The End Of The Line

This isn't a suicide note. Which isn't to say I haven't been having suicidal thoughts because I have but I don't want anyone getting worried that I'll be checking out in the immediate future. What this is, I'm not entirely sure, except an outpouring of the fact that I am shrieking and tearing myself to pieces inside.

I wrote a post about how deep depression is true despair and not just sadness or "the blues." Well, there's a point beyond that, a point where you really start to lose your grip on reality. My diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder but I've also been labeled with "Major Depression with Psychotic Features." Depression can reach the level of a psychosis. Common symptoms are hallucinations, paranoia, feeling like the person responsible for bad things that have nothing to do with you at all. I am reaching that point. I do my best to hide it, I do not want my dad to see me falling apart in the midst of this move. I know he's probably going to read this but I have to write it. I have to get it out somehow.

One of my meds, Risperdal, is keeping me from a full blown psychotic break. It may be the most important medication I take. But my soul is being put through a shredder. I am so overwhelmed that it paralyzes me. I've been trying my best to work on this move and people have been telling me how proud they are of how I've been handling it but they don't all see that I feel like it's killing me. I blame myself for how much there is still to do. I blame myself for not being able to work and maybe find a way to keep the place. I blame myself for my dad's cancer, in an odd way. I don't know how that works, but the feeling is there. I have been reading up on this Luciferian path and trying to follow it and yet my old and seemingly eternal self-hatred arises in the midst of attempting to meditate on self-love. And having inner strength.... if I have any inner strength at all, it's completely used up in trying to keep my mind from just rending into dozens of pieces and leaving me shattered and even more useless than I feel.

This isn't the worst I've ever been. Not by a long shot. There was a time when this pressure would have probably resulted in me killing myself. Thanks to modern medicine and a lot of support from friends, family and Coco, I'm not that far gone. But I see the fractured edges of myself scraping together and the shards from the friction lodge in my heart and mind and leave gaping wounds. I am not the person I want myself to be. I am just a faint shadow of that person. A faint, extremely distorted shadow. I want to say that this won't break me... but I honestly don't know. The people I love seem to think I can make it. But I don't have the confidence in myself to fully accept that.

I am haunted. I am haunted by the ghosts of loved ones passed on and failures I've been responsible for and mistakes made and lessons learned too late and the specter of the child I once was, looking at me, sad and angry; sad that we share the same pain, angry that I let all that potential go to waste. Not only am I not the person I wish I was, I never have been the person I wanted to be. I have always been let down by myself. Some people think my expectations are too high. I always thought expectations should be high, aim high, don't aim low. But I've achieved low. I have people who care a great deal about me and that means a lot. But I so frequently have nothing to offer them. I don't feel like I bring anything to the table. While they talk about jobs and friends they have in real life and some of them about their own families that they've started, wives, husbands, children... I look at myself and think "What have I done with my (almost) 39 years?" I can think of a lot of stalled projects, plans given up on, people hurt, jobs I screwed up, possibilities squandered. All because I have this depression. Something that some people don't even consider a real medical condition.

I honestly don't know any other life than this. Whether it's a real medical condition or not, depression seems to be the core of my being. It has carved out a niche in my soul and taken up permanent residence. Either that or the depression actually IS my soul. That feels more likely. My spirit is a spirit of despair and hopelessness.

We have a few days before we have to move and leave this house behind. I can't get my mind around the enormity of that reality that is looming so close. What I'd really like to do is pack up my mind and move and leave Chris Ropes behind and just be someone, anyone, else.