Not a week goes by . . .

This week has been horrendous, as my last blog would suggest, but there have been so many other factors, and the punches just keep coming.

On Monday a friend contacted me because another friend was in trouble. The facts were all a bit unclear and because the friend in trouble was not in contact with us directly, there was an element of chinese whispers to it. The upshot was that this friend was in no small amount of distress and had taken themselves off somewhere with seemingly suicidal intentions. One problem was that the friend who contacted me had heard it second or third hand and was not that close to the friend in trouble. My problem was that I was in a car driving home on the back roads of Scotland. None of us had any idea where the friend in trouble had gone, could not get a response and were trying to assess a situation from an actual and a communication distance.

I eventually managed to contact someone else who I knew would try to help, and made suggestions about calling the police. In the end the police found our distressed friend and took them to hospital. I felt guilty in many ways because I could not and did not do more. The issue being that this friend is someone who I loved dearly, but with whom I had been estranged for a number of years. We recently reconnected but it is taking time to find the boundaries and in that time my life has changed considerably, as have my own boundaries. There are reasons for the actions they took, reasons which I understand, however as the facts rolled in the drama of it all was not quite as feared. My friend has a penchant for the dramatic sometimes and is a hopeless romantic who desperately wants, and indeed deserves, to be loved. It was a cry for help, and I hope that help is given, but I am not the person to help, a professional is what is necessary. The help required is also I believe not the help they think they need, it is deeper than the current issues they are dealing with, which will be tough, as it will mean evaluating themselves and their relationships in life. My greatest wish for my friend is recovery and I gather that help is being given to move towards it.

Then today it all just got so much worse. At 7am this morning my Dad’s partner called to tell me he had been admitted to hospital and was having keyhole surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He has been in to the doctor with a lump a couple of weeks ago and then one MRI later it turns out he has a 9 centimetre aneurysm which needs to be operated on. His partner didn’t call me because he asked her not to, so I didn’t worry. She was worried that this might kill him, when I called him, he was fairly pragmatic, but he usually is, plus he’s too stubborn to die.

They are fairly isolated and don’t have a car and it turns out that they have been travelling 3 hours each way on the bus to the hospital. I live two and half hours away but would have helped if they had called, however I was able to, but they didn’t. My Dad doesn’t want to be a burden, I get that, but he is my Dad and I am his only child, of course I would help him. We are not especially close, not for any reason, but still. I guess he doesn’t know me well enough to know that I would always help. His partner’s family are a selfish bunch of twats mostly; as an example her daughter was tasked with storing a few things for them when they moved abroad for a while, when they returned she had simply sold it. They all live locally to them and when it suits them they visit and act like a family. However, when they feel slighted for no reason, they won’t help at all, not even today. They constantly fall out with my Dad and his partner and one of her kids harassed and threatened them for a spell. Again, he didn’t tell me until it was too late, when I could have acted. The good news is he is out of surgery, in recovery and the surgeon was pleased with the operation. We are going to see him tomorrow, visiting hours are only two and a half hours. His partner said she was going with a friend tomorrow, on the bus . . . clearly I said we would take them, and we can do anything to help whist we are there. They really are so used to being refused help from family that they won’t ask, well, that’s not how I operate.

 

One of cats also disappeared this morning. She was not in any of her hiding places and didn’t come for breakfast, which is so unlike her. Panic ensued of course and I had already turned the house upside down. The good news, when I got home from work and was searching again, one of the dogs sniffed her out. She was behind a massive fucking wardrobe. I had to entice her out and then spend a few minutes blocking her access to it.

I also met with my ex-husband today and he is not OK. He cried and is suffering and it broke my heart to see. He is in trouble with his neighbor, his girlfriend and alcohol. He’s angry and lashes out, at others and himself and I cannot help but feel responsible. I know logically that he had problems when we were together and I was the one thing keeping them from getting this bad, but now he is so alone and so broken and I can’t fix it. I still care for him and I worry that he will end up hurting himself, either deliberately or accidentally. He is not coping with life on his own, he is skint, unable to work and he thinks he’s a failure, in particular to his daughter. He is not, his daughter loves him dearly and has no expectations of him except love. He cried, I cried, then I made sure he got into a taxi and got home safely. I want so much for a good life for him, he is a good man and deserves a good life, but he needs more professional help than he is getting. The good news is that I have since called him to check in and he seems a little better.

