The wall, my friend.

Hello wall, it’s been a while since we last met.

You look well, my friend.

Forgive my intrusion, and my running into you like that. I hope it doesn’t hurt when I crash into you. It hurts me terribly, you see.

Oh, no, not physically. You needn’t worry of bruises or cuts or even scrapes. It’s my emotional self that receives the battering.

The part that no one sees, but is affected by everyone. A careless word here, a scathing remark there, cut deeper than a blade.

I’m sorry to have troubled you, wall, I know you’d rather be happy than listening to me.

Are the steps completed? The ones down into the darkness that is more my home than anywhere else.

I visit so often I thought the Keeper might have created some stairs. There were the beginnings of some last time I came.

Oh, they are from my footsteps, I see. Thank you, my friend. Perhaps next time I may be allowed to bring you flowers, as a token, for your constant vigilance.

Well, my friend, the ground is falling away from my feet now. I guess the Keeper wishes me to descend, now.

Take care, my friend. I’m sure we’ll meet again soon.

Decisions and their outcomes

This is a bit of a blog/journal/getting thoughts out of my head for a little while post. It's not obligatory reading ;)

So I have a hard time with pretty much everything. About the only thing I do well is breathe and even then I sometimes try to swallow while breathing, which can result in choking and coughing up a lung.

The hardest time I have is trying to get along with people. People are strange and fickle and conceited and some are cruel while others are silly and some are just so arrogant I'd like to stick them with a fork to see if all the hot air releases and they blow away like a popped balloon. In short, people are an enigma and I have more than enough trouble trying to figure out what the fuck they want from me let alone how I'm meant to act around them and/or with them.
Now we add in my craziness and it's a mix of outright chaos.

I spend huge amounts of time avoiding people because -- let's be honest -- it's easier than turning myself inside out trying to please them. Of course I use social networking sites so I get this feeling of connectedness. It's a completely false sense but it serves for the most part so let's not complain about it. I play online games sometimes too, just to distract myself from myself (my head mostly) and to connect in a different way. The latest game was Order&Chaos Online (available on iPhone, android and facebook). It was great at first. I was levelling my character and meeting new people while being killed my spoilt little children who thought it would be fun to pick on noobs/lowbies. I found an Aussie guild and felt bloody awesome for a little while. They seemed to like me and to -- sort of -- listen to my ideas, suggestions and thoughts. Let me tell you I have lots of ideas to benefit everyone else since that's what I do; think of everyone else before myself.

Everything was cruising along pretty nicely until my head caught up and I started to see and interpret things differently to what they may have been. I realised that people were ignoring me. Those ideas and suggestions were being swept under the rug and any time someone asked a question and I answered they'd respond with "Isn't anyone going to answer my question?" People started to get snarky and mean and no matter how many times I told myself "it's not personal" or "they're just having a bad day" or "it's just a game don't let it get to you", all the crap started getting to me. I spent a vast amount of time working on guild things (bank, newsletter, activities for lowbies etc) without ever being thanked or having anyone even notice it. Normally this wouldn't matter, but I was starting to feel a tiny bit fragile and the reassurance and acknowledgement would have gone a hell of a long way to making things less intense. Of course these people didn't -- and don't -- know that I have a mental illness and that what they say actually cuts deep, no matter if it's face to face or online or in a game. I'm not about to sit there and divulge my weakness and insanity to people whom I had hoped I could have a "normal" online relationship (friends) with.

Turns out I can't. Tonight I deleted the game after I saw things were discussed and decided without me. These things were part of the bank and I was one of the people managing it!! It was the final straw for me. In fact I got so angry I actually made myself sick. Yeah, I never said I was very good at anything other than breathing, remember!?

