Tag: anger

Out of it

I’m going between boiling anger that I can’t stand (a force rising inside me which I can’t swallow down, just force and power uncontrolled and bursting free) crushing anxiety with spiraling thoughts, lists, growing out of control faster than I can count, no air to breathe, dread that I can’t surmount, and numb.

Numb. Nothing. Stopped. Watching. Un-engaged. Dumb. Deaf. Hearing what everyone else says but it makes no sense and causes unbearable sensations if I try to respond – I need numb.

I’m drinking tonight to make sure I stay numb and make warmth and cotton wool replace the ache, distancing the hurt from my dissociated state so it can grow without sensing the raw pain or maddening and crushing demands of the ‘other’ (real) world.

The pain from my gynae problems has been scary too, as well as the arthritis. It’s almost funny – completely messed up inside and the physical stuff out of control too, things ‘breaking’ one after the other. Nothing medically serious but it does seem to make me as useless as possible in the real world.

I don’t often drink and it’s a dangerous and stupid choice, especially now. I’m in a really dangerous state right now. I tried and couldn’t get help. I can’t choose rationally what to do. I’m saying it’ll just be tonight and tomorrow I’ll try to face it all again.

Thoughts too close to the edge

I really don’t know if carrying on with therapy is a good thing or not at the moment. I am more broken now than before I started this route and know more certainly that I’m on my own in it. I can’t keep trying to fight through day to day, to go to work and to keep going to therapy. I’m starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just push everything back down again and live in my imaginary world. I functioned better day to day when I was anorexic and numb to everything. There isn’t enough support outside therapy to keep it going.

I keep on hanging on to things desperately, for them to be snatched away. The only times I’m not alone are when I’m faking it, even if I’m doing a bad job of that. When I can’t do it, when I am on the point of taking my life, when I am cutting, when I am terrified by the flashbacks, I’m on my own every time. Apparently I’m not allowed anyone there. Apparently I “wouldn’t qualify” for any social care support, and no family or friend wants to be a carer for me. I know they have no responsibility for me but that still really hurts.

I am thankful for my friends. I am not trying to be ungrateful. They do much more than I could ever ask. I know they can’t be there. I know often they are there when I can’t possibly believe they would still want to know me, after I’ve lost it and screamed and snapped.

Trying to keep going used to help. But now I get closer and closer to complete breaking point every day.

I’m going for another appointment at the hospital tomorrow for my 1:1 and I think I’ll tell her I’m thinking about not carrying on therapy. Things feel very very dangerous and close to the edge right now.

I can’t. ..

I’m going to be disloyal, or hypocritical, I don’t know which the word is, to my last post. But I’m crashing tonight. I can’t do it. I’m done and I haven’t got anything to be able to go on. I know it’s stupid and they say it’s not worth getting worked up over, it can be fixed; but it’s done and I ran out a long time ago. Why can’t anyone hear me? Why do they tell me it’s okay? It’s not anxiety it’s desperation and just needing one tiny thing to hold onto – no I’m not strong enough without anything to cling to and I know it’s stupid it’s so small but it really, really matters when everything else is too much and spiraling apart.

So it’s taken away as well and I’m done. Nobody will come and nobody can hear me screaming (stupid nasty spoiled child inside me and stupid ugly needing. ..) Even now I’ve told them the very worst and how much I can’t do it and nobody will come. And I won’t go to the hospital and I don’t deserve it and I don’t want them to stop me because I don’t want to go on and it’s nobody’s fault or responsibility but mine. I should have been able to do it.

I don’t think I can do any good…

I cut and cut but it wasn’t enough. I don’t think I can feel anything but this spent, hurting, screaming silently, needing it over.

