Mental Illness vs Mental Wellness

Have you ever heard the saying the holistic therapists always wheel out, health is not merely the absence of illness?

The same goes for mental health. 

It's all very well not having depression, not being on medication, not being of concern to your GP.

It's quite another to be mentally "well."

There is a vast chasm in between the two. A vast chasm filled with sticky, black treacle. It's hard to trudge through it and scale the cliff to the other side. Getting off the medication is just the start. And often, just when you think you're starting to reach solid ground on the other side, the treacle drags you back again.

I've written about my breakdown before. I make no secret of the mental health issues I've experienced. People have expressed surprise at my openness, but since the breakdown itself was fairly public (until I went properly cuckoo and deleted my Facebook, that is), I see no point in hiding it. Also for me, writing about how I felt formed part of my recovery.

One thing few people talk about, or possibly even give thought to though, is what happens once you're considered "recovered." Once you're off the medication, and you stop going to the counsellors, and people stop hiding the knives when you visit... it's not over. There's still a lot of fighting to be done.

A major part of my breakdown was the overwhelming feeling of loneliness. I was plagued by the belief that I was fundamentally unlovable; I believed I was just plain bad inside, and that I would be alone forever. I wanted to die, rather than face 60 more years of feeling this alone and disgusting.

If I'm honest, those feelings are still there. They've not disappeared. I've just grown better at coping with them. Or ignoring them. Pushing them to the back of my brain, and telling myself they're wrong. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. There have been times in the 2 years since I fell pregnant, that S has been literally the only thing keeping me alive. If she weren't here, neither would I be.

This blog is more successful than I ever expected it to be when I started it.

I have a blog on my local newspaper's website.

I've been invited to speak on radio shows on the issues I write about, and have written guest posts for several websites.

People tell me I am good at writing. People whose opinions I trust and respect; people I know would tell me if they thought something was shit.

I still don't think I'm good enough. I still don't understand where these readers come from each month.

I'm not depressed all the time, but I have waves. And the waves are still pretty bad. Before, when I was properly ill, the depression was more of a sustained period of absolute, soul crushing, abject misery. 

This is more a couple of days or a week here and there. I am still horribly lonely. I still feel dejected and fed up and not good enough for the friends who make so much effort with me. 

I'm nowhere near bad enough to go back to the medication, but I know I need to do something pro-active myself, to make sure I don't slip any further. Make sure those waves don't get any longer than a few days. 

What I'm wondering is, will I ever reach the other side? Will I ever feel good enough? Will this bloody black dog ever die?

Psychiatric Services, and Other Jokes.

This is the latest in a series of posts about a breakdown I had in 2010.
The first post is here.

I have no idea how to live my life. I feel like the last couple of months I've been in some sort of weird stasis; whole days and weeks have merged into one. I couldn't tell you what I did last week with any certainty, much less how I spent the month I was signed off work. I don't know how to change this. I can't even think what to wear to work tomorrow. The simplest of decisions is beyond me; I skip meals for days at a time because I just can't decide on what I want.

I am aware that this has been going on for far too long now. Several of the people who were very sympathetic and nice when I first started showing signs of being a bit "off" have either mysteriously disappeared, or openly told me to just pull my socks up and sort my shit out. I don't know if they're right or not. I probably should sort my shit out but I can't even sort out doing the shopping. I can't remember anything I used to do, how I used to function. I can't decide anything, it's like I'm just stuck. And everything is black and sticky.

The lady from Psychiatric Services calls me. We discuss my situation. When I tell her I am taking 25mg of Sertraline, she suggests I increase it. I speak to the GP about it, and we discuss the potential side effects of doing this. I go away with my prescription for the stronger dose, and try to watch myself for signs of further mentalness.

A few days later, I have my preliminary meeting. It is in Fountain Way, the local mental facility on the outskirts of town. I sit in a room with too many chairs, a table and a box of tissues. The lady wanders off to get my file, then comes back. I tell her all the same things I have told everyone else: I am broken, it's not fixable, I want to die. She tells me I should think of my younger sisters, and how they would feel if I died. I do not find this helpful.

On the phone, the lady said it would take "45 minutes to an hour." It takes two hours. There is a lot of crying.

The lady is nice to me. She tells me she has to go back and discuss my case with the rest of her team, and then I'll get a letter. They'll send a copy of it to my GP as well. She tells me that with the increase in my medication I should see an improvement. I tell her I have been self harming a lot; she doesn't seem bothered. I leave, feeling drained, and cry on the way home.

I know that these people cannot help me. Even if they do decide they will refer me for "treatment," the lady has already told me they have a "fairly long" waiting list, so I won't get any help for a while. I feel like I've been tricked; I sat in this too-hot room for two hours, dragging up all sorts of crap from my past that I generally just deal with by not thinking about it. Now I am left with it all spinning around in my head, and no clue how to deal with it. I feel like I have gone right back to square one, feeling worse than I did when I was originally signed off work - except now I have to get up and wash and dress myself and speak to people every day.

For the last few weeks I have been "hanging on," waiting for my next appointment with the GP, or the counsellor, or for this assessment, thinking "ok, just hang on until this appointment, and then you'll be okay." And every time I get to the appointment, and I'm in the room, I have this thought, "well, you managed to hang on and make it to here - but nothing has changed, you're not magically fixed, things are not okay, and when you leave the room it'll all just be the same." Now I've spoken to Psychiatric Services, I'm back to sitting in limbo, waiting for the next thing to hope will offer salvation.

I go home, and sit and stare into space, thinking to myself, "what are you doing? You can't just sit here and stare into space." The lady from Psychiatric Services had suggested I go for a run. She has clearly never been in my position, sitting in the house, petrified of going out and bumping into anyone I might know.

A letter arrives from Psychiatric Services a while later. There are leaflets for "group therapy." I put them on the floor next to my bed, and forget about them. 

I tell the GP I think "group therapy" is not for me; it seems stupid and a waste of time. She tells me that perhaps it will do me good to have a reason to get up and out of the house every week, now that I'm not working. I can't find the words to form an argument against it, and I don't want to seem ungrateful for the only help being offered, so I say okay, and leave.

A few days later, the lady phones. She tells me she thinks I would benefit from going to the group therapy for depression, but that the group is currently full, so I am on a waiting list. In the meantime, what do I think about the leaflets she sent me? I quickly pick the leaflets up and blag my way through the conversation: "er yes, I was thinking I'd do the Assertiveness, the Goal Setting and the Relaxation..." She seems pleased with this.

To be continued.

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Turns Out I Wasn't Fixed...

This is one in a series of posts about a breakdown I had in 2010.

The story begins here.

This is what my life feels like... only without the light at the top.

When I return to work, I am still having suicidal thoughts on a daily basis.

One day, I have been plagued by yawns all day. You know that feeling, that if you just lay your head down and close your eyes for five seconds, you'll fall into a deep, delicious sleep? Except every time I try to go to sleep, I fail. That night, frustrated with feeling this offensively, mortally tired, I ransack my stash of pills, and take one of every type I can find. In the middle of my mad scramble for pills, it occurs to me that I could just keep going. I could just end it all now, just take every single pill I can lay my hands on and be done with it. Then that would be it. Then it wouldn't matter if I couldn't sleep. It wouldn't matter that everyone I love always leaves. It wouldn't matter that I'm alone. It wouldn't matter that none of my family gives a shit about me because they're too busy fighting amongst themselves. It wouldn't matter that I am utterly miserable in my own skin. The only reason I stop, and don't go through with it, is that I haven't written a note. I don't want to leave people without an explanation. I am too tired by this point to write anything coherent, so I just lay on my bed and fall asleep.

I am going to work every day, but I am still crying on the way home. I am still drinking vodka in the middle of the day, despite my promises to the GP that it would stop once I went back to work. I am still self harming. I am still turning up for work still dozy from the previous night's cocktail of sleeping pills and whatever else I can lay my hands on. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, fixed.

