For the last 13 years I've been a mess. My dad was ill for some time and passed away 11 years ago next month. He was my favourite person, that's no secret. He rooted me to this world, made me feel I belonged. I was his daughter, the youngest of 7 children but he always had time for me and that meant I was special to someone. Just one person, that was enough. My mum and my family loved me but I've not felt I belonged since he passed, that's not to say they wouldn't do anything for me I just feel....separate. 6 months after he died I went off work with depression. It's something I've had bouts of for many years but was always able to manage it, I was able to function on a fairly decent level, until then. 18 months after his passing I was still struggling, I'd been off work for most of the year, and the toxic relationship I was in, that should never have begun, was getting worse, but we'd been together since 1993 and I felt I had nowhere to turn. I tried to kill myself. I really tried. The hospital saved me, they woke me up 2 days later. I lied when I said I'd regretted it. That was 9 years ago.
I started going out with Malc in 1993, I saw the signs of toxicity early on but had no confidence to do anything about it. My bedroom back home had been taken over by a brother who'd just separated from his girlfriend so I couldn't move back home so I just moved in with Malc. He could turn on the charm, all my family loved him and so I went through years of mental and emotional abuse (I didn't see it at the time - how dumb am I?) with the occasional punch here and there (don't think I took that lying down). The reason I'm talking about him is because he succeeded where I failed. He killed himself in 2006. As if I wasn't fucked up before.
Around 2008 my mum had a stroke and died a couple years after in 2010. It's been a shitty time, what can I say?
My employer restructured our department in 2011 and I was moved to a place where, as a teacher, I'd been assaulted and verbally abused, two of the main reasons I gave up teaching. I was also working with two people who knew Malc well, had worked and trained with him.
What I'm trying to say is that I was struggling severely with attendance before I moved schools but after the move? Forget it.
It took a long time and a bit of bullying from a member of staff for me to finally give in and say I can't do this anymore. That was April 2013.
My attendance over the years had been ridiculous. Long spells off work, short spells at work. If you think that doesn't play its part in my depression then you'd be wrong. At both schools I've been sent numerous times to occupational health whom had always said my depression was not work related. It wasn't. Until the bullying. Once that started, I went off work sick again, saw occupational health and they recommended medical retirement, just too many triggers for depression in the school environment.
Fast forward to today. (Wow, fast? I'm a waffler!)
My employment was terminated on 20th Nov 2013. I have to decide what to do about the pension they're offering me. I have to contact the DWP and council once I get the pension sorted because it will affect any benefits I'm getting.
I have a postgrad. I should be able to do these things but I can't. I cannot face them, it's a mental block. I'd be able to help someone else do these things but for me it's like scaling K2.
I have been shutting out everyone because I couldn't face the "joys" of the festive season. I've been using way too many tablets to knock myself out for days at a time and I'm self-harming again. All the healthy coping mechanisms I've learned and used went right out the window because I think I'm a loser. I've been in a psych ward a few times over these years, it may be on the cards again and I really don't want that, it never helps. I've been self-destructing and not caring.
I need to care. I know that I need to, I just can't bring myself to.
I don't know why after 7 years I'm still having nightmares of finding Malc. I still wake crying after dreaming of my dad.
I am a fucking child who cannot look after herself properly and wonders what the fuck I am still doing here?
I am unrooted, lost, floundering in the darkness. And I always hated the dark. I'm so ashamed of myself, I hate to think what my dad would say of all this.
I know this can be a new beginning, I can cash in some of the pension and use the money to go travelling if I ever get well enough, or just invest it and find a wee job till I'm more stable but at the moment I'm barely functioning, I just want it all to end. Boo-fucking-hoo eh? Boo-fucking-hoo Tina. Just make a decision and get on with it.
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