Powerless.

******TRIGGER WARNING******

I never thought of myself as somebody who had power over anything, really. I have no power over people dropping bombs or Mother Nature ripping cities to shreds. I have no power to change the weather. We all have power over something though; maybe we just don’t realise it until we become powerless. Power can be found in the smallest actions.

Power is defined as the ability or capacity to do something or to act in a particular way; the power of speech for example is quite clearly the ability to talk. Not all of us have this power. It’s not a superpower by any stretch, but it’s a power and without it, we’re powerless. We’re powerless to the cruel world and the dangers on every corner. If we can’t hear, we’re powerless to the dangers of the oncoming storms. If we cannot see, we’re powerless to the wars around us.

I have the power of speech and sight and hearing; I’d be lost without these and yet still any one of these would be more understandable and accepted than the ways I have lost my power. As a child, growing up, I had the power to eat, the power to get out of bed, the power to walk, the list goes on. I had power over myself. I’ve lost this power. I’ve become powerless to The Monster within me.

The Monster forces me to put my fingers down my throat as far as they will go. I know I shouldn’t do this. I know I don’t want to do this. The back of my throat isn’t a place that I want to explore. I am crying and I’m wishing somebody would walk by this way and stop me from doing this. Please. Somebody, just stop this. I scream into the void of my brain. “Stop!” bounces off the sides of my head like the constant echo of “hello” in a cave.

I am powerless. I am struck by fear. I am paralysed. My senses are heightened. The leaves rustle all around me. The water trickles behind me, snaking its way through the landscape towards its prey. Somebody coughs but there is nobody around me; a passer-by in the distance oblivious to the war that rages on. I think that I can quell The Monster with a drink but the juice encourages him. I repeat the action over and over. With every new act of forceful violence against my throat, I am struck by some new fear. I am powerless to this and I cannot see the way out so I continue to push until I am empty and there is nothing left for me to offer. I lack the energy to walk home; I stumble and I am close to falling many times. I hear movements all around me; the rustle of a leaf is an oncoming fox attack. Further I walk but I do not reach my destination. I am caught in the timelessness. I listen to the world outside; to the birds humming their nightly songs, to the people enjoying their Saturday night freedom, to the fox as it forages for scraps of food, to the cars as they travel their weary roads and still I am lost.

I don’t know who won because I don’t understand if The Monster is me or not. How can it be something else? It must be me? But I know I don’t want this for myself and it’s so horrible that most of me wishes Death would come by to take me instead. Hours later, as I write this, my throat burns like the glowing fire but it is far from pretty. There is no remedy for the constant pain that I feel and sleep will not come. I have been punished. I’m afraid, anyway, that if I go to bed, I’ll never get out of it again. So I stay awake and I write. I listen to the birds as they sing their morning songs and I watch the sun as it rises to start its day, oblivious to the conflicts of the world and its people.

Pathetic.

******TRIGGER WARNING******

I’ve never really seen the pathetic side of my depression before but it’s so sad that it’s rather funny. I moved my trousers into my wardrobe to stop my OCD since I didn’t want to aggravate it. I took a step backwards, accidentally stepping on the Aladdin jigsaw and misplacing a few pieces. Nothing broken that couldn’t be fixed instantly and yet I fell upon the floor in a heap, like discarded clothing in a teenager’s room. The snotty, crying, sexy mess that was me fixed that puzzle even in the deluded state of pathetic being. It’s not really funny at all. I felt like the world had ended. Now I just feel numb.

Too Strong For Too Long.

******TRIGGER WARNING******

I used to worry about receiving letters in the post because they’re almost always referring to my inability to manage my life; overdrawn in this account, owing on that account, you still haven’t paid your phone bill, blah, blah, blah. I’m not sure I even worry about that stuff anymore; I’ve just sort of accepted that’s the way it is. Now, I get letters telling me to make doctor’s appointments, to visit the hospital for an endoscopy, to visit a therapist and while we’re at it, let’s get you to visit some other clinician just for good measure. The simple truth is that I am absolutely lousy at managing my own life and looking after myself. I think there are some people who would argue against this because I’m still alive and that should be proof enough that I am doing quite alright at life but I’m inclined to disagree.

The doctor is sending me to the hospital for an urgent endoscopy. Sometimes, when the emotions become too much and I have to get rid of things I try to be sick whether I’ve eaten enough or not. Sometimes, it’s not even that I’ve binged but I feel entirely worthless so I make myself sick anyway, only there’s nothing to come up. Sometimes blood comes up and it’s fresh but I’d just been ignoring it because that seemed to be easier. I didn’t want to admit to myself that things had become worse and I didn’t want to admit it to my doctor; every time I see her, it’s like we both realise I’m slipping further and further while trying to maintain some sense of normality for the outside world. I wonder if she worries about me ending up in hospital as much as I do. Today was no exception; concern was etched on her face as plainly as the scars on my arm. I should have been more worried myself. I should have taken it as a sign to stay together. I failed.

