Obsession

Triggering, I guess. Just like the rest of this blog.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I am obsessed with my own death. I eye up buildings and balconies wondering if they are high enough to provide a fatal drop. I keep looking at the fire escape on one of my university buildings and wondering if I could make it to the top before someone spotted me. The pills are still in my cupboard, the sheer volume of them is daunting though. I bought anti-emetics. I wrote down what times I’d need to take them in order to stop me puking the lethal ones up.

There’s no single event that is making me feel like this, it’s a chronic thing, not an acute crisis. I feel like the walking dead, it feels weird that I can walk about campus and talk about next year even when I half expect not to be here. When I’ve discussed these things with the crisis team in the past, they asked what stopped me from doing it. I told them I didn’t want to hurt my family but I’m not really sure if that’s true. Maybe it’s hugely selfish of me, to put them through that pain to end my own but when was the last time I did something purely for myself? Don’t I deserve to have my way for once? Do I owe them a lifetime of suffering?

It is futile seeking help for this, I know there are only a few outcomes. 1: The same thing as before, they ask me the same old shit and can’t comprehend how I feel and what it’s like to live like this and I end up with intrusive busybodies coming to my house for a few days. 2: They lock me up, that’d cause my family as much pain as if I did it and I don’t think I could take it. 3: They increase my meds and continue the status quo. I don’t think they really believe I am serious because I don’t cut myself and I haven’t taken any pills as far as they know. How can I sum up my entire life’s experience and answer the question “Why do you want to kill yourself?” I’ve written thousands of words on this blog, probably enough to fill a small book and that doesn’t even tell the full story. How can I, with my limited vocal expressive capabilities even start to explain it all?

Don’t read if you don’t want to hear about suicide

As for what is really stopping me, I don’t really know. I feel like I owe people an explanation but I don’t think I can do it justice. I have written a suicide note for my family but it doesn’t tell the full story. I don’t think I want them to know just how pathetic I really am. What about the few people I could vaguely call friends? I don’t want to leave them wondering but I don’t want them to know what a miserable excuse for a human I am. Should my secrets die with me, only visible to those few who read this site? 

I notice on the news whenever someone dies prematurely, family and friends always describe them as full of life and “everyone liked him/her”. I don’t suppose it’d be much of a surprise to people if I went through with it. You could say “Well I always expected it to be honest, he never smiled and barely said a word to anyone. Nobody liked him or will even notice he’s gone”. You might think I’m exaggerating, but I’m really not. I’ve been here a week without people knowing I’d even come back one time. What a great loss to humanity I would be, a loner who does nothing but drain away the resources of everyone around him, emotional and material. A waste of opportunity, a waste of space and energy.

Crisis Team Visits

Not much to report over the past day or 2, I haven’t had any strong suicidal feelings which is good but I have been quite emotional. I’m glad to have the distraction (though I’m not sure that is the right word) of uni to keep me occupied. I have managed to speak to at least some of my flatmates each day so far and I’ve made dinner (in the oven, not the microwave!) a couple of times. I even ran into a few of them in the supermarket and we walked back together, so I’m feeling quite satisfied with my small steps towards spending more time with them.

The crisis team was supposed to come and visit me here today but they phoned me and asked me to come and meet them at the car park in McDonalds because they couldn’t find anywhere to park at the uni (the only place is for disabled people and you get clamped for parking there if you aren’t) so I sat discussing things in the car with them. It felt a bit like conducting a dodgy deal and I hope no-one who knows me saw me.

They didn’t have much useful to say. I say “they” but it was only the man who spoke, he seems fairly distant and alarmed me a bit by saying that I looked much better physically today and that last time he came round I was white as a sheet and was concerned about leaving me there alone :S I don’t know if I was walking around like that for ages, apparently what I see in the mirror isn’t a reliable guide according to some people so I can’t say for sure.

I’m gonna stay at uni this Friday and Saturday, hopefully I am meeting up with someone from an SA forum who I have seen here before. We haven’t made final arrangements yet and SAers are notoriously difficult to get to commit to plans, I should know… I’m hoping not being totally alone like I am at home on Friday night might stop me from becoming so depressed. That has been my worst time of the week for a while now, it’s usually when my suicidal feelings are strongest and I’m safer here, away from any high bridges and car parks

Looking forward to my next CBT appointment on Monday, I’m glad to have been allocated a therapist who I feel like I can speak honestly with. The feeling that progress is being made is the only thing that keeps me going and keeps that small bit of hope alive, I just hope it can continue.

CBT Session 1

I managed to drag myself out of bed and into town, catch the bus and get off just about in the right place. I’m not feeling good at all, my emotions are all over the place and I keep wanting to cry, I think about the long road ahead and hope that it’s not too late to recover, enough to be happy anyway.