As the days go on, I am taking more and more sleeping pills each night. Four, sometimes five. I don't always sleep any better, but I find that I am not so bothered by it; I spend large amounts of time in a weird state between asleep and awake. 

On one day in particular, tired of always being tired but not sleeping, I take five sleeping pills and go to bed. I still wake up at 3am, so I waste no time in taking another four pills and going back to sleep. When I wake at 9, only parts of me wake up. I don't trust myself to stand in the shower, so I tie my hair up and put on some clothes that seem clean. I catch the bus to work because I don't trust my wobbly legs. I buy a large coffee with an extra espresso shot, and wobble my way to work, where I pretty much collapse at my desk. I receive three emails telling me I look rough. My boss asks me why my speech is slurred. And I bump the door frame every single time I get up to go to the toilets.

The big boss comes over to speak to me. He tells me not to worry at all about work; nobody is cross with me and I am not taking the piss. I need to just take my time and things will get better. This is a gruff, middle-aged man from whom you are normally lucky to get a "morning" barked at you as he lopes past in the morning. I almost cry.

When my two hours are up, I walk home. It takes me nearly an hour to walk a journey that usually takes half that. When I finally get home, I lay on the sofa and fall asleep. When I wake up, I sit and stare at the wall.

I am vaguely aware that I appear to be going down hill. I am vaguely aware that the number of burns and cuts on my arms really can't be passed off as clumsy accidents any more. I am vaguely aware that I am taking the piss now. A friend emails me and basically tells me I need to pull my socks up now, and go back to work properly.

I know I am being irresponsible. I know I need to turn myself around and start behaving myself.

But on the other hand, what have I got? A doubled dose of medication, an inability to sleep without chemical intervention, a handful of people who say they are there for me, but are generally busy whenever I actually pluck up the courage to ask them to spend time with me. No chance of any sort of therapy or whatever else sort of help for at least a couple of months.

By this point, it's not that I want to die, so much as that I really can't be bothered to live like this any more. And I don't know how to change that. Everything seems so irreparably futile. 

This is going nowhere; there is no happy ending here.

The next part of the story is here

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Returning to Work

This is one of a series of posts about a breakdown I had in 2010. 
The story starts here.

Me, just as I was starting to get ill

Early July.

I can't imagine how I will go back to work when my sick note runs out. I feel like everything is just so much effort. Even just walking through town: all those people, the noise, having to pass people and make decisions and cross roads and smile and act like I don't want to just jump under a truck. How do normal people deal with this? How did I cope with my life up to a couple of months ago, when it started falling apart? Have I just dropped something I had before?

I feel increasingly like something inside of my head has simply snapped, and no amount of drugs or ridiculous cognitive behavioural therapy are going to stick it back together again. It's just broken, and this is just how it is now.

I feel like whatever happens next, I'm still going to be the girl who had a month off work because she couldn't cope with putting one foot in front of the other - a failure, someone you need to tread carefully around in case she goes mental again and starts talking to the pot plants in the office.

I talk to my doctor about going back to work. I know it will have to happen eventually. She says I should have a "phased return" and writes this on my final sick note. 

At first I am pleased I at least have a week to psyche myself up for going back into the office. But then, I am not. I feel like I am going back to my job, my desk, my computer, as if I am fixed and back to normal - and I am most certainly neither of those things. Once I am back, everyone will think I got sick, and now I'm better and everything is fine.

When I hand that last sick note to my boss, he says we will arrange for me to just come in for a couple of hours each day, no pressure. He says he will tell the people I work with not to make any sort of fuss or treat me any differently when I go back. Once we have discussed this, I go home and have a panic attack that lasts for 3 days. I do not want to go back to work, but I know that I will have to, sooner or later.

All too quickly, that Friday morning rolls around, and I have to go into the office. I have to see my doctor beforehand, and end up turning up around 9:30, coffee in hand, just as everyone has settled down for the morning and will notice someone wandering past them. Just my luck that my desk is at almost the farthest point from the door. I feel everyone's eyes boring into me as I pass them, and will the ground to just swallow me up. I finally make it to my desk, sit down, and wonder what the hell I'm supposed to do, now that I'm here, being stared at.

I have a meeting with my boss who, true to form, is legendary. He says to start with I should only work 2 hours a day; we will have a brief catch-up each day to see how I am getting on, and whether I want to increase my hours, or cut back if it's getting too much.

I sit at my desk, and don't know what to say to these people. I've not seen or spoken to any of them for a month, since the day I just came back to my desk, picked up my things and left. None of them have been explicitly told why I have been off, but they probably know it's linked to some sort of "mental trouble." I don't know how I should act; I feel like if I carry on as normal, having a laugh and a joke with them, they'll think me a fraud. Should I sit here crying? Should I just not speak to any of them? What should I do? In the end, my friend Sarah, who sits behind me, comes and chats to me. I could not tell you what she said, but I was eternally grateful for it.

I do not feel ready to be back at work, but I know that if I waited until I felt ready, I would never get there.

I go home after two hours, relieved I went back on a Friday, and have the weekend to recover.

On Monday mornings our department has a get-together. This has always been around the bank of desks I sit on. The big boss has always come and stood next to my desk for the meeting. I have forgotten all of this until the big boss - the one who was so unexpectedly nice to me before - comes and crouches next to my desk. He asks how I am, tells me it's good to have me back. Smiles. Then he stands up, and the entire department are behind me, waiting for this morning's chat. I know they're staring at the boss, but I'm right next to him, and feel like they're all sneaking looks at me, wondering why I was away for so long, how come I'm still not turning up at 9am, how come I had such a short day on Friday. I am sure they must all hate me. None of them makes eye contact with me. None of them speaks. 

When everyone returns to their desks, one boy emails me to say it is good to see me.

To be continued

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A Week Between Two Drugs

This is one of a series of posts about a breakdown I suffered in 2010.

The story begins here.

Wishing I'd Stayed in Spain

I go back to the GP. It's neither of the two I've seen before; it's an older lady who's been there a long time. She tells me Prozac is not the drug for me. I leave with a prescription for Zoloft, and instructions to stop taking the Prozac, and leave a week before starting the Zoloft.

I haven't been on the Prozac for very long, and since it's made me go a bit bonkers as it is, there doesn't seem much point in coming off it slowly. The GP doesn't tell me to, either. So I just stop taking it, and wait a week, as per instructions. 

That week is, without shadow of a doubt, the worst in my life. When I look back, it is like a montage scene from a very bizarre movie. I go proper, unrelentingly, bat-shit crazy. There is no let-up. I cry, I wail, I scream, I throw things, I burn myself: deep, painful burns that will scar over int he weeks to come, the scars still clearly visible years later. I cut myself; I bang my head against door frames. I drink all day and night and feel like death. I don't get dressed or leave the house or speak to anyone for four days straight. Somewhere in the back of my head, I am aware that this is all caused by the withdrawal from the Prozac, but right now, I can't listen to that voice because I am convinced that everything is doomed and black and broken, and we will all die horrible, painful deaths. 

I can't even say what's wrong, what's different now than it was yesterday, last week, last month. I've just plain had enough and am done with it all. 

I feel so very alone... I can't even put it into words. I have five brothers and sisters, but few of them bother with me. People I thought were my friends have disappeared. People for whom I went to a great deal of trouble for their birthday, people I've made a lot of effort for throughout the year, people I've listen to complain and moan and let off steam about their problems... not a word. People I thought would come out for a mad night out on my birthday because they were such great friends of mine didn't even get me a card. I feel like I put in a lot of effort with people; if I like a person I will go out of my way to do things for them. Perhaps it's because I'm so desperate for someone to care about me. But I do all these thoughtful things to make people smile whenever I can... and it doesn't work. People can still see whatever poison I have inside of me, and they run away. 

