Is not going to work.
If my mother hadn't become unwell and had gone to visit her father as planned, I would have spent yesterday morning eating the contents of the kitchen and then being sick. It had become the plan for yesterday - everyone else was out, I could return to an old behaviour just to see if it helped. It won't help, I know that, the binging/purging/whatever you call it didn't help then. I felt horrifically bad when I was doing that. When I felt I needed to do it.
Now, I have the choice. But unexpected events reduced the choices from "doing it" or "not doing it" to simply "not doing it".
I've got a huge schism between the outward and the inward me. The outward me is in pain with my joints, currently has a dead leg as I was sitting on it until 20 seconds ago, but still doing everything that is expected/required. The inward me is destroying the inward me. Running away from this isn't going to work. The voices are back with horrible things, and without any nicer things (piano scales thundering about in my skull weren't that difficult to live with). The destruction is back. I'm knowing things will make me feel worse, knowing I have a choice, but still doing that thing. And then feeling worse. Then feeding that feeling worse, by... err... feeling I need to do more things that will make me feel worse. Rather detrimental to the inward me, non?
I found my diary from the few months before I was admitted to hospital the first time. It was my academic planner, so had various homework things in it, college each day, 2 possibly 3 hours of teaching after college, then a music rehearsal, then I came home and did my revision. I fitted in so much into each day, I wasn't sleeping much because there was simply too much to do. It is a frightening amount when I look back - no wonder I crashed and outwardly destructed. Running away didn't work then, running into the world of being some Superwoman just led to huge failure. In the front of the diary it had some work I was doing with a youth worker who I had burst into tears on, who decided to sort out a plan to function. Knowing she wasn't attached to a hospital, or with powers to section me, she decided to help as I was likely to be slightly more honest with her than the others involved in my care. However, the plan written on paper never got implemented as I became more petrified of everything and destructed some more.
Running away won't help. Running back to old behaviours won't help, I'll get caught up in them again and that won't help. Running away from the reality of things becoming slightly wobbly, of precariously shaking at the top of a big drop means I'll wobble into the drop.
I feel I've got a choice in this madness. Like I can either properly turn mad outwardly as well as inwardly, and end up in hospital somewhere, or I could unite the inward me to the outward me and just keep on going. Keep smiling, keep trying to change my little corner of the world for the better, and keep going. Problem is, the choice seems like it may turn to the first choice rather than the second. I'm feeling like consciously deciding whether to go mad. Which probably makes me utterly mad in the first place, but it is quite scary.
In fact, I'm alone in the house right now. I've ended up refusing to let my body move from the seat as I know I'll do something stupid. I need to get up now, to go to prepare for tomorrow's services at work. To put on music, to walk to church, to sort out everything before saying Evening Prayer. Where I'll appear a bumbling idiot because I can't read aloud very well, so will end up with jolted antiphonal psalm reading as I won't manage to get the words to come out of my mouth. Such a stupid freak. Best get going...
Running away from whatever it is it not going to work. I have no hope in my ability to tell my care team at the CPA on Thursday, so I need to find another option. Running away will not work. And repeat, running away will not work. And again, running away will not work. Damn, I'm going to have to face this, aren't I?
Would you be able to write it down and send it in to your care team before your CPA? I know I have said it before, but it really is so important that they know how you are feeling, and like you said - running away does not work. We all try it and it never bloody works. Take care honey. xxx
ReplyDeleteIt may sound weird but I can really relate to the feeling that you're consciously deciding whether to go mad. It's such hard work keeping up the "outward me" that eventually it does seem to boil down to a choice between struggling on or giving in and falling apart.
ReplyDeleteJust my perspective, but for me the solution lies somewhere between the two. Try not to let go of the outward you if you can - she may be what's holding you together and stopping things from getting completely out of control. At the same time, this probably isn't going to go away if you ignore it, so you need to let people in your life know how you're struggling and that you need some help.
Take care xx
Thanks for the comments.
ReplyDeleteThe issue with doing something before the CPA is that my parents are involved in the CPA. Thankfully only my Mum (I've said I really really don't want Dad there as he tends to talk huge amounts about inappropriate things, so he isn't coming) but still, I can't speak with her being there. And I can't send her out to speak to them without her, because she'll know I'm saying something negative.
A situation between the two is probably the answer. It is a case of doing the mad stuff safely and fairly secretly to continue with the coping exterior. I spent today being the "silly big sister" which actually was probably better than any therapy session could ever be - though my sister is 15, I missed out on being a 15 year old sister myself because I was being mental, so I'm trying to make up for it whilst she is 15. It is just a struggle sometimes not to simply turn inwards when at home but actually be around others. *sighs*