Out of the Picture

It's odd that dreams can potentially shape a whole day upon waking. During the the fallout from the divorce they'd pretty much set the tone for the day, mood wise. Lately I thought I had gotten over that particular problem as the dreams I'd had about my ex-wife had less of a hold on me, as shown by the last blog entry. Until this morning that is. My sleep has been all over the place again and last night sleep was slow in coming. It was that slow that I could feel the full effects of my medication, the nausea, the drowsiness without the sleep and the un-rest in my legs. By the time I was due to get up my head was in a fuzz so what followed was more drowsy sleep and a dream of me and her, back in that small house in that small town almost as if nothing had happened or changed. When I woke up it felt as if I'd changed places, the reality was really the dream and the dream was really reality. For a split second or so that was the case until it faded away like a morning mist meeting the sun. The combination of the meds and that dream left me feeling utterly bereft. I haven't felt that bad over a dream for quite a while and the urge to hide away in bed was and is strong but so far I am just about resisting. Rightly or wrongly I was considering coming off my meds, mostly due to their aide effects which, as mentioned, can leave me feeling out of sorts. After this morning though it does give me pause for thought. Am I ready? I suppose whatever I decide these moments of missing will remain. At the moment it all feels like one step forward two steps back...

This was a song that played in my head as I awoke. It was one of her favs and one that reminds me of her.

Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky

It is now just over 4 years since the beginnings of this black and getting close now to 3 years since the beginnings of the divorce. I was thinking about that, the divorce, this morning. 
I was thinking about how I tend to enumerate most things and how especially regarding the divorce I am counting the years as they pass like a prisoner counting down the days and years but in reverse, knowing that there isn't anything to look forward to with regard to a release from all of this. Well, nothing definitive. There will be no 'closure' only peace.
How long this will take though, I have no idea. As much as I want it to fade away it won't. 
How can it? How can all those years, those memories, good times, bad times and all in-between just disappear like that? They served as a running stream of emotion that kept the relationship burning so I can't really expect it to just quickly fade from my memory box. 
No matter how much I might want it to in light of the divorce.
What makes it harder to push myself away from those times are the odd moments of intense separation that I feel for her, times where we went away together or just spent time together like say today, a simple Sunday. Maybe we'd have gone out for a walk together, maybe not. But we'd have been together and she'd be there. Earlier on I  was looking at a ski-ing holiday and that immediately reprised memories of our first holiday together which was also our first time ski-ing together. Seeing the advert for that holiday was a stark reminder that for now a trip away 'together' isn't happening.
When I was driving home a couple of weeks ago I had my usual pang of missing her when going through a route that we lived near and I remember consciously asking myself why I was missing her, why I was feeling this way considering how she left me and why she left me and I think it was or rather is because part of me deep deep down doesn't want to let the memory of her go because to do so would equal more hurt and would give in to the realisation that it truly is the end. 
Have I truly let her go and let my mind accept that it is over and that it is the end?

'I wonder what you're doing now, I hope you're feeling happy now'

I don't mind the pain

So here we all are, a new year, a chance to... hmm, I'll stop there. 
You've heard all before, I've heard it and said it all before. Yeh.
Last year's new year wasn't the best and that kinda lingered for a while with some big peaks and deep troughs, the odd calm moments in March/April before properly plateauing around May time. 
My last suicidal urge was late February and hopefully I won't go through similar this time around. It started in January and was sort of triggered by a river I walk past most days.
Whenever I pass by that river now I always get the odd flashback as it was a place I kept resisting the urge to leap into at the start of last year. You can read through those times in last year's January blog entry if you'd like. I might myself at one point to see how bad I was.
This year so far so fairly normal, for me. I started off with a run on new year's day and have so far kept up the running and gym visits. Mind you, it is still early. I mean, what is it so far, one week and bit in?
I'm enjoying my outdoor runs though. Even if the weather isn't the best or it's rainy or windy I like it. Running in darkness is fine too as there are very few people about. I just put on some bright gear, plug in my music and I'm off. Right now I'm back to hitting the odd long hill too. The feeling of the cold air in my lungs and the heavy pain in my legs sometimes has a cleansing effect on me, it sort of clears my head as all I have to really think about and concentrate on is moving and keeping on moving trying my best not to stop and walk because I'm puffed out or my legs are too heavy. I just have to keep on moving, even if it's a slow shuffle, keep on moving, keep on running. When I'm going up that hill I tend to keep my head down as if I look at what's to come mentally it deflates me and it's hard enough to run without added pressure.
I remember during my first and thankfully so far, only attempt at suicide the walk I took was almost as head clearing as deciding to take my life. Now though, I prefer to run as at times I seek the pain from it. I'm not sure why but I suspect it's a hangover from my self harming days. 
It's my small way of punishing myself, I think. It's also helping me lose a little bit of weight that I've been carrying around in various sizes for the past year too.
Let's hope I can keep it up.

The hating half of me.....

I found out today the result of that job interview I went to London for this morning. Well, I say this morning as in when it was sent but in reality I actually received once I woke up from a half slumber/half awake daze.

The news was good, very good. I’m in. Unfortunately due to it being one of those days it hasn’t really sunk it yet. I’m sure it will but right now it has had little effect on me. Which, I suppose, proves quite starkly that depression is not solely mood based, by that I mean it isn’t a case of feeling a bit down until the next mood or bit of good news comes along and hey, I’m fine now! It’ll suck the life out of you regardless of what’s going on in your life. Admittedly, I knew this, it, obviously, being borne out of direct contact with the illness more than anything but it was good to have it tested out directly.

