withthebirds
August 17th, 2010, 08:01 PM
I'm 16. For the past 2 years, I have felt awful.
It started as simple bad mood swings. For no reason. As the months went by I got quieter. More nervous. Paranoid. Cynical. Upset easily.
Eventually I starting getting 'black moments', and very intense moments of anguish. These 'black moments', as I describe them, are moments when I go almost... numb to the world. Where I feel like nothing matters. That everything is bad. I can hardly move, think, feel. They happened in the morning or night. I would skip school alot because I couldn't stand the thought of going. I would reject phone calls, cut off all communication, just lie in bed. These moments last a few hours, and I'd begin to 'come up' again.
Sometimes things would upset me so easily I'd go into fits of anger, of tears, crumpled up, feeling desperate and hopeless and contiplating suicicde. I'd only come out of these moments after I'd cried myself into exhaustion, or (I found eventually) cut my self, when I'd lapse into a numbness.
Recently, it's just got worse. For the past 2 months, I've cried myself to sleep every night. No reason. Just an intense (sorry to use this word again but it's the only thing that really describes it) numbness.
I feel no love for my boyfriend. No motivation to go see friends. No effort to interact with my grandparents, who, apart from my siblings, have been the only people in my life I've truly loved. No hobbies, except reading fantasy books and playing fantasy games to sort of, I don't know, escape the world?
All I've done this summer is sleep. I go to bed at 3am or 4am, and I'd sleep till 5. At work, which is the only time I can force myself to go outside the house, people comment on how moody or upset I look. Even when I don't even feel moody or upset.
Now, it's only now that I've decided to address my feelings.
2 reasons;
1) It's alright feeling like this in the summer. But I start college in September. I may have already lost a few grades, or even whole GSCES, due to my lack of motivation or even attendance in school these past few years. This may be a new start to me, meet new people, find new interests. I want this to stop.
2) I have been brought up a very old-fashioned stiff-lip Northern-English straight-thinking family. A family with a history of poverty, hardship. Depression? Doesn't exist. Physcatrists, social workers? Paid for nothing! You feel sad? Stop being stupid. Other people have worse problems than you. Don't be so melodramatic. Something bad happens? Take it with a pinch of salt. Some humour. Carry on. Deal with it.
Due to this, I've always made up excuses for my feelings. Hormones. Stress. Fatigue. Et cetera. But it's getting too much now.
I could never talk about my feelings to anyone. My dad wouldn't help. My mother would treat with contempt and make me feel embarassed, or simply not care. Same with my brother. I won't go on, but bassicaly I don't have a massive family,and the family I do have are no help.
As for friends? I've tried, trust me. None of the ones I've trusted with my feelings have ever offered any help past a hug and a kind word.
I've started to think about if I have some sort of mental illness. Aniexty? Plain lethargy due to mild insomnia? Perhaps... maybe... even... depression?
I've thought about what possibly could have caused any of these.
I think there is an obvious one, the root of everything, the reason for all other problems I've had (self-consciousness, lonliness, feeling like I'm ugly etc) that might have also contributed to messing my mind up... and it's my mother.
My mum was a heroin addict, a junkie, from a young age. Her first husband (or so she claims) left her, and her second husband was abusive (or so she claims). She stopped using, but she became an alcoholic. I think it was at the age of 7 I first realised what my mum was like. Since then, my life has been filled with constant upset, family arguments, physcial fights, aggression. Sitting in pub gardens with mummy wondering why she was all dopey. Why the 'blackcurrent juice' under my pram tasted so strong and foul. Why mum couldn't walk properly when she picked me up from school. Why she was crying, why my dad was crying.
Finding vodka in her bag. Coming home from school at 12 every day to find her in differing states, ranging from a little tipsy and weird, to unable to walk with staggering and food and broken glass all over the floor, to her passed out on the carpet.
