Please read until the end, and please help me. To be clear, I don't feel very strongly about any individual on this site. I think it has its problems with extreme views and bullies. But you can make of it what you want, and for me it's been the only place to be seen. The irony is that I'm anonymous. What does that tell you? It tells you that regardless of what anyone says, people will always judge, the content of your words is determined by everything other than your words. Your character is what people have written about you on paper. You morality is ascertained by senior people who've never met you. The 'narrative' is not yours. It never has been and it never will be. These last few years I've been galvanised by anger, I've gotten up in the morning purely out of spite. The sense of injustice at not being able to tell my own story, it gave me a focus. But everyone has their limits. That's the mistake people have made about me. They thought because of my anger I must be invincible.
Recently I've been trying to salvage my degree. I spent all of last year just floating through every day high on amphetamines. But then that stopped working because whenever it wore off or I didn't take it, I felt like I was dying. I just wanted to escape that endless feeling of impending doom. It's unbearable. I hate thinking about my parents dying all the time. I hate that I can't hug them without getting images of them dying slow, painful deaths and it being all my fault. Whenever I get really angry, usually because someone has said or done something that to other people maybe wouldn't be a big deal, but to me, I'm not so much angry at what they've done, im angry that I'm feeling unimaginable pain and I don't know what to do with it. I get so angry because every slight feels like a personal attack, every word and facial expression feels like a bullet to my chest. I hate it because I feel so stuck, I can't recognise my face, I hate it here and yet I'm stuck. And then when I ask for help I get told 'what does "help" look like?' as professionals proceed…not to help. It makes me want to shred my skin off, just let the ground fall from beneath me. It's scary not knowing who you are, feeling like a fraud wherever you go. It's scary not recognising your own face, trying to stop your parents dying, existing in this world when nobody understands, when you can't trust anyone.
I decided to live for myself. I decided that I wanted to build a future for myself, I wanted to be useful, I wanted to help others never feel the way I've felt. I want fairness and truth and honesty and autonomy. I'm always rooting for the underdog. The borderline obsessive attention to detail I possess, that people use to call me unreasonable, I was going to use that to be a lawyer, to make give everyone their chance to control the narrative. Because that's what the law is. It's a story that chops and changes depending on who tells it and who tells it best. So why not play people at their own game? I've worked with different charities for a while, but you're always on the outside asking people to listen. As a lawyer, the law is your device. You can shape it however you think you can argue. But anyway, I've gotten through over half of my assignments needed to pass this year with at least a 2:1. I just started getting my momentum back, realising that I can and do want this, and I'm good at it. I was seeing a new team of mental health professionals who I was still unsure of, but beginning to feel ok about. But it was always fragile. Every day is a battle and any little thing could knock me off.
And just like that, one letter completely threw me. And now I don't care again. And this time I'm done. The reason I mentioned having control of your own 'narrative' earlier is because this letter told me that I didn't have 'narrative competence', meaning I didn't buy into the narrative that they keep pushing, where I'm a horrible person and I've caused all the problems in my life. When you spend every day trying to establish who you are, what you like, what you are like, being told you're essentially an abusive waste of resources with no self-awareness, oh and you're a liar - well, that does something to you. Every day I'm trying to rebuild my sense of self and something, or someone, always comes in and bulldozes their way through it. I'm not rebuilding again. It hurts too much.
I'm not here to say goodbye or talk about anything profound, or spell out the pain I feel, because I've learnt that that means nothing. Because the problem has never been about people knowing you're in pain. Loads of people are. It's about who matters.
I'm here because I need you to help me reclaim the narrative just this once. I'm trying to figure out if people will support me. Tomorrow (3/06/2022) I'm going to get the last word, I'm going to make it clear that I won't continue to exist in this world where at the same time I'm told I have capacity, I'm denied all control over my narrative. Stories matter, words matter. They matter so much because they can shatter people's souls with one wrong move.
Everyone here knows what I mean. I'm tired of it all, but saying 'I'm going to kill myself' feels so pathetic. I just want to go quietly. Ironically, it feels like for the first time in so many months the fog that's been following me around has lifted, the heaviness in my chest has eased. I think it's the clearest I've ever thought. There's no anger anymore, just exasperation, fatigue and despair.
This evening I'll post something. Tomorrow (3/06/2022) I'd appreciate people helping my story be heard. It's nothing dramatic, just a response that I'm being denied. Has anyone else had experience of being sent an official letter and being gagged by way of being gagged and told you you will be labelled an 'unreasonably persistent complainant' if you try and reply. That's how you know you have no control over anything. It's abusive. It will be clear when I post the letter. For context, it's a letter from an NHS trust (UK) telling me that Im the problem, I'm a horrible person, and everything is my fault. Except I'm not a horrible person because to them I'm not a human being at all. I won't, after everything I've been through, be forced to swallow a story about me that's so far from the truth, by people who know nothing about me beyond the paper version of myself that they've created.
I have thoughts and feeling, and likes and dislikes. I've been trying to find my way in the world but I don't think I have a place.