…has won the battle easily

I have no idea why I’m how I am today. I can’t see any links to any triggers that sometimes preclude such emptiness. I just feel worn and empty. It’s not even that extreme blackness I've had before this time it’s more grey, a deep steel grey cloudy sky of a day that keeps threatening rain but keeps it back, instead suffocating the day with its continual cover and bleached colour. 

Or, basically, it’s a bad day.

A small worry has crept min with the news too, what of my meds? 

What of days like these that ruin everything? Will I have them over there? And what if I do, what then? I've yet to see or sign the contract and I’m already worrying. 

Have a day off will ya brain?!

But it won’t. It never will. 

When it does keep quiet it’s only slumbering until the next time.

Love don’t live here anymore

I don’t know what I was like during my initial black. I tried, after some prompting, to be more open about my feelings and all that sorta thing with my wife. It was difficult as I do tend to internalise.  It’s just the way I am. Sometimes I could talk but sometimes I could not. This, I imagine, didn’t make me the funnest of individuals to live with. My wife helped me a lot during those first dark months. After all she was the one who got me to the doctors, the one who cuddled me when I was pouring out with tears and feeling very low and very un-masculine (because no matter how much of a hormonal realise tears are I always feel so stupid crying. Mostly because of the look I know my face is making and the noises I would be making were my voice high enough) and she was the one who offered her ear whenever I needed it. So far so grand. Now prior to the doctors obvious diagnosis I had the odd bout of extreme black, the sort where you can barely talk to anyone or even motivate yourself to leave the house. On one such occasion my wife’s father came along. I was in no mood to entertain less still to go out but I did go out because I knew that my wife despite her telling me that I didn’t have to, would take it badly. Sure enough she did anyway as she said that her father thoughts that he had done something wrong to facilitate my glum mush and quiet demeanor. Weeks later I told her the reasons for said glum face and quiet demeanor. I am still not sure whether she understood or whether she still thinks I was just being a moody glum face for the sake of it. 

Suicide was something that I mentioned during my dark days to her. This was difficult as I knew it would have an effect, I mean, telling your loved one that your keen on the idea of ending your life isn’t going to have anything but an effect and a bad one at that. The thing is, not telling her or anyone at all was hurting me but seeing her reaction was also hurting me so what to do? I’ll tell you what I did. I resorted to something I had done ten years previously during my last big black. Self harm. Or SI (self injury) as some call it. My wife knew my previous on this as she was one of a small group who knew about it. I resorted to it again as things got to be too much. Now SI is a topic all on its own and I’m only going to go into it with regards to my own experiences of it. Why would I do such a violent thing to my own body? I can’t explain it perfectly but basically it is a way of making the black real, bringing it out onto my body so I know that a) I’m not making it up b) there is evidence of this ugliness inside and I can now see it in some sort of tangible form. It can also break through the numbness you feel too and sometimes act as a conduit with regards to the suicidal feelings that get pent up deep within. Now that probably makes bugger all sense but to me it makes some sort of sense and in an illness where sense isn’t exactly brimming over it’s the best yer gonna get from yours truly right now! Now when my wife found out about my latest SI she took it reasonably ok at first but then a bit later on quite clearly did not take it even close to reasonably ok, first being angry and then crying and blaming herself before blaming me. She wanted to know why I hadn’t contacted her during my ‘urge’ to SI and also why I didn’t hold my promise not to SI? I didn’t and still don’t recall this promise but apparently promise I did. So this of course made me feel worse and also made me wary of telling her if I slipped again. And slip I did about a month later. I tried to keep it away from her but when you’re living with someone well, it’s not that easy. The sudden appearance of a bandage kinda gives it away. I tried to keep the marks hidden and not in visible places but of course once unclothed that’s it isn’t it? During my urge to SI I couldn’t talk and the one time I did was when my wife happened to be there during an SI urge. There was no talking as I didn’t know how to say what I was feeling or indeed what to say. Her cure was unconventional but did work. Sex basically. Great, except she couldn’t always be there to replace one of my urges with another.

So all of that probably didn’t help matters as you can imagine and coupled with my suicidal tendencies and well the only outcome is stress. For her as well as me. During this time I was taking anti-depressants (and still am) and they did help but I’d just started taking them and sometimes the side effects could make things worse but considering I was like this before the tablets I couldn’t tell the difference between side effects and the black in me. But slowly things did improve a bit. I’d got a job and I was drawing and trying my best to stay afloat. Unfortunately my wife was becoming distant. She said that I’d changed which made her change towards me. First there was talk of me moving out so I could, ‘get better’.  In talking and in my clumsy way I thought me comparing this to a bad outcome, separation, would make her quickly protest. It didn’t. When again this came up, me moving out, again in my very clumsy way and seeking reassurance I threw divorce in, not a request by me but I was hoping, again, just mentioning the word would make her protest quickly. Alas, no and so it came that just before our 1^st anniversary of being wed we agreed to split. Well, I didn’t so much agree as realise that me protesting; which I did but my rebuke of, I need you, was swatted away with, you say you need me but you didn’t say that you wanted me. So I knew pursuing it wasn’t going to be a good outcome. Seeing a couple of ‘Happy Wedding Anniversary’ cards a few days after that and also finding out that I’d lost my job and that she was quickly moving out and had already secured herself a house made me wonder if I’d really upset the deity up in the sky that some of us follow. It also told me that when the Dogs D'Amour once sang this they really had a point. So facing a divorce I now had to tell my parents, friends and my best man which was pretty damn horrible. It all really hadn’t sink in, until now. And now well, now I’m facing up to it and feeling its effects. So much so that I broke.