AAAAAAND here we go

I told you I would come crashing down, didn't I?

I hurt right now, I hurt a lot. I've been hurt, someone has hurt me and all I can think is what did I do wrong to make them act like that? Rationally I know it's not my fault, but I don't think rationally. I think in ways that blame myself for the pain that I'm feeling, that makes it my fault that everything hurts so god damn much.

All I can think about right now is, what did I do? What could I possibly have done (and when) that means bad things keep happening? I rack my brains over and over and over again and I still don't understand. I do my best to be a good person, I try so hard, but everything still hurts. What is it I need to do to fix things? What can I do to make it all better?

My friend Matt is with me right now. Well, not really, he's dead. I know he's not really there, but it feels like he is. I can hear his voice, feel him next to me and see his beautiful face when I close my eyes. I haven't felt like he was here this much since I was last in Paris and, if anything makes the pain and delusions worth it, it's feeling like he's here with me.

I know tomorrow I will feel differently, hell in an hour or so I'll feel differently. But right now, it hurts. It hurts so much and I would do anything and everything to work out how to fix it.

xXx 

Sometime's it's worth it

This morning, I received some of the greatest news ever delivered to mankind. Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, the show that shaped and influenced my life until it got a little bit shit, is returning for a one-off reunion show. It's impossible to put into words just how I'm feeling about this and I shall be singing along to the musical episode at the top of my lungs even more so than usual.

You will probably notice that, in the vast majority of my mental-health posts, I talk about how shit BPD can be. It's tiring, draining and down-right painful but, today, I'm bouncing off the walls and loving it. I'm buzzing, I'm excited and although it's highly likely that I will come crashing down like a sack of shit in pretty soon, I really don't give a shit. I'm happy.

It's often hard to explain to people the good side of my BPD because for the longest time good patches have been few and far between. Before I was diagnosed, I spent years refusing to take any form of medication because I was willing to put up with the lows in exchange for the highs. Obviously, this mentality only lasted for so long and eventually, I conceded that not only did I need an actual diagnosis, but that I also needed help in controlling my emotions in order to function as a normal human being.

Well, semi-function.

As a result of this, the highs seemed to fizzle out and the lows became far more common. Even as I'm writing this, I can see how it might seem strange that I just accept the lows as part of my everyday life now but, at the expense of not being able to survive, I'm happy to accept it.

Whilst this may seem like another post reiterating the pain I feel on a regular basis as a result of my condition, it really isn't the case. Today I'm happier than I've felt in days and I intend to hold on to that for as long as humanly possible. It may last the morning, the day or the week but right now, I don't give a shit. The mood I'm in is nothing short of euphoric, and I intend to enjoy it for as long as I can.

xXx

What hurts the most

One of the things I find the hardest to explain to people when it comes to my BPD is how it feels physically. How my body feels when I'm in the middle of a bad patch much like the one I'm in right now. I'm not just talking about when I'm exhausted or hungover after quite literally trying to drink my feelings away or even how my arms feel when I slice them to ribbons, but how I actually feel.

It was only recently that I thought about writing this post after I realised that I'd developed a new symptom. I'm not a fan of new symptoms of my condition cropping up. I can, for the most part, handle the ones I've experienced for years but when I'm thrown a curveball and my brain decides that it's time for something new, I seldom know how to react.

The latest symptom is an actual feeling of my condition taking over. You know the sensation when you've necked 5 Redbulls and then come crashing down like Charlie Sheen at the end of a 2-week bender? That's exactly how I"m feeling, only these peaks and troughs happen within the space of a few minutes. Eventually, I know I'll learn how to get passed this one and soon it'll become part and parcel of my life with BPD, but all I can really do about it now is rest.

Aside from this new whole-body takeover, the place I feel pain most is my chest. It's a heavy, dragging feeling that sits rights above my sternum, and there's nothing I can do to get rid of it. Even I don't know much about the connection between mental illness and physical pain, but I'm at least 99.99% sure that painkillers aren't going to touch it.

