Bizarrely, I wrote a poem

The last time I remember writing a poem was during Activities Week in Year 7. I was 12. I may well have written one since then, but definitely not after my 17th birthday.

For some reason, sitting in my office doodling on a post-it note, I wrote a poem. Only a little one. But I thought I’d post it here. I guess at the moment this is an expression of how I feel.

One day soon I will jump.

And then I will be falling;

It will feel like I am falling forever,

And everything will be black.

My heart will be heavy;

It is this that is pulling me down.

Towards something, I guess.

What? I don’t know.

Sometimes things will be light

But I will have to close my eyes.

They will hurt if there is light.

Even the light from some distant stars

Or the moon will be too much.

It will hurt my eyes.

So I will continue falling,

Blind.

 

Edited to add: I feel like one of those cliched teenagers who thinks they’re in so much pain. The thing people should remember is that they probably are.

Domestic violence

After my previous post I just wanted to put a few links up. While I wouldn’t say the relationship I have with my ex-girlfriend is now, or ever has been, abusive, on that one occasion I was abusive towards her. I once did some training on domestic violence, and there is a lot to it.

So anyhow, I’m going to link to websites or organisations that deal with domestic violence. I’ll update this from time to time, as I get new information, as well. One thing I want to stress is that there is help, not only for victims of domestic violence, but for perpetrators (or potential perpetrators). I, along with a lot of feminists, get angry at the thought of domestic violence, and angry at the thought of men abusing their wives and partners. However, people make the choices they do for a reason – decisions aren’t made in a vacuum, and that isn’t only true of the oppressed class, but of the oppressors. Men are taught that women are worthless – they end up believing it, and that’s why they rape women, and abuse women. The thing is, I believe that men can make a conscious choice not to make these decisions, so I think it’s important there are organisations to help them do that.

I didn’t intend on saying that much, and it’s more of a general thing, than specific to what I’m doing now. Apart from anything else, it is an oversimplification. Anyway:

Broken Rainbow – a helpline for victims and perpetrators of domestic violence in gay relationships

Women’s Aid

Refuge

ManKind – an organisation which supports male victims of domestic violence (unfortunately I don’t know anything specific about ManKind, or any other organisation that works with male victims, but I thought it was important to put one in)

Respect – support for perpetrators (again, Respect isn’t a charity that I know – but I think it is particularly important that people are aware that there is support available for perpetrators who want to change).

As I said I’ll update this list with other organisations that I come across. I would rather only put in organisations that I know, but a much more full list can be found on the BBC website.

My relationship with alcohol

It is nine and a half weeks since I have had any alcohol (with the exception of a taste of a friend’s cocktail the first week or so after I stopped drinking). I eventually made the decision to stop drinking after talking to some mental health professionals.

Alcohol has done some pretty strange things to me over the years. I imagine it’s pretty much common knowledge that alcohol is a depressant, and it has frequently had that effect on me. The last weekend in June, which was the last time I drank, I drank on the Friday evening and on the Saturday evening. On the Friday I had been out, got really really drunk (to the extent that I actually pissed myself when I got off the night bus!) and then after I got home I began my most recent suicide attempt*. Eventually, to be honest, I got bored and went to sleep. I had some more to drink on the Saturday evening, and it was at this point that I told my flatmate what I had done.

On another occasion, some time before that, I had had a really bad day and I got home and started drinking a lot. Later that evening I had a massive argument with my ex-girlfriend, and in the end I hit her. I don’t remember doing it, but it happened. As a feminist, I’m a bit nervous about admitting that, but it’s what happened – it’s something I did, and the only way I can take responsibility for what I did is by admitting to it. I did take responsibility for what I had done – I spoke to some people about the bad day I had had, and made sure I had some support in place in case of something happening again. Also, I cut back on my drinking for some time. I didn’t cut it out altogether, but for a while I made sure that I didn’t drink if I was feeling particularly bad, and that I didn’t ever drink heavily.

Of course, after a few months, the alcohol I was consuming began to increase, and once again, I wasn’t really in control of what I was drinking. This was actually part of the reason for my attempt: I figured if I was dead I couldn’t hurt anyone. As it is, since I’ve stopped drinking (and actually since that incident with my ex-girlfriend) I haven’t been violent towards anybody. Of course that’s not to say I’ve been totally blameless in every interaction I’ve had with another human being.

