When You Wish You Were Not Strong---And Thoughts Of Suicide
Without Prejudice
People admire you for being strong. The old mentality of, laugh and the world laughs with you, Cry, and you cry alone.
But there are times when you hate having to suck it up, thinking positive doesn't work and you want to be alone and nurse your wounds. They say when you get like that you should seek out company, don't be on your own, but your mind, body and heart say otherwise.
Reading a novel helps if you can bothered. You are so overwhelmingly tired all the time and want the world to stop, just stop with its hurry and worry and every tiny thing is an effort. I can remember being so un strong once that even the thought of a shower caused me pain. The effort of turning on taps and thinking that the showers of water would hurt, feel like needles on my skin was enough to send me into a tailspin.
I sort of blacked out after that, found myself counting tablets sitting on the draining board, 24 of. And upon hearing my daughter pulling up in the driveway outside put the tablets away, hid them. I could not allow them, had enough respect for them, my daughter and Son In Law, to not find my body in their house. I drove towards a Motel near where I used to live once and out of the blue my guardian angel rang. My Sister In Law. Once married to my brother.
We had been friends since she was 15 and I was 18. I was married and she was about to go out with my brother for the first time.
Even after their divorce we remained best friends. She is my rock, the sanest person I have ever met. I always turn to her for great advice if I am really upset. My Son In Law and I introduced her to her second husband and were guests of honour at their wedding. Her new husband had also married young, had a daughter and years later his wife left him for another woman.
I had a half sister who had the same experience with her husband of twenty years. She had 3 kids to him and when they were grown, came home one day to find hubby in bed with another man. She recovered, married her band leader who was wealthy and 20 years older and sadly died of breast cancer. Her band leader, composer, arranger husband married another lady 18 months later, much to my families and Yorkshire Aunt's horror.
Aunty Bet is 96 now, so please forgive her for this statement she made at the time.
" 18 months later and she's a " Darky"
Aunt Bet nearly had a heart attack, she of the stiff upper lip, having been through the Great Depression and the Second World War. Brought up with poverty and still with a definite class system ideology. Brits rule the World according to her and are vastly superior to any other race. Darky and foreigners are not to be trusted or even regarded half the time.
She also loves my Sister In Law and begs her to stay when she is in the U.K.
So out of the blue, my mobile was ringing, I had forgotten I even had it. I do that with my mobile, leave it somewhere, drop it, forget I have it. Aunt Bet is the same, she had one when my family shouted her one of her trips to Oz. she held it up to her ear as if it were a grenade about to go off.
My a Sister In Law was concerned about me, apparently my voice had sounded " strange " when I had rung her phone and left a message, cancelling an outing we were supposed to have. She begged me to come to her house and she never begs. After a long time she convinced me and I went. I cried when I arrived. She calmed me and told me I had to go to the Doctors, insisted I go. I did and something was wrong with my anti crazy pills. I was allergic to them, had serotonin allergy which I had been putting up with the symptoms for weeks.
The side effects were pretty awful but I am known for my persistence, even doggedness when faced with adversity. I apparently am a " coper ". According to my therapist. Who knew ?
I always thought I was just some sort of nightmare mess, that laughs and cries easily and longs to have enough time to read and write and be left in peace. A natural born hermit.
Never happens.
I figured that one out as to why.
My Mum was war damaged having been shot at, losing a fiancé in the War and what they call " highly strung ", she had nervous breakdowns, fugue states, and hardly ever cried. She expected us not to, either, my siblings and I. So we didn't.
I cried for months when she suicided at 53. By then an overactive thyroid tipped her over into complete madness. Shock treatment didn't work, nothing worked. She died way too young. I was 24 by then and my much younger Sister was only 10. If she had been sane she would never have left her youngest child. But she did and we all just had to accept it.
My Dad re married 18 months later, too. It didn't work out after three years and he went through a divorce at 56. He stated he had been through a death and a divorce and would rather go through the death than the divorce.
When I said to my psych I was frightened I would turn out like my Mum.
He said so quickly one word seemed to slide into another,
" Don't be stupid your Mother was ill "
Dontbesillyyourmotherwasill.
He was Chinese, and very austere and very, very good, ultra educated and spoke very quickly and I had to lean in to understand him and sat back when I understood. I hardly regarded myself as stupid and wanted him to understand me or sympathise. Forget that, it turned out he needed me, the dreamer, the imaginative, one to face reality. So I did. I wasn't I'll and never felt sorry for myself after that. I am strong I keep telling myself. And just sometimes, rare times, I have a little pity party, cry and move on
My Lovely Dad and Mum, at David's Christening in their new adopted homeland .
