My Mental Illness 2019 – A Reflection

I write quite a lot about mental health and mental illness on my blog. So much indeed, that I sometimes feel the need to hold back a little so this space remain primarily a sexblog, and has only a secondary focus on the fuckery in my mind. So I don’t share much about my day to day struggles, but try to instead do education and awareness posts.

Personal Reflections

Personal reflections around my mental illnesses are still difficult to write for me, for so many reasons. If I write it down, it becomes more real. I also put myself in a vulnerable position. And I am also worried that my mental illness and my struggles would take away from how competent people otherwise assume I am. But as the end of the year is approaching, I think it is a good time to be a bit more vulnerable, to actually talk about how things have been for me.

See, most people expect a reflective post to be about growth, to be about hope, goals for the future. That sort of thing. But I feel like I am stuck and all I have done this year is to survive. Saying that doesn’t take away from that I have had some beautiful moments, and there have been some positive changes in my life. But in general, and especially when it comes to my mental illness, I am incredibly stuck. And there is also no way that things will take a turn for the better any time soon. So more often than not, I am helpless and hopeless.

I often point out that what helps me get through rough times is to focus on that it is just a moment to get through. It is not a forever thing. No feeling, no situation, no pain, lasts forever. Panta rei. No man can step into the same river twice. And you know, it helps. But it makes you lose any concept of future. The few times I try to look ahead, and try to plan ahead, are really just hypocritical moments. I know that any second everything can fall apart for me again.

Fighting with the impossibility of not being able to plan ahead because of my instability. I take every day, every hour, every minute, as they come. I try to get through them, to enjoy them if they are good. Sure, I could take a hedonistic perspective here, focusing on the fun things, not worrying about anything else. But that is just not the kind of person I am. I am a nihilistic existentialist after all. Life is shit, the world is shit, but it is still all we get so we better try to make the best out of it.

My 2019

So. 2019. On paper, that year definitely looks better than the years before did. Those years were spent in psychiatric hospitals, stuck at home, lonely and constantly suicidal. 2019 looked different. I have had a lot more positive moments in my life, I was happy a lot more than I used to be. And the only reason for that is my partner, my husband, my Master. Without him, I doubt I’d even still be alive, to be honest.

I moved to Canada in December 2018, and on Halloween this year we got married. I am not a very romantic person but I totally admit that it was a very happy moment in my life. I love the man, and I am both surprised and feel very lucky, that he decided to commit to me like that. Moving to a new country has brought a lot of excitement into my life. I have been to over 15 concerts, to play parties, to art events, to theme parks, to goth clubs. I have made a friend or two.

It is amazing to have someone to support you in your life. Someone who knows everything about you, and still enjoys being with you. The sex we have is absolutely fantastic. In his company I feel safe. He is my anchor. He is my fucking everything. And he encouraged me when I started this blog. He is proud of me when I get through a rough time. He is grateful when I am able to function for a while and can contribute to our life in various ways.

But moving to a new country also brought a whole lot of instability into my life. He is the only person I have, the only person I trust. I don’t have a psychiatrist or a therapist. That means that I have no one to prescribe medication to me. I have no close friends. I am totally dependent on him, for everything. The residency application is lengthy and complicated. I don’t have a work permit. I don’t have the security to know that I can actually stay here.

And worst of all for someone like me: I don’t have any health insurance. I have many chronic mental and physical illnesses, and I have no doctor. No one to follow up with me. And I have to think twice before going to a doctor because I have to pay everything out of pocket. This is so different to how my life in Sweden was. I had free healthcare, free meds, I had disability money. It feels like very unstable circumstances, and it affects me greatly.

And the worst thing for me is the total dependency on my Master. Now, as a submissive, you might think it is not something that I’d oppose to: my Master taking care of me financially. But I hate to be financially dependent on anyone, it is quite a huge trigger for me, actually. Also, I don’t understand the Canadian system, I don’t know shit about life here. If my Master disappeared, I’d be homeless in a week, no kidding. This total dependency on him, is absolutely scary.

Having this blog has definitely given me a sort of purpose in life. I have a routine in writing, I have made friends, I love doing this. It is one of the few things in my life, that makes me think of a “future”. I have plans for my blog and my writing next year, and I am actually all excited about it. I feel competent, I feel appreciated. And it is fun. But there is also pressure. I always compare myself to others, I get upset when something that I worked hard on doesn’t get attention. If I sense the slightest discontent coming from another blogger, I ger worried that they secretly hate me. And don’t even get me started on Imposter Syndrome.

So the circumstances of my life are kind of mixed at the moment. There are positives and improvements from how things used to be just a year ago. But there is also more instability around me, and the security and support network that I had in Sweden is gone. I can see though: not all is bad. But those are just the circumstances and things happening in my life. My mental illness is a story for itself.

A Day in My Life

My mental illnesses have been roaming free and have been out of control. I don’t share much about my daily struggles on this blog, but oh boy, there have been and still are a lot of daily struggles. Let’s take a look at what my mental illnesses have been like today, shall we?

