Isolation

Feeling as I do, I want to run and hide and lick my wounds. I don't like the things that I was told today. Even though I know they were said "for my own good", that does not make them more palatable.
Feeling as I do that I am basically a worthless piece of life, that view seems to have been reinforced (however unintentionally) tonight. I am clear that certain others, whose opinions I respect, do not like the way I have behaved in recent days. I can tell you all that I do not particularly like the way I have behaved.
Feeling as I do that I have no value, that view has been reinforced mightily today by my inability to find anyone who appeared willing to listen to how I was feeling. Instead I was told that I needed to put the phone down and go and compose myself before my next meeting.

I do not like the fact that I am scratching my arms whenever my mind turns to my current situation and the likelihood that my future will contain these destructive episodes of depression.
I do not like the fact that I am desperate for someone to sit alongside me, to tell me that they hear my pain and they are sad with me.
I do not like the fact that I am unable to cure myself, even though I am told that I am doing everything I possibly can (except possibly not caring as much or not trying so hard).
I do not like the fact that my brain appears to have shut down to a reptillian state. Expressing my feelings in spoken words seems an insurmountable barrier. Thinking clearly and logically appears to have deserted me. I am in a state of sonstant anxiety and panic. Yet I must function, I must teach, I must be a mother and a wife. Above all I must keep up appearances of competance and confidence.

I do not want someone else to solve all those problems (well, I do, but I no longer believe that is possible). Nobody can change the person I am, the person I have been made to be. Nobody can change my hypervigilance, caused by past experiences, or my need to please others and to have their approval.
I do not want to blame others for the way I feel - I am all too clear that I am the problem, have always been the problem.
I do not want to spend my evenings scratching my arms to shreds. But telling me to stop doing so only makes me feel more guilty. For I need to hurt myself. I need to because I deserve it. I need to because I can control this pain even when I feel out of control in other parts of my life. I need to because it stops me from feeling the emotional pain - physical pain is preferable. I need to because maybe, just maybe, the physical marks will prove that I am sorry for how I am, for who I am. I need to cause this pain because it proves to me that I can feel, and because I still hope that feeling anything, even pain, is preferable to not existing.

Feelinga s I do, I want to disappear.