This is an entry I'e been working on for a couple of weeks.
It's a lot to get off my chest, and a lot of thoughts to word.
But, it needs to get out of me, so I'll have peace.
I'm not sure why, but lately I've been looking back a lot, and thinking about the past. It started on the train back home from Trondheim, actually, and just escalated from there. Maybe it's cause now that I'm finally in such a good and strong place in my life, that I feel the need to look behind me and see exactly how far I've come. And truth be told, I have walked pretty far.
I don't think anyone knows, nor will they ever know, just how insane I was at one point in my life. How bad things really were inside my head, and what my life was like. I was good at hiding parts of it, not wanting to trouble those around me, so what little people knew were but a drop in the ocean of what was really going on. Looking back now, I'm amazed at how far gone I really was.
The daily struggle with the voices in my head, and the many things I could see that no one else saw, not to mention the many different personalities arguing about who's really me. I was living a nightmare, every single day, while trying to maintain a decent facade to fool people into believing that I wasn't completely insane. The constant fear, the anxiety, the many hours of hysterical crying while begging for someone or something to come and take me away from it all or just kill me... Those were the worst years of my life. And I faced them alone.
I've struggled with things all my life, that much everyone know, but when I moved away from my home town to try and begin my new life, it all went down the drain in a rather ugly way. Though I did enjoy living in that town, the life I lived on the inside was a very unpleasant one. Now that I think about it, I realize that there's a lot of things that happened during those years that I've just chosen to pretend never happened. I always say I can't remember much of those years, but when I really think about them I find that I walked around in a constant state of insanity.
The voices in my head was the worst part. They were pretty intense, especially the first two-three years or so. It was like going around with a constant radio in my head, and the shows weren't pretty ones. Telling me to do things I really didn't want to do, and teasing me for all sorts of things. They were just annoying at first, but as time passed they started to scare me. After a while, they were telling me to kill people, and on certain days they were so intense that the only thing I could do to keep from doing what they told me to was to somehow use pain to snap out of it. Just taking something sharp and randomly stab myself somewhere with it usually helped. But I had many, many hours during those years where all I could do was lie with my hands over my ears and crying while begging the voices to stop talking to me.
The many things I could see didn't really bother me much. It somehow turned into a little game, where they were teasing me while I was in public to make me screw up, and I had to find ways to communicate with them without anyone noticing that I was talking to something that wasn't there. The woman in the mirror, however, did bother me a lot, cause I never figured out who she was. And to be honest, I have a lot of difficulties remembering much about her. I just remember that there was a woman there, instead of my reflection, that used to talk to me, and she was usually in a very bad mood. Either mad or depressed, though sometimes I wondered if she was just bitter or hurt about something. I never found out. But the goblin-like creatures and the many other weird things I saw? No, they were just fun and games, even when they were annoying. In the end, I learned to just ignore them.
The personality issues were strange ones. I never really figured out what the deal was there. Sometimes it felt like I was just a shell of a body that had several different other people inhabiting it. And they all claimed to be me, yet none of them really were. The constant arguing and bickering they had was tiresome, and the uncertainty and the anxiety that came from it all was enough to choke me to death on certain days. It certainly made it difficult to breathe. I lost what little I had of myself during those years, and spent the following years living in utter confusion of who I truly was. Needless to say, it was horrible.
And the "thing" inside my head. During those years, I was scared to death of some being I was absolutely certain lived inside my head. I was told, by a friend of mine, that one time as he was keeping me company while I was throwing up in my bathroom after getting drunk on a monday afternoon, I had made him promise me that if I ever started to act differently he would chain me up somewhere and not let anyone go near me. I was deathly afraid that something inside my head would take control of me and do horrible things. I used to dream that the world ended just because that "thing" got out and managed to get in control of me. Whatever that was, it was one of my biggest fears, and I walked around being constantly afraid because of it. I never trusted myself, especially around people. What if it took control while I was in public? What if it made reality of the things the voices wanted me to do? It made it imposible for me to be around people.
Though the black outs where rare, they freaked me out when they occurred. I could suddenly wake up in strange places, with no idea how I got there, or with wounds I didn't have before and with no idea how I got them. I don't know what they were, but they were anything but pleasant. Some times I only lost minutes, while other times I lost hours and even days. Most commonly, and hour or two would be gone from my memory, despite apparently having done a lot of things during those hours. It could've been my head surpressing my memories, or it could've been some other part of me taking control of me. I never really figured out what it was, and at some point (as far as I know) they stopped.
I've had a difficult life, most of my life, with troubles and whatnots of mental problems, but after I turned 20 I started living a nightmare. Everything inside my head went haywire on me, in the worst way possible, and the voices in my head and the things I saw went from being strange and unusual to directly horrifying. To be quite honest, I am glad no one got to see the hell I was living on the inside of me, cause I'm sure it would've scared them to death. And there is no doubt in my mind that they had locked me up somewhere. On certain days, I was the kind of crazy you only see in movies, and I can promise you that it wasn't a pretty sight.
After a while, things started to get a little better. The voices silenced themselves, and I didn't see things as often as I used to. The anxiety and the depression was still present, but the hysterical breakdowns and panic attacks dimmed down. I moved back to my home town, and slowly forgot about how bad things had been.
