Living With Demons

My heart is in pain and I just wish that the pain would just go away. It’s habit, pure and simple; I have nothing better to think of nor any distractions. It sees its opportunity and sneaks in, and then consumes me from the inside out. 15 years of torment and powerful, abusive putdowns from people I believed have long left their mark – their scars permenant and deep; forever wounds, forever wounded, marked for life by their cruel words and treatment. Leaving me with a firm belief that, no matter what, tells me I am hopeless, worthless, and a waste of time and space, and not worthy of each breath I take. Leaving me feeling I will be better off dead. That I will no longer suffer this pain, nor force others to feel pain because of me. I will no longer cause them trouble…



I have lived with this feeling for well over 15 years. I still have it. It is so ingraned, all I can do is try and remind myself that they’re lies. When they overwhelm me at times of sensitivity and vulnerability, I have great trouble ridding myself of them as they bombard me continuously day and night. At night I am too worried and exhaused to sleep; in the day I do not want to be awake, and try to be asleep to escape the noise the “voices” make. The feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness overwhelm me, making me believe they are the truth, and I shouldn’t do anything nice for myself. That I shouldn’t be kind to myself, that I should punish myself. What happens is I do nothing – I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, I don’t drink (water), I don’t look after myself in any way and I make no effort. Why? Not only because I am exhausted, but I also don’t believe I ought to. I feel less than human, so therefore I shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be nice to myself, I’m not worth it. They’re not words or thoughts of logic; they’re the culmination of years and years worth of being bombarded by as many people as possible telling me in no uncertain terms that I’m just one big waste of space, one big problem, nothing but trouble, and not worth the time of day.



Years later, from when it first started, I sit here trying to convince myself not to be a victim to this anymore. I have an illness, and it is stabilised quite happily. What I am left with now are the whispered voices and echoes of the shadows and ghosts from long ago, that I ran away from and left 6 years ago. That came back screaming to haunt me 3 years ago. That I must now change. Their voices must be quietened – at least to a dull roar. I have to be able to live without hating and reprimanding myself for nothing. That life is gone. Why should I carry it with me? What use could it possibly serve me to do so? Why would I want to remind myself of small-minded people who now mean nothing to me? What drives me to hate myself still? We learn things that stay with us from a very early age – how to sit, walk, stand, talk, eat, interact, love and hate. Would you still want to crawl all the way to work – or would your learned instinct all these decades later tell you to still walk there? Of course you would walk. You’ve been doing it since you were about 18 months old! Well… I’ve been taught to hate myself from the same age other people were learning to make friends and do algebra, or write short stories about teddy bears.



To be able to function, I have to “unlearn” the better part of 20 years of thoughts and behaviour. I have to realise that I am worth everything that I have and could have. Just because I’ve put on 20lbs I don’t automatically have to kill myself – or at the very least hurt myself. Badly. Just because I don’t have a job, I don’t have to stare at the ceiling letting every awful word that I have heard career around my head like they’re on a demented and posessed carousel. I have to learn food and water are actually not my enemy – they’re actually good for me. I have to learn that starving and vominiting are not “normal” dietary tools for weight control. I have to learn that I can go and do whatever I want, and I can do it really well, if I acutally want to. Some of these things I already have a useful hang of. I don’t gouge my arms with sharp things when I drop something on the floor, I eat and don’t throw up my food (I even cook too), and so far I haven’t fallen into a complete catatonic stupor after 6 weeks out of work (major result!). In fact, I’ve been obsesivly bombarding everyone looking with my resume. Still not 100% OK, but doing a hell of a lot better than last time! At least this time, I’m not the only one, either. Last count about 5000 jobs had gone in the last couple of months from the “Credit Crunch”. And the Dole office is going mad – especially since they’re completely incapable of dealing with the normal infulx of people going there – never mind the 3000% increase on people having to sign up for it in the last year or so!



You know – I will do it. Obviously not in the next 5 minutes, or maybe even 5 months or 5 years. But I do know I’m closer to being OK that I ever have been. Right now, I’m functioning at almost normal, and I’m managing to eat and drink stuff (just about), and I haven’t even looked at a knife to cut anything but my dinner. And no painkillers, either. Yey! …



The hope is out there … I think I’m going to get some!