I'm forcing myself to do this

I don't want to be here spewing my guts out, but here I am. I want to be in bed. Today was a panic-stricken day. I go between two extremes: worrying that I'm not spending enough time with my son while doing too much housework and worrying that I'm spending too much time with him and not getting anything done around the house. So, I sit there waffling back and forth doing neither and hating myself for it. I call myself a worthless father and a do-nothing husband. I feel like I have nothing to show for my effort in either direction.

I keep making lists and then ignoring them. If I do things on the list, I feel like I'm neglecting my kids. If I don't do them, I feel like I'm letting my house fall apart.

I just want to relax. Why is that so hard for me? I'm on all kinds of medication, shouldn't that do the trick? The extra anti-psychotic drug is working well, but I still have some circular thinking that gets me trapped. And now the extra meds have a side-effect too! It feels like someone is pulling on the left side of my neck. It is as if I have a stiff neck after sleeping in a strange position, except it's in the middle of the day.

And why do I have to feel so goddamn tired all the time? I might have gotten work done around here if I had any pep! I always want to be asleep! All I have the strength for is to worry!

This period of not listening to mommy and daddy is scraping at the back of my skull. It's as if someone named the Terrible Twos as a sadistic joke, knowing full well that the threes are the terrible phase; at least it is for my three-year-old.

He constantly parrots back whatever I've just said, only in its opposite form. "No I DON'T have to do potty time now!" "It's NOT time to read books and go to bed!" "Smashing my cars together IS very nice!" I'm sure all kids go through the same type of growing pain, but It's making me want to throw myself down a flight of stairs, while on fire, in a barrel, with my skin peeled off, and acid rubbed all over my body.

I'm going to bed.

I'd rather feel like sludge than feel nothing.

I should talk a bit about what happened last week.

Wednesday I woke with a detestable feeling in my belly. It was a manifestation of discomfort at how I feel I've led my life. Since my youth I've been a very passive individual. I always let everyone else make my decisions for me. The easy route was always provided for me and I always took it. My childhood lasted much longer than it should have. I don't think I grew up until at least the 1990's. And still, I avoided making difficult decisions.

Through my therapy, I've discovered how I've fallen into this same pattern and now the realization has hit me like a block of concrete. It's very hard to realize that I've been a complete pussy all my life. No matter what I wanted, the path with the least potential to trip me or anyone else up was the one that was chosen.

How does a person deal with such an epiphany? I dealt with it by having constant intrusive thoughts of ripping my forearms open with a box cutter.

That Wednesday I woke up shaking and crying. The feeling stayed with me for the rest of the morning until panic began to set in. The dire thoughts replayed in my head so frequently, that I had to ask my wife to come home early. I couldn't handle everyday tasks like dealing with the children and making simple breakfast; I was shaking so much.

By the time my wife got home, I was getting dizzy. I handed her the baby and rushed to make a desperate phone call to my counselling center. "I"m calling because I'm having suicidal thoughs," I said. They quickly connected me with my psychologist who had me take more of the little white pills that I was supposedly supposed to stop taking.

I know now that I should have just taken some when the emergency hit, but I wasn't thinking. Well, I was thinking but only about blood gushing from my arms.

I took almost three times the originally prescribed amount and began to feel quite groggy almost immediately.

(This makes me tired recalling this all again.)

The meds knocked me out, basically, and I slept for most of the rest of the day. It's a good thing I did too. The surge of mood calming meds probably saved my life last week. I might be overestimating the medicine and underestimating my own ability to keep my cool, but there's a good chance that I might not have been typing this if I didn't listen to my doctor.

The next day I had an emergency meeting with my therapist, during which we again discussed my lack of assertiveness and how it has pigeonholed me into this predicament.

Knowing the reason for the problem is a huge part of solving it. I've made it over that hump, but I feel like I've met the mental equivalent of hitting the proverbial wall of a marathon runner. It's taken me so many years to reach this point and I feel like I've reached a dead end. I don't feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I feel like I've reached the end of the tunnel and it's caved in!

My wife has been very supportive, I must say. No one deserves to live with someone like me. I'm way too high maintenance. I already feel I should be writing apologies to my kids for having to deal with my moods and self-destructive thinking. "What's wrong with daddy?" I can already hear them saying many times in the days to come.

But, I'm still here. I'd rather feel like toxic sludge than feel nothing.