Strange Days, Indeed

Hurrah, a day of cruddy eye/head pain and feeling generally unwell in my skin. I spoke with my cpn on thursday about my perception of my limitations not reflecting reality and, alone, I wonder if I'm making more of this whole diabetes/eyes/depression/sadness than it warrants. Then I spend time with people (which is meant to be the magical key to good mental health) and I feel more debilitated and disabled than I do here, alone. If I get a hypo or a bad eye situation, I can go and lay down and nobdy need know. Having a hypo in public is tricky for me, as they have become more varied in the effects and in how long they last. Generally, I do tell people when I've had eyes/head/depression/diab problems, to save any worry for them. I don't know.

I've thought more about suicide this week than I have for a long time, maybe last November when I received the 'help' and 'support' of the CRISIS team, two individuals so utterly unsuitable for the task as you could imagine. Thinking about it takes time and it involves shutting down what keeps one current and alive, such as other people's feelings and the whole not being alive thing, too. I've been able to see it fairly clearly, and the sense that 'nothing will matter anymore' and no sensitivity seems fair reward for a lifetime spent on the periphery and the sadness and shyness that goes with it. I know and understand that this is not a healthy view and is a symptom of my general situation.

When pondering all of this I began to sense a new feeling. The thought of not existing, that death will come to us all, naturally or otherwise but will come most certainly, left me feeling uneasy. That I should maybe have another crack at life. My perceptions of myself are utterly different to others, who, despite intelligence, see qualities in me that I don't recognise. I want to help people, always have done, but I know my ways of doing this clash with other peoples' understanding of this. I have no problem giving a posession away, freely, if it will do some good. I don't put posessions on that high a shelf. An example, my mother is in a care home suffering with Alzheimer's Disease and Vascular Dementia, and she was driving her car up until I got her into hospital in 2005. Some friends of mine were talking about buying the car - anyway, I decided it'd be better as a gift. If I see something that could help somebody then I'll act accordingly, whether this is over the top or otherwise. Generous to a fault, you might say. People seem suprised that no reward in 'payment' is expected, but I don't do things like that for reward, it's just a 'their need is greater than mine' rationale.

Anyway, after my worst eye day in the last few months, possibly this year, I'm going to sign of and get to bed before they give out totally.

We'll see what Sunday brings.

Help me to help me.

Sorry.

I pity those who living around people with depression and mental illness. It's so destructive and affects anybody within reach.

For around a month now, I have struggled with my mental state. The point has been lost. I don't know how or why. Aims and dreams are just sources of pain and disgust at how I've become this thing, this waste of organs. Why am I injecting? What is it all for? Is the point that it is pointless?

There has been a sense of having fewer options and those options that exist are extreme. I can't keep self-medicating for too long. I'd run out of tablets. The interests I had mock me now and signify nothing.

Life at all costs.

I'm distant from what is what. I feel ill most of the time and yet I feel like a cheater or a liar. Living is hard for anybody but for me it's such an ordeal. The mood changes are sudden. I've had a knife at my wrist on more than one occasion this last week. Instead, I make pathetic cuts to the back of my hand, subtle ones that can't be seen.

I'm tired. I'm going now.

More Changes

Well, well, well. Well. In two years' time, I, along with everybody on drugs, sorry, incapacity benefit will be assessed again, with stricter criteria to get the benefit.

I've asked my CPN, my GP, my Practice Nurse, my Diabetic Liaison Nurses and a friend of mine who is a (first rate) Occupational Nurse (I should know - I worked for her). The common thread to what they said is, roughly, "they're not looking at you, it's the cheats and people who are really capable of working".

Since ill-health retirement, I've effectively losts a better pension and more money to save/invest. The one thing I ask myself is whether I could work, at all, at all.

Here's my list of things:

1. I am an insulin dependent diabetic (type 1)
2. I have painful neuropathy in my lower legs/feet.
3. I have intermittent claudication in both feet. There is also poor circulation and so I become dizzy very easily, on changing direction or moving quickly. I've never been observed to be a quick mover.
4. I have Advanced Proliferative Macular Retinopathy.
5. Due to number 4, I have visual disturbance, pull on the retina of my left eye which distorts my vision. There are also several scars from laser surgery which appear in my vision as flashing lights. Also, I have some loss of spacial awareness. There are numerous blind spots all over my central/peripheral vision.
6. Finally, and probably the more shameful thing. I suffer from Clinical Depression. Not much to say on this - it's a daily battle with myself. I don't win very often.

Judge for yourselves. I dunno. I guess I could get on my hands and knees and be a bench for people to sit on in town.