Posts Tagged ‘getting help’
Decisions, decisions.
Posted on: February 24, 2010
I’m less depressed. I’m not obsessing over suicide (there were a few days, there, when it was going to happen. When it was planned and I was ready and all I needed was to actually take the step). I’m still slightly odd on the whole suicide thing – I was on a bus earlier (and there’s a welcome change, actually managing to go out) and it went past a bridge, and there was a panicked minute or two of “OH MY GOD I HAVE TO JUMP OFF THAT”, but the bus kept going and I calmed down.
It’s still there, slightly, in the background, but my mind is no longer constantly screaming “death death death death death death KILL YOURSELF” at me, for which I am, of course, thankful.
I’m a little bit…twitchy. Agitated. Can’t really keep still. Every thought that enters my head goes round and round and round, repeating over and over like a stuck record. I want to shout and scream and break things. I feel…on edge. In a weirdly literal sense, like vertigo, like a fear of falling, like I’m standing on a tenuous ledge. Any way I try to explain it sounds like a metaphor, but it doesn’t feel metaphorical.
I have another appointment with the mental health advisor tomorrow. I don’t know whether or not to go. I can’t decide. I know I should go, because otherwise that’s an appointment slot that someone else could have had, and going is the right thing to do, and also the thing I’ve agreed to do.
But I feel scared that I’ll be so agitated I’ll snap and shout at her, or else I’ll try to speak and shut down altogether and go back to where I was after the last appointment; depressed, exhausted, seriously suicidal. And anyway, it’s not like I’ve done anything, and I don’t know how to explain why I haven’t.
I don’t know what to do or what to say. I’m really restless and irritable and still sad, and there’s still the danger that if I try to actually speak I will just collapse, weeping.
Edit: I didn’t go. I feel calmer than I have since before I first saw her.
Crap, Crap, Crap.
Posted on: February 17, 2010
Life isn’t going well.
Anxiety is becoming an enormous problem. It’s a constant background hum, keeping me in a state of edginess all day and all night, and bursting into several panic attacks a day. I think they’re panic attacks. Never been told they are, but I don’t know what else they could be. My heart races and my vision blurs and I’m shaking and I’m pacing my room and I feel like I’m going to throw up and I can’t breathe and I can’t think anything other than shitshitshitshitshit.
And then it stops and I burst into tears and I lie down on my bed and everything is hideous.
And I’m thinking, fuck. I have to die. Because this whole ‘living’ thing really isn’t working out. Read the rest of this entry »
So I went to my appointment.
Posted on: February 11, 2010
Fucking hell.
The mental health advisor is a very nice woman. She is kind and listens and has a calm voice.
But of course, she doesn’t have some new wisdom, some obvious solution I’ve been overlooking. She can’t do magic.
I spent the entire appointment avoiding eye contact and biting my lip and speaking in a croaky voice. Trying to be honest, but falling a little bit short. It’s a bit worrying, I suppose, when you’re making things seem not quite as bad as they are, and the person you’re talking to looks at you with an expression of worry and concern.
I tried, though. I was as honest as I felt I could be without having to curl up in a corner and weep. And I listened to her advice.
As anyone could predict, her advice is: go to the doctor. Get some medication. Consider taking some time out from uni.
And all the time she was saying it, I was nodding and smiling waterily, and thinking two things:
- No, no, no, no, no, that is not what I want. I can’t do it, I can’t risk it.
- Well, that’s it then. I suppose I’ll have to kill myself.
Which I don’t think was quite her intention, but it’s not her fault I managed to completely fail to convey my crippling and unwavering terror of asking for help.
She’s seen medication save lives, she says. Which is all very well, and I don’t doubt it, but medication made me want, even more, to end mine. I believe her that medication works for some people. I just don’t believe that it’ll work for me.
“Do you feel better for having asked for help?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “A bit. I think”. No, I feel worse, I feel like I’ve ripped my heart out and asked you to stamp on it.
Then she finished it with a little pep talk about how depression’s so common and people get through it and I shouldn’t give up.
