1998

I just realised that I don't remember anything from year 1997. Maybe because everything happened during the year after. When everything changed, forever. Did you know I was raped twice? Though it's hardly a record and nor should it be. It just popped up in my head right now, as I was thinking about the number 97 which is one of my favourite numbers.

Rape, sexual assault. It changes you. And I was so young in 1998. Just nine years old. Did I ever have a childhood? I ask myself. I's almost like I was born unhappy and then people went and made my life even crappier. It's not so strange I hated elementary school. But my hatred towards it wasn't actually directed to schools as such, cause I really liked going to other schools later on. I guess I just hated my class and school mates back then. They weren't so friendly.

They did that to me. Children, younger than I was. Though I can't even remember all of it. Don't remember how the rest of that day went by, how I felt directly after. I don't remember the rest of the day my second rape happened either. I wonder why. My mother remembered it though. Apparently I was kinda upset.

I guess I just like ranting about the horrible things I went through. Maybe it's a way of facing it, of dealing with it. Maybe I am just crazy and find pleasure in reliving the truly unpleasant. I fantasise about it, how it could have gone differently. For the worse and for the better. Trying to get some perspective. Trying to understand what actually happened, why it happened. How they must have thought and felt. What went through my rapists' minds when the did what they did? Did they think they didn't harm me, or were they cruelly aware of it?

Wonder why I didn't defend myself the second time, in 2007. I knew karate for fucks sake. And I just lied there and took it. I don't understand why. Maybe my fear just paralysed me. So much for learning self defence.

And it just brings me down. How fragile I am, so easily broken. And I wonder if it could happen again, cause I have a feeling that it will happen again someday. I don't know why, but it's like I think the world isn't done fucking me around. At least it gave me Anna as a sad act of forgiveness or something. Cause I still think this is why she came to me. PTSD with dissociation, or DID. My best bet so far as to why I have a split personality. The whole of me split into two people. And most of you only know half of me.

Don't be your own therapist, you just end up getting more entangled in the memories of your traumas. But they're just memories now and they can't hurt me. My scars that will never fully heal. I don't think I've ever heard of another rape victim who's moved on completely from their experience/-s. Cause maybe it just isn't possible.

In past tense

I remember a lot from our relationship, I realise when thinking about it. I have conversations in my mind about us hooking up, just as friends. How far I've come since we broke up, how much is different now. Would we even recognise each other? How can I ever know.

The memories are haunting me like ghosts, and I don't know why all of a sudden. It's been over five years since we last saw each other, and now I get flashbacks and imaginary conversations. Why now? Is it that five years means something, is it a special number of years somehow? Cause I wonder, it must be something.

Well, at least it's not any negative flashbacks, but that's what is bothering me. If it was negative then maybe I could understand it. I've moved on a long time ago and I've never had a reason to look back, other than to acknowledge the fact that it is a part of my past. And I've always been fine with that.

I just can't shrug it off, you know. Do I want us to get together again? No, I hardly think so. Maybe I'm just curious what became of him, what stories we could tell each other from the years we've been apart.

But that I enjoy those thoughts of us, and I let them continue and that I find solace in them somehow, might also be a bit of a pet peeve.

But of course, it was after all the only relationship that I've ever had in which both me and my partner were deeply in love. That does become a special bunch of memories altogether. That I've never been anywhere near those feeling again or before that relationship. And I long so badly after having that again, with someone else. Yes of course, that must be it. It's not actually him that I miss, it's what we had.

Holidays and mental illness

I think I know now why I often (not always) get much worse over holidays, such as Midsummer and Christmas. It could be because I don't have any connection with the psychiatry at those times. They are all on vacation. And lately, I can't even rely on my medication to keep me above the surface. Something is constantly increasing, decreasing, new or old coming up and I have to change my meds again.

During this autumn and winter so far, I've had to see my psychiatrist every month (that is a lot in my life) cause there's always something new going on. Anxiety, sleeplessness and mood swings are the most recurring reasons these days.

So, my theory is that because I don't have any shrinks or doctors to go to on a regular basis around those holidays it causes emotional overload. It's sad cause it's a time you're supposed to enjoy life, but it's also proving the point that mental illness doesn't take a break just because it's a time for celebration. For long I had to convince my parents of that, that I don't get to choose when my anxiety hits the roof or when I get suicidal. That delicious food and presents don't make the voices more tolerable, or that candy and cake don't chase away my irrational fears. I wish it did though. God, I wish it did.

For so many Christmas holidays I have curled up in my room with razor blades or stuffed animals, trying to hide what horrible state I was in so that my parents wouldn't notice that their celebration didn't ease my misery. And it all just made me feel even more horrible. Ungrateful. They were doing everything they could to make it a good time for me and my sister, and there I was banging my head in the wall to make the voices stop saying mean things to me. It felt like it was my fault, that I was ungrateful and selfish. That I somehow demanded more, which of course I didn't, if not only from myself then.