I don’t think I can go to work tomorrow or anymore. Not even go out. I don’t know how to get to tomorrow. I’ll lose my job again. Well it’s clear enough I’m rubbish anyway. They’ll want me out of my house. I’ve wasted so much again. I should have done good. But I’m so so … just had it…

And everything I say I’m scared and whoever I tell I might manipulate or they think it’s to threaten or think it’s just stupid and not worth it and just get over it. ..and I’m scared of my anger. I’m sliding in and out of dissociative states right now.

To me it can be all I am holding to and I’m on the edge of ending it all, but to someone else it’s nothing, not worth it, and just fine that more and more is taken that I was clinging to and more and more heaped on that I cannot cope with. I can’t cope with this detachment itself either and knowing every worst feeling is invalid.

Hitting when you’re already down…

I really don’t want to talk as if I think the state or the world owes me something. It owes me nothing. However it does hurt when it seems that the systems that are supposed to help you actually hit you down hardest when you most need help.  On its own it shouldn’t be a big thing but when it seems to be the norm it gets too much on top of being ill already.

Recently I claimed for tax credits (for readers from abroad or who otherwise don’t know, this is a small benefit paid to those who are working but on a low income, have children, or have disabilities).

I had first claimed in Spring last year and my claim was rejected before they had even gathered all the information needed. I was so ill at the time I just let it go. I claimed again since starting my new job in November, because I am working part time on a very low salary. The first step is to fill out a form online to request a claim form, then to wait up to 2 weeks to receive the actual claim form.

Monday, I received an email saying that I am already in receipt of tax credits and if I believe this is not true, call this (expensive) number. I called this number and asked to be called back as the call was so expensive for me since I had no landline (can’t afford more bills) so had to call from a mobile. They refused and said they have no facility in the building to make outgoing calls, which I found very hard to believe.

I explained that I am not in receipt of tax credits. I was told that I do have a tax credits award and the award is nil. Right, so I’m not in receipt of tax credits. Yes, you have a tax credits award and the award is nil. Sigh….this could go on for a while. .. eventually I persuaded them to take the details of my change in circumstances. Then the operator’s computer froze so he transferred me to another operator without explaining any of the background and I had to repeat the entire process again. By this time I’d been on the call for about 30 minutes.  They repeatedly asked the same questions and did not listen to my answers. I repeatedly told them I couldn’t afford this call and needed to be called back. I have a few pounds a day to live on and the call had taken just about all my food money for the week. The operator actually told me that because my phone bill does not arrive for a week or two they hadn’t cost me anything! At this point even I could not quite believe their determination to prove they had no responsibility for anything.

Then came to trying to claim for the disability element of tax credits.  I was told that I wasn’t entitled unless I was already in receipt of PIP. I knew this was wrong – that is only one of the qualifying conditions. Online and paper documentation I had when I made my claim made this clear. The operator refused to budge. I insisted to speak to a manager. 5 minutes on hold. …

The manager immediately contradicted what the previous operator had said. But still insisted they would not consider the disability element unless I was in receipt of PIP. I pointed out that he, his colleague, the online and paper documentation each said something totally different, so I needed to know which was the case. He threatened to terminate the call and told me I was making things very difficult.

I suspect I was making it very difficult for him to continue reading from his script without listening to what I was actually asking…. :/ 😦

Then I had to insist that he give me a straightforward answer – was it essential to be in receipt of PIP as he was saying, or was the written information around having a disability which puts you at a substantial disadvantage getting work, correct?  He refused to answer and put me on hold. When he came back on the line he read a lengthy script about the qualifying conditions which confirmed that all the information I’d been given up to that point was wrong. Had I not insisted to this point, I would have been assessed incorrectly for the benefit. I still believe I will be assessed incorrectly because when I tried to tell him the reasons I qualified for the disability element and to ask what proof they needed of this, he talked and shouted over me and forbade me to speak otherwise he would terminate the call. 

By the end of this process I had been on the phone 55 minutes to a cost to me of £25. I still had not been able to get an answer as to how to submit the documentation that would support my claim (and that would have supported the claim I had been rejected for last year, had I only been given the opportunity to provide it). I had been given different information about eligibility from each person I spoke to and from all the written information I had.