Then I walked very quickly back to my room and bawled my eyes out.
She was nice. She wants me to go back in a couple of weeks. Presumably so I can tell her about how I haven’t seen a doctor and how I don’t plan to – ever – and how everything is utterly shit and never going to improve because I can’t do what I have to do, and even if I could it would probably only make things worse, which is why I can’t in the first place, because I know now not to take for granted the idea that things can’t get worse, because they always can.
Talking about it is too painful. I can’t shred myself into tiny pieces, just on the off-chance that someone will be able to sew me back together, rearranged in a slightly better way. It’s too much of a risk.
I probably won’t go back. Hopefully, now that I’ve investigated my options and seen that all roads lead to endless depression, I’ll finally gather up my strength and kill myself. I get the feeling that that wasn’t the aim of the appointment, but never mind.
So: go to a doctor – which in my experience won’t stop me wanting to die, and will probably in fact make me want to die more – or just die, as soon as I can.
Put like that, why on earth should I choose the former?
I’m okay. It’s just…post-appointment meltdown.
I’ve got volunteering this afternoon. It might be a terrible idea to spend time with people when I feel like this, but you never know, it might take my mind off it.
Scaredy-cat
Posted on: February 10, 2010
Shit. My appointment with the mental health advisor is tomorrow.
I can’t even begin to explain how terrified I am. I feel like my heart’s going to burst out of my chest.
I could just ignorei t. I could just not go. I could just run away.
But fuck, I can’t. It’s too late for that.
I really can’t do this. I have no idea what I’m going to say.
Sigh.
Posted on: February 2, 2010
Gaah. That’s what I have to say.
I’m irritable. I’m pissed off. I’m speaking and acting without thinking.
I’m too twitchily awake to actually do anything, but I still thought it was a perfectly good idea to volunteer to (idea, volunteer: rhyme…)
Right. I volunteered to format my group’s presentation for our seminar on Friday. I reckon it’s the least I could do considering what a bad group member I am, always missing stuff etc. and talking too loud (I could see them looking at me strangely, but I can’t make my voice behave).
Last night, I eventually passed out, only to wake up three hours or so later.
I’m very tempted to go to the doctor and say “PLEASE MAKE ME SLEEP”. But then they’d start asking pesky questions about how my mood is, and I’d probably just scream, “IT’S FUCKING FINE. JUST KNOCK ME OUT BEFORE MY HEAD EXPLODES”. At which point they’d probably call the police. And then my head would explode, which would at least prove me right.
I’m aware that I’m kind of all over the place at the minute. I’m trying to calm myself down. Trying to be still and calm, trying to think things through, trying to just laugh at myself when I’m so startled by little noises that I drop things.
It’s just…sleep. I need some sleep.
Edit: I got an email from the mental health advisor, offering an appointment. I burst into tears. I don’t fucking know why. I suppose that means I’m going to have to actually speak about this out loud. Admittedly, probably in the vaguest way possible.
I don’t know how to feel. Part of me is panicking – I don’t want to speak, I don’t want to ask for help, I don’t want anybody to know, I should never have contacted her. Part of me is upset – I feel guilty, I feel like a disappointment, I feel like I’m giving in. And a small part of me is relieved. Just that small, ridiculous, naive part of my mind that is thinking maybe something will change. And of course, that just makes the part of me that’s sad even sadder, and adds a bit of self-hating anger in there, too – I hate my hope, I hate that I can’t cope and am desperate for something else.
Maybe
Posted on: January 27, 2010
Things are heading downhill pretty fast, and getting faster. Everything falls apart at once.
I’ve dropped the fucking ball again. I’ve made everything rubbish. If only I was a better person. I make it difficult for myself.
It’s too late now, but I think I’m going to do something tomorrow. Call someone. Make an appointment or ask for help or something.
Find a way to cope now, think about other things when they happen.
Fucking hell. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. Maybe this is the best things are ever going to be, and anything I do to try to change it will just make things worse.
