It’s all gone tits up. Not just a little bit feel like I want to drown in Chew Valley Lake tits up; a lot tits up. I am suffering the deepest, most complicated, torturous mental turmoil I have suffered so far. I am lost in the darkest of tunnels, the whitest of rooms, the smallest of spaces. I am breaking.
I am breaking down.
I think I am broken.
I keep thinking it’s come to a head, that surely the pain can’t cut any further than it already has, but my fucked up brain just keeps pushing the envelope until it gets another and another and another reaction out of me. Reaction after reaction comes in the form or fight or flight; attack or despair, sink or swim. And there ain’t no swimming going on round here right now.
The doctor put me on Mirtazapine, said it’d help with the anxiety, didn’t mention it’d make the paranoia more and more real, more and more commonplace, until it got to the point that I wouldn’t be able to distinguish reality from madness. Thus I appear to be mad. Or at least feel I must appear to be mad.
I went to the Co-op because we needed cat food. I looked mad, what with my stupid growing out hair, face puffy from crying, body held in awkward upright stature trying to make sure no one noticed me. But everyone notices you when you’re mad, you give off some sort of mad aura that pleads with people to look at you, study you, assess the madness from the muddiness of your boots and the unkemptness of your unwashed hair or the short short finger nails filed as far as they’ll possibly go to stop them from keeping on breaking. Everything is breaking. And everyone in that tiny little Co-op which doesn’t even sell the right type of cat food is looking at you; waiting for you to howl.
When I had the scarf on my head I was allowed to be mad because I was ill. Now I’ve got hair, and I’m better and show no external signs of illness and aren’t I the fucking lucky one. Heaven forfend I should forget that.
It’s not even that I feel stripped bare, I am so raw clothes make no difference. I am skinned. Bloodied sinew and wasting muscles hardly hold the bones in place. I hang, like a rabbit waiting to go in a pie.
The surge of guilt comes in a torrent of even more reasons for me to despair of my very existence. I’m a teenager again, devouring Sartre and agonising over what it is to be alive. Or dead. The questions and accusations crash into the side of my head like a train, every carriage bringing its own new nugget of vitriol pushing any sense of self worth I ever had into full and final eradication. At least when I was young I had my looks to fall back on after my substance had been destroyed. Although of course I never realised that.
In my more lucid moments I wonder if I have inherited a genetic flaw; that my inability to ever feel loved and happy isn’t down to me but down to a bit of biological bad luck. See also my addictive personality. But when my brain is being driven by the train of paranoia all it can see is an unerring worthlessness entirely of my own doing. I am the reason my brain is telling me these things; I am, after all, good for nothing.
My youngest son is Autistic and likes his food presented to him on separate dishes in order to manage the various sensory stuff going on. For years – well before his diagnosis – I have carefully considered mealtime presentation because if I don’t think about it carefully enough it might result in him not eating the food, throwing the food on the floor or, sometimes, throwing the food at me.
Yesterday I couldn’t decide which dishes to use. I stood above the drawer, staring down and trying to work out how many and which shapes were necessary for the meal. I looked at the big bowls, big plates, small bowls and small plates and couldn’t even remember what I was cooking for him, let alone how much crockery I needed. I had to move away from the drawer, tears pricking my eyes as another train started its journey of abuse through my head. What sort of a mother am I if I can’t even feed my child the way he needs to be fed? What sort of a mother are you? What sort of a shitty stupid mother are you?
An exhausted one. One who is sick and tired of the voices who have an answer for everything. One who wants, just for a bit, for everything to be quiet and still. One who has lost count of the number of times she’s thought about walking into that lake to let the icy numbness envelop her. One who is losing her mind, who probably, has already lost it.
I am breaking down.
I think I am broken.
I keep thinking it’s come to a head, that surely the pain can’t cut any further than it already has, but my fucked up brain just keeps pushing the envelope until it gets another and another and another reaction out of me. Reaction after reaction comes in the form or fight or flight; attack or despair, sink or swim. And there ain’t no swimming going on round here right now.
The doctor put me on Mirtazapine, said it’d help with the anxiety, didn’t mention it’d make the paranoia more and more real, more and more commonplace, until it got to the point that I wouldn’t be able to distinguish reality from madness. Thus I appear to be mad. Or at least feel I must appear to be mad.
I went to the Co-op because we needed cat food. I looked mad, what with my stupid growing out hair, face puffy from crying, body held in awkward upright stature trying to make sure no one noticed me. But everyone notices you when you’re mad, you give off some sort of mad aura that pleads with people to look at you, study you, assess the madness from the muddiness of your boots and the unkemptness of your unwashed hair or the short short finger nails filed as far as they’ll possibly go to stop them from keeping on breaking. Everything is breaking. And everyone in that tiny little Co-op which doesn’t even sell the right type of cat food is looking at you; waiting for you to howl.
When I had the scarf on my head I was allowed to be mad because I was ill. Now I’ve got hair, and I’m better and show no external signs of illness and aren’t I the fucking lucky one. Heaven forfend I should forget that.
It’s not even that I feel stripped bare, I am so raw clothes make no difference. I am skinned. Bloodied sinew and wasting muscles hardly hold the bones in place. I hang, like a rabbit waiting to go in a pie.
The surge of guilt comes in a torrent of even more reasons for me to despair of my very existence. I’m a teenager again, devouring Sartre and agonising over what it is to be alive. Or dead. The questions and accusations crash into the side of my head like a train, every carriage bringing its own new nugget of vitriol pushing any sense of self worth I ever had into full and final eradication. At least when I was young I had my looks to fall back on after my substance had been destroyed. Although of course I never realised that.
In my more lucid moments I wonder if I have inherited a genetic flaw; that my inability to ever feel loved and happy isn’t down to me but down to a bit of biological bad luck. See also my addictive personality. But when my brain is being driven by the train of paranoia all it can see is an unerring worthlessness entirely of my own doing. I am the reason my brain is telling me these things; I am, after all, good for nothing.
My youngest son is Autistic and likes his food presented to him on separate dishes in order to manage the various sensory stuff going on. For years – well before his diagnosis – I have carefully considered mealtime presentation because if I don’t think about it carefully enough it might result in him not eating the food, throwing the food on the floor or, sometimes, throwing the food at me.
Yesterday I couldn’t decide which dishes to use. I stood above the drawer, staring down and trying to work out how many and which shapes were necessary for the meal. I looked at the big bowls, big plates, small bowls and small plates and couldn’t even remember what I was cooking for him, let alone how much crockery I needed. I had to move away from the drawer, tears pricking my eyes as another train started its journey of abuse through my head. What sort of a mother am I if I can’t even feed my child the way he needs to be fed? What sort of a mother are you? What sort of a shitty stupid mother are you?
An exhausted one. One who is sick and tired of the voices who have an answer for everything. One who wants, just for a bit, for everything to be quiet and still. One who has lost count of the number of times she’s thought about walking into that lake to let the icy numbness envelop her. One who is losing her mind, who probably, has already lost it.