By the end of the call I was so distressed, panicked, angry, for seeing yet more financial problems …. this was the very last straw this week and I couldn’t cope anymore. I went home, cut and took a handful of pills, not enough to try to end it, though that was what I wanted at that time, but in order to make it stop and knock me out. All through the next day I didn’t leave the sofa and took more pills to sleep.

Stupid and childish not to be able to cope I know but there really comes a point you can’t go anymore and when you meet obstruction even where you should be able to get help you’re entitled to, sometimes you just crumble.

Ginny xx

 

I know they’re angry

Guilt. Guilt, unease, fear, trepidation of what will come.

Therapy group was painful today. My mind was spiraling with so many thoughts of what I desperately needed to say but couldn’t communicate. Everyone had so much they were feeling and so much that had happened.

I just know I’ve hurt and upset everyone. I know they’re all thinking you’re nasty, stupid, weird, fraud, go away, angry with me, hurt because of me. Cold and away and just wanted me to go and didn’t want to speak to me anymore and didn’t want me there… and I think someone left because of me and I’m scared what she’ll do and what have I done?

And I really really needed this group so much.

I’d just started to trust and now I’ve hurt everyone and they’re frustrated and angry and I can’t give what they need and it’s wrong and why why ever did I start trusting or thinking it would be okay? Why did I let my guard down and not see the hurt I was causing? Why haven’t i learnt that if I think something will be alright and start to trust that’s right when I cause harm?

I can’t put the details of what happened or what we talked about here because it would break confidentiality for other people.

It will be very hard to go back next week. It will be very hard to go to my 1:1 therapy on Monday too. I can tell they don’t want me now. I’d really started to need them. I’ve messed it all up like every other time.

Ginny xx

Doughnut Day

I can’t remember where I first stumbled across this term. I think it may have been on a mental health community Facebook page. “Doughnut” was used to describe the feeling of being hollow and empty inside – the feeling of a void that won’t go away.

Today was a doughnut day. I felt as if I was walking at work frozen. I don’t know why this should particularly have been today. I had a nice day on Saturday with a very good friend whom I hadn’t seen for quite some time. Yesterday I was ill with a virus but I slept a lot and caught up on rest.

I felt so dragged down by this aching emptiness that I was exhausted. My brain would not “go” properly and I felt as though I was fighting through water to speak to anyone. All I wanted was to go home and hide and curl up under my blanket. I desperately wanted a hug and someone to tell me it would be alright.

I was angry with myself because the slightest task should not seem so hard and because I should just be able to get on with things, and because trying to fight through the water was making me irritated. I don’t do irritated, or anger, without punishing myself.

I’m really missing someone I care for very much, who I think no longer wants to know me. Perhaps that’s part of it.

Ginny xx

I am…. (she said)

(My mother told me that) I am:

Ugly. Greedy. Too plump here. Fat.

Pretending. Deceiving. Manipulating.

Pretending to be a little girl. Doing my act.

Punishing. Getting my own back. Repeatedly Punishing.

Deceiving.

Holding her in chains since I was a baby.

Not supposed to be crying. Look who should be crying, she’s the one who should be crying. [And she was – and shouting and screaming and ridiculing and sneering and shaking me and throwing glass…]

Going to make her have a heart attack.

Wearing her out. She’s lying on the floor unable to move because of what I’ve done. [I called out and nobody would come. ..]

Going to make my dad so upset he’ll have a car accident. He’s lying on the floor curled in a ball unable to breathe. Because of me. That’s what I’ve done to him.

Going to come down the stairs one morning and find her … [dead – I will not write here the graphic description she made].

A silly little thing.

Madam treating everyone like servants.  Reclining like an emperor on the cushions.

A baby that has to go on a walking rein. To show everyone what a baby I am.

…Pretending….

Repeatedly Punishing. ..

