Hey, people… I had no idea you were still reading out there. I’ve been so slack about blogging I thought ya would’ve given up and gone away.
One of the many things that really suck about being stuck in a long depressive cycle, is that it’s so boring, it turns you into such a boring person. It makes it so hard to blog. Because you can’t write “felt like crap and it was really hard to get out of bed” every day. Can you?
The other day I got a thank you note from someone saying that my descriptions of this stuff resonated with her, and made her feel she wasn’t the only one. Which was cool. That’s one of the other things that really sucks about being crazy– it feels like you’re so alone in the world.
Anyway, I thought I’d try and write some more about it. But having said that, there will be times when even writing about the struggle to get out of bed will be too hard. So I’m giving myself the right to blog sporadically, or not, and to write depressing blogs. And if you’re still reading out there, well, then that’s cool.
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A few people have emailed or commented on the last post, and I wanted to make it clear that I am off the medications that were causing the mixed states (agitation etc). So I’m probably back to not having “the energy and motivation to carry out suicidal plans.” I’m no longer scared that I might do something at any moment. I’m just scared because I’m still not stabilised on a medication, and things could get worse again, and I know the support is unlikely to be there.
But right now, less of the panic and anxiety, and back to the usual darkness and misery. Which I’ve been struggling through for years, so I guess I’ll probably keep struggling somehow. It’s just so relentless. I’ve had depressive phases that have lasted for months before, but this has been a year and a half of feeling bloody awful, day after day. I feel like I’m just treading water, trying to keep my nose above the waves, but they keep crashing over me, they keep coming and coming, and my legs are getting so tired. Sometimes I just don’t think I can keep going.
And I don’t want this to be it. I don’t want to put all my energy into barely surviving. What kind of life is that?
I just don’t get it. All the pamphlets and books say that if someone says they’re suicidal, you should always take it seriously. All the information about the medications I’ve been on recently says they can cause an increased risk of suicidality. I have been diagnosed with a condition that has a suicide rate that is more than 20 times that of the general population. Previous medications have triggered mixed states in me. And “Studies have shown that suicidal thoughts are greatly increased in people in the midst of a mixed state, and the presence of manic activation means a greater risk that these people will have the energy and motivation to carry out their suicidal plans.”
And then I go on a new medication. And I start to have anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, irritability, impulsivity, (all known to be possible effects of the medication) on top of the crippling depression I have been battling for months. I feel like I’m completely losing my grip on reality, losing my grip on myself. Like some kind of demon has taken over, like I have no mind or body, all that is left is pain and screaming. During the moments when I manage to have thoughts, I see the same images over and over, 101 ways to kill myself. After a while it’s just the one image, the best way, fast and violent.
There are slight lulls, when I still feel extremely distressed, but there are shreds of rationality. During one of these moments, I manage to call the mental health crisis team. I tell them what’s going on. I tell them I feel like I’m losing my grip, I’m scared I’m going to kill myself during one of these blinding attacks. Worse than that, I’m scared I might hurt someone else.
And they say there’s no crisis beds available. They say “why don’t you have a cup of tea and go to bed.”
I just. Don’t. Get it. Hundreds of people commit suicide every year in this country. They are not just numbers, they are real people, who die, real deaths. I don’t want to be one of them. I want to get better, I want to stick around because part of me hopes that I will get better. But there have been times, recently, and I think it’s been triggered by the meds, when the distress has been completely unbearable. I’ve banged my head so hard I’ve given myself bumps and a black eye. I’ve smashed things I really wish I hadn’t smashed. I’m really lucky, my parents, and people from St Andrew’s have been there for me, and they’ve looked after me, and I have survived. But it could so easily have been different. I could have become one of those nasty annual statistics. And it could be different next time. That scares me so much.
I don’t get it. Why do they tell people to take it seriously, why do they go on about suicide prevention strategies, why have the crisis lines, why bother?! If all they can offer is a cup of tea?
When I was a kid I used to chase thistledown “fairies”. The rule was, if you caught one, and it still had a seed, you took the seed out and blew the fairy away. If the wind caught it, your wish would come true. If the seed was already missing, or the fairy drifted to the ground, or got snagged on a branch, no wish.
These days I’ve kind of given up on wishes. But sometimes, when I’m feeling really upset, or depressed, or anxious, I remind myself to look up. In the middle of the city, I stop rushing around for a moment, and notice the clouds racing across the sky, or feel the wind. And almost always, there’s the odd thistledown fairy, sailing between the skyscrapers.
How far does the average thistledown fairy fly? There can’t be that many thistle patches near the corner of Courtney Place and Taranaki St. Where do they all come from?
Yesterday, I was sitting on a bench behind the law school, drinking coffee with a friend. We’d picked this particular bench because it was in the shade; the sun had only just disappeared behind the top of the building. I’d been having a hard day, well, a whole series of hard days. Anyway, during a pause in the conversation, while we contemplated how miserable life can be, my friend suddenly said “look at the fairies!” There were a few of them drifting past, just near us. And then I looked up.
Like I said, the sun had just ducked behind the building, and there was some thin filmy cloud high up, so there was a bright halo around the sun that we could still see the edge of. And looking towards that bright spot, we could see the fairies, so many of them, dozens, hundreds, thousands, streaming past in the wind. It looked like someone was firing them out from that bright spot over the roof, like a snow machine or something. I think there must have been hundreds of them passing in front of that bright patch every second. As they caught the sun they burned, brilliant white gold, for a moment. Then the ones lower down faded to white and drifted past into the city. But the ones higher up dissolved into the blue of the sky as they past out of the spotlight.
They can’t really have all been appearing from that one spot in the sky over the law school, so I guess there must have been millions of them, in every direction, it’s just we couldn’t see them so high up unless the sun was catching them. It must have been thistle season, peak thistledown release time. It was like they'd decided this was their moment, their chance to invade, to take over the city. I almost expected to wake up this morning and find thistles growing in every crack and crevace of the city.
My friend said they looked more like angels than fairies, and they did, glowing so brightly against the blue sky, dancing and spinning and speeding past on the Wellington wind.
So today I’m wandering through the city, imagining that there are countless wishes and angels, whizzing through the air above me. I only have to look up, and trust they’re there.