No one should have to feel that way. Cause I can't be the only one who's had it like that. I seriously thought it was me doing something wrong, that I didn't appreciate the seasonal celebration enough. But that's not true, it's not your fault if you can't make yourself feel better just because you're supposed to.

While you probably do get told that you can't reason with psychological problems like anxiety, it should be more informative of the fact that it can be extra horrible during holidays. But it never says anything about that anywhere, as far as I know. So I'm saying it right now. Because you have more demands on yourself, and feeling the pressure from family and friends that you should be happy. I wish I would have known that in my teens and late childhood.

Although, that is what you get told as a child, isn't it? That if you suffer and complain with no visible reason for it, you're obviously ungrateful and whiny. Though I had no word for anxiety when I was ten, and Anna was very keen about me not uttering a single word about her constant nagging voice in my head. So even when I eventually did complain I didn't really say anything about what was actually going on with me.

My mental problems have never given a damn about the circumstances around me. It can be winter, summer, autumn or spring - rainy, snowy, sunny or cloudy - Christmas Eve or just a normal Thursday - when my emotional chaos starts storming again. It isn't dependent on the weather or the season at all. I call it "chaos" for a very good reason: it is undefinable, unpredictable and seemingly uncontrollable.

Right now I settle for just calling it "chaos" rather than trying to shove it into a specific diagnosis. As I use to say (not that often I think though) is that I believe I will some day have a mental disorder named after me. But... if I'm the only one with that new disorder, maybe it won't be named at all? I've gotta find myself some followers!

Cause seriously, I could be considered "completely healthy" by psychological standards: not fit into any diagnosis at all. But having at least one, or several, horrible traits of almost every disorder known to man is making me mentally disabled ...and undiagnosed. I have considered that option before, it's just that it would be so painful. Cause that would doom me. Doom, damn and condemn me for the rest of my days. There's a reason why they shuffle me between different departments all of the time. I'm allover the place, my problems are allover the place, and I don't fit in anywhere. It's confusing, but apparently I'm worse off without that circus, I notice during those times of celebration.

Conclusion: Maybe this is the reason, maybe it is not. Maybe I just still, since childhood, have those demands on me that I'm not allowed to be an emotional chaos just because we're opening presents and eat special food.

*

Okay, this turned out a whole lot longer than I intended it to. It's these words, they never end. I could go on and on on the same issue for hours and even days, and still be able to go back to it later and continue ravaging it. I'll try to cut it a little. There. Much shorter.

This awful year 2013

This year has been awful. Overwhelming, pitiful, tedious, dark and filled with sadness. But also happiness, small glimpses of fulfilment and friendship, but mostly a whole lot of disaster. It started off bad, as I tried to study at Folkhögskolan here in Hemse and failed miserably. I damaged my knee seemingly permanently and started isolating myself again.

DBT went horrible as I started that soon after I left the school in February or March, I felt painfully alienated in the small group and my cheating on the diagnostic tests for Borderline Personality Disorder started to unravel. I started taking hormones again on my own in early summer/late spring and unleashed a disastrous chaos I had never seen a likeness of before that would come to last for several months.

After that I fell in love, and soon became painfully lovesick all the while the stagnation in the psychiatric departments led me to several suicide attempts during the two weeks I spent in a psych ward during Midsummer. I was also mute for a day in there. Then came alcoholism, increased smoking, caffeine addiction, starvation, more extensive self harm and sleeping disorders.

I got scared of sleeping and avoided it at all costs, then I made it a game in trying to stay awake for as long as I could. Somewhere in that mess I managed to get to the main country to visit my friends in Uppsala and Stockholm, for about a week. Adding to all that I've had four psychotic episodes and got more imaginary people living in my head.

Yeah, it hasn't been a very good year. I sure haven't been bored much though. It's always something going on in this mess of a brain I carry around wherever I go. It's like I do nothing but taking it easy and trying to relax and taking things slow - but yet I'm still constantly stressed out, tensed up and on my guard. My own mind stresses me to the brink of how much I can handle. Sometimes it pushes me over the edge and gives me too much. I've never been very good at living, but seeing as I'm still here after this horrible year, I'd say I'm pretty good at surviving.

Memories and irony

I hate it that when I sleep for a whole day and two nights and I have like 500 unseen posts on tumblr... Somehow I feel smarter and more connected when I've been awake for 24 hours or more. My brain is a bit slow started. So this is what it's become of my circadian rhythm. I'm not sure if I like it, more apathetic about it. Like I don't care that I'm pulling three or four all nighters, and sleep two or three days in a week, every week. I can't even remember for how long this has gone on.

