#knowing i can cope with it without falling into dangerous levels of depression and despair is literally life transforming

[donttouchtheneednoggle]

GUESS WHO JUST WORKED THROUGH A PANIC ATTACK IN UNDER AN HOUR 🥳🥳🥳

[chasing-rabbits]

I think something people find hard to deal with when it comes to borderline personality disorder is it literally affects ALL emotional states. Not just mania and severe depression but trust love paranoia anger anguish etc etc it affects everything and unlike most people who can stay in charge of their emotions most of the time or at least damage control most of us with BPD can't the difference is physiogically we actually feel emotions more intensely and we feel these emotions for longer so it's really hard to explain to someone why the smallest thing sets us into suciidal idealisation but to us it's a really big deal because our emotions are unstable and unregulated and it takes a lot of therapy and work that often times isn't even offered to us because alot of people are skeptical of the disorder and even then it's not something that will ever go away like an addict we will always have to be on guard of our emotions we can't even. Let ourselves just be happy because so often a normal event like for me Xmas time can trigger manic episodes and this then causes me to drink and spend excessively and to not sleep and to be super unstable and you think well hey just learn to control it but the issue is it's not a slow burner for me one minute I'm depressed and suicidal an hour later I'm triggered into severe mania and it will last the whole weekend leading up to Xmas sometimes a whole week before Xmas you know ? And it just happens like the flick of a switch and that's really hard to prepare for because in other conditions for example I have bipolar it's usually a slow burner and I can pre-empt and even figure out my cycles for example I used to be mixed affective in the new year and manic over Easter and this happened every year for 3 years before I was officially diagnosed so I kinda knew also it was never as intense I felt depressed and sad and cried I felt manic and happy and drank but BPD is on a whole other level what I felt with BPD was even more intense and more unstable because of its unpredictability than the bipolar ever was .

That's the problem . People hear bipolar and think damn that's awful people hear borderline personality disorder and think eh it's nothing she's just melodramatic because it can appear that we are divas because we get triggered by the littlest of things but that's how it is and I've been told multiple times by professionals I will just grow out of it . But honestly that idea is so toxic that it just simply goes away forever and I've been told medication won't help and the only therapy they offer includes the first half focusing on mindfulness which actually can make someone with BPD more suicidal and this group therapy isn't even specific to those with BPD it's one therapy fits all and that's toxic logic . So my mum might end up paying for therapy for me because I can't afford it.

But so many therapists and doctors aren't even educated well enough on borderline personality disorder or are critics of it so even in the professionals eyes their is stigma attached to having this diagnosis .

And there in lies the problem.

This disorder has made me attempt suicide 3 time and self harm more times than I can count.

I did everything from cutting to burning to hitting myself with heavy objects to scratching my legs to pieces .

And yet it's still not seen as serious or taken seriously or even diagnosed correctly by professionals.

And this stigma NEEDS to stop.

BPD is a dangerous disorder and often gets the person suffering it engaging in self destructive behaviours from self harm to full blown eating disorders to suicide attempts to drug and substance abuse this illness comes with deadly consequences because it leads to wreckless impulsive behaviours.

And just remember this next time we are intensely scared of abandonment and because of this we may lash out at loved ones and friends but it comes out of a place of fear and instead of dismissing us you should try to talk to us get us to communicate these fears as to better understand what may seem as histrionic diva behaviours. And then we can work on our behaviours to further better our trust issues and fears of abandonment !

For example I now express these fears with my partner and tell him directly I need you to cuddle me reassure me even if you've done it a million times today I just need to hear you say it again. And yes sometimes he gets frustrated with me because there's only so many times someone can reassure you in a day. But also this has helped me grow. Even without therapy anymore I tried the therapy offered and the mindfulness made me feel awful also I wasn't actually allowed to talk about any of my issues because it would or could trigger others in the group so it was a pile of shit.

But I've grown over time too from reading and listening to others with BPD and their experiences with partners and how they handle it . And the biggest thing was on YouTube video I found one day where she said communication was everything and how you've gotta explain the thought process behind your beliefs and actions because to an outsider even a loved one our thoughts are hard to decode even to ourselves sometimes it's hard to understand the underlying issue causing the meltdown. And also she is the one that said sometimes you have to be direct and say exactly what you need down to every last detail because yes you have to learn to handle things on your own sometimes but this idea that we cannot ever be dependent on a good support system is bullshit people with disorders and especially BPD NEED an excellent support system in which they can express their feelings and feel validated and understood and have a place they can be themselves because one of the root causes of BPD is when in childhood said child is not allowed to express emotions and if they do they are invalidated or ignored or told off for showing them.

As well as other abuses causing BPD .

So when we get older we have all these maladaptive coping mechanisms like self harm because we've been told our emotions our pain isn't real or isn't valid and causing visible pain on the form of cuts and scars and bruises or even in the form of an eating disorder almost validates to ourselves that this pain was and is real and it does matter .

And that's why self harm is a criteria for BPD.

And it's so hard because so often because of our past we now over react to little situations minor arguments with tears and fears of abandonment and this leads people to think we are a drama queen and over reacting for attention or faking it for attention but in our minds our fears and thoughts of Self harm and suicide are very very real. Because we have little handle on our emotions . Or our impulsive dangerous thoughts . So as a child we are invalidated and then when we develop BPD we are once again invalidated and this time viewed as inauthentic or over reacting drama queens for attention which then leads us to fall deeper into our pit of despair because no one understands our maladaptive coping mechanisms.

They see our bpd behaviours but don't understand the reasons why and instead of saying oh it's because she's mentally ill and has a personality disorder it's criticised as even being a disorder and is instead a young adult playing up for attention or spoilt brat syndrome and that it's something we will simply grow out of as if it's a phase rather than something that has been built out of years of invalidation and abuse and was our only way of coping and now we've lost all control of our emotional state and the issue with personality disorders is people are like don't let your mental illness define you but with a personality disorder especially one like borderline personality disorder which affects everything you think or do or feel it's very very hard because from a young teen or pre teen where we develop personality traits we have developed this disorder that literally molds and shapes our personality and what it means to be us and whilst you can change to an extent and try to overcome this it's very very hard to entirely leave it behind and yes whilst I have my own unique traits and styles of dressing and jokes and humour that you could argue make up my personality it doesn't take long to put two people with BPD in a room and see the striking similar personality traits that make us these maladaptive beings due to our past.

Whether people want to agree or not our emotions in this case are not always in our control and we aren't acting out on purpose or for attention it's usually out of fear or intense emotional pain and quite often it feels as though someone else is controlling our emotional responses quite often people with BPD have identity crises because when they are diagnosed and educated on BPD it becomes very aware that our emotions and traits are not always ours but the disorders and you find yourself questioning who am I without my disorder like I know who I would be without my bipolar but I honestly can't say I'm at the point yet where I'd say I know who I would be without bpd because for so long it's all I've known from my childhood to young adulthood I've never known anything different about myself and where does my real personality start and my disorder end because my disorder whether I like it or not does affect me fundamentally as who I am how I behave what I do and where I go and the jobs I hold etc etc and my realtionships with those around me more so than most other disorders because as it says in the name it's a personality disorder and that is why it's so hard to diagnose because the symptoms and criteria in the diagnostic manual psychiatrists use just lists mostly a list of personality traits BUT these traits are all normal traits healthy people could have as my psychology professor taught me but it's up to the professional to judge if you experience them to a higher degree than others and certain traits together then it's a personality disorder this is also why self diagnosis is extremely dangerous because you could look at the criteria for BPD and say that fits my personality but you don't know if you experience these personality traits so severely that you'd be considered as having BPD I got my bipolar diagnosis super quick but it took at least 6months maybe a year even before I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder!

This disorder has one of the higher sucide rates and this is for good reason because having BPD often brings its friends in the form of addictions and dangerous impulsive risky behaviours .

And yet no one takes it seriously we don't have documentaries about it compared to bipolar or schizophrenia or anorexia no one talks about the deadly killer that is borderline personality disorder and that needs to change !

[cradleaine]

Happy New Year.

I’ve had a lot of reflections this year, especially towards the end. I often forget to write about them after planning to write about them, often because I have moved on from the temporary emptiness and loneliness and I want to repress them as much as possible. As a result, they get stuck in my head, and I don’t get to fulfil my desire to write again.

I don’t deal well with emotions. I haven’t been good at it since the thing in 2018. It was too much, I guess. I still think about it every single day since. So, with that, I just force myself to ignore my feelings. It’s easier that way.

I don’t get to escape them, of course. By avoiding to address them, they just lay stagnant in my head. No progress. So here I am. January 1, 2021, at 1:44 AM. I’m going to attempt to write about the reflections that I remember. Raw from my head, without the Writing major quirks.

The first in my head is security. As most people know, I am an orphan. Never knew who my father was, had my mom die when I was 17 (in early 2017). It’s not like it’s a personality trait; it’s just a huge part of who I am and why I think and behave the way I do. 

