I have been going through a really tough time recently. I had some of my benefits reassessed, which is massively stressful, and then we are going to have to appeal it...
Anyway. its left me in a really deep nasty spiral. the worst I have had in a long time. it was pretty horrible. I've been referred to getting a CPN (community psychiatric nurse) I've had my meds upped and been prescribed some tranquilizers for when I have panic attacks.
I feel kind of obligated to add a trigger warning to this post, as I do talk about suicide and self injury.
so yeah...
TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!
The way it feels
It feels like you are tumbling headfirst down the white rabbits hole, but the world you are coming out in is dark and threatening and completely unrecognizable. it feels like a shroud being wrapped over your thoughts and mind, everything feels dark, your thoughts slow down to a crawl and everything is tinted in shadow, but at the same time as that, some of your thoughts are speeding and tumbling and spiraling, every negative thing you have ever said or done comes back to you, everything feels like it is terrible and you can't stop thinking about the worst possible outcome of every situation and interaction.
When I am reasonably well I have thoughts like "you are stupid and disgusting and pathetic and everyone you know and love actually hates you, strangers despise you and there is no one more ugly than you" but I can tell they are "sick thoughts" and I try to ignore or dismiss them...when I am really ill, those thoughts become my thoughts, they feel like real facts to me. it feels like my very existence is a stain on the universe and that everyone would be happier if I was just gone.
This time round I actually found myself thinking "Tabitha and Coyote will have to put up with you and your craziness for the rest of your life, its selfish to stay alive. if I died it would be much better for both of them" and that thought felt really really reasonable and logical.
Feeling like this is almost physically painful, it hurts in your chest and stomach and mind. you stop sleeping well, and are always exhausted. it feels so absolutely wretched that literally every other feeling is better than that...and the thing that blots that feeling out better than anything else is physical pain. drinking till I throw up and then cutting myself till I have blood loss actually feels much better than the emotion torment of depression. putting a cigarette out on my skin feels better than that. overdosing on medication and then spending days throwing up blood feels better than that. seriously. I have actually managed to mainly resist doing anything really destructive to myself in a while, but that's only because I get a huge amount of support from Coyote and just couldn't do that to Tabitha.
And the anxiety is a whole other thing. The whole world feels terrifying to me. filled with danger. and its not something I can rationalize away. I know objectively that there is nothing scary about the supermarket or a phone call or letter. I know that objectively. but that really doesn't help the situation, because they feel like things that are verging on life threatening. lights are too bright and sounds too loud, every movement startles me. Coyote comes in to give me a hug and I freeze like he's going to hit me (he has never and would never do that, but try telling my stupid brain that sometimes). when I am having a panic attack I start crying and can't stop, tears pour out of my eyes without any level of control, and my lungs start feeling tight and small, I can only breath in small gasps, or hyperventilate. I can't calm down, I can't control it. I want to and sometimes end up, curling into a fetal position, frozen and crying. The worst thing about these kinds of anxiety attacks is that I can't necessarily predict them or even explain them. I had a big panic attack in a hospital once because I'd had my wisdom teeth out, but needed them checked again because of an infection. I was expecting a long wait for the appointment and had to go by myself. I thought I could handle it...but then I was taken in to be looked at much faster than I was anticipating, and that scared me. the dentist then didn't give me the diagnoses I was expecting (the diagnoses was actually much much better than what I had anticipated) but during the appointment I was scared enough that I started to cry...and then I was horrified that I was crying at nothing to complete strangers, which made it worse...in the end I had to hide in the hospital chapel gasping, crying and trying to hide from everyone. it is degrading and humiliating.
so that is how it feels, or at least that's the best way I can explain it.
though someone else wrote a poem that sums it up better than possibly I can:
I Am!
I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.
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