A threat to her personal safety. Putting her in hospital. The reason she goes into hospital because I frightened her so much. God help anyone I ever work with.

Impossible to live with.

When I’ve got what I want…

Reacting so weirdly to everything and I have to remember how all my reactions are weird and the damage I’m causing to the family.

Getting too much fat again.

Demonstrating that I’m damaged.

Leaving things hidden in places so that she finds them so as to show her that I’m damaged.

Pretending ( – I’ve already told her!)

A genius. Nobody is able to understand my incredible intelligence. She planned the moment of my conception and the moment of my birth. She wrote freedom into my very name. I was a genius and they could not cope with my intelligence. I was going to change the world.

Aware of her every thought and she knew exactly mine. Knew everything she was saying (on the phone to someone else). Knew exactly what she wanted.

Wearing her out( – look at her with 4 children and look at what my one’s done to me! )

Stopping her ever having any more children.

Causing the end of her and my father’s marriage.

Copying.

Pretending to be…

Testing. Testing the testers. Objecting to the test.

Those are just some of the things my mother (with her psychosis and disordered and abusive,  the doctors said) told me I am.

(She’d ask) what if:

Anyone’s watching?

Anyone hears?

Anyone from the government is watching?

The police are going to be called?

Anyone can see what you’re doing?

Anyone found out?

Anyone saw [what you can’t do]… are you very worried about the effects of your pretending. ..at how bad you ate at x … (you must remember you’re a whole school year older. ..stop associating with the little ones. ..)

If anyone found out. She’d be taken away. My father woUld be taken away. I’d be sent to a special school for morons. If anyone found out, they’d never imagine it was all because of me. They’d think it was her. Nobody would realise it was actually me. But I’d know and she’d know it was actually me. And she’d be taken.

So we had to cover it up.

Those were some of her ‘what if’ threats.

He (Father) agreed. Can’t you see how much you’re upsetting her? Look how much she’s smoking because of you. Stop snivelling like that. That’s what people do when they’ve had something really bad happen to them. Could you actually make a bit more effort? Is mummy even in the room to you? He’d sit there hugging her and stroking her feet and nobody would help me whilst I was crying and terrified and didn’t know how to end it.  This was the first day I felt I didn’t need to phone up to see how you were getting on with each other. Now look what I’ve found out. Why were you pretending? Where is she? What are you doing in here? Look how exhausted she is because of what you’ve done. She wouldn’t have to go to bed all day if you didn’t do these things. We could have had a nice day if you hadn’t done that.

She’s very lovely, he’d say. Isn’t mummy lovely? She’s very good at all of this… She’s amazing when she does that…isn’t that fantastic. ..

And he says he didn’t know what she was doing.

The threats and what ifs and horrible things I was, stopped for a while when I was anorexic. That was all. At least then the anorexia and my body was all mine and in me it was hurting, cleaner,  safer, nothing, numb but burning, longing but cutting off,  hidden, weakening, less, smaller, not, not needing. As soon as I got stronger it all came back and all the horror too. I was the problem and the evil one again.

So I am – evil,  dangerous, liar, fake, deceitful,  hurt people, going to cause the greatest harm, greedy, ugly, selfish, nasty, like a ruler with people in chains, disgusting, foul… all without knowing the harm I’m doing. I didn’t know it then when I was a child but it still happened and all this awful damage erupted from me, she said.

How did I stop them coming to take her because of me? How did I keep her alive? She didn’t give me care. I didn’t need care from her. I learned to manage without. All I needed was to stop the damage and awful things I was doing.

Ironically I did end up having to actually call them to take her! They did take her as she’d threatened. And they did say it was her with the problem and the illness and being abusive. And they did say it couldn’t possibly be me. So everything she said would happen, did. And that was to be when she and I would know it was all because of me. 

Oh yes – I know it. It never leaves. 

So cut cut cut and purge and punish myself and maybe I’ll get all the badness out or else keep it all in and hurt only me.

