Just a shell

I look in the mirror and there's so much self hatred. A look of disgust I would reserve only for the worst of mankind so why do I look at myself like that? I can't stand it for too long so I avoid it as much as possible. After using the bathroom I wash my hands. There's a mirror above the sink but I rarely look up because I don't want to see what's looking back at me. I don't even recognise myself anymore. Where did I lose myself? Where am I? Where have I gone? I'm just a bitter husk of a person long gone. 

Haunted

So it's 9 yrs. Your words still haunt me. You still haunt me. So many times I've wished I had succeeded and you subsequently failed or never tried. I'm really feeling it this year. Visceral pain. My emotions are so raw they want to explode out of me, I feel like my skin's crawling, brain burning, it's not right. I shouldn't feel this raw but it's the first year I've not been self-medicating in some way or on medication for depression. I'm here today with nothing pharmaceutical or alcohol-wise to back me up, to numb or block out the pain entirely. I'm still new to emotions, I've held them so deep for so long, even before you, that I'm still too scared to let them loose. 

You manipulated that. You didn't let me grieve, you criticised when I was depressed, you goaded me into anger and frustration, made me feel like I was going off my head and it was all me. You made your friends, OUR friends, believe I was crazy. The only thing that was crazy was me staying, but you'd backed me into a corner of isolation and craziness, doubting myself, unable to ask for help. I had nowhere to go and you made me believe that too, you only gave me enough to keep me believing things would get better when, really, that was never going to happen. You treated me like shit. You really did. I didn't deserve what you put me through, what you're still putting me through. Or maybe I do, I don't know why though. I don't know what I did except fall for the wrong guy. 

The wrong guy who should've just been a friend or a brief boyfriend, but turned into a 13 year relationship. 

The wrong guy who hurt me so much when alive and continues to hurt me today after your passing.

The wrong guy who I sometimes hate so much but still love and miss. 

Whatever really happened that night, when so much went wrong and left us with no real explanation as to why you died, I hope you're at peace now. I'm not. 

You got your wish. 

Father's Day

I'm sure I'm like everyone else at the moment getting daily emails of "It's not too late to get that perfect Father's Day gift!" Ugggghh. 

After twelve years it still hurts, I'm right back at his bedside frightened to hold his hand because I was scared of hurting him. 

It's the same with Mother's Day for the past five years. 

I know Mother's Day and Father's Day are a big deal, parents should be celebrated, my mum loved getting flowers and gifts. My dad was humble and didn't like fuss made of him but with seven kids Father's Day would never go by without us making some fuss.  

Now those days are just ones I'd rather avoid. I avoid places because it's a kick in the gut every time I pass a card shop. Much like Christmas, it's so commercialised. It didn't bother me until the first Father's Day a few months after he died. I couldn't not buy him a card, I couldn't. So I bought one, wrote it out and sealed it. I keep it in a box with other mementos. I don't like Christmas anymore either, it's just too hard. 

I feel so lost without my parents. After Dad died I'd lost my favourite person, I was always a daddy's girl. My life has fallen apart since then. I know most think it's because of Malc's death but it started long before that, it started the day the doctors told us my dad had a rare complication from the Polcystic Kidney Disease he had and there was nothing they could do for him. It triggered a landslide that buried me, and I'm still trying to scramble a way through. 

My birthday's coming up and I hate that too because the next day would be my parents anniversary and a couple of days after that there's something else, but I don't think they do a card for Dead Boyfriend. It'll be nine years. It just tops things off nicely. A hat-trick so to speak. 

Happy Father's Day when it comes Dad. 

You were my sunshine. X

May the Force Be With You, It's Not With Me.

It's Star Wars day. May 4th. I've loved Star Wars ever since my brother took me to see a Star Wars/Empire Strikes Back double bill for my birthday many moons ago. We watched them yesterday, along with Return of the Jedi, it was a great day, if a day early! 

Today's not so great a day. I'm struggling. 

I really want to hurt myself. 

I really want to break things. 

I really want to curl into a ball and cry my eyes out. 

I really want to hurt myself badly. 

I really want to do these things and then take some tablets and knock myself out. 

My emotions are overwhelming today and I feel like I'm going under. I came out to Costa in the hope of distraction and now I find myself crying and fearful I'm going to let loose all the emotion inside and just explode in a mess of tears and self-harm. No-one will care if I do, I've been in similar states in the past and most people just walk on by without concern (there have been a couple of times people have talked me down, literally). Guess that's where I'm different. If I see someone upset I ask if I can help, do they need anything? If they look or talk like they're contemplating hurting themselves I will call for help and stay with them until I know they're ok. I feel like I'm one of a dying breed of people who actually care about the wellbeing of people I don't know, it just seems the human thing to do, to show compassion for others. It feels like our world is lacking in the compassion department. I don't know why I'm saying this, it's not like I am really the only person who cares, I'm not a brilliant person, I deserve no credit. So I have compassion, big fucking deal, what do I want? A medal? Fuck off. 

I have little compassion for myself. Suicide is never far from my own mind. I'm thinking about it a lot today. I won't make a scene though, I'm not seeking attention, I'm just trying to stay alive and I'm trying to do it without needing someone to intervene. 

I'm sleeping on my brother's couch at the moment. I've been staying with my brother and sister on and off for quite some time for various reasons, mental health problems being one of them, so I could go back there rather than sit here but they don't really understand the extent of my mental health problems or why it manifests the way it does, so if I go back and start crying or they see signs of self-harm they don't really know how to handle it and I just feel more hopeless and useless.

So I'm sat in Costa Coffee in the Victoria Hospital, typing this, trying to bury my emotions. Where do I go? Hide in a toilet? Go to the chapel? Go to A&E? Stay here with my head down? I'm scared to move from this seat because if I decide to move and don't know where I'm going I may well do something I'll regret. Or  maybe I'll do something I've always felt inevitable. I guess I'll be sitting here a while. Staying safe is the aim right? 

Don't look at me

Thought.

Thoughts that were once focused on suicide were turned towards a future, one I thought obtainable, brighter, with possibilities of achievements there for the taking. They were fleeting. My thoughts turn yet again to my life being pointless with nothing to offer. 

The point is?

What's the point in talking to someone who just does not understand or want to hear about your mental health problems? 

What's the point, when you say you're self-harming and suicidal, asking for help, and they dismiss you for being stupid?

What's the point in trying to share the impact mental illness has on your life in a vain attempt to explain why you can't leave the house, why you don't bathe for weeks at a time, why you don't eat, why you can't concentrate, why you seem to disappear for months on end, why you lose so many friends, why you can't function at all? 

What's the point, when you try talking about how bad you feel and they sit quietly, then when you pause, after revealing a fraction of your tortured soul, they just get up and walk away to do something else? 

What's the point in trying to end the stigma attached to mental health so you can talk to people when all it does is alienate those who find it all very uncomfortable to hear?

What's the point in fighting every single day to stay alive so you don't hurt the people you love but they hurt you by not being there when you need them?

What's the point in going through that just to feel judged, to feel like you're stupid, to be made to feel like they don't want to hear it, they don't care? 

Really, what's the point?