My fight and flight response is completely erratic right now. I recognised the threat and perceived it to be just as damaging as taking a knife to my skin; my constant throwing up has maybe caused a tear somewhere and that would explain the blood. I understand that threat and the fear of having an endoscopy is great, most definitely not something I would like to experience at all and I can only imagine how badly my panic will hit the roof. I fear it will never stop. I know the procedure and it looks scary. Considering the amount of times I’ve made myself sick, you’d think the idea of having a camera down my throat wouldn’t be that scary but I can just imagine now how panicked I will be and I’ll most likely choke. Maybe I’ll choke to death. Who knows?

 I should have eaten my food and taken my tablets straight away. I got scared, really scared. In trying to avoid the rising fear and panic in my head, I did exactly what I wasn’t supposed to. I made myself sick. I took my water into the bathroom. I was in there for over half an hour and it was far from pleasant. Why did I do this? I don’t understand it? I don’t want this at all. What’s wrong with me? I didn’t just drink the water to ready myself, to give my stomach some more incentive to let the food freely flow back up. I didn’t just clench my stomach muscles. I didn’t just put my fingers down my throat and push. I kept pushing. Methodically, I pushed and pushed. *Drink, clench, fingers in throat, clench, push, choke*. This repeated. Sometimes when I’m making myself sick, I get so frustrated that nothing is coming back up that I just abandon the quest. Today scared me though. I can remember my thoughts and the conversation that happened, the argument that took place but whether it was between Me and The Monster, I don’t know. Maybe it was just Me arguing with Me. I don’t know which is more frightening, which saddens me more, which threatens my existence. If I’m fighting myself then I don’t see how I can win.

“There’s nothing there.”

“So, try harder.”

“Why?”

“That’s just how it works.”

“But I can’t bring anything up.”

“You can if you push. Just keep pushing.”

“Well, what if I’m too tired? What if I don’t have the energy to push anymore? What if I just want to give up?”

“Then you’re even failing at having an eating disorder. Are you actually being sick? Or are you pretending? Is this a problem? Do you hate the way you look? Do you hate that you’re incredibly fat and disgusting? Did you come in here to actually be sick or to just play at being sick? You can’t play at having an eating disorder”

He’s right. So I pushed and pushed. Sure enough, if you keep pushing something it will always happen, for good or bad. Maybe it would be okay if I could rationalise it to think that I’m getting rid of the bad parts of me but I’m not. I’m still full of hatred and anger. I’m still full of the person that other people walk away from. I’m still full of the ‘me’ that I hate. Still full of the ‘me’, who pushes and pushes until people leave and then she just moans and moans. I hear myself crying all the time, “feel sorry for me, and help me, please!”

Why? Why should anybody help? It’s my fault I’m being sick. I’m making myself sick. That’s not normal. It’s disgusting. How could anybody respect this?

I just don’t understand myself anymore. I can’t even find the words to describe my own stupidity. My positivity jar says that I’m a loyal friend and I pride myself on that, I really do but how can I be a loyal friend if I’m not alive anymore? I’m scared that I’ll just keep pushing myself until I don’t exist anymore. Maybe I can save myself before that happens. I don’t want to be a friend who breaks promises and can’t save other people if she’s already dead.

The Cuts Deepen

******TRIGGER WARNING******

A few days have passed since my last really bad day. It’s not that I got better, I didn’t, I just wasn’t ready to let The Monster take over my brain for that whole time and so I fought, hard, to get myself back to being me. I played some Xbox games, I progressed with my jigsaw, I chatted with friends and I ate 3 meals a day. I guess that’s some improvement.

Is it better to tell a lie to somebody or to just completely ignore them? I’ve been branded a liar by my dad since the age of 18 and that hurts. Who makes something like that up? I wonder if he ever accused victims in the police station of lying. I don’t hold much confidence there. In my moral dilemma, I had chosen to completely ignore the people I was meant to see in the hopes of making things easier for myself. It would be better for them to think I didn’t want to be there, because that’s the truth, than for me to have to go there and be forced to deal with demons and triggers that I’m not capable of facing. I wouldn’t have picked up the phone had I not thought it was the therapist ringing with news. I wouldn’t have taken a real stumble down the stairs of depression had I not picked up the phone. I’m not saying it’s their fault; her fault for calling but I was, as often happens in this war, fine until I wasn’t fine and that phone call was the trigger to the whole spiral.