Anyway, please, if I say my piece tonight, will people make sure that others know? Just copy and paste, screenshot or whatever. I'll tell you who to tag. Then, even after I'm gone, at least my reality is out there. I've worked at a homelessness charity for a few months now, and these are people that live and die in silence, invisible to the rest of society. Some quite literally have no proof of who they are, rendering them irrelevant to the world. So next time someone tries to tell you that you matter, or that there are good people in the world, or that you have control over your life and your story, remember that there are plenty of people who are born, live and die in irrelevance.
Recently I've been trying to salvage my degree. I spent all of last year just floating through every day high on amphetamines. But then that stopped working because whenever it wore off or I didn't take it, I felt like I was dying. I just wanted to escape that endless feeling of impending doom. It's unbearable. I hate thinking about my parents dying all the time. I hate that I can't hug them without getting images of them dying slow, painful deaths and it being all my fault. Whenever I get really angry, usually because someone has said or done something that to other people maybe wouldn't be a big deal, but to me, I'm not so much angry at what they've done, im angry that I'm feeling unimaginable pain and I don't know what to do with it. I get so angry because every slight feels like a personal attack, every word and facial expression feels like a bullet to my chest. I hate it because I feel so stuck, I can't recognise my face, I hate it here and yet I'm stuck. And then when I ask for help I get told 'what does "help" look like?' as professionals proceed…not to help. It makes me want to shred my skin off, just let the ground fall from beneath me. It's scary not knowing who you are, feeling like a fraud wherever you go. It's scary not recognising your own face, trying to stop your parents dying, existing in this world when nobody understands, when you can't trust anyone.
I decided to live for myself. I decided that I wanted to build a future for myself, I wanted to be useful, I wanted to help others never feel the way I've felt. I want fairness and truth and honesty and autonomy. I'm always rooting for the underdog. The borderline obsessive attention to detail I possess, that people use to call me unreasonable, I was going to use that to be a lawyer, to make give everyone their chance to control the narrative. Because that's what the law is. It's a story that chops and changes depending on who tells it and who tells it best. So why not play people at their own game? I've worked with different charities for a while, but you're always on the outside asking people to listen. As a lawyer, the law is your device. You can shape it however you think you can argue. But anyway, I've gotten through over half of my assignments needed to pass this year with at least a 2:1. I just started getting my momentum back, realising that I can and do want this, and I'm good at it. I was seeing a new team of mental health professionals who I was still unsure of, but beginning to feel ok about. But it was always fragile. Every day is a battle and any little thing could knock me off.
And just like that, one letter completely threw me. And now I don't care again. And this time I'm done. The reason I mentioned having control of your own 'narrative' earlier is because this letter told me that I didn't have 'narrative competence', meaning I didn't buy into the narrative that they keep pushing, where I'm a horrible person and I've caused all the problems in my life. When you spend every day trying to establish who you are, what you like, what you are like, being told you're essentially an abusive waste of resources with no self-awareness, oh and you're a liar - well, that does something to you. Every day I'm trying to rebuild my sense of self and something, or someone, always comes in and bulldozes their way through it. I'm not rebuilding again. It hurts too much.
I'm not here to say goodbye or talk about anything profound, or spell out the pain I feel, because I've learnt that that means nothing. Because the problem has never been about people knowing you're in pain. Loads of people are. It's about who matters.
I'm here because I need you to help me reclaim the narrative just this once. I'm trying to figure out if people will support me. Tomorrow (3/06/2022) I'm going to get the last word, I'm going to make it clear that I won't continue to exist in this world where at the same time I'm told I have capacity, I'm denied all control over my narrative. Stories matter, words matter. They matter so much because they can shatter people's souls with one wrong move.
Everyone here knows what I mean. I'm tired of it all, but saying 'I'm going to kill myself' feels so pathetic. I just want to go quietly. Ironically, it feels like for the first time in so many months the fog that's been following me around has lifted, the heaviness in my chest has eased. I think it's the clearest I've ever thought. There's no anger anymore, just exasperation, fatigue and despair.
This evening I'll post something. Tomorrow (3/06/2022) I'd appreciate people helping my story be heard. It's nothing dramatic, just a response that I'm being denied. Has anyone else had experience of being sent an official letter and being gagged by way of being gagged and told you you will be labelled an 'unreasonably persistent complainant' if you try and reply. That's how you know you have no control over anything. It's abusive. It will be clear when I post the letter. For context, it's a letter from an NHS trust (UK) telling me that Im the problem, I'm a horrible person, and everything is my fault. Except I'm not a horrible person because to them I'm not a human being at all. I won't, after everything I've been through, be forced to swallow a story about me that's so far from the truth, by people who know nothing about me beyond the paper version of myself that they've created.
I have thoughts and feeling, and likes and dislikes. I've been trying to find my way in the world but I don't think I have a place.
Anyway, please, if I say my piece tonight, will people make sure that others know? Just copy and paste, screenshot or whatever. I'll tell you who to tag. Then, even after I'm gone, at least my reality is out there. I've worked at a homelessness charity for a few months now, and these are people that live and die in silence, invisible to the rest of society. Some quite literally have no proof of who they are, rendering them irrelevant to the world. So next time someone tries to tell you that you matter, or that there are good people in the world, or that you have control over your life and your story, remember that there are plenty of people who are born, live and die in irrelevance.
