I've been having a bad week, as will be evident from my recent posts, but yesterday decided it had it in for me in a way the weekend hadn't. The result was more cuts on my leg. Then, as I'm running out of space on my calf, some on my arm as well. I only stopped taking a blade to my own skin and using the sting to soothe as it was time for my kids to come home from school. I won't cut while they're around. Self-harm is an addiction. I'm reliant on it but protecting my children and giving them a normal childhood is more important than watching my own blood well as a distraction technique.
Anyway, back to the point... Yesterday had it in for me. It started with a phone call, which I didn't answer because I was in with only my three year old and my husband wasn't available to answer instead. Anxiety affects every aspect of how I interact with others.
I managed to persuade myself to listen to the voice message which was left for me and discovered the caller had been HR from work. It was the message I've been dreading... "We need to have a meeting about your return to work and whether you will be returning. It's just, from a business perspective, you're the only one in your role... and your sick pay is about to end..."
My heart sunk because when my sick leave started, I intended to go back. I was on waiting lists for help. I thought I would have moved forward by now even if I wasn't fully recovered. However, six months later, I'm still waiting. I'm not better. Not at all. In fact, I've sunk further and I feel like I'm drowning. Right now, I don't have professional support. My medication needs a psychiatrist's review as it's not working but there are no psychiatrists available. There is nothing more I could have done to help myself because the support and guidance just isn't there...
So I can't go back to work. My statutory sick pay is ending. I'm going to lose my job because as it stands, even thinking about going to work panics me. It makes me want to die rather than facing either trying the impossible out of duty to my children - go back to earn money, knowing I'll be back on the commute that gave me an opportunity to run away and end everything - or face the meeting that will end my employment. Being made redundant in the past was horrific, but losing a job not because of a global recession but because I'm not mentally strong enough to work? Because I've failed at life? That's enough to push me off the ledge I'm trying to cling to.
When I managed to call back, I was asked to attend an occupational health meeting, which I'd have to go to at an as of yet undisclosed location. I can't even go to my PIP assessment. My assessor is having to come to my house. When I said I couldn't do that, the HR person decided she and my boss would have to come out to my house that week. The very thought made me queasy. I don't want to have to people bearing bad news to come to my safe place. I don't want to hear them judge that from a business perspective, I'm not good enough to keep. I don't want to have my failure held up for me to see.
If I'd had a physical illness I would have been treated by now. If I had a physical disability, I might have been able to advise work on how to make my job manageable to return to. But my problem is something work can't help with - I can't leave the house - and treatment hasn't been effectively put in place yet. I'm in an impossible situation. I tied to get help before I ended up on sick leave, and while waiting for that help I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose my family's income. We're going to lose the money we need to survive. The stress will mount up, and I'll get even worse. But when you're already rock bottom, where is there to go?
I still need to get back to HR to arrange the dreaded meeting, especially not this week when the thought of Friday's PIP assessment is looming over me, dread inducing, like a hurdle I need to cross to survive, but a hurdle that seems specifically built to ensure failure. Dealing with both DWP judgment and work's judgment in one week is too much for me to consider.
Anyway, having had that phone call, a letter then dropped onto the door mat of what was my late father's house but is now mine. It was a final notice for a gas bill from a company we've never heard off. When we got the keys to the house, we arranged for another company to supply our gas but apparently that didn't happen immediately and now dad's original company wants money we weren't expecting to pay out. Worse, because it's a final notice the company are threatening us with debt collectors if we don't pay in five days. The problem is, we've never had a bill. We've never had a first notice. And now we're getting final demands. That's enough to send me into another panic. It's enough to make me feel sick. It's enough to make me want to shut down. Go numb. Give up.
I couldn't phone the gas company because of my anxiety. My husband will have to deal with the issue as that letter was enough to have me sobbing without actually having to speak to a stranger.
A demand for money I don't have, especially after a phone call about my job, sent my heart sinking. It sent my mind whirling and triggered thoughts of suicide. Normal people would cope. They'd sort the problems. But me? I'm useless and my mind insists that being dead would be better, easier, exactly what I deserve. Dead removes the need to find solutions to problems I can't resolve.
That wasn't even that last the day had to throw at me. The final punch might seem small to other, but to me it was the straw that broke the camels back. Half an hour after receiving the gas final demand, I discovered something I'd ordered for Christmas for my kids had been cancelled by the seller. It seemed that the seller had cancelled so they could double the price meaning I can't afford my order any more.
Why is that affecting me so deeply (apart from my depression)...? My kids are going to have a very budget Christmas as we can't afford anything so this is a real blow. We're making them toys out of things we already have in the house because we can't afford to buy toys, that's how bad it's gotten. The cancellation was enough of a blow that, on top of the letter and phone call, there was only one way to calm myself; a razor blade.
Later I also tried smoking weed. I've never done drugs, not even in my youth, and as it happened my asthma meant I couldn't really smoke without choking. I don't agree with recreational drugs but I just need an out because the prescribed drugs aren't helping me. Tonight I plan on seeking help in a vodka bottle. I know that's bad too. I know it's not the answer, but neither was pleading for help from the doctor, from the hospital, from a counsellor, or from the Community Mental Health team.
I don't know how many cuts I've given myself in three days, but it's enough to reveal I'm going to have a bad week. Other people might be able to cope with simple problems such as a bill and Christmas presents. I can't, and on Friday I need to prove that. I need to prove it to PIP and then I'll have to apply for ESA and do it all over again. I need to prove that I can't do what I'm failing to do and the stress of having to prove it is making it harder to do anything at all. It's a destructive cycle.
What is the point?
I feel like I'm drowning, that I'm being dragged under, or pushed under, and that things can only get worse. But how can I explain that in a way that sounds like an illness rather than melodrama? I know it's an illness I have, while still telling myself I should get over it because so many people have told me that in the past, and I don't know how to put the sinking sensation I feel into words.
Maybe I should just open my mouth, let the water in, drown. Then, at least, people might look at my cold corpse and think 'oh, she did need help'. Maybe then it would become believable. It seems like the best course of action to both earn understanding/empathy and end my relentless fear and hopelessness.
If I'm denied PIP and ESA, I know there'll be no option but suicide. I can't go through it again, the struggle just to feed my children and pay the bills. If I'm denied the help I need until I manage to access treatment and gain some stability, then things will come unbearably difficult. I'm not saying that for attention or to help my case. There'd be no point as I use a pseudonym on this blog. I'm saying it because I know what happens when this kind of thing happens. I know what's going on in my head. I know how my mind has tormented me with the words 'just end it' for sixteen years.
Pseudonymous Zombie
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