Personal Piece- Contains upsetting material - The scramblings of my fighting mind...

[SoSimple]

Wanted to give this a shot. I hope it helps and I hope you like it.


There are days, like today, that my mind can't take any more. Days that contain so little are the ones that leave me the most exhausted. For so long I ran and ran until I couldn't feel it anymore. But the running has stopped and my mind has never been faster.

Guilt. That's what these days consist of. Guilt for living, for breathing someone else's air, for not being good enough to partake in the luxury of air.

So I suffocate.

The release is like I've been held under water for too long; it's like when you reach that one pivotal moment when you know that if you don't come up for air right away, you may never breathe again.

That's what I do. I come up for air. I wish I could find another way to do it, another way that wouldn't leave embarrassing evidence on my forearms. But this is my way. It has become what I do.

And if someone can find a way to pull me through this, a reason to live a happy and carefree and scarless life filled with validation and my own supply of air, then I may choose to breathe the way everyone else does.

But until then, I have to just breathe.

[SoSimple]

I don't belong here.

Well isn't that the anthem of my life? I have always been a part of something but have never been allowed to belong. For once I would like to make long term plans with the streets of a town and the people in them. I hate the feeling of looking into the eyes staring back at you and knowing that they will inevitably disappear. One day...

Moving again. It's bittersweet. I wish I could stay here. Better yet, I wish I could want to stay here. I want to be near my family, but unfortunately for me being near the people I care the most about is unhealthy. Now there is some irony for you. Staying hurts, leaving hurts...it's just a matter of which one hurts the least. I thought it was supposed to be about what made you the happiest.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I am the problem. That makes the most sense, I think, even though I know it's not the truth. But if I was the problem, I could fix it. Right now I can't fix anything.

So I'm leaving.

[SoSimple]

I will never be enough.

Not because I am flawed or less than anyone else. But because I can never push myself enough to do the things I know I should. I have so much guilt that if I think about it even for a bit, it has the power to destroy me. It's been maybe 15 minutes and I'm already picturing myself driving a car into a tree. I know I won't, because I will turn off the guilt before I have the chance.

But isn't that the problem?

I'm not living my life enough for others. Everyone wants you to be comfortable and happy with lots of things and not go too far out of reach to help anyone. I think it's because if you do, they will realize that they're not doing enough either. And that realization either comes with action, or guilt. It makes me want to tear myself open in the most literal sense.

Tonight I went to the gas station to get a coke and a brownie, which costs more than some people make in a year, and it was so cold out. I was wearing 3 shirts, a coat and boots. And I remembered driving by a tent set up by the river that someone was living in. As soon as I started complaining about the cold, I thought about how many blankets it would take that person to become warm in the dead of night sleeping in that tent all by themselves. And then I went home to my heated house and laid under both of my comforters on my bed. Who am I??

I am so selfish.

I know that one day I will look back on my life and see all of the faces of the people that I did nothing for. Moms and dads and sons and daughters who died because they were starving. And what did I do tonight? Aerobics to a YouTube video on my iPhone because I can't keep from eating too much. It's pathetic. And who am I kidding? Apparently everyone but myself.

The problem is that I don't deserve to die. I deserve the discomfort of having to give up my coffee drinks and closet full of clothes to find someone who has no food or clothing. And that is painful. As if their starvation wasn't.

I really hate myself sometimes.

I'm going to bed.

[0HRP1]

Really good, i enjoyed your writing, quite dark but sounded very honest, from the heart.

[SoSimple]

Thank you! I hope to make a book out of it one day. Right now it's pretty scattered.

I know it's dark right now, but I'm trying to capture those moments because I'm hoping that through my recovery I can show the evolution of it becoming brighter, if that makes sense.

Thanks for reading!

[0HRP1]

Hey, i just wrote you a quite long reply to your comments and the forum logged me off so i'm just going to have a moan about that. Why do forums log you off? I just don't get it, i sit there for ages writing to someone and then the forum scraps my response and throws it away. Great,just great. It's even worse for a mental health forum because people come here for support when they are feeling vulnerable or because they have no-one else they can share their problems with so our response can be really important to members. It is so infuriating.

