Benefits and banality

Ah, I am terrible at staying away. It’s in my nature to write things down.

I am alright. Tonight, I have rather serious shakes (it’s like a ghost leaving a possessed body, the jerking, the emptying) as my body is rebelling against my mental energy. I haven’t been physically very well for a while, and recently, because I refuse, not by choice, to properly calm down, it is packing in. Cue constant nausea, dizziness and arse-white face with dark pissholes screaming for sleep. I am covered in scratches and bruises. I look, and feel, like shit. Make up, however, is fantastic. I look not-dead in make up. Today, though, it’s caught up with me and I have been quiet and tired and also pukey.

I think I’m earning a rather unfavourable reputation in the mental health community. I need to attach my mouth to a leash. The extremely agitated depression of the moment means that my three prominent emotions- rage, irritability and a strange glee- all froth out in the form of endless verbal diarrhea which I can’t seem to control. I had a lovely evening with my friend a few nights ago but she did comment that I seemed high- high in the sense of mood, rather than the drugged-up sense. I know I am, it’s tingling through me, but that hideous negativity and confrontational savageness with it.

But there is no crisis, honestly. Any perceived Teh Dramas you have is wrong. I am managing fine. I am being sensible as possible and taking my medication every night. I know the consequences of this, and it puts the fear of god in me. Or, to be more accurate, the fear of hell.

Ridiculously, in walking cliché fashion, I have been alternating between wild elation and absolute hopelessness. Laughter and tears, gabbling and depressed, bereft silence. I am, at the moment, a Manic Depressive. It’s kind of funny. I strut into the street, assailed by energy, and then, in the next moment, crippled and crab-like because of paranoia. But, I am very aware of it all, which is okay.

There are real life things getting me down too, all gorgeously augmented by my depressive brain.

Although the Sun and the Daily Mail would have you believe that “benefit scroungers” like me (who paid their taxes too) would be typing this from their secret villa in Spain, quaffing Blue Nun and chainsmoking. The chainsmoking part is right. But life on benefits is pretty bare. It is for me, anyway, as I live alone and diligently pay all my bills. I need the internet- I’d feel totally cut off without it. There’s electricity, gas, water, cat food, human food, part of my rent, tea bags and cigarettes. I’m not complaining, but it doesn’t leave me with very much. I saved nearly all of my backpayment, but that’s expressly for emergencies and there’s very little left. As it stands, I am wearing clothes four sizes too big (I’m now 8st 13lbs, having now lost the 3 stones I gained on antipsychotics), with holes in, because I can’t afford new clothes. I look disjointed and poor and I feel throughly dour, unfeminine and ugly. It’s a very minor, superficial niggle, but it does affect how I feel about myself quite a lot.

Luckily, my friends are kind and have clothes that need a new home so I get those. Which is brilliant because it’s free! But, against my better judgment, and others’, it makes me feel a little ashamed of myself. Because, at my heart, I am ashamed of myself for being poor. I’ve always been poor. I’m from a very poor family and, like always, I make the best of it. I was never ashamed of it back then (well, I was a bit, when people bullied me because of my clothes, and I hung my granny’s framed paintings of birds in my room to make it pretty because we couldn’t afford to do it up), but I am now, because I think, “I am unsuccessful because of my poverty”. There is no room at all for extravagance of any kind. But I manage, and manage well. I never have minus money in my bank account.

I’m also very sad that the best I can do for me and Rob’s anniversary is two days in Norfolk. I know a lot of people can’t even manage that, but I wish I could do more. I love him very much, and every day for a long time has been difficult for us. As coherent and measured as I am here, in real life I am scattered and constantly frustrated, and I have problems with my memory, concentration, coordination, sleeping and anxiety attacks. It is hard for him to cope with me, however much he loves me. He soothes me, takes the piss out of me, hugs me, tells me off, reminds me and understands that I can’t watch a film because I can barely sustain a thought, that I cut myself just to control frustration, that my anger is directionless, it’s just part of a mood, as is my irritation. He is endlessly patient with me, worries about me. And I want to thank him, spectacularly, in a way right now that my raging and stilted emotions won’t allow me to, and in a way that my self conscious, physical self will not instigate. Every day we struggle through this. And I am sad that I had to borrow money (which I still haven’t paid back) to attend my own grandad’s funeral. I hate having to borrow money so I am working rather hard to make sure I will not be in that situation again.