The thing with side effects from this sort of drug is... Well, the likelihood is you were already a bit suicidal when you started taking them. So you don't really know if it's a side effect, or really you. Ditto that for every single thing you think or feel. When a drug is designed specifically to change the way your brain functions, how do you know which parts are you, and which are the drug? I am particularly worried about this, as living alone, there is nobody to say to me, "you've been staring at that wall for half an hour now..." I worry that I will convince myself to jump off a pier or something, but it'll just be a side effect of the drugs. And there's nothing more irritating (I should imagine) than jumping off a pier and realising just as the water breaks your legs, that actually it's probably just a side effect. 

I should probably have stuck with the original plan and not come home from Spain. Now I'm stuck here with no clue what to do to get me from now to bed time, much less through tomorrow or next week. 

I just want to go to sleep until this has passed. Or indefinitely. Because I really can't cope with how things are at the moment. You know when you learn to meditate and they tell you to just sort of sit and notice your thoughts like a passive observer. I'm doing that with my whole life. And I don't even care. 

I feel like with every decision I make at the moment, I'm moving myself that much farther away from "normal." Sending Facebook messages to people I don't know very well, calling people I barely know, texting people I know I shouldn't. I just don't want to be left on my own. I send Facebook messages to two people I vaguely know from the pub, because I know they are friends with a bloke who lives over the road from me (who I also barely know). I wanted his number so that I could call and go over and hang out with him. I don't want to sit in the house on my own; I don't trust myself. But it probably says a lot about me that I am. That even after I've exhausted every avenue, I'm still here, on my own. That there's actually nobody who thinks enough of me to be here.

The shiny new pills are called Sertraline, the generic name for Zoloft. In 2007, this was the most-prescribed antidepressant in the US. I can't remember if this is the drug that was in the papers because it made loads of people want to kill themselves. 

I begin to look forward to the day I can begin to take the new pills. I see them as some panacea wonder-drug in the distance, lit up by a glow of heavenly radiance, and here to cure all my ills. That first night, I take one before I go to bed. A little white 25mg pill that will fix me.

I wake at 3am and sulk. It hasn't fixed me. I'm still screwed.

Months later, when I am recovering, I meet my older sister for coffee. It is the first time I have seen her in months; I am not sure whether she knows what I've been going through or not. When I tell her the GP put me on Prozac she pulls a face, before telling me, "People in our family can't handle Prozac, we all react very badly to it. You shouldn't have taken the Prozac." Quite what use this information will do me months after the fact, I do not know. But this, unfortunately, is the nature of my family. We discuss everything months, often years, after the fact.

The next part of the story is here.

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On Sleep and Skinniness

This is one of a series of posts about a breakdown I had in 2010
The story begins here.

Me, mid-breakdown.
Skinnier, but not happier.

I am so tired that I yawn constantly. Yawns so big that I feel like I can't open my mouth wide enough to allow them to escape. I find myself unable to get through sentences without stopping to yawn at least once. Seeing as how I'm off work, and no longer need to stick to any sort of schedule, I will often lay down on the sofa for a crafty nap, what with being so tired and all. But as soon as I'm horizontal, I'm wide awake. I'm still yawning wide enough to make my dentist proud, but my eyes won't close. My mind won't switch off.

I've had depression before. I've gone through (fairly long) stages of self-harming before. I've dealt with all sorts of personal issues and mental upheavals and untold stresses. Until this point, my way of dealing with things getting too much was just to sleep more. When I was depressed or stressed or upset or felt like I didn't know who I was any longer, I would just sleep more. Sleep has always been my way of coping with problems. Perhaps not strictly the best or most effective way of dealing with one's problems, but it always worked wonders for me. I would often sleep 9 or 10 hours a night. To be in this position now, and to be unable to sleep it off, is destroying me. The insomnia is the worst part of what has been happening with me lately. I feel very strongly that, if only I could sleep properly, the rest of it wouldn't seem to bad. I can think of nothing more appealing than taking to my bed and staying there for a long, long time. Nothing bad can happen if I am under my duvet.

Nobody should be this intimately familiar with 3am. By now I know all the sounds of this estate as it wakes up in the mornings. Each morning I lie in my bed and listen to the succession of odd noises. I think to myself that perhaps I'll get up, go out and find out where a particular noise comes from. But I never do. That's apathy for you.

I feel like I've reached the end. I've admitted defeat and there is no going back. There's nothing left to fight with, and I don't think I want to any way. I may start to respond to the drugs and get over it this time, but it'll always be lurking in the wings, waiting for my back to be turned. It will always come back. Like in Harry Potter, where Voldemort is defeated at the end of each book, but we all know he'll be back by Chapter Five of the next one, and worse than ever. I'm not Harry Potter; I can't keep fighting this over and over again. I'm tired and I just want to sleep now. I'm awake at 3 every morning, and before I'm even conscious of my thoughts, I'm thinking about how to die. I talk about suicide constantly. People pull concerned faces and ask me to promise I won't do anything "stupid." As if my word means anything. As if I think killing myself is a stupid idea. Idiots.

Since I first started getting ill, I have lost over a stone without trying. My clothes hang around my waist. I love the feeling of being skinny. I don't want to tell the doctor I'm not eating, in case she does something to make me fat again. At the back of my head there is a little voice saying, come on, you've got enough to be going on with, without developing an eating disorder too. But I can't help it. I like being skinny.

I read The Devil Within by Stephanie Merritt, and feel a certain resonance with this passage:

Thin, I would still be me, and what I loathed and wanted to punish was not this rebellious body that so defiantly refused to look like a picture n a magazine, but the me that was inside it, the essence of who I believed myself to be - someone who would always be standing on the outside looking in. But I didn't know how to express this hatred except by inflicting damage on what was visible. Something had descended on me, and I could not explain it; it had entered through my ears and nostrils like vapour and wrapped itself around my brain; it clouded my vision and made me retreat into myself, fearful of company and the sound of my own voice.

A friend's mother dies, and I wear a tight black dress to the funeral. It's been in my wardrobe for years, but I've never been able to get away with wearing it. This time I put it on and it's too big. I like to think I look stylish, but I probably don't. I've not reached the stage yet where I could actually be referred to as "skinny" or "gaunt;" I think people only notice my weight loss because of the way my trousers hang off my hips. But it makes me feel better. The only positive thing in my life at the moment is a pair of shorts that I can pull down without unbuttoning the fly. I realise that for my entire life, I have loathed my body; my existence has been a series of events where I've needed to suck my stomach in. I feel fat and unattractive. I have always thought, if only I was skinny, if only I didn't have this pot belly, my life would be so much better. And then one day I am buying a bra to cheer myself up, and I catch sight of myself in the changing room mirror. I realise that these days I don't need to suck my belly in; it is fairly small, now that I'm not eating. It no longer protrudes over the top of my shorts.

But I still hate myself. My life still sucks, and I still want to die; I just wear a smaller size of clothing while I'm feeling wretched. I am the most miserable, apathetic and devoid of hope I have ever been. Having less of a belly and skinnier thighs makes absolutely no difference to this feeling at all. I feel like a fool for ever thinking it would. But if being skinny won't solve my problems and make me happy, what the hell will? I'm running out of other things to try here.

Perhaps there really is nothing.

The next part of this story is here.

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Too Much to Drink

This is one of a series of posts about a breakdown I had in 2010.

The story begins here.

The sorry contents of my fridge.

