Last week a friend committed suicide.  He killed himself.  He cut through arteries in his arm. He went out of the way.  He had tried about 2 months before.  He had been in a MH hospital for a month then released and basically left to it by MH services.    It has hit me harder than I ever thought something like this could. I can’t get visions of him laying there out of my mind. Various visions.  I didn’t see him but I keep getting visions.  It’s almost obsessive.  I’m fighting my inner demons and fighting these feelings. I’m afraid of getting swallowed up.  I heard last Thursday.  He did it on Wednesday evening as far as we know.  Thursday night was a night of nightmares and broken sleep.  Friday onwards has been thoughts rolling around in the recess’ of my mind. The dark places where fear even fears to dwell.  Visions of him in good times. Him smiling.  I hear his voice calling my name out.  I’ve had some mild dark shapes that I’ve been seeing. Not peripheral but brief full glimpses.  Dark shapes and outlines.  On the beach fishing I saw shapes and things.  Mild.  Not nasty but strange and I’ve questioned it.  Last night was a not a late night it was an early morning. My sleep is going out the window. Today was away of Frodo wearing the ring.  Misty reality and drudgery.  Struggling to carry on doing what I was doing at work.  On Facebook obsessing about it.  Obsessing over countless things.  Today is almost gone.  Going beyond what and where I don’t know.  What haunts me is its nearly been me 3 times this year stopped just short of passing out with rope around my neck.  The devastation left behind even for me from him dying is the rue depths of pain. I cannot understand it even though I’ve been there.  I cannot understand it.  I cannot understand it.  It’s hitting hard.  I have to try to promise myself not to leave devastation like is for others.  I cannot ever give in if I feel like that.  Such darkness.  

I woke up the early hours of Saturday morning in agony.  I tried to get up but had to lay down on the floor.  I thought I was going to pass out but didn’t.  I had a pain in my right side just under my ribs and it was nasty.  I managed to get downstairs as I didn’t want to wake anyone but my wife was awake as I’d been tossing and turning in bed before trying to get comfortable.  I laid down on the sofa and finally managed to go back to bed but still in pain.  I either fell asleep or passed out because I came around and then turned the lights out.  Saturday when I woke up I was ok.  Did what I needed to do and even went to work for a few hours.   About 4:30-5am Sunday similar happened but I didn’t try to get up.  I managed to sleep again and when I got up I had a busy day.  I phoned the doctors to get an appointment yesterday morning but couldn’t get one in the end so I got a phone call back and spoke to a GP. She said to go to hospital to get blood tests done and to see her today and that it sounds like gall stones or a bile duct problem.  She also said if the pain comes back to go straight to hospital.  I’ll see what happens today.    

I have had mild dull pain there since yesterday now and my stomach has been rumbling since then too, which normally it doesn’t.  I guess the funny irony of this is that there’s a possibility that I have a potential life threatening health issue and I don’t want it to get that far yet I have attempted to kill myself a few times.  My mum had gall stones which they couldn’t find and it led to acute pancreatitis, something I really don’t want.  