People admire you for being strong. The old mentality of, laugh and the world laughs with you, Cry, and you cry alone.
But there are times when you hate having to suck it up, thinking positive doesn't work and you want to be alone and nurse your wounds. They say when you get like that you should seek out company, don't be on your own, but your mind, body and heart say otherwise.
Reading a novel helps if you can bothered. You are so overwhelmingly tired all the time and want the world to stop, just stop with its hurry and worry and every tiny thing is an effort. I can remember being so un strong once that even the thought of a shower caused me pain. The effort of turning on taps and thinking that the showers of water would hurt, feel like needles on my skin was enough to send me into a tailspin.
I sort of blacked out after that, found myself counting tablets sitting on the draining board, 24 of. And upon hearing my daughter pulling up in the driveway outside put the tablets away, hid them. I could not allow them, had enough respect for them, my daughter and Son In Law, to not find my body in their house. I drove towards a Motel near where I used to live once and out of the blue my guardian angel rang. My Sister In Law. Once married to my brother.
We had been friends since she was 15 and I was 18. I was married and she was about to go out with my brother for the first time.
Even after their divorce we remained best friends. She is my rock, the sanest person I have ever met. I always turn to her for great advice if I am really upset. My Son In Law and I introduced her to her second husband and were guests of honour at their wedding. Her new husband had also married young, had a daughter and years later his wife left him for another woman.
I had a half sister who had the same experience with her husband of twenty years. She had 3 kids to him and when they were grown, came home one day to find hubby in bed with another man. She recovered, married her band leader who was wealthy and 20 years older and sadly died of breast cancer. Her band leader, composer, arranger husband married another lady 18 months later, much to my families and Yorkshire Aunt's horror.
Aunty Bet is 96 now, so please forgive her for this statement she made at the time.
" 18 months later and she's a " Darky"
Aunt Bet nearly had a heart attack, she of the stiff upper lip, having been through the Great Depression and the Second World War. Brought up with poverty and still with a definite class system ideology. Brits rule the World according to her and are vastly superior to any other race. Darky and foreigners are not to be trusted or even regarded half the time.
She also loves my Sister In Law and begs her to stay when she is in the U.K.
So out of the blue, my mobile was ringing, I had forgotten I even had it. I do that with my mobile, leave it somewhere, drop it, forget I have it. Aunt Bet is the same, she had one when my family shouted her one of her trips to Oz. she held it up to her ear as if it were a grenade about to go off.
My a Sister In Law was concerned about me, apparently my voice had sounded " strange " when I had rung her phone and left a message, cancelling an outing we were supposed to have. She begged me to come to her house and she never begs. After a long time she convinced me and I went. I cried when I arrived. She calmed me and told me I had to go to the Doctors, insisted I go. I did and something was wrong with my anti crazy pills. I was allergic to them, had serotonin allergy which I had been putting up with the symptoms for weeks.
The side effects were pretty awful but I am known for my persistence, even doggedness when faced with adversity. I apparently am a " coper ". According to my therapist. Who knew ?
I always thought I was just some sort of nightmare mess, that laughs and cries easily and longs to have enough time to read and write and be left in peace. A natural born hermit.
Never happens.
I figured that one out as to why.
My Mum was war damaged having been shot at, losing a fiancé in the War and what they call " highly strung ", she had nervous breakdowns, fugue states, and hardly ever cried. She expected us not to, either, my siblings and I. So we didn't.
I cried for months when she suicided at 53. By then an overactive thyroid tipped her over into complete madness. Shock treatment didn't work, nothing worked. She died way too young. I was 24 by then and my much younger Sister was only 10. If she had been sane she would never have left her youngest child. But she did and we all just had to accept it.
My Dad re married 18 months later, too. It didn't work out after three years and he went through a divorce at 56. He stated he had been through a death and a divorce and would rather go through the death than the divorce.
When I said to my psych I was frightened I would turn out like my Mum.
He said so quickly one word seemed to slide into another,
" Don't be stupid your Mother was ill "
Dontbesillyyourmotherwasill.
He was Chinese, and very austere and very, very good, ultra educated and spoke very quickly and I had to lean in to understand him and sat back when I understood. I hardly regarded myself as stupid and wanted him to understand me or sympathise. Forget that, it turned out he needed me, the dreamer, the imaginative, one to face reality. So I did. I wasn't I'll and never felt sorry for myself after that. I am strong I keep telling myself. And just sometimes, rare times, I have a little pity party, cry and move on
