I give up. For now.

[denny]

This was going to be a goodbye note. The title was just "I give up.".

I got about 3/4 of the way through typing it before realising that actually, I'm not, quite, that low. But I've really had enough of my life for now. I just don't think the alternative is any better.

The anger flared and was gone again. I don't have the energy to sustain anger these days. I think I was hoping I could follow through on the emptiness, but emptiness doesn't really have any power, just a quiet despair. I suspect no-one ever changed the world, even their own world, powered by quiet despair.

So this isn't goodbye. It's not a private entry, and I'm not emailing the password to a friend who I know doesn't check their mail very often. I'm drunk, but it won't matter that my blood is thinner for it. The bath I've run can go cold. The blade can stay clean. My disinterest in my life extends to a lack of interest in ending it. I'm saved by my own apathy.

Maybe I just took a sullen delight in planning all the little details, knowing I wouldn't really do it. I honestly don't know. I just want things to be easier, and for a while, that seemed like a perfectly rational way to achieve it. And now it doesn't. The wheel turns, the game continues. I just don't want to play.

I'm a bit old for teenage angst. Maybe this is my second childhood. Most guys get motorbikes and cute blondes when they get older, but I did that bit already. Maybe I get spots and failed suicide attempts instead.

It's a bit sad that the visible cue for all this was a fine for an untaxed car. It's actually a little more complex than that though. Sometimes you just can't take any more.

I'm in so much debt I couldn't pay it off if I sold my house and everything in it. It doesn't help that I keep forgetting to pay things, or putting them off and putting them off until I get hit with extra charges and, increasingly often, a court summons. I have no concept of time. I put things off for a few days, and get a letter telling me I haven't paid for two months. It takes me by surprise every time it happens, but it keeps happening.

My health is fairly screwed, long term, although it's not always apparent. Some of my friends know more about the why and how much than others. Note that this isn't a friends-only entry, much less filtered, so I'm not going into details. But the fact that I was diagnosed with depression last year is both a direct and indirect consequence of the rest of my health problems. I guess the screwed up time-sense is something to do with the depression. It's so hard to concentrate on the trivia of day to day existence.

There are bright moments in my life. Time spent with friends. But I don't think to go to my friends when I feel like this. I sit at home. On my bed. I can glance at the clock when I get home from work, sit down on the bed, look at the clock again and 6 hours have passed.

Or, increasingly, I sit with my computer. Trying desperately to feel connected to people despite the fact that half the time I don't want to be with them. LJ is good for that. IRC sometimes works, but sometimes it's too real for me to be able to cope with it. It feels too intrusive.

There are few people who I can bear to be near when this happens. They're all on LJ, and hopefully they know who they are, the most special people to me. I'm sorry I didn't call any of you, but. There just didn't seem any point. Now there does, so I guess I'll do that in a bit.

I think I need to go and see my doctor again. Things aren't really getting all that much better in my head. Sometimes they seem like they are, but then that just seems to make the bad bits that much more unbearable.

Maybe I'm just being weak on purpose. Maybe I could cope fine if I just got my shit together. I used to be cynical about depression, until I actually dated someone who had it. I used to think it was people who just couldn't be bothered to get on with life. Now I know. That's not a totally unreasonable description. Except that I used to think they decided to be that way. Maybe I am.

But making decisions is not something that's happening here right now. Not even the one that I thought I'd made before I started this note. So now it's not a note. It's just a whinge. Sorry about the whinging. But I'm guessing anyone who cares enough to read it will care enough to be glad it's not the note it started out as.

I thought I should post it anyway. So I'm not sitting here thinking to myself, going over it in my head. Once it's written and posted, maybe my mind will move on from all the reasons why I don't want to be alive any more, and start thinking about the good things that have happened to me these last few months. They're so hard to remember sometimes. The mental and emotional darkness seems to obscure them from view. But they should shine. I don't know how it gets so dark that those things can't shine through.

I wish it wouldn't.