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Update: depression, insomnia, fashion, gut issues, annoying neighbours, losing things, favourite person

“For I am finding out that love will kill and save me
Taking the dreams that made me up
And tearing them away
But the same love will take this heart that’s barely beating
And fill it with hope beyond the stars
Only love”

– Trading Yesterday, “The Beauty & The Tragedy” 

I struggle to remember the past few weeks, but I do know that I haven’t been sleeping and my stomach still won’t shut up. Sometimes it sounds like water gurgling down the bathtub drain, other times like a creaking door or like my stomach is full of frogs. Every little thing is agonising; just filling a glass of water feels like running a marathon. I’m angry all the time, I want to cry all the time yet all the tears are stuck inside, and I’m exhausted. Yet I do feel the sun peaking through the clouds a bit more. My mood is slightly better, I’m a bit more active, I’m playing badminton again, my physio is ridiculously nice and patient, my mum has been kindly making me meals that comply to my new diet, and I have been commissioned by my favourite vegetarian restaurant to take some photos of the place. The restaurant is run by a couple who are also neurodivergent. They really get me, and always seat me in the quietest spot away from everyone else. They gave me some times when the restaurant will be empty for me to take the photos, which is great as I get flustered around other people. Continue reading “Update: depression, insomnia, fashion, gut issues, annoying neighbours, losing things, favourite person” →

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The fight for wellness

I feel like I’m being beaten to the ground from all angles. My period adds to the assault, worsening my already terrible mental health and sleep, bringing severe pain and making me sick. There is an ugly physical driver to all my issues. Often I can literally feel all the chemicals/hormones running rampant in my body. Shortly after I got my period this week, there was a day when I was swamped with the worst feeling which I cannot even name or describe. There were so many things I wanted to do- write, sleep, go to the park, answer texts, see people, finish my shopping, open the parcels that have arrived and return the items that don’t fit, clean up my house, do a better job at looking after myself- but I couldn’t do anything, and I still struggle to. These days just getting up and filling a glass of water feels like running a marathon. Then knocking over a glass of water by my bad, which I had managed to fill, feels like the end of the world. When I got my period I had a total freak out when I heard my dad arrive home, terrified of him approaching me. I almost cancelled with my therapist, who I go for walks with. Thankfully he was running late as well, so I had a bit more time to finish the piece of writing I was determined to complete, get dressed and get myself together. I packed some diazepam in case I had a panic attack. When I saw him I think he could sense something was pretty off with me. I tied a top around my head to cover my acne, I had lost more weight, I was dressed up like a little girl in a pink Mary Blair pinup dress with a train printed on it, white lacy socks and tbars. We lay on the grass for a bit and I started to feel my whole demeanor turn into a little child. The park was strangely quiet.

“Can you leave me here?” I asked him.

He paused.

“I don’t feel comfortable,” he said. Continue reading “The fight for wellness” →

2

You are not too sensitive. This world is too brutal.

“What if I wanted to break?
Laugh it all off in your face
What would you do?
What if I fell to the floor?
Couldn’t do this anymore
What would you do?”

– NO NAME FACES, THE KILL

My ear pain since the otoscope has not improved at all over the past few weeks, which I believe is why my shopping addiction and other dysfunctional coping mechanisms have got so bad. I’ve been spiralling out of control. Last night I was panicking. I had a little voice in me saying “help me help me” as I impulsively threw away $500 and then tried to take back what I had just done, begging the seller on ebay to cancel my order and refund me. I was having trouble contacting them as I was not logged in when I made the purchase. I discovered a super cool Japanese clothing brand (help!) and was on some international version of ebay and made the purchase as a “guest”. Continue reading “You are not too sensitive. This world is too brutal.” →

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Update: ear sensitivity, moods, wild nights, psychosis, hormones, annoying neighbours, losing things, gay bands, alter egos

“Do you know how it feels to crave a body made of steel?” Lauren Aquilina, Irrelevant

