an itching sensation...

My ex...(Air...THE ex, I suppose) had a saying whenever he was having a nicotine craving. He'd say, "My brain itches." I was never sure how he identified that feeling, because everyone experiences things differently, but I can tell you how I experience it - because my brain itches for no reason sometimes, and right now it's worse than it's been in a long time.

First of all, it isn't a headache. My neck is a tiny bit stiff, but nothing terribly noticeable. Rather, my head feels as if it's too small to hold my brain and the fluids around it. My scalp and neck and the inside of my skull tingle. The inside of my skull itches, too, and there's literally nothing that can be done for it.

I slept for perhaps 4-5 hours last night - dozing on and off, with strange and confusing dreams. I wake up just as energetic as I was in the half hour before I forced myself to go to bed.

If nothing else, at least I'm being somewhat creative, now. I made another necklace last night - this one was more complex than any of the others I'd made, and took quite a bit longer, but I think it's pretty, regardless. Jake thinks I should try selling some of it - I'd mentioned doing so offhandedly, and he seems to think it's a good idea. I just don't have the confidence to think I could do so, I suppose. I also don't have the kind of money I'd need to build up a good amount of pieces so I could feel comfortable trying to sell anything. Not...that I think they'd sell. Life doesn't work that way, and I'm certainly not talented enough to try for it.

This morning I am up - but not in a pleasant way - I still feel irritable and miserable and suicidal, except now I'm jumpy and full of energy on top of it. Lovely...

hello...nurse?

The wind is howling around the house - darkly; wild and angry. It sounds frigid, and makes me feel even more isolated than I already am - tucked away in an empty houe, hiding from the world. I feel utterly alone, but I have felt that way for some time now. More than anything these days, I need someone I can curl up against and just cry and be held. There's no one in the world that could do that right now; not and have it make a damn bit of difference.

I can't tell which emotions are real anymore; everything is either so sharp it hurts or so numb I barely register it. The only thing that registers as real is despair - endless...

I had a few brief hours of useful "up" time today... I actually created something. Well, several somethings...two pairs of earrings, a necklace and a bracelet. While I was working on them, I felt almost peaceful. Almost, but not quite.

I am spinning...an empty shell being picked up and hurled down by angry waves and fierce undertow due to a storm raging offshore. I need to go to the ocean, I'm just afraid to do it alone...not because I fear the possibility of following through, rather because unless I can ascertain a way to avoid catastrophic consequences with regard to my estate, I feel a duty to stick around.

Morbid, I suppose...

And people keep trying to encourage me and tell me to wait until the meds start helping, but no one wants to hear the truth. No one wants to let me say that I honestly don't believe any of this will do the smallest amount of good.

I hate them for it. For caring, for thinking everything will be all better in the future. If this has progressively gotten worse rather than better for the last 16 years, how can they stand there and try to tell me it will get better?

Idiots. Hypocrites. Fools. Sadists, really... but then while they've all said they've "been there," somehow miraculously they all got better and feel free to Pollyanna at me as if I am a child to be placated and distracted. Sure, they've been there...they've been fighting this for over half their lives...

Except they haven't. Not a single one of them. They've all been depressed at some point and assume there's enough of a similarity there that they can relate.

What do you do when you're up and still miserable...? You plan, feverishly. You argue and push and destroy everything you possibly can.

I just want it to stop. It's getting worse, not better, and I just want to be granted an early dismissal due to illness like when I was little and got ill at school and the nurse would call my mother to take me home. Except...I want it for life. Where's the nurse, maybe she'll write a note for me and let me go home.

a wish for emancipation

Three nights ago I drove down to the beach with every intention of killing myself. I had a little over an hour to think about it as I made my way there - to consider and plan and think. It was a cold night, and I knew that, being the Northern Atlantic, the water would be cold enough to numb my arms and hopefully numb the rest of me, as well. I stopped at the pharmacy near the beach to get sleeping pills and a box cutter. I got as far as the side of the road next to the parking lot of the beach.

I still wish I'd done it; I could say I don't know why I didn't, but I do know. Foremost, I don't want to leave behind debt that my family will have to take care of because my life insurance won't pay out if it's clearly suicide. Second, I don't want my family to know that I chose to end my own life. Third, Jacob figured out what I was intending and I couldn't - for whatever reason - go through with it with him trying to keep me from it in the only ways he had at his disposal.

Afterwards, on my way home - as drained as I was of all real energy - I took that failure out on him. I told him I hated him and I didn't care if he loved me, and it didn't matter to me that he cared about what happened to me. I meant every word. I still do, in a way.

I hate all of them, right now. I hate everyone who cares for me; their love tethers me to a life I don't want to live anymore.

I'm exhausted by the very thought of continuing to live. The roller coaster has lost its appeal - I'm tired of the lows, and the highs have turned sour, as well. I'm tired of waking up and being frustrated that I'm still here. I'm tired of medications that make me feel nauseous, keep me from sleeping, make my stomach hurt, give me headaches, make me dizzy, and don't seem to do anything else. I'm tired of multiple medications all in an effort to try to "stabilize" me. I'm tired of having nightmares three nights out of five for no reason whatsoever - dreams that make me wake up feeling more exhausted and sore than when I finally got to sleep. I'm tired of crying at least twice every single day. I'm tired of not knowing which emotions are real and which are "symptomatic" - they all feel real, however briefly. I'm tired of the fact that even when I'm up lately, I can't seem to feel anything resembling happiness. I laugh or sound chipper and act like things are fine - playing off the depth of what's happening - when I talk to people on the phone; I've ceased seeing anyone I care about because I can disguise it over the phone, but not face to face.

The thought of living another 30-70 more years like this not only exhausts me, it terrifies me, and causes me to breakdown. The thought of living another month like this does the same. I refuse to be honest with my family; I'm afraid they'd have me institutionalized, and if that were to happen, I would simply go over the edge - or more accurately off of this tiny ledge I landed on halfway down the cliff from where I did go over the edge.

I am most certainly a danger to myself; not an immediate one, I suppose. I spend a good portion of my time trying to figure out a way to die in a fashion that would not be deemed suspicious, and another portion of it contemplating the veins on my wrist and wishing I could just find someplace to go where I could...

The vast majority of the human experience is lived within our minds - what do we do when our minds shatter, and no amount of wishing will put them back together? When you've been fighting against your own mind for over 15 years, at what point is it acceptable to simply give in; to surrender? At what point will those left behind understand and accept and let you go? Understand it wasn't their fault, and that you loved them regardless, but that you couldn't continue fighting anymore. Accept that there was nothing they could do; they couldn't make it better or save you or cure you - no one could. Let go of the hurt and feelings of betrayal and sadness and loss and guilt - be happy that you're finally at peace, and find solace in that.

These days, the two questions I ask myself the most are, "How could I make this look accidental" and "How can I make them understand and find peace with the idea of me doing this?"

I have no good answer for the first, and no answer at all for the second.