and mind from chronic anxiety and overstimulation. I am trying to reduce my time on social media. It is a habit of mine to sit on the computer at night writing multiple crazy posts and emails, watching dramas, and listening to emotive music. It is not the best for my sleep. Yesterday I did all the right things: I went swimming, didn’t use the laptop all day or evening, took melatonin and drank lemon balm and chamomile tea, but I still struggled to sleep. In the end I took some diazepam as I feel like my brain has been turning to mush. Still, my sleep is not restful and it feels like my brain is in knots.

I am in such a vicious cycle. I sleep all day as I am depressed, but I am depressed because I sleep all day.

I’ve been looking at photos of when I was younger as I wanted to include them in a poetry book I’m making. I grieve the person I was before I developed these distressing nerve problems. I try to remind myself that there have been times when I’ve felt better even with this buzzing on my head. Maybe it is possible to live with the buzzing sensation.