It's back

I've just got off the phone to the samaritans. In their defence they did all they can. Why am I back here?

I've worked so hard. Why am I so weak? Why the hell can't I get past this? My life is no worse than anyone else's. How come I can't function? The lady at the samaritans asked me to think about other people I know and that maybe they have problems too. I know they do - are they sat at home looking at the prescription they just picked up and wondering how many would do the job? Do they burst in to tears at a problematic email? Do they feel like their jobs on the line because one of their suggestions was deemed 'maybe not'? Not to my knowledge. If they do they don't let on. And that's exactly what I could do up until this week - not let on.

I get paid to do a job - I have to be able to do it - I was going to say I 'should' be able to do it, but the lady at samaritans picked up on the 'should' - 'you're being too hard on yourself'. No I'm not. I should. I'm 43 years of age, have a loving family, a decent handful of friends, own my own property and have naturally curly hair! (sorry for the sarcasm). I have a degree, have decent morals and know right from wrong.

The strongest pull to 'doing it' is my family. My mum and sister care, very much. There are many people who would kill, quite literally, for that. I'm sorry. I don' want them to worry. They don't understand my mind (hell I don't) but they try very hard to accept it. But they worry. I know my mum worries all the time. She's had a shitty life, is nearing 80 and deserves to be happy. With me the way I am, she has to second guess how I am, fretting that when I say I'm ok, am I? She knows about the self harming, and is worried it will go a step further (for anyone out there who doesn't understand, self harm is a totally different kettle of fish to suicide [for any Legal people out there,please note that;s my experience]. I've experienced losing someone and so know that at least it's final, you know what you're dealing with and can therefore deal with it and eventually 'move on'. Such a large part of me wants my mum and sister to have that 'release'.

And tonight was the first time I've wanted that release too. Wanting to 'go to sleep and wake up feeling better' is a feeling/thought I've had many times over the last 18 months. But tonight it was different. I wanted it to end. Just end (I've just noticed I referred to 'wanted' in the past tense - thank God). I thought I was getting better - 'I can't live a 'long' life feeling like this.

I have no idea what I'm going to do. At this precise moment, as I type, I'm over the 'crucial' bit. Thank you lady at samaritans.

x

Breaking a wine glass is good!

This is really out of kilter with my blogs so far in that they've been about the past - this is about the present.

Firstly, to you-know-who, I'm sorry for making this public, but I don't think it will be a surprise to you....

At the height of my illness, it will be no surprise to anyone who's experienced the illness that I was drinking quite heavily. Couple that with the fact that I was feeling absolutely 100% useless, pointless, a pain in the arse and a total a disappointment to everyone who knew me....

We were having a few drinks at home; needless to say for me a few was many. But this was normal. And for once I wasn't spending the evening in and out of the toilet cutting. For me I was on a relative 'high'. And then, totally not meaning to, I bumped in to the table. My wine glass wobbled, wobbled some more, then fell and rolled off the table and in slow motion smashed on the floor.

I got shouted at, seriously shouted at. I hadn't meant to do it, I was sorry, very very sorry. No harm had been done, surely. It was just a wine glass (at that time there were several sibling wine glasses in the cupboard!). I'm sure it wasn't as bad as I recall it, but take a look back at paragraph one of this blog... I felt so ashamed, wrong, clumsy, stupid, irresponsible, useless, bad, Bad, BAD. We fell out, but deep down I knew it was my fault - such a bloody bad person....

The here and now....

That was about a 8 months ago. I've just broken a wine glass. I don't feel bad. It's just one of those things. No harm done, apart from the fact I now only have one wine glass to my name!

To anyone reading this who is feeling in a dark place, or anyone who cares about someone who is in a dark place - it can get better.

Take care, H xxx

Inside my head - the sequel

A few days ago I posted the first part of what was going on in my head a few months into my illness. Here's the sequel written in the early hours of 22 September 2010.


If any of my family are reading this, please remember I was ill at the time and very confused...

As I’ve said, my childhood wasn’t awful. At least I think I try to tell myself it wasn’t because in comparison to others I was lucky.