I got 90 minutes of sleep last night. Yes, you read right. 90 minutes. The last two months I have not even once slept more than four hours in a row and those hours were not uninterrupted, or even during night time. There are a few things to blame for my insomnia. I have been tapering down both sleeping pills and sedatives. I am now literally on no medication at all for my mental illnesses. Without those meds, I don’t sleep. The withdrawal from the medication is also absolutely terrible. I have incredibly high anxiety during night time due to my trauma. I have nightmares and I am even hypervigilant when I sleep.

And then, oh boy, I also have bipolar disorder. In November I had a bout of hypomania but right now I am in a mixed bipolar episode. They are the worst thing you can imagine: you want to burn the world, you want to kill yourself, you want to self-harm, you want to constantly fuck, you want to just hide and cry. It is an overwhelming mess. So basically: I don’t sleep. (It is past 6 AM as I write this, and I have not been to bed).

It is Saturday and my Master is at home. I feel quite okay and decide that we should try to get some Christmas grocery shopping done. That is more complicated for me than it is for others, because of my diabetes. So I spend a couple of hours finding recipes for vegetarian keto-friendly Christmas food that resembles what I used to eat in Europe during this time of the year. I take my thyroid meds and while I take a shower, my Master makes me something to eat. I write a shopping list, get ready and eat my omelette.

And off we go. The moment we are out of the house, I start switching uncontrollably. My Dissociative Identity Disorder is out of whack when I don’t sleep and am more anxious. Different alters (mostly littles) ask my partner over and over where we are going, and make him promise that we are not going to the hospital (one of our biggest fears). He mentions the dentist. Boom. Triggered. We have been dealing with a thing. A health thing. I don’t want to go into details to not trigger the shit out of myself again. It is a lot related to health anxiety, actual health issues, fear of doctors, fear of dying a terribly painful death, and the littles’ biggest fear: dying alone.

We become more aware of the health issue and start freaking out internally, but try to not scold Master for it. He means well. We are just easily triggered, and we really don’t want to die a terrible death in Sweden by all ourselves. Because if what we have is bad, then we need to go back to Sweden to get treatment. We have no health insurance here. So we avoid going to the doctor. Because dying a terrible death here, is better, because we wouldn’t be alone. Anxiety and catastrophic thinking at its best.

We go to a tea shop to get some lose tea. We love drinking lose tea. An adult is out and deals with the clerk. An ironic hipster dude with a mighty mustache. A little comes out when she sees a cup with a kitty print. We are embarrassed and want to leave the store as soon as possible. Said health issue is in the back of our mind all the time now. On to the next store, a liqour store. They don’t have what we were looking for.

Then a home improvement place. We need mason jars and screws to hang up a mirror. We find the mason jars. But Master takes a long time to find what screws are needed. We start to panic. There are so many people in the store, so so many people. Heart rate is going up. Cold sweaty. Fear of making a fool of ourselves by passing out in the middle of a store on the weekend before Christmas. We find an empty aisle and hide between boxes. So we sit down and hug our knees. We are shaking. The littles like to hide when they are scared. Master didn’t notice our absence. After a few moments everything around us seems far away and we don’t feel anything at all anymore. We are confused about where we are. Dissociation. We find Master, he notices our distress and calms us down.

And on to the next store. Well, first some coffee. The lack of sleep is really showing, the body is weak. We burn our tongue and switch a lot. Embarrassing. Scared of a terrible death. Two minutes at Whole Foods and we lose Master in the crowd. We panic. So many people. No money. We know no one. We hide by the almond milk, sit down. And wait. We send messages to Master, he finally responds and finds us. He is now vigilant and doesn’t leave us out of his sight. 90 minutes at the store and we find everything we need. We are supposed to eat a snack because we have unmedicated diabetes and need to eat every three hours. But we push it away. We need to suffer because we have been misbehaving. No food for us.

Finally at home. Unpacking everything. The mind is racing (hello bipolar disorder!) and we can’t calm down. So we start pickling stuff. We bake cookies. We keep busy busy. Ordering in some food from Chipotle. They messed up the order and made it extra spicy. Nap time. We fall asleep, Master too. Waking up to his snoring and incredible pain from the health issue. We don’t dare to move to not wake him up. But the mind is racing and anxious. Eventually we go to the bathroom and hide, and google health related things. Fucking triggered. Breakdown. Tears, tears, tears. Self-blame, emotional flashback. We are suicidal. Really suicidal. He takes care of us, hugs us, sits with us.

Something switches and we refresh our make-up and decide to take pictures for Sinful Sunday. It is fun, fun to be naked and close to him. One thing leads to another and we have a great sex session, with exactly what we both need. Covered in cum, we breathe out. Master is going to bed, we work on the pictures and then try to distract. And here we are. This is what my life looks like.

My mental illnesses have been out of control this year. Bipolar disorder with no medication. C-PTSD, DID and GAD without any therapy. It is out of control. And there is no improvement ahead of me. I don’t know when I will get health insurance. And even when I have the insurance, it can take months if not years to find family doctors, to find psychiatrists and therapists that are trauma informed. So I am just going to continue with what I have been doing: Moments. Fucking moments.