The well worn path

I’ve been here before. My feet drag along the path I’ve walked before, not once, not twice but many more times than that. The path to hell, the unpredictable one, the unsafe one; the one that is the same every single bloody time I go down it. I know how it starts, I know how it ends. The ending is always the same, it’s never once gone right; evidence being I’m sitting here writing this.

I wonder how I get to lead myself down this path, time after time. How I never learn, how I never manage to make things right, how I never stop myself from falling. Time after time, I have to pick myself up as though nothing is wrong, and time after time I beat myself up for falling into this trap. I never seem to recognise the beginning, and my memory isn’t good enough to remember what happens each time. Stage one is a flurry of action: over work, no food, no sleep. Anything, anything that tips me over the edge. Then we have stage 2: realisationof what I’ve done, and time to beat myself up over it. Time to drag myself along doing whatever kicking and screaming a tirade of abuse at myself for not doing it better. I should be perfect by now. I’m 18 years old, I’ve been in this job 1 and a half years, so why oh why am I not right? Or, I’ve lived here forever, how can I not know where that is? I don’t learn, I just know. I can’t take being told, I can’t take compliments, I can’t take insults. I have the upper hand, I stamp out my emotions to make sure that I am not vulnerable, even though that makes me more vulnerable than ever before.

Stage three: irrational actions, impulsive ideas, not having a clue what I’m doing, where I am and where I am going… just jumping on the first bus I see, obsessive behaviours… the stage I’m in now. I spend days sitting on buses going from place to place not exactly knowing why, but deep down I HAVE to go, I can’t not go; not going would be wrong. This stage also starts planning and plotting my own demise. What can I do that I know is bad for me? What can I do to make people hate me, so they won’t miss me when I’m gone? Then, stage four. The end. Everything is out of control, I haven’t a clue what I’m doing, I make random suicide attempts using completely obscure ideas, and the worst thing is, I don’t even realise what I’m doing. I just start walking, and then half an hour later I’ve acquired all manner of random objects and I’m standing on a bridge over the motorway. It doesn’t make sense now, it never will but it really did then.

I’ve been reading back over some things, things that at the time most probably made so much sense, but now? I can’t understand the logic. That’s probably where my doctor was coming from when he said suicide is a moment of irrationality. I can understand it from both sides, the side of people who don’t understand and my side, and my side’s winning out.

I have ideas, plans. NYE can go two ways, simultaneously. I know Manchester like the back of my hand, I know how to get from one place to another, I know the area well. How one can do one thing, slip away and do their own thing perfectly easily. I don’t know what’ll happen in the end. Whether what I know I can do will, or will not. It all depends on who takes which way home, if I get to take the 142 home alone, whilst the others take the 192, or whether they all get the bus with me. If they take the 192, I have pure opportunity, I’m going home alone. I can go anywhere, walk anywhere, do anything. It can be set up. If they take the bus with me, it’s going to be a lot more difficult, seeing as they will walk me to my door. It’s safer that way, but it’s not the way I want it to go. We have the problem here: my head is telling me to do this, to go and set things up, some opportune bricks next to the canal, pills or whatever, but the other part of me feverently disagrees. This is what I hate. No part of me ever agrees on anything, and by that I mean anything. I can’t make decisions. I just stand there like a fish, trying to decide. Ask me what I want to order at a restaurant and you can probably see the cogs whirling: this, or that, or that or this? It’s wearing me down, a lot.

I’d like to give in, give the bad side what it wants, at least I’d never have to make a decision again. On the other hand, I want to spite it, to say “ha” and to show my head who is boss. It’s just I can’t keep on being out of control. I can’t loose too many more days on days like these, where I get up late and spend the entire day on buses going around every supermarket I can think of looking for something, then when I find it, decide I don’t want it after all, but I’ll go to another supermarket to have a look anyway. I don’t understand it, or my actions. Why it had to be THAT bottle of alcohol, when I know damn well that the off licence around the corner sells it. The advantage of not having bought it is that perhaps I am saved from a bit of bother from psychosis, which may rear it’s head around alcohol. The downside is, that I’m still desperate for this alcohol. I don’t understand why it’s so important, seeing as I have a lot of alcohol at my feet, and none of it will do! Mango Malibu? No; Get 27? No, but understandable; Cans of ready mixed vodka and whatever? No but I want to bin them as no doubt they’ll be horrible; and Bacardi breezer from April when I started to drink “to kill the pain” except for the fact that it numbed my senses and I did more damage than I would have… So, alcohol isn’t a good idea. Right. So what do I do? I have the concentration of a fish, I’ve tried to do some reading to no avail, I wanted to start my essay today, but experience has taught me that is a very bad idea when in this state and I’ve been watching Outnumbered on iPlayer to the point that I can no longer stand it. I am bored, and want one thing only.

My mind is keeping up all too well with time, and how slowly it is going. How it really isn’t passing, and I’m jolty with energy, yet I still don’t want to venture outside. Ideas, anyone?