It’s been over a week since I last posted. It has really just been the same shit, different week. I still have pain and discomfort in my ears from when the doctor examined them with his instrument. It has not improved at all, which is depressing. I worry I will take this to the grave with me. He gave me some ear drops which I found out contains antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory, cortisteroid drug. I haven’t tried it yet as I’m scared to put anything else in my ears after this experience, but I’m getting desperate. He said it didn’t look like an infection so I’m not sure why he’s given me ear drops containing antibiotics. I don’t want to take antibiotics for an infection I don’t even have. I will be seeing him again tomorrow and asking for some ear drops which only contain the cortisteroids. Cortisteroids is something my friend, who has a similar health condition, was suggesting too. Continue reading “Update: ear sensitivity, moods, wild nights, psychosis, hormones, annoying neighbours, losing things, gay bands, alter egos” →

2

Vent

My nervous system is on steroids. You don’t know how many times I have Googled that sentence. Not surprisingly, I got another highly sensitive person’s website. But still, I don’t think they quite know the extent of it. People say sensitivity is a wonderful trait, but not sensitivity to this extent. If I could make this go away I would. My nervous system detects threat in everything these days. I have been left with chronic pain radiating down to my fingers from a massage years ago. Recently I started hearing a noise which sounds a bit like an electrical hum or mosquito. I went to the doctor about it a week ago. I wish I didn’t. He poked his instrument in my ears to see if I had an ear infection and my ears have been hurting ever since. Everyone’s confused how such a benign procedure could cause lasting pain. But inserting anything into my body is a huge no I’m realising. My nervous system is totally fucked; it is like having a car alarm that goes off at the slightest touch and doesn’t stop. I have pain receptors everywhere it seems, I can’t sleep, I hear the world ten times louder than most people and am constantly in a fight, flight, freeze, flop, fawn state. My physiotherapist tells me to practice mindfulness but I think it’s a bit beyond that now. I hate being alive. I hate being in this body. I hate being in this world. I’m assaulted by noise even in my own home with dogs barking, neighbours waking me with their violently noisy electric leaf blower, hammering, and basketball game. Saturday night party heads. People are annoying as fuck. Feels like I live in a completely different world to everyone else. Today a friend from high school texted me. She told me her younger siblings have all had babies now. The last I remember of them were when they were school kids, my friend’s younger sister an obnoxious teenager who blasted Big Girls Don’t Cry by Fergie from their chunky desktop computer when I came over to visit them at their old house back in the early 2000s. People my age are starting careers, families and having babies, while I am 32 and have never had a relationship as I am always in survival mode around people and can’t let people get close to me. Feels like the world has moved on while I am stuck in this sickness amber. Trauma does emotionally freeze us at the ages it occurred. People are just wandering around with their heads in the clouds while a subset of the population suffer stuff most people couldn’t even fathom. I just want to go live on a deserted island, or even better another planet. But it’s not going to fix the pain and all the damage that’s already been done. I am depressed and distressed every day and can barely do anything. I suffer for a living. I wish I got paid to breathe. Life is like a turbulent plane ride. As I said in my last post, I have no quality of life and at this point life has become about surviving the days and trying to minimise my distress until I finally die. What is the point in living? I seem to exist just to suffer, and perhaps write a book about it, if I survive long enough for it to get published.

2

Losing things, OCD and more on dissociation

“Imagine living with a scream inside you.

And the scream is yours.

And no one else hears it.

That is grief.

Imagine living with a scream inside you—a scream that is yours alone.

It’s loud, it’s piercing, and it reverberates through every part of your being.

And yet, no one else hears it.

Grief can make the world feel so distant.

You might be in the middle of a conversation,

but your mind is elsewhere, caught in that scream.

What does a silent scream even sound like?

What would it sound like if someone else could hear it?

Perhaps it isn’t really a scream but a feeling

with sound, one so raw, so painful, so excruciating

that there are no words to describe it,

so it becomes a sound, a noise, a vibration

that rages through our entire body, screaming,

The scream of grief.”

– Author unknown

I spent most of my day in bed lethargic. The lethargy was actually a welcome relief from the restlessness and agitation that rips apart my insides every day and especially every night. I got a text from my dad thanking me for the various adventures we’ve been on together. It sounded like he was expecting one of us to die soon.