But maybe that’s academic. Maybe, when things are this bad…maybe I’m going to kill myself anyway. So maybe it’s worth risking it getting worse, because if it does then the result won’t be any different to if I do nothing.
Maybe, if there’s even the tiniest chance that asking for help will lessen this pressure, then I should ask. Just to see.
Fuck, I’m acting like I didn’t try before. I’m acting like I don’t know that asking for help just means more problems.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know if I am brave enough to admit that I can’t cope. I don’t know if I can get the words out, I don’t know if I can tell the truth.
Maybe it’s too late anyway, maybe nothing can be salvaged.
I should try, shouldn’t I?
But what if it’s too little, too late?
I’m so fucking scared.
I don’t want this to be me.
And what’s the point, anyway? What will change, really? If I go to the doctor, they’ll probably refer me to the CMHT, which took fucking months last time. If I go to the counselling service, all that’ll happen is I will completely fail to actually say anything, and they won’t even act as evidence that there’s anything wrong until I’ve been to three appointments (which is of course understandable, but ultimately too long to actually be any use). I could speak to the mental health advisor, but probably what they will say is that they can’t help because there’s no fucking proof.
So I could call everyone who could possibly help and the chances are that nothing will change. It’s not like I’m looking for some sort of miracle solution, but it’s a bit disheartening.
And I should, but I can’t, but I can’t live like this anyway. All I really have to lose is my privacy, and I feel like I can’t live without it, but I’ve felt like that about lots of things and they’ve all been destroyed, and here I am still.
I don’t fucking know.
Maybe only dying will stop it. Maybe that’s the only real option.
I’m scared.
Maybe if there was anything really wrong with me, then I wouldn’t have survived this long. Maybe every day I go without asking for help is just more proof that I don’t need it. Maybe they will laugh at me.
Maybe I’ll get kicked out of uni. Everyone will be disappointed. Everyone will want to know why. I can’t face explaining.
Here, I think, is the crux of the matter: In my (admittedly limited) experience, getting help does not work. It’s only really the bracketed part of that sentence that’s keeping me alive. It’s…hope. It’s the thought that, one day, I will get help again, and it will make things better, and my life will be okay again. But if I do get help, and again, it doesn’t work, then what’s left?
That’s a really stupid way of thinking, isn’t it?
I don’t know what to do. Everything is shit.
Maybe I will ask somebody for help. Maybe I will kill myself. It’s got to be one or the other, eventually.
Memory
Posted on: January 25, 2010
I’m going to call your doctor’s surgery and ask them what’s going on.
You can’t. They won’t tell you.
You’re my daughter, I have a right to know. Why are you taking this medication? What’s wrong? What’s happening?
I told you. I’ve been…depressed. A bit. And not sleeping.
That can’t be all of it, that’s not all the details. WHY are you depressed?
I don’t know. I just…am.
But there must be a reason! I know, Laura, I’ve been depressed too. So what is it, have you fallen out with one of your friends?
No. I don’t think there is a reason for it.
You’re lying again. Why are you always lying? Why don’t you trust me? I just want to help you.
But you’re not helping. You’re making it worse.
No, you’re making it worse by lying to me. How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know the details? Your doctor will tell me more.
But what about confidentiality?
It doesn’t matter. I’m your MOTHER. They have to tell me.
No, they don’t –
– they do. And if they won’t, I’ll find out anyway. You know I work at the hospital, you know I have access to all of the notes. You’ve heard your dad telling me my test results before my appointments. It’s all on a big system. I’ll be able to read everything.
Please don’t.
Then tell me. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me why you feel this way. Stop lying to me, Laura. Stop hiding things. You know I can find out anyway, so you might as well just be honest.
I don’t know what you want me to tell you.
That’s not good enough. Read the rest of this entry »
Self-pity
Posted on: January 19, 2010
It’s getting harder and harder to keep going. Read the rest of this entry »
Alive.
Posted on: November 29, 2009
I’m still here.
I don’t know what to do. Read the rest of this entry »
Loopy, Lonely and Lost 
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