Floored

We went to bed, and I dropped off. My head had been full of thoughts, mostly negative, before I went to sleep. Rather than sleep properly, I dozed lightly for an hour or two and then woke up again.

My mind went into overdrive and I spent a long time, maybe two hours, endlessly attacking my self; telling me how useless I was, how pointless my life was, how I was wasting and destroying everything. I started screaming at myself inside my head, thinking about cutting myself, and imagining that I was taking a beating in a fight. I was really tired, and I knew I was; I deliberately forced myself to stay awake, even though I knew that I could drop off if I wanted to, and particularly because I knew that doing so would be better for my body and my mind.

Eventually, I took pity on myself and reached a compromise. I clearly didn't deserve to sleep, and I especially didn't deserve to be warm and comfortable in bed. So in order to maintain one punishment or the other I could choose: be comfortable but stay awake, or sleep uncovered on the floor. So I picked up my pillows and curled up on the carpet.

Oddly enough I didn't sleep very much.

After a while my wife realised that I wasn't alongside her, woke up, and made me come back to bed. She gave me hugs and calmed me down and I fell deeply asleep.

I punish myself a lot. I deliberately don't do things that I want to or know that I should. I don't let myself sleep, or eat, or relax and do something nice. Even though I haven't cut myself or made myself sick for a long time, I still do bad things to myself. I punch myself in the head, I eat far too much, I imagine that I am lying on the floor being kicked in the ribs.

I deserve it all, and I can't convince myself of anything else. I so glad to have someone wonderful who can tell when I'm not in bed, or who keeps me away from packets of biscuits, or who presence keeps me in line near knives. I need to be better so I can give her what she deserves.

Bad period

I haven't posted for a while. This is partly because I haven't had much to say, but mostly because I have been suffering an extended period of feeling absolutely bloody awful.

My normal downward swings in mood last three or four days. My current episode is now approaching three weeks.

I am suffering from all of my normal symptoms:

• Variable mood, often changing suddenly, and easily becoming extreme (sudden crying, or easily becoming frustrated for example).
• Mood predominantly negative, and the full range of negative states: complete apathy, melancholy, fear (particularly about the future), general lowness.
• Periods of lacking emotion, I usually use words such as flat and empty to describe these.
• A desire to give up.
• Constant negative thought processes; running myself down, convincing myself that everything I attempt will fail, playing out depressing or very negative situations that could occur.
• Hints of my old paranoia and sense of persecution.
• Anxiety in public and around people.
• A feeling of being mentally blocked when I attempt things.
• Poor self care.
  

These are all things that to one degree or another I have learned to cope with, and can at the very least wait out until I find my way back into my usual rut.

That I have felt this bad for so long is starting to worry me, and is taking its toll. Being low and being tired, both physically and mentally, feed off of each other. My body is struggling with general tiredness and interrupted sleep. My mind is running out of energy and fight completely.

I have been coping quite well, better than I have in the past. Bits of last week were hell, but I fought through it and managed to be in work Monday to Thursday, only giving in on Friday. I didn't achieve much when I was there, but I tried.

Of course things have been hard for people around me as well. My wife is wonderful and has been so much help, but I worry about how much stress I am causing her. My work colleagues have been very supportive, putting up with me being next to useless and trying to encourage me along. I have gone from being mildly unreliable in World of Warcraft (WoW) to extremely unreliable.

I really want this to be over. I am running out of strength and I am getting worried. Mostly, I want to stop troubling everyone around me.

A little while ago I said that I would try to post positive things. Friday evening and Saturday bucked the recent trend and were great. On Friday evening I was part of a successful WoW raid; it was the best performance my Guild have put together and a big improvement on our previous attempts. On Saturday I baked cookies and cakes with my wife and we went to our friends' house to watch Eurovision. Which as ever was terrible/brilliant.