The thing from 2018 is hugely justified (by me) with that. I just don’t think no one understands, yanno--she has both parents and a financially stable household. I don’t have both of those. She knows that. With everything that happened between us and the org, alongside the issues I had in my family and academics, it was a really tough time for me. I don’t mean that to be an excuse for my bad behavior. It’s not. I’ve said it time and time again that I knew what I did were bad before I even did them (which, quite frankly, makes the situation worse). But I didn’t know what else to do. All spaces that house me required me to conceal everything. To stay composed. To handle everything with “class,” because if I didn’t, things will fall apart. I always hear, “pakatatag ka,” “kumalma ka.” It was always my feelings that were forbidden, as if they were ugly from the start. As if I would kill everyone who gets to hear me talk. So, eventually, I lashed out. I didn’t know what to do. No one was there to save me. No one was there to help me. I was all alone. I used to like staying in one place (either Elbi or home) when the other feels threatening. That time, both were unsafe. I had nowhere to be.

It feels like shit because I expected her to understand. I did not expect her to tolerate me, but I expected that she’d know why I was acting that way. I was wrong. And until today, I’m convinced no one has ever understood why that happened. 

She has everything she needs to survive. I was in a tough corner, having no choice but to fuck up one thing or another. Catch 22. By the end, that was the entire picture. 

Family is next. Since it’s January 1, I don’t feel pretty good. Worldwide holidays haven’t been the best in the past recent years. I remember some scenes from so-so celebrations in the past, but I don’t know which ones brought actual happiness. I don’t even have recollection of the past year’s celebrations. Ever since my mom died and the house grew bigger than it seems, memory has been both a dangerous thing and a rare visitor. Scientifically guessing, maybe it’s the brain’s way of coping with pain.

Tonight, I sat in the balcony in my hoodie and house shorts like a fucking loser. No shower, tangled hair, oily face. The rawest and most pitiful version to be shown to the public, who was just right there: outside the gates of my property, a few meters away from me, having the times of their lives with good food, probably expensive fireworks, and a happy family. 

It was the ugliest picture I could have ever shown off. I sat there with obvious loneliness, new phone in hand, trying to capture the very few colors that painted the sky for a few seconds. I wanted to stay in peace, above my sadness and worries, while ignoring the pitiful scene I was showcasing.

The fireworks startled me. Honestly, it wasn’t the pulbura that scared me; it was more of a fear of having the brightness near me, therefore showing more of the despair that I am. Having the spectacle right above my roof, as if spotlighting the sadness and hopelessness in my home. 

I went inside. I figured it was better to leave the sorrow as a thought instead of proving them to my neighbors in person.

I felt so weak. It felt suffocating trying to hide my sadness. Every step was heavy. I wanted to hide my face, because how pathetic of a person am I to be so miserable during a worldwide holiday? One that is loud and colorful. I was ashamed.

Family just isn’t the same anymore. And with every day that passes, I feel more and more alone, afraid that the day that happens is soon.

There just isn’t a right coping mechanism to escape this. I bought a lot of stationeries towards the end of this year. I (kinda) got back into art. I bought a new phone. All of these to “cure” the depression that slowly eats me alive. Do I love these new stuff? Yes. Do I hate myself for buying them? Absolutely.

I know there isn’t much to be mad about. It’s my money. I worked for it and earned it. Aside from that, I still have savings. So I’m not being completely rash deciding to buy all of these. However, the sadness is still there. I sit on my desk (which, by the way, I also spent a heck ton on) and face my pens, washi tapes, notebooks, iPad, and new phone, and think about the reasons why my life is so hard.

That sounds incredibly privileged because it is. I am privileged. I have a hard life, but the fact that I have all of these things and more shows just that. But this isn’t about that (yet). I know I’m probably addressing the wrong concerns, such as my phone is low on storage, or I need to organize my pens better, and I should probably invest on mental healthcare or weight loss or whatever. But I just feel like that’s such a tedious process. As aforementioned, I don’t do well with emotions. Those long-term solutions require entertaining and addressing my emotions, and that’s something that I’m still not ready to talk about.

Circling back to privilege, this year has been a testament of the gap between social circles. I’m not in the most fortunate bracket myself, but I am certainly a few levels higher from the ground. I’ve seen, heard, and read about people less fortunate than me get ignored, abused, and killed. I am mad about it. I am furious. And I hate it more that that’s all I can do.

At night, when I think about these things, these people, I get so sad and angry at the world. How the system just watches so many people suffer in the hands of reigning abuse. I want to do something, but I am too scared to get out of the security bubble (albeit how small and thin it is). I hate that I feel unsafe outside it, and I hate that I can’t move past that fear.

It’s plainly that: being stuck in a circle of rage and fear. Because that’s all I can be at the moment: angry and scared, simultaneously. There isn’t a personal resolution for this yet, but I have a little hope for myself. 

A lot of people seem to think that the new year will bring a new kind of hope to humanity. I want that too, but I don’t want to have farfetched expectations that will make me and my community upset. Given that, here is what I hope for, to put simply: I wish for a more compassionate community. One that understands the type of security that guards us, the kind of family we are taking care of, how we hold up with challenges, and the privileges we associate with.

Also, this year, I just want things to be fine.

[artemis-entreri]

Hey mun! Imagine a hitchhikers guide to the galaxy version of entreri!

[[ Hi Anon, sorry about the delay in responding to this question. The truth is, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I’ve never read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and don’t have any immediate plans to do so. XD;; I have seen at least one movie iteration of it (that I can remember anyway), but the impression that I’ve gotten from fringe awareness of the book is that it’s far too complex and involved to really be done full justice to (or explained) in one movie. I’ve tried reading the Wiki about it, but I felt much the same way as I did when I watched the movie: that it was something so intricate that its nuances could really only be fully appreciated and understood through multiple readings of the book. My confusion and subconsciously-formed higher regard for the Hitchhiker’s Guide could just be due to my having associated with a group of people that at times seemed truly to believe that the book contained the answer to life, the universe and everything (which I suppose it does literally, as it mentions the number 42 multiple times ;P). Joking aside, I don’t feel qualified to explore this particular thought experiment, as I’m too unfamiliar with the context, especially as the context seems to be monumentally huge. That being said, I will try to the best of my ability to address this somewhat, especially as it’s taken me so long to respond, and to do this, I’ll focus on the one premise in the book that I do know reasonably well: the destruction of the main character’s home planet for the sake of a larger-scope project. I’m not familiar with all the details about how that event colors his specific reactions to the other characters that he meets and the nuances of how those specific interactions go on to affect his position and perspective. Thankfully however, it seems quite obvious that Artemis Entreri is a very different character from Arthur Dent, and Toril/Abeir-Toril is even more different from Earth.

First, I need to first clarify, then put aside, the fact that the destruction of Entreri’s home planet would be very very difficult, if not nigh impossible. While it is the case that the destruction of Toril has been threatened more than once throughout the history of the Forgotten Realms, what always seems to end up happening is that the entity or entities driving that motion gets thwarted by the pantheons of gods, demi-gods, ancient beings, other extremely powerful entities, the teamwork of a large amount of not-as-powerful entities, and/or some combination of all of the above. Then there’s the issue of the countless planes and their respective layers, among which is Toril’s duality with its twin Abeir in the Prime, all of which would further complicate the total destruction plan, which isn’t to say that it is completely impossible. However, given the power levels involved in vaporizing all of that, we’d be talking about the pantheonocide of deities, an event so catastrophic that it’d be extremely difficult for a (more or less) mere mortal (especially one without a towel) to escape from. If he did, it would be even less likely for there to be another more-or-less mundane creature to rescue him. Being adrift in the empty vacuum of space would grant a quick death indeed, hence rendering the premise of this whole topic null and void (no pun intended ;P). Now if the improbablity drive were being used nearby, obviously all bets would be off, however I’m not sure I want to explore that particular scenario.

So let’s say then that Abeir-Toril is destroyed, and Entreri manages to get away because a Spelljammer ship happened to be in the vicinity and there’s someone on it with a vested interest in saving him from total annihilation for whatever reason. I really can’t see Jarlaxle not also getting away from the destruction of their homeworld, in which case what would follow would basically be The Sellswords, but IN SPACE! However, for the sake of this thought experiment, we’ll say that didn’t happen and Entreri is the only former Torilian to have survived the planet-destruction catastrophe. Whew, what a mess, and poor poor assassin! He’s already got such a hard time handling his familiar surroundings, and even there he doesn’t have a concept of security and peace, so literally tossing him into space with all of his pre-existent issues would be a very difficult thing for him to bear (yet sadly appropriate because he seems to be the go-to character for extreme and/or prolonged torturous experiences). I think that, given how he’s tired of living that the thought to terminate his life would certainly cross his mind, but his self-preservation instincts are so ingrained that he’d have a hard time actually doing so. Entreri would want to die on his terms alone, but pitched into a totally different environment none of the conditions would be his own, and his sensibilities wouldn’t allow himself to give in to a situation like that. Not to mention in a completely foreign environment, the sense of perpetual danger would be great, which would trigger his competitive survival tendencies, leading him to be caught up in a huge endeavor to try to create some semblance of security for himself before he even realizes it. In his struggle to fight to have things on his terms, or more importantly, to not be on someone else’s terms, he would inevitably get himself stuck in an endless feedback cycle until he becomes what he’s always been no matter where he goes: a respected and feared entity that is given a wide berth.  