I start buying a bottle of vodka whenever I go to the local shop. A loaf of bread (to appear normal), some cans of Coke, and a bottle of vodka. I start with the smaller one, and then I just give in and buy the larger one; it's not like I need my money for buying food, after all. I make one cheese sandwich with the bread, which I hardly touch, and then the loaf sits on the side in the kitchen, going stale and then mouldy. Every morning I get up and drink a can of Coke. When my stomach starts to rumble, I might have another. More often than not though, I forget. Sometimes I eat Mini Baby Bel cheeses, because they're small enough to get into my stomach before it realises what I'm up to. I go weeks at a time without going further into the kitchen than the fridge. Not that there is much point in going to the fridge any way; these days its contents amount to cans of Coke, bottles of beer, a mouldy block of cheese, and the brownies I bake in order to fill my afternoons, then ice and give away because I can't actually eat them.

The evenings are when it gets really bad.If I'm sober, the evenings are hell. I can't settle, I can't concentrate. I go through book after book, my eyes following the lines across the page, all the way to the bottom. I turn the page and begin again, knowing that I have no idea what happened on the previous page. I have a stack of books next to the sofa which I appear to have read recently, but I have absolutely no recollection of what they were about or what happened in them. 

I go to the kitchen and turn on the hob. It heats up quickly, and I lay my wrist across it. That hurts. I must still be alive. I do it again, to make sure. And again. And then the other wrist. Sometimes I cut myself with the knives in the kitchen; they're no longer being used for food, after all. One day I'm so agitated I hold the point of a knife against my forearm and push. It pops through the first layer of skin and I panic and remove it. Chicken. If you don't want to live, why are you scared to cause a significant injury? Why these stupid little half-arsed attempts at burning and cutting? You can't even do that properly!

I keep going back to the doctor, and she keeps signing me off. She tells me I have clinical depression. She is clearly worried about me, and I feel really bad about that. I don't want to worry her; she's kind and seems very genuine. I think she has kids as well; she can do without worrying about me. 

By this point though, I am scared of going back to work. I associate work with panic attacks and worried looks and crying in the toilets. So I have to go back to the doctor to get a sick note to keep me out of the office. The doctor tells me I need to try not to burn myself too much. She asks if any of my cuts or burns need medical attention; I tell her no, they're only small superficial ones because I'm not that brave. She asks me about my drinking; I tell her I never used to drink at all (I used to go months without touching a drop) but now I'm drinking more. She asks, how much is more? I tell her a couple of beers here and there. Actually, most nights. And a little vodka. And sometimes during the day. Actually most days during the day. And sometimes in the mornings. And sometimes without any Coke.

She suggests I see an alcohol counsellor. I say no, I don't have a problem. She says I do. I tell her I intend to kill myself so it doesn't matter if I damage my liver. She asks me if I think about that a lot and I say yes. She asks if I have a plan. I do have a plan, and it's foolproof. I've been going over and over it in my head for weeks now. I can't tell anyone what it is though, in case they do something to try and stop me. I'm supersititous about this; if i tell anyone my plan then when it's time to use it I might fail because I've not managed to keep my big mouth shut. Someone might stop me. (Even now, three years later, I have never told a single person what the plan is.) I lie and tell her I intend to jump off Bournemouth pier. She tells me that is impractical; I would probably just break my legs. As if her saying that will somehow stop me from planing! I sneer at her in my head. She's fallen for my lie and won't press me for the truth. My secret plan is safe. I don't tell her the full extent of my obsessive planning; I don't want her to get me locked up somewhere I wouldn't be able to carry it out if I needed to.

She asks how I am getting on with the counselling sessions. I tell her they are pointless and I don't want to do them any more. The lady who does them is nice and everything, but she seems to be scared of me, and not able to help me in any way other than ensuring I do the washing up, or keep on top of the laundry. These seem like minor issues on the grand scale of things. Great, I'll have nice clean dishes, but I'll still want to smash them all on the floor and then roll about in the pieces. 

The doctor tells me she will refer me back to Psychiatric Services to see if I can have some "more in-depth" counselling. It turns out the poor lady from counselling has already done this any way though; at least she knows she's ineffectual when faced with the behemoth that is my depression these days. I feel bad for her; I hope having to deal with me hasn't made her think she can't help normal people with problems. I am just a lost cause; it's not her fault.

The doctor continues to mention the drinking every time I see her. The way I look at it, I'm using the booze to get me through a rough patch in the same way as I'm using the pills from the doctor, and who's to say one is any better a way of coping than the other? The drinking helps me to maintain the pretence of being a normal person, a non-mental.  I can have a laugh and a joke and talk rubbish with my friends, and am not totally preoccupied with the sort of thoughts people really don't want to hear about.

One day in particular, I look up and realise I have downed the better part of a bottle of Baileys before lunch time. I spend the rest of the day in a daze. It doesn't matter; it's not like I had to be anywhere any way. People tell me I shouldn't drink so much but it's not a real problem; I'm not getting obliterated every night and waking up in a pool of vomit in a strange man's bed or anything. There have only been a couple of times I've gone to the pub and not remembered getting home. I probably start drinking a little earlier than is really socially acceptable on a week day, but I don't drink particularly quickly or a lot, just enough to make things a little fuzzy around the edges and easier to deal with until bed time.

The doctor tells me the fact I fall asleep and then wake up seven or eight times during the night is probably down to the booze. I figure she's just scaremongering, and carry on. She tells me same thing the next week, and asks me again to see an alcohol counsellor. I tell her I'll cut down. 

That day is my first sober one in over 3 weeks. It is pure hell. It turns out the doctor is wrong; without the alcohol I don't even fall asleep in the first place. I tell the concerned masses (two people) that I will only carry on like this until I go back to work. Once I go back to work I will stop drinking. 

I laugh inside my head when they believe me; I have no intention of going back to work. I'll be dead before this week's sick note runs out.

At this point I feel it's important to stress again - this is not recent writing. I had a breakdown in 2010 and have been writing these pieces since then, about that time. I am not suicidal now; you do not need to worry. Promise.

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The story continues here

Breakdown Story: Signed Off

This is part of a series of posts about the nervous breakdown I had in 2010. 

The story begins here

Around this time I got my neck pierced for a third time.

I go to the doctor; she signs me off for one week. I walk home, deliberately slowly, thinking, what do I do now?

When I get home, I repeat the previous evening's actions, only with more crying, and more drink. Then, in an attempt to help myself, I call a friend and meet him at the pub, where I proceed to get even more drunk. He tries to help, to say the right thing, but he doesn't know what the right thing is, and neither do I. When the pub closes I walk home. In the dark, on my own, along a poorly-lit path across the meadows. Part of me hopes to be attacked, then I would have a reason to feel like this. It doesn't happen. I know I am being irresponsible, and I don't much care.

I feel like I'm heading down a road that only goes one way, and I don't know how to get back from it. On the one hand, that scares me. On the other though, I'm just sort of resigned to the fact this sort of thing will probably not end in a good way. I've had 29 years of feeling like I'm surplus to everyone's requirements; I don't think it really matters what happens next.

The next morning I wake up and have a strange feeling. There is no work today. No reason to get out of bed. I don't have to get dressed, if I don't want to. And I find that I don't want to. It doesn't feel liberating though, as one would expect. At the moment I feel completely trapped by my life. I wander aimlessly about the house. Daytime TV is seemingly made for people like me. Nothing too taxing. Nothing you would need to think too much about, or pay too much attention to. It plays in the background while I stare out the window.

Is 11am too early for a drink? Well, it's not like I have to be anywhere... I pour a drink. And then another. There's a knock at the door; it's a man from IPSOS Mori, wanting me to fill in a survey of my radio listening over the next week. I pretend to listen as he stands in my messy kitchen, politely showing me how to fill in the survey. He carefully moves a dirty plate out of the way so that there's space for the form on the work surface. He pretends not to notice the toast crumbs and general mess everywhere. I try to smile and look normal, but I'm aware that I'm in my pyjamas in the middle of the day, barefoot and stinking of booze. What must he think? I find that i don't care. I just need to say whatever he wants to hear to make him leave so that I can lock the door behind him and go back to hide under my duvet on the sofa. I take the forms and smile and will him to leave. 

