Wise Wisdom

It won't be long until the anniversary of my wedding, now first and only wedding, which will also coincide with the anniversary of the split/divorce. When I was a little younger I used to think that going through marriages and the such like would offer one some sort of wisdom, give one a certain take on life and make you exude sagacious wiseness. Internally I also tend to think that this has given me some sort of life experience which will in turn present me as being wise and having some wisdom on certain life experiences. Which it has to a certain extent but really all it has done is turn my heart a little harder. Now when I say this I don't mean it is the hardest of hearts as hard as stone more like it has a brittle inner that is shielding a much softer inner. All that experience has given me is a fear of becoming close and intimate to someone again. I'm not as wise as I think I am.
Lately she has been on my mind but mostly I think it's the past and those good times and feelings from that time that are on my mind, whether I want to admit that or not. The urge to get in contact with her is strong. As is the urge to go back to a time when we were together living in that small town and all that came with it. how quickly would I go back to relive that period and all it's mistakes in an attempt to rectify them and perhaps change the future? 
All too readily, I'm afraid.
And what is the one thing that calms me down, from not only this but all that is entwined with this black of mine?
Facing the end is what.
Sitting on the edge.....

I never thought you'd lose that light in your eyes

Today is a struggle. And what seems to be making it a slow crawl through treacle sort of day is the slow onset of suicidal thoughts. I just can't seem to shake them and the longer they sit there in my mind, sat there quietly but breathing heavily reminding me of it's presence the more I think of ways to do it.
I follow it through, what I would do, how I would leave things behind me. It'd be a train station, a smaller town one, fairly quiet, park the car with a note for whoever finds it. And then, wait until.... 
But would I take that step? I don't know but it is something that is playing over and over at the moment. 
I'm trying hard not to think about what I have in my life future wise as I'll just panic and worry over them. I won't seem them as opportunities, more obligations that I will screw up through my own passing which will add further stress and increase those thoughts.
This near constant brinkmanship is wearing and boring but I don't know how to stop it.
I've been in my bedroom all day, feeling empty, worn and tired, listening to MSP and PF. Thoughts of my ex-wife have brought me to near tears as I try and deal with the past and my missing her but I don't know how to. I think it's just this cold numbness inside that I'm finding hard to see past or shift that is making me crave her presence and a warm embrace from her. The urge to write to her an open letter on Facebook is once again very strong.
But what would I say? I guess how much I miss her and how much it hurts not seeing her now. 
What would it accomplish though? What do I want from it? 
Do I want her words, do I want her back in my life? What is the end result here? What do I want?
I ask myself this but I don't know the answer. 

I just... want her to hold me close...

This mess of a man.....

Oh the sadness will never go...

So another Sunday, another run and another day of darkness and feeling empty inside. 
It took a lot of distractions to get rid of that nagging anxious feeling and a lot of distractions to rid that empty feeling of missing her. 
No matter how much time passes I wonder if I'm dome sort of inevitable path to my ultimate self destruction. Regardless of the odd side-road that I am sometimes diverted down that can fool me into a sense of losing that feeling I always seem to find myself back on this road. Seemingly.

...will never go away, baby it's here to stay

I say seemingly as I do and have generally pulled out of it. I do this by generally trying to just carry on and trying my best not to give in to that feeling, the voice that says, give up, stop. It is tempting and at times hard to resist as I have previously written about but having been there before I know that if I do give up and give in to that feeling and that voice I'll find it harder to get out and get going and the guilt that will follow will be crushing as I do have commitments. I hate it but sometimes it is very hard to resist. Very hard.

Me vs Me

My run almost didn't happen as I wasn't feeling it at all, the urge to get up and out wasn't there. I near enough forced myself out by reminding myself that a) no runs equal a chubbier me and b) it's been one month since I last started my new year runs and one month since tackling the hill that I mentioned in my last entry. That time on New Year's Day I struggled and ended up walking a section of it. This time I completed it and managed to keep on moving in a run/jog sort of manner. That effort seems to have leveled out my bad feelings and at the moment I feel ok. Not particularly up but thankfully not too far down either. Which after earlier on before the run is an improvement, of sorts.
Still, the way I am and the way I have been I'll take any improvement. comparing this year's entries to last year's is also a marked improvement. Though saying that Feb 2014 did almost culminate in another suicide attempt. Still, baby steps and it is so far, so good.
But, well it's all getting far too repetitive. Again.
At least the Super-Bowl is on later.

