"I get knocked down, but I get up again"

My friends are my whole world, you know. I love them with complete abandon.

The one thing I struggle with in friendship though…is making and keeping plans.

A friend of mine asked me to come to his “poetry slam” and my heart aches because I know how much it would mean to Marco if I attended and saw him at his best. Another friend of mine…we’ll call her “Emily” plays the Oboe for the Orchestra (!!!) and invited me to come to one of her shows…and I just couldn’t go. I let her down

I let ALL my friends down like that.

Here’s why:

Depression holds me hostage in bed with tears rolling down my face. I literally can’t move, the feeling of pain and helplessness is SO OVERWHELMING that my 100% focus is on survival. I concentrate my entire being on just taking a breath. Going OUT is basically impossible.

Anxiety tag teams with depression so that my entire body shakes, my throat squeezes tight, my skin crawls with an itch and a heat that is unbearable and I honestly feel like I’m going to die. So going OUT? Not possible. Not by a long shot.

On top of THAT, I am ALWAYS considering suicide. My brain is LOCKED IN 24/7 to how best and easiest to die – I want something fast and something with the least pain for the least amount of time.

Do you have any idea how F*CKING HARD it is to fight your own STRONG URGE to kill yourself all day long? I can’t wash dishes without wondering if a broken glass or knife stabbed into a main artery in my leg can bleed me out before my brain registers the pain…I’ll be dead. I want that. All the f*cking time.

I can’t cross a street without weighing up how fast a bus or big truck is going and wondering if I just allow myself to drift in front of it, will that be enough to kill me? Because I don’t want to be injured, I want to die.

I can’t walk past a tree – ANY TREE – without wondering about hanging myself from it.

Everything around me at all times is a possible way to die and EVERY POSSIBILITY IS APPEALING to me.

So I don’t know if I’ll be alive in an hour…let alone on Saturday…so I can’t agree to brunch because I honestly don’t know if I’ll be alive.

I “live” like this.

It is HELL.

I’ve done this for 12 months and no, it never stops.

Ideally I should go back to hospital but with the financial responsibility of my Mom weighing heavily on my shoulders, I can’t. I have to push myself to keep working so my Mom is housed, fed and safe.

It’s a lot.