Battle

I’m battling with my own thoughts today.

The past few days have been bad. I have some pretty serious new injuries to add to my collection. I’m barely functioning. I slept for 15 hours last night, medicating myself into oblivion at 4.30pm, and I’m still so very tired. I feel intensely alone, desperate for support but unable to reach out.

In a nutshell, I don’t feel safe.

The battle is with my own mind. Because I want to tell someone that I don’t feel safe, but I don’t want the consequences of it. I don’t want to be admitted again, especially not this close to Christmas. I don’t want Ian to feel he has to take time off work to babysit me.

But equally, I don’t know if I can resist the negative thoughts on my own. I don’t know if sheer willpower is enough to get me through it. Based on past experience, it probably isn’t.

I think I know what I have to do. I think I have to admit the truth of how I’m feeling to Ian, even knowing that it’s going to trigger a process I don’t want to be a part of.

I don’t want to do this to my family, my friends. I’ve put them all through way too much stress, upset and uncertainty. And I don’t want to do it to myself, either.

But if it’s a choice between confessing I’m not safe or crossing my fingers and hoping I’m strong enough to fight through this, I guess I know which option is the right one.

 

When it’s all too much

It’s been long enough that I can’t use ‘just got out of hospital’ as an excuse for being hopeless, but everything is just too much right now.

Work. The situation at church. The constant appointments that I’m not allowed to miss: four next week. Christmas. Visitors. Everything.

I know I haven’t felt significantly better since being discharged from hospital, but this week it feels like I’m slipping further.

I’ve got cuts that probably should have been stitched. I’m sleeping in the day. I’m lying in bed at night mentally planning how I can make all this stop.

The next few weeks are full of things that I want to be able to do with the kids, starting with the school fete today. And I just feel overwhelmed with dread about even leaving the house.

I’m trying to keep safe – not drinking, taking PRN meds, etc – but I don’t feel it.

And I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone about it. When I do, I just get told, ‘You can do it,’ but what if I can’t?

The truth is I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want or need, other than for this all to end.

I’m pinning my last hopes on my psych appointment on Wednesday and praying that she’ll have some suggestions about what can be done with my meds, because I’m taking a whole cocktail of them and not feeling any better.

It feels like the last chance.

Losing the fight

Everyone tells me this illness is something I have to keep fighting, but what if I just haven’t got any fight left?

I didn’t go to my care co-ordinator appointment today.

There’s nothing to say to her, so what’s the point?

What’s the point in going along and saying the same things she’s heard a hundred times before?

No, I don’t feel better. Yes, I am still having suicidal thoughts.

Tomorrow I have psychology. I don’t want to go to that, either.

I don’t want to go to Hotshots on Friday. I don’t want to go to the school fete on Saturday, or church on Sunday.

I don’t want to get up in the morning and do the school run.

I don’t want to get up in the morning, full stop.

I’m managing to fake ‘coping’ on a daily basis. I’m managing to do my work and answer my emails and chat in the park after school, but no one sees the sheer effort that goes into these things.

No one sees the struggle it is to get up in the morning. The meds I’m having to take to get me through the day, and then to get to sleep at night. The fact that I can’t even make it until pick-up without going to bed in the middle of the day.

I just want to hide, hibernate, not ‘be’ any more.

I know the trouble I will be in if I disengage with MH services at this stage, but what’s the point? Really, what’s the point when nothing seems to change the fact that I’m hanging by my fingertips?

I hate living like this. I hate myself for being like this. And I’ve had enough of fighting.

 

 

 

Waiting for a rescue

That’s how it feels at the moment: as if I’m waiting, waiting, waiting for a rescue.

It’s so unspeakably hard fighting through each day when I just don’t have the strength or energy, mental or physical, to do it.

The worst is feeling like there’s nothing to look forward to – not Christmas, not holidays, not one thing – because this hateful illness sucks the joy out of absolutely everything.

Even when I’m doing something that should be enjoyable, I’m hurting so much and inwardly crying, ‘take me, just please, please, take me.’

I need someone to rescue me.

I don’t know who. Ian, friends, family, the psychologist, a doctor with a magic pill: I just don’t know.

But I need someone.

Because I’m seriously feeling like I can’t do this any more.

And I definitely can’t do it on my own.

 

11 things I wish people knew about my depression

1. I’m trying

It may not look like it; in fact, it may well look to you as if I’m not really achieving very much at all. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that; it feels that way to me, too.

But I really AM trying. I wish I could communicate just how much trying goes into getting out of bed in the morning, having a shower, making packed lunches, walking the kids to school…

These are all things that should be easy, but for me, right now, they’re not. But I’m trying.