Then, a couple of years back, things hit bottom for me again, and I fell back into a bad state. Started seeing things again, and my depression and axiety flared up to the point where I'd get hysterical panic attacks and breakdowns whenever my head started teasing me by showing me things that weren't there. And once more, I started to lose contact with reality. I could stand in the middle of my own home town, that I knew better than any other place, and think to myself that I had never seen this place before. It was so alien, and even though I knew I had been there before, I just couldn't recognize it. At times I didn't even recognize myself, and I had periods where I couldn't look myself in the mirror cause the person looking back at me was someone I hadn't seen before. She wasn't me. Things felt unreal, and I had so many times where I had to ask myself if this was reality or not, cause I honestly didn't know. I walked around with constant anxiety, scared to death of everything around me - and inside me - and quite honestly wanted nothing more than to just die. To get away from it all. To get away from myself.
But, despite those years being as hard as they were, they were nothing compared to the hell I lived through when I was 20. Cause, this time around I had people around me to lean on. I had my ex there, and bless her soul for the support she gave me. I got to live with her during some of my worst periods, and she took so good care of me and gave me all the help I needed from her. Though there was nothing she or anyone else could really do to help me during those days, it was good just to have that love. To know that I just needed to ask her, and she would be there.
6 years ago, I didn't have that. I didn't dare involve anyone. I stood through the hell all on my own, with no one to help me. With no one to lean on. And it made the problems even worse. Cause with no one there to drag me out of my worst psychotic states, I just managed to dig myself even deeper in. I didn't even see a psychologist, so all the issues I had were issues I had to solve on my own. It was my own choice, so I'm the one to blame for the hell I lived, cause I didn't want to bother anyone. I was so scared, thinking that I'd be a burden to my loved ones, or that I'd scare them away with all my crazy. And truth be told, I thought that if anyone ever knew what I was going through, that they'd submit me to the kind of nut house you see in the movies and just drug me down while I'm chained to my bed in a straight jacket.
When I tell you that I was the kind of crazy you only see in movies, it's not a joke.
That's my past.
Now that I look back at it, I see that it was worse than what I like to admit. Did I really go through all that? And actually survive it? Yes. Yes I did. I struggled myself through a hell I pray I never have to face again, and emerged on the other side. And where am I now?
Truth be told, I cannot say for sure where I am, or even who I am. I'm still trying to figure that out. But I have found pieces of a puzzle I never even knew I was missing pieces from, and now I am slowly trying to puzzle it all together. I have made myself a strong foundation, on stable ground, that I have now started to build my house on. I may not have a perfect home just yet, but I am getting there. I still have a lot to learn, about myself and who I truly am on the inside, and what I truly want with my life, but I am closer now to figuring it all out than what I've ever been. To put it this way; I have the picture of who I might become, so all I need to do is finish drawing it so I can add the colours.
How I managed to get this far, after so many years of living a nightmare? I suppose I just finally decided, in the back of my mind, that NOW I'm going to start living a dream instead. Countless years of seeing psychologists and whatnots, and so many people trying to help me, made no difference in the end. Cause deep down, I wasn't ready. No one but me had the solution to the riddle that I was, and I alone had the key to open the locked door. It may sound silly and dramatic, but that's the plain truth. I had to be ready, on the inside, and take that first step alone.
And I did. I stepped outside, and took a leap like no other. I saw a healer that helped me on the way after that first step, and ever since I have been moving forward at a pace that can't even be described. I got rid of my anxiety, and my depression, in just a couple of months. And all I did was decide that enough is enough. Of course, I spent months analyzing things inside my head, brick by brick, trying to figure out who I truly was, but the important part is that I actually started that analyzing and I didn't give up. I learned things I had never known before about myself, and I found a part of me I never even knew was missing. Yes, it helped going to a psychologist on a weekly basis to talk about my progress, and it helped having loved ones around me that I could call or text when I needed to talk. But in the end, I did this on my own.
I showed myself that I have strength.
And THAT, is the most important lesson I've ever learned.
So, now I'll be leaving for a week's evaluation stay at a psychiatric clinic up north. This was actually planed ages ago, when I was still doing pretty bad, cause they wanted to submit me to a long term stay there. I have no idea what they'll figure out during this week. If they'll say that I'm so well now that I don't need the long term stay, or if they'll say that there are still things that needs to be fixed. Either way, now that I am finally on stable ground within myself, I am determined to figure out WHY things went so bad. Why I've been so crazy. I mean, you don't get that sick for no reason at all, so I need to find out why I got so sick. And, truth be told, if I'll have to spend three months in a clinic to figure it out, I'll do so. Of course, I'd prefer just seeing my psychologist on a weekly basis, and hopefully an expert of some kind, cause I really don't like being locked up. Makes me feel unsafe. But, whatever happens, I will figure things out. Even if I have to do it all on my own. And that is my promise to myself.
After so many years of neglecting myself, I'm finally going to take responsibility.
I am going to fix myself, no matter what it takes.
I'll be your rainbow phoenix...
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