Uncertainty and fear

[Girl_Anachronism]

"Depression is a prison where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer."
~Dorothy Rowe

How am I today? Afraid and uncertain.

I made good progress these past few days. I went shopping most days for this or that. I even did the dishes. TWICE. So why do I feel so bad. I was out doing things. Achieving things. This should make me feel better.  So why do I feel this crushing weight on my shoulders now? Why does the thought of next week fill me with dread?

I think I know the answer to that one. I have my first volunteer shift on Monday. Just three hours. Three hours I get to spend with cats, volunteering to help out at the cat shelter. Cats make me happy. It's only three hours. That should make me happy.

But I'm not. I am afraid. So terribly terribly afraid. My monsters keep whispering to me about what could go wrong. They keep whispering about how I'll screw it up. Normally I have at least a little strength to fight it off, or at least shrug it off and let the social anxiety of missing this appointment carry me through those three hours.

I look inside and all I find is emptiness. These past few days, I almost felt like a person again. Hell I can shorten that sentence. I almost FELT. Where did that person go? II saw her, glimpses of her in the edges of my vision. I can't even see her now, where did she go?

It hurts too much to hope. Hope should be a big positive, glowing thing but in my mind it is but a flickering candle flame. I don't dare com out of the dark towards that light because I can't trust it. It might go  out any minute. I'll be left in the dark again, the dark I know so well. Worse, I'll be left in the dark with the memories of what that light was, what it could have been.


I'm not sure why I am posting. I just felt all these thoughts, like a pressure inside my head. I had to let it out somewhere. It's chaos in my head at the moment, voices shouting over voices; faces appearing in the crowd only to disappear a split second later. I don't know if I'm making sense. I don't know....

I wanted to apologise for not posting much lately. I just can't hear over all the voices, to get one clear line of thought sometimes. And then there is the effort of coming on here and pushing all these keys to get it out. Then the waiting, the anxiety as I hope it gets posted. I hope someone sees. The fear that something will go wrong and it will disappear and I'll have to type the thing out again, which seems all too hard.

So you see I am having trouble helping myself right now. I don't know how to help others. It' like offering a hand down to help someone up and over a cliff edge. I don't have the strength in my arms when the ground is crumbling beneath my own feet. If I only had a firm footing, I could help pull you up. I could do something good. I could do something.

GA

[Girl_Anachronism]

Hi Jo, 

Sometimes words fail me too. So don't worry. I value that you spent any of your time outside of hospital thinking of me and replying on my thread. How are you going? I am here still muddling through. I think at the moment I am just trying to not get worse, even if I can't get better. That level might be lower than I like, lower than is comfortable, but it is still here and that at the moment is worth hoping for. 

As a general update, I was in a fairly low mood even yesterday morning but one panic attack and seizure later I feel a bit more buoyant. I have an appointment with my treatment team most days this week. I also have coffee with a friend who is lower than I am at the moment. 

It's a weird switch of position when I am the saner, not so crazy one helping someone else get the help they need, even if it is hospital. I guess I don't have room to be sad for myself when my friend needs me to be the rational, calm one while she cries. 

GA

[Bridge]

Isnt it funny- theres always someone worse off than you are, and weirdly, guiltly. it kind of helps a bit.

i suspect that people who don't reach out and help when you need it usually don't act because they're unsure of what to do, and often i think they're worried they will make it worse.  if they care about you, they don't want to make things worse, (and its sounding to me like things are bad enough already!)  so it might not be because they don't care, but more because they're parallised with fear. (how do you spell paralised?)

however, that said, a phone message would have been polite.

Bridge

[Girl_Anachronism]

Hi Bridge, 

I hadn't considered that point of view. Thankyou. I see that they wouldn't want to make it worse but even a supportive text eould have been nice. I can't help but think that they are just standing back waiting for things to get better and then they'll swoop in and never speak of it again. Fair weather family. I used to have friends like that. There is a reason I am not friends with them anymore. 

I prefer friends like the one I am helping at the moment, or people on here. People who have known what this feels like, who've been in similar situations. I help my friend out because she has helped me and we recognise that in each other we have partners in arms against what are solitary battles against diseases which thrive on loneliness. 

If you consider this speaking, I have done at least three times as much talking on here then what I have to my family in a longer time period. I just don't know how to deal with them or what to say. Sometimes I feel like there is something wrong with me when I don't know what to say, can't do small talk or don't talk to people for months. Am I fundamentally broken in some way? 

What is wrong with me? Am I fixable? Or am I just a broken porcelain doll, to be abandoned? 

GA