The Worst Week

I've no idea why this last week has been my worst in a long long time.

I feel at best crabby, snappy, impatient and tearful, and at worst I feel like I'm having a breakdown: spinning thoughts, uncontrollable thoughts going places I don't want them to go, little sleep and what there is is filled with surreal dreams. It feels like my head is full of barbed wire. Cutting myself again the other day, a way to stop the traffic in my head.

Upped my back up pills from 2mg a day to 3 or 4, only to discover too late that the pharmacist gave me two weeks' worth instead of a month, so now I am down to 2 pills left... and my brother's wedding tomorrow.

I hate being in rooms full of people I don't know. I can't handle it. And the idea of being in a church again makes me feel physically sick. Tonight he told me the service will be about an hour-??? I asked if there were emergency exits down each side!

I don't want to go. My head is hellish. I am an inch away from a panic attack. And I STILL have to take care of mum. Today I was in town with her early again trying to get her something to wear for tomorrow. Finally she bought a black skirt, then fretted about the price for hours. Then I finished taking up the sleeves of her jacket...

Tried to approach the subject of me not going. Luvbug told me that if I can't face it, if it will push my head too far, to not worry as he will take mum and look after her there.

Well she is having none of it. I have to go to support my brother, you see. Like I always must. I must support my elder siblings, my younger brother... I am left asking myself, what about ME? When does what I need count? Stuff how bad I feel, I have to support my brother whose promise of inviting my mum up for a weekend each month to give us a break has amounted to three weekends in 21 months

Now I'm just rambling, I know. But there is no one to talk to. Even the emergency line at the therapy place I go to is engaged!

Bottom line- I am here to support my eldest brother, despite the abuse he put me through when I was little- I am also here to support my second eldest as he goes through his second wedding, even though I feel like I'm falling apart- I am to support my little brother, the one in Mexico, and glean info from him from his tiny emails for mum because she worries and he can't be arsed to call her or write to her- and according to mum, I am also here to cook Kevin's meals (the shock horror on her face when I give her a meal and there is nothing for Kevin because we will eat later. Where's Kevin's? or the time she was halfway to the kitchen and said -'Oh! I was going to make Kevin a cup of tea, but that's your job really isn't it?')

That's it, my role. Support everyone else around me and just accept that they either don't give a flying monkey's that I'm ill or-more likely- they simply don't believe that I am. Luvbug the exception to the rule of course, but to the others it is 'oh' get on with it'.

Will I go to the wedding? More than likely. After all, at 44 who am I to have a choice. This is why my head is full of barbed wire. It is being crushed, shrunk. I am screaming out for a break and no one can hear me.

Thank goodness for Scooter. My fur confidante. I feel I have no one in the world. I have lived here 8 years and made no friends. I am shrinking inside.

Can't believe how much i have cried this week. Or how fragile I've been.

Tried to explain to mum gentle why I might not go tomorrow. She said, I need to go to support my brother, and she is looking forward to standing next to me there.

Do you know, we didn't even get an invite? They gave one to mum and added 'plus Helena and Kevin'. Or  'plus carer and driver'.

It wouldn't be fair for Luvbug to take her on his own and face all those strangers. I know he means it when he offers, but it is too much to ask.

If I don't go no one will accept why. Since my first major depression at 13, and my first suicide attempt-induced coma at 14, well, it's all just for attention isn't it, is what they think. Mum even said it to me when I got out of hospital that time. How ironic that I'm the one left with her care now.

I have junk on tv, chocolate and my cat. I'll doze off eventually I guess....

Downs and ups and downs again.

Taken a dive again, I'm afraid. Sleep is difficult, but being sleepy isn't! I seem to be doing 36 hour days straight, then 6 or 7 hours of heavy, sluggish sleep, the type that leaves you with squitty eyes, like two pee-holes in the snow.

And very lucid dreams, the type where I am conscious IN the dream that I am dreaming, which, to say the least, is weird. (It's handy in nightmares though, as I can wake myself up!)

All my tidying up and organisation, which left me feeling so good last month, has pretty much come to nothing. I had to move craft stuff back into the living room to use, as the craft room is still an ice box- still no heating sorted out. Trying to craft on the floor in the living room has produced a few nice cards, but also wreaks my back.

To be honest, lately, I have been getting frustrated with things to the point of tears and sometimes I just give up with the day and crawl back to bed, where I'll lie and listen to the radio or flick through a book or two.

I've filled in my driving licence application. Maybe if I can finally learn to drive that will give me a new layer to my life. I know in theory it should do, but the prospect of driving still terrifies me. If I can do it, then I give myself more options for employment, if I can face it.

Basically I am so frustrated and bored by not being able to sort the heating myself, and sort putting up shelves myself, and a hundred-and-one other things on our 'House jobs to-do list'.

I have to admit that, although I do love him, the frustration caused by living with a serial procrastinator is having a bad affect on me, to the point where I just don't know why I'm here any more. I just want to switch off. Give up. I just can't go on like this, not if it means feeling like this. But then I feel guilty, as I know he has so many worries of his own...