I'm thinking about my eleventh suicide attempt again. I do that quite a lot lately, just that one. When I could have died. Thinking about that if I hadn't gone to the hospital I would have died that night. Thinking what I should have done instead so that I wouldn't have to be here today. Should not have gone back home, should have taken shelter at McDonalds or something, just until I started to doze off, then walked away to die somewhere secluded where there were no people. In the middle of Uppsala, yeah I probably wouldn't have gotten that far. But still.

So in that sense I guess I kinda want to die. In the sense that I wish that I had died then and there. Still going over it in my memory, replaying every detail. How cold it was, how I sat there on the pier writing suicide notes to my mother, my boyfriend at the time, to my best friend and to the authorities; while eating a sandwich and downing pills with cheap wine, how I lied down and wrapped my leather coat closer to me.

And when that weird domestic worker from where I lived came by and started talking to me. He had a crush on me and wouldn't leave me alone. I lied there dying from suicide and he sat there unknowing, talking to me as if it was just another lovely day. I didn't have the guts to tell him to fuck off. He had just a few days earlier tried to kiss me, and I thought he must be very lonely, that not many people wanted to talk to him. He a was kind man of African heritage in his 50's or so, though I could only understand a few words of what he said with a broad accent. Can't even remember if we talked in Swedish or English. Can't remember what we said at all. You could say I had other things on my mind at the time. Though he was quite peculiar and I couldn't understand what he saw in a young androgynous goth with obvious mental problems.

When I think about that day, I think of a few parts of that memory more at one point, and other parts at another point. It's seldom I think about the whole day and following night. I don't remember at what time I went down to that pier, but I think it was around 6 or 7 pm. And I don't remember when I ended up in the hospital, but they were done at 3 am. So yeah, it was more a night than a day. Mostly I try to remember what I blacked out. The ride in the ambulance, what they said in the hospital, things like that. If I try hard, I can remember when they arrived at the apartment I lived in, and when they helped me down the stairs. But I must have passed out somewhere around there, cause the next thing I remember I'm on a gurney in the intensive care unit, and my memories from there on are very vague.

Why do I keep going on about this particular memory? It holds a certain significance, like the first time I was actually close to dying, so close that some days I even think that I actually did die that day. And I'm just a ghost now. Cause it feels like I am just a ghost and I've been so ever since then. And I can't let go.

So maybe that's why my twelfth suicide attempt doesn't bother me that much, cause of course I couldn't die, I'm already dead. Silly, really, cause I know that I'm still alive. Don't I...? No, I still doubt. There was a risk, but not so high, that I could have died that time too. When you stop breathing by your own hand, like I did, you pass out and let go of the grip, your body automatically starts breathing again. But it's not a 100% chance of it doing so. So that's what I mean, I could have died, but it wasn't likely, and I knew that. I knew that when I took that choice of trying it anyway. So I was more desperate to do it as soon as possible, and thought I'd give it a shot, even though I knew it wasn't likely going to work.

And maybe that is also why I don't think so much about that attempt. It was deadly, but my intentions were a bit wacky and so was my choice. It wasn't even thought through, but alas, my choices were a bit limited because I was in a mental institution.

My opinions about that ward sank a bit after that night. I mean come on, a patient of theirs tries to kill themselves and what do they do? They didn't even notice. I had a huge fucking wound across my neck and spoke with a sore voice that barely held and they didn't say anything. I eventually told them and what did they do? Nothing. So it wasn't so strange that I tried it again the next night. And again the night after that. And again. Four times all and all, until I just gave up on that. I'm just glad I didn't have a room mate!

So I never think about that, huh? I obviously do. But I don't even know half the stuff I'm thinking about, so I guess it just slipped my mind or something. It's so weird though, the psych wards just seem to get worse and worse. "Back in the day" when I was admitted as a minor in 2005 it was really good. They took good care of me and they noticed whenever I was upset, had cut myself or cried. In 2011 I was admitted thrice and they were from bad to worse, but at least they noticed if something was terribly wrong with me. This time... I had to become mute for them to even notice, but nothing bothered them. Not my muteness, not my self harm or my four suicide attempts.

I'm not trying to seek attention. Well, I do, but in the sense that I seek medical attention. That wasn't fake, anything that I did or that happened to me there. It was all real. And after all that had happened I wanted their attention so they could help me. But they couldn't. I hate that damn place, and I see no reason going back there. Everything is out of their jurisdiction and all they can do is talk and change my meds. I already have a psychiatrist, a shrink and a supportive mother, so what can they offer me that I don't already have? I was in for being suicidal, and I was very suicidal, and they couldn't even be on suicide watch. Couldn't help but wonder how many patients there had killed themselves. In that ward, in that room where I slept. It's not like in the movies, you should know.

