Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Well, not many read this, and it's just as well I don't write in it much about myself.

I'm not too interesting to read about, that's most likely why.

It's hard to talk about oneself when you look through such a negative lens. I'm one of those people that suffers from major clinical depression on a regular basis, due to chemical and/or hormonal imbalances. Because of this I'm pretty much depressed on a regular basis, so it makes trying to talk positively about yourself nearly impossible.

I've learned to cope with it, to bite my lip and suck it up. But it's not that easy. Look up Clinical depression on Wikipedia or whatever and check out the list of symptoms. I pretty much have that entire list save the crying part. I rarely eat, I'm a chronic insomniac, I get sick nearly constantly, I tend to have pretty much the entire list in negative emotions. I get angry easily (especially at myself. But at least I have managed to control the cutting to get the rage and pain out) because so many things (and in a lot of cases, nothing) are driving me to paranoia that something is wrong. Even if nothing is wrong.

I'm one of the very few out there that would require to be on medication for life to try to control this. I refuse to live my life on pills. I absolutely refuse. I'd sooner kill myself than do that again. I've had to do it for a year and it nearly killed me to watch myself degrade like that. It was like I wasn't even myself. I hated myself.

I might still hate myself about a lot of things, but at least I can look myself in the face in the mirror knowing I'm battling this crap without those drugs that make you shamble about like a zombie for your entire day.

Fortunately I have a very understanding wife who does what she can to help me. Most nights I shudder to think about all the crap she has to put up with because of the mess in my head. I don't know how she can stand being around it when I have trouble with myself.

But I do what I can to try to improve myself. I fight as much as I can. But I do have breakdowns every so often and have to spill, like now. There's no real reason for it, it just happens.

Cutting. I mentioned it earlier. I will openly admit I am a cutter. I haven't done it in several years now. But I still WANT to do it. Yet I don't. Go figure.

Many don't understand cutting, including those that do it. Some do it for attention. Some because they love pain. Some do it as a cry for help for others to hopefully see.

Me? I did it because I needed to get the pain and the anguish out. I needed a means to release the tension that made it feel like my chest was going to explode during anxiety attacks and the severe depression, despair, hate and self loathing. I found out that cutting seemed to drain that pain, that terror..the hate. Everything. Everything went out of that long shallow gash along with the blood and it felt good despite how horrified I was at what I did.

Typically I wear long sleeved shirts, so no one even saw them. I was ashamed of the cuts. I knew it was wrong and I shouldn't do it. But when you're having panic attacks while majorly depressed, things that don't make sense suddenly seem a lot more coherent.

I never cut deep though. Just enough to cause some bleeding to let it all out. That's all I ever needed. Probably the worst I did was 20 shallow slashes along the back of my forarm, the opposite side of the wrist.

I haven't cut for at least 3 years now, about the time I learned I was going to be a father. I'm rather proud of that, despite the fact I want to cut on average once a day because of all this imbalance crap.

At least I can wear short sleeves now. The old scars have all faded since they were too shallow to be permanent.

Personally, I wish all those that don't understand cutting because they've never done it to just stay in the dark. The only people I truly met that understand that aspect of me were people that did it far worse and still have very nasty scars on them that they regret very much.

That has me worried to the point of losing sleep. What if my kids get this same condition? At least they'll have a parent that understands it on a level very few people do. I just hope that would be enough to keep them away from some things.

And now those that actually might browse this journal might see why I rarely write in it. It's just not good stuff that often. It's why I write more about my book or magic decks or something when I do.

It keeps my mind away from other things...