I feel so powerless sometimes, I just want to fix people. Not in a controlling way, I want to make their problems go away, even when those problems are at least in part of their own making. Not just people I know, everyone. Not just people either, animals too. I always want people to know that they can call on me for help, or a shoulder to cry on, but I also know I need to distance myself from taking on the problems of others. An act I find really hard to balance, and one which fucks with me emotionally. I will never be able to not help people, or to make sure they know that they can reach out to me, I just need to be sure that I am also able to help myself.

Can’t smile without …

It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog. I just haven’t been able to. In fact I haven’t been able to do much more than the absolute bare minimum for weeks now. It’s been creeping up since the summer but the last few weeks I have truly felt as though my depression has completely screwed me over.

I should have known it was coming but it’s only over the last week or so that I’ve truly realised that it goes deep at the minute and I am not ok.

I have been trying to get an appointment with the doctor to discuss an increase in my meds, but I would have more luck panning the ship canal for gold with a Swiss Army knife. I’ll keep trying but in the meantime I will continue to function, just perhaps not very well.

I have been trying to explain to my husband how I feel, and have made some notes for if I ever get to see a doctor, but it’s so hard to explain. Basically I don’t feel comfortable anywhere. It’s as though all the usual places, people and things which would ease discomfort have conspired against me, or shifted askew and none of them feel quite right. It’s almost like they are deliberately excluding me. I can’t read for pleasure, can’t find emotional intimacy with my husband, don’t feel as though I fit in at home or at work. Like a square peg in a round hole. I’m constantly on edge and there’s no rest from it.

There are not good days with bad patches, they just feel like bad days with ok minuscule intervals. Like I imagine living in constant darkness would feel except for a brief respite at dawn.

I feel as though I want to tear my skin off and scream until I’m hoarse. Partly to feel something and partly for release.

I have exceptionally few days where I’m motivated, enthusiastic or where I look forward to anything. At home I can simply zone out for periods and then panic because I have so much to do and feel guilty about all the things I could have done.

I feel teary for no reason and yet don’t have the energy to cry. I’ve stopped being able to talk about how I feel with my husband.

It sometimes feels impossible to make even the simplest decisions and the unexpected, good or bad, can throw me completely. Early in the evening I’m worrying about tomorrow even if there’s nothing to worry about. This weekend I was in Scotland and on the way back I found myself worried about being far from home, for no reason.

It feels as though I am shutting down, I’m an automaton but I am also tired of pretending, finding it hard to wear a mask; not a happy mask, just the mask of a human being, even an uncommunicative one. I’m exhausted all of the time, I am not sleeping enough and my quality of sleep is dreadful, I never wake up feeling refreshed, just heavy. I have shut down emotionally, barely feeling anything at all, and spend my days moving through life as if I’m moving though treacle.

I often can’t muster any real interest in many things, including my blog or our plans for the future or any hobbies or even any of the things I know would help make me feel better. No matter how much I try to put purpose into my life, I can’t seem to maintain the excitement. I have had periods of getting excited about work opportunities but it fades rapidly.

There have been more passive suicidal thoughts than usual. Not the planning to do anything kind of thoughts, rather the not wanting to be here, or anywhere kind of thoughts. The thoughts where I just want it to stop. I want to run away but I can’t run away from myself. I feel too visible, as if any minute now everyone I know will leave, have had enough, will see that I am a burden and add nothing to their world, and yet I also feel invisible.

I feel purposeless and rudderless, hopeless with a side order of foreboding.

I have had a few things to deal with lately, I gad to have a tooth removed due to recurring infection, another painful steroid injection in my hand, with the possibility of another operation, constant headaches, problems with periods and my dermatillomania is worse than ever. Depression and anxiety are making it hard to manage my diabetes, and trying to quit smoking has been a bust.

It makes life significantly fucking harder on a daily basis, and life is generally hard enough.

Anyway, this has been written across two days, that’s how long it has taken. By way of an update I did get to the doctor and he was very helpful. He understood me and my needs and doubled my dosage. As it happened I had a half decent day, despite a slow and sluggish start.

None of this is to say that I haven’t been coping, with life, although perhaps coping is not the right term. It hasn’t been because of trauma, or an event, this is my life at times, has been for many years. All I can do now is hope the meds help and try to take care of myself and hope I rediscover some joy.