I’m the youngest of two daughters to my wonderful Mum and not so wonderful Dad. My Mum is the best Mum in world; what you’d call a proper Mum! She has had to put up with so much in her life, and yet she’s the nicest, kindest, sweetest person I know. My Dad wasn’t what you’d call a family man – his priorities were the Social Club, his mistress and then his family, in that order. I would go for days not seeing him because he’d almost always get home after I’d gone to bed and was off to work before I got up for school. I remember when he would come home late at night, often arguing with my Mum if she’d waited up for him. I remember him looking in on me when he thought I was asleep, kneeling down beside my bed to give me a cuddle, only for me to realise within seconds he’d fallen asleep with his heavy head resting on me! I remember not daring to move – not because he would be angry, but because I didn’t want to wake him and end this little bit of affection from my Dad. But I guess I hated him for it – even now if Simon falls asleep and I feel his head become heavy on me, I feel angry, but I can’t really say why. I just hate it.

I was a troublesome child, unlike my older sister, Louise. My Dad had a temper on him, and I was the one that always brought it to the surface! I never meant to antagonise him (I still hear my Mum saying ‘don’t antagonise your father’!). I remember trying so hard to please him, not to make him angry or shout at me. But it seemed the harder I tried the worse I was! It’s still a standing joke in the family and still gets jovially brought up in family get-togethers – "Helen was so clumsy, accident prone, a drama queen, a trouble-magnet, a worry etc. etc.... it wasn’t funny then but oh how we can laugh about it now...." Arghhhhh!

Louise had a much better relationship with Dad, I guess because she wasn’t any trouble. And Dad seemed to love her so much more for that, hence why I tried so hard but sadly got it so wrong so many times. He didn’t have much of a childhood himself; his parents died when he was a young boy. I just don’t think he could cope with being part of a family, certainly not with a high maintenance daughter like me. I believe he saw me as a burden; an irritating and unwanted responsibility that meant he couldn’t leave and go off with his mistress of 18 or so years.

At the age of 47, and after an agonising year of human deterioration, my Dad died of Cancer (I was 17). I only remember the bad times. My Mum says he loved me ‘in his own way’. I want so much to talk to him and get the truth, but that will never happen now.
The reason I reflect on my Dad is that through the counseling I’ve had to date, it appears that my relationship with my Dad, or lack of it, has contributed to where I am now. I say ‘appears’ because I still don’t want to believe it. Like I say, mine wasn’t a terrible childhood compared to others and I feel ashamed that I’ve not dealt with it better.

Thanks for reading....

Take care, Helen x

22 Sept 2010 - inside my head...

At 3.45 am on 22 September 2010, a few months in to my illness and another sleepless night, I simply had to get my thoughts out of my head otherwise I'd go mad (some would say it was a little late by this time!). So I sat at the computer and started typing. It's worth saying at this point that this was how I felt at 'The Time' and many of these notions were updated as I clawed my way out. 


This is part one of two (everyone loves a sequel don't they?!)....

I’ve been off work now for just over 3 months, diagnosed with ‘depression’, ‘stress’, ‘anxiety’ – whatever you want to call it. There are several names people attribute to my ‘illness’; years ago it would be known as a mental breakdown, which is how I like to see it. Partly because these days the former three terms seem so normal, and yet I feel far from normal. And partly because that’s how I feel – mentally broken. This is my hell.

It’s 3.45am and I’ve just woken up shouting ‘garages’ in my sleep! That’s been happening a lot lately – I feel like I’ve got sleeping tourettes or something! I woke Simon, as I always do with my unexpected outbursts. Simon works hard, has long manually and mentally gruelling days and I sit at home all day watching Homes under the Hammer and all the other atrocious day time TV I can indulge in to distract me from hating myself. And I can’t even let him have an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Just another justification of why I’m a bad wife, daughter, sister, friend, work colleague – the list goes on. 

My name is Helen Hickman.
I’m 42.
I hate myself. 