The appointment was yet another hour where I had to tell my tales of woe all over again, I swear no-one in the mental health services communicates with each other at all. I managed to get through a lot of it though, it’s becoming easier with practice I guess. I told her about my bullying by so called friends and year+ long depressive episode that I am currently in and how it’s been as bad as I’ve ever known. We talked about my suicidal thoughts and plans and agreed that has to be worked on before anything else. I was honest about everything, having a plan, going to the place etc. She was understandably concerned and I even admitted that in an emergency I would probably not be able to ring the crisis team (I hate phone calls and I couldn’t just ring up and say “Hello I want to die”) but we talked about other ways I could handle it. I told her about when I went to A&E at Nottingham and she said that if I get into a situation where I might harm myself, I could go to the hospital here and maybe I should do the journey so I know how to get there in case the need arises. She also took the Lincoln crisis team phone number and is going to ring them and explain what happened today, and said that if I really need to ask them to visit I should ring them, say I have been visited before, tell them my name and that I’m having suicidal thoughts and am scared.

It might sound stupid but knowing what to say has made me think that I can do it if I get into that situation again. I don’t know what my issue with phones is, but if I don’t know exactly what to say I get into a panic very easily, I think it’s because you can’t really pause or rely on people reading your expression or whatever.

I have another appointment for next Monday, and I should be able to see them on Mondays in the future which is good news because I won’t miss any more lectures.

Things are very stressful at the moment, I don’t want to feel like I did on Saturday and Sunday, it terrifies me thinking about it now and what the consequences could have been (they were bad enough as it is). I don’t know if the medication change is messing me up even more, venlafaxine is notoriously hard to come off, but I didn’t feel fully in control and my memory is hazy. I didn’t eat for 2 days and didn’t even notice. I wish I had someone I could talk to who could stay with me and keep me company/sane. I feel lonelier than ever, can’t possibly let my mum know because she just gets upset and makes me feel guilty. I can’t really tell my flatmates what’s going on or they will think (perhaps justifiably) that I am nuts. I’m going to try and rest for a bit now, spent half the night unable to sleep and checking my email every 20 minutes.

Also: updated my old “About” page.

Crisis Team Visit #2

Two different people came to see me this afternoon, they didn’t seem to know anything about me and asked the same questions again; how is my sleep, what do I do when I have suicidal thoughts. I don’t think anything really came of it to be honest, I had written down an extract from my blog that I was going to show them but never felt like I had an opportunity. The man did most of the talking and he seemed distracted and distant, the young woman was more friendly but I don’t think I’m quite ready to hand over a piece of paper with such dark and morbid thoughts over to smiley people. 

The nights are much harder for me, I’m ok at the moment and maybe I will be today, but when I’m at home on my own and away from civilisation I feel isolated and hopeless. One of my flatmates saw them leaving and I don’t know what to say if they ask who they were. They know I have some mental health problems so I’m considering just saying they were psychologists who came to see how I was getting on, which isn’t exactly the truth but not a lie either. I don’t think that’s too weird, but I’m not sure..

In other news, I got invited to one of my flatmates birthday celebrations next month which was nice of them. I’m going to try my hardest to go, even if I only join them for the pub/bar section of the evening and don’t go along to the clubs.

Making some progress

I think being able to talk things over with my psychiatrist and especially over a very generous extended appointment with my nice GP at uni has been a turning point for me. This week has been one of my better ones, probably the best since I’ve been here at uni. I managed to talk to and spend time with my flatmates every day and got to know one of the guys from the opposite apartment as well. I think they are pleased that I’m not just hiding from them so much, at least I hope so. Maybe the prospect of having some support close by and having access to the crisis team without having to let my mum find out has made a big difference, whatever it is, I hope it continues.

The crisis team came to visit me on Tuesday morning as a result of a fax my psychiatrist sent and they asked me the usual stuff and wrote up a basic care plan for me. I’m being referred to somewhere where they are going to give me a care co-ordinator at last and things seem to have started working as they should rather than the hodge podge approach I’ve had so far, being shunted to 4 GP’s in as many months and riding the psychiatrist merry-go-round. I realise things aren’t going to be perfect and there will be setbacks but I am so glad that something has happened to get me out of that horrible mindset where all I can see is the problems and hopelessness.

I took the initiative for once and asked a person who I’ve met a few times from the SAUK forums if they wanted to go for a coffee and see a film this weekend and we are going on Sunday so hopefully I can keep up my good run.

Crisis Team

Could anyone who has dealt with the crisis team and know what’s what send me an email please? Link is on the right. I want to try and contact them but I don’t know if I can do it 😦

What to do when you can’t talk to anyone

Before she left, I asked my psychiatrist what I should do when I feel like this. Like nothing can help me and all I want is an end to it all. I’ve got the number for the crisis team but seeing as how one of the main problems I have with my SA is a fear of making phone calls (even simple things like ordering a pizza are out of the question and when I’m forced into making one, it takes me a long time to psych myself up enough to do it and I spend hours obsessing over how foolish I must have sounded afterwards) I just can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t lay bare my dismal view of myself and how bad the future seems, knowing what a privileged life I have. I’m not beaten up by my parents, I have a roof over my head. What business do I have being this depressed?

I talk to some people that I know online, but I don’t want to burden them with the full extent of my suicidal mood. If I had the pills right now, I’d be taking them. There’s no way I can scare my mum by talking to her. She almost had a fit and made me come back from university the last time the subject was even mentioned.

There’s a big link between social anxiety/phobia and depression, it’s easy to become depressed when you have no contact with other humans, and it’s even easier to lose hope when it seems you have no-one to help you when times are hard. I’m not even sure I want to be helped though, I just want an escape.