I've screamed, I've cried, I've fought with her. I went to my school prom with cuts and bruises on my face. I've had hours of conversations with my distressed dad, who I don't get along with at the best of times. In fact, the only time we talk with any civility is when we're discussing my mum during one of her episodes.
She's started abusing painkillers now. It's all the same thing.
And the best thing? She doesn't seem to care. She lies, she's a bareface liar. She twists things. She denies, makes things up, never, EVER apoligises.
And me? I don't understand, I'm just a stupid selfish little girl. An ungrateful bitch.
I hate her. I really do. Deep inside me, I wish she was dead. I don't even feel sorry for her anymore. Sometimes, I feel I'd rather die than grow up to be anything like her.
I don't know, I really don't know, but perhaps these years of simply bad childhood triggered something off in me.
Maybe I'm just hormonal.
Maybe I need to stop being a melodramtic bitch and put up with things.
Or maybe I need help.
What do I do?
See a doctor?
I wouldn't even know where to start explaining. And I fear I'm too parinoid that they won't believe me.
I don't know what to do.
Even entertaining the thought I may have 'depression' makes me feel fucking stupid.
But I sware, the way I feel is NOT natural :(
Oh and also, I've had moments when I've gone... well... crazy!
Once, after having a huge fight with my intoxicated mother, I begged my ex boyfriend to come see me.
I ended up sitting down on the floor on a footpath crying and crying and crying. And he just stood there. He didn't help. I just remember feeling so angry. I just wanted a hug, or something. Some comfort, some help, anything. He didn't give me that.
I ended up screaming and shouting at him to go away. He refused And then I started running. Through fields. He tried following me, but I kept running away, sobbing all the while. It's only when I ran out into a road that he grabbed my hand, looked at me like I was a mental patient and said, as calm as can be, "What the hell are you doing?"
Eventually I calmed down as he perswaded me to walk with him to buy some tobacco, and he started talking normally to me. Telling me about his day, making me laugh, calming me down. At first I was still so distressed I could hardly walk in a straight line. He had to put his hand around my waist to stop me collapsing.
It started as simple bad mood swings. For no reason. As the months went by I got quieter. More nervous. Paranoid. Cynical. Upset easily.
Eventually I starting getting 'black moments', and very intense moments of anguish. These 'black moments', as I describe them, are moments when I go almost... numb to the world. Where I feel like nothing matters. That everything is bad. I can hardly move, think, feel. They happened in the morning or night. I would skip school alot because I couldn't stand the thought of going. I would reject phone calls, cut off all communication, just lie in bed. These moments last a few hours, and I'd begin to 'come up' again.
Sometimes things would upset me so easily I'd go into fits of anger, of tears, crumpled up, feeling desperate and hopeless and contiplating suicicde. I'd only come out of these moments after I'd cried myself into exhaustion, or (I found eventually) cut my self, when I'd lapse into a numbness.
Recently, it's just got worse. For the past 2 months, I've cried myself to sleep every night. No reason. Just an intense (sorry to use this word again but it's the only thing that really describes it) numbness.
I feel no love for my boyfriend. No motivation to go see friends. No effort to interact with my grandparents, who, apart from my siblings, have been the only people in my life I've truly loved. No hobbies, except reading fantasy books and playing fantasy games to sort of, I don't know, escape the world?
All I've done this summer is sleep. I go to bed at 3am or 4am, and I'd sleep till 5. At work, which is the only time I can force myself to go outside the house, people comment on how moody or upset I look. Even when I don't even feel moody or upset.
Now, it's only now that I've decided to address my feelings.
2 reasons;
1) It's alright feeling like this in the summer. But I start college in September. I may have already lost a few grades, or even whole GSCES, due to my lack of motivation or even attendance in school these past few years. This may be a new start to me, meet new people, find new interests. I want this to stop.