This act of creation will save me from despair

I don't know how it exactly started. Was it the thought of her and the intense feeling of missing her, her presence, her calming presence that was the beginning? Or was it the general sense of darkness that slowly started to envelope me, gently but ever so surely until I didn't even realise that I was up to my neck in it? 
I felt bad, mentally and physically and by the time I got myself to bed and plugged in the Manics I was trying hard not to let it succumb. But succumb it did as it usually does and when it did feelings and thoughts soon turned to suicide. Suicide to stop all of this. It also became apparent to me that sometimes my suicidal thoughts are there to actually calm me down, soothe me, as off the wall as that sounds. Mostly they seem to pop up when I can't see a way out of this. All I can see are flat moments, the odd plateau, when I try and look ahead. If I look hard can I see another chance at a long term relationship? A career, a stable one without all of this...  illness?

Can't let love back in....

That's even assuming I try and properly look for one and stop my messing about browsing and being ignored on that POF site. The one chance I had for a relationship there, well it wasn't the right time. I think I was holding back. Miss C seemed to think so.
I think deep down I'm scared of what will happen if I do connect with someone, face to face, and a relationship begins. It could start off great, stars, rainbows, good shared times and feelings but what if it strikes? What if it strikes when we've established a good relationship? Will she be understanding or will she start off like that and ultimately do what my ex did and well, do one? Can I really go through that, put myself through that again? That's a lot of 'ifs' I know but still, the thoughts are there. How can they be not after last time?

Today hasn't been the best. I shut out the rest and made the best excuse I could to get out of my scheduled things for today, hiding under the covers, eating little -doritos, cereal, olives-  and mostly watching DVDs. It's days like these that scare me the most, especially when I consider the new job and new country that awaits me later this year.
When I was a kid I always thought that as soon as I was older, a grown up, it would be easier and that everything would be sorted and stable. I'd be instantly liked and respected because I was an older wiser adult and that life would be sorted. I'd also have a mustache.
Not quite eh?
Apart from the 'tache during November. 
That bit's simple. Not quite so the rest.

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.

This world is hard, this world is cold, this world is agony

How can I maintain an ordinary life, wife and maybe kids, job and all that comes with, house and more bills, etc whilst keeping on a permanent mask to keep all and sundry hidden from my deepest black? This damned depression that won't go away and is now pretty much a part of me, is me, for good or for ill?
How can I even contemplate a relationship with someone ever again and not fear them leaving because they can't cope? What hope do I have of having someone to love and trust? Who'd want me with this?
I walked back to the station in a daze, tears pushing hard, thoughts emotional, playing through my lack of coping ability to do small things lately, playing through jumping in the river that marks my walk to and from the station- how would it go, would I panic? Would I let it envelope me, would I sink or fight it and swim? What would I do?
I'm tired of my own thoughts and I'm tired of this depression and having each day be a fight, a battle in a war that is never-ending and is always raging. 
The only real way out would be a  victory.
A Pyrrhic one.

Rain when I die

The day I tried to end my life is the day where I’d reached a bit more of the bottom than I thought I’d already hit. They say when someone reaches that point and tries to top themselves it’s either after a lot of planning or a flash impulse ‘do it’ mentality. Mine was mostly the latter. As you can tell it didn’t work otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this.

The day had been ok, a bit sleepy but nothing out of the ordinary. Then in the afternoon I received a text from my soon to be former wife. In it she said she had finished the weekend activity and was coming up with something for me. Now previous to this I’d last heard from her back in May and also through the divorcey legal court paperwork that has been trickling through the post box since June. So it was quite the surprise. I knew she wouldn’t come into the house so clothed myself all the while wondering what it was she was coming up to give me. I then went outside to see the old familiar car with its distinctive license plate and her tapping out a text obviously saying that she was now ‘here’.

She saw me and got out and told me what had happened over the weekend. Me being me, stupidly, I went along with the pointless small chit chat, although I dumbstruck at what was happening. She then handed me a bag. In it, she said, was a memory stick of my stuff, pics, etc from the shared computer.

A little bit more chit chat and then she was gone. As I left I cursed myself inwardly, why didn’t you say something? Anything? Something. 
The times I’d done similar in my dreams, wanting to ask her, ‘Are we talking now?’ and, ‘you’ve left me so bereft, why?’ and various other questions. Why didn’t I say something? Deep down I know why. It was because I had very little time to even think of something, anything to say to her. The moment between text and arrival was 5 minutes, which gave me no time whatsoever. Still, I wish I’d said something. I did eventually but more of that later.

