The mask is slipping

It is 4:30am and I am not even a little bit sleepy. My sleep seems to be getting worse and worse. This always happens - the worse I feel, the worse my sleep gets, and then I end up exhausted and feeling worse. It has been a difficult day. I have been feeling really low. Low is a ridiculous word to describe it - it doesn't even begin to express how I have been feeling. No words do. So for now I will use low, because there is nothing else. I have reached a point that only happens very occasionally, even when I am feeling really terrible, where I just can't pretend to be ok. Usually, even if I am feeling desperately suicidal and depressed, I can still keep up my facade, providing I don't have to spend too much time around people. But I can't do it at all at the moment. The mask is slipping. My parents both commented - according to my mum I looked peaky and they both asked what was wrong. But I didn't know. I don't know. I have absolutely no idea what is wrong. I just feel terrible, and I have no reason for it. So I just shrugged and tried not to cry. I thought I was going to be able to get out of going to ballet, as my mum had to go over to rescue my dad, who was at the flat he owns that is supposed to be let out but got flooded in the summer, and is just being repaired now, as he had somehow managed to lock himself out of his car with the keys on the inside, so she had to take the spare set over. I hoped this meant we wouldn't have time to have dinner and still leave for ballet on time, and I said to my mum maybe I shouldn't go, but she said she thought I should. Then later on, after dinner, I was feeling worse and worse - it was at this point that I was downstairs with my parents, and I came upstairs to get ready, but really didn't want to go, and ended up getting a bit upset and crying a bit, and went downstairs and said I wanted to stay at home and that I didn't want to go to ballet, but for some reason my mum had decided I really should go - I think she thinks that going out when I am feeling bad helps me - and so sent me back upstairs to get ready. I was really choking back the tears by this point - I felt awful, and I just did not want to leave the house. Then I got there, and nobody else from my class had turned up - I think there is a lot of illness around, and then some people have exams at the moment, and one girl had an audition, so I was the only person. The Wednesday class is always smaller - there are usually six or seven of us, but I was the only one. So I had to do the whole class on my own. It did at least mean I didn't have to make any small talk, but it also meant that I got lots of 'smile!' and 'use your eyes!' and 'perform it!' comments, which I just couldn't do today. I am so relieved that my rehearsal tomorrow has been cancelled. I absolutely cannot face leaving the house again any time soon. Now that is cancelled I don't have any committments until the rehearsal on Sunday, which I don't want to go to, but I am not even letting myself think that far ahead at the moment as it is too overwhelming - I am trying to just take things a day at a time. Or an hour.

I am thinking about emailing L, but I don't really know why. I don't know what I would say - I can't really send her an email saying 'Hi, just thought I would let you know I am feeling a bit down, which of course you already know' and I have nothing else to say. I can't express this. And even if I could, there is nothing she could do, so it would be pointless anyway. I suppose I just wish there was something. I am feeling really desperate, and I don't know what to do with those feelings, and it is really difficult knowing that there is nothing anyone can do to help, or to make them go away. I suppose the other reason I have been thinking about contacting her is because I have been under mental health services for so many years, and always been told to contact someone if you are having suicidal thoughts, and so when I feel like this it feels like I should be contacting her. But there is absolutely nothing she can do, and so I don't know if it would just make me feel worse - I suppose at least at the moment I can kid myself that I have an option there if I need it. When you have run out of options it is even worse. Although I know in reality that I am essentially out of options in that sense - nobody can take the thoughts away, or make them easier to cope with. I don't know. I just feel a mess.