The next few days are a blur. The only people I see or speak to are when I drag myself down to the shop for provisions. I often look up and realise an entire day has passed, and I've no idea what I've been doing. Each week on a Friday morning I get myself dressed and wander to the doctor's surgery. She gives me a new sick note, and I take it to work. I text my boss when I'm almost there, and he meets me outside. We make polite conversation. He has a look like a worried parent. I tell him I'm fine and then leave. I feel like a fraud being off work when I don't have a broken leg or appendicitis. I feel like I must look like I'm taking the piss, outside getting a tan in my shorts and vest while they are all stuck in an office. Later I am told that I actually looked more like I was recovering from some terrible illness.

I find a notebook and make a list of people who will need to be told when I am found. Then I make a list of things that will need to be sorted out: bank accounts, bills, a hire locker at the gym that's full of kit, a website where I half-heartedly maintain a blog, the back garden (sorry). On the next page I put the header, "Reasons to carry on." I sit and stare at it for a while. It remains mockingly blank; I cannot think of a single reason. I feel like a burden to everyone around me. My family don't care about me; they're too busy fighting amongst themselves. I have a couple of people you could probably call friends, but nobody I can call in the middle of the night when I can't sleep and I'm scared I've gone crazy. Nobody would really notice if I disappeared. It would probably be a week or more before my body was found - until my sick note ran out and work tried to get hold of me. 

I feel like there is a poison inside of me that just drives people away. It might take them a while to notice it, but eventually they do, and then they run. I've tried everything I can think of to make it stop. I try my hardest to be good and nice but they still leave. I must just be a bad person. Unlovable. There is no logical explanation. I am unloved and unlovable. It's only reasonable that, faced with all the damning evidence, I draw the conclusion that I need to end this. I need to die. There is no point in my continuing.

I begin to say these things to the people I talk to. People I work with at the local pub on a Saturday sit in stunned silence as I tell them that really, for me to die now would be the best option; I am not going to get any better, and it would be kinder to the people I love to have them mourn me for a while and get over it, than to put up with me like this for the next 60 or so years, with this horrible sense of obligation towards making sure I was ok. I tell them that if my illness was physical, like Cancer or Motor Neurone Disease, people would be fine with me going to Switzerland and dying, but because it's inside my head I have to soldier on, and it's just not fair. As if there is some sort of suicide-prejudice against mental health issues. 

At first they try to talk me out of it. Eventually, they just get used to me telling them I have it all planned, and that I might not be here next week. I'm not saying this for effect. I'm not saying it so that they'll try and stop me. I'm saying it because it's the only thought in my head, the only thing I am capable of saying, the only thing that makes any sense. Death really is the only option. I'm vaguely aware that the things I'm saying are shocking to the people around me, but I seem to have misplaced that part of my brain that censors this sort of thing. I blurt out inappropriate comments where most people would make polite conversation. Normal people. People who are not like me. I occasionally get half-way through a sentence and realise that my topic of conversation is inappropriate, kind of like when you're drunk and suddenly, through the haze, you realise you're talking too loudly. But I'm powerless to stop it.

Apparently decreased inhibition is a side effect of most antidepressants. Which would be fine, if they stopped you from being depressed - and then you could chat away uninhibitedly about how the sjy is blye and the grass is green and aww shucks ain't everything just grand. As it is, the side effect of decreased inhibition is teamed with the side effect of suicidal ideation, so you find yourself obsessed with killing yourself, and unable to keep from blurting it out to anyone you speak to.

So far the side effects from the Prozac seem to be harder to deal with than the depression they were prescribed to treat. An antidepressant that makes you entirely preoccupied with murder of the self. How very ironic. Someone call Alanis, quick. Apparently (according to the doctor) the knowledge that it's just a side effect of the drugs should make me less inclined to follow up on any of the thoughts that enter my head on an almost hourly basis. I wander around, completely overwhelmed by what goes on around me. It is utterly exhausting to have to make decisions, cross roads, appear normal, act lik I don't want to just throw myself under the first available truck.

How did I cope with my life until a few months ago when it fell apart? Have I just lost something I had before? I feel like something in my head has snapped irreparably, and no amount of drugs or ridiculous cognitive behavioural therapy will succeed in sticking it back together again. It's just broken, and this is just how it is now.

To be continued...

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Things Fall Apart

This is the next part of my breakdown story, which begins here.

This was originally written in 2010/11, when I was ill.

A thoughtful present from a friend.

I go to my first appointment for counselling filled with the sort of hope you have when you've not dealt with NHS mental health practitioners before. I meet a lovely lady who is sitting behind the desk, an another lady who sits in the corner an doesn't speak. Apparently the lovely lady is leaving soon, so she will do this first assessment, and then the quiet one in the corner will take over.

We talk for a long time. She asks me questions and I answer them. I try to explain about my family, my past bouts of depression, the fact this one seems so horribly different. I cry. She tells me she thinks I would benefit from some counselling, to help me day to day and to work on my self-esteem. She gives me a piece of paper divided into four with a heading in each section: STRENGHTS/WEAKNESSES/OPPORTUNITIES/RISKS. She wants me to have a think and try to put a few points about my life under each heading. I say ok. I leave with a sense of hope; she seems to understand me, she wants to help and she knows how to. I'm saved. This nice lady with a kind smile and long denim skirt can fix me.

When I go back for the next appointment, it's the other lady. The quiet one who sat in the corner and didn't speak last time. I feel very self-conscious that she sat and watched me cry without actually being present or joining the conversation in any way. I think she must be a trainee or something. She's nice and everything; she means well, but she doesn't have a clue. She tries to make me fill in a wheel of what stresses me the most. I don't see the point. I'm at the absolute nadir of my apathy, and this poor woman is trying to get me to do worksheets and timetables for housework. The idea is that you can still function and get the basics done, even when you feel awful. I see no point whatsoever in doing this; yes, I will have clean plates, but I'm not eating any way, and I still want to die. All this counselling seems to want to do is ensure that when I do go, I will leave a clean kitchen behind. And I don't much care about the state of my kitchen.

I continue to go along to my appointments every other week, but for no other reason than the fact I don't want to hurt her feelings by telling her how little effect her diagrams are having on my wellbeing. She means well, but the sort of help she is offering seems to be with the sole aim of turning me into a dribbling automaton who is able to plod through the days with some vague semblance of normality, but without actually resolving any of my underlying problems. Fix them up and ship them out. Without meaning to, she makes me feel like I'm little more than a number to my local Community Mental Health Trust. To be fair though, I probably am just that.

On my last day in the office, I am particularly anxious and panicky. My manager speaks to me in the morning and asks me if perhaps I wouldn't like to take a couple of days off to sort myself out. I say no thank you. I sit at my desk, troubled by an overwhelming feeling that I simply do not want to be here. Nobody wants to be here; this is not the sort of job anyone loves, but I really cannot stand to be around so many people right now. It's like torture to see all these people who are able to fill their days with... with stuff, inane chit-chat and drivel and happiness, while I sit here, incapable of such frivolity.

I really don't want to be sitting at this desk; I can't stand to sit at this desk a second longer. Normally I would go and chat to a friend, but I don't want to talk to anyone. So I get up and go to the toilets. I don't need the toilet. I stand there, tapping my feet and looking at the ceiling, and then realise I've probably been here a little too long. So I go back to my desk and sit there, tapping my foot and flicking between screens on the computer, unable to focus on anything for more than a few minutes, unable to sit still. Then I get that feeling again, that I need to get out, to not be here, to just get away from my desk. And so I go back out to the toilets. 

Throughout the morning I must look like I have some sort of complaint. I wander back and forth, back and forth. At some point, I email my manager, who is in a meeting, saying that actually, yes, if it's ok with him I would ilke to take the next day off to try and compose myself. Then I wander out to the toilets again. 

