12

Its been awhile since I was back. Im healthy and medicated now so I dont have quite the same level of fears and anxieties I once did.

But I do still fear being lonely. I am alone.

Friends and family, ye4s, but romantic love, the kind that validates you as a person, I dont have.

I am desperatel;y lonely.  The problem is I see no way of getting out of it. I caught myself looking up at the sky yesterday wondering what the point of living is if I cant have someone in my bed, someone around me to take the edge off life. I can fill my days with hobbies, with pursuits, volunteering, and attempting to make the world a better place, but if I dont have love with that...

Whats the point?

Strangely, I still have no opinion of living or dying. I died tomorrow, it wouldn't be such a bigf deal for me. Id probably be scared as it happened, but Id like ideally to pass quietly and easily, like with an exit bag.

I feel numb. I'll be fine tomorrow morning or in a few days. But I definitely feel numnb, and alone.

I looked at the sky yesterday, and felt utterly alone, in the cosmic sense. Like, surrounded by a vast, uncaring cosmos to which I am less than an insignificant speck. It is humiliating - The scope of this feeling washes out even the attempt to address it.

Im lonely. Bored. Tired of life. 

So... I dont really know what to do here. There's no wrapping it up, I just don't know how to feel about this.

I'm lonely. A little scared. Depressed. Tired of life.

If I disappeared tomorrow, would it be such a bad thing? I don't want to die, of course - I'm not planning to commit suicide or anything ridiculous. But would it really be so bad to disappear and be numb for a little while? 

#11

I've been pondering a lot, lately. Dispassionately reckoning my life as accomplishments and failures. Weighing, measuring, and finding. I'm strangely detached from the oncept of taking my life. I've examined it from many angles, and considered, dispassionately, the positives and negatives of my own death, by my own hands.

I've come to the conclusion that there are a great many things worse than death. I don't really have fear of deaht itself. Maybe the means of it, from a car crash or electrocution, burnt alive, heart attack. The method scares me, but death itself is something with which I have come to terms.

That's not to be macabre or ghastly, though it does sound as such. I just don't really see the point of livin.g I wake up every day gateful to be alive, of course, but ultimately I look forward and see a big, blank vista. Dotted with loneliness. It is the monotony of my future that scares me. An endless, blank gap between now, and death. WIth such a vast chasm of nothingness left to live, what's the need? Why do I need to live out this life if all I can see is that?

There's a situation made worse by the fact that I can't really tell anyone about this. Not that I can't talk to people I love, but... Imagine bringing that up - "Yeah, I consider suicide on a regular basis. It is a part of who I am, I've thought about it a few times a week for several years, and I'm of no opinion about living or dying." Anyone who has any sense and/or even a grain of love for me would go on high alert and do whatever they could.

I don't need that. I'm not really suicidal, but it's something I understand to be part of the illness I have. Just as the man with a genetic illness fears the wheelchair, assisted living, or any one of the myriad monsters of the future, I know that suicide is an option in my future.l That there may come a time that I lose the battle, and pass quietly into a rest that no longer means I have to fight the challenge of living.

I wish I knew.

#8

It's been a long time.

Doesn't really matter, though. Its more about coming back than it is leaving for awhile.

I felt that urge again. The urge to disconnect, and go back to my dark safe space. Rock back and forth, cry, and empty myself of anything I could.

I need to get out. Not soon, but NOW. I don't know what to do otherwise.

I feel a little like I'm separated from people. I have for awhile, but I feel like now, I seem to have a gulf in *connecting* with people. I feel like something's wrong sometimes, but I don't really know what it is.

How do you put a finger on the splinter in your mind?

I think I'm being unnecessarily dramatic - It's been a weird 24 hours, I can feel some prescient gust of an episode tickling across the back of my neck. But it's not going to be severe, it's just going to be... there.

Had a frank discussion with mom and dad about my marijuana usage today. I don't like feeling controlled - who does? But I need to get out. I feel like I'm being controlled, and I can't handle it. I don't like it. It feels... compromising. There's nothing I can do but accept the reality of it. I feel trapped.

Back In Purley

It's been ten years. Eight, technically, since I was last here. But ten to me - 2006.

It even tastes familiar. The table, the chairs, the sunshine and breezes.

It's all... disorienting, a little. There's a part of me that wants to go back to Thetford and see it. Just like you want to see what your limb looks like when you take the cast off.  I don't think it's a good idea, but part of me wants to see it. What's to see? The place has no good memories, none. That was a place of survival, not enjoyment. Besides which, I don't know if there's a lot of time to go visiting

I'm glad to be here, all the same. It brings up a lot of memories every time I come here - I've been here once in the last ten years.

I'm stuck here, though. All of my cousins are out having a great time, I'm... not. Having flown in today, I was severely jet-lagged and missed the fun. Such is life. So I'm taking some time out, sleeping, eating, de-planing as it were.

#6

So here I am again, trying to put into words  that which is unfathomable. I  looked up at the sky a few nights ago and thought "You know what if I die tomorrow morning, this would be the... I'd be happy to die tomorrow morning, after seeing tonight. The moon was high in the sky, the stars were out and the night was clear. I was genuinely convinced that if that night was my last on earth I'd have no objections leaving.

