To Fade Away…

For me memories are like ghosts that haunt the perimeters of my conscious mind, often making me feel ill at ease when I don’t even know why. The more upsetting memories are like demons that torment me from the depths of my unconscious mind, bringing up flashes of painful experiences when I’m least prepared for it and my defences are down. Both want to fill me with self doubt and self hatred and sap every ounce of confidence I once might have had, to leave me an utterly shattered and blithering wreck in the shambles that my life has become. And yet the more I fight the more damage they do, I can’t fucking win! But memories aren’t real are they; merely impressions of times, and places and people long gone that flash and flicker like a silent movie before your eyes and all you’re left with are the ongoing ramifications, consequences and regrets. But what is much more immediate is the guilt, anger and numbing sense of loss that constantly aches in the back of your head and fills you with a dark emptiness. Well I don’t want to remember anymore, or feel the emotional pangs that come with those memories! I have this unshakable feeling I’m already meant to be dead and every moment I’m forced to stay alive is like a stab in the chamber of my heart, and sometimes I can feel myself screaming out in quiet despair at being trapped by circumstance in a life I don’t want to live. Because all I want now is to fall headlong into the vast, fathomless and unending sea of nothingness that lies beyond the veil of death patiently waiting to swallow each and every one of us up forever. For I grew tired of this life many years ago and all I now want is for the pain to stop, I just want to fade away.

But then that is exactly the price you pay when forming close bonds of friendship and complex interpersonal relationships; a sense of obligation to put others before you, and a loss of personal control over your own life. For the fact is when you take friends, lovers or pets into your life in a sense you are willingly giving up a certain degree of self determinacy over the choices you might make because whether we want to admit it or not everything we do affects the ones we choose to love and care for. The person I live with often says he can’t understand me because I’m weird and emotionally unpredictable, and this is true. But what he doesn’t know because I won’t tell him is that every single day I’m struggling with an issue that goes to the very core of our friendship and that can’t be resolved no matter which way I come at it, and believe me I desperately need to solve this but just can’t. Basically this is all about him for he’s the only friend in my entire life who’s ever stood by me, as with everyone else we’ve drifted apart for one reason or another… and that really creates an awkward dilemma. If I choose to stay alive he’s screwed because I’ll resent him till the day I die, but if I do choose to kill myself he’s still screwed because he’ll be left more alone than ever before. Yes in some ways things have gotten better for me as I haven’t been hospitalised once in over a year and I’ve even given up smoking, I think both are pretty big achievements! I’m also spending more time enjoying my interests, passions and hobbies… but it isn’t enough. Our dear old dogs are getting on in years now, and when they go my main reason for staying alive will be gone. I had my 39th Birthday just over a month ago and it was a big deal for me because I’d never wanted to or even planned to reach the age of 40, yet it now looks more likely than ever that I’m going to. I guess it’s just another instance of me having no say in, right to choose my own fate or control over my own life which is extremely galling. Anyways I probably won’t post on here again until the time comes I feel I can’t take anymore, and decide to carry out the deed come what may. Whenever that will be.

Yours Bitterly, Shelly.