When I come back, my manager has returned from his meeting. He says to me, don't sit down; come with me. I wonder what I've done wrong. Perhaps I've been found out. I've been coming in for weeks now and producing no work. I've not even been doing the basic daily duties I'm supposed to keep up with. Am I going to get told off? We go into a meeting room. He closes the door, sits down and tells me: I have been a manager for a long time, in a lot of different places. I have worked with a lot of people with mental health problems. I've seen all sorts of things in my time, but I am beginning to worry that I'm going to witness someone having a full-on breakdown at their desk. Please go to the doctor and get yourself signed off. you are in no fit state to work as you are. Your team are worried about you; more than one person has asked me if you are ok. You need to take care of yourself now. Don't worry about work. Collect your things and go to the doctor now.

Looking back, this man most probably saved my life.

This story will be continued...

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More Notes on a Breakdown

This story starts here.

This is the story of my breakdown, in 2010...

Who could fail to be happy here?

I become obsessed with the idea of running away from my life. I want to go on holiday to Spain. At every available opportunity I get on a train or bus and spend the afternoon somewhere else. I want to move away from here and not tell anyone where I'm going. I imagine that I could go and live somewhere else, and miraculously none of my problems would follow me. If I lived somewhere else, I could be someone different. Happy. A person who doesn't need pills to be normal. A person who can talk to other people, engage in conversation, make friends, be loved.

When you're on pills to make your brain work, you don't know who you are any more. You never know if what you're thinking is you, or the pills. You don't know if your reaction to a particular event is how you would normally react, and whether this reaction is better or worse than what might have occurred, were you not dosed up with the psychotropics. You never know if your thoughts are really your thoughts, or just side effects. It's like when you spend a whole week wailing, convinced the whole world is against you, and then at the end of the week you get your period and realise it was just PMT. Only there's a danger, with the pills, that you'd never realise your reaction wasn't your own. 

I spend a lot of time staring into space, pondering this. I watch myself, as if in the third person, trying to figure out which parts are me and which are the chemicals.

I have also lost the ability to choose, to make even the most basic decisions. This started a few weeks ago, when I went to Waitrose on my lunch break to get a sandwich, and spent most of my lunch hour standing in front of the sandwich counter trying to decide which one to get. They didn't even have a very large selection of sandwiches; I just couldn't make the decision. At the time I thought it was just one of those things, but as the days and weeks edge forward I notice more and more than I can't decide on anything. If I decide to read a book, I don't know which one. If I want to watch a DVD I stare at my collection for an hour before giving up. On the rare occasions I decide I do fancy something to eat, I stand staring into the cupboard for half an hour trying to decide what to eat, before giving up and going back to the sofa, defeated and hungry. Is this a side effect from the Prozac, or a side effect from life that the Prozac hasn't managed to mask? How does one tell the difference?

On a whim, I ask my boss to give me a few days' holiday next week. He says yes, and within twenty minutes of making the decision I go online and book a short holiday in Spain. I like Spain; it is sunny and people are nice. I won't be depressed in Spain. Going to Spain will fix me. I tell a friend who works with me and she pulls a face that seems to say, You are mental. Normal people don't do this. I ignore her, and go to Spain filled with misplaced hope that this will be the thing that fixes me. And if it doesn't, I won't come home. I'll do a Reggie Perrin, lose myself. Or better yet, kill myself. Yes. If I don't feel better when I get there, I will kill myself. Somehow the thought of doing it in Spain makes it sound exotic and interesting.

Unsurprisingly, when I get to Spain I do not feel better. I get sun burn and wander aimlessly around the back streets, drinking too much beer in street cafes and buying fresh waffles and ice creams because that's what I did last time I was here, and then throwing them in the next bin I pass because I cannot eat. I lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, thinking to myself, Come on, you're on holiday! You're meant to be relaxed, you're meant to be able to sleep! It turns out insomnia travels just as well as depression. 

I am in Spain for my 29th birthday, alone and silently panicking. The last year of my 20s, and what have I achieved? I'm single and alone, nobody loves me and nobody ever will. I'll never get married, nobody will ever want to start a family with me, I'm a burden to my family, who are all happily paired off. The only single one. Unsuccessful at everything, my life speeding away from me so fast I can't keep up.

I decide not to kill myself here. The ladies who clean the hotel rooms are so nice, I don't want them to come in and find a body. Someone from my family would have to come here to identify my body, and my sister had to fly here before, when my dad had a heart attack. It wouldn't be fair on them, and they can't afford the flights. I go home, defeated and decidedly not fixed.

The story continues here

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Prozac Nation?

This is the next part of my story of my breakdown. The first part can be found here.

This is something originally written in 2010/11...

At home, I sit and look at the Prozac. Do I want to do this? These little blue and green pills, they look so small and innocuous, but I know from past experience they can change things a lot. We've been here before, when I was 16. It wasn't a pretty story. I don't want to go down this road again, to be dependent on a pill to function, to wonder whether my feelings are real feelings, or side effects. I've read Prozac Nation; its author, Elizabeth Wurtzel, credits Prozac with saving her life. But I've also read the stories in the media about the people who have gone mad on it. This whole situation feels a lot like admitting defeat. What am I saying about myself if I start taking pills in order to make myself normal? That I'm not capable of functioning without something to steer me in the right direction? If that's the case, am I not better off dead? I feel like if I give in and take these pills, it will be tantamount to admitting I'm not capable of even a basic human existence on my own. That I can't even put one foot in front of the other and fool people any more. I don't want to be that weak and useless.

I put them in a drawer and pretend I can cope without them.

The GP and the friend are both wrong. They must be. This sort of thing happens to other people, not to me. Yeah, I've had my depressive moments, but they were when I was a moody teenager in love with the idea of teenage angst, and foolishly thinking I was a tortured soul like Richey Manic. It was more affected than real, wasn't it? I've got my head screwed on right really, haven't I? This is just a rough patch, it'll pass. I can't possibly be one of those unfortunate people who need Prozac to cope.

On the other hand though, I can't stand the thought of feeling like this any longer. The doctor has been to university for several years' training to do this job, surely she knows what she's doing? Who am I to argue with her?

A couple of days later, I give in. I come home from work crying uncontrollably. I have no idea how I passed 7 hours at a desk, I have no idea what I am going to do with regard to any single aspect of my life. Simple things are beyond me, and I'm scared to go out of my front door.

I admit defeat. I take the pill, and I cry some more. I really am that sort of person, and it breaks my heart. I had such high hopes for myself. I imagine the pill floating up to my brain and plugging some sort of gaping hole, like the Dutch boy with his finger in the dam.

Within days, I stop eating or sleeping, and lose the capacity for rational thought. My life is like wading through molasses. I hear people speaking to me, but it's as if they are in another room, another place, talking to another version of me. Nothing gets through to me. I can't tell if the Prozac is causing this, or if it's just a coincidence that I started taking it at the same time as I turned the corner into this state.

I stop trying to pretend to be normal; I was never any good at it any way.

The not eating starts as "I can't be bothered with cooking any dinner tonight" and quickly moves onto "I can't stand the thought of putting that in my mouth." It's not that I'm not hungry; I must be, I've not eaten properly for weeks now. I'm just seized by this feeling that I cannot eat. I lose more weight without trying, and this serves only to make me even less inclined to eat. I begin to keep a food diary, as a way of showing off to myself. One Tuesday, the diary reads simply, "Mini Baby Bel x 1."

At work, I speak to a nice lady from HR. The whole company is on notice for redundancy at the moment, nd I am worried that if I get signed off work again (as I am increasingly tempted to do) it will affect the likelihood of my being made redundant. I don't want to lose my job, on top of everything else. She tells me not to worry about work at all; if I need to be off work then I should go. She suggests I book a holiday or something, but advises me I should speak to my department manager first, out of courtesy, and explain that I am having problems.

