The Hour of Lead

The past week has been hellish.  At times I've been so numbed out that I didn't actually know how I was feeling.  All the while it was building up behind the floodgates, ready to knock me off my feet when I was least expecting it.  

The days have been long and void of emotion and the nights, thanks to insomnia, have been long too, but it's only then that feelings hit with full force.  Keeping up my pretence is my main goal during the day: if I don't my misery contaminates everyone else's life too.   As soon as the freedom to feel is reinstated and I shut my bedroom door in the evening, the floodgates burst open.  

I can't shut feelings out anymore.  I've gotten good at fooling other people, but I've not figured out how to fool myself yet.  My feelings swamp me completely.  I can feel a dull heavy pain building in my chest, dragging me down as if I'm drowning in my own emotion. It's impossible to change how I feel.  I can't change the fact that it hurts, but that's where the paracetamol comes in.  If I can't make it stop the next best option is to dull the pain.  In my foggy paracetamol induced stupor I'm not drowning anymore: I'm floating.  

Yet another unhealthy coping mechanism, I know, but, yet again, I didn't give a damn.  Why sink when you can swim?  I didn't think it was a big deal, so I mentioned it in therapy, but boy, did the shit hit the fan.  She rang my Mum, then I had to get my Dad to come in to talk about it.  By the time I got home the GP had been called and I got a phone-call from a doctor because it was too late to arrange an appointment.  He told me to go to A&E for urgent blood tests and re-referred me to the CMHT.  I didn't go to A&E and I'm not sure what I'll do when my referral comes through in the post. 

I think I'm beginning to give off crazy person vibes again.  I am apparently not making very good choices because I'm not in a very good place right now.  The medication mafia is on the prowl again and my therapist even asked if it's safe for me to be at home this weekend.  Other people making my decisions for me, putting me in hospital without my consent and insisting that I ingest a host of happy pills morning and evening didn't exactly 'fix' me last time. 

Living seems like a ludicrous prospect.  I'm sure I'm even suicidal - just weary of living.  I’ve experienced as many emotional ups and downs than most people do over the course of a lifetime.  I’m as exhausted as a one hundred year old.  I’ve lived enough now.  I broke down this morning, crying hysterically for hours on end.  I 
don't know what to do anymore; I don't know what I want anymore.
  
Despite how bad things are at the moment, I did see how much progress I have made after the hysteria began to subside.   This time four years ago I was trying to steal my antidepressants and diazepam from my Mum’s bag when she wasn’t looking so I could overdose, three years ago I was burning myself with my curling tongs, two years ago I refused to eat anything but some lettuce every 48hrs and last year I was abusing laxatives, binging and overexercising compulsively.  I’m not going to wake up tomorrow, jump out of bed and be full of the joys of spring, but I won't do anything to stop me waking up tomorrow.  I've outlived the Hour of Lead before, and I'm going to do it again.  I'm not exactly sure how yet, but I'm going to cope somehow.