I haven't posted for a while as things have difficult, and I've had a hard time concentrating on things. I've had a medication change which seems to be really helping with my anxiety. They also gave me some sleeping tablets as I was barely sleeping due to getting some rather distressing intrusive images and thoughts surrounding my dad death whilst I lay in bed. My sleep has now improved tremendously.
A few days ago I had another medication change as I've been rather low and unmotivated. Probably due to grief. I start that once my bloods hopefully come back clear tomorrow.
Today I've had a really good day. I've planned to meet up with a number of friends I've not seen recently over the coming months. One of whom I'm planning a tattoo with, which is rather exciting.
One of my closest mates is meeting me for on Thursday for a catch up so that will be lovely :)
I've applied for several jobs so just waiting to hopefully hear back.
And I also got back into exercising and went on one of my Just Dance games I've not been on for ages, which proved to be rather enjoyable!
It feels like I'm back to the dark days. Down in the black hole again. I hate this I hate everything.
My anxiety is sky high, going out of my flat one of the scariest feelings ever. It feels as though I have a stomach full to the brim of butterflies, or more should I say moths, (I like butterflies) just flapping around. I could quite easily puke.
The thoughts going through my mind are all negative. I am ashamed of myself. Contemplating suicide strongly again. I'm such a let down. I'm meant to be better. I can't even do that right.
Tried work, and failed. Screw up just as always.
I'm bright enough, just mentally I'm not strong enough. Still. And I fucking hate myself for it. I'm never going to make anything of myself. I cannot see a future right now, not a future I want to carry on with anyway.
I want to go be at peace away from my demons, back with Frankie.
We promise to carry on your contagious smile.
The same one that would light up a room the minute you walked in.
We promise to laugh and never take ourselves too seriously.
We promise to love harder and forgive faster.
We promise to be content, in every sense of the word.
To be thankful for the air in our lungs,
and the years we were blessed to have with you.
We promise to try and have as big a heart as you did.
To be selfless.
To know what we have, and know what we can give to others who are not as fortunate.
We promise to grieve that absence of your physical being for only a moment.
And then we promise to set you free.
We promise to never give up on others,
even when we’re ready to give up on ourselves.
We promise to be a friend and a mentor as you were.
To be a helping hand, a shoulder to cry on or a set of ears to simply listen...
And we can promise you this...
We can promise to open our heart to you when we fall in love and when we fall apart.
When we find the one and when we become parents.
We promise to let you hear every giggle and feel every hug.
To know every heartache,
and let you be there for every triumphant moment...
The most important promise we can make,
despite all our mistakes and all our losses.
A promise that carries the equivalence of all the rest combined is this...
We promise to make you proud.
With all that we are,
We love you.
It's dads funeral tomorrow. I'm an emotional wreck. I should be putting all my coping skills into practice. However my mind is like fuck it, whatever happens happens. Not that I have plans of any sort. I just have urges to harm.
I'm scared I don't want to relapse. But a big part of me feels like I deserve it. It should be me in that coffin, not him. I was a bad daughter, through and through.
Mothers day was tiring for me but I think mum enjoyed it. We took her to a local pub for a meal with one of her sisters and her son. Charlie got walked. She got to have cocktails. Have her little present, before we give her the bigger one after the funeral. And then my brother showed us round his new flat.
I think she found it a bit weird having a special occasion without dad around, so we tried to take her mind off that as best we could, spending quality time together.
That women has gone through hell over the past 18 months, yet she's still managed to be there as a parent for my brother and me. Not an easy feat. I love her dearly.
For me at the moment, dads death is feeling to easy to deal with. Maybe thats because I've not coped so well with traumatic things in the past, and I'm a much stronger person mentally now. Or I have been thinking that perhaps it's because I was estranged from him for around 7 years, and only had 1 year with him in my life. Of which from February till the end of October I only got to see him once a move on my monthly home visit from rehab. So I only really had less than 4 months with him properly in my life again. That maybe I've gone into some sort of denial because I'm not used to him being around, so him not being around isn't unusual. If that makes any sort of sense.. it does to me.
I'm not really sure how any of that makes me feel whatsoever. I'm just glad to feel on an even keel.
The nights tend to be the hardest. But tonight has been one of the worst for a while. That is in terms of my mental health symptoms. Suicidal thoughts are back again, and I'm scared. Scared for my own life and scared for my family as they are already suffering enough with my dads death.
I don't want to bring anyone down any further, but it just feels like everything I do or try and make good turns to shit for some reason and I end up unintentionally bringing everyone down anyway. I try so hard yet my best is never, and will never be good enough.
I was stupid to think that I could survive another tragic death. Realistically I don't think I can. I'm pushing everyone away, isolating myself, and just pretending I'm coping. When in fact I'm not. I don't want to live without dad. I can't keep losing the people I love. I bring nothing to this world.
I don't exactly know where my head is at, but I know I need to write. I feel lots of feelings, it's almost like I'm being choked by them. Once upon a time I wouldn't have known you could feel so many emotions at once but through some terribly tragic times I've been through, I know this fullness only too well, unfortunately.
I'm feeling the usual emotions that go with grief. The anger, the sadness, the emptiness, the disbelief. But I feel extra anger on top, maybe even as far as betrayal. A certain person who knows of the situation, has asked that my mum does not get rid of my fathers medication, as they need it. This person is an ex-addict and I've tried to get close ones to give this person a chance and stuck up for them my whole life. I don't know why I ever bothered. It just feels so cold to me, like they are trying to take advantage of my fathers death.
They won't get their hands on the medication. But I am livid.