I live in Southampton with my wonderful husband Simon and my adorable (if sometimes scary!) cat Missi. I haven’t had a terrible childhood, no poverty stricken upbringing sprinkled with physical abuse. I consider my life to be just that, Life – a series of ups and downs, nothing unusual. Not like the terrible stories you hear about children being locked up in basements for years on end, or totally mistreated by the parents who they had absolute faith and trust in. And I think that all adds to my self-hate – the fact that I so obviously haven’t been able to cope with ‘normal’ Life. 

I used to be ‘normal’. I loved life, was confident, went to university, lived abroad, had the confidence to holiday alone (because being single wasn’t going to stop me doing normal things!). That person, however, is just a distant memory. Like a character in a favourite book and every now and then I flick through the pages to re-read the best bits, the funniest bits, all the time feeling excruciatingly envious and wishing I was that person.
I talk to myself in my head (not in a gaga way, just silent thoughts as everyone does... I hope!) trying to untangle this horrible, suffocating, all encompassing hell I’ve found myself in. When I try to verbalise it to others it just doesn’t come out the same. It’s like singing a song in your head and you sound great, perfect tune, pitch and words, but when you sing out loud you sound like a litter of mewing kittens with sore throats! And over time you learn it’s safer to sing only in your head so you don’t offend or irritate others, or damage their hearing for good! 

So I’m writing this diary, or whatever it turns out to be, because I hope it will help me untangle this hell without the frustration of translating thoughts in to the spoken word. The beauty of writing is that I can delete words, paragraphs or even whole events so the ‘listener’ only hears the finished version, in the hope that the unfathomable becomes fathomable!

This isn’t a self-help type of thing for other poor ‘like-minded’ souls to read – I’m not sure I can even help myself. But I hope and pray that somehow it will. Maybe I’ll show it to family, friends, counsellors and doctors to help them understand, but then again maybe the written word won’t be any more comprehensible than the spoken. I’m writing this in real time, recording events as they happen, so you never know by page 10 I might have shown this to the world and his wife! 

To get things in to context I need to remind myself how this hell came to the surface. I believe it’s always been there, simmering away. For some reason I’ve not been able to turn the gas down this time and the pan just simply over-boiled, and continues to do so.

I feel quite exhausted just re-reading this so I won't tire you with the rest just yet. Part two (the sequel!) to follow!

Take care, Helen x

What do I know?!

In June last year my doctor told me I was suffering with depression. But that just didn't seem to fit the bill - depression is such a normal term, but how I felt seemed far from normal.


I felt completely broken - my whole world had gradually darkened, resulting in a complete spiral to somewhere I thought I'd be for all time. It was my own personal hell.


It's a long old journey, a journey taken in stiletto shoes 3 sizes too small across a minefield in the dark! 


There were many milestones along the way, many of which were shocking, unthinkable and depressing in themselves, causing many a vicious circle! Rock bottom for me was when the self harming began - I'm generally a squeamish person so the realisation that I could do this, and get so much satisfaction from it, hit me hard.


After having to have my wounds dressed daily at the doctors I think I knew I couldn't go on like that. I'd tried healing myself, but I was just getting worse. I reluctantly agreed to be admitted in to the Priory hospital. 


Oh lummy, I have so much to say and this is only my second blog! I just wanted to give you an idea of where I've been. Don't profess to know it all, but if you're reading this it's likely this is a subject you're interested in. Feel free to ask me questions about anything, share your experience or just blog your thoughts. I'd love to hear from you.


Helen x

Welcome to my blog-thingy!

It's been a long old journey over the last year and my depression has taken it's toll - including 8 months off work, two stints in the Priory hospital and a marriage break up. One shocking thing (amongst many!) I realised during this time was the amount of people also suffering or who had suffered. Such ordinary people and even one or two who caused me to be speechless (yes, that shocking!) when they told me their story.


I have no idea if this blog-thingy will take off, if anyone will follow or use it. But I figure this might be a nice place for people to vent, whether you feel a bit down, are completely lost or know someone in a dark place and just don't know how to help them.


Please share your experiences, ideas or thoughts - I honestly don't believe anyone can come out of this on their own and I'm damned determined to help if I can!


Helen x