Now I feel useless, pathetic and like a huge failure. I know this is my illness talking, but that doesn't actually change the feeling nor reduce the severity. It's there and it's horrible. I especially feel bad because there was a little 12 year old boy, Snake, who plays O&C Online and he reminds me so much of myself when I was 12. He's too smart for his age and can understand things his peers won't understand for another 5 years. He's alone in so many regards yet he's surrounded by people. Even his intense anger, sadness and happiness were reminiscent of my mood swings as a child. I so wanted to help him and guide him and teach him coping strategies that no one was around to teach me. My maternal instinct was strong with this kid and I feel like I've let him down because I can't handle the bullshit. It's incredibly silly since I don't know this kid from a bar of soap. I just wanted so much more for him than what I had. More importantly I don't want him to end up a pathetic waste of space like me. But, truth be told, he'll be better off without someone as bitter and twisted and broken as me around. He'll be able to learn real things off the others who aren't insane, which will go further than the empty ramblings of a strange "old" lady. So it's all for the best really.

If I say that enough times I might begin to believe it. Anyway, it's done now. I said my subtle goodbyes to a couple of people and will leave it at that. They need not know the extent of my pain nor that I'll most likely not play again. To them, I was just another faceless person behind a toon. To me, it was a chance to live and to be a part of something. It's just such a pity I failed.

Renee's Story: The Hurt Behind My Birthday.

One more day and then it’s Thursday. I’m not counting today since I’m already in it.

One more day and then it’s my birthday.

I’m terrified.

Right now I’m aware that my emotions are only being held in check by my stubbornness, and that I have energy from a good night’s sleep. Once that energy runs out I’ll be fucked.

You see I’ll be 27 on Thursday. Old, I know. But I wasn’t meant to live past my 25th birthday. For as long as I can remember I always knew that I would die on that die. As I got older I knew it would be by my hand.

I never got the chance to end the pain. My psychiatrist made sure I was in the psych ward during that week. He knew full well I would never do anything there, I’d never upset other patients by taking my life. I remember crying so much I thought I’d never stop. It was a cruel thing for him to do.

Part of me — perhaps my intellectual part — understood it wasn’t right to want to die and understood my psychiatrists reasons for dumping me there. The rest of me wanted to scream, cry, hurt myself, break things and just let out the rage of being caged in.

I did nothing. I would lie on my bed and cry. Numb almost. Well, as numb as someone like me can be.

My birthday has always been the worst day of the year. The most horrible trigger days out of all of them (I have 4 major days.) My birthday means I am alone. It always fell during school holidays. My friends were always away on holiday, having a great time. My parents would never bother to take a day off to be with me, since it was only my special day. So I was left at home, alone, with nothing but the tv for company. As a little girl I would sit on the couch and cry, hating that I was alone. As a teenager I would sit on the couch and curse everyone and swear my eternal hatred for everything, especially myself because I wasn’t good enough for anyone to care about.

I always had this idea that since it was my birthday my parents would love me and praise me and actually want to be with me. They’d lavish me with such love that I’d be giddy. Just like how my friends parents treated their kids. But, of course, this silly idea never happened. I wasn’t worthy of their love.

These feelings run deep and resurface every year. Only now it’s stronger and mixed with the feeling — and the knowledge — that I shouldn’t be here. The impulse, the need, the want to end the pain is incredibly strong now. It’s more than I can fight. And yet, it’s the one fight I have to do alone. Of course, there’s no one who would stay with me to help me fight anyway. Alone. Always.

These feelings don’t usually start until the day of my birthday. However, this year they were triggered early. My careful planning, careful idea to make at least part of the day enjoyable, was destroyed and I was made to feel disgusting, worthless, useless, pathetic and horrible. The trigger was smashed, the flood of emotions escaped and now, now, I’m afraid because they’re released. I’m afraid I won’t be able to control them on the day I need to try the most. I can already feel the pull of the blade, the call of the secretly hidden stash of pills. It’s not right. It’s not fair.

I shouldn’t have to fight so hard already. I shouldn’t have to spend the one day that’s meant to be joyous, trying not to hurt myself. I shouldn’t have to spend it alone.

