Delirium of a Diseased Mind

I’d written a whole pile of contextual rubbish to the party I was at on Tuesday night but I cannot be arsed continuing to discuss it all in depth (and it’s mostly unimportant faff anyway) so I’ll just get to the point.

I went completely off my head on Tuesday.  I was in bad form all day, but I am not sure whether that was in general, whether it was the uncertainty over the psychiatrist situation (which of course got worse yesterday) or whether it was brought on by dread about having to go to the party, as I really just cannot deal with people and crowds, and, in particular, claustrophobic situations as I knew this would be (lots of people in a relatively tiny space).

I locked myself in my cousin’s bathroom for ages upon my arrival (under the pretence that I was applying make-up, which got a few looks when I finally returned downstairs without make-up) wherein I paced up and down in a deranged fashion, trying to convince myself that I was capable of dealing with people.  However, my self-reassuring mutterings and mental “you can do this” mantras were insufficiently compelling to persuade my irrational mind that I can behave like a normal human being.

The tiny fucking house was full of people, some I knew, a number that I didn’t.  I couldn’t leave my mother’s side except to go and hide on my own.  Eventually I sent A a text message begging him to phone me.  I didn’t phone him myself as my mother would have been mad with me for taking the time away from the gruesome proceedings to make a phone call; if I am phoned by someone else, however, at least I can’t help them calling me.

So A phoned and to be honest I remember very little of the conversation because it was like it was not me speaking at all.  It made me in the throes of most of my depressive or anxious episode look relatively sane.  It was incoherent, frenzied, utterly panic-stricken, a full and frank demonstration of someone completely losing whatever small vestiges of lucidity and reason they had left.  As A later put it, it was as if my precarious sanity was fraying at the edges.  He said I was hysterical (though I wasn’t crying or anything, just rambling in a deranged fashion to the poor man).  I scared him, frankly.

I do remember being desperate to hurt myself.  I remembered the instant release from last Thursday; the fact that cutting oneself at least gives one something else other than the thoughts racing through one’s head on which to focus.  It takes your mind off your mind.  Then there’s old self-harming cliche (which is no doubt cliched because it is an accurate representation of the circumstances) that at least if you experience this intense physical pain that your mental anguish is temporarily reduced.  I couldn’t have got to any lovely knives though, so I tried to pull my hair out of my head.  A calmly but authoritatively insisted that I desist from this self-destructive behaviour (I did, temporarily, though I went and banged my head off a tree several times later, though this is actually funny).

A, a man who deeply dislikes children, even went so far as to encourage me to play with the baby that was there – I know that this sounds normal to most people but believe me, it is so far removed from anything he has ever said in the past that I feel it is worthy of mention.  It is evident to me now as I write this that he felt anything, however out of character for either of us, however odd we might otherwise have found it, was worthy of exploration, simply to get me out of this weird and unsettling headfuck.  Additionally, he tried to pull me back to some semblance of reality by calmly and clearly stating what I needed to discuss with the various mental health professionals I may or may not be seeing soon.  I paced back and forth, walked round and round, and used every ounce of mental energy I had left to concentrate on A’s words and ultimately make responses that, over time, became closer to rationality.

Over the course of the approximately half an hour, I became slightly less mental, and having been fucking summoned, I went back indoors.  The weirdest thing was, people seemed to have disappeared.  I saw only a few individuals that I knew well.  No crowd at all.  I calmed down instantly and felt capable of dealing with things.

Result!  …Or was it?!  This all sounds very nice and I was certainly glad of it at the time – but on reflection it was not something about which one should feel gratified.  I am obviously hallucinating because the people were still there.  I just didn’t see them.

I’ve been having mild hallucinations on and off for quite a while.  I attribute most of it to insomnia, and I’m sure the above was basically of the same cause, plus perhaps a bit of a coping mechanism.  It was only the second time that I can recall being deluded into thinking that something wasn’t there (the other time being something entirely inconsequential – a pattern on something disappeared, not people).  Is that still a hallucination?  Or does it have to be ‘positive’ in nature, ie. something is added to your perceptions of the world?

My cousins were all pissing it up, though I chose not to, as I was fairly sure that my severe instability would not mix very well with alcohol.  (“Here, barman, get us a vodka and borderline, would ya mate?”  “No problem, love.  That’s our newest cocktail, Sex with the Suicidal.”).  It was with horror that I saw my bipolar cousin S, MMcF’s daughter, approaching  with her arms drunkenly outstretched.  She spent the next 15 minutes, until her grandson (who is one and is the baby to whom A had earlier alluded) waded in and interrupted her, trying to counsel me (never have I been so glad to see a child in all my life).  Surprisingly, given the general lack of IQ amongst the McF family, she spoke in what was a fairly erudite fashion about her own experiences, and on how other people perceived crackpots like ourselves.  But I just don’t want to have these conversations with my family.  I don’t really want to have them with anyone, but certainly not with my family.  And S has no idea of how very close to true madness I actually am.  Yes, I am depressed, and yes, I suffer from anxiety.  The more I write here, though, the more it is indubitable that I am also losing the plot in many other ways too.