The thing that really concerns me, though, is that I kind of think drinking is really not something I can control, so ideally I should probably never drink again. I’m clearly not an alcoholic (I had a look at problem drinking on this site), but I would say I am (or was) a problem drinker. I really don’t think I could stop at 1. And that concerns me – a life without alcohol is not something I think I would enjoy.

*I say most recent suicide attempt not because I’m planning anything, but because, simply, there may be another one. Who can say? Whatever promises I make, if things get bad enough they won’t mean a thing.

Help

All I want to do is curl up in a ball and die, and nobody will even help me do that.

I’m in total self-destruct mode, things are not good. I think I’m just going to keep doing stupid things until one day my life will be totally ruined. But no one will help me.

It would be so much easier if I actually believed all my beliefs (weird sentence, I know). In particular, where I’m worth something even if men don’t want to fuck me. But the other day I actually told this guy I wasn’t sure I was gay because I really really really wanted to feel like someone wanted me.

I am worth something, regardless of how attractive people (read: men) find me. I am worth something. I am worth something.

Challenging my first Negative Automatic Thought

I was reading something on the way to the tube this morning. It didn’t contain reference to anything particularly misogynistic, homophobic, racist, anything that took the piss out of disabled people, people who aren’t middle class (or whatever), people who may not be conventionally attractive…

It just reminded me how big the world is. How there’s so much to consider. And my heart sank. So my Negative Automatic Thought (NAT – something I have been told I should recognise in my CBT) was, “I can’t deal with all of this – there’s too much.”

I feel like to change the world (see previous post) I need to understand human nature perfectly. But how can I do that? I mentioned before that thinking about free will gives me a headache, and I avoid it as much as possible. The thing is, now I feel like I can’t continue to avoid it – I need to work it out.

Of course I don’t need to know everything. Things like free will, and everything else, aren’t known. In particular, still nobody knows, really, whether or not women are biologically different to men, or whether it is socially conditioned. Women still won the vote, we still have the legal right to the same pay for the same work.

Masculinity and suicide

I’ve been a bit behind on reading some of the longer posts on my blogroll, but had a look today. This feature is just awesome. We really need more mothers who are willing to let their sons do what they want, however “feminine” that might be. I seriously recommend you take a look.

Penni (the author of the feature) has implied a really important point, too: given that society teaches that “masculinity” (whatever that is) is more valuable, any boy or man who displays any feminine characteristics is going to be looked down upon. The patriarchy hurts everyone: men and women are expected to live up to certain gender roles, which is, quite simply, limiting. And it is true, I believe, most definitely, that men are expected not to express emotions, or whatever. Obviously there are certain times and places where this isn’t the case – but these are far more limited than those times and places for women, who are, let’s face it, walking balls of hormones.

However, it is sometimes said that men are worse off than women, which is shown by the often quoted fact that men are more likely to commit suicide than women. I think a lot of the time this is used to dismiss the claim of feminists that women have it bad! Penni didn’t suggest this one bit, but she did say the following:

I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that it is teenage boys who have the highest suicide rate. They’re conditioned to believe that they can’t ask for help because it is ‘unmanly’.

I’ve said above that I totally agree with the second sentence of this quote. However I’d like to offer an alternative explanation for the fact that more young men (and in fact men in general) commit suicide: quite simply, men are more likely to succeed. More young men commit suicide, but more young women attempt it. This is not only true for young people, but at all age groups. There are a number of explanations for this. Firstly, men tend to use more violent methods. A woman is more likely to take an overdose or similar, which is actually incredibly ineffective. This might well be due to the fact that men are conditioned to be more violent.

There are other considerations, of course. It’s possible that a woman might take an overdose as a “cry for help,” whereas you’re a lot less likely to shoot yourself, or hang yourself for that purpose. And of course, that does tie in with Penni’s comment that I quoted above: men can’t ask for help. Although, I would like to make this point. The first time I took an overdose, I wasn’t certain I would die, I wasn’t even certain that I wanted to – but I thought it was a possibility, and I thought that it would definitely cause problems. I really did not understand how ineffective overdoses were.