Dad passed away in the early hours 21/02/16. I am absolutely devastated. My bro is in pieces and mum isn't coping great either. It's a massive loss to us all. We will get through this I am 100% on that. Us three are a strong team. I'm just struggling to see the path right now to actually get there. I know I'm thinking way way to far ahead. It's not even been 24 hours yet. And my mind is just fuzz.
Life is challenging to say the least right now. Dad has only days left. This is something so very painful to be going through. I'm conflicted as I want to say goodbye but I don't want to see him any worse than I last saw him. Last time I saw him was very upsetting for me, heartbreaking is probably the best word. And I know from speaking to my mum he is even worse and I don't want to live with an even worse image in my head.
Why is death (in this way) so complicated?
Things aren't the best right now. My dads cancer has progressed a lot in the past month. To the point where now they say he only has weeks to live. And I whole-heartedly believe them. He is fading fast, day by day he is getting weaker and his body is shutting down.
It's all very sad to watch. When your father cannot even hold a conversation with you because he is so confused. When you have to hold a cup whilst it's in his hands so he doesn't drop it because he shakes so much. When you hug him and he's wearing three layers just to stay warm, yet you can still feel every bone in his back.
When essentially you feel like you have already lost him before he has actually passed.
It's heartbreaking.
Unfortunately I have not got anywhere on the job front so far. Likely because of my big gap of what seems like I have done nothing with the time spent on the path of recovery in rehab. But I'm going to get my head into something whether it be job, voluntary work or education. Something to just get my head focused on something positive. Rather than Cancer and my ED.
In very good news today is 450 days FREE of overdosing!!!! Bear in mind I used to take them multiple times a week, I'm doing hella AWESOME if I do say so myself. And to add to that I rarely even get a thought enter my mind to even do it, let alone act on those thoughts. My next goal is to get to 500 days, and I know I can do it.
Even more awesome news is that my closest friend who is in rehab has got it approved for me to visit her. So we are meeting up on Saturday in her closest city and we have 4 hours together. I am beyond EXCITED!!! We have not seen each other for about 18 months, so I am absolutely thrilled as is she. There will be a staff member there as I've never visited but that don't bother me, I'm more than used to hospital staff.
Since moving back home I haven't felt like I've had a real focus as such. Other than meeting up with family and friends and being an adult. And I guess settling back in. But I've felt like I need more than that.
I pondered the idea of going back to education as my highest level is GCSEs. But the problem is I have to pay a considerable amount given my age to do that. Money that I don't have unfortunately. Especially considering I love learning. The other side to it is if I were able to find the money I don't know when my dad will die. And it's only about 6 months away from the end of his prognosis. The course I was looking at is not the kind of course you can have time off of, it's like a fast track kind of course.
So I did some more thinking, more around the voluntary work basis, but I feel I know I would be capable of doing it so why not look for paid work. A big jump I know, especially seeing as I've never had a job before bar a paper round years back if you can class that as a job.
I ended up looking at job sites just to see what was out there locally in the health care worker role as thats what I want to do initially. Many said that job experience in the field was required but there was one that stood out that didn't. They were more bothered about your passion to work in the field. Which is exactly me to a T. Thankfully though I was able to put in the aspects of care that I have been involved in with my dads illness. So whilst I don't have professional experience, I do have personal experience.
So I bit the bullet, wrote up my very lacking CV and sent it off to them. I don't know how long it takes to hear back or if I will even hear back at all. But this is all very exciting!
I will probably freak out if they ring back for an interview given the fact I have never been interviewed for a job before but I'm sure my family can help me out on that front.
I'm not entirely sure what my care coordinator will say as only last week she said she did not think I was ready for work. But my mum is supportive of it and she says I know me best so she really hopes I get somewhere with it.
I saw my care coordinator and told her of the dissociative episode, she said I did the right thing and was pleased with the way that I dealt with it. Given the fact the that it was coming up to the day of when I got raped back quite a few years ago, and I'd been having flashbacks about that. We kind of put it down to that. The good news is that I have not had an episode like that, since, so far.
The week of that horrible anniversary was difficult as I expected. My care coordinator had advised me to call the crisis helpline which specializes in sexual assault. It was something I had already thought of as I went to their crisis center when it initially happened and used to phone them quite regularly, as they are very helpful. It ended up that I didn't need to call them. I coped with things well. The only thing I struggled with was some flashbacks, and elevated anxiety. This is less than what I anticipated in all honesty.
I met up with my close friend for our usual weekly coffee date and spent time with family and even managed to stay in on my own to have the gas man do his annual check. Something which normally scares the hell out of me. So real good progress!
I started on the Venlafaxine and things began to lift. Christmas was right around the corner so that was something that I was finally beginning to look forward to. I ended up staying over at the family home from Christmas Eve till Boxing day and had such wonderful quality time spent with my family.
That really gave me the boost I needed and when I went back home I felt much better and felt I was well on the journey back to feeling my normal self. I didn't have much any support from the MH team till the 5th of Jan as my worker was off till then, so that was daunting to face but I managed it well.
I did experience one episode of dissociation during that time. Luckily unlike the episodes before going into rehab where it was like a flick of a switch and I was gone mentally and would wake up having lost time having done something, not knowing where I had been. It was different I only went mentally to a degree. I felt like I was unreal, in the wrong body. Like my flat wasn't mine. And that I belonged somewhere else.
It was distressing to experience this, feeling so confused and disorientated. I tried grounding myself, doing all the techniques I knew of. But nothing seemed to de-escalate the situation. So I ended up deciding to take my night meds quite promptly after my evening ones and went to bed. I did this as I thought if you are asleep you cannot be in harms way. And it worked I fell asleep and the next thing were back to normal.