That’s my life. Always alone. Always fighting by myself, not even a person cheering me on. No one to hold my hand.

I pray silently, now, to the universe for the strength to get through it. I’ll worry about the after effects later. Right now I just want to make to the end of the day. And the next. And the next.

Super Power

A friend -- which one I can't for the life of me remember -- once asked me, "if you could have any super power what would you choose?"

Now I've always known what I would love to be able to above all else. So I responded straight away with, "I'd like to fly." *insert dreamy expression here*

My friend then says, "That's stupid. Everyone wants that. It doesn't count. It has to be a real super power!"

*Insert me being stunned and hurt*

I attempted to justify my choice by explaining that if I could fly without mechanical aid I could be free. I could soar and dive and be weightless -- well kind of -- for a while. I could go as fast or as slow as I'd want and I could reach heights that others could only dream of.

Yes, I did spend a lot of my childhood day dreaming about being free. Flying was the free way out. It also meant no one would be able to tell my parents where I had gone. Yep, I had it all figured out.

So when my friend said what they'd said I was rather devastated.

It's been about a year since then. Actually it may even be closer to two years. Whatever, it was some time ago. Anyway, I was sitting down playing a game on my phone while my thoughts ran over that particular conversation. And you know what? I started getting really angry.

Partly I was angry because I couldn't remember which friend it was and partly because they had no fucking right to say what I thought was stupid. I mean I would never say that about anyone's ideas or thoughts. Maybe that's from all the times I've been told I'm stupid, worthless, useless, if I had half a brain I'd be dangerous etc. It undermines every part of you and I couldn't live with myself if I ever did that.

You know, it's just another person making me feel worthless. I suppose I shouldn't care or at the very least I should be used to it. But I'm not used to it and I will always fucking care when someone makes me feel like shit.

If I could remember who the person was, and if I'm still friends with them, I think I'd tell them to fuck off. One or two years late but whatever.

Being Alone

One facet of being "sick" that I find extremely hard is being alone. Not everyone in my situation is and I truly believe they are extraordinarily lucky. Not that they feel the same way of course.

Part of being alone is knowing that the majority of people I talk with have absolutely no idea what BPD is let alone how it affects my life. They will tend to home in on the anxiety and depression and try to relate by telling me about a time they were sad or scared. While I appreciate their obvious attempt to understand and sympathise I just find it, well, just no. Don't do it because it doesn't help. All they really do is make the gap between myself and, seemingly, everyone else become huge. I already feel alienated, alone, worthless and crazy so I don't need to be reminded by others. Kthanxbai

Another part of my aloneness began when I was first diagnosed with anxiety -- I laugh now at how far from the mark that diagnosis was. I decided that my closest friends deserved, and should, know about my diagnosis and how it has affected me during the time I've known them. All those times I burst into tears for no apparent reason suddenly made sense.
My idea was to invite my friends to dinner and explain it all. Basically bare my soul and hope I still had friends afterwards. Only one is still sort of floating around the edges. The others left that night and I never heard from them again. Yeah, exactly, right when I needed my friends they were nowhere to be seen.
Needless to say I've been extremely careful about making friends since that happened. Even so, more often than not the novelty of a "broken friend" wears off and they forget about me.

Finally I tend to end up pushing the remaining people away. I mean, from past experience, they're only going to leave anyway. It's definitely not something I'm proud of or like doing and while it's easy to say I won't do it again, I know I will until I gain confidence in myself and fully learn to trust others. Who knows, I might learn one day!

There's one last addition to my loneliness. There are some people who are still around, still friends and who resist my urges to push them away. One large part of me is eternally grateful. Another part is dismayed and hurt because these people won't, and don't, listen if I mention things aren't going so well for me. Of course I'm not easy to be around during those times and I'm downright morbid sometimes too. However, their "get over it" type attitudes and the "oh no not this again" mentality doesn't inspire much confidence in me. I'm not about to talk to someone who doesn't understand that moods and bad times are cyclical and that because I've gone through it once doesn't mean I'll never go through it again.
It's not like we ask a woman why she's having another period when she's already had her first one. Moods are much the same although the cycles can be much more erratic.