I was adamant that I wouldn’t go to their house and I had a plan. I was going to spend the evening playing on my Xbox; just relaxing and making the most of an evening to chat to friends and chill out. I could have lied. I could have told them that I had to go to counselling or I could have told them that I had something else planned with work colleagues but I chose not to lie. I thought it would be better to just say nothing. Apparently that’s not a good choice to make.

There was nothing for me to say on the phone to make things better. My Gran was worrying and that meant I had to go and see them. A half hour conversation felt like days. As I slumped in my desk chair, shaking from the effect of the images in my head, tears streaming down my face, my voice changed and I recall saying, caught somewhere between yelling and sobbing, that I no longer wanted to be alive. People don’t know how to deal with revelations like that. I don’t even think people who are trained to deal with them really know how. Surely they must be caught on some level between their professionalism and their personal opinion; I don’t think that you can 100% shut it off though in the moment it’s all professionalism. She told me she had a friend who committed suicide so her life never got any better. She thought it was not worth fixing and she ended her life. Maybe things did get better for her though? She wouldn’t have felt any pain anymore. If you haven’t felt the pain, then how can you judge it and say that it’s easy to just push yourself further and further. I need to be hard on myself, is what she said.

I know one thing. Guilt tripping somebody who’s feeling suicidal by telling them about a friend of yours who isn’t here anymore, doesn’t help. The only thought that I could see right then, was “lucky her”. My mind was overtaken with venom. I could see nothing through my hatred of them. The only clear way out from the consuming hatred and pain would have been death. Guilt is a strong feeling. I begin to hit my head with my free hand. I am almost convulsing. In the same way that I do when I have to deal with the tougher issues in counselling, I hide behind my hoodie but there is no hiding from this pain and this anger. I am not safe here, in my own room and on the phone to “family”. I wish it was a Wednesday and I could be safe at counselling. Not here. Not in danger of myself. I cannot control myself as I see the images flash by my face and I try to pay attention to the conversation; but it’s all that I can do to remain in my chair.

“You have to come, your Gran is 87 years old and she thinks she will die soon.”

How do you say no to that? I quite honestly hate her. I hate all of them right now. They didn’t protect me. I’m left here struggling. But am I so evil that I wouldn’t go and see her and stop her from worrying? Am I so evil that it has to be about me all of the time instead of about her? No. I’m not that evil. And so I agree to be picked up. That gives me half an hour.

It seems I’m taking a dip into the pool of depression. I am still crying violently as I open the packet to the razor. How the bloody hell do you even take them apart? There must be a way; they put them together after all. My fingers slip and slide as I manically try to pry the pieces apart. My crying becomes more violent and my movements more erratic as I constantly fail to pull it apart. I don’t have long to get this done. I have to do this now so I can rid myself of the emotional pain and concentrate on the physical pain for the evening. I grab my scissors, the new pair that I swore would only be used for paper, not for cutting my arms, and I attempt to pry the bottom from the razor. It’s attached as securely as my depression is to me. For a second, I think that I have it weakened so I hurry my movements.

“Fuck! Ouch! Oh shit!”

Pain surged through me like an electric shock. My thumb pulsed. My brain took a second to catch up. This wasn’t the pain I had planned. I had planned a methodical pain that I could see happening. I didn’t plan for the scissors to slice into the flesh of my thumb. Dropping everything, I rushed to the bathroom and ran my thumb under the cold water. A refreshingly icy blast hit my thumb and my brain slowly began to come back to its senses; the ones it had before the crushing depression. I never have the sense to call anybody when I’m in the depths of my depression. It’s never on the agenda and that’s something that really needs to change. One day it is sure to be my downfall. I call my friend and she calms me down. I am so thankful that she picked up and was able to make me laugh.

It’s ironic. I was trying to hurt myself and I hurt myself in the process. There was no longer any need to cut. I saw the blood seep out of my thumb and it wasn’t pretty; far from it. I felt sick and drained. Depression is draining. I knelt on the bathroom floor, my head in the crook of my arm, leaning on the sink, on the phone as I watched my hopes of a chilled out evening to focus on me, washing away down the drain.

