If you ever want to be in love

My best friend and I used to sleep together. We ended it when he had a chance with this girl he really liked. She was evil to him. They recently broke up. He and I slept together again the other day. I’m lost.

I don’t know what it meant, we’ve both had a lot of baggage lately and maybe it was just stress relief. Maybe it was just us slipping back into what was comfortable. Maybe we were both just horny and it was just sex. I don’t know what it was, but I want it to happen again.

I could fall in love with him.

I don’t know if I have those feelings for him underneath it all, I’ve never liked to think about it too deeply or get into my own head over-thinking it, because he almost definitely doesn’t feel the same way about me, but he said that if we continued sleeping together he would develop feelings for me, and he wanted those feelings to be real ‘because [I] deserve them to be real’. That would be wonderful.

I’m so afraid to have feelings for him, because I love him like a soulmate, and I couldn’t bear to lose him or have him leave me. I haven’t addressed it, I haven’t tried to rationalise it, I don’t want to until I know how he feels, then I can work out my feelings accordingly.

I hate the waiting. I’ve given him four days, and I know that isn’t enough time, but God, do I want it to have been enough time. I hope the day comes soon where we can finish the conversation we started all those nights ago about us and what we mean, and what is going to happen between us.

I wish I knew.

Setbacks, but it’s none of your business

I’ve been having the worst week I’ve had for a while this week, and I can imagine it’s going to continue into next week as well for a number of reasons. I’m hesitant to write it all down because it sounds petty and ridiculous, but if I can’t write it down on an anonymous blog that no-one I know knows about then I guess where can I vent it?

First things first, I will be one year free from self-harm on January 29th, which for me is a very very very big deal since I went three+ years of self-harming before this, so a whole year is pretty exciting. Only every time it’s a big event reminding me how long I’ve gone without it, my urges to do it get much stronger. So I’ve been going the whole week with a blunt eyeliner because I don’t know how far I can trust myself with a pencil sharpener, and as such I’ve had really bad anxiety about the fact that I’m getting better, because as the depressives among you will know, we often don’t actually want to recover, even if a part of us does. It’s very stressful relinquishing the idea that self-harm is no longer (I hope) a part of my personality; I just have to hope that the 30% that wants to recover is stronger and louder than the 70% that likes being sick.

Secondly, over the Christmas period I started talking to a friend of mine, the flatmate of one of my close friends, an awful lot. My flatmate pointed this out to me and suggested that maybe I had feelings for him, an idea which grew in my mind while we texted and talked on the phone and via FaceTime all through the period while I was at my family home, before I came back to my flat in the New Year. On returning, I realised I didn’t have feelings for him, but it was too late now since I’d been evidently leading him to the now false conclusion that we both liked each other. He continued to text me and try and engage with me, which I carried on with, but no longer flirting. He stayed at mine one time after a night out, and nothing happened. I stayed at his another time after a night out, and unfortunately I was very drunk and a little lonely, so I ended up kissing him… a lot. It was bad. I went straight over to my best friend’s house after and told him everything and we devised a text to tell him I didn’t mean for it to happen and it was just because I was drunk. He laughed it off and agreed, but he was evidently upset and didn’t feel the same way. I have since been trying to avoid him somewhat, but then the next night he couldn’t stay at his for a number of reasons so I reluctantly allowed him to stay at mine, which ended with us waking up in the morning and dozing, and him stroking my arm, head, waist etc. and me being so uncomfortable and anxious that I physically tensed up and was unable to vocalise my discomfort. I eventually managed to calm down enough to tell him to stop every time he tried to lift my shirt up slightly so he could touch my skin or try to touch my chest, but it made me unbelievably distressed, and even now as I’m writing this I’m tensing up at the memory. Since then he’s been inviting me round on a daily basis to hang out or to stay over, which I have rejected every single time, yet he has been unable to recognise that ‘no’ means NO, which is an incredibly worrying personality trait in someone who I consider a friend.

That day, a friend of my best friend had come to visit him, and as such I went round the following morning and told them all about it. I’d met this friend before and gotten along well with him. They both agreed that it was uncomfortable and unnecessary, and the friend agreed to help keep us apart that night when we were all due to go to an event together (my best friend was working so I solicited his friend to help in his stead). That night, the friend who had made me uncomfortable didn’t show up until after we had left to go into town, so I spent the evening hanging out with my friend’s friend, both at the event then in town afterwards. We left together and since (as we both told each other that night) we had both been interested in each other since the day we met, we ended up spending the night together. This news spread around our friends immediately, so of course you can imagine who also knows, and yet somehow this isn’t working as a deterrent as I had hoped. I have feelings for this boy, and I hope to see him again when he’s back visiting next weekend, but I don’t know if he’s still interested or if he’s over it now he’s achieved what a lot of people would have wanted and left after.

