I sit and I sit.

People talk and I’m not sure it’s me they are talking to. Most of my conversations go on inside my head now, arguments with analogues of my husband and others.

Depression isolates completely. I cannot ask for help, I cannot ask for time or understanding because I never really feel that I’m worth any of it. So I sit and the voices I’ve created do their work on me. Even when I’m ‘well’ they are there. I assume that everyone has them, but that maybe they are better at ignoring them or their words are not so harsh.

Now I’m at the stage where I’ve dropped my therapist (one advantage of paying for it I guess) because she didn’t seem to be helping any more and the version of her in my head had joined the voices telling me how useless I am. My job doesn’t help … but at least those voices telling me I’m useless are real ones, and the only reason they are in my head is because I wear a headset at work.

Everything has to be muted, everything has to be avoided. One step distant to try and stop it hurting.

I had an operation last year to try and make some parts of my life better/easier to cope with. I don’t know if it has been successful or not. I’m under some pressure to ‘test’ the results but have been unable to do so. The cycle repeats, the loop closes and becoming unattractive, unwantable, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The voices are my company. Whatever you might think you are saying to me is filtered through them. How do I step aside? Step back and start again, do over and be something that you would want to be with.

The voices remind me how useless I am. How little value I have and how much better things would be if I just wasn’t any more.

Me and my voices went to see the doctor to try to get something that would work without the disastrous side effects of previous tablets (never really gave the last two versions time to work because of the side effects). In less than ten minutes. Said what I wanted and why. Left with new prescription and vague comment that I should go back in a couple of weeks so she could see how I was taking to them. She asked the question that she had to ask and the conversation kind of went like this:

Doctor: Have you considered harming yourself?
Me: Yes, nearly every day
Doctor: Will you do anything about it?
Me: Probably not, it’s just there.
Doctor: Why not?
Me: Getting up and carrying on is the habit.

No upside from the tablets yet (how she thought there was a chance of improving in 2 weeks I’ll never know). The blessed relief of sleep that they seemed to offer started to wear off after the first couple of days. Weight has started to go up. I know it’s listed as a side effect but I can hardly blame a piddly little tablet for putting all that chocolate in my hand. I know I can counter it … then get dragged into the whole ‘what is the point, no one will find me attractive anyway’.

Maybe that is how I will feel comfortable again? When my outside matches what my inside tells me I am.

I’m not writing, I’m not doing anything. The drama is all going on inside and saps my will to do anything. I don’t talk about it because the voices tell me I’m worthless, no one is interested, no one wants to know. If you step back I cannot follow you, cannot force you to talk to me about it.

Is the waiting for it to pass all I have left?

How do I recover this distance?

These things I should be saying to the person I live with. He steps back, he doesn’t know what to do. He might care but not know how to deal with me (after all, wasn’t that what the therapist was for? wasn’t that what a friend is for? surely that’s not something he should have to deal with?). Depression doesn’t make for a pretty sight.

The voices are there, the voices don’t mind what I look like. They are so kind to remind me that everything is my fault.

Depression makes us all our own special island. I’m not waving, I’m not drowning. I’m just here, waiting.