When I controlled enough in anorexia all the evil seemed to have stopped. But I can’t get back there.

I still hear it and believe it all even though I’ve started to feel angry in the moments my rational mind tells me how it was twisted and wrong and she did what she liked and he let her do it all to me.

And I can’t even write yet about … those other times. In front of the mirror. In the bed. With the bathroom. Telling me how I liked it.

 

 

 

 

 

Alone again, naturally

What do we do when we desperately wish someone could hear us? When we know fully that it is not anyone else’s responsibility to save us, yet we wish there were someone beside us. Is it disallowed, not to find oneself alone in the end?

Why do we keep trusting when we know what will come and know soon enough they will no longer choose to be there and why does the alone hurt more every time?

When we know nobody would choose us first, nobody would willingly turn and open to us, nobody really thinks we can bring good, but we long most desperately to give, give at any cost, and we are always here, for it is just obvious and right to us to be, though we are almost always dismissed – where can we try to be a friend?

When we’re screaming and hiding and hurting and clinging by a thread and falling over the edge, fragmenting, when maybe we dared share a little to someone or count on a tiny thing – and even that doesn’t come or they don’t respond – what do we do as we fall apart?

Is it terrible to be angry when we’re left there?

I don’t ask anyone to rescue me but just someone to answer and sometimes stay a little while beside me and please, please not disappear. To sometimes name the first move, come willingly and share and please not hate me when I cannot do all you think I should, please remember it is not an equation and I can’t always give out what you think I should.

I so so much need you right now and I am so much here if only you would allow me.

But perhaps most of all I should stop longing because I’ve learnt well enough what the end will always be – gone away, left alone. Alone should cause less pain as there would be no more losses so why does my inside scream and make alone so painful too?

I wish I could trust someone to answer. To ask how I am and actually want to know the answer, nor just the portion of it they deem acceptable or allow to be considered. To maybe call me or send a text if they know it’s a very bad time. To keep to an arrangement to meet and know how I will shatter if they cancel at the last minute because I was clinging so very very tight to that little bit of strength the meeting would give.  To stay a little while in understanding when I’m terrified, not just say it’ll soon be over.

All these little things are obvious  to me and so natural to give to a friend I would not think of doing anything else. Yet so very rarely do I ever encounter them myself. I suppose this tells me again if I had any doubt that I’m not if any value in a relationship to anyone and am not allowed even these most basic things.

And anger burns behind the hurt, with everyone who left and with myself, for needing, yet again.

 

(Title from song ‘Alone Again’ by Vonda Shepherd)

Wobbly week

This has been a very odd week.  At the beginning I was very distressed by ongoing problems from my old job. Having tried not to judge my old employer or make assumptions or blame them,  things that have happened now leave me in no doubt they are covering up what happened, lying about me and what happened whilst basically telling me I’m lying, and discrimination, bullying and harassment is going on, worse still, still affecting people who still work there.

I felt anger I’ve never felt before and determination not to let this rest. Also extreme hurt, very alone because two people who I thought I could count on for help have in the case of one apparently cut off contact and in the case of the other,  he seems to think I should just be able to ‘let it go’ and let them get away with it. He doesn’t think it was that bad.

Again I was hurt beyond what I could cope with. And the obsessional thoughts about being worthless and everyone knows it and I deserve to be alone, went wild. Then a friend cancelled a meet up I had been so ridiculously desperately holding on n to. And I was going to thousands of pieces and hating my childish self for it.

But then Tuesday night I became very ill physically from my ongoing gynaecological problems (endometriosis etc). I blacked out and was very unwell. On calling the out of hours GP I was told to go straight to A&E. So off I went. I won’t bore you with the whole story but Tuesday night to Wednesday lunchtime I was in hospital with a lot of pain, sickness and lovely things you certainly don’t really want to picture 🙂 !