And thus I am panicking about Christmas as I might very well be in the position again. I need a debit card to do things by myself in advance but I have never been in debt and have no credit rating, so they won’t give me a proper bank account. Christmas without my grandad, for the first time in my life. I loved my grandad dearly, and he loved me. Sad missing people cuts through my thoughts. I feel very very alone these days. I am sad that my grandad found out that I was manic depressive and off work because I had a breakdown not long before he died. Before that, I was just his Seaneen. He was so worried. I reassured him over and over again on the phone that I was fine, although I was far from it.

I am scrupulously careful in my finances. It pisses me off immensely when people tell me off about my money. I only ever, ever asked for help when it was my last resort. When I had to, or face homelessness. I have been helped greatly by a few people. But I never got myself into debt or spent beyond my means. I’ve gone on the odd manic spending spree but due to my lack of debit or credit card (I have never possessed either), I can’t go mental. I can only ever spend as much as the cash machine allows me to. But, although I’ve bought random and unnecessary things, I’ve never enjoyed shopping and spending money. I find it utterly boring, trailing through racks of clothes that don’t suit me. If I want a book I’ll find it in a charity shop. I don’t like jewelery, I don’t care about shoes or labels, I don’t care about new phones or computers. I am not at all materialistic, and this means that not only my life but my home is bare. And this saddens me too, because it is not cosy, there are no trinkets. Because of my appalling memory, because I don’t remember the vast majority of my life, because some of my memories are memories of delusions, and I don’t understand what was real and what was not, objects are touchstones to me. As is writing, hence my prolific blogging. There are tools to remember. I’ve also been in the habit when manic of throwing/giving lots of stuff away, which is silly.

A lot is making me sad right now, I guess. I feel like I am going nowhere. Well, it is true that I am, in fact, not going anywhere. I don’t know what to do with my life because right now I feel incapable of doing anything. People say I should write a book about my experiences. But it would be the same thing repeated often- I really don’t remember a lot of my life, nor do I remember what I do day by day. I am pathologically forgetful and it has become worse since I started taking medication. You know if you’ve been depressed what a vacuum it is. Mania is the same and I’ve spent my life cycling from one to the other. There are only a few events that stick out. A lot are negative, because I have tried to forget those things, therefore, my mind pushes me harder to remember.

These aren’t unusual feelings. Everyone feels like this sometimes. I just can’t get rid at the moment, it’s bothering me. Every ten minutes I lapse into, “I am useless, I am going nowhere, I am talentless, I can’t affect any sort of change or happiness for anyone, I am this and that”. So very self obsessed, undeniably.

It means I’m also not fantastic company right now, which is also bothering me. I always say that, I’m not good company, but it’s quite true. I am not so much animated these days as halting. And confused. Everything is confused right now. I met my friend today and it was nice but I felt very faraway.

What I need, more than medication, sanity, or anything else in the world, is confidence. I want a little “Ping!” to ting when I grin.

I love a lot of things and a lot of people. I don’t like being self pitying. Somewhere inside me is the thrill of happiness. It just gets stifled and suffocated by this illness. I always feel as though I’m exaggerating or dramatising, but it really is that. I would speak to Rob about it if you truly want to understand it. When I lace my hands through Rob’s, or Boy Cat kneads my shoulder, or when my sisters send me funny texts I can’t afford to reply to and when I recall something I thought I had forgot (how I realised I loved him- I was jealous of the ex, and one thing I never did before him was jealousy. Ton of bricks but it made me smile and pick up the phone almost belligerently).