2. Depression is unpredictable

This is a really hard part of the illness for me: I hate being unreliable, but depression has made me that way.

It’s so hard to predict how I’m going to feel from one day to the next. And I feel awful about myself when I commit to doing something next weekend and then I just feel too unwell to do it. I don’t want to let anyone down.

3. I’m not using it as an excuse

It might look as if I am; why else would I be fine with the idea of going for dinner at a friend’s house, but not with the in-laws coming over for a casual bread-and-soup lunch?

But I’m not using depression as a get-out clause for things that I just don’t fancy doing. Some things feel achievable, and some things push me to the brink. Often for no real reason. I wish you could accept that I’m not milking my illness to suit myself.

4. I’m terrified of not being good enough

I’m a bad mother, a bad wife, a bad friend, a bad Christian, a bad daughter, a bad daughter-in-law. I can never be good enough. I can never be ‘enough,’ full stop. My confidence and self-esteem are at rock bottom.

5. I hate being a burden

I wish I could take back all the needy text messages I’ve sent, all the requests for help, all the hours I’ve spent sitting on people’s sofas in tears or in silence.

When your phone buzzes and you see my name on the screen, I’m sure you must sigh inwardly. I hate that you think that about me, but I understand why. I am a burden, a problem. I know you wish I’d never become a part of your life.

6. I’m not a risk

Not to anyone but myself, anyway. I know that the stigma of having been on a psych ward and investigated by social services suggests otherwise, but I have never considered myself a risk to my own children or anyone else’s. It hurts so much that that’s how people now see me, and it’s something that can never be erased.

7. I want to be trusted

This links to the previous point. I want you to trust me. I know it’s not easy for you. But please trust me if I say that I’m well enough to help with Sunday school/babysit your kids/bake a cake for the school fete.

I feel better about myself when I’m able to help other people. And at the moment, no one will let me help because no one trusts me. That’s hard to bear. Really hard.

8. I can make my own decisions

Not always, admittedly. Sometimes I need your input. Sometimes I need you to come with me to a psych appointment and make sure I’m heard. But although I’m mentally ill, I still have my own opinions. I’m finding it very difficult for you to make decisions about what I am and am not able to do, especially if they’re not decisions I would make myself.

9. It’s not just mental

It’s physical. Intensely physical. I have never known tiredness like it. Not even in the early stages of pregnancy. I can take double doses of sleeping tablets and sleep for 13 hours and still wake up feeling as if I’m in a fog.

When I drop out of choir because I’m too tired for the evening rehearsals, it’s not the sort of tired a cup of tea and a good sing can fix. My mind is tired, my bones are tired, every single bit of me is tired.

10. I still trust in God

I know suicide is a sin, but when I was swallowing those tablets, I can assure 100 per cent that I was not saying, ‘screw you, God; I’m not trusting in your plans any more. I’m doing this my own way.’

I was saying, ‘please, please, please just take me.’

Would I have ended up in Heaven if I hadn’t been caught in time? I have no way of knowing. But that was what I wanted. Still is.

11. I love you

I love all of you. Children, husband, friends, family: I love you. When the suicidal feelings threaten to overwhelm me, I know it must seem as if I’m saying the love of everyone in my life, and my love for all of you, isn’t enough to keep me here.

What I’m actually saying is that I love you all so very much that I want to set you free from the burden of loving me. I am a problem in your lives, and only I can solve it.

Not doing well

People keep telling me I’m doing well.

It might look it from the outside, although I dispute that, too.

But it certainly doesn’t feel like it.

I don’t think it counts as ‘doing well’ when:

I’m going days at a time without eating.

I can’t sleep unless I’m drugged up with benzos.

I try to convince church that I’m well enough to have my old duties back, but instead sit there with tears running down my face for an entire hour.

I can’t last the whole length of a Bible study session.

I’m on the verge of quitting my job because I just can’t cope and I’ve had so many chances.

I haven’t listened to Katie read, or supervised Tom’s homework, for weeks.

I can’t sing in the choir because I’m just too exhausted, physically and mentally.

I can’t cope with social arrangements even with the people I’m closest to.

I’m terrified of seeing my parents or Ian’s.

I can’t find the joy in anything, anything at all.

I still wish so very much that that day by the river had had a different outcome.

 

‘It will get better’

It’s something people keep telling me.

‘It won’t always be like this.’

‘You will get better.’

I know it’s intended as motivation, to encourage me to carry on rather than listening to all the voices that tell me to give up.