I will respond again So Simple wheni have time to write it all again.

[SoSimple]

Oh my goodness OHRP1, That is sooo frustrating! I hate it when I get everything all typed out and and then get kicked out! Thank you for replying though, it means a lot!

[0HRP1]

I even knew it was going to log me out last time, these forums always do it, i tried right click and select all so i could then copy if it happened - i was planning a head just in case - but for some reason i couldn't get the copy option after i had selected all so that scuppered that plan. There's no word on my computer otherwise i would simply write it in word and then paste it into the reply box.

Ah ha, i spoke to soon,i have just found word so i'll toddle off and write it in word. I shall not be defeated.

[0HRP1]

Anyway, as I was saying, or trying to. I think it’s good to write stuff down, even the dark stuff . Life is always up and downs, that’s natural. It’s just that some of us experience more severe ups and downs than others. I’m always a bit suspicious of people that are always mega cheerful all the time, I think how can anyone be that happy all the time. Or maybe I’m just jealous because I’m not. But I think it’s good to write, and talk with people on forums like this, particularly during the dark periods. When we go back some time later and see what we said it can almost be like it was another person who wrote/said that stuff. At least that’s how I’ve felt on occasion when I’ve looked back at some of the stuff I’ve said during really dark times. But it can be really useful in helping us to understand ourselves and our personality and mind-set. As anyone who suffers with MH issues will tell you it’s often impossible to control what goes through our mind at times, no matter how irrational it can sometimes seem to an objective observer. Nevertheless, there are definitely trigger points for all of us, events or things that can have a dramatic effect on how we feel or react. Being able to recognise what these are can be a really big help. I don’t know about you but I’ve always been really bad at self-analysis, it’s something that I have never been able to do, it was just a skill I didn’t have. A few years ago I started seeing a drugs counsellor who would set me regular exercises that involved quite rigorous self-analysis. I found it almost impossible. I would sit there with a blank look on my face, there were simply no cogs whirring around inside my head. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to engage in the process it was simply that I didn’t know how too. I found it so hard that in the end I stopped going to those sessions. I just could not engage on that level.

This is why writing your thoughts down and talking with other people can be a help, particularly during dark periods. When we go back and read what we wrote some time later we can definitely see thought patterns emerging that we may not have noticed at the time. In short for me it can help in engaging in that self-analysis that I would find very difficult to do if I consciously tried to do it. The key to learning is to not keep making the same mistakes over and over again. In my case I often couldn’t see that I was making the same mistakes many times over, I couldn’t see because I had little or no self-analytical skills. By writing stuff down and talking with other people and then looking back some time later I found that without being aware of it I was noticing things that I wouldn’t have necessarily noticed without that record of what I said. I was helping to develop my self-analytical skills without really being aware that I was doing it. This can really help in avoiding making the same mistakes time over. So I personally feel that there is a real benefit in writing stuff down. It may not always make sense at the time but looking back some time later when perhaps the intensity of the feelings have died down a bit we can begin to see what our thought patterns were at that time and why they were like that. So definitely keep writing, I think it can help.

[0HRP1]

Sorry about the big type set, it's been a total mare getting these thoughts into this forum.

[SoSimple]

Thank you so much for your response ! I agree, writing really helps me to get it out if my min and into something tangible so that I can work through it. I'm hoping it can shed some light on why I SH and help me to recover from it. Whenever I re-read them it sheds a new light on the way I was feeling at the moment.

I'm glad you enjoy them!

[crazykat]

This is really good, powerful writing. You can really feel the emotion and pain behind what you write. Thank-you for sharing

[SoSimple]

Thank you crazykat, I really appreciate it!

[SoSimple]

I wish she would just hit him.

It would be less painful than the words she uses to pierce him with. Every time she speaks I see her tear another piece of his already tattered heart away for herself. I wonder how long until there's nothing left.

He is a shell of what he once was. I used to think he was hidden away somewhere deep deep inside. It's been so long that I think she's managed to find him hiding way down there and take whatever was left of him. He's checked out and I don't recognize him anymore.

It's left me fatherless.

