slipping

Slipping down into... what?
My energy is gone. I cannot sleep but I cannot properly be awake.
I have given myself so many excuses that I don't need to make the 3 minute walk to the shop. It can wait, I can wait, life can wait.
I have a list, things that I need to do, things that I haven't done, this list preys on my mind. As if doom is certain if I don't get the minutiae of life done. Does any of it matter? It has to in a way, what else does?
I am grateful for a break in therapy but, I am lost in it too.

what to say?...

Want to write, just not sure what to say. Had and having a really crappy time. This is the first weekend in a while that I am trying to survive through alone, having had crisis team support to get through the past few. (They did help this time). 
The crunch seems to be, I have no idea why I am alive. The futility of it all feels all consuming and overwhelming, clouding all attempts to distract, be busy, just do stuff. I have no relationship to work for, no family of my own to be better for, to be there (here?) for. I have lost links with close family and most friends. There is noone who needs me. It seems I am working towards working again, something that terrifies me. Workers tell me of the value of work, of how much I have to offer (ha!) how good it is for everyone. I have always thought that I want, need to get back to work and that has been motivating in the past. I used to live to work, it defined my very being. 

Now? Now I dread it, dread failing again, letting people down again, dread the paranoia contact with people evokes, dread the deadening exhaustion of working without sleep, dread working without a life to make it seem worth it. For years I have been driven by the guilt that being on benefits brings. Is this any reason to keep going? How to see beyond this pointlessness?
This is why I haven't written, why I don't know what to write. I want to reach out but then this comes out. 

... tentatively hopeful?

Will this last? A few things have changed. Feel in flux, but I so hope it's heading in a positive direction.
Since last summer I have struggled to sleep more than a couple of hours a night, if that, and that with medication. Somehow, the last two nights, I have slept for a few more hours. Amazing. Thank you sleep fairy for giving my head a break from myself, from the night time of horrors. I know they are still there but I escaped for a while and am so grateful.
The flat infestation is lessening. I still am not sure I believe the theory that this was hallucination but whatever, be gone, sod off, am glad to see the back of you.
I am feeling better about the whole idea of entering the TC. Wobbly but better. Don't overthink, it will be ok, it will be ok, it will be ok.
My see saw bingeing/self harm cycle has slowed. I seem to be (a bit too) disciplined in eating and determined to lose weight. Doubt this will last, but it is a nice change.
Not that they let me know, but ESA is apparently safe for a few more months.
I don't want to pre empt a fall back into hell, but this last 48 hours has let me breathe and see again.

...like this

...like giving up

Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Falling into a well of infinite horror. Embarrassing myself at every turn. Infested flat isn't helping and I can't sort it out. So so tired but so little ability to sleep.
: (

...as if I'm on the edge of crisis

I don't want to go there again. I am so so tired due to lack of sleep. The meds don't work and am looking at ways to "treat" myself which is always alluring and never a good idea. It's ok if it's just me that feels am whirling into crisis. It's definitely not ok if others think that too. Saying "No, I'm fine, really" doesn't appease worried professionals who are just doing their job but are intensely annoying when I just want to be on my own. People who I usually trust to some extent, become so unwelcome and almost threatening. I don't trust them, I don't trust me. This is awful, but I wish it could be seen, this mess in my head. So I could point and say "ouch, please help". I can't, it's all hidden away behind polite smiles and desperate attempts to remain appropriate.

...that maybe lists don't work afterall

I wasn't going to get up today. I didn't get up until after lunchtime. I had a list of things I was going to do, cleaning / sorting / bits of art / therapy homework etc. Nothing major, not solving any world dilemmas or crises, just things to get me through my day, and a Sunday - the most difficult of the week. 
Everyday I write a list of what I need to do. Usually I start a list at the beginning of the week and put in what is due to happen, eg, appointments, gym visits etc. Then I fill it in until it is full up for the week and add stuff as time goes on. Without a list I feel anchorless and alot more anxious. I need to feel I have achieved something, which I find very hard to do as am not at work and work was what I used to try and feel a sense of achievement. I need to have time filled up, no time for my head to take off in unwelcome and often unsafe directions. Even if I just tick off "clean kitchen floor" (and actually do it), it is something that I have done and that is a good thing.