There’s of course the question of personal attachments, and where Hero left off, we’re supposed to believe that Dahlia is Entreri’s soulmate and their relationship is his Happily Ever After. I find this highly unlikely, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Entreri to be romantically involved with someone as well as having other attachments at the point of the conjectured destruction of his world. Upon losing those connections, so suddenly and compounded by the loss of everything that he’d ever known, he would despair, I mean who wouldn’t? It might come close to breaking him, but he’s gone through so many outrageously traumatic things in his life that “coping” mechanisms would kick in automatically even if he doesn’t will it consciously. In his anger, he might consider killing whomever destroyed his life as he knew it, but he would also quickly realize the impracticality of attempting such, for whom or what ever is capable of destroying an entire planet and its gods could squash him like a bug. He’d be giving up his life for something pointless as well as dying on someone else’s terms, and while Entreri has his pride and vengeful nature, he’s also not stupid. It’s true that the being directly responsible for destroying Earth, and presumably Toril in our thought experiment, is the equivalent of a construction worker who would be an easy target for Entreri to hit if Entreri could get to him, Entreri would also realize that there’d be very little point to trying to kill an individual that he knows nothing about in a society in which he has to relearn everything. So let’s say that Entreri eventually learns that the people who ordered the destruction of his planet are not warriors or mages and would be as vulnerable to his deadly blades as any commoner on the streets of Calimport, there would be little point in exacting revenge against them because hostility was nowhere near their motives when they destroyed the planet (they even put the paperwork on file and warned the Earth/Toril, it’s not their fault that the people of Earth/Toril didn’t go to Alpha Centauri to read those notices). The entire situation would be horribly ironic and Entreri would most likely be stuck in a state in which he wouldn’t know whether to laugh or rage. Rather than losing himself to impotent rage and the lack of a viable target to exact vengeance against, he’d more or less resign himself to reality, even if it would take a while. Entreri’s a very old man by human standards, and although his body hasn’t aged, it’s very apparent that he feels it on an emotional level. Most of his years have not been kind to him, inflicting on him way more mental scars than physical ones, so he probably feels a perpetual state of tiredness. This is in direct tension with his competitive drive, but I think that long term, he would (continue to) suffer from depression and PTSD, but he wouldn’t lose his edge. He’d try to make the most of everything in the way that he does, which isn’t healthy nor exemplary, but it’s what he does: spend a lot of time listening to conversations in space taverns and nursing all sorts of alien brews. It wouldn’t be out of the question for him to become one of those Sci-Fi space mercenaries/assassins garbed in fantasy medieval-esque cloak and leathers but dual-wielding energy blades, always managing to dwell ominously in the darkest corners despite the pervasive phosphorescent lighting. He could even become a dual-wielding gunslinger, as he prizes efficacy and efficiency, and melee weapons fall short when dependable range weapons exist (blunderbusses exist in the Realms, however are very unstable and undependable, hence why guns never caught on there). However, that’s a separate subject entirely

To my understanding, one of Arthur Dent’s biggest struggles with what happened to him is that his homeworld was a simple one-sentence notation in the annals of the universe. Abeir-Toril wouldn’t be that way, but even if it were, I don’t think Entreri is attached enough to it to really care about just how significant others found his world. I could see him finding some grim sort of amusement if it turned out that his world and all of its gods were in fact insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe/multiverse, since that’s sort of in line with his personal outlook. Entreri’s insignificance both disheartens him and allows him to draw some sort of twisted satisfaction from simply being insignificant. It rubs him the wrong way, but he also recognizes at least subconsciously that he can’t change that no matter how hard he tries and something that would prove that sort of defeatist mindset might bring him a strange sense of validation. And certainly, few things would prove a single entity’s total insignificance than some master race bulldozing over their planet as though it were nothing. So because of this warped satisfaction/validation, Entreri would be able to live on and adapt like he’s always done.

I apologize for the disjointed nature of my answer, my ignorance on this subject matter makes it pretty hard for me to answer, but hopefully I was able to entertain you at least a little. XD ]]

[ofcourseitsmyhead]

Thirteen Reasons Why

I saw the image floating around on social media of the reasons why Thirteen Reasons Why is a terrible thing to watch. It does everything wrong on many levels, and it’s incredibly triggering, so people were saying JUST DON’T.

And yet, I did. There’s probably going to be spoilers below, but I don’t really care about ruining the plot much.

Why I watched it

I have always been a curious person. I needed to know things. I needed to see things for myself. Otherwise, it wasn’t real, and I would overthink things and give myself nightmares. More on that later, it’s a little relevant.

So, I ventured over to Netflix, coping strategies in hand, and pressed Play. I watched most of the episodes in the bathtub, surrounded by warm, orange-scented water. I didn’t want to give myself the nightmares involved in over-thinking what would happen, with a bunch of faceless people doing terrible things.

Why I kept going

The first episode is so harmless. It starts talking about the things that went wrong for Hannah Baker, starting with a party at a friend’s house. A picture gets taken, and a rumour starts.

I may not have experienced some of the bullying that Hannah has gone through specifically, but I lived through situations a whole hell of a lot like hers. The snickers in the hallway, the names cropping up on bathroom walls, the whispers behind your back. They’re insidious. They’re horrible. They can drain your energy like you wouldn’t believe.

When the show got more intense, and relationships start falling apart, and Hannah and Clay start falling apart, I couldn’t leave loose ends. The show had an amazing creative team that could put a cliffhanger in the goddamn prairies. From a cinematography standpoint, I was able to put my feelings aside for just long enough to finish the episode and appreciate the artistry. And part of me hates the show for that.

Why I hate it, Part I

Before the show even starts to get into the nitty-gritty of Hannah’s suicide and the rougher experiences leading to it, Clay Jensen goes through something utterly terrifying. But, the kicker to that is it’s only terrifying if you know what you’re looking for.

Clay Jensen goes through a psychotic break.

Think about it. His hallucinations at school. His ‘conversations’ with Hannah that turn into horrible images of her bloody wrists and her begging him to help her. Him losing track of conversations, literally breaking away from what’s real.

This phase in the show doesn’t last long, but it’s probably one of the most horrible ones for me. His parents notice it, and suggest he go back on meds he was on previously (the details of which aren’t revealed, so who knows what kind of medication it actually is.) He starts coming back to reality, and lashes out at people as he keeps going through the tapes and trying to put pieces together. He changes into a dangerous person, to himself and other people, especially in later episodes.

Why I hate it, Part II

It isn’t unheard of for someone to leave a note or record behind of why they’re committing suicide. Some people leave them, some people don’t. Hannah’s tapes are a whole new level of suicide note. They’re a beautiful and lucid memoir of where things started to spiral out of control, and they were the only way for Hannah to get the thoughts out and put them together.

However, the tapes turn into a psychological torture train that leave many students clawing for truth.

It’s not wrong for Hannah to feel slighted, hurt, or even outright rage-y at what happened to her. It’s not wrong that she tried to cope, and failed. I’ve been there. I’ve seen friends become part of my life and then suddenly they weren’t, for a myriad of stupid reasons.

Those tapes should never have gone on a trail-blazing quest to tell other people where they fucked up. They should’ve been brought to Hannah’s parents, and the local police. I’m generally not a pusher of authority figures, but in times like this, given what ACTUALLY happens:

-The students in the tapes are withholding evidence of their complicity, risking themselves and others in the process. -The aforementioned psychotic break that Clay Jensen goes through. -The tapes prompt threats against other students’ wellbeing, as the stronger kids try and keep the information quiet and protect themselves.

It isn’t even completely Hannah’s fault that the tapes get circulated. She gives them to Tony. The entire show, Tony’s this mysterious figure who supposedly knows all about the tapes and how they’re supposed to ‘move,’ and the end result is because he, himself, is suffering from his own trauma as a result of Hannah’s suicide. Tony is the catalyst for these kids hearing Hannah’s story, and in a way, starts the landslide of scary shit that happens afterwards.

Why I hate it, Part III

It gets RAW. After episode 7, the entire show falls into this depressing horror show that doesn’t offer the viewer any reprieve. Many people laud this show as ‘a wonderful way to show what bullying can do to people.’

Barf. I mean yes, bullying is shitty, and there’s a whole lot of that in the show. But what else does it help show? I saw loneliness, heartache, violence, and sheer horror at what people can do to each other. Bryce Walker is a character that I would love to write out of existence. I saw adults letting these kids down on a phenomenal level, almost comically. It shows the brutal reality of rape and suicide.

And I’m sorry, if you needed that to sway you to trying to be better, you’re probably still a shitty person.

Why I hate it, Part IV

Mr. Porter is a fucking imbecile. I don’t understand how he was never written up or fired for giving the shittiest of advice and contributing to a shitty school environment.

You never tell a rape victim to move on.

