someone is going through hell, but it isn't you, yet
Tuesday, March 31st, 2020 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amovingtarget I've been having suicidal episodes one after the other since the start of the year, and then the stuff with the house, and then the stuff with the virus… Right now it's pretty much all misery, with little bubbles of feeling a bit normal, or almost sane. I haven't been sleeping well, even with melatonin. I've been having random crying jags, and even if I'm not actually crying, I've been feeling even more tender about everything that I'm already too tender about. I've had a couple of days with sickeningly long naps -- not that long naps are terrible on principle, it's just that sleeping longer than twenty minutes or so in the daytime makes me feel physically ill, all disoriented and fuzzy headed and anxious alarm bells.
Seriously though… like… I feel more lonely and less safe, I guess. It's like my little pockets of quiet alone time without anyone bothering me or asking me to do things or be people have just disappeared and I don't know what day it is, and I've lost what little control I used to have over my day. I'm so frustrated that my parents are around all day, even though it doesn't feel like a lot has changed...
And it surprises me because. I've always been lonely. I guess part of me thought I'd be used to it, or that I wouldn't notice the difference. Maybe I just miss having options. Maybe I hate that I don't know how long this will last.
So Mum's been saying for a while that we need to tidy up all the junk in the three bedrooms that are now spare with all my older siblings moved out, except for when their kids come to stay over. And then all at once we were throwing stuff out and putting stuff in the attic and moving furniture into the one bedroom with good floorboards. And then suddenly we were peeling the wallpaper and pulling up the carpets. And then the living room too, because why the hell not. If we're doing this, we might as well do everything at once right? How disruptive could it possibLY GET???.
I thought I'd bought myself some time -- warning Mum that it was too much, and that we should just do the two bedrooms now (i.e. the one that doesn't have me living in it, and the one that doesn't have all the furniture and junk moved into it) and we'll do the rest in the autumn or next spring and I thought she was actually listening to me for once -- but then I was cruelly surprised with the news that I'd be having my bedroom redone too, which meant…. where the fuck was I gonna live and sleep? Who cares, I guess. I ended up squeezed into the last spare bedroom with all the furniture.
A month later the work was done, finally, but now we keep finding things that weren't done well, or weren't done the way we wanted them and who the hell knows why. Mum's fed up, like I warned her she would be. I've been fed up since day one.
And then the lockdown happened. We managed to get some paint before the last of the closures, except it's just me and Mum doing stuff by ourselves, pretty much. My younger brother (older than me, younger of two, that is) comes to help when he can, but still. And it's exhausting. I tire easily at the best of times, and this is not that. And this whole thing has just been grating on me since the end of last month, non-stop. And now, even if we manage to get everything painted by ourselves, who knows when we're going to be able to get carpet in, and that means I can't move back into my own (a different one than before) room. It's Ramadan in a couple of weeks, and the idea of having to climb out of the gap between this bed and the desk (and the wardrobe and everything else), to go down to breakfast at the crack of dawn is the cherry on this particular sundae of despair. This whole thing has been bullshit from start to finish, except it's not even finished and I don't know when it will be.
I'm so tired of the constant news. I'm so tired of #stayhome social media. I'm am the most tired of people complaining about suddenly having to have their own children at home with them all day. My sister-in-law works at the local primary school and she said someone legit called to ask them to just take her children off her hands because she didn't want them at home. It makes me feel so angry, and so lonely, and so helpless. Half the time I don't even know why, but it does, and I don't have the mental bandwidth to deal with things like this. And it makes me feel bad because it's not as if it's anything anyone can help. Everybody is overwhelmed and thrown off and it's just… fucking awful is what it is.
And work is still the thorn in my side it's always been. I work from home as a matter of course. I prefer it. But everything is just… It's just one extra thing on top of everything else I'm trying to carry and it's usually the thing that keeps falling off the pile, which makes me feel guilty and terrible and keeps reminding me that oh yes, I hate my job and I loathe working for my brothers anyway. Who cares if maybe you get fired by your own siblings. So what if you're basically unemployable otherwise.
It's a very strange period to be living through, even if you're not mentally ill up to your eyeballs. I took English Literature for A-Levels, and there was a big unit on WW1 literature and… it's been making me very aware of the whole war-time vibe that seems to be floating over everything life a fog. Hospitals and testing centres being set up in unlikely places. Student nurses being pulled to the front lines. Civilians stepping up to make masks and overalls because the system can't cope. For someone who has always wanted nothing more than to help people, to make a difference when it counts, who at one point wanted to join the military, and at another wanted to go into medicine… it's really hurting me to have turned out to be the kind of person who can't do anything at all.