Today, I haven't followed my list, have gone off list. My one local friend invited me to go for a walk with her and her partner. I went. I didn't stay in bed as had seemed inevitable after 1 hour's sleep and it being Sunday and all. It was cloudy and chilly, but it was lovely to be out. To get muddy and cold and a bit damp. To come home and have tea and cake. To have friends in my flat who talked to me, who listened to me and who are lovely to me. The only people who usually come to my flat are mh workers and occasionally my parents. Today I had friends here. For those few hours, I was free of my lists. I didn't worry about them. Although I now feel anxious that I haven't done what I promised (this usually provokes self harm as punishment), I am wondering if the lists are actually helping or hindering me. Can I free wheel through the endless days? Can I do what I feel like when I feel like it? Or will I end up not getting up some days and stupidly active on others trying to catch up. Would it be better or worse? I don't know. But it's made me think.

...that sometimes it's ok to be still

After chasing after my head, feeling unsafe if I sat down or worrying about what I hadn't done or what I should or shouldn't be doing, I NEEDed time to stop today. That is what I've done this afternoon. It has helped so much. The world hasn't collapsed because the sofa is warm from my sitting on it in the afternoon sun, my head is just about on my shoulders. This has been a couple of hours of "just" being, a huge challenge at times like now, but very welcome. I have been thinking about a new art project. Am looking at mixed media, something I haven't tried properly before and am relating it to some of the stuff in therapy. 
I feel so busy which makes me feel guilty for mentioning and and and will sound ridiculous to those who are at work. Stuff to do: many appointments, keeping up with my own demands upon myself, gym, therapy homework, clean freaking. I have been on full time distraction for weeks. I have hardly slept over an hour a night for several weeks and am feeling it badly. But I need to remember that there is a reason for needing to distract myself and that being so tired is natural when so sleep deprived and physically pushing myself in the hope of finding the missing sleep.
Stopping is good sometimes. Please slow down my busy head. 

Surviving Christmas

Hope if anyone reads this, that you have as good a Christmas as possible. I am going to slope off for a bit, not that it will make any difference as my posting isn't prolific! The stress is rising, the sleep is reducing, meds are increasing, tis the season etc...
Be safe

to sleep or not

There have been awful new things appearing, (I think my cat notices, staring oddly and then rushing about with no direction, but noone else here to witness). I have heard voices for years - or rather, it is more that those that abused me are still around and I hear them, see them, smell them.  Describing this experience as "hearing voices" doesn't do justice to the horror but I also recognise this is how it is explained. But this is new, seeing awful  things that I can't NOT believe. Rats running amok in my flat, dead bodies slumped over my chairs, all sorts of things. Have been hoping that it's "just" sleep deprivation. Heavy duty meds, which either don't work at normal dose and I end up more exhausted and with a meds hangover, or knock me out at max dose and so feel better for having slept, but the stuff is still there. I don't need something else to contend with. Had hoped that a bit of decent sleep would sort it out. I wonder if they will go, I hope so. No appointments this week due to snow - noone to tell. Hmmmph.

A new day

After a crap few days, no sleep and strange goings on inside and outside my head, I am starting again, determined for better days ahead. It has snowed. This makes the grim estate where I live look clean and bright and new. I will go out and look up not down (while trying not to fall over, I always do somehow in wintry weather). I am so lonely, have lost too many connections, so need to remedy that somehow. Maybe start by being a friend to myself - that phrase another reminder that have been listening to mh professionals for far too long. Feeling a little impulsive. Worry about money, energy bills (does anyone else leave the heating on to keep a cat warm?), Christmas (shudder), should reign in my desire to buy nonsense. Maybe I will just go out without money and look at trees and sky and try and see the good bits for today. 

...cold

... and wet, and wanting to hibernate. The weather is wild outside. My head is feeling fragile/too "borderline" and things feel a bit wild inside too. Far too many appointments this week, so glad have nothing fixed on tomorrow so am planning a day of catch up. I don't want to see anyone, explain how I feel, talk about mental health or have to leave the flat if I don't want to. Scary weather makes this a very likely scenario. My sleep is not good. 3 hours is a "good" night at the moment which isn't good at all. Insomnia allows voices and flashbacks in more too, so weary. I'd like a break, but then some might say my entire existence is a break. Yes, paranoia from the media coverage of welfare reform is getting to me big time. But not tomorrow please, a mini break tomorrow would be fine.