He said that, people. He suggests that Hannah does something she regrets, and refuses to help her process her feelings or refer her to a sexual assault therapy resource. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge any warning signs of Hannah being suicidal or having trouble mentally, and the same goes for Clay Jensen. The adults in the show in general are so goddamn inept that it’s both helpful and hurtful.

Helpful: Showing adults watching the show how isolated kids feel. Hurtful: Showing kids watching the show that adults aren’t going to be able to help, so why bother. Why I hate it, Finale

This show is darker than that fancy ‘blackest black’ paint I’ve seen on the Internet.

Nobody is trying to make things better. The showrunners seem to have found a wonderful way to drag viewers through a tunnel of hopelessness and despair, without offering anything resembling a ray of sunshine to let people cope and decompress from this. There are three content warnings in the entire show, and those are before episodes that portray rape and suicide. That’s it.

The end of the show doesn’t just give a downward spiral for Hannah Baker, either. Tyler, the photographer, has been hoarding guns and ammunition he’s been trading paparazzi photos for over who knows how long. Alex Standall shoots himself in the face because he can no longer cope with the ramifications of his involvement, which all in all is pretty minor. Bryce Walker beats the crap out of Clay Jensen because Clay’s trying to get to the bottom of this.

Where on earth are the resources to help these kids? What kind of fancy substance are the showrunners smoking, thinking this show is a good idea?

Something’s gotta give, otherwise this show’s popularity is going to see a remarkable correlation in both mental health issues and self-harm.

[fmdtaeyongarchive]

↬ that half-full moon looks just like me right now.

date: spring 2016 / summer 2019.

location: seoul, south korea.

word count: 2,063 words, not including lyrics.

summary: n/a.

notes: creative claims verification. trigger warnings for suicidal ideation and depression because, well, most of this is early/mid-2016 ash, who was going through some shit mentally. he was actually going to a therapist back then though so... 2019 ash could learn a thing or two from him.

spring 2016.

the melody was one that first came to him in the midst of 2016 on a night walk. he didn’t go on those often, especially not in 2016, when every trip outside of the safety of his bed felt like the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. his therapist had said he should appreciate the little steps he could take in getting past that. he didn’t have to phone up any of his friends (god, he didn’t even know how many of those he had left after leaving everyone on read for weeks at a time) to hang out if his fingers refused to press the call button on his phone, but leaving his room was still progress. being able to walk down the street without cowering in fear that a reporter or sasaeng might be around any corner was still progress.

it was pathetic that leaving knight’s dorm by his own choice was a feat now and it was humiliating that his manager had seemed hesitant to let him leave. not because he thought ash was going to go out and meet a girl and get the group in even more trouble than he already had, but because the look in his manager’s eyes said he wasn’t confident ash would return if he let him go out on his own. i’ll try my best to resist the urge to walk in front of a car, ash had thought bitterly as he left, but there hadn’t been much humor in it. with the way his brain chemicals were working lately, he couldn’t promise anything. the intrusive thoughts weren’t even urges, really. they’d be better described as a flip switched into autopilot that ash only fought against the push of out of guilt. there wasn’t much of a rational explanation for the guilt. it’d be less for his manager to worry about if ash were to conveniently stop being around to cause problems, and, even better, ash wouldn’t have any problems to deal with himself then. maybe it was only his remaining selfishness masquerading as guilt.

he’d told himself not to think about that as he’d left the property of the building knight’s dorm was in, hands in the front pocket of his dark hoodie and eyes glued to the ground. healthy coping mechanisms hadn’t become second nature to him yet (he had to question if that would ever happen) no matter how many therapy sessions he’d gone to after his manager had forced him to seek help out of concern for his well-being, so compartmentalizing would have to do for now.

ash didn’t have a destination in mind as he set out, following wherever his feet led him instead. he strayed further and further from the streets other people were walking, uncomfortable with the wave of anxiety that would wash over him at even the thought of making eye contact with someone who might recognize him, until he ended on a road littered with a variety of shops, some already closed while others had their lights on in the darkness of the night. he craned his neck to glance at the sky, but there was never anything to see up there past the light pollution and smog. the blurry tops of the street lights were the closest thing to stars in sight.

it wasn’t so late that only the twenty-four hour shops remained, but the moon was rising slowly in the blue-black sky and by the time ash turned on his heel to return home, he knew even more shops would have gone dark for the night, but he needed to do something, go somewhere, so that he wouldn’t feel even worse about himself when he returned to knight’s dorm and spent all night in bed staring at the ceiling of his room.

maybe ash would see if there were any good restaurants on the street. he wasn’t hungry, but picking at food in front of him without ingesting any of it had become as regular as the three meals a day he was supposed to have now. it would still feel like some form of normalcy, which was better than the constant free fall of insecurity and self-loathing he lived in lately. if he spent enough time somewhere, he could at least feel like he’d accomplished something.

it wasn’t until he came across a shop that was mostly bare save for words spelling out its status as a music shop that ash came to a halt and considered the door. there was one window in front of the store to see inside and the visible setup wasn’t anything very fancy. it looked empty, though, from what he could see and it didn’t seem to be the kind of place that would experience a surge in customer base before they closed down for the night, so he gave himself silent permission to reach for the handle and step inside the shop. his booted feet lightly thumped onto the old floor of the shop and ash was hit with a wave of half-nostalgia. he’d been frequenting music shops for as long as he could remember and simply seeing the displays of instruments against the walls and the aisles of sheet music brought back memories from his childhood, but whenever he visited the sorts of places he’d known so intimately back in san francisco now that he was in seoul, there was always something that felt off. it made his memories fall into an uncanny valley of remembrance.

ash pushed that away, bowing his head in polite greeting in the direction of the worker behind the checkout counter without making eye contact.

“welcome! let me know if you need anything,” the woman’s voice rang out with a confidence that was overwhelming to ash even in its understatedness. a thank you formed on his tongue as his eyes scanned the shop and fell onto an upright piano shoved away in the corner. it was clearly not on display for sale from its worn state and odd positioning. 

“am i allowed to play that?” ash asked before he could stop himself. “uh, i mean, can i try it out?” he rephrased in an attempt to not make it sound like he’d come in the store just to play their piano. the woman gave her permission with a visible hesitance and ash bowed his head once more in thanks, still insisting on only making eye contact with the piano instead of her.

as soon as he sat down, the melody that had been forming in the back of his head the entire walk began to wriggle its way into his fingertips. music had been come and go lately, but when it came, it came with the comfort of familiarity that had become rare. something about the dark night around him, the empty streets, the starless sky, it’d all built into a whirlpool inside his chest that he needed to get out in some way. ash pressed experimentally at the keys to test out their unique personality and once he’d familiarized himself, he began to play. there was some self-consciousness to it, as he was starkly aware of his company. normally, he would have no problem playing for someone, but his self-critical state of mind made him far too focused on the oddness of entering a music shop just to use their piano to compose.

after some time of playing without any comments being made in his direction, ash fished his phone out of his pocket and recorded the song he’d been fine-tuning, softly singing parts of lyrics that had come to mind on the walk and as he worked out how the notes would flow together.

“why do i feel so empty for no reason at all?” he sang in hushed tones, mindful of keeping his voice low enough not to travel over to the register and disrupt the worker. even in quiet tones interlaced with its fair share of unsure mumbling over undecided lyrics, the song mourned of what was missing. when lyrics came to him for the past few weeks, they’d all been of numbness or heartbreak, but that wasn’t strange when heartbreak was so fresh for him and numbness had installed itself firmly in the middle of his chest to get him through. he couldn’t write of love when it’d left him or joy when he’d forgotten how it felt.

when he became aware of the night again, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed around him. he hadn’t checked the time when he’d arrived, but once his fingers stilled on the piano keyboard, it was late enough that the shop should be closing. he was surprised it hadn’t already. he stopped the most recent recording and stood from the bench, looking in the worker’s direction apologetically. he turned to see her eyes were already on him and he grew embarrassed, head dipping once again.

“thank you,” he managed to get out, ready to rush out and leave before realizing he should at least buy something to make up for all of the time he’d wasted at the piano. looking around him frantically, he grabbed the first thing he could find that he could rationally used — two packages of drum sticks totaling just over seventy thousand won.

note to self: don’t use a public music store as your personal composition studio ever again, ash admonished himself.

summer 2019.

it was another night of settling in to work on his album. he’d been at a loss of what to work on next, so he’d hunted down a collection of flash drives from years ago to search through in hopes of finding something that could work with the new album. he’d avoided the ones he’d found to be from 2016, but when he’d exhausted the more recent drives, he resigned himself to rifling through the 2016 files. he didn’t like to revisit his songs from that time too much now. they reminded him too much of how alone he’d felt and how much he’d wanted to give up. it was still tough, but nothing would ever compare to the hell he’d sunk to back then. hearing anything from that time always felt like toying with a cursed object, like it would put him in danger of falling right back into that level of despair if he wasn’t careful enough.

the song was several files deep into the drive, but when ash opened it, memories of writing it came back to him. he remembered the night at the music shop and how he’d gone home and spent all night reworking the lyrics afterwards. it had stood the test of time surprisingly well and the emotions he’d poured into it were a good fit for the second half of his new album. other than an official recording, all it needed was improved production. three years prior, ash hadn’t known what he was doing as much in that department as he did now.

once the instrumental was polished and ash had laid down new vocals in the studio along with the rap verse he’d reached out to jaewon for, ash set to work on arranging it. instead of playing it off as a straight ballad like he’d had in mind originally, ash wanted to create an atmosphere that would emphasize the feeling. the night he’d first written it was fuzzy in his memory, as a lot of 2016 was, but he wanted to recreate what he could remember and embellish it with his contemporary understanding of it. he wanted it to sound like background music for a silent night being driven through the city and the gentle distant fade-in piano introduction was his first move to make that a reality.

it turned out being heavier jazz-r&b in production than ash thought he’d envisioned when writing it that night, and he implemented percussion far more intensely than the initial bare-bones production had done. the use of percussion was a point he was praised on when he first showed off the piece, a fact that gave ash a swell of pride in his own musical growth over the years. even as he celebrated his own progress, though, he wished he could say he’d grown as much emotionally since the song’s first creation as he had musically. in a way he’d tried not to read too much into, it still hit a little too close to home.

