Day 4

I’ve been down again. Well not in the usual sense. I’ve been in a vacant void for the past week or so, and haven’t left the house since last Thursday. I haven’t spoken to anybody (apart from Richard) since last Wednesday. And I’ve only just managed the odd email and text, and a couple of sentences in conversation on msn.

I’ve slept a lot; broken down in tears a couple of times; completely messed up my eating and sleeping routines; haven’t shit, shaved or showered for days; and have generally been wandering around in my dressing gown in a complete daze.

Richard thinks it’s the medication; saying he can remember me being like this before when I was on 150mg of my Lamotrigine. We upped the dose a couple of weeks ago because I was getting bad lows again during March.

But if anything it’s just made things worse. I’m not down to the point of being suicidal, but down in a sense of being completely lost and out of touch with everything. You could liken it to being a vegetable. Accept that I am fully aware of the fact.

February wasn’t exactly brilliant, but at least I was productive; well as productive as I could be under the circumstances.

March was, well, nothing actually.

Now it’s mid April, and I’m trying desperatley to write a blog post. I have a number in draft form, but have systematically failed to find enough concentration to finish writing them.

Looking back in my daily journal I see that I managed about 2 productive days in March, two full weeks of depression, one of which so bad I spent 7 days in one room, and then the rest in this stupid state of limbo.

Now it’s mid April and I’m still completely lost in this fog.

A void where nothing happens. The brain is neither here nor there. There are no thoughts, no nothing. Dead for all intents and purposes. Not full blown suicidal depression, but depressed enough to render the brain completely useless for anything other than wandering around in a daze, conversing only when necessary and generally sleeping far too much.

After six weeks of this, and with only a couple of ‘good days’ I’m ready to throw in the towel and scream: “Fuck this for a game of soldiers, I’m off!”

I should be happy. I have a fortunate life. I have some good friends. I have a loving and very supportive partner. I have a lovely home, and don’t need much to survive. Most people would kill to have my lifestyle. No mortgage, no worries, and yet, for me, this is shere hell.

There is nothing there. In my brain there is nothing.

I am a void. A black hole. No personality. No nothing. Just empty. I hate it. I hate it with a passion. At least if I was seriously depressed wandering around trying to commit suicide I would at least have some thoughts, all be it very negative. As it is, I have nothing.

My head is empty. And I hate it. I am vegetable. And the worst thing is, I am perfectly aware of the fact.

I have experienced this before. Generally after a depressive episode, or just before. It’s a transition state between the up and the down somewhere in between where you know you are neither high nor low, but also know you are still not at all well. A nothingness, a state of limbo.

And yet for me, this has so far been six weeks. Six whole fucking weeks. And it’s now beginning to grate. Beginning to get serious. Beginning to get me down to the point where I just want to end it all to get out of it.

I want to run away. I want to go and sit on the top of a mountain and just freeze to death. I want to stop eating and starve to death. I want to go swimming out to sea till I get tired and drown. I want to go to sleep and dream and keep dreaming and never actually wake up again.

I just want to give up now. I want to just stop fighting. I want to just stop, and let my body come to a natural end.

I don’t feel depressed enough to want to commit suicide. I don’t want to hang from the nearest tree, or jump in front of a train, or take a massive overdose, I just want to give up and simply stop functioning.

If I’m honest, I’m pretty much nearly there anyway.

I want someone to understand what this is like, and yet I know that very few people, if any, can really understand this.

I feel like my brian has been scooped out. Like I’m on a life support machine. Some mechanical computer thing is breathing for me. Keeping me alive. But for what?

I don’t know what there is anymore. I can’t do anything. I have a few odd days where I can manage a few tasks, and then days and days of nothing; of falling asleep; of going back to bed; of simply nothing.

Days and days of knowing there’s loads of things I could be doing. Things I should be doing. Things that I find enjoyable, things I love and want to do, things I hate but need to do, things to procrastinate over, things to relish, things to do just for the fun of it. Movies to watch, plays to read, and a whole host of other things, and yet here I am in a void.

A void in which there is nothing, no motivation, no inclination, no desire, no thrust, no sence of wanting, no sense of achievement, no panic even, just nothing.

I don’t feel anything. I don’t have any feelings, (apart from a severe loathing of this situation) no opinions, no sence of being. I am vegetable, rotting away.

And I guess I must really hate this cause I’m now aware I’ve been going on and on about this. I’m letting it out. The nothingness is pouring out.

And that’s just it, isn’t it. It’s nothing. None of these words actually mean anything. Nothing here describes the nothingness.

How can I expect to describe this void. This emptyness. This total lack of human existance.

I’m dead.

At least this is what being dead must feel like.

I think.

Can’t think of anything worse really.

Alive but dead.

Shit.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck and fuck again.

There. I don’t feel any different for having written this load of nothingness, but hey, at least you’re aware of what my nothingness might feel like.

I want to go. I want to walk out of the front door and just walk and walk and walk to nowhere in particular.

Trouble is, I can’t.

I can’t leave and walk and walk and walk.

Assuming I did manage to actually get dressed and leave the house, Rich would get worried. I have no idea how far I would get. But sooner or later Richard would get worried. He’d see that I didn’t take my phone, or my wallet. He’d see I’d gone and wasn’t coming back. And he’d know why.

He’d probably call his Mum first. Then the police, I suppose. And Rich would have to tell them I’m bipolar and that I’d probably be in danger.

And here’s where I give up even thinking about it.

I don’t want to get that far, but I’m already reading up on my rights under the Mental Health Act starting, just in case, with Section 136 (Mentally disordered persons found in public places).

Now you know why there are times, too many times, where I dare not leave the house. Times when I know if I did, I wouldn’t come back.

Tempting though.

Times like this it is tempting.

Very tempting.

I could finally give up fighting. Just go for a long walk without caring what would happen next. Let someone else take control of my life. What there is of it.

I could go for a very long walk.

And never come back.

Don’t worry. I’m still here. The fact that I’ve actually managed to edit and publish this post must mean I’ve managed to concentrate for bit. Though this must be the fourth or even fifth attempt at finishing this post.

I started writing this the other night.

And today I very nearly gave up the fight.

After pacing back and forth crying with my head in my hands for ages, I just completely crashed. Ended up in a huge heap on the bedroom floor. Sobbing. Head pounding. Ready to just give up and go for that very long walk, and never come back.

Ironic then that I was so utterly physically and mentally exhausted that I couldn’t even get up off the floor, and when I did, I could only manage to half get into bed.

I went to sleep for another four hours.

I recharged.

And now I’m feeling a little better. Maybe I got to the bottom again.

God I hope that was the bottom.

I really do.