As I start writing this, I’m already tempted to run off topic. Therapy today was tricky. I felt guarded and distant. There was a fair bit of hopelessness around. Maybe that’s why I’ve not written much about therapy recently. It’s perhaps why I haven’t written much at all. I’ve struggled to feel like there is any meaning to be found in putting words on paper. Nothing seems to alleviate the overwhelm.

I know that’s when I drop the ball. When I can’t get a handle on things and it all becomes unmanageable, I give up trying to manage it. Even just a small part. Everything seems so infinitely connected and tangled that making sense of any fragment feels impossible.

This has made me irritable and resistant in therapy. I want to argue against everything J says to me, like if I push back hard enough she’ll give up trying to work with me. I think there’s something in me that wants to convince her my distorted thinking is right and she’s wrong to believe in me. Sometimes I wonder whether I am subconsciously waiting for her to agree with what I say about myself, so we can end the repetitious discussion of the past months once and for all.

While I have been feeling very low, I haven’t done anything too destructive. I’ve been cutting again, on and off for about three weeks. It’s oddly dissociative. Not in the sense that I’m dissociated when I decide to cut, but once I’m in the act I am so far from myself. I don’t feel the blade on my skin at all. There’s no physical pain.

I think I’ve been self harming again because so much feels out of my control. Here’s a brief summary of the significant events that occurred for me in the last three weeks.

Two of my colleagues died. Both too young, and both very sudden. One was a friend, one I knew but not too well. The emotional fallout at work has been more than difficult.

My best friend tried to kill himself in our home (we live together). I got a phone call at work from the fire service as they had to break our front door down to get to him. He was in intensive care for two days. For a short time I wasn’t sure he would survive. J was on holiday and I felt as though I wasn’t going to cope with any of it. It was awful.

My grandmother is now in hospital with pneumonia. I’ve got no energy left to be worried about her. I am just hoping and hoping that she’ll recover.

For now, I am focused on the fact that I’ll be attending a funeral tomorrow. For a kind, funny, intelligent man who has left behind a wife and young family and a huge cohort of friends who adored him. I don’t want to say goodbye to him, but it feels important that I do.

Photo: Liz West, Creative Commons.