I went almost a week with no binges or purges... Tonight I did both. It was an easy one with no concerns or potential spectators.
I have been extremely emotional lately... On the verge of tears often. I don't know if it's the status of the world, debilitating self-hatred, significant depression, or continued SSRI withdrawals that's causing it. I have been trying to find ways to take care of myself, but I can't seem to find the time for it. I need a day of solitude and sadness, but there is no option for that without consequence. I have a family and job and husband and don't have the option to handle my moods like I once could with a complete breakdown that resulted in a nice bounce-back. These days, even when I have a breakdown, there is still someone who needs something from me, and I must produce. Too many people depend on me.
I am not desperate enough yet to push the concern, but I fantasize about doing so relatively soon. My dream of spending the day in a hotel room sleeping whilst I pretend to go to work has not left me. I would trade anything I have for 24 hours of time to myself and a bottle of wine. I have a grandiose plan in the back recesses of my mind to send myself to a "convention for work" that entails me taking time off and escaping my family for a couple days, but COVID is ruining that for me.
I'm tired of being depressed. Even if I took the time, it wouldn't fix it for long. And I would be back to this level of frustration maybe even just a few days later. And then what?
I hate when it's like this over nothing... When I'm depressed with no real reason to be depressed. My job is ok. My relationship is ok. My friendships and finances and other things are all ok. The only major concern is my body, but I don't think I'll ever be ok with that... That concern I have become numb to. It doesn't sting like it used to.
But there is perpetual depression that I always feel regardless of circumstance. I don't know why I was cursed with such a plight in life, but I wish I wasn't. I am always depressed. Even when things are ok, I am depressed. Even when I am happy, I think, "I could die, and I would be ok with that." Even medication does not alleviate this.
I have never been afraid of death. I welcome it. I know many people suffer from a fear of death, but I don't think you should fear things that are inevitable - you will only torture yourself. I like to think I will die and there will be something better than this, but even if there is not, I would be ok with that. Even if it were nothingness, I would be content.
Some days I beg the universe for nothingness.
I always thought I would die tragically and before my time. Lately I do not want that, because I know the suffering it would cause for my children and husband. I have more people that would struggle to recover (or may never be able to do so) than I ever anticipated I would have.
I remember when I was about 12 years old driving by the scene of a terrible car accident. A body was laying on the pavement covered in a white sheet with blood seeping through the fabric over the person's face. I heard later around town that it was a woman in her 30's who lost control of her car. A true accident, but looking back as an adult, I wonder if it was purposeful. As a child, the only thing I truly questioned in that moment is why body sheets are white when it so clearly shows blood, and why they don't use black sheets? The women's child was in the vehicle and survived, but she did not. Her husband was left alone with the baby and no wife in an instant. Years later I would sit in a classroom at community college listening to a guest speaker who was a highway patrol officer say that to see a car accident makes you believe in fate and that we all have a time to die. He said that it takes two people leaving their respective places and getting into their vehicles in such a precisely timed manner that even a second's difference in time determines someone's life or death. I thought of the bloody sheet and felt a nagging in the pit of my stomach.
I remember in both of those moments thinking ahead to my own life and if I were to die that way. I always imagined it would be something like that - sudden and abrupt and tragic. People would be shocked and dismayed that someone like me could die like that - I seemed so pleasant, and everyone knows pleasant people are supposed to live long lives and die of old age. But, now... I don't think that is my fate. I think I carry too much weight to die in that way. I believe God and the universe and all the forces of the cosmos truly do not give us more than we can handle. And though I think my husband is strong in many ways, I know he is not strong enough for that. I know I will not meet such an end because that would be more than he could handle, and we are tied in the universe in a way that will keep me here with or without my consent.
So, now I have no vision. No image of how I will die or when. But I have a sneaking suspicion that my life will be a long one. And that thought makes me feel the tiniest bit exhausted.
