Apologies that I wrote so much. I've been in a disassociative episode for weeks and spoken to noone outside of work and when I'm coming out of that I end up vomiting words like nobodies business.
Once upon a time there was a little girl…. She was happy and precocious and full of life, love, mischief, curiosity…. Then life fucked her up.
Bio father abandoned/neglected me. Stepfather was abusive. I won't go into details but from preschool to high school, home was not exactly a safe, loving environment.
My brain didn't develop in a "neurotypical" way as a result. The medics call it borderline personality disorder, now emotionally unstable personality disorder or some such rubbish. But it's true - I can't regulate my emotions. I get lost in them, or I disassociate and feel nothing at all. No middle ground.
Years of self harm, impulsive suicide attempts, deep depression and periods of mania (sometimes spiking over the course of a few hours, it's fucking exhausting).
Childhood meant I jumped into unhealthy relationship after unhealthy relationship, most of which continued a cycle of abuse.
Sorted my shit out as much as I could. Took a lot of work. Was in a relatively stable place, and doing ok alone. Met a guy who turned my world upside down in the absolute best ways possible.
Safe, consistent, loving, accepting: he lit up my world. For the first time in my life (almost 4 decades) the chronic suicidal ideation became distant background noise, I could see a future, not just a cycle of pointless groundhog days, and I was, I can say, truly happy. He brought me peace. My emotions, whilst still very intense, didn't fluctuate. I loved him as he was. He loved me as I was. We took care of each other.
He died.
I think, because I felt that warm, safe bubble of light - because I had for the first time a feeling of really having something worth fighting for, something worth sticking around for - it's harder to go back to the dark, which is where I lived for so much of my life I guess I got used to it. Now, I don't see any light, because he's gone.
Some people may think that sounds dramatic. It's not the early visceral days of grief speaking, I'm two years in with that. It's just that I'm done. I don't feel like I have any strength to try. I'm apathetic about everything. I exist to work, pay bills, sleep, repeat. I don't enjoy anything at all anymore. I've withdrawn from everything and everybody, and I don't have any desire to change that.
I simply just want it to be over. Not just the pain of accumulated life traumas. Just the pointlessness of absolutely everything.
My depressive episodes are now treatment resistant. I've done every kind of therapy known to man. It's just my brain has always defaulted to death as an escape - even over minor things. So you can imagine what it does over the major ones.
I am logical too and I understand the condition, I understand my wiring, I understand what's happening and when - but understanding it can't lessen the intensity of feeling it. It just means mental health services don't want anything to do with me because I already know logically what they think they're "teaching" me.
"You do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts…."
Unfortunately I'm also a massive over thinker and I panic a lot about unknown variables.
If I found an SN supplier, what about customs/welfare checks?
If I try to ctb, don't succeed, end up in hospital, will all my colleagues find out (likely, cause I work for the health board and I know a lot of cross departmental staff).
Have I stopped my planning? No.
Do I still sometimes make impulsive attempts when having a major BPD surge of emotions despite knowing the risks? Yes, unfortunately.
Do I tell anyone? Nope. Because I don't want intervention.
I just hope one of these times an attempt actually sticks. And I don't end up a vegetable.
Don't do as I do, kids, because half the time I'm probably lucky that I don't end up with lasting complications. Like there's some guardian angel who likes fucking with me, sometimes it just feels like I'm cursed to immortality. By law of averages, the amount of times I've attempted ctb or deliberately put myself in risky situations in my life, I should've been dead many times over. And yet so many people die everyday who actually wanted to live.
Fucking universe. I volunteer for tribute! But they don't want to pick me.