2) I have been brought up a very old-fashioned stiff-lip Northern-English straight-thinking family. A family with a history of poverty, hardship. Depression? Doesn't exist. Physcatrists, social workers? Paid for nothing! You feel sad? Stop being stupid. Other people have worse problems than you. Don't be so melodramatic. Something bad happens? Take it with a pinch of salt. Some humour. Carry on. Deal with it.
Due to this, I've always made up excuses for my feelings. Hormones. Stress. Fatigue. Et cetera. But it's getting too much now.
I could never talk about my feelings to anyone. My dad wouldn't help. My mother would treat with contempt and make me feel embarassed, or simply not care. Same with my brother. I won't go on, but bassicaly I don't have a massive family,and the family I do have are no help.
As for friends? I've tried, trust me. None of the ones I've trusted with my feelings have ever offered any help past a hug and a kind word.
I've started to think about if I have some sort of mental illness. Aniexty? Plain lethargy due to mild insomnia? Perhaps... maybe... even... depression?
I've thought about what possibly could have caused any of these.
I think there is an obvious one, the root of everything, the reason for all other problems I've had (self-consciousness, lonliness, feeling like I'm ugly etc) that might have also contributed to messing my mind up... and it's my mother.
My mum was a heroin addict, a junkie, from a young age. Her first husband (or so she claims) left her, and her second husband was abusive (or so she claims). She stopped using, but she became an alcoholic. I think it was at the age of 7 I first realised what my mum was like. Since then, my life has been filled with constant upset, family arguments, physcial fights, aggression. Sitting in pub gardens with mummy wondering why she was all dopey. Why the 'blackcurrent juice' under my pram tasted so strong and foul. Why mum couldn't walk properly when she picked me up from school. Why she was crying, why my dad was crying.
Finding vodka in her bag. Coming home from school at 12 every day to find her in differing states, ranging from a little tipsy and weird, to unable to walk with staggering and food and broken glass all over the floor, to her passed out on the carpet.
I've screamed, I've cried, I've fought with her. I went to my school prom with cuts and bruises on my face. I've had hours of conversations with my distressed dad, who I don't get along with at the best of times. In fact, the only time we talk with any civility is when we're discussing my mum during one of her episodes.
She's started abusing painkillers now. It's all the same thing.
And the best thing? She doesn't seem to care. She lies, she's a bareface liar. She twists things. She denies, makes things up, never, EVER apoligises.
And me? I don't understand, I'm just a stupid selfish little girl. An ungrateful bitch.
I hate her. I really do. Deep inside me, I wish she was dead. I don't even feel sorry for her anymore. Sometimes, I feel I'd rather die than grow up to be anything like her.
I don't know, I really don't know, but perhaps these years of simply bad childhood triggered something off in me.
Maybe I'm just hormonal.
Maybe I need to stop being a melodramtic bitch and put up with things.
Or maybe I need help.
What do I do?
See a doctor?
I wouldn't even know where to start explaining. And I fear I'm too parinoid that they won't believe me.
I don't know what to do.
Even entertaining the thought I may have 'depression' makes me feel fucking stupid.
But I sware, the way I feel is NOT natural :(
Oh and also, I've had moments when I've gone... well... crazy!
Once, after having a huge fight with my intoxicated mother, I begged my ex boyfriend to come see me.
I ended up sitting down on the floor on a footpath crying and crying and crying. And he just stood there. He didn't help. I just remember feeling so angry. I just wanted a hug, or something. Some comfort, some help, anything. He didn't give me that.
I ended up screaming and shouting at him to go away. He refused And then I started running. Through fields. He tried following me, but I kept running away, sobbing all the while. It's only when I ran out into a road that he grabbed my hand, looked at me like I was a mental patient and said, as calm as can be, "What the hell are you doing?"
Eventually I calmed down as he perswaded me to walk with him to buy some tobacco, and he started talking normally to me. Telling me about his day, making me laugh, calming me down. At first I was still so distressed I could hardly walk in a straight line. He had to put his hand around my waist to stop me collapsing.