[salsrecovery]

How to Choose a Drug Rehab Center Near You

Getting into the habit of drug addiction is no laughing matter, as it could end up being a matter of life or death, with the latter being more often than not the sad conclusion if nothing is done about it. While only those with an iron will are able to overcome their drug addiction by quitting cold turkey, the majority of the others would require the assistance provided by a drug rehab center. SALS Recovery is a non-profit organization that has its fair share of recovery houses to help those experiencing drug dependency issues to overcome this form of addiction, in order to live a healthy, fulfilling and drug-free life.

With different kinds of drug and alcohol rehab centers offering their own version of programs and treatment, it would be in the patient’s best interest to know what exactly should one look out for in a particular program. This will not only help cut down recovery costs in the long run, it will also minimize the destructive pattern of dropping out from a rehabilitation center that could lead to depression and lapsing into old habits, resulting in a seemingly never-ending downward spiral. The search for the right kind of drug rehab center is a very important decision to make, so here are some pointers on how to choose a drug rehab center close to where you live that will tick off most, if not all of the checkboxes on your list.

List down your expectations from the rehabilitation center

No two programs are the same when it comes to drug rehab, although some of them might be similar in many aspects. Just like how varying factors in an experiment will ultimately affect the results, so too, will the variety of programs deliver results of their own. With individual interpretations of what success constitutes in a rehab center, I would want to choose a drug rehab near me that makes me feel comfortable. Knowing my expectations is the perfect way to select the right kind of rehabilitation center. It should be a decision that ought to be made collectively, including other stakeholders like the family to determine whether the ultimate result is acceptable or not. It is in your best interest to ask the rehab program on their definition and measurement of success, along with their historical success rate before a decision can be reached.

Know how long the rehab program will last

Everything needs to have a beginning and an end. It really depends on the seriousness of the situation as well as the viability of the program’s length. Do ask whether the rehab program will be a short-term one or is it one that lasts for the long haul. The longer a particular program runs, the more expensive it will be, which makes sense to reduce commuting time if it is located close to home. Many drug rehab programs stick to a 28-day schedule but do be aware that this might not be adequate enough for certain patients to achieve a level of stability and drug-free lifestyle. After all, addiction is not something that can be cured by popping three pills a day before meals, as there is a very high chance that mental damage has also occurred. Fixing the mind and healing the body can be a long and tough road, so do consider exploring programs that last longer than 28 days.

Is drug substitution part of the treatment program?

One of the most common forms of drug treatment programs includes drug substitution, relying on the likes of Suboxone, methadone, or buprenorphine to the patient who is on the path to recovery. This includes addicts of prescription painkillers, something more serious like heroin, or even other kinds of drugs. Such a program is usually implemented as part of the harm reduction process with the ultimate aim of lowering the amount of harm to a person’s body as opposed to going through wanton drug abuse.

There are also other rehab programs that do lean towards a pharmaceutical solution that rely on medication that falls within the level of benzodiazepines, such as Valium or Xanax. The logic behind that is to help relieve any possible distressing symptoms so that the patient will have an easier time through the entire process. Anyone who experiences a serious case of alcohol withdrawal might require the assistance of benzodiazepines, but it is imperative to take note that this is not the sole solution when it comes to rehab treatment.

There is always a risk that the patient might end up relying on the substitute medications that make up the treatment itself. Xanax, for instance, carries the risk of someone being dependent on it after a mere 12 weeks of usage at the certain dosage. One should be even warier of prescription opioid substitutes since those can be far more addictive within a short span of time.

Do take note that the prescription substitute method is not recommended as a long-term solution, as it is essentially nothing more than trading one particular addiction for a different one. Assuming that the ultimate aim is to be weaned off totally from drug addiction, then steer clear of any programs that have drug substitution as the primary form of treatment.

As most prescription drug rehab centers also deal with alcoholic patients, there are selected programs that will prescribe drugs such as Antabuse which will make a person feel nauseous upon consumption of alcohol. The big danger of Antabuse is, it opens up the door to liver problems that range from severe to potentially fatal situations. One’s sex life will also be impacted negatively as impotence is another possible side effect, and this could lead to a despairing situation that will not be a positive experience for the patient in any way.

Get familiar with the methodology used to overcome cravings

Sit down and ask just what kind of method is used, if any, to help a person overcome the cravings that are all too common in cases of drug dependency and alcoholism. Any addict who is going through the recovery process will have to grapple with cravings for the drug that one has been so dependent on all this while. We understand that most rehab programs do not offer a direct way of combating these cravings, but rather, resort to prescription medications that will suppress such cravings as a form of the chemical solution. Without an effective or suitable method to address the intensity of such cravings directly, one might end up with a far greater desire to resort to one’s old ways.

Hence, do see whether there are other kinds of components or techniques in the program which will prevent any kind of backsliding from happening. These can comprise of a potent combination of a well balanced, nutritious diet, a properly planned exercise program, and even a detox session to help one’s journey on the road to full recovery.

Diet plays a key role

You are what you eat, and there is wisdom in that saying. It is wise to pay close inspection to the nutritional aspect of the drug rehab program. Normally, an addict who wants to be helped tends to be in very poor shape, normally suffering from gastrointestinal issues due to serious opiate abuse over the course of time that results in being malnourished. The other twin terror of addiction, alcoholism, often ends up causing anemia and brain disease in its victims due to the lack of proper nutrition. By making sure that the drug rehab program is backed by proper nutrition support, it will greatly help the patient return to the pink of health.

Just like how the drug addiction problem did not develop in one day, patience is required while the patient is on the mend. It will take time for the body to absorb all of the nutrients from a proper diet as the body begins to heal. Symptoms such as insomnia, depression, a lethargic feeling all the time, and is easily irritated, among others, should go away after a while.

Reintegration into society upon graduation

Nobody likes to experience uncertainties in life, but one unavoidable fact upon checking in to a rehab facility is equivalent to taking a hiatus from everyday life itself. The longer one takes to recover, the more detached a person would be from the real world. This might prove to be a far more difficult step to take for professionals as it can be a huge mental and emotional blow to the ego. More importantly, do find out whether the rehab program does provide relevant life skills to a patient in order to ease the transition when one makes a return to a sober lifestyle.

The mountaintop experience at a rehab program will not last, where tough and challenging times will come. Such stress levels associated with everyday life will test a recovered person’s will to the limit, offering temptation to return to the old lifestyle. There will be old associates and places that might trigger a relapse, or other kinds of challenges that life offers such as being made redundant, losing a spouse or family member, deteriorating health, or other reasons.

Being equipped with leaving the rehab center to cope with the upcoming challenges is an essential factor to be able to face such stress triggers and emerge victorious without turning to drugs. The relevant life skills imparted during the recovery process are crucial in keeping one on the straight and narrow. It will also be able to show the recovering addict that the old self-destructive patterns are a thing of the past and that it is possible to overcome temptations and triggers in a positive manner. Hope is a very powerful driving factor for any person to move on, and with each victory in overcoming temptations and stress, it will be a stepping stone to future victories.

How the rehab program views addiction

The way a particular rehab program views drug addiction will ultimately shape the way the program is designed. If the drug rehab program flows along the lines of drug addiction being a curable chronic disease, then there is every possibility that episodes of relapses are going to be expected on the road to recovery. On the other hand, there are particular rehab programs that believe relapse episodes need not happen as long as there is a well structured and thorough program to guide the addict through tough times. How the drug rehab center thinks should be aligned with the patient, as a common goal and vision make for a very potent combination. Otherwise, there might be resistance experienced by the patient or a defeated mindset right from the very beginning that will surely not help the situation in any way.

There is no instant or miraculous cure

If there is a drug rehab program that promises a miraculous, instantaneous cure, avoid that at all costs. Anything that is too good to be true probably is. It is contrary to common sense and logic that a patient is able to overcome a long period of sustained addiction through a simple injection, or worse, being subjected to painful electric shocks.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the decision lies in being comfortable with the philosophy, ideas, and people running the drug rehab center. It is a human life at stake here and not an inanimate object, so the best possible step for the well-being of the patient is of the utmost importance. All the best in picking the right drug rehab center near you!

