An awfully big adventure

The other day I felt suicidal.

Somehow in my trance I managed to get out my phone and write how I was feeling.  Looking back now it is an odd blur and ramble, but I think it's still important for me to acknowledge.

These pills are my comfort

These pills are my friends

3 a day to keep the bad guys at bay

Who else is out there?

No human connection

No human communication that I understand

So I get angry, and political at the world's mistakes

to fill this empty feeling in my head

I'm struggling to stay safe

I need conversation
I need to explain

But the labels are insulting

and I will get the blame

I want a reassuring word

that's genuine and pure

I don't want someone telling me to get better

when they don't have the cure

Depression's like a blanket

It comforts then it smothers

Don't tell me to get rid of it

when you'll leave me in the cold

Depression is security

you know it'll never leave you
It'll be by your side forever

the friend you crave but not the friend you need

Depression is a selfish lover

though it tricks you otherwise

You fall in love with its darkness

unable to see through the disguise

Depressions not just black and blue

It's exciting purple

burning orange

and yellow like a flame

It's not just feeling sad and tired

It's a far more complicated game

It's emptiness and feeling full

It's grief and it's elation

It's loving and hatred rolled into one

It's anger and frustration

So I turn to my friends, these pills

to keep the monsters at bay

They're my knights in shining armour

they won't ever go away

They will never leave 

because the monster returns

Taps you on the shoulder and says hello

It's polite and charming

completely disarming

as it captivates your soul

The long story short is that I think that I'm okay now.  Thoughts of death aren't quite so prominent in my mind.  So that's a good thing.  Tick.  And reading back on this now, I'm hoping that maybe the next time it gets bad, I'll be able to do something similar rather than doing the worst.  

Because there will be a next time.  I don't want there to be.  But I can't see it being so easy so quickly.  

Down the Rabbit Hole

I've not blogged in a very long time.

As a result I'm a bit of a loss as what to say.  I'm a bit of a loss with what to do with myself at all really.

It's like feeling completely empty.  All the things I set aside for myself to do today have completely evaporated.  I've done what you're supposed to do.  Write a colourful list with pens at the ready to tick off your tasks when you finish them with enormous satisfaction.  But the trouble is I don't really feel too much at the moment.  I look at the list and I look at it some more.  I start one of the things, but nothing sinks in.  I breathe, take a moment and try again but it's like smacking my head against a glass wall.  I can see what I need to do clearly enough, but it's just not happening.

So I'm blogging in an attempt of working things out.  Do I continue to bash my head against this glass wall?  Surely it will smash eventually?  Or do I admit that today is a bad day and resign myself to just a quiet time where I don't have to think about being myself at all?

I look at my little sister with envy.  She's asked me if I'm okay a few times and I've responded with the correct response 'I'm fine'.  She's happily painting and chattering about anything and everything.  Her current idea to get her paintings to dry quicker is pointing a toy hairdryer at it.  She may be there a while.  I wouldn't even know how to begin to explain to her that the big sister she worships feels numb and going down a black hole.

I said that I'm not feeling anything.  But the truth is I do.  Fear.  Terror at my own existence.  Which may make no sense to you, as my own existence is all I have ever known; but that that's why I went into acting.  Escapism.

I'm looking at old photographs to try and evoke some kind of positivity.  But I don't recognise anyone, not even myself.  I think of a story to write but a loud voice screams that I can't do it and smacks me round the head leaving a ringing in my ears.  The same loud voice comes back for anything else, piano playing, guitar playing, colouring in - the list continues.  It taunts me when I try to learn the new material for work, the only way to shut it up, it seems, is to not do anything at all.

Mental illness is a horrible thing to explain to people.  For some reason if you tell someone that your blood sugars are all over the place because of diabetes - they can accept it even if they haven't experienced it.  If you tell someone that you have little demons in your brain that pop out every now and again to control your head, they go one of three ways.  The first of course is supportive and just what you need.  The second is to dismiss any notion of mental illness - it's attention-seeking etc. They see any form of mental illness as a weakness in character.  The third type is the suddenly proclaimed (but well-meaning) doctor.  They'll lecture you on how you don't need medication - what you need is a good colouring in book or to look at pictures of animals.  Instead of counselling you can listen to music, have a bath or go for a walk.  They don't often appreciate that it can be too scary to go outside.
I blog about this not to try and dwell on things.  It helps my own logical brain come out past all the blaagh.  It's like putting together a puzzle for me.  I acknowledge my sadness.  I let myself feel negative emotions that you're not actually supposed to feel.  Writing them down allows me to work out why I feel them and see if there's a pattern.

When I feel like this a quote always comes to mind and today I'm going to cling onto it.

'Before Alice got to Wonderland, she had to fall down a pretty deep hole.'