There have been many times when I have wished that the world would stop. I wanted to put a spoke in the wheels of time. I wanted it to come screeching to a halt so that I could get off in a dignified manner, a pale, girlish foot stepping into the blackest of space. Becoming a part of it, dissolving into it, never to be seen again.
The question was: how would I get to this point? The Catholic faith does not look terribly kindly upon those who choose to commit suicide. Look to the reaction engendered by Ophelia’s death in Hamlet. It is a mortal sin with no possibility of redemption. It is self murder and once done can never be undone. You have relinquished your immortal soul.
It occurred to be that I could entice one of the more unpleasant members of my species to push me over the edge. The problem with this strategy is that it involves enticing another into committing a mortal sin. (only this time with at least some possibility of redemption.) Also having initiated the process I would be acting with suicidal intent. So, ultimately, that’s two immortal souls lost. And I cannot escape from the idea that, given that I did not create myself, I have no right to destroy myself.
Above all, I recognise that I will be remembered as a silly, spoilt, selfish girl who squandered every opportunity she had ever been given.
And this is why, for the moment at least, I want the world to keep on turning.
It is said that child abuse occurs mainly among the lower socioeconomic groups in society. This makes me think of Sue B. a 23 year old university student. She was charismatic and admired by everyone. She sparkled. She was an outstanding conversationalist. I think of her soft pink features and blond hair. She resembled a porcelain doll. We were both on the same ward and we were both bulimic. We bonded over a binge. She confided in one of the groups that she had been sexually abused by her grandfather. She came from a well-to-do family of academics. She had been diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder but, as far as I am aware, her abuse was never addressed.
After six months in hospital I returned home for the rest of the academic year. Sue B. and I exchanged addressed (this was the mid ‘90s when people wrote these paper things called ’letters.’ but we never wrote to one another and I never saw her again. I found out after I had graduated that she had hanged herself in the bathroom of the local psychiatric hospital (my alma mater too) when she was supposed to be on ‘five minute obs’ . So I know that abuse can occur in middle class families. And that when they confide in the authorities they may be the people who are least likely to be believed.
Having said that there are those who cast their net too wide and increase the definition of the word ‘abuse’ to such an extent that it becomes invalid. It is possible to ‘over identify’ abuse. But I shall deal with that on another occasion.
First we have this and then we have this.
I usually avoid clichés but why does the phrase ‘in between the devil and the deep blue sea’ enter my head at this point?
But then again maybe that’s what you get when you create an entire category of labels you can assign to the patients you don’t like so that you can avoid having to treat them.
Or is the life of a person suffering from a personality disorder of less value than the life of a person suffering from bipolar disorder?
Can’t treat, won’t treat.
Illuminated
It’s the middle of the night and I am terrified so please indulge me. For a little while.
Why do people HATE* me so much, even online. Am I an abomination? I try to help. I try to be good. What did I do wrong. The voices in my head were right…useless, stupid, grotesque.
Bring it on.
Spare a penny for the Dignitas fund. This planet can’t find a use for me. Or Hanover Court Beckons – that building has taken on a life of its own. It wants me to jump from it.
Am I the witch at the edge of the village. Is Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General approaching? Has he heard that, even now, nearly two years after her death she still visits me occasionally. A little white ghost who disappears when I half turn. And if they tried to drown me I would most definitely float.
‘The bottom of the tree,’ I chant. ‘in the mental illness hierarchy.’
Turning for comfort
To the gravedigger
And the Parish Priest
And to top it all
The Lord of the manor
In his great hall
For I stand accused
Of enchanting them all
I am lying in a crevice
In the ground
And Hopkins’ henchmen
They stand around
Contemplating barbarism
They kick the dust over me
For I am a witch you see
They lay stones upon me
Later they will leave
All this behind
As they march
To the ale house
And the streets will be filled
With raucous laughter
I have been shredding my legs. There a strange tingling when the blade goes in. And all that blood. It is punishment.
can’t. afford. to. .go. .to .hospital. would rather die than go to hospital. Other patients will hate me anyway.
*Addendum: That may only include members of one particular forum. I think I’d better unsub.
Me: They hate us, don’t they?
Him: Yes
Me: You’ve made me feel like jumping off the roof. I’ll wash my hair and put on my favourite dress so I’ll look good when I hit the ground.
Him: No one looks good when they hit the ground.
Confirmation that the ‘left’ despise the untermenschen more than the ‘right’ can be found here. More nauseating hypocrisy from The Independent. Can we say Lumpen Proletariat? Now, there’s someone who won’t survive my revolution. It’ll be the kind of revolution in which I get to practise my knitting. My suggestion to the powers that be is that they should terminate everyone’s benefits right now and tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1789!
This is what I do. On top of my prescription meds. They help me avoid eating. I’m afraid that if I stop taking them I’ll gain weight. I’ll be what I was before the ED – Little Miss Blobby.
On an entirely unrelated note: what kind of people would do a thing like this? What are we becoming? Just when I was beginning to believe that humanity couldn’t sink any lower and maybe I am just as bad as they are but for a moment there I was thinking that I wouldn’t grieve over them if they were rounded up and shot. A more civilised punishment would be to extract their photographs from CCTV footage and name and shame the cowardly little feckers but this is almost certainly not possible and it wouldn’t make any difference. We wouldn’t find out why they did what they did because they probably don’t know themselves.
I am ever so slightly angry. Can you tell?
How do I get out of this abyss? I’m calling out for help but there’s no one there. Or maybe there is but they can’t hear. I wake up crying. I’m still here. I’m not supposed to be here. I should have left a long time ago but there is always the thought, in the back of my mind, that maybe things would get better. But they haven’t and I am still paralysed by this all-encompassing fear. I’m pushing people away because I don’t want them to be hurt when I have to leave them. Even my mother. Especially my mother. Now, at least, she can say I am a work in progress, that one day I won’t feel like this. But the thing she created will destroy itself. I keep waiting for it to pass – this hopelessness – but it isn’t passing. It’s getting worse. Anguish, an ache inside with no discernible physical cause. And I can think of only one cure.
In Last year I killed a man Ms. North links to an article in The Guardian written by a train driver whose train had ‘on a perfectly normal summer’s day’ mown down a man who had stepped onto the tracks and calmly waited for death. Last year a friend of mine took a large overdose of her prescribed medication and lay down to die. Someone found her and she was taken to hospital. On the way there one of the paramedics told her, ‘You did not really intend to die. If you had you would have thrown yourself from a building or jumped in front of a train’. Damned if you do, equally damned if you don’t. Perhaps someone should send this compassionate paramedic a copy of the linked article.
So Sick of Drowning 