The problem is, I find myself doing that a lot. Saying with an increasingly frightening level of finality that I recognize the day as being beautiful only bu comparing it to the fact that I still would if I had no more.

I've had an off few days. Like a knot in my guts, there's a ball that wants to rise up through my throat and choke me into floods of tears. I don't why the instinct to cry is so strong when I'm feeling this way, but I get overhwhenlmed. I feel like standing quietly at the sink in the middle of making dinner to take some breaths and potentially burst into gusts of sobs.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by life. Mad with fear. I don't really know how to handle it, and the sentiments aren't something I can readily share with others - After all, how do you really describe the process of going through a down period to anyone but yourself without really exposing hw different that... How do you describe your down periods without making it sound like you're crazy. You can't. So you donb't, really. I mean, there's only so many ways you can say "Look, I'm feeling shitty and I need to talk", because, and I'm going to be honest, I'm not even sure *I* want to hear it anymore. I now I feel shitty. I know I'm having a bad day. But beyond that, I don't really know anything. Except for the fact that the only thing that really helps is simple human contact - A hug.

I wish I knew what to do with my life. I wish I did.

I wish to have a job.

I wish to move out.

I wish to get adog.

These three things would make me happy. I wish to be self sufficient, but I am not... I know these are simple things. But I want to keep things simple. I am rapidly becoming a more simple man. I would just like those three things in life right now.

Excuse me, I'm going to go lie down, and maybe cry a little to get it out of my system.

#5

Every so often I get the urge to disappear. Move somewhere, delete Facebook, remove myself. Fly out to somewhere, like an island in Indonesia, and stay for months at a time. I don't know where it comes from, but if I were to venture a guess, it would be that the supportive company with which I surround myself leads inevitably to comparisons, in my own head, of their lives and mine.

It could be anything else, but this is what I'm comfortable with thinking. It's a powerful pull, this idea that I can just up and disappear. Not have to see anyone or be anyone or even care, just disappear. Get where I'm going, and lock up my passport and wallet. Why does it seem so comfortable and easy to think that? Is it some sort of analogue of suicide? Is that what I actually want, and this is just a projection?

Talking myself out of feeling bad has been working. Not great, but everyone has to have coping mechanisms and I'm willing to be patient with mine. I've also discovered that physically doing something with my hands means that my bipolar is kept at bay, so I've been trying to reinforce that. Makes me think that perhaps the idea to switch careers to something in the trades might be more valid than I first believed.

Today's been a good day. I haven't been down, just quiet. I've gotten things done, and haven't really felt like collapsing. It's strange that that ranks as a good day.

I can say, though, that the depression I feel right now isn't really *caused* by my bipolar per se, but more as a result of being aimless and jobless. I want to do something, be something, but it's sort of hard to commit to that when I've got nowhere to go. I have all these ideas of things I can do or be, but I'm missing the spark, the oomph to push it forward that a job brings.

I'm hoping that speaking with a career counsellor and maybe getting some inkling of other careers I can do will help me push it forward. I've been looking into things like welding, that seems interesting. I don't know, though.

I have to be careful with these grand ideas. Part of me wonders whether or not they are influenced by my bipolar - I do have a tendency to scheme, and fall apart at the first difficulty. I find it hard to commit.

This sounds like it'd be a good opportunity for a secure job where I can work with my hands and actually do something. Not attend meetings, do corporate things like create change and strategy, and fulfill requirements and timelines with limited resources juggling project deadlines and missing pieces.

This just seems like... Come in. Do the work. Do it perfect. Do it again. Like sharpening knives, or polishing boots. Develop a rhythm, do it right, move on.

I want to do that. It sounds like something I'd like. But I'd want to hear more about it. I doubt it's that romantic, but somehow the idea of working with my hands is something I'd like more than what I'm getting now.

I dunno. Life is weird that way. Maybe I'll find something. I hope I do.

#4

Part of this is about not really looking up at the screen, but looking dwn at the keys. Sensing when I've made a mistake instead of trying to visually see it. Writing is a lot more liberating when you don't really care about mistakes. When you just want to get something out and minimize them, but acknowledge them anyway.


I've been thinking about people. About how so many people have their shit together that I never see, about, I guess, the fact that there are so many people so much more mature than me in so many basic ways.

Everyone I know has their shit together. It's sad, and scary for me - I'm the only one left in the sandbox of youth while everyone else has moved on. I don't understand how to move forward, and I think I'm not the only one, I don't know if I'm the only one in the sandbox. I feel like I've been left behind for something, but I don't know what.

I don't want this to be an... Fuck it, yes, I do want this to be a bit of a pity piece. I don't feel like I have my shit together, and i feel like every day life is getting smaller and smaller as I lose sight of its plumes

What's wrong with me. Why can't I find or keep reasonable employment? Why can't I get anywhere?

Okay, I've got a lot here. I'm going to sort out in my head some things today.

First things first, clean out my room.

Second, change passwords.

Third, I'd like to sit down with a piece of paper, and even try to figure out basic next steps.

Do I need to start looking for a secondary career. What are my career goals. What am I having trouble with at the moment.

Apply to some jobs. Make some calls and set up an appointment or two to figure out next steps. Do I want to invest in secondary career training?

Once this has been done, I can stop for the day.