“your love is gonna drown.”

I typed this out a couple of nights ago. I didn’t post it because I wasn’t sure if it made sense. I think maybe it does make sense, but I also didn’t want to be a reader spammer. You know how it is. Plus I wasn’t sure if it was too personal. I hope it’s not…

Friday 19th October 2012

Today, me and the Psychologist went over the weeks happenings as normal – the usual “any drugs/alcohol/self-injury/sex/shopping?” questions as standard. Then we went over the assessment and the group. He knew how much I’d been stressing about it and how scared I was, so he was nice and kind about it – not pushing too hard. He said it’s totally normal to feel kinda ambivalent about the whole diagnosis thing and to find it hard to settle with it. It’s both good and bad. Good because there’s a comfort in knowing that some of the things that make me hurt can be treated and that I’m not the only one and that I’m not just bad at being alive. Bad because it means I’m broken all through my brain and have been for a long time. Broken in a way that may never be fixed. He was nice about it though. He said he’s known me for over a year and knows me pretty well now and he doesn’t think I’m broken or bad. He explicitly said “You’re not at all a bad person Ellie” , which made me feel a little reassured.

We talked a little about how my suicidal thoughts and impulses are increasing right now. He thinks that partly it’s to due with the treatment changes, but mostly to recent life dramas. There’s things going on which I find really too difficult to manage. I’ve had horrible things said and done to me, and horrible things I’ve said and done back. My insides feel disgusting and I’m sad and feel pretty hopeless. Love and intimacy are funny things really. They break you up from the inside out. Caring always seems to be where sorrow starts to drip inside from. We talked a lot about what I get out of relationships and how I view relationships in general. I always think in terms of the other persons needs and desires, not the things that I legitimately need in return. That doesn’t mean that I don’t get angry and argue my point, but I’m always left feeling so fucking horrible inside if I get what’s best for me, and I give in quite often to things I don’t want to because I just get full of guilt for being selfish, even if its simply because I know they’ll hurt me instead. It’s not just the way I few the world, but also the ways others view and treat me. And the problem is that I just can’t get away from it. I can’t let it go. I start to hate and be angry and get away, but the barrage of guilt quickly build up and I cave all over again. Each time it’s worse and I honestly don’t even know if I get anything but hurt by doing it. I don’t even know why I want it so much. I just can’t let go. I can’t let people leave.

And then I got confused and upset and really began to think about some of the damaging things that I keep let happening to me and because of me, but time was up and off I had to go. I hate when therapy leaves everything unresolved, raw and opened up. I had an optician appointment straight after, so I had to go to the nearest decent town centre. However, there are shops there and after therapy is my worse time to shop. I buy waaaay too much when I’m stressed and sad. I get it into my head that stuff will somehow make me more acceptable. I’m the ultimate gullible consumer, even though it goes against a lot of my beliefs. I just want to be better so I can get things right for once and I think things that I buy can help with that. I have literally got no money right now, so out of my overdraft, I had to buy a new pair of glasses because lost one pair and smashed the other when I was angry, so haven’t been able to see properly for a while. That was a necessary purchase, but I walked past Topshop and there was a sale and well… I had to buy these stripy dungarees that I’d wanted for about 6 months but had always been too expensive (now down to £10!) and holographic silver leggings. Then I went to Boots to pick up some prescriptions which should have been a totally free shop to visit, but there was a 3 for 2 sale on Barry M nail varnish… With the glasses on top of that, I spent over £50 I don’t actually have… I have so much guilt – especially after the iPad incident. I felt better though.

I mean, you have to admit my buys are awesome.

Plus, you’ve got to admit, the dungarees look really great.

See?

Then it started to rain and I was dreading the walk home, but I’m way to poor to take bus luxuries, especially after these buys. I didn’t know what to do. I was tired, hungry and didn’t want to be wet, so I decided “fuck it. Bus it is. Considering how much I’d spent already, what’s the difference now?” Luck was one my side today though because the Oyster machine on the bus wasn’t working, so they didn’t charge me. Plus the dungarees were only £10. It was as if the world had aligned to understand the pathetic situation I was I and gave me a tiny gift to make up for how shit I feel and give me a smidgin of faith that sometimes things work out.

So yer, I’m not even feeling too bad right now. The drugs and shopping might be helping, but I’m able to block out how horrible today has been for a while. Tomorrow, I’ll deal with money issues and the guilt and how horrible I feel every day. Tomorrow, I’ll worry about the dirt and what to do to fix all these broken situations. Tomorrow, I’ll worry about what I might have to do.

Later that afternoon…

I typed that before I walked my dog in the rain. By this point, all the Valium had made the rain really fun – comforting and atmospheric. It started to get s bit dark on the walk. Not fully dark, but a bit dark, and I had to walk for longer than usual because I’d promised the Ma I would and I didn’t want to upset or disappoint her. The good thing about Valium is that it didn’t cause a panic attack. At points, I was shit scared, hyper vigilant, making every movement into a catastrophe in my head, flashbacks. It was shit and hard, but I didn’t fully break down. I didn’t stop freeze, tense up and close my eyes to just give in to the inevitable, I didn’t have a panic attack. That is a serious up point of Valium I hadn’t noticed before because I just don’t go out in the dark by myself. Ever.

Then in the evening…

I couldn’t just leave it all till tomorrow. Receiving phone calls I didn’t know If I could avoid without ruining everything, stressing out and a lot of awkwardness. I just need time to clear my head – a little breathing space to think. Maybe I’m unreasonable. Maybe I read into thinks too much. Facial expressions, tone of voice, verbal misunderstandings. I don’t know. Maybe I’m the problem. Therapy sometimes makes you get that feeling where you start to feel like just maybe there are other options. Maybe you’re not always in the wrong maybe it’s ok to think about your own needs and stick up for them. Then, in just one second, something comes along and all that hope for the smallest sense you’d thought you could maybe start to believe you’re not just rubbish and your needs are valid, you suddenly realise just is not true and your therapist makes you believe in lies. Some people are just bad and therapy can’t fix that. You were a bitch all along. Nothing can ever change that.

On top of that, I’m starting to believe the Ex is really sick. Everyone deserves support for mental illness. Everyone deserves to get healthy. I don’t want to leave someone to fend for themselves. If I’d been left, I might have died by now. I want to help as many people as I can to feel better, regardless of how they effect me. That’s what nice people do right? ANd I don’t want to be bad anymore. I want to do the right thing.

So now it’s just bad all over again. I can’t keep fucking up. I fuck other people up too. And I need to help.

The Brother is entirely angry. Angry because he loves me. And he’s sad because he thinks that some day soon, he’s going to find himself in a situation he wants to avoid. He’s scared because he thinks that at some point, a line will be crossed and he’ll feel forced to round up my supporters and hurt someone. The Ma said she’d take a brick. I think they were being dramatic. I hope it’s all just being dramatic. Now I’m scared that if I end up destroying myself, it’ll be all my fault if someone gets hurt. And it not stable enough to know that won’t happen. Not right now.

I’m so full of guilt and shame and confusion. Fuck this.

So there you have it – a day in my life really. Obvs I missed quite a bit out as you can tell though. Right now, I appear to be living in an incredibly destructive cycle and I can’t get out of it because I don’t know how. I do try to do good, but I can’t seem to. I can’t sit with how I feel at all. I can’t cope with how horrible it all is, so I use destructive methods of coping with it and then let it all happen all over again. Reading over this made it seem so clear how I fuck this up time and time again. Yet I know it’s already started again today. Same every day. Except sometimes there are parties involved…