The department manager is a gruff, middle-aged, old-fashioned manager. I cannot imagine having a discussion about feelings with this man. I'm horrified at the thought of having to tell him I want to go home because of such a flimsy excuse as "stress." I decide to just ask him if I can finish the day, and take the rest of the week off. I go to see him and tell him about the issues I've been having, in very general terms. No details. I ask if I can take the rest of the week as holiday, then brace myself for his response. He takes a breath and says: how about this...  my heart sinks. Here it comes.  And then he surprises me: look, I know what you're like, and if you just go you'll worry that your work is being left. Go home now, get an early night. For the rest of the week, come in when you feel like it. Check your emails, make sure your work has been handed off to other people, and go. I don't care if you're only here for two hours a day. Come in as late as you need to, make sure things are covered, and leave.

I have no idea where this has come from. This is not what I have come to expect from the man who has been running the department for the last year. I'm gobsmacked. I thank him profusely, and leave. For the next week or so, I feel like a complete fraud. I arrive for work between 9 and 10 each morning - I couldn't cope with the guilt if I rocked up any later, despite my manager telling me off if I arrive too early. I check my emails, check my normal duties are covered, and sort of hang about, wondering whether it would be ok to go home now... until my manager basically kicks me out of the office.

Leaving work early only brings on a new problem, though: there are now more hours between getting home and going to bed. The hours spread out before me like some massive, barren desert. I cannot think of how I will fill so many hours. Most people (presumably) will fill their evening with socialising (I can't do that, I can't speak to anyone), preparing a nice meal (I can't eat anything), housework (what's the point?), watching TV or movies (can't concentrate) or... what else? What do normal people do? What did I used to do? It's as if I've forgotten overnight how I like to spend my spare time. I haven't the first clue how to fill the coming hours. 

I sit on the sofa and switch on the TV; a force of habit left over from when I used to enjoy things. I flick through the channels; there is nothing I want to watch. Eventually I let it stop on some American reality show or other. I'm sure I used to watch this all the time. Didn't I enjoy this once? I don't remember. I may have seen this episode, I don't know. 

I go upstairs to my desk and switch on the computer. I wait for it to load up, and connect to the internet. I used to spend hours in here, didn't I? What did I do? How did I fill that time? I don't want to chat to anyone on Facebook. I don't want to wade through my emails. I don't want to read any news stories or articles. I don't want to check my bank account. What else is there to do online? I stare at my Facebook for a few minutes, wondering how I ever coped with these demands for my attention.

Eventually, at a loss, I leave the room and go back downstairs to the living room. The TV is still on, talking to itself with some vacuous nonsense about tans or hair or make up or weddings. Or perhaps all of those subjects. I can't stand the voices. I find the remote and flick through the channels some more. It all seems so pointless, just devoid of any meaning whatsoever. Why does anyone watch this? I switch the TV off and sit there, staring at the blank screen for a while. 

What time is it? I must have killed an hour or so by now... No, only twenty minutes. I go back to the spare room and look at the computer. I have ten Facebook notifications. They've been sitting there mocking me and my stupid inability to cope with even the simplest of things, for days now, slowly increasing in number as the days progress. I can't bring myself to do anything about it.

I go back downstairs and sit on the sofa in the silent living room. What am I doing in here? I don't want to watch the TV, there are no DVDs I want to watch. I have a book which I'm half way through, but I couldn't tell you what it's about... What else can I do with my evening?

Out of habit, I go back upstairs to check the computer. Check for what? I know I have unread emails and Facebook notifications, and I don't want to read any of them. I get to the doorway and realise I don't want to be in here.

I go back downstairs. I get to the living room, and I don't want to be in here either.

I go to the kitchen and find a bottle of some dodgy green liqueur at the back of a cupboard. I find a shot glass - I'm not some sort of uncivilised drunkard, after all - and take them into the living room with me. I pour myself a shot and look a it. I don't normally drink. This bottle has been in my cupboard for six months or more. The liquid is sticky and smells of bananas. I drink it quickly, down in one. It doesn't taste bad, not like it used to. I feel it burning its way down to my empty stomach, spreading out in the cavity and heating me from the inside. I still don't want to watch the TV; I still don't want to be in this room.

I wander back upstairs to the spare room, with no idea what I intend to do when I get there. Where else can I go? My bedroom has nothing but a messy pile of un-ironed clothes and a lot of dust. The bathroom has nothing to occupy my attention; I've already had a shower and washed my hair today. 

I start to head back down the stairs. It occurs to me that down there, there is only the living room - which we've already established I don't want to be in - and the kitchen, which has only dirty plates and cups from my failed attempts at eating. I give up and sit on the stairs. Bottle in hand, I begin to cry. I have no idea how I will fill the rest of my evening. I pour myself another shot. And another, and another. Soon, half the bottle is gone. It occurs to me that I don't feel drunk. I have no food in my stomach to soak up the alcohol I don't usually touch. I should be drunk. Even that part of me is broken. I can't even get drunk any more. I am still crying, sitting on the stairs, wondering what to do.

I can hear my neighbours through the wall, going on with their normal Wednesday evening. How do they know what to do? Did someone tell them? How are they able to just fill all of this time, all these hours? There are three of them, which probably helps. They can put their heads together and come up with ideas. I rock myself back and forth, trying not to cry too loudly in case they hear me, praying for something, anything, to help me.

Eventually the clock crawls towards 9pm. This is a reasonable time to head to bed. I breathe a sigh of relief; I know what to do at bed time, I don't need to make any decisions, or think. I put on my pyjamas, wash my face, clean my teeth and get into bed. Usually at bed time I read a book. I know this because I've done it since I was very small. There is always a stack of half-finished books next to my bed. I pick up the top one, and begin reading. After twenty minutes, I realise I've been reading the same sentence, in the middle of the page, over and over again. I have no idea what came before it, what caused me to stop at that point. I try again. Concentrate. Stay with it. You can do this, you love to read. It happens again and I give up. I put the book on the floor and switch the light out. I lie down and eventually fall asleep.

As if by clockwork, I wake up at 3am. I look at the clock and groan. I have no idea what it is about 3am, but I am growing to hate it. I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Why can't i sleep? I can't stand another 60 plus years of this. I have no idea how people cope with this. 

I become completely entranced by normal people. People who sleep all night, get up, go to work, come home, and cope with their lives. Some of them even enjoy their lives. I want to grab them by the shoulders and beg them to tell me their secret, what it is I'm missing. At the moment my life, my existence, seems more like a prison sentence to be endured, than anything to be enjoyed.

One morning at 4am when I've been trying to go back to sleep for what feels like an age, I switch the light on and begin to rummage through all the old prescriptions I have lying about the house. I have a box of co-codamol from when I had bruised ribs a few years ago; they always made me sleepy. I have some old antidepressants that didn't work the last time I went mental. I have some antihistamines that used to send me into some sort of drugged haze. And there is some Valium left over from having a tooth pulled at the dentist. There are others too. I pile the boxes and jars on the table. Is there enough here to kill me? I'm not sure. Right now, I just want to go to sleep. So I take two of the co-codamol and an antihistamine. And then one of the other antihistamines, the ones my doctor actually gave me to help me sleep. 

Eventually I pass out, and then I'm late and groggy for work in the morning. My boss pulls that face again. I've seen it a lot lately, it seems to be reserved just for me and it says You are worrying me, and I do not like it. I tell a little white lie: the doctor prescribed me sleeping pills. Over the next couple of days my work colleagues learn not to try and start a conversation for an hour or so, because the sleeping pills won't have worn off yet. On one day in particular, I turn up with a large coffee, sit down at my desk and stay there, head lolling back and forth, not even drinking the coffee, for two hours until my manager sends me home.

