Back on the horse

I haven’t given up writing but last weekend was really hard.

For a number of reasons, I crashed really badly. A good friend of mine used to listen to Nine Inch Nail’s The Downward Spiral when he was feeling really down. By the end of the album he’d be so miserable, he’d have hit rock bottom and the only way is up.

Doesn’t work for me. Listening to that CD anyway. So instead, I pissed and complained and moaned to a select few friends. I raged that when I needed people on Friday I ended up down the pub with two friends - a couple - feeling even more alone.

No one teaches you how to grieve. No one teaches you how to handle being unhappy. And we all are at some point or another. Some people are more with more balanced chemicals in their brain, so it desn’t last long. Others inherantly know how to force themselves to keep swimming (just keep swimming) till all is good again.

It must be hard to stand by me through all of this. I feel guilty when I feel fine - and I feel fine sme of the time. When I’m angry, I’m furious and lash out verbally at friends. When I’m unhappy, i’m miserable. Truly dark. Anything you say to try to cheer me up will be shot down in flames.

So I would like to take a minute to thank my friends. For the suprise visits. For the planned visits. For the nights in with a DVD and pizza. For allowing me to turn up on your doorstep in the evening with a Starbucks because things are shit. For the hugs. The text messages. The advice. The spontaneous visits to drop in and say hey when the bus has dumped you the wrong side of town and you’re running late. The small gifts. The messages and comments on Facebook. It all helps and it is all taken in eventually, even if at the time I may be too black of mood to see it.

Thank you.

This week I went to see my GP. MY new GP. He was running late - about 40 minutes behind and as soon as I opened my muth to talk about why I was there, he turned his body language away from me. He didn’t give a fuck. He told me to call Cruise - whose number I already have, but I find that realy impersonal, top cold call a support group.

I went to see a real human being in a professional capacity to ask to be referred to another human being, one who specialised in counselling people like me.

Mum’s death has hit me hard and I’m finding no way to express that isn’t destructive or whiny. I am putting too much pressure on my friends to save me. But I was unhappy, lonely and really low before that. A friend blogged that he missed New Year’s Eve, when everything was fine. We were all content. I’m afraid I read that and disagreed. Everyone else in that room seemed happy. I was really sad and lonely, not helped by feeling really ill. I remember thinking good riddance to 2008, will 2009 be any better though?

Nope.

I had hoped the need for some sort of therapy in my life was past me, but apparently not. Sadly this GP just saw me as a way to catch up with his schedule and rushed me out making me feel like I’d wasted his time. If I wasi n a more stable place I’d complain.

I need to watch Sicko again. Between this idiot and the way Mum was treated by her GP, mental health and that fucking nurse that turned her, I have lost all faith in the NHS. I need to be reminded that the alternative is no better…

I’m still trying to do positive things. I have some interesting news about the shop that I’m very pleased about. More on that another time. I’m making plans for the future. I’m about to send off my passport application too. And I’ve taken some other steps that I’l keep to myself, but it has taken some swallowing of my pride and climbing down off my soapbox.

So I haven’t given up. Yet.

If you have been, thanks for reading.