Another milestone

3 months, exactly, today. Monday, 17th September....... Monday, 17th December. 

Scooter, I miss you like the birds miss the leaves. 

I read that you can literally die from a broken heart. Look it up; something to do with weakening of the walls of the heart. It can be caused by grief, stress. It's why one spouse's death sometimes follows very quickly after the other. 

I cannot kill myself. The mess it would leave behind, I can't do it. So. I am willing myself to die. I am willing my heart to fail.

Yesterday I did a little gardening. Trimmed a few things, cut back some deadwood. A robin was singing very loudly. He's often around. He would sing when I sat with Scooter on his bench. He was singing nearby on the morning we buried him. 

I stopped what I was doing and sat down, and listened. In my mind, I told him that he sang beautifully. He came nearer and ate some suet I'd thrown about for him. After he'd gone I just sat in the quiet. In one hand I had the bag of cuttings. In the other were the secateurs. I wondered if they would be sharp enough to take the vein in my neck. I couldn't even remember the name of it. My head is on such a low gear lately. It was a while before I remembered; the jugular. Yes, that's it. Would it be enough? A quick stab. 

I thought of Luvbug. He had gone to the shops to get me some chocolate and some painkillers, and more cold remedies for himself. I pictured coming back to find my body on the ground, and all the blood. No. Can't do it, see. Can't scar him like that. He doesn't deserve that.

So I sit up late nights, hoping to hear Scooter. I hear him less and less now. It's like losing him again.  

Farewell, my friend. Go on your way if you must. Come see me when you can, promise me, come by sometime.

Meanwhile, nothing holds any light any more. 
It's as though the world is no longer 3D.
All is flat. All meaningless.
  
Life goes on, someone said to me. Ah yes, it does. It plods on. And I am doing my **best** to go along with things day to day. Be OK on the outside. Automatic pilot. But on the inside, I have gone.

Visiting the depths again!!

Oh boy, I've left it weeks again! I keep forgetting to get online, and then most evenings, I am soooo tired, I just want to sprawl in front of the TV once we've dropped Mum off home.

I think it's partly a side effect of the pregabalin I was prescribed in January. I does knock me out. Another bad side effect: I've gained another stone (14lb). I wasn't warned this could happen and it really got me down. It went on in just 3 weeks and now I can't shift it. Go to Google and type in "pregabalin weight gain" and you'll get pages and pages of stuff; research, forums, drugs sites, all saying it makes you gain weight. Normally I'd have looked it up before taking it, but I was in such a bad way in January, I just wanted anything that would help so I just took it.

Mum's on it too. It can be prescribed for anxiety (me), pain, and seizures (mum). Guess what? She's put on over a stone too!! She needed to gain *some* weight, but now even she is gaining too much.

You go to the doctor and they just shrug, like it's so unimportant compared to what it's treating. But it *is* important, isn't it? It affects your fitness and you feel about yourself.

I've been keeping a food diary and also a log of my activity, to see if I get enough 'exercise'. I've got my bike out again and I'm walking a bit more. All this isn't always possible if you're feeling completely bushed though!

Let me know if you have any weight loss tips!!!!!

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Head-wise, I hit rock bottom a few weeks ago. One night I was crying so badly I went into an asthma attack which was quite scary and I was coughing for a few days afterwards.

I hadn't been as low as I was that day for a very long time and I really didn't want to hang on, but told myself I had to hang on for Luvbug, and Mum, and my gorgeous Scooter-cat, too.

It occurred to me- and sorry if this causes offence- but it occurred to me that dying for someone else is easy in comparison to living for them, once you are in so much pain inside you can't bear to go on otherwise. To carry on for someone else's sake alone can feel a lot harder than dying when you are down in that abyss.


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I've managed to do some cards for people but I'll put them in separate post so people don't have to visit this depressing stuff if they don't want to! LOL

Floor level.