The post How to Choose a Drug Rehab Center Near You appeared first on SALS Recovery.

[andsotheadventurebeginsblog]

Breaking It Down:  From Despair to Here.

A Prologue to Madness.

I can’t honestly remember the last time I was truly happy. I don't actually believe this happiness exists. As humans, we need to suffer to understand what it is to love and to be joyful. It’s just with some of us, the suffering presides over everything else. It’s an overarching numbness that is almost impossible to explain. In the last 6 months, I have been fighting with myself more than I usually do. There have been events that have tilted and knocked me, and helped me to prove to myself and remind me what a worthless individual I am. There have been moments of utter confusion and despair within social occasions I should have been enjoying. There have been many, many moments when I have truly wanted to disappear and sometimes physically have. There have been evenings where I have drunk myself away from the noise in my head to the point of blackout. And there have been very real thoughts of suicide and and very real episodes of self harm. There have been a few hours of clarity when I have decided to get on with what I have to do that day, and there have been days where I have actually been OK. But there have been many more days where I haven’t been OK at all.

I am writing this down because I want other people to feel like they are not alone. I don't need sympathy and I don't need people changing the way they behave around me now that this is out in the open. I have tried searching for a similar story, a real honest story that I can cling to, a story where suddenly everything is strategic, there is a plan, the problem is solved, but I have failed.

This blog will not provide answers - it is a work in progress, as am I. As much as I want to forget the past week, I need to remember it. I need to make sense of what has happened. And I need to explain to all the people that love me, and all the people that I have loved, what has happened. This story doesn’t start on the 10th October 2017. It starts a lot longer ago than that.

I had been in the throws of an episode of depression for about 3 weeks before ‘the thing’ happened. I hadn’t slept much. I had been ill, a slight cold, something that looking back may have been a sign to stop. I had attended a few social gatherings I couldn’t cope with, I had got blackout drunk and screamed at two of my closest friends. I was behaving increasingly irrationally and I couldn’t see any further than the next minute. I had cut my legs with a pair of scissors and counted how many painkillers I had in the house. I had googled how many it would take for me not to wake up. I didn’t have enough. I had run a really bad marathon the Sunday before, because I was exhausted. I had been kept awake the night before the race by suicidal thoughts; hallucinations of me rigging up a ligature in the bedroom I was staying in. I had stood at the edge of the road and thought about throwing myself in front of the cars. I had stood at the edge of the underground platform and thought about throwing myself in front of the tube. I was completely terrified of myself. I was a danger to myself. I was walking through treacle and trying to pretend that this would pass. It always passes.

During this time I made notes, I wrote a lot and I will continue to write. I have gone back and put it into some sort of coherent structure. To help myself understand, and to help you try and understand. I’ve left some of the writing as it was and it’s chaotic. There is no conclusion to this story.

It’s worth mentioning that before this happened, I had been on the drug Champix - a drug that is supposed to help you give up smoking. I had been on it for around 6 weeks at this point and had stopped smoking. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this medication fuelled the fire of what happened. But that story is for another time. It was always going to happen.

Monday 9th October 2017

Today was the day. It was the day I had a full on breakdown, the breakdown that I would actually take notice of, because the ones before had been numbed and ignored and poked into the inside pocket of my outdoor coat for years. This one was 20 years in the making. I was on Tottenham Court Road. I had just come out of a meeting. I went looking for some pillows for my bed, because the pillows on my bed had felt like they were made of stones the night before when I couldn’t sleep, between terrors. They felt like the stones the Romans used to make flour, the ones you read about in the books at school, and they felt like it on my hands and also in my mouth but I hadn’t bitten them. It just felt like that in the inside of my mouth and I could taste blood. Between the terrors. But every time I went in a shop, I was overwhelmed by pillows and types of pillows. I want the pillows you get in the hotels. Not the duck down ones, the really firm ones that are also duck down but also something else. And also, there were people; normal, happy people and couples, really middle class ones who were very attractive and happy and had worked hard to be that attractive and happy and they were feathering their nests and making a home, and I wanted to kill them and be them at the same time.  I was in Heals. I was hungry so I ate a sandwich that I had in my bag in the toilet cubicle at Heals. I ate it really quietly because I didn’t want people outside looking at me or the people in Heals finding out. They would tell me to leave because I wasn’t good enough to be there. I also went in Habitat and in Dwell and The Bed Shop, but I was overwhelmed by pillows and people, and I was scared of the shop assistants, plus I kept forgetting what I was actually doing.

When I left Heals without pillows I started to cry on Tottenham Court Road and I couldn’t understand why. I couldn’t stop crying. Or I would stop crying, but then about a minute later it would start again. I stood still for a long time and couldn’t work out where I was or what I was doing. I got on the tube and was crying. Nobody said anything. I cried through Liverpool Street and managed to get to Hackney Central and I got off the train and went to the pub.

In the pub, I wrote the words below. Because this is how I felt. I haven’t edited it because I think the contents speak for themselves.

****

Reality check - a side note to how I am feeling. I am living in fear of myself. I want to hurt myself. I think about it every day, maybe 8 or 9 times a day. I watch the cars and the trains. I have a whole drawer of codeine - I have been buying a 16 pack every time I go past a Boots. I have self harmed with scissors, something I haven’t done for 18 years. I cut my legs. The things I rely on to run. I have looked on the internet for anything I can take that will make me fall asleep and not wake up but has to be 100%, no accidents or pain or anything. I have eaten my sandwich for lunch in a toilet because I don’t want people to look at me, because I am disgusting for having a sandwich. I go in food shops and cannot make a decision about what to buy, so I buy nothing and go home hungry. If I buy something, it’s what I think I should buy because I saw someone else buy it and it goes mouldy in the fridge. I’m not hungry anyway.

I go into other shops and spend £60 on stuff I don't need and I don't know why. I buy things on Amazon. Lots of things. I go into catatonic states of staring at nothing, I miss my stop multiple times. I go to the pub and sit there for 3 hours on my own because I am afraid to go home because I don’t want my housemates to see me or talk to me because they are probably going to tell me to move out because I am so fucked up. I have night terrors and can’t sleep. I am always tired and I always have a headache. I hallucinate that I am setting up ligatures in my bedroom, that a white snake is trying to bite my face, I physically jump away from imaginary things like the snake, to wake myself, but I am not asleep. Lots of times, when I have to speak to a person in a shop or in the world outside my bedroom, the world that I have become so afraid of, I pretend to be on a phone call so I won’t have to look at them and can just say “Sorry, hang on” and then mutter what I want at the shop or outside person, and carry on my fake phone call, not look them in the eye and and walk away with my useless purchase.

Sometimes I feel a manic push to be kind, and then I ask people around me if they are OK, but this doesn’t happen often. When it does, it happens one person after another for a whole morning on the tube usually, and also when I am running a marathon or something, and it makes me feel amazing for a minute.

Sometimes I feel a calmness that I know is the feeling that some people get shortly before they commit suicide. I know because I have tried to commit suicide before. The thing I feel the most though, is fear, in my heart and in my stomach and that’s all the time really. I don't know what I am scared of but I am fucking terrified. It’s next level fear.

And to my friends, this. I don’t reply to your texts and I hate our whatsapp groups and I want to leave all of them, so I don't reply. Every message makes me angry and also sad but mainly angry and also I don't care. I am really glad you’re all having such a fucking easy, funny, nice life. I can’t concentrate. I am not part of your group anymore because I am different. I am damaged. I’m not who I pretended to be when I first joined the group. This is the real me. The person who hates people who are happy. I really do. I fucking HATE couples. I hate them, and wish they were dead or would cheat on each other and both find out because that’s fucking life.

I don't want to go for a drink or coffee or a run or a catch up or a talk or vent or whatever language you put it in, I want to vanish. I am vicious. You didn’t contact me before someone told you they thought something might be wrong, and so don't fucking contact me now. You can’t ‘cheer me up’. Things you say make me cringe and you’re lying that it’s not a burden because it is. I am carrying it  around and it is killing me. It is a burden. I’ll prove it’s a burden, when you either stop talking to me because you’re so bored of what a fucking idiot I am, or I fucking top myself.

I don’t believe the things you say when I drunkenly manage to tell you that I am scared I might kill myself, or I cry at nothing, don't fucking touch me.  I come home shitfaced for 4 days in a row because the only thing that shuts the howling in my head and the clawing in my stomach is alcohol, and for a while I can sleep without terror. I don't deserve any help, but I so desperately want it but I don’t know what help I need. I should be able to control this because I am a 36 year old woman who owns her own business, who runs marathons, whose holiday looked GREAT on instagram.

This is so embarrassing.

I wish I was covered in scales or it came up in a rash or was a tumour so you could see it. I’ve gone a few days without alcohol - maybe it’s that? It’s not. It’s me.