I saw a picture of him today from years ago. He had color in his cheeks and he wore a smile like it wasn't foreign. I keep looking for that face again, for signs of life.
All I see is hurt.

And I stand there, still loving her, not saying anything. It physically hurts me to watch it. So why won't I stop it? Am I really that afraid of her not loving me that I would sacrifice him for it? Is it my place? Does that matter?

At least if she hit him they would see it. See what she does to him every time she opens her mouth and he's in the room. That's why I hurt myself. You can't see what's on the inside. If she could see what I see when she hurts him, she would never speak to him again.

We all sacrifice each other. I sacrifice him so she will love me. She sacrifices him to make herself feel better. And he sacrifices himself because he knows he already lost. I wish I was more like him.

I wish she would come after me instead.

[SoSimple]

My sister is a drug addict.

It sounds surreal to pull those words out of me. I fought them for so long, even when it was obvious. I guess the fact that she's been sober for almost a year makes it a little easier to say. But the fear of that reality still lingers. I know the statistics of relapse. I am that statistic. I pray to God that she will find a way not to become that number. But for now, even if only for now, she is sober.

This thought that I have is a terrible one, and I've never shared it with anyone before now. But in a weird way, I envy her. She is one of those people that has the undisputed luxury of freedom. She is allowed to struggle. She has no responsibility for others or even herself, and because of that the world will run to her aid every time she falls.

She has scars on her arm. For years I couldn't put any scars there. I had so many people that depended on me to be stronger than they were, and she was one of them. But for her, this was ok. I never did drugs because I never wanted to hurt anyone but myself with my pain. But she did. I've worked so hard and kept my mouth shut and struggled internally for years and years, screaming from the inside for someone to notice. She just had the freedom and courage to scream out loud.

It is a freedom I am afraid I will never experience.

If it were up to me and I knew it wouldn't affect anyone else, I would fall apart. I would make every mark on my body completely visible so they could see that I can hurt too. I would wait and watch as the world came to my rescue, as someone helped me become a person that was real and whole. But this is not my reality.

The truth is, I'm the one that built up this mirage of a person. I did it to protect them, to be the one person they could count on. Now I am this person to everyone, even myself at times. Destroying it now would mean destroying a piece of myself.

And I don't have that much of myself left to destroy.

What if no one came to my rescue? What if I fell apart and was left to pick myself back up? That's what everyone believes I am capable of. The problem with that is that it's the truth. I am all I've ever had.

I bet it would be nice to have someone, too.

When will it be ok for me to struggle?
When will it be conceivable that I need help, too?
And is that even up to me?

I think it's too far gone. That I'm too far gone. I've suffered for so long in silence that I think it's the only way I can function anymore. So I suppose my healing will have to come this way as well.

Silently.

[0HRP1]

I know what you are saying SS i really do. Everyone takes your problems seriously if you have a drug problem or a drink problem. But if you hold it all together then everyone thinks you must be not too bad when inside you are just dying. Scream for help SS, you deserve it as much as anyone else, you don't need a drug problem to be able ask for help, just ask because you are struggling and you deserve it.

[SoSimple]

Thank you! I've been getting help slowly and trying to fight that feeling. I'm glad you understand.

[0HRP1]

I do understand SS. And i'll keep trying to understand more.

[SoSimple]

I should have never pretended in the first place.

But what else could I do? Everything was falling part, everyone either tearing each other to pieces or ignoring one another completely. Somebody had to do it. I used to love the fact that it was me, that I got to be the glue that held them all together. At least if I had a role to play I wouldn't be as easily forgotten. Not as forgotten as she is.

No one talked about her for years. In those rare moments when someone mentioned her name, I got tense and immediately looked for signs. Did someone really just bring her up? Can we do that? Only for a second, nothing more.

As if she wasn't even worth a conversation.

I don't remember much about her really, just that I felt bad for her all the time and guilty that I never stood up to defend her. I also find that odd, because the stories are always of how much she hurt me. All I remember is her being hurt and me not saying a **** thing about it.

You think you know where the lines are until you're there. From the outside looking in, black and white are distinctively opposite. But in the middle of the chaos and the pain and you being too young to really know what was going on but trying to process it anyway, it is all a fuzzy grey blur. And here is the thought that I cannot seem to reconcile:

It may have been abuse.

