Guilt

This is a personal piece. Please be trigger aware when reading.

Guilt is something I feel a lot of. It is an emotion that quite often threatens to overwhelm me and often makes simple acts of self care hard. It is an emotion I think is quite common in people who have a mental illness. Here my plan is to explore some of the things that lead to my guilt.

I feel guilty for a number of reasons. One of which is that I am currently unable to work due to my mental illnesses. This is hard for me to deal with as I constantly feel like a burden to those around me. I have worked while I studied and for a few years after I qualified but now the impact of my mental health means this just isn’t an option currently. I hope it will change but I just can not support myself and the guilt is horrendous. It leads to, at times, a worsening of my mental health because I just feel so negatively about myself. Guilt has a huge impact on me.

Another reason I feel guilty is because I am currently using self harm to cope. I know how much this upsets people around me yet at the moment I can not see how I can function without it and this makes me feel incredibly guilty. I hate that I am upsetting people and letting them down. I am also a lot harder to deal with and this makes the guilty feelings sky rocket. Again I feel a burden to those around me.

I feel guilty for the care I require from a stretched NHS. At the moment I am having input from at least three mental health professionals as well as doctors for my physical health. I feel I am a drain on resources and unworthy of care. I feel guilty to the point it physically hurts.

All these things I feel guilty for are not my fault. Yet guilt prevails and quite often wins as the strongest emotion I feel. If anyone else said they felt guilty for these reasons I would tell them that they have no reason to feel guilty, that they are not a burden, that this is not their fault and they are worthy of care. But for me this feels impossible.

I have no tips on how to deal with this overwhelming feeling. All I can say is that if you feel guilt for similar reasons you have no reason too. But I know this won’t always help. I have friends who tell me the same, yet still guilt overtakes me. I think this is just something I will have to learn to battle. If you have any tips on conquering guilt please share them. And remember you are not alone.

Intense thoughts and feelings

This is a personal piece. Please be trigger aware. This was written a few days ago and is a typed up version of what was going on. They are unedited.

This was originally going to be called raving thoughts as this is all this is. The mad, raving thoughts that are running through my head when really I should be trying to sleep.

The thoughts started this afternoon and are going at what feels like 100mph. I can’t make sense of them as they seem to be bouncing off each other and the inside of my head. My pen is struggling to keep up with my brain and I am conscious that my writing is difficult to read and make sense of.

I’ve always had times when my brain seems to work much faster than my hand. When I was at school I would get into trouble for missing out words or letting my punctuation and grammar go by the wayside in order to keep up with the speed my brain was working at. Now my thoughts go through phases where they become an unsettled mess and I just need to get them out.

When my thoughts are working fast I can become elated or I can crash into a pile of thoughts that I just can’t sort through. Things don’t always make sense. Instead it can become a rambling tale that has no direction.

So why am I documenting it? I think it is time I found an outlet and tried to make sense of why I sometimes end up in this state. I can spot patterns and it quite often happens when my mood becomes changeable. My thoughts can go from 100mph to nothing. This can happen quite quickly. Like now in the middle of this rushed scribbling my mind has suddenly blanked.

Controlling these sudden changes is difficult for me. I’m not sure if it is part of my BPD or not. The changeable mood definitely could be and although I am on a mood stabiliser its not totally controlled. Another way I try and control it is self harm. It is not a good coping strategy and only works temporarily. It is not something I recommend.
Right I am going to stop here. My thoughts are slowing. If any of you experience racing thoughts I would love to hear how you cope with them.