Diarhyea

My brain is not working. My mind is unable to find a way out of this. I don't want to go back on medication, it feels like failure and I KNOW that's fucking stupid but there you go. My mind is fucking with me. My depression doesn't want me to get better. It fills my head with cotton wool. The air is like wading through porridge. I'm slow and stupid and broken and useless and wrong.

Another fkn diary entry

I am so dumb. I mean, in certain ways. I know that in general I'm fucking smart, perceptive, and know a shitload of stuff. I am also smart enough to grasp my limitations and, sadly, perceive my declining intellect.

But some things. Fuck me. Nearly thirty years of adult life and I'm still being surprised about stuff that other people seem to have grasped in their infancy. For instance it only just occurred to me the other day that most people don't think about suicide all the time.

I mean, I get that in the depths of my depression last year I was thinking about killing myself an abnormal amount - and with a level of detail that was definitely indicative of psychosis. But what I didn't understand or think to tell my doctor or therapist was that thinking about suicide was normal for me. A daily thing.

I didn't think to let anyone know about the baseline because I had no idea it wasn't normal. How fucked is that? What an idiot.

Diary?

I have to be ok with not being ok. Acceptance and all that bullshit. That's one of the hardest parts, especially since I struggle to accept that I'm depressed at all. Despite diagnoses, despite obvious signs, despite the fact I have known this for years without properly facing it.

Talking about it with others helps, though that's another struggle altogether - being open about being crazy. I've done a bit of that this weekend and it's exhausting. And seems to have no effect on quieting my mind or resolving my thoughts.

But it has to be good for me, right? Everyone says it is and they can't be wrong. I hope one day to notice the benefits.

Hello diary dearest

Today has been an ok day. Not great, but not terrible.

It's not down, so it looks like up to me.

I even managed to vacuum my apartment so I guess I'm planning on being here a bit longer.

Yo, diary

In trying to navigate my way through this noisome morass of mental illness I'm put in the aggravating position of not being able to talk about it with most people due to the way they react. Or, more accurately, the way I react to their reactions.

The ones who blankly don't understand or care to understand are the least of the problem. They, on the whole, are the fuckheads I wouldn't want to share details about my emotional state with anyway. I've been slow at realising who those people are unfortunately, especially one in particular. Blinded by fake empathy and, if I'm honest, an extremely pretty face.

The ones who offer endless ideas about how I can get better are irritating and exasperating but I get that they are coming from a place of trying to help. They're usually trying to help fix a problem I don't have though, due to a lack of understanding or imagination. And of course some of them are just fucking idiots, or assume me to be a fellow fucking idiot.

But if I have to put up with one more deluge of 'caring' from another overwrought sympathetic twat I will fucking scream. Jesus H Christ on a fucking skateboard I don't need you to be fawning and gushing with performative compassion. Who is this supposed to benefit? Do you see me melting into a puddle because your unexpected warmth in this cold, hostile world melted my stony reserve? No, you fucking don't. Because this isn't a fucking disease of the week tv movie.

Get the fuck over yourselves and leave off the exaggerated care & pity. I don't need you to feel sorry for me - I feel sorry enough for myself to last a lifetime. Tell me something interesting instead. Talk to me. Engage my brain. If you really want to get at my heart you should know you have to get there via my mind or you don't know me at all.



This post brought to you by the words bile and spleen, and the letter fuck off.

Hey diary

Today I managed to get viciously, bitterly envious of other mental illnesses. Like the bipolar. Everybody loves those assholes, they're sooo much fun. Twats.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Except when they're not fun. Sure. Except when they're hiding in a darkened room because they think they're being watched. Except when they're gibbering in the corner or throwing a brick through your window or sobbing in the bath.

But people will mostly remember how much fun they are.

Depressives though? No-one like a depressive. Not even another depressive. Not even the actual depressive themselves. Which I guess is the whole point, if there is a point which there isn't because this is a meaningless and infinite and cold universe which cares not a jot for your successes or failures or mediocrities or other mediocrities or yet more mediocrities or.. well, you get my (mediocre) point.

Anyway.

Those 'fun' crazies? Fuck 'em.

Dear diary...

Called in sick today because I was unable to sleep last night and couldn't get out of bed this morning. I'm too embarrassed to say I'm depressed and a basket case so just said that I had gastro. Better that people think I'm simultaneously vomiting up my spleen and jetting toxic waste out my arse than there's something wrong with my brain.

I'm pretty slow on the uptake so I'm only just beginning to understand this is what my life is like now and probably for the foreseeable future. I have good days and bad days. On the good days it seems ridiculous that I could let something as transient as 'the way I feel' affect what I do so fundamentally. On the bad days I forget that there's any light or joy in the universe and the thought of human interaction is terrifying.

Sometimes those days can happen in the course of a single day. Several times.

This evening I have to go to the gym then travel across town to go to a friend's gallery opening. The thought of either of those things fills me with stomach-lurching horror. I would literally prefer to carve banshee wails into my own flesh than leave my apartment. I've never been into self-harm but if I thought there was any way that cutting myself would help I'd be up to my elbow in a fucking food processor.

Fuck. I have to go.

Kill me.

hello old friend

I've missed you.

mice & men

My plan (as far as these things go with me, i.e. not far) for September was to attempt a post a day. Nothing big, just a few lines and a pic maybe. Which all got fairly spectacularly derailed by the earthquake back home.

The resulting time in Christchurch really should have provided me with plenty of blog-fodder but I found myself far too exhausted and busy to write much. Since I've been back it's taken the better part of a week to recover from the aftershocks, sleeplessness and general agitation so writing has been pretty non-existent. Plus I'm missing being in New Zealand so much at the moment - despite the circumstances it was wonderful seeing so many friends and catching up.

Again I'm wondering what I'm doing in Sydney and how long I'll be here.