Back in Black

Call off the search party; I’m back. Everything has been moving and changing so quickly that I haven’t had a chance to sit down. But I’ve forced myself to update you all so here I am.

So what has happened in the last two months or so to cause me to become MIA? Well...I’ve moved house to be nearer to work, just for the summer, after that I’ll be off back to university after my council decided that not funding me was actually a pretty stupid decision...funny that. My working hours have increased due to the great British summer starting. Lots of kiddies needing science to be explained in a “fun and engaging” way and only about five of us employed to do it. And lastly but not least, I’m in a new relationship. About a month and a half in now and surprisingly it’s going well.

Yet, despite all this, despite all these positives in my life, despite the fact that for the first time in a while my life is looking up, I’m sitting here being immersed by dark thoughts. It’s finally dawned on me that actually, I have no control over this, no matter how great my life is, this depression, this life draining illness will still be there, sucking all energy from me. I always kidded myself in the past that once I was in a stable relationship, once I had a job I was happy with, once I had a purpose, this depression would go away, just like that, but it doesn’t, it stays, gripping onto you.

And this is why I’m here. Getting back into writing I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe, I’ll make some sense of it all, straighten out my thoughts at least. Because of my working hours I haven’t been able to see my care coordinator for two weeks. She wants me to start CBT, despite my reservations, but I can’t afford to cut my hours. I’ll just have to get through the summer, settle down on my course in October and start the long road to recovery once again.

Looks like I'm here for the long run, and that fact is hard to take.

Needing a Hug

I desperately feel like crying at the moment and it's frustrating as I've got through the last few days without feeling remotely like this. I don't know why I've been hit by this feeling right now, but I have, and I just feel...alone. I just want someone, anyone, to take me into their arms and tell me that everything will be OK, and mean it.

I don't feel like I have a close friend right now and I think that's contributing to these random bouts of loneliness. It's complete nonsense of course, and not rational thinking in the slightest, but I just feel, deep down, that I haven't really got someone here with me that I can rely on. The conversations I have with my housemates are superficial, How was work? How was your day? They're brief, to the point and any effort I put in to have a more meaningful conversation is put to waste with the one word responses.

I just feel that I'm being pushed to the side at the moment and no matter how many times I tell myself that this is completely irrational, my mind just doesn't seem to want to listen.

Maybe if I knock myself to sleep I'll get through the worst of it and wake up tomorrow looking back at how stupid I was. Positive thinking and all that, that's what my therapist drums into me.

We'll see...

Another Night

Another night I sit here hopelessly wishing the pain would stop. Another night I sit here praying for everything to be over. It shouldn’t surprise me anymore. It has always hit at night; the empty numbness that inhabits my body always awakens fully as the sun descends. And so I sit here yet again, feeling the facade slip, the day’s resolve fading into nothingness.

It’s ironic. Relationships. Friendships. Things which are synonymous with love and support. It’s ironic how they exacerbate the very things they are supposed to shielding against. I spend my days living inside myself. People walk on eggshells around me, and to some extent I do the same. They choose to ignore how desperately I’m screaming inside and instead focus on the smile on my face and the laughter in my voice. They don’t want to admit that inside I am a fortress of hatred and self-disgust. After all, ignorance is bliss.

It has become a vicious cycle. The lies, the hidden torment, the silence, the alienation. It is so much easier to fight yourself, to hurt and blame yourself than to do it to people you love. And they let me. That is the worst part. They don’t question the dark circles around my eyes or the changes in behaviour. No one sees me flinching back, cancelling plans, making excuses left right and centre. Sometimes they will ask me how I am but I know that they really don’t want to know. So once again I will smile and lie. It has become a second nature. I can’t imagine my life without it anymore.

If only I could lie to my heart with such ease. If only I could pacify the loneliness that way and convince myself that the pain and emptiness inside me is only temporary. Oh how easy it would be then. But of course it doesn’t work that way. The more I pretend, the harder it gets. Shame and guilt builds up and I know that it has taken over my life. I have reached the point where it has taken over everything. It’s all I feel. A deep, piercing ache that takes away my breath. I can’t do anything to stop it. Instead, I am now reduced to praying to a God I don’t believe in to show me some mercy and then maybe, just maybe I won’t wake up again in the morning. But then, that prospect also scares me and I find myself stuck.

My life is full of contradictions. I yearn for people’s affection yet I push away the few who care. I hide behind my facade hoping that today will be the day they build up the courage to confront it but at the same time hoping that they do not. And so I am lost. Lost and alone in world filled with so many people. Time is nothing but a broken watch in my pocket as the numbness takes its fill, sucking on my very being. I am falling now, falling into the abyss that has become my second home.

And so another night I sit here, desperately trying to grasp onto something to stop my fall but I know it is hopeless. This night is lost to me now. Another night lost in the dark lonely void that tortures my life. I can only hope now, as I always do, that tomorrow won’t be the same.