Monthly Archives: March 2015

Working Through Complicated Emotions

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Over the horrible suicidal hump again.. It always ends, but in those moments, I’m worthless. I hate how it’s never the same. It’s never after a ‘high’ or a specific time of the month, it never comes at opportune moments when I don’t have 1000 things going on, and it never lasts the same amount of time. It’s unpredictable.

But now I’m over that hump, and I’m “fine”.. if I person like me can be fine. I’m training, I’m working, I’m cleaning, and I’m focusing on the things that make me happy and feel like I have a reason.

I wish there was a pill I could take that would get rid of the lows while I could still feel the highs. But it doesn’t work like that. I have to suck up, buck up and bear it. And in those moments, I am at my most raw, vulnerable state. I focus on every negative thing that is happening, and I can’t see how much people care about me. I only focus on hurting. It’s blinding, I feel like I can’t breathe. Like there’s a weight on my chest and it’s going to crush me at any moment.

My newest dog helped me quite a bit this time by giving me the support I needed to work through the panic, the pain, and the feeling of being totally lost. The last time I felt like this was almost 5 years ago. It hasn’t been this intense in so, so long. I forgot how powerful this feeling is and how much it hurts. Last time, I didn’t call anyone. I just did it. This time, I called my mom.

then-it-hits-youI got news my divorce was final. I was already overwhelmed, depressed, stressed, and anxious. And then I got that email. It floored me. So many complicated emotions. I couldn’t handle it. I called my mom, and had a panic attack on the phone. I grabbed my dog and she stayed on the phone with me the whole time while I thrashed around and screamed and cried and held Thorin. He just laid there and let me grab him, and thrash, and he handled it. My mom stayed on the phone with me the whole time. I was in the ‘red zone’. The most dangerous place to be mentally. This time, I asked for help. I couldn’t function, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t work. My mom was there for me the whole time and didn’t leave my side once. I vented and cried and screamed and let her see me at my worst. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been in this place. And fuck, I was wishing so badly a jet engine would fall on my house and crush me. I wanted my house to spontaneously combust or fall into the Earth and take me with it. I just wanted to end the horrible feeling.

After the feeling of utter helplessless, I feel nothing. It may take a few days to get to that point, but then I can’t feel anything. Usually after that, I have deep gratitude for everything and everyone in my life who make me a better person. My mom is a big one. I hope she realizes how much she means to me, and if not, I hope I can show her. She drove all the way to my house that day. And then left at midnight, with an hour and a 1/2 drive home. Then, came out to me the next morning to be with me. To watch me, to protect me. To be there for me when I really needed someone. She was there. I hope I can be there for her as much as she’s been there for me.

I know quite a few people with mental illnesses, disorders, or depression. It seems these people have a trend. We feel everything. And we feel it so incredibly deeply. When we feel sad, we feel our world is being torn apart. When we are happy, we feel joyful and like we can take on anything. When we get hurt, we want to die. When our heart breaks, it’s exemplified to the point where we don’t ever want to feel again. It hurts too much. When we love, we love with all our heart. We would give everything to the people we love. We would do anything for them.

As for the feelings about my divorce… I’m still sorting through them. When I feel I can accurately describe this, I will share. I can’t today.

What’s the point?

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All those times of I said my life was getting better, I was manic. Feeling great. The higher they go, the harder I fall. I want to die now. I want to rip my heart of my chest and throw it in the garbage disposal. It hurts. Everything hurts. I hate my heart. I hate the way it makes me feel. It tricks me. I don’t know what to feel anymore.  I’m so stupid to get caught in the same traps over and over again. It’s the same shit it always is.

The 15 cognitive distortions, and their definitions. The links below also talk more about each disorder. When dealing with a mental illness. I do all of them, but the ones I seem to always fall back on are:

Emotional reasoning
Mind Reading
Mental Filter
All or Nothing Thinking

I’ve talked about Emma before, and I’ve recently seen her again. A lot lately.

I hurt so much. It seems like no one understands what this is like. I can’t talk to ANYONE who understands. I want to scream and self mutilate. I want to cut and bleed and feel real pain. I want to feel something other than emotional pain. Physical pain is a release. Death is a blessing.

I hate it. I hate feeling. Drug me or kill me. I can’t do it anymore. Once again, I can’t do it anymore.  I would rather be dead than feel the way I feel.

I put on the face. I pretend. I smile, it’s fake. “You ok?” “Sure. Yeah. I’m fine.” I play the part, I do my job the best I can. When I’m alone, I cry and panic and think about cutting and dying and ending the pain.

