I'm X (like in an old Russian novel!) and I feel all wrong. Just all wrong. I had six sessions of counselling/psychotherapy which finished a few weeks ago. And now the counselling is over, and it was a lovely cosy oasis while it lasted, but now....now I examine this CBT stuff...and I don't know. My counsellor tried to convince me that I was indulging in 'distorted, negative' thinking, but the more I examine myself (and, boy, how much do I examine myself), the more I think it is true seeing. I really am that ineffectual loser, coward, I see myself as. And let's talk some blasphemy here. Let's go where I'm not supposed to go. Let's jump in to the taboo and say that maybe suicide (there, I typed it!) isn't so terrible. When I would like to spend each and every day in bed, when I need to withdraw from life, when I don't look forward to any morning, any day, when self-contempt and self-punishment is my mantra, when I'm sick and tired of the constant acting, maybe in one act I CAN take control. What is holding me back? Physical cowardice for starters - I don't want a death that hurts - and pure blind terror of death, though I've probably already got cancer and won't live till 60 anyway. And I suppose love for my family - though wouldn't it be kinder to them to get me out of the way, and once they get over the grief they will be better off. My wife can find a man who can actually earn a living and pull his weight. The boys can have a father they can admire rather than a weak, moody. Every day I hate myself more, and I look back and wonder why? Why now should it all come to a head? Is it just the weight and strain has finally got too much?
Now that's how sick I am. Should I go to the doctor and beg him for drugs to kill the mental pain and get me through the rest of my wretched life?
All the little selfish trivial ways of wasting time, passing time, I hate them all and I hate myself for the pointless indulgence. All the illusions I hate them. I am not a writer I am not a poet I am barely a man I never grew up I never learnt to love properly or to give I never learnt to be a genuine human being just a shadow and Christ on the Cross this is terrible. The longer it goes since my therapy the less impact it has and the angrier all the psychotalk makes me. It all seems so glib and patronising.
So hello, all, I'm the much-reduced shadow of X and I think I need a bit of help. I do jokes too but not today...
