part two: more than I can take
Hi friends! It's the blog you've all been waiting for. I promised to write part two of my journey seeking help for my mental illness, and here it is. If you missed part one, here it is. Warning: there are descriptions of self harm in this blog. Previously on the mental illness diaries~ I left off the last blog saying that I didn't seek help again for my mental health issues for aboooout another two years. During that two years, my mental illness didn't just lie dormant - it probably got much much worse (aka it did get worse, I know it did, you know it did, we all know it did). Things got worse - and that's not to say that I didn't have good and happy times too, because I did. I had some wonderful times, but I also had a lot of times where things were just really bleak and I didn't want to exist.
In the two years between my original diagnosis and Magical Cure of School Stress, I was in an unhealthy relationship with a boy, I was in an unhealthy relationship with my body, and I was in an unhealthy relationship with myself. I hated myself. I hurt my body and used my sexuality as a means for attention and a substitute for love. I let a boy who didn't respect me control my life. Let's call the boy Old Mate, just because I fancy myself a comedian and what better way to make a shitty situation feel lighter than by using some good ol' humour. My relationship with Old Mate, which started to bloom when I was in grade twelve, became real in April of 2013 and "ended" on December 31st of the same year - happy new yr pals. I use the term ended loosely, because it didn't actually end because it was fucking never ending and didn't die until 2015.
The story of Old Mate is a long one and now is probably not the time for all of it. I'm not going to lie, Old Mate is definitely a huge contributing factor to why things got worse for me, and why I didn't want to get help, and probably why I still feel guilty constantly for having an unwanted illness. Old Mate's story will see the light of day, but I feel like it's much more at home in a blog post about relationships or long distance dating or maybe how to spot boys you don't want to be friends with.
Old Mate and I were an ~unofficial~ item in grade 12 and it ended so fast I sometimes forget it even happened. I want to say we -tried- to stay apart over the next year but I didn't try at all. When that fell apart, so did I and I spiralled. I started self harming more regularly. I started carrying razors with me. I was a big sad ball. I moved to Brisbane after school and I got more sad. Then Old Mate and I got back together and wow I thought I'd be cured of being sad but I wasn't, of course. I was still self harming regularly and compulsively documenting it with photos and a blog, I'd since lost count of my cuts at 350.
The relationship was rocky from the start. We were living four hours apart and neither of us drove, he was working full time, and I was working two jobs. It was shitty but we somehow made it work for 9 months before he decided he needed a break. Now a break was actually him breaking up but not telling me and then him blocking me on social media a month later and me impulsively turning up on him doorstep on the same night SURPRISE. If someone breaks you, don't go to them. Don't go to them?? Don't. Go! to them!!! It is a bad idea.
So I went back to Brisbane after seeing my family and pretending I'd had a romantic surprise with Old Mate when in actual fact I was dead on the inside and Old Mate had stashed the knife in his bedroom somewhere, probably in some dirty laundry. On the night of my departure, he did a manipulative thing by telling me that he wouldn't get back with me if I ever cut myself again. This was HUGE because I thought we were getting back together - which clearly we weren't, but it's something he used to hold onto me for the next two years and prevent me from moving on. Miraculously, I did not self harm for over 6 months for the first time in 2 years - so he kinda did me a favour but the jokes on him because I relapsed after that and he still managed to find it in his giant heart to fuck me whenever I saw him which was basically the same as getting back together because that is what our relationship became.
ANYWAY next on the list of favours from Old Mate, being suicidal from being broken up with forced me to go back to a doctor and be like um hey I'm really sad help. So I was diagnosed with depression WOW FINALLY and prescribed Effexor. I also got a mental health plan but that expired without me ever trying to use it hahHAHAha.
Effexor was a wild ride. I actually loved Effexor. I felt so much more myself on it and I could still feel all my emotions and sometimes felt like it heightened them. It was almost like being a more intense version of myself. On top of that, I was levelled out enough to function and go to work without crying every five seconds and what more can you ask for in life? I stayed on Effexor for a year and a half, dosing up every six month until it was no longer effective.
Things were okay for a while after I started on Effexor. I started seeing new people on Tinder and while there was still this minuscule hope that I'd get back with Old Mate, by mid year I'd given up on that and had decided to move to Melbourne the following year. This all changed after Old Mate randomly showed up at one of my best friends' birthday parties after she courtesy invited him and my life went DOWN THE DAMN DRAIN again and my resolve at getting back together was renewed once again. So I didn't move to Melbourne and I didn't do the visual arts diploma course I was accepted into and I'm m-a-d.
I moved back to Bundaberg the following year - 2015 - and surpriiiiiise Old Mate and I didn't get back together. I stayed to help my brother graduate high school, which I don't regret. It didn't make the situation any less shit, and this time there was no denying when things started to sink again.
I'm going to end the blog here because June and I are watching Curb Your Enthusiasm and I'm being really distracting by typing away. Once again, thanks for reading. I really appreciate it if you read my blogs. Don't forget to hug your pets. If you don't have pets, convince your friends to adopt an animal, or go on a date with someone who owns a dog so you can go hug random dogs at the dog park. Xoxo Love Sam