I've been experiencing this type of pain a lot recently, which has not been helped by the fact that my immune system decided that working was too mainstream and so shut down last week. Whilst my chest infection is finally clearing and the dizziness and double vision are gone, the BPD pain is very much there.

This bad patch has been pretty rough, not just because of intensity but because of how long it's lasting. I'm doing my best to get out when I can and make use of the times I feel able to make it out the house but, for the most part, I've been spending my time at home in bed. I know that I'm strong and eventually things will be okay, but I"d really like to be done with this one now.

And no, I'm not going to the doctors.

xXx

Self Love Pt 2

In the same way that I introduced my previous post of the same name, please be aware that this post has nothing to do with masturbation.

Sorry

When I was 17 I made the catastrophic mistake of shitting where I ate and entered into my very first relationship with a guy I worked with. It was great for about 15 months, and then we had a delightful conversation over text one night where he simply told me he didn't want to be with me anymore.

To be fair he'd said it before but then we'd gotten back together, we really should have stayed broken up.

Anyway after a lot of screaming, sobbing and valium (this was pre-diagnosis and therefore pre-medication) I managed to face him again and head to work.

It was fucking brutal.

Finding me sobbing in the toilet, my friend Hollie came in to comfort me and uttered the immortal words, you can't love anyone until you love yourself.

I won't lie, at the time I thought it was bullshit.

To me, nothing else mattered other than getting him back and I relentlessly told myself that it was something wrong with me that made him leave. It took me years to get over him, and I finally found solace after bumping into him on a night out and crying into my friend Craig's arms under a clock in Downham Market.

I also may or may not have hooked up with one of his friends but what are you going to do.

Anyway, fast forward 8 years and I really am feeling the pain again. I can take BPD flare-ups, but this one is lasting a lot longer than usual. I'm doing my best to leave the house, eat and achieve the bare minimum of tasks required to call myself a human, but it's hard.

It wasn't until the other day after I'd spent a good half an hour rocking back and forth sobbing into my pillow that I remembered what Hollie had said. After all these years was I finally getting it? Was I finally realising that I have to change the relationship I have with myself in order to be in a relationship with someone else? Was it finally dawning on me that I need to take care of me first? Finally, it was.

Laying my head down to sleep, I said to myself that I needed to take care of my body, my brain and my heart if I was ever going to move forward, I realised that there's no way of getting out of it this time. I really can't keep going around in self-hating circles in a desperate bid to feel love that will, quite literally, only end in tears.

And, as my amazing friend Jill said to me in the jewellery cupboard of the Kings Lynn Hardwick branch of Argos, "no daughter of mine is ever going to cry over a man."

I'll keep you posted.

xXx 

-73

My current bank balance, in case you were wondering.

Due to a combination of re-structuring, lies and all-consuming frustration, I have recently found myself to be unemployed. Not great in the long run and, if I'm honest, a tad demoralising.

Yesterday, in an attempt to calm myself the fuck down, I decided to try a yoga session. Unfortunately, this did nothing to soothe my mood and I burst into tears 10 minutes in. Luckily, I was at home, but still, hysterical crying is seldom the reaction expected of an exercise commonly associated with calmness and serenity.

Currently trying to rectify my present financial situation, I'm finding myself becoming more and more obsessive and upset each and every day. All I seem to be able to think about is job hunting, I check my emails at least 12 times an hour and my mind is constantly saturated with anger at the fact that I have to go through this whole fucking process again.

Whether we like it or not, money is a key component of survival in the Western world. We need it for food, we need it for shelter and we need it if we plan on doing a variety of things involved in leaving the house.

It also seems at the moment that 99% of the conversations I have with people seem to revolve around my current employment status. How's the job hunt going? People ask. Are you trying XYZ? Have you applied to this place? Everyone around me has a bizarre obsession with whether or not someone is paying me to do something and, subsequently, the contents of my bank account.

Now I'm not completely void of the ability to understand human emotion, and I know that most of them are doing it out of care and consideration. But, in all honesty, it feels to me as if they only seem to care if I'm employed or not. Regardless of how my insecurities may make me feel at times, I'm more than my bank balance, more than the contents of my resume and cover letter and I'm sure as hell more than my fucking LinkedIn profile.