Broke down today.
Lots of tears. You know, the can't-go-on type.
Had an appointment with the Art Therapist.
I'd had to cancel last week's and the week before's because I just couldn't get away, couldn't leave mum on her own.
Today was easier; she wasn't too bad today.

At the session, it all bubbled to the surface, and how, yesterday, for the first time, I felt I couldn't go on.

But if I killed myself, I thought, what would mum do then? Or the cats....

Luvbug, I figured, in the twisted, mirror-think of suicidal thought, he would be ok, he's strong, he could sell up and head to Ireland and his family........ and then yesterday on the news there was a story about a young family found dead in their home. Suicide was mentioned, but not official yet. How could he have taken his wife and children with him, people asked. And I knew how. I knew how, I knew why.

Then I knew I had hit the floor and needed help.

Back to the Old Country

Cherished79 mentions suicide in her latest post. I've a few suicide attempts on my file.

I'm not sure I would try it again. Although, as I have said to someone close to me, I can't even make that a promise to myself, let alone someone else.

Yes, that probably does sound selfish. But the thing is, even when you've been through it, you can't remember the pain. You can remember being in pain, but you can't remember the pain itself, not really, just descriptions of it.

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I thought I was doing ok, miles better, this last year. Then, last month, out of nowhere, BAM! And I was at the bottom again.

I had forgotten what that DEADNESS felt like. Like being in a street alone, swamped in a thick smog, sinking in quicksand, all at the same time.

WOW. I had truly forgotten that, even though I'd written about it. Know what I mean?
Luckily it lasted only about 10 days. A few weeks more of being fragile, and now I am almost back to where I was.

What if that were to return one day, and didn't go after just a week or two? What if it were still there after five months?

Hmm. That's funny. I was about to write "six months", but decided mid-type that no, I wouldn't be able to stand that. Wouldn't even let myself imagine it going on for that long.

It did before though. And longer. When I was 13, again when I was 21. Those were the times I tried to end it.

At 28 and 34, again. But no attempts those times. Well, I did, but got myself to a doctor. It was more extreme self-harm than serious attempt. The feelings were there, but not the determination. I was still in touch with people around me. That was the difference. Previously I had felt like I was living under a glass dome. There was no way in or out for other people. It's like being sucked down a vortex. In the end you have no energy to reach up. In the end, you think they'll all be better off without you anyway, so please, let me sleep, let me go. If it is love you have for me, don't make me stay with this pain any longer.

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Saw the psychiatrist last week. I see one every 3 months, for 30 minutes. It is never the same doc, a new person each time. I think it's a training thing. Or maybe, just not a permanent post. Or maybe, a post served by several different hospitals. Who knows. I've never been told the reason. Just a new doc every time.

They never read the file. They each want to start again. So last week, instead of being able to check on my progress, or go over the huge dip I was just coming out of, we were going over how many brothers do I have? And sisters? And is there depression in the family? And how old are you again?

One of these times, I swear, I shall call their bluff. Yes, I shall say. My parents are still alive AND together, currently touring Belgium as part of a circus with my 19 siblings- that's 7 boys, 10 girls and 2 hermaphrodites. Hear voices? Oh yes, all the time. My cats, mainly. They speak 4 languages, you know.

This time, the doc suggested mood stabilizers. I'm not so sure. Just as I said August 2006 when they were suggested.

Is there something I could just take when I was very low? Just for then? Just when I needed a wee bit of extra help?

Off she went to consult with someone else. Comes back all gleeful. So proud and pleased that she is going to help me, looking forward to later, no doubt, when she is sipping wine in front of the TV and reflecting on how rewarding her job is.

"We're going to put you on a mood stabilizer!" she announces.

Oh, really?

I took the prescription from her but haven't had it filled out. Knew I wouldn't, at the time. For all the same reasons I said no to mood stabilizers a year ago. I bet those reasons are there, too, in that file. I'm too tired to go over them again with her. This, in itself, is a sign that I'm still not out of the woods.

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