The Gray Matter Problem

Welcome to the world that is my twisted mind, a labyrinth with no entrance and no exit. Rays of sunshine barely touch the ground and good things aren’t allowed to grow. Possibly positive things cause me to spiral into auto destruction. Maybe it’s true we only accept the love, or anything really, that we think we deserve. The constant thought echo of “what if that or this happens”, “ it’s not going to work out anyway, it doesn’t make sense to try” or “end it now, the end will come anyway, end it now before the end hurts even more”. An automatic act of self-sabotage leaving me standing alone at the smoking wrecks I once again have created.

 

In the center of my labyrinth there is a single rose, nice to look at but as soon as someone gets too close the thorns come out, hurting and chasing off before it’s too late, before there is more pain.

And once again I am standing alone with my thorns, in front of the wreck I have created. I planted a time-bomb, the thought that we have an expiration date and it exploded, faster than I expected, leaving all wounded.

 

So dear next stranger I meet: run, run far away from me and my twisted dark labyrinth before i can self destruct.

I see you sitting on the freezing kitchen floor, curled up in a corner. Your pale frail body is covered in bruises and I’m afraid to ask where you’ve got them from; “has he been hurting you?” I think, but the words will never pass my lips. You have barely eaten but cigarettes and alcohol basically count as food for you now. The circles under your eyes tell me you’ve been having nightmares again.

Your suitcase is empty, waiting to be packed, we’re supposed to be going on holiday together, the whole family, one last time. Next to your suitcase there are several packets of different kinds of pain medication and a flask so you don’t start shaking when you haven’t had a drink in a while. The Asthma spray you’re using for your panic attacks.

 

Your words repeat, repeat, repeat- you seem to be stuck on a word, then your sentence… breaks off, you look confused, are silent for a while and then repeat something you said before that. All I can do is sit next to you and put my arms around you.

 

“Please, please get help! We both know you aren’t doing ok. Get help, if not for yourself then for your daughter!”

“You’re teaching her to drink when she doesn’t know how to handle a problem, that’s exactly what I learnt from my dad in high school. I don’t want you to have the same relationship with her as I have with my dad!”

“You are breaking your mother’s heart. I’ve spent hours talking to her, I know how worried she is about you. We all know about your problems.”

 

All the things going around in my head but I never say.

 

What would I know, I’m just the child and you the adult. I don’t know what you are going through or have your life experiences. You’ll get angry and aggressive when I say any of these things to you. You’ll go light up another cigarette and drown your thoughts and emotions in a couple of beers. Tomorrow we’ll both pretend nothing ever happened and things go on just the way they have before so you can save your face.

 

I don’t know how to ask this of you, or if I have the right to, but “Please, get help!”

At the moment everything is pretty crazy, I’m busy preparing for my first state exam in 4 weeks, even thinking about it makes my throat close up and my palms start to feel sweaty. The more the stress and the pressure starts to grow the little voices in my head are telling me I’m not good enough, I’m not going to manage, I should have done more a lot sooner even though I’m exhausted from my last semester. I start to panic about things like going to the doctors or which route I need to take to get somewhere with the least amount of cars/ people or in what order I need to get things done, most of the times it takes a few tries to do something…

But every time I feel like curling up on the floor and crying (or actually done it) and I know I just need to take time out to breathe, I write the word over and over until I calm down and just focus on my breathing,

and sometimes it is enough to get me through some of these really crazy days

Let’s play a mind game you think, when you look at me, I want to get in your head. I want to confuse and provoke you. Constantly changing the rules, I myself make. I want you to face your demons, I want to play with your anxiety and insecurities and watch you squirm. I want to see your face lighten up in possible hope just to see the disappointment when I take it away. I like leaving you neurotic but willing to come back.

It’s all in my head, it’s all in my head…

because you put it there

Today is just one of those days where I don’t know if I just want to curl up into a ball and cry or scream until it fells like my lungs are bursting and my voice fails.

A general heavy exhausted feeling isn’t something unusual, it’s a feeling you get used to over time, you learn to somehow cope and pretend to function normally over time, but you can’t control the unexpected…

A few weeks back I saw an Ad about a cat that needed a new home, I absolutely love cats and have been thinking about getting one for a while now even though I know I don’t have all that much time, so I wrote the person that if she didn’t find someone suitable she could contact me and I’d give the little tiger a new home. She wrote, I went to go look at the little energy bundle and of course I wanted to take him home right away. The whole thing had one catch, I have a flatmate and she had the final say. Of course, within reason, she said no because I have so little time and barely am at home over the day =( As reasonable as her arguments were, it just made me feel worse.

But I think the worst part of my day was, I finally got the courage to tell the guy I was seeing about my Diagnoses, I just wanted to explain that I sometimes have “bad phases” where I can be withdrawn and that I didn’t want him to take it personally. I guess I wanted him to understand the situation, maybe a little bit of support and a “it’s okay, it doesn’t change the way I see you”. So much for wishful thinking, I got a “this changes things and I need time to sort out my thoughts”. I can understand that this is hard for others to handle, that I am hard to handle at times, but all this did was leave me hurt, vulnerable and ashamed for something I cannot change. He can’t see the damage and pain he has caused and I wish he could feel the pain tearing through me wanting to escape

“Do no harm but take no sh*t!”- Rachel Brathen

Where do you draw the line between taking someones criticism, and trying to objectify how justified it is, and letting someone constantly put you down?

I know I’m not perfect, I can be difficult, moody and complicated even in my best times. I’m chaotic, I have a terrible sense of time and try to squeeze so many things into my day I often rush from one thing to the next, not leaving much time to catch my breath. I would never willing hurt someone, but sometimes disappointing someone is inevitable I just can’t make everybody happy- no matter how often or how hard I try.

You told me I didn’t deserve your honesty anymore because I hurt you, that I should have known- sooner- that something didn’t fit between us and shouldn’t have let it come this far. You made me feel terrible about being late, even though you knew I squeezed you into days where I didn’t have time- just because I wanted to see you. Your comments about my clothes and my body make me feel self-conscious, your habit of commenting on things I’m not good at leave me in self-doubt.

I would never consciously hurt you- but today I stop taking it! I stop saying ‘Don’t worry you were just being honest” when you come to me, afraid you’ve upset me. You’ve brought me to a point where I kiss you on the cheek and wish you all the best and all the happiness in this world

and go a different path

Something I have been thinking about a lot lately- am I on the right path, is this really what I should be doing? Should I really become a doctor?

If yes then why does this path feel so hard, leave me feel so exhausted at the end of every day and still tired the moment I wake up? If this is what is right for me shouldn’t I have the energy and motivation to do this every single damn day? Shouldn’t it be more effortless? I love working in hospitals, I love seeing people get better and can accept when people’s time has come to pass on. I used to spend my free time there, getting up at 4:30 on a weekend to go to work was ok, I didn’t mind. But I can’t find the motivation to sit down and study, I find the constant pressure suffocating, I miss having any hobbies. I gave up piano, drawing, painting and sport. The amount of times I’ve told friends and family “I’m sorry I don’t have time, I have to study” and missed important birthdays are too many to count. Is this really the price we pay for a career path we choose?

Sometimes I feel like my studies will either be the making or breaking of me. I miss being passionate about what I do, having an overflowing thirst for knowledge, instead I’m drowning in a crushing workload barely keeping my head over water.

Sometimes I jokingly say ‘if medicine doesn’t work out I’ll become a yoga teacher’ but right now it doesn’t look like such a bad idea…