I’m bingeing on chocolate digestives. I know I’m going to keep going until they are gone. It used to be alcohol in this scenario. The biscuits are safer, and delicious, but less delicious than vodka. And they make me fat. Vodka never did that. But they have the same quality in that for the time I am stuffing them in my face I don’t have to think about what I’m feeling.

This week I have been all over the place. I’ve been angry, frustrated, despondent, sad, excited. Now I’m back where I started with the anger and hopelessness. I can’t see my way out or through this. It’s like a heavy fog is holding me down, and I get so tired of fighting it. I am tired of anxiety, self-criticism, nightmares and flashbacks. I’m tired of dealing with how broken my family is. I’m tired of trying to recover. Working so hard to show everyone how well I’m doing when I feel so completely shattered inside.

I had a good session with J today, I left feeling kind of level, which is new. Lately she has been helping me get ‘back into myself’ before I leave her place, and it works. Often, I used to feel a bit dangerous after our sessions. It was like we stirred everything up and then I couldn’t contain it all until next time. That doesn’t happen so much now.

It was a difficult session today. When I arrived, I felt quite strong. But soon after that the topic came around to anger. J asked me about my anger and I completely shut down. It triggered this sadness that welled up from nowhere and frightened me. I could feel this pressure on my chest, my cheeks flushing and tears creeping up on me from somewhere.

I panic when I feel like I might cry. Even in therapy, where I know, logically that it is totally fine. I just get massively self-conscious, ashamed and anxious. It doesn’t matter how kind J is to me, how much she reassures me that all of my feelings are welcome with her, I am still afraid to let go. That leaves me feeling choked, my throat closes up and my jaw aches. It’s exhausting.

I want to cry. I feel so deeply sad, it builds up and gnaws at me. I want to scream and rant and break things and tell everyone who has ever hurt me they can fuck off. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve to hurt. I am not a bad person. I’m not a saint either. But I really do try to treat others well, keep an open mind and an open heart. That’s why I get so conflicted about this awful rage that I seem to be incubating.

The anger was back in the box when I got home today. Until my mum messaged me to ask whether I had received the letter from my brother (more on that here).

I confirmed that I had and that it was crap. I even wrote a poem about how crap it was, but I didn’t tell her that.

She asked how.

I told her; it was barely a paragraph, it made no argument that even suggested he cares about having me in his life, he couldn’t even tell me he loves me.

She immediately started making excuses for him, like she always does. She said she told him to keep it short, that a short note would be better than not saying anything. She guessed he was just assuming I know he loves me (does she have any idea how fucking stupid that sounds?) and that she knows he definitely does. She asked what more he could have said and wanted me to call her so she could ‘understand’.

That really pissed me off. So I said no. I never do that with her.

Then she insisted she was driving over to see me (she lives 2 hours drive from me) because she needed to hug me. I had to reiterate several times that I didn’t want her coming over.

I tried to explain. I have been trying to explain for months and months now. I am sick of explaining and pushing and hoping for something better. I told her the letter was a piss poor effort and I am done with him. I said I didn’t expect it to fix everything, but I had hoped he would say something about not wanting to lose his sister, or wanting to have the chance to start being a brother to me for the first time in his life.

Again, there were excuses and questions.

I don’t want to have to live with my family managing me all the time. Passing communications back and forth as they see fit, questioning my decisions and ultimately failing to stand behind me when I need them. It is completely undermining everything I am trying to achieve. I just can’t deal with it anymore.