Trying Not To Fall

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Apparently Catherine

I am typing this on my lap top, I like the weight of the keys under my fingers better than my new Apple Mac, the one I bought on a whim the day before I dyed my hair blue, living in the moment and high on a whirlwind of manic good intentions…

This is the keyboard where my most intimate thoughts have spilled from my mind and into physical existence, the place where I have divulged both my zest for life and yearning to die, it is comfortable and easy to talk to, like an old friend.

For some reason, I decided to go against my better judgement and watch 13 Reasons Why. When I heard more about the story line than just the subject matter I was a little taken aback because I had outlined a plot for a blog/novel that wasn’t dissimilar. It always shakes me a little bit when other people think like me and I wanted to know more.

It’s a really well done series, a very accurate portrayal of what it’s like to be a teenage girl, to be bullied, to feel humiliated, to be slowly destroyed one comment, one rumour, one glance at a time. I saw some comments about it, there was a mighty post, one issue taken was that there isn’t enough emphasis placed on help being available to Hannah (the main character) but I feel that this almost makes it more realistic because as much as we want there to be, how much help is there?

When you are a teenager going through depression, having suicidal thoughts, no amount of people who don’t get it telling you that you aren’t alone can really help. When you are at a point where you already feel embarrassed, have already been let down, the last thing you want to do is open up the remaining private part of yourself. School counsellors aren’t trained to deal with anything other than superficial issues and the stigma involved in seeing one in the first place is more than enough to close that door and firmly board it up.

I don’t know if its Triggering me in a bad way, just making me think a lot. The last 24 hours all I can think about is not letting this high wear off, the fact that I am thinking about it probably means it is starting to wear off otherwise that wouldn’t even enter my head. My thoughts are still racing, I’m sick of my own voice in my head, I wish Morgan Freeman narrated my life, only I don’t think he could speak fast enough to keep up at the moment!

I don’t want to get depressed again. I know too much now, I have too many plans and options. Even in my highest happiest euphoria that little part of me sees something I could potentially use to one day to end my life and puts it into a mental note book “Oh look! What a view, oh and mental note no phone service between A & B so if I’m found, nobody can call for an Ambulance” Shut up, mind!

There is so much guilt in my head around the knowledge that one day I will more than likely be forever hurting the people I leave behind. Miss 8 asked me out of the blue yesterday if I had ever been to jail, when I laughed and said “No, why?” She said, “I remember visiting you at a place with bars on the windows” I fobbed it off, fobbed off the fact that the thing my daughter remembers about visiting me in the psychiatric unit wasn’t seeing Mummy, it was the bars on the windows. I can imagine how that would have looked in pictures she painted at school. That’s a shitty memory for her to have.

The boys all remember it, they knew what it was about, she was too young so only knew it as a hospital. She isn’t old enough to understand if I told her again now, she has been both the silent victim of and completely sheltered from my illness, she just sees what is in front of her and sometimes asks innocent little questions that make me want to cry like “Are you doing anything today or just going to bed again?”

Surely this means I should be concentrating on getting better, not letting myself slip back into depressions desperate clutches and I am trying so hard, trying to keep this hypomanic high alive for as long as possible? I worry that I am a shitty mother when my children deserve so much better, and I am scared. Scared that when I eventually do fall, this time I won’t get back up again.