Tomorrow/later (depending on how precise you want to be)

I can’t sleep. My scalp and feet are itching like hell… and I’m worrying about tomorrow. I’ve looked through the last months’ worth of entries, selected things that really represent in a way how I am feeling and I’ll print it out and take it with me. Even if I don’t use it, I’ll feel like I have prepared. My mind is blank in terms of what to say, I’m really really stuck. I can’t think of answers to any questions I put to myself, my mind is simply elsewhere.

I took a walk to the centre, to see where it is and all; it’s a 2 mile walk each way and the area isn’t so great. Hopefully in daylight it’ll be better, although I think the centre can only get worse. Metal grills on the window and the look of an old hospital about it is making me feel rather uneasy. Daylight will be better, I hope and hope and hope.

This is what I’ve written in the mini diary to take with me:

March 17^th 2009

… discussing how I could get things across properly, seeing as I have a tendency to minimise things and leave bits out. The problem is that I don’t realise I’m doing it, so I say something that to me has the weight behind it, but for others it doesn’t seem so bad. For example, we were discussing how some people have depression forever, and I said “I’d probably kill myself before I got to have a long life, it’s not much fun” which I meant “It’s bloody awful” but my counsellor thought it was okay, bearable but not fun.

March 15^th 2009

For me, suicidal ideation is part and parcel of my life, yet other people can’t understand and get upset about it, they can’t bear or work out why you would want to kill yourself; it’s obvious to me why you would.

This weekend, I think I’ve really hurt someone, and I mean really. Made them cry. Just because of this. I’m feeling guilty as hell but it’s also opened my eyes, how far fetched my thinking is from reality

March 11^th 2009

but I fear being just left in a dump bin with no hope of ever getting better. Just left to be, not helped, no therapy or anything.

March 5^th 2009

With the English language having lots of adopted words, you’d think there’d be words that can describe how awful I’m feeling; but there aren’t- the thesaurus draws a blank. I can’t even formulate the word, the meaning beyond awful. How descriptive is that? Not very I hear you say. I can talk and talk, keep talking, keep lying, keep pretending but when push comes to shove, I can’t talk about what I need to talk about, and that is myself, my health, my life.

March 3^rd 2009

Birmingham is pretty lonely, I’m missing Manchester a lot. At the moment, I’m struggling to buy food and then eat it, week old fruit sits on my desk lonely and unloved. The fridge has meals I’ve made in it, that are slowly decomposing because I keep ‘forgetting’ to eat. Part of the truth is I don’t feel hungry, the other part is that when I realise, I wait as long as I can before I actually eat. I try to pass out before I eat, it makes things somehow feel more worthwile, more deserved. I may be on top of how tidy my room is and laundry, but there’s trails of work and commitments to make: yeah, sure I’ll come and then the day comes and the only thing I want to do is hide under my duvet.

March 1^st 2009

I’m taking hits from all sides: energy, eating, mood and generally everything. These whips keep whipping me, but I’m still here.

I’m completely unaware of what my body is telling me; I didn’t eat for 14 hours today because I completely forgot… until I sort of ended up on the floor wondering what the stabbing pain in my stomach was.

February 24^th 2009

Because no-one knows what’s going on inside me, the fight that’s taking me over. The fight to contain my thoughts, the fight to cope and pretend everything’s okay.

Last night was like so many other nights, I hated it. Walking around Wilkinson’s and Asda with only one thing on my mind, trying not to let the sea wash over me and for that obsession to come true: the path to self destruction, self harm and maybe if I’m lucky, a bit of suicide thrown in for good measure. Walking around, pausing at the razor blades, first aid stuff, bleach, DIY and then the alcohol aisle of Asda. It screams of times past, fluoxetine times that I thought were gone. Yet it can all come echoing back…

Then the food shop, I came out with next to nothing, only the stuff I’d bought for cake making with People & Planet later, and some bits and bobs… my mind couldn’t focus on what I need, the only shopping list in my head was for suicide; that doesn’t generally consist of ‘normal’ food, does it?

I’m trying to keep this all in my head, pretend it’s all alright, but it’s not.

February 22^nd 2009

My latest obsession is burning calories. As little food as possible. To be thin.

Eat fewer calories than you burn, walk as far as you can, as fast as you can then back again. The thought of food makes me sick, it going down my neck and pushing my stomach out further, getting fatter and fatter with every mouthful I take. The reassuring feeling of weakness, dizzyness and sickness takes over; reminding you of what a worthwile fight this is. To be thin is everything, to continue into obeseity isn’t.

This is what I think about all day long; morning, afternoon and night. How many calories will this burn, how many it will not; how I’m so lazy, I need to exercise more: swimming, walking twice a day and shift that weight that makes me look like a porker. A BMI of 20 is far too fat, it needs to go down, down, down.

February 20^th 2009

I want to cry but I can’t; I’m hungry but I don’t want to eat.

This pit of snakes not only has venom, it also has whips. I can repent my sins whilst being bitten by the others. Every action I make leaves room for a whipping, to be scrutinised by myself and told I made the wrong decision: You’re not working hard enough, you’re eating too much, you’re too fat, no-one likes you, you try to please others not yourself… it’s endless. I’m losing confidence in myself, and my ability to make (what I feel is) the correct decision.

I hope it goes alright, and I hope I get some sleep. Hopefully the prep bit of me will have calmed down, which leaves me feet and scalp to deal with. I can’t exactly take a shower right now, so what I’ll do is a mystery.