The past few days have been awful. Maybe it’s because the suicidal, black moods that were normal for me haven’t been so permanent lately. I’ve still felt like I was permanently struggling, but in a different way. Normal has been anxious, hopeless, fearful, insecure. It’s still been infused with deep self-hatred, but without the active thinking about ending my life.

Going back to work after Christmas I was energised for a few days. Things felt OK and I was thinking about the future a little. But then I suddenly ground to a halt. By Wednesday I was flat out of energy for anything.

On Thursday therapy was really tough. There was a lot of silence and I realise now why I hate it. I hate the silence because it stops me being able to ignore what’s going on inside. Which I guess is the whole point of it.

In the silence I start getting these deep, sad, scared gut feelings which I can’t articulate. I don’t want to even notice them. So I get really anxious trying to derail my train of thought and say something useful but that feels safe. It’s this colossal, raging battle within me and I hate that feeling.

A ton of really horrible feelings followed me home from that session. I knew it was something from a young part that had been activated, but that didn’t make it feel easier. I felt lost and frightened and so very alone. I couldn’t contain all the sensations in my body and I couldn’t move them. I burned myself. It didn’t help, so I burned myself again. I wanted to kill the part of me that was causing me so much pain. That led me to thinking about suicide, because it didn’t bother me in that moment that I’d be sacrificing all parts of me to destroy this one. It felt like it would be worth it.

Then I tried to write about what was going on in me and that made it all feel darker and more intense. I emailed J and she suggested some things I could do to reactivate my adult. I couldn’t get myself to even start one of them, even though I knew it would help. So I tried painting how I felt. As you can see; that was just disturbing.

The burden of all this lifted ever so slightly by Saturday. Enough that I could handle running my weekly CoDA meeting. I didn’t want to be there but I got through it. My wife and I then went to do some shopping, but being in the town made me feel so vulnerable. I was just clinging to her and watching fearfully as crowds of strangers passed us by. I felt intimidated by the noise and by the closeness of the people around us. It was overwhelming.

This was all still with me yesterday. I tried to take it easy at home. It helped to be here in my safe place with just my wife and my dog for company. But the weight of whatever had been churned up in me was still holding me down. When I got into bed, I had a series of flashbacks and dissociated. When my wife managed to get me back to the here and now I just sobbed and sobbed. I cried so much it hurt my chest and throat and I couldn’t breathe.

This all came to mind when a colleague asked how my weekend was this morning. I had to say it was fine and we didn’t do much. Because who wants to hear all this? So I switched into professional Laura mode, made small talk, and got things done.

But it’s all still there. It’s still lurking in me. And that’s making me feel really anxious about therapy tomorrow.