Blunted emotionally

Isn’t that the term psychiatrists used when you are totally flat? When you are so numb that you think someone could come up and stab you in the stomach and still you wouldn’t feel anything and the world would seem fake? When a friend could tell you that all 6 of your lottery numbers came up last night and you’re a millionaire, and you’d just sit there, staring into space, not hearing your friend, let alone listening to the words they are saying, and instead of being happy just wishing they would shut up? When you look at the world around you and you realise you couldn’t care less anymore? But then you realise that you actually have to care to not care less anymore and that takes too much effort? When you want to cry so much and yet nothing comes out of your eyes? When you want to shout so loud and wail and moan but no voice comes out? When you finally realise that you are a nothingness and your life is a nothingness?

 This is how I feel. I thought I felt more positive yesterday afternoon but like in a tacky comedy sketch, depression has come up as a frying pan and hi me straight in the face. I am the clown wandering around with the stupid stars circling around my head in that dazed and confused state that if I was in a better frame of mind I would probably laugh at. I thought people were laughing me earlier. I thought people were listening into the phone conversation I was having with my Mum. I turned my phone off and put it in another room because I was convinced that people could still hear what I was thinking. I know this is not normal, I know that I am ill, but I don’t want to admit it to anyone.

I am Ruth. Smiley, happy Ruth. Ruth who is up for anything, always up for a laugh, full of confidence, the life and soul of every party. Ruth who wil get drunk and dance in a club and fall over and probably embarass herself but will just stand up and smile, wave at people who were watching and blag herself a free drink from the barman by pleading total humiliation. Ruth who never has a bad day. Ruth who is intelligent, a success story, who has a first class honours degree from a well respected university.

Except I am not. I am Ruth, the fake, the shambles, the drug addict, the self-harmer, the bulimic. The girl who hides in the corner of her bedroom because she is convinced she can see snakes and spiders crawling across the floor. Ruth who sits on a Tube train and is convinced the two women sitting at the end of the carriage are talking about her, so she gets off and changes carriage. Ruth who is failing her post-graduate course and frankly hasn’t go the energy to worry anymore. Ruth who self-medicates with alcohol, codeine, hypnotics, benzodiazepines and other opoid painkillers. Ruth who is scared of herself and terrified of other people. Ruth, the social phobic who overcompensates for her faults and therefore appears bolshy.

I am the Ruth who is scared. Who would rather tell the whole internet about her problems than her family (as pointed out by a comment on the last post) or her GP. Who checks her blog stats every day to see how many people are reading about her life, and is upset when the numbers plummet. Ruth, who is invisible, anonymous, unknown and yet not uncared for.

Maybe I am truly BPD, maybe I am exhibiting all the symptoms right now. Shaky self-image, fear of abandonment, self-harming, engaging in other risky activities, eating problems, mood swings… but I don’t care for diagnoses. I want people to see who I am, not what people think I am.

Ruth