How to act normal I’ve got very good at pretending over the years.  I am OK at work most of the time, but I work for myself, so I can make excuses to leave a place or not turn up at all, or I can go to the toilet and do a cry and I always have make up or I used to, but now I don’t carry it because I don’t care what I look like and I don't really wash or brush my hair unless I have to.

I tell some people I work with that I am depressed because it’s obvious from my face and I have given up smoking, and they are also depressed, everyone is, so I am not weird, but I say I am dealing with it, which is a lie, and then I say something funny and everyone laughs and goes away.

I can do this very well in the mornings, but in the afternoons when I am tired, something takes over that I can’t control. I am losing the ability to communicate. I forget words and sentences and names. I have no patience. I can still put on a show, but in the afternoons crying starts without warning - this happens a lot and then I stop it and then it starts again and I try and stop it but can’t, and I decide if someone asks me if I am OK on the tube or when I am in the pub hiding, I will say “yes, I am fine, my dog just died” and do a smile, but nobody ever really asks and I don't have a dog. And on it goes.

I have completely lost grip on reality in this sense. I am living day to day. My to do list goes undone and is re-written day to day. My work gets done. My meetings get done. My afternoons are blurred but they get done. When I get home, sometimes I see my housemate and she is so kind. She is kind because she has been here before when I tried too kill myself, but there is nothing she can do and she knows it. Sometimes I am fucking vicious to her, when I am drunk. We don't talk about these times the next day. I go in my room and shut the door and nobody bothers me.

****

When I have finished writing this down, I go home and I am shaky and fogged by wine and no dinner so I am crying but I don't feel hungry, and my housemates ask me if I am OK. I say no and I go straight to bed. I think the reality of the situation will frighten them. I set my alarm for 8am to call the doctor. I need to see a doctor. Today is world mental heath awareness day.

Tuesday 10th October 2017

I wake up at 8am and call the doctor. I feel awful because I haven’t had anything to eat but I need to call the doctor. I wait for 20 minutes on the line and speak to a doctor. I tell her I am very depressed and need to come in and see her. She says I can come at 11am. I get back in bed and set an alarm for 10am. I pack my bag for work. Meeting at 12. Important meeting at 12. I get to the doctor. I go in and see her and start crying and explain what happened with the pillows yesterday. She asks me what I want her to do about it. I say I don’t fucking know. She asks me if I have had suicidal thoughts. I say yes, all the time. She looks a bit scared and asks me a bit about my past, have I been on medication before, and I say yes. She writes me a prescription and sends it to Boots in Hackney. She says that I need to call the Crisis helpline and talk to a mental health professional. I tell her that I have a meeting at 12 and I will do it after. She tells me I have to do it now and she will sign me off work. I say NO I HAVE AN IMPORTANT MEETING AT 12 and I will do it after. She says if I don't do it, she will have to take action to hospitalise me. She doesn’t call them herself. She writes 2 numbers on a piece of paper. I stuff them in my bag and leave.

I get to the train station and stare at the tracks and feel like I am watching myself in a film. I get on the train and start crying. Need to pull it together, important meeting at 12. I get to Liverpool Street and go in Costa. Important meeting at 12. Skinny latte please. I start crying. I can’t do it. I am scared of all the people in the station and I feel sick with anxiety, so I call work and tell my friend what is happening and I can’t breathe properly because I am crying so much. She is very kind and she says she will take the meeting. I have to sit on the floor because I feel very sick and I am crying and I am embarrassed because I just called my work crying. I am sat on the floor of the station crying. Nobody asks me if I am OK. I get the numbers out of my bag and I call the first number. It is wrong. It is a fax number. I call the second number. It is wrong. It is the Crisis Home Care number. I am like a little mouse on the phone because I don't know what to say and then when it’s the wrong number I get very angry and hang up and walk to the shop and buy cigarettes and go outside and smoke my first cigarette in 21 days and cry because I can’t even fucking do that right, and I try and search for the right number on my phone but I can’t find it.

I look at all the people at Liverpool Street Station but nobody looks at me. I find a number. I call it again. It’s the Crisis Home Care number again. The lady says she has been trying to call me back after I hung up. She talks to me about what has happened and then says I need to go to the hospital to see her right now. The hospital is in Homerton. I have to wait for a train for 15 minutes and I think about who I can call, I think I need someone to come with me, but everyone will be busy and I don't want to worry them so I decide not to call anyone. I have to hold onto the handrail because my legs keep buckling. I can’t remember where the hospital is or the name of the lady and I get confused on the way. I have lived here for 4 years but I can’t remember the way. I come to realise I am walking very, very slowly and it feels like I am in a film. My face feels sore and my eyes hurt.

When I get to the hospital, I find the mental health unit and I sit there and a lady comes out and is kind to me and takes me in a room and talks to me for and hour and a half and I cry a lot and I am honest with her and she says have I picked up my prescription and what is it for and I say no and I don't know what it is for, because I haven’t asked what it is for and I wasn’t told. She cancels the prescription and says she wants me to see a doctor before they give me anything else and she explains what has happened to me, which is a mental breakdown, and says she is going too put me into the care of the mental health clinic and I can stay at the hospital or I can go home and have the Crisis team come and see me. I want to go home. I want to go home to my family. I am very, very scared. I feel embarrassed and scared and I feel like I am making a fuss, but I also feel hopeless and very tired and confused. She takes some phone numbers - my mums and my housemates. She gives me some sleeping tablets and then she sends me home and I leave the hospital and call my work and tell them I have to go home for a little while because I am not very well, and I call my mum and tell her what has happened and that I think I need to come home, and I feel like this is happening to someone else and I buy spaghetti in a tin and some bread and I go home and I call my housemate and tell her what has happened. I tell her I need to take all my pain killers that I have been storing and I need her to look after them for me because otherwise the Crisis team will take them away. I have a lot of pain killers stored away.

The Crisis people call me. Am I OK? Do I need them to come round? What time can they come round tomorrow? They will come round between 11am and 2pm tomorrow. I feel like I am in a film. I feel calm. I get a text from a friend who has also been suffering with their mental health in the last few weeks. A few weeks ago, I went to meet him and we had a walk and a glass of wine and a chat and I hope I helped a little bit. I go and meet him and tell him, and he buys pizza and is kind and offers no answers, he is just kind and makes me laugh a few times. He makes me eat the pizza. I feel better. I feel like I am floating above myself looking down at me talking. I don't feel like I am ill. I feel a fraud. I feel better. I go home, I take 2 sleeping tablets and I sleep for so long. I don't wake up or dream.

Wednesday 11th October 2017

I wake up and I feel tired. I watch something on my iPad and eat a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes and congratulate myself on eating them. I feel better. I feel like a fraud. There is nothing wrong with me, I just had a bad couple of days and I feel embarrassed. I start to cry. I want to know when I will be better and I want to be able to work. I am letting so many people down. I look at my computer but I can’t think of words very well. I feel like I am looking down on myself in a film. I want to go home but I have to wait for the Crisis people. They come and they look at me, and ask me if I have had any bad thoughts and I say not really but I am very tired and can I go home now? I ask them when I will be better and how I can get better. They look blankly at me. They say I need to remove myself from stressful situations and do things I love. They say I need to rest my brain and re-connect with the things I love. I feel like I love nothing. I don’t know what to do.

They say that they need a doctor to come and see me and that he will be able to prescribe me some anti-depressants, and I know I need them to get through the next few weeks in case I feel like I did on Monday again. I say I want to go home today. They say that if they can talk to the Dorset team I can go home tomorrow and I can be referred there and they will take care of me, but they want me to stay at here for the night and they want to see me again tomorrow. I find out that the anti-depressants that the doctor I saw on Tuesday had prescribed were Citalopram. I have taken them before. I took them for 4 years after I tried to kill myself at university. They want me to talk to a doctor before they prescribe them again. They will come back tomorrow morning  early so I can go home. When they leave I lay on the sofa and when I wake up it is dark. I am very tired. I eat a sweet potato pie. I watch a film about Anorexia and I take sleeping tablets and I go to bed.

Thursday 12th October 2017

I wake up late and I feel better. I put my running gear on and I eat a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I wait for the Crisis people, and when they come I say I feel better. I ask when I will be well enough to go back to work. They say they don’t know. I say look I am eating food! And I am going to go for a run! I feel like I am looking down on myself like in a film, but I feel better. I feel like a fraud. There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel like I should go back to work. But in my gut, in my bellyhole I know there is something wrong with me because I feel like I am looking down on myself, like in a film. They tell me they have referred me to the Dorset Crisis team and that I can go home today and then I need to call them and they will look after me. They tell me the doctor there will help me to get the drugs I need. They leave and I go for a run and it’s hard but its the best thing I can do for myself now. I have a 100 mile run in the diary for the 21st October. I need to be well enough to do it. If I don’t do it, it will kill me and it will have won.  

