Darkness

It is too much.

I have spent countless hours the past month searching the web in Russia, looking for anything new about Irina. I did find something disturbing on Russian social media that she has not posted anything new on that I can tell. I have searched news reports, obituaries, all of her social media accounts, the websites run by her employer, anything and everything I can think of to find out if she is alive.

There is a little evidence that she is, but at least there is some.

I don’t even know how to explain this. So much has been written here to try and explain my feelings for Irina. I never could explain clearly, I lack artistry.

Many things are destroying me, outside the most important thing - is she okay? - is the question: was anything real with our relationship? If not, what on earth could have been the goal? It had to have been real, but so many contradictions have appeared in the past two plus years. Which leads back to what was the goal, and what was the point? It is a nasty cycle I can not reconcile.

I lost my dad three weeks ago today after spending a long time trying to help him and my mom and then sit there and helplessly watch while they turn off his pacemaker and do nothing except manage pain. One of many recurring nightmares.

I am so far behind on general cleaning at my home and I have no energy to clean because I barely sleep. It is difficult to write this and one of the few things I have written lately.

The only reason I write anything is that I am so fixated on normalcy, whatever that is. As if normal is for me.

There are so many other issues and problems that need to be handled. Putting your life on hold with no help or even someone to talk to takes a toll. I feel like I am buried alive. Am I alive? Perhaps I am not and am being punished for being a terrible person. I doubt I am lucky enough to be dead, but I do not know.

I am just going through the motions of being a living semi-human. As I wrote a little while ago, I am just marking time until I die. That feels like years ago. I believed it then, I know it for 100% fact now.

It doesn’t matter what I take to sleep or how much. I don’t get more than 2-3 hours a night on a good night. I think. I lose track of time. Sometimes just hours, sometimes I am two days behind.

I have many seizure auras, massive amounts of hallucinations, the ghosts are back in full force. I try to watch something to distract me and I forget what happened or what it is about. Even if I have seen it before.

The image of my dad in the hospital is a constant, I see Irina everywhere.

I am trying to make some food, more or less failing. I just don’t want to eat. I haven’t drunk much water in days. I am getting some liquids in but nothing healthy, just stuff to keep my mind from completely collapsing into a coma.

The rare times I talk to anyone on the phone it is a struggle to hide my feelings and my incoherent babble. I have no one I can talk to about this. The siblings remaining with my mom have enough to worry about. They want me to come back soon-ish, but I am terrified for many reasons. Mostly, because I would be a burden, and they don’t need it. It is stressful enough there. I hate being a burden, makes me feel like a worse loser than I already am.

I promised my dad I would take care of mom and my brother, but I can not take care of me and don’t want to take care of me. In his last months, I had to help keep him on his diet and he would get so angry at me for that and other benign things. I think he died being mad at me. I am sure my hesitancy is making him more disappointed, but they truly don’t need me right now. They will in a few weeks and what then?

I could go into the VA and talk to someone but they will insist on psych meds which hurt me. I have no one to turn to and that is the way it should be.

I can’t be committed. Ragnar suffers from severe separation anxiety that I have made little headway on.

I have strong urges to hurt myself, not in a way that would kill me, but just enough that I feel something. I am empty and numb, yet my mind is extremely noisy. It might be okay if my mind was also empty. You would think that would not be painful, but it is. I am taking a lot of benzos but starting to get critically low, and it would be nearly impossible to get more. Even a benzo + muscle relaxer does nothing. I could safely take twice as much of each, but that would only cause me to run out faster.

At least the benzo keeps the urges to a dull roar.

I am alone, will die alone and will have to deal with everything now and in the future alone. I am an idiot for thinking that it might not always be this way.

This is not a suicide note. Have that written for when that glorious day comes, but I have too many responsibilities right now. Don’t worry, the note is very short.

Gonna still do pointless programming and cooking stuff here and real life. I have to at least fake being human. This website is basically me talking to a non-existent friend.

I am hoping I can start cleaning. Maybe something easy this weekend like pulling everything out of my closet and reorganizing. That would be a start and I think it would help to find my blue light which makes my seasonal affective disorder not so terrible.

Even a small amount of help, like an “I am okay” would go very far in helping me. I know I deserve nothing but ridicule and pain.

I do not deserve any help. I must deal with everything alone. That, of course, makes me not human. Not really.

If I were, I would not have just gone through a nearly 2.5 year progressively worse nightmare that started right after the happiest time in my life. If I were, I would have at least gotten closure if it were not meant to be.

This was written fall 2019, when everything fell apart. It is more true today than it was then:

I love and care for you so much, Irina. You are truly my treasure. You are my soulmate, and you have told me many times that I am yours. I feel empty and lost without you. I have told you many times that I only wish to make you happy. That has not and will never change. There is nothing so bad that I would not work through it with you and still care for you.