Don't get me wrong, I would really like a job. I'm bored, frustrated and do not do well with having free time, but I'm slowly realising, for today at least, that whether or not someone is paying me on a regular basis has very little to do with who I am. I'm a writer, plain and simple. Does this mean that I receive a regular wage for doing so? No, but it does mean that I've been lucky enough to find something that I'm not only passionate about but also incredibly good at. How about, instead of asking me how many hours I'm spending trying to convince a complete stranger that I'm the perfect person for each and every individual role, maybe ask what I've been writing about lately. Who knows, you might actually find it interesting.

And no, I don't want to apply for a job in my local pub. I need at least one place I can relax.

xXx

Raising awareness and shutting the fuck up

I've started writing many a post on my hatred of the term "raise awareness", but none of them have reached the point of publication. Not really sure why other than maybe I can't quite put across how fucking angry the term makes me. Thankfully, through the glory that is Room 101, I'm finally feeling able to put my words out there for all to read.

When telling presenter Bob Monkhouse why she wanted to throw marathons into the fiery depths of Room 101, Katherine Ryan uses the phrase "We've heard of it, sit down" in response to the eternally repulsive and unrelentingly nauseating phrase raising awareness. Thanks to this glorious and very public exclamation, I really think I've found someone else who gets it.

Now, the phrase raising awareness is often used by self-righteous and small-minded morons who, for some inexplicable reason, don't realise that, as members of the human race, a vast percentage of the population are also aware of the existence of the same certain topics they are. Subjects include cancer, world hunger, global warming and common mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

That's right, I said common, bite me.

Now, do what you want in support of these charities. I'm not disputing their importance and I really don't give a shit about what you do in your spare time. Climb Everest, jump out a plane, shave your head - whatever gets you out of bed in the morning, just don't use the overly cliched and completely necessary headline to cover the fact that you want attention. Yes, we get it, you want to visit an underdeveloped country on the other side of the planet to show the world what a kind and considerate person you are but don't expect me to pay for your holiday or rim you in return. Let's just say what it's you're really doing shall we, boosting your ego and raising money. It's 2019,  we should all be grown-up enough to be honest with each other by now.

Obviously, as I am a human being, my anger is powered by a pre-existing personal agenda, in this instance being BPD. When no-one has a fucking clue what something is then, and only then, do we need to raise awareness. I have no problem explaining my condition to people, as I'm fully aware that not a lot of people have heard of it, but the world and his middle-aged nextdoor neighbour knows what hunger is, so stop assuming that I'm a fucking moron for the sake of your inner hardon.

Can you tell I'm not in a great mood today?

xXx

Image By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34539191

M'lord this is getting old

I can't believe I still have to write about this shit but, here we go.

On Wednesday, I was walking home from the cinema when I bumped into someone I used to work with. Going over to say hi, he actually CROSSED THE STREET TO GET AWAY FROM ME.

Seriously, I didn't know they made pussies that big that walk on two feet.

Now, let me make this clear, I have done nothing NOTHING to this boy. Working in the kitchen, I rarely interacted with him and, par a couple of occasions one of which being the staff Christmas party during which I chugged water for 4 consecutive hours meaning I remember the entire evening, I spent very little time with him outside of work.

Yet, for some reason, he still seems to be afraid of me. Because, you know, there's nothing more terrifying than a 5 foot 7 English writer.

I have said this over and over and over again and it seems to me that I'm going to be saying it until the day I die. My condition does not make me scary and I'm not going to hurt you. I might have a way with words and a limited (read, non-existent) ability to feel empathy but I'm not, as far as I'm concerned, any reason to be afraid. I may want to hurt you, as I discussed in a previous post, but news flash, I'm never going to.

At this point, I'm moving on from being pissed off about repeatedly having to reassure people that I'm not a danger to society and more just over it. I won't lie, it really used to upset me, but if you're really afraid of me and believe I'm someone to fear, then that's on you. I'm kinda over it now.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to jump out at old ladies dressed as a witch to see if I can scare them into having a heart attack, I'll let you know how it goes.

xXx