I am finding that simple things like running and making a bowl of cereal are hard. I have a shower for the first time in 2 days. I have forgotten to have a shower for 2 days. I pack my suitcase and I go to the train station and I get in the train and it is packed. I have a sandwich in my bag but I am scared to eat it in case it annoys the man who is sitting next to me. I get up and go and stand by the door to eat it. When I get to the station I meet my mum and she says I look well, better than she thought I would look. I tell her all about the Crisis teams. I ring the Dorset team and they say they will be around tomorrow to see me. We drive home and I feel silly and pathetic and very, very depressed. I don't remember what happens when we get home really. I just feel very, very depressed. We watch some telly and I go to bed.

Friday 13th October 2017

I wake up and I feel empty and useless and awful. I cry. I sit on the edge of my bed and look out the window and cry. I don't know why I am crying. I go downstairs and I see my mum and start to cry. She gives me a cuddle and I eat a bowl of museli. She starts telling me what she is doing that day. I am not really listening. We go for a walk in the woods and I don't know what to say. I don't want to say anything. I feel like I am in shock. I feel like I am looking down on myself. Like in a film. When we get home, I decide to walk into town to buy a book I want to read about a woman who has survived Schizophrenia. She makes me take the dog and the the dog annoys me the whole way there, and I just feel so sad, and sometimes I say horrible things to the dog. I used to love the dog. Now I love nothing. I see a dead badger on the side of the road. I cry about the dead badger. I walk round like a zombie and I can’t find the book. I sit in the Waitrose carpark for 25 minutes and stare at the grass and cry a bit. Then I walk the dog home and no, I don't want any lunch, thank you, and then I go upstairs and sit on the end of my bed and my mum comes upstairs and she asks me if she can come in, and she does and I am crying.

I talk to my mum about how I feel, and we talk for 20 minutes and I feel better. I tell her I want things to be normal. I want to feel like life is normal. I say we should go to the pub for a drink later - that is normal. I look at her holiday pictures and she looks at my pictures of Scotland. My friend David Harvey texts me and I say let’s go for a run on Sunday in the forest. I say yes I would like that. I am waiting for the Crisis team. They are late. My mum says I should do some ironing to distract myself. I do all of it. I look at the iron and think about how it would feel if I put it on my arm. The Crisis team are late.

When she arrives, there is just one lady from the Crisis team and I don’t like her. My mum sits in on our conversation and I can see her recoil when I talk about killing myself and she looks like she might cry. I don't feel like I want to kill myself now, I just feel like I want to move forward but I don't know how to do that and if I am going to feel like this forever what is the point. I think that, I don’t say it. I ask the Crisis lady when I will feel better. She says she doesn’t know, but that she will get a doctor to some round tomorrow to write me a prescription for anti-depressants. He will come between 10am and 12pm. She leaves and we go for a walk with the dog and I am silent and then we go to the pop up brewery for a pint, and I feel out of place and that I can’t make conversation with their friends, because I am here because I am depressed and that is embarrassing. We go home and eat dinner and then we watch rubbish TV and I go to bed. I am sleeping well because I have sleeping tablets. There are no terrors and no dreams. I need to get some more. You can get them over the counter. They are an allergy tablet - I need to get some more - so I tell myself I will do that tomorrow. I want to go and see my sister and her husband and my nieces and nephews tomorrow because they make me feel happy. I also want to run tomorrow. I cannot let this take running away from me.  

Saturday 14th October 2017

When I wake up I feel better. I want to go for a run. I want to feel better. The doctor they are sending round is going to be late so I have some breakfast and drive to the beach and I run for 6 miles and get a coffee and and drive home and have a shower. I feel OK. Not brilliant, but OK. Running will save me. Autumn 100 next weekend. The doctor comes. He is lovely but he is strange. He asks me everything about my history including school and university. I have a therapist that I talk to once a week and so I don't really want to be talking about this stuff with a stranger. The Crisis team didn’t talk to me about this. He is kind though, and he tells me that there are fundamental changes that I need to make to my life to help myself. One of these changes is most probably to leave London. I know this is true. London is killing me. He is not the first person to say this. He writes me a prescription for Citalopram. 7 days worth. That means I need to go to the doctor in London. I sign myself out of their care. I tell them I don’t need them anymore and that I will be OK. I decide I will go back to London on Wednesday. I feel like a cop out. I feel like it’s a big fuss over nothing. There’s not been anything really wrong with me in the first place I don’t think. I feel OK. I feel like I am looking down on myself. Like in a film. I get my stuff and I drive to my sisters. I love my sister and her husband and I love my nieces and nephews. We all get on the sofa and watch films and my sisters husband makes me laugh and I feel l happy. I go to bed and take 2 sleeping pills. I feel OK. I feel like I am pleasantly distracted. But only distracted, not better. It’s still there. I feel like I want to start the change that will see me moving to be closer to them. I wonder if this will help me feel better. I have no idea how to feel better.

Sunday 15th October

My friend David comes over to my sisters and we all 3 go for a run in the forest. David is so kind to me even though he doesn’t really know name and we run for 10 miles in the forest, David, my sister and me, and we chat about races we have done and the Autumn 100 and it’s just the best time and I feel calm and in control of myself. I feel like there is nothing wrong with me. I feel like a fraud. I need to buy a coat for the race I am doing the following weekend so we go to the outdoor centre and me and my sister talk about running and I buy the coat I need. As we drive home my brother-in-law is singing along to songs from the musicals on the radio and my nieces and my sister are singing along, and it makes me so happy but so sad that I don't have a family unit like theirs. I feel like the car is full of love. I feel like I am loved.

Monday 16th October

I have made the decision that I will run the Autumn 100, and that I will return to London on Wednesday. I need to get on with my life and get on with my job. I need to start putting the pieces into place that will see me leave the city and move out to the forest and the sea. I don't know how I am going to do this, but I am going to start piecing it together. I go out with my mum. I don't feel good. I feel scared because I know I have to go back to London. I feel like I am floating around like a zombie. I feel like I am 3ft off the pavement and everything is grey and everyone is sad. There has been a hurricane that has blown dust into the atmosphere, and the sun looks red like it’s the end of the world. The world is yellow and red. I need some more sleeping tablets. The doctor told me that they were available over the counter so I walk into a chemist and ask for them, and the chemist looks me in the eye and says no we don't stock those - nobody does because people tend to abuse them, and I feel embarrassed like I am a drug addict and I scuttle out of the chemist. Later my mum goes into Boots and they give them to her, because she doesn’t look like a drug addict. She looks like a nice grown up lady who suffers from seasickness. I feel like a fraud because being with my mum makes me feel better. I feel very embarrassed about the last few days and I can’t really remember what I felt like when this first started to happen and I feel like I have made a big fuss about nothing. When we get home I go into town and I sit in the library and I write this diary from the notes I have been making. It makes me feel better, it is cathartic, then I think about publishing it and I feel terrified because people might think I am seeking attention but I’m not doing it for that reason, I am doing it because I want people to try and understand what happens when someone has a breakdown and what happens in the days after. This might not be the same as your story, but it might help you make sense of your story. I don't know what will happen next. I don't know when I will be better. But today, I feel better.  

Tuesday 17th October

I am going home tomorrow. I have told my clients at work, and I feel clear in myself that I need to be brave, and go and get on with my life as it is for now. I know have people at the end of the phone and also in my real life here who love me. I feel foolish still, like I have made a big fuss about nothing. I no longer feel like I am in a film. I feel like I am in my life. My mum has some errands to do and she drives to my sisters house and I run to my sisters house through the forest, along the Castleman Trail and it is so wonderful to be running for miles through the forest to a destination, with nothing around me. I need to run to the destination. I need to make forward progress. On the run I tell myself that it is all going to be OK and that I can cope. I am heading to the destination. I go and pick my niece up from school and I walk the dog.

I finish this part of my diary here. Tomorrow I return to London. I have so many unanswered texts and messages and I don't know how to start answering them. I guess I will leave them. I feel better. I feel like a fraud. I feel like I need to move forward but I need to do it slowly and not let this happen again. I am on anti-depressants that will start to make me feel better in the next week. I have the Autumn 100 to run at the weekend and I will run it. I will run it to prove that I am in control, the depression is not in control. It is part of me but it will not define me. I will finish the Autumn 100 if I have to walk it. I will stay away from social situations for now. I feel like I need to look after myself on my own for a little longer.

So, to all those who looked after me, my mum, my sister and her wonderful family, my housemate, my friends whose texts and messages have gone un-answered, thank you and I am sorry. Your messages went unanswered, but I saw them all. To the NHS Crisis team, thank you. I never thought I would need to use these services, and you may not think you ever need to use them, but they are invaluable.

To you, the person reading this, do not be afraid to ask for help.  You are not causing a fuss, you are not seeking attention, you are asking for help. Do not be afraid to tell people, to reach out, to make the call or send the text. We all like to think we are mental health savvy these days, but your friends and family are often too busy to see the signs or act on them.  You might be too busy to notice your peers are suffering. Check in on people. Be kind. Listen and watch. Remember, you are not a burden to anyone. Have a voice. Ask for help. You are so loved.

To myself, look after yourself, have some respect for yourself. Take care and listen to your brain and body. You are loved. You’ve got this.

TBC

Helplines:

The Samaritans: 116 123

CALM: 0800 58 58 58