“Dear Zoe,” he wrote. “Thankyou for all the “adventures” you have taken me on ! Thanks for Philip Island, and taking you down there – to run away from the wretched police, and the stupid psychiatrist at Chandler House. Taping my torch on the back of my car, so you could follow in your car … Thanks too for taking me to see Margaret’s place, and her “church”. Thanks for checking out Bendigo, with me, and meeting Dr Julia Bourke… Thanks for “Wet & Wild” … rafting down the Yarra at Warburton. Thanks for inviting me to that place past Sale, where you stayed (with the woman who couldn’t stop talking), where I almost lost her dog, on one of my long walks. Yep, … we have been on some great adventures together ”

I didn’t know if the stress of seeing me suffer for so long, which has led me to isolate, no longer speak and lash out at him, was driving him to suicide. I didn’t know if he senses I am slipping away and may not make it through another year, or even to the end of this year. But tears welled in my eyes when I read that text. Continue reading “Losing things, OCD and more on dissociation” →

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Social anxiety, overwhelm, no escape

“Everything you say to me
(Takes me one step closer to the edge)
(And I’m about to break)
I need a little room to breathe
(‘Cause I’m one step closer to the edge)
(I’m about to break)”

– Linkin Park, “One Step Closer“

I don’t know if the world has got louder and more overbearing over the course of my life, or something has changed in me, making me less able to deal with it. I’m now in a constant state of overwhelm. At some point I developed hyperacusis, where a person hears the world ten times louder than most people. There is a great news report on it here. We do get to the point where we have to live our lives inside a padded room.

I tried to buy some dinner the other night as I am not able to cook anything myself. I had left my earmuffs at home, though, as I was flustered trying to get out the door before my dad came home. I attempted to go out in public without them, which was, as the hyperacusis news report described, a “landmine filled anxiety ridden trek”. I wrote the following text to my therapist:

“Fucking trains honking. Fucking cars everywhere that can beep at any moment. Fucking kids having a fucking birthday. Fucking balloons. Fucking metal wind charms attached to the fucking restaurant door which deafen you whenever it opens. Fucking dogs barking. Fucking staff calling out “no 83, no 83” while I have a break down in their fish and chip shop. Fucking people staring at me wondering what the fuck is wrong with me. I’ve fled back to my car. I think I’ll just starve.” Continue reading “Social anxiety, overwhelm, no escape” →

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Panic attack

Yesterday my anxiety escalated into a full blown panic attack. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this level of anxiety.

I was scared shitless. I was scared of just about everyone. I was scared of my dad coming home. I was scared of sleeping. It reminded me of the time I was put on a compulsory hospital order and had police hunting me.

I ended up taking off into the bush with what diazepam I had left and a tshirt and shorts to change into. I was wearing nothing but my dressing gown over my underwear. I’m lucky I didn’t have an accident on the way there. I was dissociating, weak and barely able to feel the car pedals. I felt trapped, suffocated and furious when the traffic banked up at one point. Continue reading “Panic attack” →

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Descent into madness: The Matrix come to life

“How could Maroondah discharge me like this?” I wrote to my therapist at 5:11AM on Sunday. “I was so depressed I couldn’t even shower or get changed. I wore the same clothes the entire 6 days I was there. I tried to kill myself multiple times on the ward. I was suicidal the day they discharged me. I’ve been mute for a month. Now I’m home I’m trying to medicate the lows with ADD stimulants and now my brain is melting out of my fucking ears. I can’t sleep, I can’t look after myself, I sit on the laptop for 15+ hours straight, day and night and I get headaches all the time. I don’t know what the fuck this is but it’s not just a fucked up personality. But that’s all they see, an annoying bpd bitch who shouldn’t be kept in hospital or else she’ll become dependent. No other patient is treated this way. I feel like maybe there’s something really wrong with me medically. Like my nails break all the time now and I get bruises all over my legs and I have no idea what from. I probably have scarring all over my brain from a lifetime of trauma. They should have organised an MRI for me in the hospital, and they should have made sure I got a quiet room rather than leave me behind a pathetic blue curtain where I was going mental having to listen to everyone else’s conversations. I didn’t get much sleep there either as they were waking me up at 8am every morning to offer me a tablet of olanzapine full of shit like talc and does fuck all for me anyway so I refused it every time and asked them to stop waking me but they kept doing it. So I was kinda glad to go, but I’m not ok.” Continue reading “Descent into madness: The Matrix come to life” →

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