So all in all I'm alone partly by choice, partly by uncaring people and partly from people who can't understand that this shit works in cycles. It angers and saddens me that I end up taking all the blame and that I willingly accept that it's all my fault. But then, like I would really blame someone else when it's clear I'm a total and utter failure and given the chance I wouldn't want to know me either. Still, I'm alone and while it's better for others, and sometimes me, it's not something that helps.

A Serious Case of the Blah's

I was going to start this post by apologising for not writing for so long. Then I realised I don't need to apologise because blogging is about posting when you have time, when you have inspiration and when you're not battling with yourself just to take the next breath.

And battling is all I've been doing for the last two weeks or more.

I suppose you'd have liked to read posts from me while I was so "out of it" and so "low" but I highly doubt it would have sounded much different to this post. I'm still battling myself but at least I have some energy to sit and write today.

That's the thing, you see, with me. My lows and "out of it" moments look like lethargy and laziness to outsiders. Of course, like my illnesses you don't see what is actually happening.
Internally there's a raging torrent intermixed with sadness, helplessness and a powerful gust of pathetic. It's words and thoughts in no particular order taking everything out of context and throwing them forward, screaming the edited versions so loudly all I can do is listen.

I can't run away from this.
I can't read or watch tv to ignore them, as if they were unruly children making lots of noise in the background.
I have no peace. No escape.

It's like being in my own jail cell. I don't have the bars or the beefed up drug infected cellmate. I have myself, three illnesses and no way out.

Being trapped, or more precisely cornered, by my own thoughts has made even the simplest of tasks (showering, dressing, making lunch etc) nearly impossible. The hot water keeps running out before I've even started washing my hair. (And yes enviro-folks I do realise it's a huge waste of water and no, I'm not happy about it either, so when you figure out how to keep me from having "blackouts" in the shower I'll be glad to resume my short showers.)

Technically the "blackouts" are known as dissociative episodes. It's common with some mental illnesses during particularly awful moods, times and periods.
However, knowing this doesn't fix anything for me. If anything it makes things worse because I'm not even an individual when it comes to my illnesses.

Not that being an individual or being unique or even being awesome comes with an illness. It doesn't. I'm still no different to millions of others with the same illnesses, the same struggles and the same awful moments. I'm just another person with problems.

Medication

This is a really tricky topic because there are so many views. It's also a topic that incurs a lot of hatred and stigma from the "you should just take medication and be fine" group.

As always I have my own views. I'd like to think I'm much more accepting having been on medication and also having decided (with consent from my psychiatrist) not to take certain medications. However, I still find myself battling my own thoughts -- occasionally -- of "just take your medication and you'll be better!"

I truly believe medication can help those of us with mental illness. I also believe that our psychiatrists do not prescribe medication just for the sake of prescribing it.
As always, there's an exception here. There are some -- what I call bad -- psychiatrists who will prescribe medication just to get rid of the patient. If you have one of those psychiatrists I'd advise you to try and find one who is more attentive and empathetic. It really does make all the difference.

Anyway, medication can be fantastic. I know of many people -- with varying mental illnesses -- who thrive on medication. They maintain their lives to such an amazing degree most people have no idea they have a mental illness.

Of course finding the right medication for each person can be painstakingly horrid. Trial and error is really the only way since we're all different and react differently to each medication. In my opinion it's this process coupled with side effects that makes finding the right medication a nasty chore. It's also why a lot of people end up stop taking their medication altogether.

