Prepared to ignore

Typically when I start to go downhill and blog about it, I tend to get bombarded with negative comments and emails about how "I'm a manipulative bitch for threatening suicide" or how "I need to get my shit together because my daughter deserves better" or even the "we've been here before and people are tired of reading about it". Not surprisingly, they are always from anonymous sources.

I don't expect this time to be any different, but I'm prepared to ignore comments from people that aren't me, because there is no way for anyone else to understand what it's like to be me. I know that others suffer from mental illness, maybe even two or more, but to me that is irrelevant to what I write here. I know that everyone's experience is different. We all have different pasts. We've all learned coping mechanisms for how to manage our lives when our symptoms go out of control, many of which, from the outside looking in, appear to be maladaptive and destructive.

Just because someone may have read my blog for some time does not make them an expert on me. I only give a glimpse into my life. Little snippets of the thoughts that are forever flooding my head. No one else will ever truly know what it's like to live the entire experience of me from start to finish. I would never presume to make condescending judgments against anyone else that is struggling, because I know full well that it is impossible to walk in another person's shoes, and therefore I would hope people would think before they pass such judgments against me.

Unlike some, I fully understand the cyclical nature of mental illness. I also understand that while yes I have been in this exact same place many times before, each time feels like the first and so I'm unsure how to handle the thoughts and feelings I'm having. My only objective is to stop the emotional pain, by any means necessary. I repeat negative behaviours because I've either learned that they offer some relief, even if only temporarily; or I repeat them because I have no recollection of what effect they had on me in the past. I'll even try new things, even if they might be harmful, because I'm simply that desperate to stop the pain.

The experiences that I write about now, the thoughts that come to mind right now may very well be ones that have come to mind in the past, but I have little emotional recollection of what it was like to trapped in the middle of them. I can't remember how I felt the last time I was suffering so much inner turmoil that my thoughts turned to suicide. Even reading back through my old posts, I can't connect to the words on an emotional level.

I think of this blog as my junk drawer. The place where I deposit all the crap in my head that I'm unsure what to do with. Just because I write about a thought I'm having, such as committing suicide, does not mean I plan to act on it. Hell, even if it seems that I'm making plans to act on them, as I have been by doing research online, doesn't necessarily mean that I will follow through.

Every now and then, when I'm calmer and have the strength to face the disaster I know my life to be, I open the drawer and sift through the contents. Sometimes I can toss away some of the junk because it no longer applies. Other times I need to slam the drawer shut out of fear everything within will make its way back inside my head and lead me in a direction I don't want to go. Other times I can look at something from a new perspective and realize how I should have handled it.

Nothing is written here with the intention of receiving sympathy, empathy or even pity. I write what I write because it is what I need to do at this particular moment in time. If that offends your sensibilities or irritates you in any way, you do have the option of not reading. There is no reason to leave unproductive, rude remarks.