Penni’s post deals with a really important issue. As I said above, the patriarchy hurts everyone. I can’t emphasise that enough! But the issue of suicide is often oversimplified.

CBT

Well, I had my second session on the CBT thing today. It was quite good, I think. There were goals to be set and such things.

One of the things that I sort of worked out is that I get low mood-y when I get pissed off about the state of the world. I do think there’s more to it than that, obviously. But I’m beginning to agree with what my mum said – maybe getting angry about the state of things is bad for me. I don’t think it necessarily is, though, but I think it’s related. What’s happening is that I am at a point where I’m feeling like there’s no hope. So then I get depressed.

I was pretty worried that the result of the CBT would be that I wouldn’t be allowed to campaign on things, wouldn’t be allowed to read the paper, wouldn’t be able to just be aware of everything that is going on. However, one of the goals I set is that four times out of five (I think – something like that) to talk to someone about/write about what in particular is upsetting me about it. I think it would be good if I was able to do this. The other day I was reading something or other about rape, and I was at work, and I was totally unable to do any work after that. I just sat at my desk in tears. Writing it down would hopefully help me to put it behind me, or, even better, work out something that can be done to improve it, write all that down, and then put it behind me.

Another thing I want to do, more generally, is read about people who have made a difference. I want to be one of them, one day. I couldn’t be if I was told not to campaign on things because it depresses me. So I really hope this works better.

Feminism

Take a look at this piece in the Times today. The comments turned into a general discussion on feminism, of the sort we see all the time. One thing I particularly noticed was this comment:

Most people my age know that feminism was never about equality – it was about ugly women wanting to be treated the same as attractive women.

I’m so confused by this. Does this person not realise that ugly people* are people too? What the hell is wrong with wanting all women to be treated the same, regardless of how attractive they are?

Oh, I guess it has something to do with the fact that this is how we treat people. Women are quite different.

I do despair.

*I hope it goes without saying that I really don’t like saying that at all. I discussed some of the problems with the whole thing about attractiveness here.

Yesterday

Well, it was a bit weird. I typed that post, then of course forgot to publish it, which is why it didn’t come up till about midnight, or whenever. I would have posted something else, but as I was on the internet, I had one of the music channels on, and my dad came in. Then that song “I kissed a girl” came on. Luckily it is quite a while before the chorus starts so I managed to shut down what I was doing and go to bed! I couldn’t handle him thinking things. I imagine he must think that when I hear that song I feel the way they used to when they heard that song by Mary, Mary. Well, I would, except that the song is crap. It’s just so shit! It’s just about two women making out to appeal to their boyfriends! I would not have liked to explain that to him.

In other things, I started my CBT programme. I’m a bit nervous about it. I’ve been asked to monitor my problems, which of which I put down as, “Feeling completely hopeless. As in, nothing will work for me, or for anyone else ever.” I’m paranoid that the result will be I have to stop reading the paper, or thinking about anything that happens in the world ever! But I’ll see how it goes.

Also, my GP changed my medication, which is good. Basically, I went in and said, “I feel like I’m waiting to die. I’m not going to live into old age, so I just think that every moment I’m not planning on how to kill myself, is time wasted.” Hopefully things will look up.

Sam

Appointments

After work I’m going to my first appointment with the nurse, to begin an online cognitive behavioural therapy thing. I’m hoping this will help some, as I have been very down recently. Also, I have booked an appointment with a counsellor, but not for some time yet – so all my hope is going on this CBT thing.

Also, even though today is ok (I actually made it in to work yesterday and today!) I have to go into my GP appointment this afternoon and emphasise how bad I have felt recently. It kind of feels like I’ll be lying. But I read what I wrote down a few days ago, and I was saying to my friend that I feel like I’m waiting to die, which I guess is quite bad.

But I always do this – I remember the day after my first overdose, when the psychiatric nurse asked me how I was feeling, and I said, “Yeah, fine. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble any more – obviously I’ll have bad days, but all I need to do is remember that this time I felt fine the next day, so I won’t do anything stupid.” Of course, a month later, I was back.