I fall into that last group. I currently only take medication for reflux, a contraceptive pill and a sleeping pill. The sleeping pill is actually a medication called Seroquel (Quetiapine), which is actually an anti-psychotic drug. However in my case it puts me to sleep where normal sleeping tablets don't. It ends up being a rather expensive sleep but as I don't take any other medication sleep is essential in maintaining a positive mood.

I'm not against taking medications and when I feel I can go through the -- often disheartening -- process of trial and error again I will undoubtedly take medication again.

My medication journey isn't an easy one as I am constantly suffering pretty awful side effects! I even get side effects from the lowest doses and from the drugs least likely to cause side effects!

Now my side effects are migraines. I've been getting migraines since I was 5 years old and they are never fun. They also have the added bonus of making my mood drop. Something about the pain and chemical reaction among other things. So if you couple that with taking medication for depression, which is designed to help make it possible for you to lift your mood, the effects end up being rather disastrous.

There's also the part where the antidepressant medications I've been prescribed simply haven't worked at all. I spent about a year on Prozac even when I told my psychiatrist at the time that it wasn't working. He merely told me to keep trying it because it "had to work". He is an example of the "bad" psychiatrist I mentioned above.

In the end it came as no shock to my awesome psychiatrist -- I promise to write a shrink appreciation blog at some point -- when I discussed my thoughts regarding medication with him. I didn't stop taking it just because I could or for some whimsical reason. I waited until my next appointment with him and told him my concerns and how I felt. We agreed that for the time being I would reduce the medication with a view of stopping it. I've been without medication for about six months now.

Now here's the really important part. There's a right way and a wrong way to stop taking mental illness related medications.

The Wrong Way
Stopping suddenly -- waking up one morning and deciding you never want to take medications again so you don't is not a good way to go about it. Most medications cause withdrawal symptoms and stopping them suddenly only exacerbates those symptoms.

Not discussing your plan with your psychiatrist -- Irrelevant of how silly it may feel to say "I would like to stop taking medication" it's imperative you talk with your psychiatrist about it. Some mental illnesses really aren't conducive with the no medication thing and can actually be detrimental to yourself and others.

Listen to your psychiatrist -- This is really important. They are there to help you. It's their job to have your best interests at heart and to do things in ways that benefit your mental and physical health. They probably won't always say things you want to hear but they're not saying it to cause you more pain. If your psychiatrist explains it's not a good idea to stop taking your medication listen to them because they're thinking of your wellbeing. Explain to them why you disagree or talk about why you still feel you want to discontinue your medication.

The Right Way
Talk about your decision with your psychiatrist before stopping the medication -- Explain why you want to stop taking your medication. If your psychiatrist agrees with your decision they will walk you through a good and safe way to reduce the medication and eventually stop.

Acknowledge there may be a time you will need medication again -- Life isn't easy and neither is having a mental illness. Sometimes there are periods in our lives when we can't cope and may need extra help (medication, hospitalisation, more psychiatrist appointments etc.) It's not failing, it doesn't mean you're going to be stuck on medication forever nor does it mean you won't get better again.

Be honest when you feel bad -- There are certain things we have to do and be a little more aware of when stopping medication. You have to be willing to really talk with your psychiatrist and try to explain how you feel even if it's really hard to put into words. Without the cushion of medication feelings and thoughts can be sharper and harder to deal with. This means you need to make a commitment to yourself to be more astute and aware of your feelings so you can curb any truly disastrous episodes.

Making the decision to discontinue your medication is very, very, hard. There are many things you need to factor in and really think about before you even bring it up with your psychiatrist. It's not something anyone should take lightly and I do find that I get most annoyed with those who joke about it or whimsically decide they just don't want to take it. Of course it's their decision and I can't dissuade them, nor would I bother, but it still makes me rather angry. Oh well.

Medications can be great, they can do amazing things for mood and for healing old -- emotional -- wounds. Used correctly they can be vital in managing mental illness. By the same token some people can flourish without medications. Making that decision -- be it to take medication or not -- is one that should be made between yourself and your psychiatrist with thought and consideration.