Normal Norma

This week saw the long awaited addition of nude open toe heels to my wardrobe. Note i buy and have a collection of heels but last wore a pair in 2006. Problems man. I also finally downloaded like my fave
and most played song in hair salons across the capital-Yori Yori by Bracket.

I am avoiding a return to hospital just now. But I wanted to tell you about my second  week out of hospital. After the bridge incident I spent four weeks in hospital. One week in an official, anti-septic smelling place the remaining three in something called a crisis house- on paper it still counts as a hospital. When you go into care your priority is always to get out and go home, you feel trapped-at first. But the dangerous part is where you get used to being looked after. How to go home and wake up, take a shower, medicate yourself and wash the dishes without reminders. How also to get used to your own company again. How to talk yourself out of a dangerous situation. How to rationalise that taking a bunch of pillls will not end your problems or in fact how to rationalise that it mind in fact end your problems but also all the good things too if you die. How to do this for youself. I have not yet mastered it, I'm not close. This week I still took a bunch of pills, passed out for a day or two. To me that was the best idea going at the time. That was I am not sure which day- but at the beginning of the week.

On Thursday I was playing with knives again, I called a few friends, one came over and sat with me for a while. I told her the truth that alot of the time what first makes me low is something as silly as this wierd unkindess towards me someone exhibits and that I wasn't raised that way and that I don't understand why I link my self worth directly to man. Those girls that throw themselves off a bridge because of people- well I'm that girl and I'm ashamed of it.

Last night -Friday  I went to church and found that I didn't want to ask God for forgiveness because I am used to hurting myself and I have no intention of stopping. Later in the evenning I wanted to walk. To just walk and then at the right moment walk into oncoming traffic. I'm 22, half-educated and it should be clear that this is perhaps a bad idea. Yet often when I go underground or walk on the pavement I have to resist the urge to throw myself onto the tracks or jump in front of a lorry. Naturally travelling can make me nervous sometimes- but I've felt like this for so long it seems normal.  And to be honest what stops me is the fact that I will hurt the driver more than the fact that the action would likely result in my death. I honestly don't think I will die and if i do i think it will be a pleasant experience, that I'm special in some way, super even. The temptation is worse than Lindt D'or  chocolate. I can never expect or want people to fully understand but I really think these things are good ideas and so I spend alot of time being scared. Scared and standing still in the middle of the pavement, sometimes crying and making strangers wonder just what I've been drinking. Scared of voices and people in my mind that tell me that these are good ideas and that the rest of you are in fact against me. I met a man and walked with him for a while in the direction of Muswell Hill, we parted company when we started talking about drugs because I was on the verge of accepting some of his, I met two young  men and walked back down to my area with them. A friend came and got me, you know because walking with strangers in the middle of the night is supposed to be a bad thing. They were really good people and helped me and looked after me until a friend came and got me to take me back home. They told me to ask questions and ask Allah. My friend prayed for me but that my spirit didn't like it. Sorry I scratched you when you were praying for me. I remember I felt safe and fell asleep.

Today, Saturday I woke up and started drinking- i don't particularly like the taste of alcohol nor can I tolerate it well, but I started and I carried on. I missed my support group because of it and carried a bottle of Vodka around in my bag all day as a safety net. I tidied my flat, got angry, scratched myself until i could see blood and went to the gym.

This week I broke a promise to a friend. I had promised not to hurt myself for 365 days. I broke it one day 1.

 I want to walk. Walk anywhere, walk far away- away from myself.

This has been my second week out of hospital. This is normal.

Truthful Trudie

 I hate what has happened to me, it makes me scream in pain at times or cry for hours until my eyes are swollen and I am tired. But the thing about being depressed is that lonliness is both your enemy and your friend. I cry about it but I know that my lonliness never leaves me and is always close at hand and so I let it in and I even feel sick about how I ENJOY my pain. This is the thruth and this post is about truths I find hard to explore but must.

I could pretend that I am purely a victim and that this mean depression and its friends have attacked me, that it is to blame for all my flaws, I could pass the buck. I mean with friends I do joke that 'Hey I'm crazy, I'm allowed' when I indulge in nonsense behaviour. But hearing a friend talk about someone she knew that suffered from bi-polar as being ' just actually a bitch', I worry. Which part is me, which part is the depression, am I all psychotic or are there bits of me that are me, as I have always been.



After four years it's hard to know. Who am I? Am I depressed first and a young woman second? I have been hearing voices and hallucinating over the last few months, I feel there is a force that is bringing something really bad to me. I question where I am in my head, because there are lots of voices shouting very loudly, none of them sounding like me. Where is the me people tell me about, the one they used to know. Does she exist or has she changed? Why is she slower? Why has her mind changed? Did I always screw up this much? Have I always been bad with time or did it start when the effort of getting up became too much. I care about your time but know I had to psyche myself up to come out and see you because to me the outside world can be so scary, I think you are all looking at me and can all see what a mess this is or that there is something black on my back, really, like that clicking black insect Catherine Tate had when she was the Doctor's helper. It's on my back. Was I always this self-involved or do I have to be self- involved to will myself to live each day. Do I drain my friends and family through my behaviour? Did I always eat the wrong food or did the size 18(yes I have lost a little weight) happen when the emotional eating began? Have I always been bad at relationships and clingy or does it happen when I worry about being left behind (whole other story). Have I always been angry, sad and lonely? I often get asked when did I start feeling this way, the truth is I cannot remember NOT feeling this way.



The good thing is that I am finding out some pretty cool stuff about myself too. Stuff that wasn't always there. So maybe I am a bit of a bitch, who isn't, I’m a bit/alot depressed, I have my fair dose of crazy mixed in-again who doesn't, 1 in 9 people hear voices, and I do obsess. But I am also here. I love my family and friends, I know too much about clothes, I have a good brain, a heart that tries, I make a mean batch of cupcakes. I fall in love too easily but I fall in love. There is a God up there that is refusing to let me go and therefore I must be something special- like you all. Maybe through all this I might turn out to be a better version of myself, and through this I will find who I am. Let's hope this is the case or it's alot of effort and heartache for nothing lol but NOT lol really.



X

Wish us luck. This week Trudie is looking for the SHOE. That special shoe that was made and meant to be on my foot. You understand? If you don't you never will.