As well as this, my best friend is spending all of his time with a girl he’s seeing and I feel like I can’t go round and just see him because he’s always with her, and my flatmate is spending lots of time with a boy she’s seeing, so I sometimes feel a bit lonely, which is usually fine, but these last two weeks have made me feel really reliant on people and need someone to talk to and I feel like I can’t talk to any of them. The one who made me feel uncomfortable is trying to ask me what’s wrong, but when I tell him I don’t want to talk about it again is unable to take no for an answer and keeps trying to harass me for why I’m upset, and I’m not going to talk to him about it. He makes me uncomfortable, he doesn’t respect my boundaries, he won’t accept a ‘no’ and he’s prying. It’s killing me.

tl;dr:

• Almost a year free of self-harm, urges starting to cut myself getting stronger as a result
• Accidentally ruined a friendship and now he won’t stop harassing me
• Also thinks that ‘no’ means ‘maybe’ or ‘persuade me’
• Feeling lonely, was hoping for an ongoing involvement with a friend of a friend, but haven’t heard from him in days
• Can’t hang out with best friends because I’d be intruding
• The one person I don’t want to talk about any problems with is persistently getting in my business
• MDD is acting up again and it’s stressing me out

Ignore me, I’ll be fine, I’m just not having a very good week

Hope you’re all doing okay

From where we were to where we are now

In October, I started sleeping with a good friend of mine. It was just casual, and it was entertaining. We’d flirt with each other in public and everything, which I found very exciting, and it kept me pretty into him. This went on for a few weeks, then before I went back to visit my family for Christmas, we were at a party and when I tried to jokily turn him on in public (something which he did to me a couple of times so I thought I’d take my revenge), he flinched away from me, and I knew immediately that that was the end of that. He then later confirmed for me that this girl he’d been on the verge of seeing before we’d started sleeping together had come back on the scene, and he didn’t want it to be unfair on her that he was sleeping with me when he wasn’t sure what was happening with her. I said sure, that I was fine with this, when in actual fact I had developed feelings for him and felt a little like I’d been dropped and was second best.

On returning for Christmas, it turned out that the thing with this girl had fallen through again, and while we were both completely out of our heads he propositioned me again, very subtly, which I turned down partially out of not wanting to get into that again and partially out of wanting to have the upper hand. Immediately after that we were telling each other how happy we were that we were still friends, and that there was no awkwardness between us. Over the next few nights and days while my flatmates were away, I practically lived at his flat, apart from when it came to going to bed, and we bonded and became even closer. Two nights in a row we had deep chats about our relationship and the words ‘best friend’ were said several times. I love him to pieces, I think he’s wonderful. Except now, this girl has come back on the scene, and they’re partially seeing each other, and she keeps fucking him about, and it makes me really sad to see how much it’s affected him. He has a history of drug-taking and as such has started having brain zaps recently, a symptom of brain damage due to drug abuse. He told me that he wants to stop doing drugs, or at least to start doing them less frequently, and to stop smoking weed in the week because he’s aware that he smokes too much. He said this on Sunday.

On Tuesday, he got high. On Wednesday, he got high and took MDMA. He invited me round to hang out whilst him and a load of the druggie people we’re only friends with because they take drugs were round, and I declined. I would have gone, except for the fact that this girl was there, and I don’t like her being there, because when she fucks him around, he turns to drugs and alcohol to get over it. I was supposed to go over to his today to help him through his comedown, but she’s still there. I get on with her when I talk to her, but she leaves a bitter taste in my mouth because of the things she’s said and done to him.

As an addict, I can recognise addict behaviour in others, and watching him spiral downwards is one of the most painful things I’ve experienced this year so far. He doesn’t know about my depression or self-harm or anything, but he knows I was upset yesterday and if I ever make it round today I think I might tell him. I’m worried about him, in all honesty. I care about him so much, and it’s killing me to see him in pain. I don’t have feelings for him any more, despite my flatmates’ jokes that I’m in love with him and we’re going to end up together some day, but I don’t know how much longer I can bear to watch my own history repeat in someone else.

I said this to you yesterday, and I’m saying it again today: Please don’t self-destruct. I care about you too much to lose you.

Don’t let me get attached to you

I don’t do relationships. I’m bad at commitment and my emotional attachment is usually poor because of my depression, and often if I get attached to someone it goes from 0-60 in about eight seconds, which can often be bad.

I’ve recently started seeing someone.

We’ve only been being whatever we are for two weeks. It’s not a serious thing, neither of us wanted it to be, and so it was good that we were both on the same page.

On Wednesday we were out at a club with our friends, and I had a panic attack. I wasn’t with him at the time, so I texted him and told him then went and found him and he was really nice and really cool about it, and when I was freaking out and being really embarrassed that it had happened (hasn’t happened in over a year), he kept telling me to stop apologising and banned the word ‘sorry’, which was so lovely. I felt myself melting at how lovely this was, and that was the problem.

We went home, he stayed at his own flat rather than coming back to mine because he had to be up really early in the morning, so understandably just wanted to be at home. He said he would see me the next day, then he didn’t. Then he said he would see me tonight, and he hasn’t. This is the problem.

He’s a really wonderful person, I don’t think it’s at all him trying to ignore me or anything, he’s really bad with his phone and replying to messages and everything, so I’m hoping it’s just him forgetting to check it instead of him not wanting to see me because I was too clingy, or too intense. I felt awful forcing my damage on him so early into the whatever-this-is, especially since he doesn’t know about any of the depression/self harm/suicidal stuff, and wasn’t aware I ever even used to have panic attacks until last night.

As well as this, my flatmate had The Talk with him and asked what we were, and she told him where I stood, which at the time was exactly where he stood as well, so it was all good, but now I can feel myself getting way too attached too quickly, and it’s dangerous for me, and I’m worried.

I’ve only been in love once in my life. I’m still in love with him. He was one of my closest friends and he treated me like shit and led me on for nigh on five years before breaking my heart, so I stopped talking to him. I don’t know if the way he treated me counts as emotional abuse, but it was very manipulative and he refused to let me move on from him because every time I had a chance with someone he’d make little horrible comments about them and reel me back into his web. Because of this, I’m always really reluctant to get involved with anyone, because I’m afraid they’ll hurt me again and I’ll be back to where I started.

Even talking about this now is making me want to relapse, which is so bad and so ridiculous because he probably isn’t even aware that I’m upset that I haven’t seen him these last two days. I just don’t want to get attached to anyone right now, I was trying to avoid any kind of a relationship, and now here I am back in the danger zone with a non-communicative boy who probably isn’t going off me at all, but the idea that he might be is causing me physical pain in my stomach.

I wish I knew what he was thinking. I’m scared.

Let’s talk about suicide, baby

Trigger warning: suicide, self harm, depressive episodes, mildly graphic detail about the nature of my self harm

I was suicidal on and off (mainly on, but with short periods of off) for about two years. The first eight months or so after I realised I was depressed, I was just sad. The self harm thing didn’t come about for about four months after I realised, and then after it became a thing it became integral to my spiral downwards. Sorry, this post is gunna be a personal one, and it’s gunna be sad.

My suicidal tendencies weren’t so much in the form of me actively trying to kill myself, it was more of a ‘oh, i’ll take four painkillers even though the box says to only take one or two’, then googling the quantity needed to kill yourself, then thinking how many boxes that would be. They came in the form of driving along the long, straight road near my house and putting my foot flat to the floor until I was going nigh on sixty in a thirty zone with a tight corner approaching, and not being sure whether or not I was going to break until I was almost at the corner. I still do this now, even though I wish I didn’t. They came in the form of pressing a blade hard into my wrist, then the pain being too much for me to cut as deep as I was hoping I would be able to.

I don’t consider any of these to be suicide attempts. I don’t know if a medical professional would either, I’d assume not, but the fact that I don’t feel like I can talk about it to anyone makes it really difficult to get past it. I don’t talk about it to my friends, so I guess that’s what this blog is.

Thursday marked my nine months clean from self harm. In the midst of it, maybe December 2012, I went to see a shrink a couple of times. The appointments lasted around ten to fifteen minutes and she gave me homework. I saw her probably four times. I hated it. I’ve heard that therapy helps a lot of people, but I wasn’t and am still not ready to give it a chance, so that’s probably one of the reasons I haven’t recovered.

I’m chronically depressed. I’m still intermittently suicidal. I’m still addicted to self harm. But I’m trying to be positive and remain happy, I’ve not taken an overdose in months, I’m away from home so I don’t get the chance to drive, and I made the decision to leave the thing I used to self harm with at home when I moved out, so I’ve not had a relapse since January. Part of me still wants to die, and it’s awful, and I feel sad that none of the friends I’ve made since I moved out know about it, so I don’t talk about it. The few friends I have who do know always worry when I tell them about it, so I don’t want to worry them with my minor problems. I don’t even notice my triggers any more, really. The only thing that gets me is when I hear people talking about suicide and self harm, and this ridiculous rotating sign that my bus drives past that has “KEYS” on one side and “CUT” on the other, and every time I see the “CUT” side I think of it like a little voice in my head from the past that’s always going to be there.

I wish that suicidal thoughts and tendencies were acceptable to talk about. I wish I lived in a world where “Help me, I’m struggling” weren’t the four hardest words a person can say, but at the moment it’s just not like that. I wish I had a person to say this to rather than an anonymous blog. I wish that I wish I was mentally healthy, and didn’t like the scars on my forearm. I wish a lot of things. I once read that “a healthy person doesn’t want to be ill”, so I guess that’s how I know I’m a long way from where I need to be. As a kid I used to get upset that I didn’t have any illnesses, and went through a stage of thinking I had OCD, and Tourettes, and a couple of other conditions, and being happy about it because it made me ‘special’ in my mind. Does this mean I’ve always been ill?

I wanted to round off this post neatly, but my head’s a mess of scattered thoughts on mental illness and suicide and life, so it’s no wonder that’s reflected in the words I write here. I guess I just want it to be okay to not be okay, and for that to be true, and not just a Jessie J song lyric or cliché.

If you’re struggling, talk. If you’re suicidal, tell someone. I’m struggling alone because I think I’m going to be a burden on the people I know if I tell them, but it’s not true, and if you’re going through this you need to know that. Look after yourself first then everyone else can come after. You don’t deserve to want to die, you are special.

I’m sorry the world hurt you.

I am an addict (Trigger Warning)

I do not like to talk about my addiction. Why? Because people look at me differently. I do not talk about it because I am scared of how people will react. Other people scare me into silence. I am afraid that I will be outcast and the people I know will leave, and that shouldn’t be the way it is.

I am an addict because I cannot go a few minutes without thinking about my addiction, or without hoping that something would come along and trigger me so I would have an excuse to relapse. I desperately want to be able to return back to my old ways, but, even though my mentally ill brain doesn’t see the problem with relapsing, I’ve been told that it is a problem, so I know that I need to stop.

My addiction isn’t quite so sexy as some other addictions. We as a people like to romanticise addiction: Greg House from House M.D. is addicted to pain medication, the characters of Skins can’t live without getting high, countless other characters are shown to be alcoholics. No, my addiction is much less ‘entertaining’ for a TV audience: I’m addicted to cutting into my own skin until I bleed.

The stigma around addiction in general is disgustingly still alive and kicking, and (for those who didn’t detect the sarcasm in my use of the word ‘sexy’ to describe other addictions) all addictions are equally worrying and dangerous. By putting characters with addiction problems on television and having them as ‘flawed but heroic protagonists’, we’re partially blaming them for their addiction but at the same time saying; “Oh, it’s alright, they overcome it anyway”.

Addiction is not a flaw, it’s a medical diagnosis. You’re not a bad person because you have an addiction. Without sounding arrogant, I consider myself to be one of the more compassionate and caring people in the world, and yet my ability to be compassionate with myself and refrain from self harm when something happens that was out of my control is almost nil.

So why are we stigmatised so much? Why are addicts of all forms shunned by society for being open and honest about their problems? Well, people don’t want to think about mentally ill people. Think about the kind of words “mental” can be substituted for in modern day colloquialism: ridiculous, uncontrollable, unbelievable. People are scared that addicts can be dangerous, and yes, in some ways we can. An addict going through withdrawal can have uncontrollable muscle spasms and outbursts of rage, but that’s not something we can control and you shouldn’t be scared of us just because of it. Sure, be slightly wary and perhaps distance yourself if you are in danger of sustaining physical injury, but always remember that it is the addiction causing this to happen, not the person, and we as the addicts are doing everything within our power to protect you and ourselves from harm as a result of our condition.

Many people are judgemental of self harmers and don’t consider it a proper addiction as we don’t ingest anything in order to get our high (I realise some self harm takes the form of ingesting harmful substances, but I’m talking about alcohol/pills/other drugs here), and the withdrawal we feel is from the endorphins created by the pain rather than from the fact that our body has been physically altered by, for instance, heroin. It’s not the physical withdrawal that makes me an addict, but the mental obsession, the fact that I can’t get it out of my mind. The fact that I see the scars on my arms fading and it terrifies me and only makes me want to make more. I’m not trying to trivialise the struggles of drug addicts and alcoholics and people with other forms of addiction here, I’m just hoping that someone will understand that my addiction affects every part of my life, and even though you may not consider it to be an addiction, it’s affected the last three years of my life in so many ways that even the notion that some people don’t believe in it makes me question the validity of my feelings altogether.

There’s a reason I don’t own a pair of scissors.

I don’t buy pencil sharpeners any more.