On the bright side (apart from the nature of time still being terrifying), it's April tomorrow, which means only ten days till Remake. <3
Seriously though… like… I feel more lonely and less safe, I guess. It's like my little pockets of quiet alone time without anyone bothering me or asking me to do things or be people have just disappeared and I don't know what day it is, and I've lost what little control I used to have over my day. I'm so frustrated that my parents are around all day, even though it doesn't feel like a lot has changed...
And it surprises me because. I've always been lonely. I guess part of me thought I'd be used to it, or that I wouldn't notice the difference. Maybe I just miss having options. Maybe I hate that I don't know how long this will last.
So Mum's been saying for a while that we need to tidy up all the junk in the three bedrooms that are now spare with all my older siblings moved out, except for when their kids come to stay over. And then all at once we were throwing stuff out and putting stuff in the attic and moving furniture into the one bedroom with good floorboards. And then suddenly we were peeling the wallpaper and pulling up the carpets. And then the living room too, because why the hell not. If we're doing this, we might as well do everything at once right? How disruptive could it possibLY GET???.
I thought I'd bought myself some time -- warning Mum that it was too much, and that we should just do the two bedrooms now (i.e. the one that doesn't have me living in it, and the one that doesn't have all the furniture and junk moved into it) and we'll do the rest in the autumn or next spring and I thought she was actually listening to me for once -- but then I was cruelly surprised with the news that I'd be having my bedroom redone too, which meant…. where the fuck was I gonna live and sleep? Who cares, I guess. I ended up squeezed into the last spare bedroom with all the furniture.
A month later the work was done, finally, but now we keep finding things that weren't done well, or weren't done the way we wanted them and who the hell knows why. Mum's fed up, like I warned her she would be. I've been fed up since day one.
And then the lockdown happened. We managed to get some paint before the last of the closures, except it's just me and Mum doing stuff by ourselves, pretty much. My younger brother (older than me, younger of two, that is) comes to help when he can, but still. And it's exhausting. I tire easily at the best of times, and this is not that. And this whole thing has just been grating on me since the end of last month, non-stop. And now, even if we manage to get everything painted by ourselves, who knows when we're going to be able to get carpet in, and that means I can't move back into my own (a different one than before) room. It's Ramadan in a couple of weeks, and the idea of having to climb out of the gap between this bed and the desk (and the wardrobe and everything else), to go down to breakfast at the crack of dawn is the cherry on this particular sundae of despair. This whole thing has been bullshit from start to finish, except it's not even finished and I don't know when it will be.
I'm so tired of the constant news. I'm so tired of #stayhome social media. I'm am the most tired of people complaining about suddenly having to have their own children at home with them all day. My sister-in-law works at the local primary school and she said someone legit called to ask them to just take her children off her hands because she didn't want them at home. It makes me feel so angry, and so lonely, and so helpless. Half the time I don't even know why, but it does, and I don't have the mental bandwidth to deal with things like this. And it makes me feel bad because it's not as if it's anything anyone can help. Everybody is overwhelmed and thrown off and it's just… fucking awful is what it is.
And work is still the thorn in my side it's always been. I work from home as a matter of course. I prefer it. But everything is just… It's just one extra thing on top of everything else I'm trying to carry and it's usually the thing that keeps falling off the pile, which makes me feel guilty and terrible and keeps reminding me that oh yes, I hate my job and I loathe working for my brothers anyway. Who cares if maybe you get fired by your own siblings. So what if you're basically unemployable otherwise.
It's a very strange period to be living through, even if you're not mentally ill up to your eyeballs. I took English Literature for A-Levels, and there was a big unit on WW1 literature and… it's been making me very aware of the whole war-time vibe that seems to be floating over everything life a fog. Hospitals and testing centres being set up in unlikely places. Student nurses being pulled to the front lines. Civilians stepping up to make masks and overalls because the system can't cope. For someone who has always wanted nothing more than to help people, to make a difference when it counts, who at one point wanted to join the military, and at another wanted to go into medicine… it's really hurting me to have turned out to be the kind of person who can't do anything at all.
On the bright side (apart from the nature of time still being terrifying), it's April tomorrow, which means only ten days till Remake. <3