I got back to the house and opened up the bag. I saw the memory stick and a photo album.

’Oh,’ thinks me. ‘She must have printed up the photos, how kind.’

I opened it up and found that no, she hadn’t. She’d given me the wedding album. Our wedding album. Stripped of the photos she either wanted or deemed me not suitable to have. But the rest were there, us cutting the cake, signing the registrar. The lot.

I took to bed, wondering why she’d given it to me despite me telling her clearly that I didn’t want it before our parting from our house.

Confusion and hurt reigned. Until about an hour later, watching the rain fall and listening to some Alice in Chains I decided to do it. Everything else that usually stopped me didn’t matter at that point. It felt like it was all for nowt. So nuts to it, I thought. I’m going to do it. The thought of it and where I was going to do it kinda calmed me in an odd way but also, paradoxically, it exhilarated me too.

Off I went, taking some kitchen roll with me, my usual SI tool of choice and a photo of me and her cutting the wedding cake. I stomped up the hill, feeling my heart race, looking at the greenness of the long grass. I stood on top, heart beating fast, thinking how things had led me this way, how deep deep down I always knew it would end this way. I looked around, there were too many dog walkers so I moved off, walking towards the cemetery, annoyed the rain had stopped. At the cemetery I found what relatives I could, my nan etc, and said sorry. Sorry for being a mess of a man and sorry for what I felt like I was about to do.

More wandering as the rain began to fall, looking for places to go and hide, trying to work out what would happen if I got locked in the cemetery, trying not to trap myself in case after I did it and I freaked out and panicked. So after looking at some nature run around, fox, hares (Blimey, they’re big!), I walked towards an area I knew as kid, down a dark lane towards some woods and fields.

Looking back on it the funny thing is I wasn’t sure about walking down the dark lane as I thought I might get run over by a car. Odd eh?

So I wandered down until I found a field away from sight and climbed over into long grass and in my very inconspicuous Great War style coat sat down. I looked at the photo of us and then checked my mobile, missed calls and texts flashed at me. I then led down and nodded off glad to feel the rain fall on my face at last. I think I nodded off and then woke up and after again looking at the photo and leaving a post on Facebook, (Nothing too explicit but more something that alluded to my state of mind) I tried to cut. Thing is it was too dark so I had to use my phone to illuminate my wrist and then it was too tense so I had to relax it to lower the tendons and then the phone went out and blimey, it was awkward. Eventually I cut a bit but nothing damaging. Annoyed I got up and walked back to the hill  that I’d visited earlier, keen to feel wet and cold, walking through the long grass and through bushes and trees along the way. At the hill I stood there and tried again, taunting myself, annoyed that I couldn’t even get it right. I slashed away but not nearly hard enough, thinking it’d be easy to cut, a few cuts and scratches on my wrist at least now visible to me. I slumped to the grass and wondered why I couldn’t do it porperly. I then stumbled to the bottom and went home where I told my mum that I needed help.

After a cup of tea and a muffin, I hadn’t really eaten that day, I was taken up A and E. and whilst waiting my dad had called my auntie and uncle. They were there and at one point my uncle leaned over me and asked if I had pains in the head. I mean, blimey!

After that it was a case of seeing about 5 different med’ types. The crisis team came and went at one point because they didn’t have enough information but eventually returned to discharge me but follow up with a visit on the Tues and me making an appointment with the GP on Monday. I felt a little bit better after been listened to and treated nicely and calmly.

At then, well then I went home, the rain belting down. And me in a state of confusion. I really wanted to be admitted but knew the chances were slim unless I went there with an open wrist wound. It was the early hours and by the time I nodded off I woke up feeling… odd. Almost as if I wasn’t sure if I belonged and where to now?

It’s something I’m still in the middle of. The strongest return of those feelings from Sunday came yesterday whilst out running in the rain. A walk to the cemetery seemed to stall them though.

I texted my former regarding the album and a few other messages of things I wanted to get out, nothing nasty but I put my side down. Responses have been few. Now I suppose I wait until the last bit of the divorce comes through.

Now it’s the aftermath. Or is that recovery? I’m not sure yet.

down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved