Enter The Void

Guillaume Seignac

Chelsea Wolfe - The Way We Used To

She spun a web around you, blackened and as thick as midnight curses and in the dark places where violence spins you comfort you remember her. Remember how she touched you, held you, loved you and every word that fell from her lips. Now you sit under florescent lighting listening to scattered words and dial tones finding these memories endless and filling up all empty space. You see darkened eyes and cigarette smoke, white lace and blood stains. You hear the sounds of clenched fists, shattering glass and the wind through the tall grass, disguising and deceitful.

I wasn't feeling as well as usual today, touches of anxiousness kept creeping up on me throughout the day and It made me think back to around this time last year when I was deep and buried in a black pit of despair suffering from chronic anxiety disorder. I remember searching the internet trying to find information on the internet from people that had been in the same place as me and somehow made it through but I couldn't find anything like that. Mostly what I read were people in a similar mind state to me feeling the same black despair I was and crying out for help, which made me feel much worse as it was hard to see any way out of where I was. I thought to myself that if I could get better I would write about how I was and how it is possible for a person suffering from extreme constant anxiety to improve and find their way back how they were feeling before anxiety overwhelmed their life. So if someone in the same place as me went searching they could possibly get some hope from reading this and realize that they will be the person they were before they got sick, in fact they will be all the better from having dealt with this illness and coming out the other side an even stronger and wiser person.

I've been quite an anxious person always but I have had two extremely black periods where anxiety completely over whelmed me, one was when I was 20 and that was partially brought on by substance abuse, I don't really recall that time of my life that well now as I don't look back at it much. The second time was last year and in a way it seemed to come out of no where but looking back there were signs. I wasn't sleeping well and was feeling over emotional about everything. I was working really hard in a job that was making me miserable, my best friend had just moved away and I had just moved in with my boyfriend and I wasn't taking the time to destress or focus on any of the positive things in life, my overview on life was pretty negative and I didn't see the point in much. I think a combination of these things set me off on a downward spiral to depression and as a result of that anxiety.

It really started to take hold when I stopped sleeping completely  I would lay awake all night feeling my anxiety rise and fall likes waves. I felt trapped, like I desperately needed to escape but there was no exit in sight so I would fall into despair and start to make plans of how to end it. I would have terrible visions of myself ending my life which would upset but also bring me some comfort at the same time. Slumped over watching my blood from my wrists flow down the shower drain feeling my consciousness fade, I imagined I would then feel weightless and would rise and leave all worries behind.

Struggling with anxiety is no way a easy thing, It is like a devil is inside of you eating you up and causing chaos but this devil is invisible to everybody around you and only you can feel the pain he's putting you through. In reality it is your subconscious mind causing this distress, which seems hard to believe sometimes. When you feel yourself starting to get anxious try to quickly remember what you where thinking about just before the anxiety started this can help you put together the puzzle of why you start to feel this way and can stop your thoughts from rolling on and on in this way and causing your anxiety to heighten and then peak. This was hard for me I felt like it came out of nowhere but I began to notice certain patterns and would attempt to put a stop to my thoughts by instead thinking of something comforting or calming. I would attempt to distract myself by listening to a song I love and just repeating the lyrics in my head till I felt the worst of it fade.

I went to the doctor and they prescribed me antidepressants this is usually what they will do in this situation.I didn't really want to go on antidepressants I felt like I was I being weak and I should find a way to cope with my own emotions but I also knew that I needed the anxiety to lessen so I could find the strength to learn ways to cope with it and diminish it's hold on me. A lot of people think that as soon as they start taking SSRI's everything will straight away be fixed. In truth it takes longer and you need to be patient and strong and trust me in end you feel the results of the increased serotonin. Also sometimes the first type of antidepressant the doctor prescribes you may not work for you try not to be disheartened by this as you will find the right drug to aid you. A side effect of starting to take these drugs  is that it actually initially increases you anxiety which is obviously the last thing you want but this does pass and you will start to feel a shift. Some people feel this around the 2 week mark other people like me felt it more towards the month mark but if don't feel it by then don't panic we are all different so will therefore take to the drug in different ways. The shift is just a feeling of improvement, for me I felt the surging anxiety in the stomach decrease a bit.

During the time I was waiting for for the SSRI to kick in the doctors prescribed me lorazapam which is a sedative I only took this when I was feeling particularly bad as it took me away from myself too much. They also gave me zopiclone a non-benzodiazepine hypnotic aka sleeping pill which would knock me out for 8 hours a night so my insomniac ways would come to an end. I felt like a bit of a pill popping freak but I knew it was necessary at the time. It was around this time I quit my job I knew I needed to take sometime to focus on getting better. If you yourself feel fine to carry on at work definitely do it as a lot of people feel better with the daily distraction of work, I myself felt my anxiety levels rise through the roof when I was there. Everyone is different and should approach the healing process in a way that works for you.

You will feel strange when you start taking SSRI's no doubt about it, you will feel alien within your own mind, I felt disconnected from everyone and everything but as I said before it will pass don't feel distressed as it's not something that is permanent it's just an adjustment period. When finding ways to cope during this period I can not recommend exercise enough! Even though it usually feels like the last thing you want to do it helps incredibly. I would go for a jog a day to help lift me up and the endorphin's released would help so much and would give me great temporary relief from the anxiety symptoms. Also when you are feeling extreme distress don't bottle it talk to someone, anyone. Once when I was feeling particularly bad I called the crisis line they have for people with mental health issues and the advice they gave really helped. One time they asked my to put ice in my hand and just focus on nothing but the coldness and swap it from hand to hand until it was water, I did this and felt within a minute my distress levels lesson and I could relax again. I also felt writing helped whatever I felt I  released onto a page and it brought feelings of relief. Take pleasure in the small things like reading a book you enjoy, taking a walk by the sea or patting your pets. Stay positive and keep trying to find the beauty in life even when you feel you're at your lowest point.

I started seeing a therapist for cognitive behavioral therapy. I won't go into what he taught me as it would take forever but he helped me build up confidence within myself and see anxiety not as this towering monster but a hill that just needs to be climbed to be conquered.

At about 2-3 months I felt real improvement my anxiety lessened to mild and I could do things again. I started to see friends again and applying for jobs, I even felt well enough to visit my best friend in Australia.  I got a part time job that I enjoyed and starting working full time again after awhile. It was then I noticed that the anxiety had left me. I had a look at my career plan and decided I wanted to follow a career in natural health one that helps people relax and cope with daily stress so I decided to train to become a massage therapist and that's what I'm currently doing. I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is there is a way out, when you're down in the dark depths of this illness know that you will be able to swim to the surface again you just need to stay strong and always hold hope close to you and that is what I'm trying to give you by writing this, hope.

Want

Fire burns into the night and the black moon sings the song of the stars. You have me where you want me, my insides drowning in beautiful chaos and my soul dancing with the changing wind. I want none of this yet it’s all I want. Come at me sweet liar, your words like sugar and your tongue like serpents venom. I’ve had your love before and lived to tell the tale. The bruises, the cuts and the sacrifices all become hot battle wounds and grow to become the ugly parts of myself that I treasure the most.

It's far too easy to get caught up in narcissistic depression
Grow dark rings around your eyes
Burnt fingertips from touching things you shouldn't touch

Les Discrets - Apres L'Ombre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-Fdr8RiZw&feature=related

Another song I'm in dreamy love with.

Subheim-Away

I never get tired of listening to this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMHHBIr9ptQ

Vivien Leigh

I think was one of the most beautiful women to walk this Planet

"Throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canniness – an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble."- laurence oliver

Fragments

(I wrote this a few years ago)

I find fragments of you inside nothing

In the way the air smells and in the way a word is spelt I can find pieces of you inside these minor details

I build you out of thin air through a mixture of regret and nostalgia I shape the impression of a loving memory.

A memory that is too fine to grasp but it covers my body in a misty vapor, I see through you but not quite beyond you.

There’s a sweet naivety to the lies we tell ourselves to hold onto phantom memories, like we are lost at sea viewing mirages of dry land to dry our aching bones upon.

My eyes will be victim to a misty silhouette of you for countless hours, to find comfort in this is like catching an illness that spreads across my skin like fire.

Now there is nothing real left I will come to find you again in the dark corners of my dreaming mind, waiting for me.

Together we paint the walls of my mind dull gray and scarlet red and you scatter parts of your being everywhere like a sea of ashes.

In the ruins of my memories your remains lay collecting dust waiting for dusk to set on you and what you meant to me.

Sea Hag

The sea hag adorned in blackened sea pearls makes her way across the shoreline
Her nostrils widen as she sucks in the depths of the sea and sings rhymes in ancient tongue
Shells cover her skin like reptile scales
her scaled arms led to finned hands, she uses these to capture the seas secrets
She is the woman of old sailor tales moving through the salty mists of dusk

She walks like a dying crone
Her mane of sea weed dragging behind her like Ursula's wedding veil
scurrying up jagged rocks on the waters edge

She licks fish shit out of rocks pools tasting the decay of sea parasites
she spits up sea spiders the size of nightmares
Her tongue a roughened tentacle covered in fish lice

She weaves sea spells to glamour young sailors
creating a watery veil between what they wish to see and what she is
When they bed a fisherman's pretty daughter in a seaside tavern they wonder why her lips taste like salt
they wonder why her insides feel so cold and her laughter sounds like the seas chaos

When she moans her juices taste like the waves rotted victims
she whispers words that string together shapes of the blackened depths
she wants him to solve her riddle but he does not know the answer

He feels his lungs fill with salty bile
he has visions of Vodianoi and black under sea labyinths
he is drowning through her deep kiss
even as his last breath leaves him he never trys to pull away from the watery embrace of the sea hag.