I begin to take increasingly risky cocktails of drugs at 3am. I try to avoid taking pills before I go to sleep; I am ever hopeful that this will be the night I finally manage to sleep through. But when I wake in the middle of the night, in a fit of desperation, I take one or more of every pill I have available to me. I've a friend who is bipolar and doesn't take his medication, so he lets me have some. It seems that there's nothing left to do but wait until the day my quest for an uninterrupted night's sleep results in my taking too many pills. I observe this in the same way one might casually think, if I leave that tap running the sink will overflow... oh well...

The story continues here

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This is What a Breakdown Looks Like

This is something I wrote in 2010, when I had a nervous breakdown and went slightly crazy for a few months.
I've posted bits and bobs of this in various places before, so apologies if you've read any or all of this already.

April 2010

Summer seems to be coming early this year; it's bright and warm in April. I love the sun, it always seems to make things better. Except this year, it doesn't seem to be working.

I have always felt as if I didn't quite belong. Never quite accepted, never quite popular, never quite cool enough, not pretty or clever or slutty enough to fit in with any particular group. At school I felt inferior to everyone around me, like an impostor. My friends were all way more intelligent and beautiful than I was. I tried to be like them, but it never quite worked. When I left I didn't maintain contact with most of them, and those I did still see never seemed particularly thrilled by my presence. People left school and went off to universities in far flung places, and I stayed put. I would find out after the fact that people I thought were my friends had come home for Christmas or Easter or all summer and met up, had parties, got blind drunk, and had a fantastic time; but they'd not called me, I'd not been included. It hurt me every time, but I had never really expected them to call any way; I had never been one of them. 

I'd always felt an outsider, but that never made it any easier. It was never through choice, I just didn't know how to cross that line, to be inside the circle instead of outside looking in. That feeling of being an outsider is getting gradually worse though, more pronounced, as if I am further and further removed from the people around me. And I'm starting to care less and less about it...

I go to work. I sit at my desk and stare blankly at the computer screen, waiting for 11 o'clock when the sandwich man sets up shop downstairs. At 11 o'clock I go downstairs to the break room and buy a can of Coke and a Kit Kat. I go back to my desk to wait for lunch time. I drink most of the Coke and force down two fingers of the Kit Kat. This takes me two hours. the rest of it sits on my desk, going stale in the air conditioned office. 

At lunch time I walk into town. Most people use their lunch hour for eating, but I'm not really into the eating thing right now, and any way I have started to enjoy the feeling of emptiness. It's some sort of physical answer to the way my brain has been feeling for months now. I wander around aimlessly for an hour, waiting for it to be time to go back to work. When an hour is almost up, I had back to work and sit at my desk, staring blankly at the computer screen, waiting for it to be home time. 

I walk home slowly, because I know what comes next. I walk up the path to my house with a sense of sinking defeat. When I get in, I wait for it to be bed time. I sit on the sofa and stare at whatever happens to be playing on TV. I go to bed, sometimes sleep, and mostly wait for it to be time to get up again. When I am up I wait for it to be time to go to work and begin the cycle all over again. It's like Groundhog Day, except there's no Groundhog. And no Bill Murray. And no hint of a laugh.

I am alone.

I go days and days without speaking to anyone other than in meetings at work, or coffee shop assistants. I begin to fear the weekends with the sort of dread usually reserved for root canal surgery. My phone doesn't ring; nobody wants to spend time with me on the weekend so I'm just alone with my thoughts. My thoughts are not very nice these days.

I think I must have some sort of poison inside of me that people can sense, and it makes them steer clear. I've lost count of the number of boyfriends I've had who have just upped and left without even bothering to make an excuse or let me down gently; they sense that poison, and they're off.

I don't want to be like this, I want to fit in. But I don't know how.

My manager starts taking me into meeting rooms and saying things like: do you really think work is the best place for you right now? ... If you want to go home early, just let me know ... Perhaps you should go back to your doctor ... It won't affect your sickness record if you're signed off work again ... Other people have noticed your weight loss and are concerned. I respond that no, I don't want to go home. There is nothing wrong with me; I have no broken bones or bleeding wounds, to go home sick is a ridiculous idea. I soldier on, making everyone feel uncomfortable, and feeling a fraud whenever I capitulate and leave work early.

Eventually, after several suggestions from my manager, I go to the doctor and am signed off work for a week with stress. I feel like an idiot, being signed off work with something as frivolous and 21st Century as stress. I go to the gym, and one of the ladies there tells me, be kind to yourself. And this is what I try to do: lay in the garden and read a book, go to the gym, go swimming.

When my week is over, I go back to work. The manager takes me into a meeting room and asks if I really feel I'm ready to come back. What am I supposed to say to that? I tell him I'm fine, work is the best place for me, it'll take my mind off my problems, I'll be okay if I can just get my head down and carry on. He tells me that if I need to leave early for any reason then just to say so. I scoff; why would I need to leave early? There was no good reason for me to be off in the first place; I only accepted the sick note because it was offered and I fancied a bit of a skive in the sunshine. I'm fine. Aren't I?

A couple of weeks later, I am decidedly not fine. I am not sleeping, I feel sick all the time, my IBS is playing up terribly after years of being fine. I'm miserable, I worry about everything, all of the time, and I can't concentrate. I'm fairly sure the shortness of breath I've had lately is actually panic attacks.

I have a half-year review with my boss. He tells me there is nothing wrong with my work, and I disagree. I tell him I feel like I'm just coming in and waiting for home time, I don't actually contribute anything and feel like a fraud. He says nobody has noticed that I am any different, though he did notice a change a few days ago. He is very nice about it. He is worried about me. He says if I feel like I can't come into work then it's fine but I just need to let him know so that he doesn't worry.

I come out of the meeting and email a friend. We've been emailing back and forth all day; she's probably the only actual real life person I talk to honestly about stuff. To the untrained eye, she may seem a bit hard and unsympathetic, but really she's the only one who doesn't pander to my attention seeking. You know, the sort of person who will listen to you moan about how absolutely terrible everything is, and the world will surely end, and then pats you on the back and says "never mind, you'll be okay!" She tells me, "truthfully, I've never known anyone to be as "not right" as you are today. Please go home." So I do. When this girl thinks there is something wrong, there is something wrong.

I don't know how to fix this or make it go away. My boss seems to be the person most concerned for my wellbeing, and he has said to me more than once that he thinks I need to do something quickly, before I have some sort of proper breakdown. He says he doesn't think work is the best place for me to be. What sort of person has to have this sort of conversation with their boss, because there is nobody else they can burden with it? There must be something so badly wrong with me as a person, and I am unable to figure out how to fix it or change it. I don't even know where to begin. And I'm not sure I have the energy either. I'm lost. And I get the distinct impression nobody out there wants to find me, either.

Perhaps I'm not just being a drama queen; perhaps I've not just read too much Plath; perhaps I need to sort my shit out here. So I go back to the doctor and I tell her I think I need some help or something. It's a weird appointment where I sit in the chair and pick at my fingernails and fail to make eye contact and then cry any way. She gives me a leaflet for a counselling service. You call up and make an appointment for a screening interview, where they assess how mental you are, and then you're either booked in for counselling or sent on your merry way with some leaflets.

We've been here before. I'm not enthralled at the suggestion, but I don't want to seem ungrateful so I take the leaflet and try to smile. I don't want this nice lady to think she hasn't solved my problem in the 10-minute allotted time slot. 

Then she does a questionnaire with me where you answer questions about how you've felt for the past two weeks. Apparently there is a scale from 1-27. I score a 21. She tells me this means I am severely depressed, and so I leave the surgery with a leaflet in one hand, and a prescription for Prozac in the other. 

Then I go back to work and have a panic attack and get sent home.

To be continued...

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