SESROTA 24 NOVEMBER 2001 AD

The depression continued. I didn't want to get up. I lay hungry and angry at the noises - at Maxie the dog who barks loudly, at the people who slam the door and have the hoover on for two hours, at the baby who cries loudly and at the boys who play loudly on the stairs. I've also had self-defeating thoughts
thoughts. Would 20 lithium tablets be enough to die. But also about what would happen if I survived. Would I have to live with damaged kidneys. After my last failed attempt, I don't dare swallow the tablets because I don't know how I will react.

I got up at 3 o'clock because my Dad came to me and said it was necessary to lift my ass. I wonder why he is so insensitive to my depression. He has probably never experienced it himself and therefore doesn't understand this state of mind. And when he does experience it, he will probably, like Grandpa, be old and weak. I don't want to think about those times. And in 20 years' time, that may already be the case...But...so much can happen in 20 years. Nevertheless, you have to prepare and think about life, not death.
But what is life. Without prospects. Without joy. Without a girlfriend. Without sex. Not even a fridge. In a flat that is not your own, with almost no money. It takes a lot of self-denial to survive such adverse times. And today we were still looking at the future flat. Much worse than the present one. Smaller, with a smaller bathroom, with an ugly junker, with old paint falling off in the kitchen, with old windows. (The asking price was 32,000 zloty) The realtor - an old saleswoman - was very enthusiastic about it - that it would always sell, that parents might want it for their children or a young couple, that it would be easy to renovate with little effort.

I feel uncool and don't know how to describe it. Such a feeling of anxiety about the future. Dissatisfaction with life. A lack of satisfaction. A lack of contact with the opposite sex. An erotic hunger. Subdued by Clopixol, but always a hunger. Today, when we met the realtor and the tenant of the flat, I envied his girlfriend. And to think that this year I too could have had two girlfriends and that nothing came of it.
I tried Nicorette gum and it doesn't taste good to me. Cigarettes taste better. So unpleasant is this hunger for smoking. And nothing can satisfy it. But the prospect of a heart attack or cancer is an effective deterrent. Also, I have little money and big expenses: for food, mobile phone bills, Social Security and rent. If I still had a girlfriend, I wouldn't make it at all.

I still have 20 minutes left to write on the computer. How do I describe these 19 or 29 years to make it interesting and be an effective warning to others? There are so many mental illnesses - am I able to prevent at least one? Or am I setting myself too difficult a task to accomplish again? First of all, you need to have good contacts with people - you need to feel accepted and needed. And the best thing is to be average - not to exalt yourself in anything. Keep a healthy distance from everything. Don't be influenced too much. Believe 50%. Trust equally. But you have to trust someone. At least this one person. But what if you are disappointed? What then? So perhaps it is better to believe in God? And what if that faith distances you from people? Or if it gives in to doubt? Why is it so difficult to regain it? Why am I so weak? Physically and mentally? Why did I once believe so much in God and the Church, but today I find it so difficult to believe in anything? In the positive nature of man? In the fact that the world is on the right track - despite my troubles and my blackness.

Anyway, I'm alive for now and I hope that things will get better and that one day I will go to America. And today I'll read the Bible some more - and tomorrow I'll write how it was.


"THE GRIP OF THE DEPRESISRN"

="THE GRIP OF THE DEPRESSION"