Thank you thank you. You’d never know on the good days when you see me walking to the shop, but good days aren’t common for me. Depression, anxiety, BPD and chronic pain combine to make most of my days less than good, and a great many of them far less.
On my 6th, or 9th, or 11th day without washing, changing clothes/sheets, brushing hair/teeth, etc., I lie in my bed and listen to my housemate make his daily trudge from his room to the shower room, hear the water turn on, the water turn off, the trudge back. I assume he dresses, and I hear his electric toothbrush turn on, off. I hear his heavy footsteps recede as he makes his way downstairs.
I imagine him making his morning porridge (I’ve seen it many times in my anxious periods, when I jitter downstairs on hour 43 of awakeness and interrupt his calm breakfast routine). I hear the water system creak and know that he’s washing his pan. A few minutes later the front door slams (why does he always slam it so early in the morning?) and I know he’s set off on his walk to work.
Every time I listen to his unchanging morning ritual, my exhausted, severely depressed brain thinks, “How?! How does he get out of bed? Never mind taking off his clothes, grabbing a towel, walking to the shower and everything after that. How does he push back the covers, sit up, put his feet on the floor, and stand? How does he keep himself from collapsing back onto the bed and burrowing under the covers, exhausted and terrified by the vulnerability of standing all alone in his room?
I don’t eat because it would involve getting out of bed. I don’t drink water because I’d have to get up to refill the bottle, and then I’d have to pee sooner too. I wait until my bladder is so full that it bends me double with cramps before I leave my sanctuary/prison and limp to the bathroom (desperately hoping that I don’t run into one of my lovely/terrifying housemates while I’m there…)
Even on the better days, when I can venture to the kitchen to get food almost as often as I should (OK, just a chunk of cheese, a packet of oatcakes, an apple — not a healthy diet, and my body lets me know it), but at least it’s something. Of course, I don’t eat in the kitchen! I eat in my bed — you don’t want to know about the crumbs and stains on my sheets, the piles of plates/bowls/mugs/cutlery on my bed/dresser/floor)….
My dream is to be able to get up and do what he does, without thinking, every day. It’s unreachable. I haven’t done it in years. I hate myself for it. Maybe today I hate myself a little less.
Thank you, thank you.