I’m not sure where I’m headed. There are triggers in my life which are beyond my control and I don’t know what I can do about them which is unlike me. All the usual triggers are hitting me too which is normal for the time of the year.  I have no money to speak of right now. The bills are only just covered. It’s close to Christmas. My birthday has just passed, thank fuck because it’s a big trigger in several ways. My laptop has had issues and I’ve not been able to print bills off until yesterday. My mask has been superglued on with another one over the top. I’m behind where I had hoped to be with work and am yet to start some jobs which I had hoped I might have finished. It’s all building up. Everything. I’ve had enough and I’m only just warming up.  My children don’t want much for Christmas but I’m fighting my brain trying to work out how I can do the little they want.  I thought I wasn’t getting a tax bill as last year I’d lost the plot and didn’t make much profit at all but I do now have a tax bill.  I’m tired of living on ‘projected income’.  I’m tired of all the fucking bills.  I’m tired of paying out so much. I’m tired of working so much and having so little in return.  I’m not finding much joy in life. There are the odd little things that I am loving though like taking my son fishing.  Luckily it costs very little. I really treasure that time with him.  He deserves a better father figure than I can be sometimes I guess. I can’t live in the moment as I have to live in future work ahead just to trick my brain into thinking it’ll all be ok. I keep my mouth shut most of the time but inside I’m screaming about things.  I have things eating away at me. My wife doesn’t cope and drinks a few times a week and that’s a huge trigger for me. Often she has no recollection the next day of what she has said the night before.  Often she’s looking for reasons to pick at me or pick me apart and last night was no exception. I took both of our children fishing and it started to go wrong for my son and he got really angry. It was very windy and a rough sea. I messaged my wife while at the beach. It all turned around though.  When we got home she was drunk. She was excited that he had caught a fish but after they were upstairs she blamed me for the fact he had got cross. She brought up about a fishing trip in the summer when he got cross and angry. She told me it was my fault back then and hinted that last night would of been my fault. Funny how others judge a situation when they’re not there. He was cross because he couldn’t cash very far as it was so windy and was cross because he didn’t think he’d catch a fish. He did and it was a size we could bring home.  I know that it’s a huge trigger for me if she’s drunk as I get picked apart and I find her passive aggressive and spoiling for trouble. She never remembers it the next day and often our daughter reminds her of things she said even though she can’t remember herself.  I think she needs to admit that drink is an issue for her. If she opens a bottle of wine it has to get drunk. It’s usually gone in about 1/2 an hour.  She doesn’t realise but she drinks at least 3 nights a week and sometimes as often as 5. Obviously it’s a trigger oversize I wouldn’t be pouring it out here.  It needs to be addressed. It needs to be addressed for several reasons and first and foremost for her health.  She is on antidepressants and you shouldn’t drink on them because alcohol is a deprressant.  A parang,y her doctor says it’s ok to drink a bottle of wine 3+ times a week. Well if he does I ink he’s a shit doctor and a stupid cunt quite honestly. I’ve thought a few times about making an appointment with him and telling him what a twat he is. If he’s gibing others the same advice he is putting people at risk. Twat.  I better go to work and earn a few pennies. Enough fucking moaning. Time to get the sellotape and glue out and go find the third mask. 

There’s no escape from relentless mind. I’m fighting and it’s always a loosing battle. I’ll succumb one day. I’m tired. Tired of push push push to get money and it’s always going out. I’m tired of working too much and too hard. My mind used to be a good place. Now it’s a fight. Internal dialogue fights me. I push myself too much. Fuck it all. 

I’m back on the hypomania train. Awesome. I’m feeling really good. I’ve been on only 50mg of Lamotrogine for 10 days now.  I’m being referred back to MH now.  I went to the GP last Monday about getting referred back because of the mixed episode/ultradian cycling. I also talked about CAT with her too. She said she will put it in the letter to MH.  All is good.  I also spoke to her about ongoing shoulder pains and that I had put me neck out last Saturday and Sunday and neurofen wasn’t touching the pain. She prescribed naproxen for pain relief. So far it’s been pretty good. The first few days it did away with the pain fully.  It’s creeping back a bit now it hey ho such is life.  

  I now have2 allotment plots and have been very busy tidying plot 2 up.  My son has been a huge help.  We’ve been there on and off all weekend or fishing basically with a few customer visits thrown in too.  I love being me and having this energy. It’s awesome.  So much getting done and so much to do.  All is good.  I love feeling this good.  I even had a week or so of being good ‘level’ which was good. I managed to meditate a few times and have very clear thinking.  I’m planning allotments and growing space in the field that we are going to rent. I’m planning on growing more in the field so we can sell the excess and also give some to family too.  Feeling good is good and it’s good to feel good.  I’m just hoping the pain starts to go away and I can stop taking the pain relief.  I hate taking pills.  

I realised yesterday that I have been on medication since March now and I have had a pretty rough ride of it for most of this year.  I am seriously considering going meds free again. If I’ve had such a rough ride this year and been on meds, albeit a low dose, will being meds free be much different really?  I’m normally in a good place or hypomanic for 8-9 months of the year and sometimes longer. This year I really haven’t been.  I know the so called maintenance dose of Lamotrigine is 200mg per day and I’m only on 100mg because 200mg made me zombie like.  It was agreed with the GP and the hospital to lower it.  I’ve been 41 years of my life without them and I know 2012 was one nasty year, much like this one, but I was meds free back then and I didn’t have a full understanding of bipolar and not even a diagnosis let alone think I had it.  So it’s made me think about a lot of things.  The cpn and psychiatrist both said I have very good inbuilt mechanisms and I need to go back to using them now.  I am back to see a GP, not my usual one, on Monday and I want to talk about therapies to help me rather than medications to mask over it all.  I need to be able to see a habitual/normal for me mood pattern and be able to try to stop or change it.  I’m pretty sure I used to be able to.  I’ve been told to try CAT therapy by someone who worked in mental health until a couple of years ago.  I owe it to myself and my family to implement real changes and to try to stop thought and behaviour patterns if possible.  I also need to make some lifestyle changes too, which we are already working on.  I have managed to meditate today and have real good clear thinking and have managed to slow my thoughts down with some mental control and meditation. I know I can’t sit around and meditate all day and I have realised I need to use CBT techniques to build in triggers to help me recognise these changes in thinking when they happen and I need to have a phrase to use which, I will strengthen by use etc, that will hopefully bring about some focus.  The last 7-8 weeks have been hell and I fully realise it will be a continuos ‘battle’.  My wife has now agreed that I should try meds free again. She is the reason I stayed on them so long even though I talked with her and said I wanted off a few months ago now. Anyway I will see how it goes and I know for now I can’t simply just stop them.  I will however drop to just 50mg per day for now.  