But somehow I don’t do it, and I get up in a huge mess and do it all over again. I torture myself by being alive. What’s the fucking point?! What is the end goal? Do I even have one? No. I don’t have an end goal. Because the end is to die. What is the point?Strong

The Return of Emma

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Heather Hamilton Rose Panic Attacks anxiety bipolarEventually, the everyday stressors add up and you start to make mountains out of molehills. The tiniest little inconvenience sets off the balance of the day. These little things start to wake Emma up over time. She starts to take over the cognitive thinking. She turns every thought into something negative. She starts to think things and feel things that are not my own.

Then it’s a war between Heather and Emma. And eventually, one of them has to give up. I always want to just curl up in a ball and die. I want to find a release to the pain I feel. Death is such a sweet release, but I won’t do it. I won’t let Emma win. That’s her game. To get me to give up. She is part of the demons I face.

She is the one who wants me to take the magic pill. She’s the one who wants me to cut. The one who starts to put things into my head. She is the one who makes me feel worthless. I’m an adult. I treat Emma like the child she is. I don’t let her control me. But she makes me weak. Sometimes, she wears me down to the point where I give in to the tricks and the lies. She makes me emotional and makes me feel stupid.

I hate Emma. But she’s a part of me. I hate part of myself. When she starts to wear me down enough, I start to feel trapped. I’m claustrophobic. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. The air to my lungs becomes thin and I need to inhale faster to get more air. It keeps constricting, and it gets harder to breathe. I give up an panic. I’m suffocating. I feel like my insides are being crushed. Like I can’t take any more pressure or I’ll die. And then, that’s all I want. For this pain to end. And I feel cold, but I’m sweating. I’m hyperventilating and choking while I want to scream for the pain to end. For it to kill me. It hurts. Everything hurts.

Once it seems I’m dead, Emma is laughing. Making me feel stupid for feeling. Stupid girl. She won. Another little piece she takes. How many pieces of me does she need before she stops? And what game does she play to keep wanting to take more from me? She is the game master and makes up the rules. She changes them at her will, and punishes with disasters when things aren’t chaotic enough for her.

I live at an 8. How bad is it? Depression is 7, anxiety is 10. Emma is thriving. Heather is drowning. Emma 1, Heather 0.

Plastic Bag

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I hate this. I hate it when I can’t stop it. When I know it’s coming and there isn’t anything I can do. I feel like the tears fall silently for no reason and there’s no stopping it. I’m not sad about anything. Nothing is wrong. It’s just me. I’m wrong. I’m broken. I can’t explain it and I can’t win. I never feel good enough. I feel like I’m always suffocating. Like I can’t breathe.

Deep breaths don’t help. I try to breathe deep and slow, but it doesn’t help. The deeper I breathe, the more I feel like I can’t. The more I feel like I’m trying to breathe life into a dead husk. It feels like I’m dead inside.

Deep sadness that I can’t stop, I can’t change. The deep depression that never stops. It doesn’t go away, I just have to live with it. It comes on so fast. It’s like I was fine the second before, and then it just hits me, and it feels like there are worse things than death. Death is a release from the invisible pain.

It hurts. It hurts so much to live. I wish sometimes I could step out and come back when it feels better.

It starts with the muscle aches. The misalignment in my spine, the aching in my jaw, and the headaches. Then it continues onto aches throughout my whole body. Then anxiety, and then the irritability. After that comes nausea. Each step, I know it’s coming. Then it’s like someone hit me. I’m overwhelmed with the feeling of lack of self worth, no energy, and it feels like everyone I know would be better off without me. A waste of space. A mistake. A failure. In the way. A problem.

I feel like a problem with no solution. Broken, with no way to fix me unless I’m totally replaced. I feel like my heart is broken. For no reason, which makes me feel even worse. There is no answer, no solution, and I feel like I have a mental plastic bag over my head and I’m underwater. Like I’m choking on toxic air, and everything is so happy around me, except for me. It’s like I don’t fit in in the world. It feels like I bring down every person who is around me. Like I always come up short. Always making mistakes, creating problems, complicating for everyone else. The tears won’t stop, and I can’t make them stop. I feel like to help everyone else, I have to stay away. Keep my ‘downer’ personality away from the world. I should just hide in a closet until my ‘sunshine self’ comes out again.

I try to put on a happy face and fake it. But it hurts more when I have to try to be ‘stable’. I hate this.I_can__t_Breathe__by_EllyDelice_large