January 5, 2018 Journal Entry
This is probably the lowest I’ve been ever. I’ve been crying for hours and hours, all day pretty much. Lying in bed and crying. But I did shower (miraculous) and Andy took me to get my drugs and groceries. Now I’m back in the apartment, which is looking so bad I really should take pictures so you can see what a major depressive disorder looks like in a studio apartment. It’s actually quite horrific.
Before I knew what it was like to be in the hospital, I would be making the decision to go to the hospital right now. But it doesn’t solve anything. In fact, it will put me in a worse position. Right now I have four weeks to come up with February rent. If I go to the hospital, I cut that down to two to three weeks. Which makes it worse when I get out of the hospital. So I’m not going to the hospital.
I’m not thinking much about suicide. I’m not saying I’m not thinking about it at all, but not constantly. I don’t have a plan anyway. I stared at my wrists for a while last night and tried to figure out how I’d slit them, but it just seems like it would be too hard and I don’t know what I’m doing anatomy-wise so I’d fuck it up. And I don’t like pain. I’m not hell bent on taking my own life. Haha. I said hell bent. I’d much rather go to sleep and be taken. Or be taken awake. But I just want to be taken. I want to go. The pain here, in this place, in this life, in this head, it’s just too much. Too much.
Even the welfare of my cats isn’t keeping me from thinking about going. I want to go. I feel bad about the cats, but I can’t take care of them either. They’re afraid of me. I cry all the time, sometimes I wail, I yell at God. They’re terrified of me when I’m so sad. When I’m normal, they’re OK. It’s not like they hide or anything. But when I’m sad, they just find a perch and stare at me. Probably they’re waiting for it to pass, for me to notice them, or for me to notice they’re scared and calm down.
When I do notice them, I do calm down. But when I’m consumed with pain, I don’t notice them and they suffer. And it’s not right. Plus, the days go by so fast because I sleep so much and I’m so out of it in my own pain so much, I don’t change their water often enough. For some reason I think that is just the cruelest and worst part of it all. Sometimes when I think to notice, their water dish is empty.
I wonder if I’ll ever be able to respond “Good!” to the question “How are you?” It’s so fucking tiresome for people to respond otherwise. You feel obligated to ask what’s wrong and then you feel obligated to offer encouragement and even support. But actually, I don’t mind doing that for others, because that is what I want others to do for me. But I’ve been in naked unadulterated need for so many months now. I fear I’ve worn out everyone who loves me. Everyone.
I hurt worse than I’ve ever hurt. The pain is truly truly more than I can bear. And I have no fucking idea how to climb out of this hole. I have no fucking idea how to fix this. None.
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”
-Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