But the problem is, I don’t believe it.

‘Keep going to the therapy sessions.’

‘You need to get your meds looked at.’

‘You haven’t found the right help yet.’

All well and good, but what if none of those things change anything?

I might be mad, but I’m not stupid.

I know that depression can be a lifelong illness. A fatal illness. If it weren’t, no one would die by suicide. God knows I’ve come close enough to that point, and I still feel absolutely certain that, even if I overcome this episode, depression will take my life at some point.

I have no vision of myself growing old, retiring. I’m just sure that at some stage, now or in the future, I will lose my life to this illness.

That’s not pessimism or negative thinking about my condition. It’s simply something I know.

That’s why I can’t believe it when I’m told, ‘You will get through this. You will get better.’

Many people don’t. And I think I’m one of them.

 

Strength or defeat?

People are often saying to me, ‘No one would expect you to do XYZ with a broken leg, would they? And this is no different.’

But what most people don’t realise is that *I* would expect myself to do XYZ with a broken leg – and this is no different.

I’ve always been terrified of letting people down, not being good enough.

I’m really feeling that at the moment.

This week’s work has me overwhelmed with anxiety to the point that I’m just not coping.

The main issue being three interview-based features, when I’m seriously struggling with any social contact at the moment – even speaking to case studies on the phone.

I’m sitting here tonight, on my own with Ian out at the football, getting myself more and more worked up about it.

What if I can’t find the case studies?

What if I find them, and then I just feel too ill, too awful in general, to speak to them?

It’s a very real possibility.

And it’s making me consider doing something that I *never* do: admitting that I just can’t do it.

I’m not well enough, not strong enough.

Not good enough.

I know that from a mental health perspective, the only sensible thing is to email the editor right now and lay my cards on the table.

But from a work perspective, how many more chances will they give me?

Surely, from their point of view, my ‘depression’ is starting to look a lot like an excuse for not doing anything I don’t fancy doing.

The thing is, I genuinely don’t think I can do it just now.

I’m barely keeping my head above the water.

I almost think I’m prepared to lose this particular gig altogether if need be, if I tell them I’m not up to it this week and they decide I’ve had too many last chances.

And that is stupid. This is my best-paid job, my most prestigious, and – when interviews aren’t involved – the most enjoyable.

Am I really prepared to blow it just because I can’t get my head around this week’s articles?

Is that strength, or is that defeat?

I just don’t know – and without Ian here to talk it over with, I’m going round and round in circles in my head.

I have the same issue with Hotshots.

I felt so awkward and out of place there last week, and it had such a huge impact on my mood, that I’m inclined just not to go any more.

Strength or defeat?

I know the ‘broken leg brigade’ would say that I need to put my health first, but it’s so hard to know how much to push myself.

It would be all too easy to give up on everything right now, and yet I know I’m not in a place to make big decisions.

Oh, I don’t know. Where is that pause button when you need it?

It’s just too much.

I just don’t know what to do

I feel so lost, so lonely.

I nearly called Ian home from work earlier, but I didn’t: I’ve made it through the day, hooray.

It’s a hollow victory, though.

Because I don’t want to be here any more.

This hateful, hateful illness has overwhelmed everything I am, everything I do, everything that matters to me.

I’ve lost all hope of ever getting well. And I can’t live like this, can’t make the people around me live like this.

I’m getting through the day purely on the knowledge that as night falls, I can take tablets that send me into oblivion, where I don’t have to think or feel or hurt, and where I’m not causing anyone else problems, either.

I’m broken and I don’t think I can be mended.

I can’t do this any more.

Trying: hard

I’m trying hard.

And trying is hard.

Today has been a really low day.

I feel bruised and very, very hurt after pushing myself through a day of church activities yesterday while knowing that I’m not welcome or wanted or acceptable.

I thought confronting the issue would make it easier but it’s made it feel a hundred times worse.

After a morning on my own with Katie where I lay on my bed and cried while she pottered, oblivious, in her bedroom, I knew I needed someone with me to stay safe and keep functioning.

I’m very thankful that, after sending a lot of texts, someone was able to do that.

And when Ian came home, I spent an hour talking and sobbing at him.

He hates that he can’t fix things.

I wish he could, but I don’t expect him to.

I am A Problem.

I’m a problem to him, to the church, to my friends, my family, my children.

I have no doubt that if everyone in my life had a button marked ‘Make Lucy Disappear’ in front of them, they’d hit it without a second thought.

I hate this.

I hate being a problem.

I hate this illness.

I want my old life back.