Anyhow, with that conversation mercifully cut short, I asked S’s niece, StudentMcF (the daughter of the guy whose birthday it was), how her degree is psychology is going.  The answer to that is basically ‘not well’, but since this blog is about me not her that is kind of irrelevant.  What is not irrelevant is the ensuing discussion I had with her on psychotherapy, in which she opined that my transference and dependency issues (see most previous posts) are virtually a textbook reaction in the psychodynamic school of therapy.  I ended up rambling on about it to her for quite a while, though I didn’t discuss my actual underlying issues or emotions, the discussion which S had been trying to illicit.  Anyway, StudentMcF further backed up my view that my recent mental deterioration is normal – 11 years of mental ill health cannot be solved in 11 weeks, and the fact that I am now willing to talk to someone at all about everything (well, most things) is a significant step forward.  She agreed that it would be unusual if things didn’t get worse before they got better, what with the recent outpouring of hidden or repressed data from my mind.

So this was reassuring, but of course on Wednesday morning I so much regretted having told her anything, especially regarding the transference, and I hoped to Christ (and still do) that she had been too pissed to remember.  Why do I always post-mortem my behaviour?  Why do I care?  Why can’t I think straight?  Why can’t I do anything right?

Additional to post-morteming my conversation with StudentMcF, I was stunned by my behaviour in general.  I simply couldn’t work out why I had gone so mental.  Frankly, it was embarrassing.  It was just a few twats in a few rooms.  They are nothing to me, mostly.  What did it matter?  You go in, you make pathetic small talk about the bloody weather, you pretend to have fun, you leave.  Boohoo.  Big fucking deal.  Why did this cause sectionable behaviour in me?  Why?  It is ridiculous.  I am ridiculous.  My rational mind just doesn’t get it, but apparently the rest of my mind just won’t stop it.  I am saying now that it’s preposterous, but the next time something like this happens, I’ll most likely react in exactly the same way.

I wish my mind would just stop teetering on the brink of complete and genuine insanity.  I am nearly properly mad, but not quite there just yet, as when I step out of a dubious situation or when I have calmed down, I can analyse everything to death and begin at least to see things logically, even if I’m not really feeling that way.  If I was completely insane, I wouldn’t have to pretend not to be, as I wouldn’t know one way or the other.  I wouldn’t be able to analyse and rationalise my behaviour, as I would be completely incapable of it.  The flip side is that if I was normal it wouldn’t, of course, be an issue at all.  Please, brain, let me lose my mind entirely, or let me recover (to some extent anyway, as paradoxically I’m scared of being a normal).  I can’t deal with this eternal uncertainty.

In other news, the Horse sent me a letter enclosing the report from Occupational Health.  There was nothing in it that the OHS doctor hadn’t already told me, but EquineGirl wants to “discuss” the report with me.  There isn’t much to add in my view so obviously this means she wants to tell me that the position will only remain open to me until a certain period.  Part of me doesn’t care, part of me is saddened and stressed by this.  Again, it is this confusing mind-dichotomy.  I hate it.  Hate it, I tell you!  Just fucking make up your mind, brain!

I’m just confused by everything in my life at the minute.  Screw you, brain.  I don’t know what to think.  That is to say I don’t know what to think on the occasions when I actually can think without everything being disjointed and frenzied and racing and just indescribably mental.  Oh well.  Maybe next week will show an improvement; I have been menstruating this week which never helps – it is a process that I have always detested (is this too much information?!).  Or maybe next week will be shit too.  We will see.

Update: one hour after the above was completed – feeling a bit better.  I am back at A’s house after leaving my mother’s.  Here, I can wear short sleeves and bare my scars all I like.  I can dance around naked and give the finger to the fucking tree outside should I so wish (but now that I’ve said that, I feel sorry for the poor tree.  Still nuts, then.).  I don’t have to listen to inane bullfuck about how straight a lampshade is.  And it is cold here.  Mum’s house is so fucking warm, which is hard to deal with when you’re wearing full-sleeved jumpers to hide the evidence of your recent self-harm.

This is not a criticism of my mother, not really (though I have been angry at her at times for making me go on Tuesday night).  I suppose it is best described as a criticism of my reaction to her in many ways.  She exasperates me, but really, I shouldn’t complain.