Anyway, before slipping into the realms of distinctly too much information… My friend’s mum brought me home Wednesday lunch time. She was so kind to me and stayed with me whilst I washed and changed and got settled to make sure I was safe. She even swept the leaves away from my door where they’d blown in strong winds overnight. She was so so caring. She did so much beyond what I’d ask or imagine, to look after me when I was that unwell. I have a very good friend more than I knew!

So amidst these horrible days, that was a gift.

Also, the physical pain and shock somehow flung me away from the internal mess that was going on with all my feelings at the start of the week. Since then I’ve been so tired I’m not very sure what I’m feeling. I’m mixed up.

Tomorrow I’m back at work. Fortunately I only missed one day as Thursday was my day off and I don’t work Fridays as I have my therapy. I’m hoping I’ll cope okay, mentally and physically.

Ginny xx

 

“Stop arguing with the fish,” and other helpful business philosophies

There’s a poster up in my workplace with a quote from our founder: “If you want to catch a fish, you don’t start by arguing with it.” The text goes on to expand on this, saying how, if we hope to attract and keep customers, we need to give them what they want, provide a service and resolve problems – not delay, debate, or refuse to sort things out. I like that very much and I like working that way.

It got me thinking because I have felt incredibly frustrated in the last month by what to me are some very poor experiences of customer service. I really don’t like complaining or asserting my rights or making a fuss and if I think I have I am very angry with myself afterwards. However one thing that really winds me up and at the moment, uncharacteristically sends my externally directed anger shooting right up (ie angry feelings towards the outside as opposed to just the anger I feel to myself), is customer service that really is not serving the customer. I’m not quite sure why this angers me so disproportionately at the moment.

In particular, when the focus of the person who is supposed to be helping customers seems to be not at all on helping and resolving but on at all costs emphasising how they are not personally responsible, have done nothing wrong, are completely in the right, even have no duty to provide customers with explanations or information. They even seem to do all they possibly can to be obstructive and argue and prevent access to further sources of support (information, colleagues, their manager etc). To the point of talking over the customer, refusing to give information, refusing to connect to a manager, threatening to hang up unless they are allowed to continue saying various lengthy obstructive things, refusing directly to answer questions or giving one-word, irrelevant and rude answers, refusing to send written confirmation of important contractual information and discussions, refusing to diverge from sending automatically generated form letters even when numerous conversations or correspondence has been had that makes them irrelevant yet still full of threatening, scary demands….

Is it just me, or is this kind of experience of customer non-service on the up? In the last months I’ve had this experience to the extreme with a mobile phone company, a bank, a housing office, shops and a hair salon. In a couple of cases it caused me a lot of stress and I’m sure others are equally affected by it, especially the vulnerable (unwell, elderly, poor, etc).

It can be hard to pick apart whether what’s so distressing is the unpleasantness of the interactions, the complete non-service provided at times when you very much need help and are already likely experiencing considerable anxiety, the delay, the fear and panic caused by threatening letters (in the case of the incident with my bank) that come after you have done everything you can and everything you were asked to, or even the complete clash with one’s own values. Honesty, helpfulness, providing a service, taking responsibility, acknowledging the customer’s feelings and needs and being willing to undertake everything I possibly can to help them, are so central to me.

What is the more distressing part of it? I’m not sure. Are my reactions totally out of proportion? I’m not sure. I’m scared by the explosiveness of my feelings of anger.

Still, I wish more people would stop arguing with the fish and swim alongside them for a while instead.

PS re my customer service model: I think sometimes you don’t even need to “catch” the fish to keep them there. If you make them a lovely clean pool, light and air it right, make it pretty* and give them just the right kind of food, then they’ll like to stay there or make return visits of their own accord and perhaps they’ll bring along their fishy friends. [*Okay, perhaps not pretty, I haven’t yet seen many fish that appreciate interior design, but I still think they should have a pretty pond to play in. Potential over-extension of fish pond metaphor alert. Probably time to stop writing now 🙂 .]

Ginny xx