I'm slightly obsessed with suicide I realise, especially my own futile attempts. This day disappeared too, it's dark for so long and so much these days. I went up at 8:00 after I had slept for 30 or so hours again. I don't remember when I went to bed, nor do I care. Around midnight to the 10th I think. I didn't really want to get up, but I couldn't sleep any longer and I thought that if I was gonna get up, I wanted it to be daylight. So I did get all daylight that I could today, yet it wasn't enough. I'm tired of all the darkness. Do you realise just how much darkness it is when you're awake around the clock and you only get 5 or 6 hours of light a day? Most of my time I write, listen to music, surf on the web, eat, drink coffee, embroider and so on in darkness. I barely turn off the lights before I have to turn them back on again.

Just made myself this insanely strong cup of coffee. I've had like two gulps and I feel dizzy. I bought these kind of powder cappuccinos you mix with hot water. Alright I took one of those in a smaller cup, and mixed in two spoons of regular instant coffee, more sugar and more cream. Like four cups in one! Now that oughta keep me up tonight.

I realise that I really like German as of lately, or for a few months or so now, and especially in music. Many nice industrial bands seem to have a few songs in German, so I whipped up a playlist for that on Spotify. I really do make playlists for everything, don't I? Well, every mood deserves its own music. And I still have many moods.

Maybe it's not so strange that I suddenly like German, cause that's the kind of language I like, in general I mean. Now "that kind of language" is a pretty loose concept when it comes to me. What I mean is hard consonants, powerful and a little complicated in a way. Like Russian, German or Czech. Not those generally considered "beautiful" languages like French or Spanish, that I can't say I like much at all, and I certainly don't find them to be beautiful. Just another thing people consider me to be weird because of. To me it isn't weird, merely uncommon perhaps.

Now I've written nearly half a novel for a blog entry, but I can't seem to write anything productive lately. My inspiration is on hold, but I know it will come back to me. It always does. Still I can't help but wonder why that is, why I've suddenly lost my inspiration. I wrote and created things before, when I was a wreck this summer, so it can't be that, or can it?

I'm more stable now, my mood is stabilised due to medication and oh, how damn much medication I take for my mood swings... 300 mg Lamotrigin and 200 mg Tergretol a day. So how stable am I really? Taking half a drug store every day just to keep me from going from super depressive to manic to agressive to scared shitless anxious fifty times a day. I'm still feeling a lot, not at all zombified and lethargic. I mean, I could even up the dosage further without reaching that state. Not that I need to though. Even I need to feel something every once in a while. And wow do I feel! But just that now my emotions are controllable, except from my undying love for my crush and my fear of sleep that is. How can I even feel so damn much anxiety every night with all that medication in my blood stream?!

However, even though I'm stabilised mood wise, I do doubt that I'm completely in my right mind now. I'm staying up for days in a row, then sleep for an entire day and so it goes on. I get super anxious every night because of a phobia of sleep. I cut every day (except when I sleep for a whole day that is) and deeper and more severe than ever so I'm constantly on a slight blood loss, smoke like a chimney and don't even care about quitting any more, live on microwave meals and don't care about eating healthy, I've stopped taking daily walks and I'm a caffeine addict.

So yeah... I'm medicated enough to appear more stable and together and all, while I'm actually breaking apart piece by piece. It's like my subconscious or something still knows I'm a wreck and will do any wacky thing I can come up with to simply stay alive. This is so ironic I don't even know where to begin. In order to stay alive I do every possibly damaging thing I can think of, or at least if you would sum up this whole last six months or so, that would really be the case. I've tried every possible dangerous, and even deadly thing I can think of really, and then I complain of why it's so hard to survive? I mean what the fuck is wrong with me?! The definition of crazy: can't think straight, like ever.

Wow, now I've really written half a novel...

Not here, not there

Some time in January next year I will have been in pain every day for nine years. Kinda inconceivable when I think about it. Can't help but wondering what I would have done back then, when I was 15, if I had known it was gonna last this long. Nine years is a long time, and I don't remember what it was like to be pain free. I can't even remember it.

For somehow I have gotten used to it always aching, pounding, hurting or stinging in this head of mine. Lately I've been in pain in other body parts as well, but that hasn't been consistent and is mostly just because I'm out of shape and sitting by the computer too much. And the pain I'm causing myself doesn't count.

It's been a bad day. I've been feeling strange, sort of empty, but it's not the right word. Think I might have discovered a new emotion again... hate it when I do that. Like I've just been wanting to flee all day, but at the same time absorb everything. I mentally suffocate myself for reasons that are to me unknown. Lethargic, despondent, hopeless and a little more lovesick they usually. On the verge of dissociation: halfly drifting into another state of existence, losing touch with reality for a moment before drifting back again.

I've pined, yearned for him so much today that my heart aches. Taken so much caffeine, like I'm jaded or chased by something. Like I'm trying to defend myself. I can't do anything productive, mostly I've just been staring at the screen. An empty stare, I've been looking without seeing.