I hate that. I refused to entertain that thought for so long because I didn't want to resent anyone more than I already did. But how else could you throw a mattress on a closet floor and call it a bedroom? Why does every memory that I have of her end in her being hurt and me feeling sick to my stomach?

The truth is that I don't know what happened and I don't remember... I'm really not sure if I want to. I do remember making the decision to purposely forget it all. I knew I couldn't handle it and I needed to get away from it, even if just for awhile. Now that I'm here and I can't make the tiny fragments that I have fit together, I'm starting to wonder if remembering is essential. I don't know if I can ever be whole with so much of myself missing. So many questions that I don't want answers to, but do I need them?

Do I need to remember the day she almost took my life?

I know my mind made me forget about that day. I've heard the story from every single person who was old enough to remember it, told the exact same way. I should remember something like that. She would have killed me if someone hadn't walked in. Maybe that's really not that important. I'm not sure if she understood what she was even doing. After all, she had a disorder and we were so young.
It wasn't really her fault...?

After she left, my family officially fell apart. I was bitter about the relief that flooded my home. Why were we so much happier now that she was gone? We really weren't. The years to follow would make that clear. We all hid from each other, everyone putting themselves back together in whatever way they could, everyone staying the **** away from each other. And nobody dared to say a word about it. I was eleven, my sister had just been "removed" from our family, and my parents completely shut down.

It's such a big part of me that stays buried. It's like it doesn't matter to anyone else. Nobody wants to hear stories like that about your childhood. So instead I tell of the forts my best friend and I built in the woods and of the times we went horseback riding and sledding down our hill. I hate horses, and I hate the snow.

I can't dive into that one. Not yet, anyway. I'm still not sure if I really want to know, or if I really need to. After all, my mind seems to be protecting me from it for a reason. But maybe that reason could be the ticket to my freedom. All of this fighting with myself is exhausting.

When will I be able to just be?

[SoSimple]

I never learned how to scream or cry or make a scene. Nobody ever asked for help where I was from, and there really was no one to go to. I knew that nobody would understand why my sister wasn't technically my sister anymore, and I was weirdly protective of my family when it came to that. I didn't want to hear the judgements and opinions on the matter, however true they may have been.

I was all alone, watching it all silently crumble to the ground and calmly walking back into the smoke and ashes to try to put people back together the best way I knew how.

I used to sit on my bedroom floor and cry and beg God to "just send me someone to talk to." I fantasized about having an entire day with someone who genuinely cared and just talking until I ran out of words. I wanted to free the emotional snowball that had welled up inside of me and refused to leave. It was overflowing now, impeding on my ability to focus or rationalize. I can't remember where the idea came from or how I got the nerve to pick up the scissors, but I remember exactly how I felt that day.

I relive it constantly.

I was about to have some friends over, but I was so muddled with emotion that I knew they would notice that I was off if I didn't do something to clear my head. I was crying, sitting on my floor, hot and shaking and in disbelief that I was in this moment. The fact that I mustered up the courage still astounds me to this day, and I'm not sure if I am grateful or regretful of that.

I felt hot and nauseous afterward. I was so scared and freaked out by what I had just done. I couldn't believe that I had that mark, and I wasn't sure at first if it made things better or worse. I went on with my night like nothing had happened, literally wiping my tears away and putting on a smile just seconds before my friends walked into my room.

And then it hit me;
Relief, power, clarity...

Air.

I had no intentions of telling them what had happened. I still haven't to this day, and I am sure I never will.

I think back now on that time and I see a girl who was deeply hurt, scared and shaky, alone and without a lifeline. I don't blame her for doing what she did. She needed it in that moment in time. I just wish she didn't need it anymore. All of the lifelines I now see just floating in the water next to me, and I cannot muster the courage to take hold of one for fear I will grab the wrong one and it will pull me under.

"So I suffocate.

The release is like I've been held under water for too long; it's like when you reach that one pivotal moment when you know that if you don't come up for air right away, you may never breathe again.

That's what I do. I come up for air..."