What’s it like, summoning every single ounce and fibre of your being to concentrate on a task? Like, y’know, walking to the kitchen? Or talking to your kiddo?

What’s it like, listening to an eternal, internal raging battle, inside your head, every single waking second, minute, hour of the day?

What’s it like, screaming at yourself, your own mind, regularly, willing yourself to be quiet? To stop the noise? To shut the fuck up?

What’s it like, crying all the time, without actually crying?

What’s it like, when you want to grab someone, anyone, and desperately scream directly into their face that you want them to help you?

What’s it like, being unable to ask for help because you’re smothered by what’s happening to you?

What’s it like, regularly thinking through the possibilities and ways of removing yourself from everything as best as possible, orthodox or otherwise?

What’s it like, trying to focus on remembering to breathe?

What’s it like, feeling like some kind of weird fraud, hiding beneath a mask of smiles?

What’s it like, wanting someone to share your pain so you can ease up a bit, and deal with the guilt of even thinking about doing that to someone?

What’s it like, when someone asks how can they help you, when you don’t even know how to help the situation yourself?

What’s it like, wanting so desperately for someone to hold you while you melt down, but the idea of anyone coming near you leaves you cold?

What’s it like, pushing people away when you so desperately need them?

What’s it like, when people talk to you and your mouth is saying shit but your mind is pouring out everything they need to hear?

What’s it like, when you hurt, and there is no relief, until your body and mind decides it ready to heal a bit?

I know what it’s like. And if I ever find the words to describe the above, I hope to write them here one day.

So I went to The Shit Place.

Unfortunately, or perhaps, fortunately, the following day we all went to London (for The Smalls’ Day Out).

It’s amazing how you can throw yourself into a sense of denial, and ignore the elephant in the corner.

I still feel like shit. Though, I think I’m still in denial.

I do need to make changes though. Dunno how. (Maybe I’m stuck this way?)

I need to ask my friends for help. Dunno how. (Is that the weirdest thing ever?)

Weirdly, I know (I think) exactly what help I need, and how, and possibly what changes to make, but they’re all terrifying. Really, really terrifying. I don’t want to say here, because honestly, it’s pathetic and a bit embarrassing. Which is a pain in the arse, because it makes dealing with this frigging problem a bit trickier.

I thank my lucky stars that some of my friends already seem to know what to do, without me asking. It’s kind of weird. I hate asking people to be there for me. I hate the idea of having to reply on people.

London was necessary. I hated it because I wanted to curl up with the elephant, but loved it. Mostly because of The Smalls, who needed quality time with The Mr and I. That whole “family unit” thing felt necessary, and perhaps threw things back into perspective.

Annoyingly, I felt pissed off with myself (head) when we got on the train home, and the impending fear started to creep over me.

This bullshit will end. It MUST end, because seriously. No person should ever have to live like this, with this, through this.

It’s just not right.

You know, I’ve been really pleased with how long it’s been since “an episode”. I can remember the last time, sitting on the kitchen floor contemplating taking a shit load of pills with a view to sleeping for a “long time”. Crying a lot, and wondering why no one was helping me (get off my arse and help myself first? If I knew how at the time…). Weirdly, I don’t remember if that was this year or last.

What does bother me, is recognising the symptoms of edging towards the Slippery Slope, but being seemingly unable to stop myself walking towards it. I remember a while ago, writing about how the Slippery Slope was just much easier to deal with. Shut down all my senses, emotions, abilities – everything. Not having to find the effort to do anything. Not trying to be anything. In fact, just not even trying to be.

So here I am, recognising that feeling of wanting everything to stop.

Feeling the sensation of my heart pounding in my chest, and wishing rather casually, that it would just stop. Quit it. Finish.

This very post, I’m struggling to write. My mind drifts off into nothingness, and my body goes limp. It’s a bit odd; if I saw someone else doing it I’d have to say they were being rather weird. Yet, at the moment? I find it rather welcoming.

I could, if I were in the right circumstances, just go completely limp, barely breathing, not thinking, not seeing; just being in a state of nothing. Not even asleep. Maybe dead? I dunno. Sounds a bit harsh, but it’s the only other state I could consider.

The Smalls playing outside, right now, are the only thing stopping me from doing it. There’s an irony in that, even as I would be taking my own life, there would be no relief for the suffocating guilt. Irony, because I’d be dead and wouldn’t know otherwise. But still, the concept of taking away their primary carer is something I couldn’t consider right now.

Am I selfish. Yeah, I guess so. Thinking of myself right now, huh? I’m so tired, I haven’t got the strength, I don’t have the energy, wah wah and all that bollocks.

Truth is, I’m not sure I even care that I’m being selfish right now. Because at the moment, I don’t have the strength to keep going. I don’t have the strength to look after myself. I don’t have the strength (time and/or energy) to ensure adequate survival of 2 small children, a tidy house, my own cleanliness, a reasonable relationship with The Mr, a decent friendship with friends and on top of it all, manage my own business.

What in the hell was I thinking? Manage my own business? Seriously, what the hell was I thinking? At what stage did I manage to convince myself it would be entirely possible to do that?

The thing is, this whole process of sliding into a depressed hole, it’s just far too slow. It feels like I’m walking through some weird kind of slow-mo thing, where I watch my days whizz by, and I don’t seem to be able to do anything. Which is a spectacular fail, since, y’know, it’s my life and all. What am I supposed to do? “Keep myself busy”? Sure. I keep myself busy. So fucking busy I exhaust myself, and ironically, have no time for myself.

All too often I find myself thinking “if I could just have some me time, to do shit all, to laze around and spend the day watching tv or some shit like that, to just have a break and actually not have to worry about my phone endlessly pinging, or the emails stacking up, or whatever other bullshit I have to deal with, would I be a whole lot better?”

See, once I signed up to be a mom and a wife, well let’s just say hindsight is a truly wonderful thing.

One thing I hate about myself, is that all I want to do is sit here and cry. Cry out all the pain, the exhaustion, the frustration, the anger – everything. Quite literally, cry myself empty. I feel like want rid of all the noise in my head because there’s far too much for me to deal with. I can’t deal with it; I never could. People tell me I’m strong. Ohhhh dudes. They wouldn’t say that if they really knew what was going on inside. I have no strength for any of this, and fact is, very rarely a day passes by when I just want to quit it all.

Is there a way out? Probably. I’ve tried numerous ways. Some more acceptable than others. But I guess until I do find a way out, I’ll either fumble forwards, hoping for the best, trying to move on, trying to avoid stepping into the hole of the Slippery Slope, trying to keep breathing and moving and living.

It would be really really special if I didn’t have to do this again though, because I don’t know how many more times I can pretend to fumble forwards.