I regained my composure, bandaged my thumb, washed my face and was ready to go. I stood outside and waited in the sweltering heat. I could have waited inside in the cool but I guess it’s just another form of punishment. The night went exactly how I thought it would. I was right to want to avoid it. There is no easy way to make yourself sick in somebody else’s house. I tried. There is a window you have, after eating, and the window determines how easy it is to make everything come back up. Sometimes, if you time it right, it’s easy. You don’t have to push as far or clench your stomach as much. Everything is simple and as quickly as the knife severs the tendons, the food comes up. If you leave it too long, it’s harder. The traffic jam gets stuck on the way out, the way it did travelling there. You push further and you choke; sometimes something comes up and that’s a lucky day. I left it too long. All that came up was blood. That’s never the intention. That’s too scary to deal with.

Does that mean that I won? The Monster was denied the chance of wallowing in the blood is so deeply craves. The food was not sacrificed in an adequate way. So, I won? It doesn’t feel like I won at all but I guess I did. I should be happy about that. I feel miserable. I am a failure. Maybe you can win and lose at the same time in the game of life. Maybe I’m a winner too. Is it winning if you’re just being “normal” or am I still losing because it shouldn’t be this hard to just stay alive and in one piece?

I don’t know what the night brings for me. I think that if I can write myself through this, I will be okay. I hope I will be okay.

Opening The Can

******TRIGGER WARNING****** 

 

I have come to realise that to have nobody is not the worst thing that could happen to me because I’ll always have myself. The worst thing is having people. But those people do not listen to me, they do not believe what I tell them; their every movement of the mouth is tainted with betrayal. I am left wondering, why, all of the time. I am left hating them. I am left with nothing to do but hurt myself, maim myself because that, at least, they could see. Nobody can deny that cuts exist although for the longest time I don’t believe that anybody saw all of the bruises or that my mum registered the bite marks on my bottom; the ones that were impossible for me to cause myself. I have no choice but to walk away from them because others tell me that I am important. I must look after me because nobody else will and I must not let The Monster consume me. I must walk away from them but that is not sad for me. What is sad is that they won’t notice that I am gone. Whether I have walked or jumped. But that’s okay. My life would be easier and so would theirs.

I put the phone down and my anger flares. I need to somewhere. Do something. Escape! Run! Get out! An endless stream of shouts in my head that cannot be tamed and like the lioness hunting her prey, I am helpless to the oncoming wreckage. I do not think I have a plan, at least not a plan to end my life; not today. I buy chips and consume them hungrily though I am far from hungry; it is not yet feeding time. I wander aimlessly through the park. I find myself walking to the spot in the woods where I so often make myself sick but I am walking the wrong way. I am taking the path towards it that I would normally take away from it. It is unfamiliar to me though I walk it so often; the destination is the same and the goal, to feel empty, is unchanged. I stumble through the wilderness feeling lost and inadequate.

Thoughts race through my mind. My anger gets bigger and blacker with every step that I take. Would it have hurt for the first question to have been, “how are you?” It does not take me long to be sick and I don’t have to force myself in the usual way because I am ready for this; I am ready to be emptied of anger, frustration, pain; all of the emotions that I cannot handle and that threaten to rip me apart. I want to feel nothing. The act is complete but now I feel stupid. Guilt and anger bubble inside of me, like Mount Etna, I am ready to erupt. I squash my coke can but that is not enough to take the anger away. My mind is consumed by it. I tear the can apart. The sharp edge looks inviting to me and before I realise what I am doing or have the power to stop it, I am repeatedly cutting myself using the razor sharp sides of the can. Once more it is my left hand that takes the blow. The blood seeps out and I am powerless to stop it. It is not pretty. There is nothing pretty about what I have done this evening. I deserve the needling pain in my hand for my stupidity. Letting them get to me and letting them win because I am hurting again is inexcusable and tantamount to letting My Monster win.

This is not how today was meant to go. I had come so far over the week since my willingness to end my life. I had come so far and as quickly as my mood shifted the night I was sent to A&E, I snapped today. I will not let them control me now when they did not save me from the pain, the trauma and the unbearable neglect. It was no war. There were no Nazis and Hitler did not invade. Nobody was killed. Comparatively my hell was nothing but it was My Hell, My War. My “brother” was My Hitler. My parents, the Nazis. I was expendable. I could be beaten and would not complain. I could be abused and would not put up a fight. It was My War. I was a victim of many forms of abuse as a child and I survived. What does that even mean? What is surviving? Still being alive? Spending my days wanting to end my life is not surviving. I don’t know what is but this cruel form of existence with constant flashbacks is no life to happily live.

I sit here and I wonder who held the most blame, Hitler for creating the hysteria or the Germans who went along with it? My “brother” for abusing me or me for never having the courage to speak up until it was too late? We were both children after all. Everything is justifiable when you’re a child.