THE COLOUR OF MADNESS
A Blog About Living with Mental Illness
Straight From The Horses Bedroom
They were the best of times, they were the worst of times…
I totally feel that statement right now, I guess it’s a classic sentence for a good reason.
The closest thing I have to ‘stable’ right now is what my horse’s call their bedroom. I suppose I have been mostly flying high, circling around the upper part of the mountain trying not to reach the summit or jump off the edge but too terrified to start heading down again as it seems so far down and I think perhaps the frostbite has already started to set in and I don’t particularly want to live a life without my fingers and toes so staying up here forever or jumping to my doom feels like the better alternative.
Tried to contact my psychiatrist five days ago via e-mail but she didn’t respond, she always responds, not that I e-mail her all the time or anything, like three times in the whole time I have been seeing her. I didn’t think I was being annoying? I tried not to phrase it annoyingly. Maybe I am? Maybe I have become THAT client? Fuck, I really don’t want to be THAT client. Am I overthinking this? I whine my fears at my friend jamoalki, he says to call her, that I’m not being annoying. I know I should, but I am scared. I have been catastrophising so much lately that I don’t know what is real anymore, tiny things, nothing things, become huge things, massive, giant exploding balls of fire, usually without warning.
I just wanted to ask for a script for a lower dose of the meds I previously refused to take, because when the shaking and scattered thoughts intensified I started taking them at night and worked out if I took them in the early evening I was able to function enough in the morning to still take the children to school and then have my hypomanic buzz carry through the day but now the day buzz is getting too pointy, too hard to handle too, oh I don’t know, too much? I don’t even want to buy things anymore, my cupboards overflow with my latest purchases and I stare at them wondering if they will ever be worn or used or if they will end up part of a garage sale, unused belongings of the deceased, scars of a final mania.
I can’t take this rollercoaster, I try to call my GP but she is away until next week, I am nauseous, why won’t somebody let me off? If there is a God, he/she obviously wants me stuck here, in this place. The roses are so excruciatingly vibrant I want to smother myself in their beauty but these unexpected thorns that keep pricking me are so fucking sharp that they have started stabbing me right through the centre of my heart and watching me bleed out on the floor while all the little aphids just stand by laughing maniacally. I pretend not to care, pretend not to be secretly dying in front of everybody.
The meds turn me into a zombie and I can’t live like that, I can’t take on the droll walk of the undead manic depressive and still live, thrive. But I also know that I need something, just to take off this razor-sharp edge that is slowly killing me with 1000 paper cuts. This is why I want the lower dose tablets, for daytime, so I can still do things and be a human, or at least pretend to. Mr 13 is receiving an award today and there is a fancy morning tea presentation this morning, I have to be there, I always let him down and I need to be there one last time.
But I also want, need, to hold onto the high, just a little bit, oh God just let me cling to that feeling of nirvana don’t care, free-ness for a moment longer. Can’t I live forever within a reality of my own making? Just like old lady me from the future? Happiness is rapidly melting from my grip but I just can’t slip down into the bowels of depression hell that beckon so seductively, I fear that it is already too late, the runaway train can’t be stopped, it has to crash.
I’m stressing out and overthinking absolutely everything, I have a sense of impending doom and I can’t shake it, I dropped the kids off to the bus this morning and the radio just said there was an accident on the road near my house that hubby takes to work and now I can’t get a hold of him, therefor in my mind he must be dead. It’s also his birthday, which reiterates the fact that he must be dead because, how poetic. To die on your birthday, the amount of times I have thought of killing myself on my birthday.
I think he was shitty with me when he left, or sad or something, I don’t know, the goodbye felt weird and I’ve had a sinking feeling in my heart ever since, now I heard that news snippit and I am reading too much into it. He’s still not answering, he should have been at work by now? Realistically he’s probably left his phone in the car or he’s on a machine at work and didn’t hear it or he’s stuck in traffic or any number of reasons why he wouldn’t respond.
I want to grab him by the head and yell, “Fuck hun, I am absolutely terrified that you are dead, and it’s for all the wrong reasons as well as the right ones, Fuck I just want to jump up and down and scream and yell because I can’t be left here like this, I can’t raise the children on my own, I can’t raise myself on my own, I already don’t even know how I can make it to the end of your birthday without killing myself but I am trying SO FUCKING HARD and if I can’t die on your birthday then nor can you! You can’t leave me here, leave me like this, I don’t want to be here I already can’t fucking do this anymore, if you are gone then I am forced to be here, captive, I can’t be cornered, I need an escape route, don’t take that from me, PLEASE don’t fucking take that from me!”
I desperately want to write to my shrink and say the words “I can’t do this anymore, HELP ME!!!” But I CAN’T because there are things that I am meant to do, have to do, promised to do today, tomorrow and on the weekend, from a practical perspective I can’t die or beg for help until Monday, but help is really just a hindrance in disguise and I am too busy, yes I can’t be saved one way or another until at least Monday but amidst the raining fire of misconstrued intentions, misjudged actions and mole hills the size of Himalayan mountain ranges, I sure as hell don’t know HOW I can live until Monday.
I rang hubby again. He answered. He’s fine. He was on a machine and didn’t hear the phone. He apologized, even though he was doing nothing at all wrong. I cried, loudly, because I have run out of the ability to control my emotions, to fake a conversation and only cry afterwards. He told me to call him later, probably because he doesn’t want me to die on his birthday either and he knows I am holding on by the very tips of my fingertips even though I haven’t actually told him that, he just knows, just how he knew I was about to give birth before the midwives ever did, because he knows me so well. I hate doing this to him, burdening him, not that he says that I am but it’s not fair on him, not fair on the kids, they don’t deserve to live with this bullshit.
I put a happy birthday post to him on Facebook, full of emoji’s, to declare my undying love and wonder if it will be my last post. Wonder if this will be my last post here, wonder how much money I would have if I had a dollar for each time I have thought that…
Now I have written this I feel like I can breathe again for a moment, writing is my soul food even though I don’t even know if I can post it because my internet speed has been dropped to dial up because we went over our shitty data plan (again) and it takes 6 months to load the google home page, but I will try anyway. I will try to post this, try to breathe, try to live until Monday. I can only try.
One Comment on “Straight From The Horses Bedroom”
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THE COLOUR OF MADNESS 
You have such a great way of saying what is real, living what is right, and sharing what is needed.
I hope the desperation has passed. I want you to be there because you have a way of understanding.
Be all you can, no matter what mood has descended upon you.
You have a gift.
You are a gift.
To all those in your life.
Stay you Miss Kate……..
Ty McMurray
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