Or not. Your choice.
I really hate it when people tell me not to read depressing things when I'm suicidal or upset. Like something that someone else is going through is going to set me off. Because obviously having a mental illness equates to having absolutely no free will whatsoever. There may be people out there who need a babysitter when it comes to literary choices, but I reckon they're a lot fewer than people think. Reading the crap that other people go through actually makes it better - more normal and less lonely.
Wow. A whole big paragraph and I haven't sworn yet. That's gotta be some kind of fucking record.
:-)
So, in case you haven't guessed, I'm not having the best of days. Screw that. I'm suicidal, no two ways about it.
I have body spasms. Every second, or every minute, or every hour, depending on my level of thought at the time. The more I think, the harder and faster they come. The bad thing about them is that they scare the kids, they jolt my already painful joints so they hurt like a bitch, and they're just plain annoying. The good thing about them is that for a few seconds, they release the tension in my body.
Downstairs, I have an art centre. An easel my husband made for me and an old set of drawers with paints and brushes and what-not in them. It's nothing much, but it's perfect. The only thing that is missing is some decent music, because I haven't got around to doing that yet. An hour ago, my husband tried to convince me to do some art, to see if that would help.
Husband: Why don't you go downstairs and do some artwork?
Me: (thinking about all the prep I'd have to do first - jerk - my body, not my husband). Yeah, maybe not.
Just thinking about putting the effort into something sets me off. Which is annoying as all hell, because my brain is raring to go. I want to do art, I want to sing, I want to go for a drive, I want to go for a swim, I want to take the kids to the park. And when I think about doing these things, I end up a jerking mess.
Thankfully, this is typed, or else you wouldn't be able to read it.
I feel sick. Every time I get up I feel like I'm going to throw up. I'm light headed. Every ounce of my body is screaming at me to get back into bed.
Between the jerks/spasms, and the inability to actually get up off my arse and do something, I feel pretty damn useless. Yes, logically I know I'm not. But being suicidal isn't about logic.
I've been fighting my whole 33 years. Fighting my mother. Fighting my abusive boyfriend. Fighting depression and PTSD. Fighting physical pain.
Enough already. I'm done. My body is done. I need a rest.
No one can take my physical pain away. I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and that is that. As for the emotional/mental pain... well...
We're bombarded with messages that if we feel suicidal, then we should call Lifeline, or some other call centre. But seriously - what are they going to do? What can they tell me that I haven't already considered? Is there some great big solution to everything out there that I haven't thought about? No, there isn't. The only way to get through this, if I decide to, is to grit my teeth and wait it out as best I can.
I'm not a beginner here. I've learned my meditation, and know to snap a rubber band against my wrist instead of cutting, and I've got "forget the next day - just get through the next hour, or the next minute" down pat. There are great big lists of things to do in an emergency, and they are fantastic. It's just - they don't work any more for me. Or at least, they don't work all the time. And I don't need to hear someone tell me something I already know like I either don't already know it, or like I'm just not trying hard enough. I don't need someone who doesn't know me trying to tell me how to pick myself up. It's not like my cat died, or my boyfriend broke up with me.
I know that it's politically incorrect to say that one person's pain is "more" than another's. I'm actually not trying to say that. If anything, the pain of a teenager who has just had their heart broken is far worse than what I am experiencing, which is not really pain so much as it's exhaustion. Maybe that is why the standard shit doesn't work.
Once it becomes clear to call centre volunteers that my situation isn't going to be resolved with the therapy equivalent of a Hallmark card, they usually suggest presenting at hospital. The last time I presented at hospital voluntarily for being suicidal, I was told that they weren't a babysitting service.
If I want someone to make me feel like shit under their shoe, I'll go visit my mother.
Plus, I want to see how Nikita turns out on Tuesday night. So I'm good till Wednesday at least.
I have a bunch of ideas of how we can improve the mental health system. Ideas that include everyone, because they assume nothing. What we have now is a stock standard answer:
* Call someone (great but what if it doesn't work? What if you require more than a chat with a stranger?)
* Go to hospital (safe, but boring, not good for getting someone in the "life is great" mood, and there's rarely enough beds anyway).
* See a psychiatrist (few of whom do therapy. Most simply give a diagnosis and dispense medication, and few people can afford the gap fees anyway).
* Go to the public mental health team etc (ATAPS, CAT etc) (these are underfunded or mismanaged to the point that they only take psychosis cases. There is little to no ongoing therapy for anyone else, and after I found out that my local team put a 10 year old on enough medication to kill a horse - no thanks).
Or
* See your psychologist. Except the government has just cut the number of Medicare rebatable sessions from 18 to 10.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Even with 18 this year, I've only two left. She's great and all, but two sessions in three and a half months when I'm this suicidal is like trying to get a hurricane to reverse itself by blowing at it. Next year I'll be allowed ten sessions. May as well just let the fucking hurricane come by and sweep me up. Use my energy to enjoy the ride, rather than try to fight the inevitable. Leave her time to treat those who actually have a chance.
There are a lot of people at the moment speaking of their concern for people with a mental illness. If they were so fucking concerned, they would be asking us what we need, instead of sprouting their own shit with a few token "consumers" here and there on their committees just to make it look good. I don't want to hear from the people who have been saved by the current system so that Assholes (the capital A was intentional) like Patrick McGorry and Ian Hickie can get funding for their little pet projects. I don't want to hear from the government who decides to put money into these projects, and pulls it out of other things that work so that they can (and in doing so, completely ignoring the over 25 year old demographic).
I want to hear from the people like me. The ones who have been there and done that and have a fire to make some real changes. People like me that know ANY committee that isn't comprised of consumers with at least a decade of experience in attempting to get well and being shit on, simply isn't going to get the job done properly.
I want to hear the fucking truth already. Because I simply don't have the RAM left in my addled brain, to be arsed hearing anything else. I want something that actually has a chance in hell of working to be considered for a change. I want hope, so that I can consider living for tomorrow.
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