It was midnight and I danced and twirled around the living room to “Song Of Your Heart” by Peter Kater and Snatam Kaur.
“Feel the earth in your toes. O my child, you’ll never know what tomorrow brings. So, sing, sing sing”
No, I certainly did not know what tomorrow would bring, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it would not be good. Mood swings like these are never a good sign for me. But I savour the highs while they last. Continue reading “Autistic meltdown”
Sometimes, when you have experienced so much sadness and loss in your life, you become sensitised to loss. Even things like emptying the bath tub and throwing things away hurt. Maybe it is a highly sensitive person thing (I heard of a case where a highly sensitive child was worried about hurting the water by draining it from the bath tub). Continue reading “Separation”
Healing is not linear, I am learning. Sometimes it feels like you’re making your way up the snakes and ladders board and then you land on a massive snake which takes you all the way to the bottom again. Continue reading “Healing is not linear”
“No intervention that takes power away from the survivor can possibly foster her recovery, no matter how much it appears to be in her own best interest.” Judith Herman
The quote above is from Judith’s book “Trauma and Recovery~ The Aftermath Of Violence”. I certainly feel like I’m in the aftermath of violence. It was violent what my case management service did to me: first telling me they’re going to discharge me soon and then ripping away my mental health worker who I’ve been working with for years and trust. It was a different kind of violence. Not a physical kind of violence, but violence nonetheless. My psychotherapist tells me there’s many different kinds of violence, not just physical. There’s verbal, psychological e.g. defamation, financial, sexual, cultural, spiritual, and structural or institutional violence. Neglect is also considered a form of violence. Another type of violence I would add is sensory violence, such as motor bikes. Continue reading “Violence and its legacy”
I want to meet new people but I don’t. I look for people on dating sites, but sadness and emptiness creeps in like the cool autumn nights. I’m not over Jordan, and I don’t know if I even want to get over him. Someone wrote on Facebook once that when you start to move on with your life, it means that you have accepted what has happened and the memories start to fade slightly. I can’t accept what has happened. No one will ever replace him. No one will know me like he did. I miss the way he spoke to me. I miss the way he held me without touching me. I miss his mannerisms, and I even miss our differences. He’s the last person I’d expect to see at an ecstatic dance party, but I liked that about him. I miss him badgering me to take my meds, which I am now coming off of in spite. He was my best friend. I have never felt so cared for and safe as when I was with Jordan. He was, quite possibly, the love of my life, and I don’t know how that can even be when I am gay. “You’re in love with a fantasy”, a little voice says back. “He was your mental health worker… of course he presented the best version of himself to you”. And that was what drove the nail in the coffin. I fell in love with my mental health worker.
Everything seems fine on the surface. I’ve been going out more, I’ve returned to badminton, I post selfies to Facebook, my weight is not too low, and I haven’t bounced back into hospital. Everyone would say I’m better. But the forest is a different place at night. Behind closed doors I still cry for Jordan. And even worse, I get trapped in the most awful dreams and cannot wake up. I try screaming, I try running, but I just return to the same place and the same monsters, just like El in Stranger Things 4 (Chapter 5: The Nina Project). The man in my dream wanted to rape me. These people, whoever they were, took delight in the fact that I couldn’t get away. I have never experienced anything so sadistic in my life. It is torture. These “dreams” where I cannot wake up have been happening for about a year now. The first time I remember experiencing them was when I took too much marijuana oil, became psychotic and thought the people I were staying with were raping me. I kept screaming trying to “wake up” and I tried to run away from them but I couldn’t get away. The dreams happen seemingly out of no where. So I don’t really know how I am right now.
It is a fight, like being hit by wave after wave, barely able to catch a breath before I am knocked under again. I had perhaps two better days this week, but my depression is not done with me. I feel it tugging at my legs again. Yesterday I told my therapist that I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff. I am doing a little better, but I am cm’s away from falling once again. I feel a strange sense of fear when things are better because it makes me realise just how bad things were, and I’m scared of being back there again. Unfortunately things tend to turn again within a few days, not even that. Continue reading “Depression, Autumn, separation and connection”
Over the weekend my OCD was bad. I was upset that I couldn’t find some items of clothing, some of which had sentimental value to me. I couldn’t let it go. I paced around the house until I was delirious. My dad and I talk about there being a “black hole” in the house. Things just disappear. But my weekend was still a bit better than I was expecting. I discovered a term for the “attacks” I’ve been getting (such as the one I wrote about here): dissociative seizures. On Sunday I took some dexamphetamine, which gave me a little high and a push to go out. The drug wears off quickly, but still I will take any break in the clouds there is. Over the weekend my suicidal urges settled down a bit too. But they came back in full force last night. I woke up in the night after having a dream about my old case worker. I was so sad that I wanted to kill myself. This is what I feared most when I was discharged from hospital…. the dreams, the reminders, the waves of grief/trauma that keep on crashing over me at all hours and not having the support of the hospital. In the end I got back to sleep but had to get up this morning to see my new case worker. I don’t know why I agreed to see her in the morning. I was drunk when I agreed to this! At least she was willing to see me in a café as I cannot step foot in the clinic without being triggered now. My dad kind of hijacked the meeting and went on about how they should change my diagnosis from BPD to Complex PTSD. I’m just so over it all. I felt absolutely dreadful this morning and just wanted to cry. I went back to bed the minute I got home. I was going to see a friend today. It’s her last day farm-sitting and she invited me to see the animals. Unfortunately I missed out. Continue reading “Update: the weekend, badminton and suicidal ideation”
I do not deal well with change, whether that’s a change in therapist, a computer update which changes the layout, or a change in location. I am like a plane where the taking off and landing are both tricky. I knew leaving hospital was going to be hard, but no one expected it to be this distressing. Continue reading “Discharge day”
I have been with my case worker for three years. He is like a best friend to me, even though I know he can’t be. When I saw him last he told me to call him if I got manic or psychotic again. He really seemed to care about me. He gave me an appointment card for our next appointment, as usual. I called him before our next appointment as I wasn’t feeling good. At the end of the phone call he told me he’d speak to me soon. A few days later the manager and psychiatrist told me they were changing my case worker. That was the day the floor beneath my feet, which was only just starting to mend after a series of losses and longstanding mental health issues, caved in. Something broke that day…. Something within me, and almost something outside of me too as I very nearly smashed the clinic’s window. Continue reading “Suicide is not irrational”
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