I’m struggling with lots. I cant see the point in pushing and pushing when nothing changes. I’m angry about some things and they eat away at me. I’m trying to break cycles and endless circles but when others around me keep repeating theirs and won’t try to stop theirs then I see no point as its part of a bigger circle.  It’s a path of self destruct and a path of pity. I simply cannot repeat what I now see as cycles or patterns. It’s a hard fight and if it keeps going in circles then it’s not worth the energy of the fight or trying to change things. I certainly can’t keep going on like this. It serves no purpose and is destructive.  I feel like I’m being pushed and manipulated into things in life.  I push myself too far with work and I’m still stuck in a hole. Pishing myself to get ahead and just as things look like they will change they don’t. I get kicked down again.  I have too much on my shoulders and it’s breaking my back. Ive been tricked into too many things when unwell, even before knowing I get mentally unwell. I’m more vulnerable than ever and I fear I’m cracking.  It’s a slow decent from a height but as the earth looms ever closer things speed up.  In some ways I’m not looking forwards to christmas at all because it’s the same thing every year. In other ways I am looking forwards to it because I do get to take a week and a half or so off work. The last time I took time off work willingly was last christmas and the christmas before that and the Christmas before that. Other than time off this year with flu/pneumonia. It has to change but doing the same shit year after year is killing me, maybe that’s why I’m pushed so much I’m worth more dead, and it’s insane to believe doing the same thing over and over will change anything. I feel like I should visit my parents at times. 

I’ve phoned the local surgery to get an appointment with a Doctor. I have put it off and will get referred back to MH services. Ive been told about CAT and advised that it would be really helpful to me. I’ll see what is what.   I certainly can’t keep just going from cycle to cycle. I know I’m strong but it’s getting too tiring now. Anything that will help needs to be considered.  

Today is a day where were it not for needing to get money in I would go back to bed.  My ears are ringing and pulsating, my heart is still racing a bit, my body still aches and I feel hot.  I’m struggling for motivation.  A few years ago I would of had a day off and broken the cycle but I cannot afford the day off right now.  So I’ll put the mask on, not that it’s ever off anymore now and I’ll force food down, get dressed and go to work and pimp my services out yet again.

 Things are getting to me in countless ways.  I’m not going into detail as I know what it all is.  I carry too much inside.  Too many things I can’t let go of and too many people out to nobble others over. Too many agendas.  Everyone out for themselves. I don’t like it and it’s not who I am.  Maybe I’m robbing myself, as always, yet again.  Retreat is the safest option.  Too many with their own agendas.  Retreat into self.  

I have been thinking about a lot of things the last few days. I know I’m still not ‘well’ per se. In fact it’s usually from now onwards that I get more energy etc and go higher. In a way I hope I do and in a way I hope I don’t.  There are so many circles within circles in my life and trying to break them isn’t always working.  Paranoia has been huge lately. I will conquer it.  I’m monitoring a situation and I’m sure I’m right even if paranoia plays a part of it. I’ve realised I’m not important really. Just another cog in the machine that we call life.  I used to believe I was important and had a part to play in saving us all but now I think the fate is sold and unstoppable.  Darkness and light both exist and always will.  It’s time to revert back to magick and time to withdraw more into myself again. Time to find myself within the abyss.  Time to shake the foundations upon the step which the dweller sits upon. I e realised I am becoming what I dislike the most about myself and I have two choices. The first is to mask over him/it. The second is to face him/it full on in a war and battle.  The second is the only option.  It’s time to shed this skin.  Time to reach the highest bounds that I can.  I have upset friends and am sure I’ve upset online friends too.  No matter the battle lines are drawn and my internal/external battle must start again.  Who knows who will win. Maybe Bob will come forwards. Maybe I will call upon her again instead and I must rend the veil and seek her advice. Both hers.  Only through the veil of life will I see her and her home again.  I will be who I will be. Myself.    

                                                          Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh