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[Content Warning] I speak candidly about: depression, psychosis, self harm, suicide, and other unpleasant reason I ended up in psychiatric hospital.
(1/5) Psychotic Depression and (2/5) Losing Reality ~ Previous chapters in brief: Depression and psychosis for months.

It is the last day of January 2016.

Hope and light have not arrived. In fact it's got darker and colder. Pitch black to sub zero.

My fire is almost out and reality is hazy. I've done all the things that were supposed to make me feel better. So why do I feel worse? I feel wretched. Wrecked beyond repair.

My brain is like a car crash. High velocity. All mangled and twisted on the tarmac. Good for nothing but scrap. But unlike a car, I can't escape the wreckage, I am the wreckage. I can't get out of my broken brain, it's all the transport I have.

So I try and 'get on with it', push thorough.

Except for anxiety's sharp spikes, my emotions flat-line. I look in the mirror at my vacant face, and smile, to try and bring something back, some joy, some pleasure, but it's gone. I don't have those to fortify me, no light to stop the darkness creeping in. My thoughts are thickened with murky ink, which blurs the world, and permeates to every part of me. There's nothing left untouched. The light in my eyes is gone.

I realise others can't see the crash, it's in my head, they see the smile and think I'm fine. I don't have the words or the strength to explain: I'm ruined.

They don't see what I'm left with. Charred Debris. No thought big enough to make a coherent sentence. No piece of humanity big enough even feel human. I cannot make sense of living, of life, of this experience. A huge wave of sadness crashes and ebbs through me, as pure terror takes it's place, the panic of being a shell and having to exist within a world which I can't comprehend. My spirit split into a thousand unfamiliar shreds. I try to pull the pieces back together, but I've got prit-stick when I needed a welding torch. There is so little of me left. Whats going on? What's everything? Whats -anything-? How do I make this stop?

End it here and now, on my terms. Death will make it stop.

What's left, when it feels like there's nothing inside you?

There's nothing even to live for you see. If I've explained it right, you'll see. If I haven't well. Imagine. There's nothing. You are not you. You are a shell. A shell who has to live in the echo of you. You have to act like you're supposed to, everyone has expectations of you, they all expect you to drive, because they can't see the crash, they don't see the pieces.

Somewhere tucked deep within, you have a memory of being the old you, the happy you, but when you recall this, it only serves to make you feel more detached, so different are you now. The pain is so much you think even your loved ones would understand. Would want you out of it. Love is an abstract concept anyway. You can't feel it.

Living like this is torture. My depression and psychosis combine to face the most horrible monster I've ever encountered: Myself.

My need to die.

The soft fantasy of existence hardens into a concrete plan.

I think how I'll do it. Research. Perhaps it will hurt. I should test. So I take my dressing gown cord and tie a makeshift noose, put it over a hook on my bedroom door and the sling noose round my neck, and let myself be cradled by it, all my weight for a few seconds. It doesn't break, my head feels fat and dizzy. It's viable. It almost feels like hope.

Self hatred sweeps into me. I don't think I deserve to die peacefully.

I find a safety razor, brake it open, and cut.

Some small part of me understands I need help, as I'm wrenched from reality again. The cuts start forming words. Not real alphabet words. Words I think Angels can understand, their writing is spoken on skin, in pain and blood. I write to the Angels on my leg. I ask them for help. Spilling tears and blood as I carve their angular letters from my ankle to my hip. Warm red seeps through the messages for help. Without even reality as an ally, my last hope is someone will answer.

No-one comes. I need the message to be clearer. I'll write on my face, so the Angels will certainly see, I stand up and look in the mirror. It makes my leg bleed more, I look down, see how many cuts there are, though not deep, and something stirs in me, perhaps it's the endorphins kicking in, but some reality returns with a punch to my chest of fear and confusion. What am I doing?

I call to my partner downstairs, he runs up, sees me standing there with the blade and the blood. He gently takes the blade from me, as I tell him I'm talking to angels. We agree that the hospital is the place where I have to ask for help from now.

~

Covered only in setri-strips and a hospital issue nightgown, I sit on my bed in the psychiatric ward.

Weeks inside this time. That's next episode.

This was the hardest part to write. After it happened I thought I literally would never tell anyone, ever, about any of it, so ashamed and stupid I felt. But, I realise now, that's exactly why I should write about it. I have nothing to be ashamed about, I was ill, very ill.

I'm sorry, I know it's hard to read, but I wanted to do my best to put you there. So you might know what the experience of the illness is like. I'm not condoning, glorifying, or advocating suicide or self-harm. It's a horrific things to go through (as I hope my writing conveys) It's so rare to see first hand accounts of experiences like this, so I thought it important to share mine.

I am proud to say I survived. There is a reality, far too close to this one, where Blue is no longer here. I have made great improvements since the start of the year, thanks to doctors, medication, therapy and perseverance. I am not suicidal now, and I am well out of this episode, which is my I can open up about it like I am.

If you are feeling suicidal, please reach out for help, a good way to start is to call a suicide listening-line like the Samaritans. You can find the phone number for your country here: www.suicide.org/international-… Even though it may feel like there is no one there for you. There literally is someone waiting for your call at the end of that phone. Please do tell someone, you are not alone, we are all together.

I don't usually ask this, but please do share this if you think it's important.

Peace, Love and Life,

~Blue x

Next chapter:

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~Featured Artwork~

Description

[Content Warning] I speak candidly about: depression, psychosis, self harm, suicide, and other unpleasant reason I ended up in psychiatric hospital.
(1/5) Psychotic Depression and (2/5) Losing Reality ~ Previous chapters in brief: Depression and psychosis for months.

It is the last day of January 2016.

Hope and light have not arrived. In fact it's got darker and colder. Pitch black to sub zero.

My fire is almost out and reality is hazy. I've done all the things that were supposed to make me feel better. So why do I feel worse? I feel wretched. Wrecked beyond repair.

My brain is like a car crash. High velocity. All mangled and twisted on the tarmac. Good for nothing but scrap. But unlike a car, I can't escape the wreckage, I am the wreckage. I can't get out of my broken brain, it's all the transport I have.

So I try and 'get on with it', push thorough.

Except for anxiety's sharp spikes, my emotions flat-line. I look in the mirror at my vacant face, and smile, to try and bring something back, some joy, some pleasure, but it's gone. I don't have those to fortify me, no light to stop the darkness creeping in. My thoughts are thickened with murky ink, which blurs the world, and permeates to every part of me. There's nothing left untouched. The light in my eyes is gone.

I realise others can't see the crash, it's in my head, they see the smile and think I'm fine. I don't have the words or the strength to explain: I'm ruined.

They don't see what I'm left with. Charred Debris. No thought big enough to make a coherent sentence. No piece of humanity big enough even feel human. I cannot make sense of living, of life, of this experience. A huge wave of sadness crashes and ebbs through me, as pure terror takes it's place, the panic of being a shell and having to exist within a world which I can't comprehend. My spirit split into a thousand unfamiliar shreds. I try to pull the pieces back together, but I've got prit-stick when I needed a welding torch. There is so little of me left. Whats going on? What's everything? Whats -anything-? How do I make this stop?

End it here and now, on my terms. Death will make it stop.

What's left, when it feels like there's nothing inside you?

There's nothing even to live for you see. If I've explained it right, you'll see. If I haven't well. Imagine. There's nothing. You are not you. You are a shell. A shell who has to live in the echo of you. You have to act like you're supposed to, everyone has expectations of you, they all expect you to drive, because they can't see the crash, they don't see the pieces.

Somewhere tucked deep within, you have a memory of being the old you, the happy you, but when you recall this, it only serves to make you feel more detached, so different are you now. The pain is so much you think even your loved ones would understand. Would want you out of it. Love is an abstract concept anyway. You can't feel it.

Living like this is torture. My depression and psychosis combine to face the most horrible monster I've ever encountered: Myself.

My need to die.

The soft fantasy of existence hardens into a concrete plan.

I think how I'll do it. Research. Perhaps it will hurt. I should test. So I take my dressing gown cord and tie a makeshift noose, put it over a hook on my bedroom door and the sling noose round my neck, and let myself be cradled by it, all my weight for a few seconds. It doesn't break, my head feels fat and dizzy. It's viable. It almost feels like hope.

Self hatred sweeps into me. I don't think I deserve to die peacefully.

I find a safety razor, brake it open, and cut.

Some small part of me understands I need help, as I'm wrenched from reality again. The cuts start forming words. Not real alphabet words. Words I think Angels can understand, their writing is spoken on skin, in pain and blood. I write to the Angels on my leg. I ask them for help. Spilling tears and blood as I carve their angular letters from my ankle to my hip. Warm red seeps through the messages for help. Without even reality as an ally, my last hope is someone will answer.

No-one comes. I need the message to be clearer. I'll write on my face, so the Angels will certainly see, I stand up and look in the mirror. It makes my leg bleed more, I look down, see how many cuts there are, though not deep, and something stirs in me, perhaps it's the endorphins kicking in, but some reality returns with a punch to my chest of fear and confusion. What am I doing?

I call to my partner downstairs, he runs up, sees me standing there with the blade and the blood. He gently takes the blade from me, as I tell him I'm talking to angels. We agree that the hospital is the place where I have to ask for help from now.

~

Covered only in setri-strips and a hospital issue nightgown, I sit on my bed in the psychiatric ward.

Weeks inside this time. That's next episode.

This was the hardest part to write. After it happened I thought I literally would never tell anyone, ever, about any of it, so ashamed and stupid I felt. But, I realise now, that's exactly why I should write about it. I have nothing to be ashamed about, I was ill, very ill.

I'm sorry, I know it's hard to read, but I wanted to do my best to put you there. So you might know what the experience of the illness is like. I'm not condoning, glorifying, or advocating suicide or self-harm. It's a horrific things to go through (as I hope my writing conveys) It's so rare to see first hand accounts of experiences like this, so I thought it important to share mine.

I am proud to say I survived. There is a reality, far too close to this one, where Blue is no longer here. I have made great improvements since the start of the year, thanks to doctors, medication, therapy and perseverance. I am not suicidal now, and I am well out of this episode, which is my I can open up about it like I am.

If you are feeling suicidal, please reach out for help, a good way to start is to call a suicide listening-line like the Samaritans. You can find the phone number for your country here: www.suicide.org/international-… Even though it may feel like there is no one there for you. There literally is someone waiting for your call at the end of that phone. Please do tell someone, you are not alone, we are all together.

I don't usually ask this, but please do share this if you think it's important.

Peace, Love and Life,

~Blue x

Next chapter:

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~Featured Artwork~