Going Back to the Doctor

I can’t remember when the last time I made an appointment with my doctor was, it has been years since I went to the GP here where I live. When I was at university I got tired of messing around with the psychiatrist and couldn’t stand dealing with the unhelpful person they used to send to see me (presumably to make sure I wasn’t about to hurt myself) and so worked my usual avoidance magic until I was free of them. The medication I used to take was on a repeat prescription so I managed to get that for a few months without making a doctor’s appointment and I’d stopped taking it by the time came for it to be reviewed. The GP I used to see there had left and after all the different medical staff I’ve had to try and explain my situation to over the years I didn’t fancy going through all of that again with someone else. At any rate, I felt I could get on without the antidepressants by that point and I managed reasonably well.

Lately I have felt like I really need to talk to someone again though. I think I would benefit from being back on the sertraline too, I just hope that it works again, it took a lot of tries to find an antidepressant that made a difference without awful side effects. I don’t want to repeat myself, but I am practically in the exact situation I was in back in 2008 yet again, only this time I am 5 years older and don’t have the chance to escape to university.

It’s been months and I just can’t get myself to overcome the obstacles in the way though. It might seem like I should just make an appointment and go, but it isn’t that simple. I will try to explain what’s stopping me. I realise this will sound crazy but it’s just how my mind works.

• I will have to let my mum know because she’ll want to know where I’m going and I don’t want her to worry about me. She seems to think I am over the depression but in reality it’s just a lot easier to hide when I don’t have the stresses of uni work or a job but that has to change at some point. If I start working I know I won’t be able to cope alone.
• Having to explain everything to yet another new GP is very difficult for me to do.
• I don’t even know if I’m still registered at the doctor’s surgery here. I didn’t tell them I’d registered at the one where I went to university.
• Making the actual appointment itself. This may seem trivial but using the phone is still something I go to any lengths to avoid. I don’t know if I can do it.
• Money is very tight and because I’m not on jobseekers allowance (for a multitude of reasons that I have gone into before) I would have to pay for the prescription which I can’t really afford.

I might try and talk to my mum about it but I keep remembering how much she used to get upset about it all before. I don’t think she wants to think of me as someone who needs mental health help. Also considering how much she blames my suicide attempt entirely on the paroxetine I used to take despite me being suicidal for years previously, I don’t think she’s too keen on me taking any sort of antidepressant.

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Escape Plan

DISCLAIMER: I am fully aware of how easy I have things as a white, western, straight male with no physical health problems. I feel guilty every day because despite being born into lucky circumstances, I’m still a failure. I know other people have things much, much worse.

It’s been a while since I posted properly, I apologise for that. Life is wearing me down mentally and physically. I still cannot sleep like a normal person, I’m awake until the early hours of the morning about 50% of nights and then I’m fighting to stay awake the rest of the following day. I’ve stopped myself from sleeping during the day time and I walk a couple of miles each day to try and get myself back into a regular pattern but it just isn’t working. I have to drink caffeine to concentrate at work, even though I’m only in 4 hours a day.

My new job is several orders of magnitude better than my old one for many reasons. First of all it pays more and is much less demanding. Secondly, I don’t hate my coworkers and they don’t spend every day coming up with new ways to insult me. I’ve only had to endure minor taunting about how quiet I am so far. The thing that I prefer most though, is that it’s only part time. I struggle to manage even these small amounts of hours though. It reminds me of the fact that one day I will be forced to work full time, most likely with people who hate me and I just don’t know if I can stand it.

One month of this was enough to push me into my first serious suicidal mood back in 2006. The first time I wrote my family a note and looked up the most effective way to kill myself. Thankfully over circumstances forced me to leave that job but then followed over a year of depression, unemployment, worsening anxiety and isolation before another crisis forced me into returning to university. I know I’m not going to have that option again in the future (my life certainly won’t be worth living if I drop out again) not many people get a second chance and very, very few get a third and I’d be way too old.

I keep wondering what the point is. I’ve been like this since I was a child, as far back as I can remember I have always dreaded obligations, right from playgroup at age 3 up to going to work. I get the same sick feeling in my stomach, that I have to face the people out there makes me feel ill.

Is life worth feeling like that? What’s so good about life if you have no friends, no-one to share things with, nobody who loves you. Is it really worth me hanging around for 10,500 more of the worthless days? I don’t see why I should want to live, other than guilt.

Don’t read on if you don’t want to see vivid discussion of suicide

I keep staring at the motillium, I have it all planned out. 36 hours of anti-emetic regimine before the amitriptyline and sedatives. I haven’t ever told any medical professionals about my new found tendancy towards pills, they know about my plans to jump but I can’t let them know about this. They’ll want me to get rid of them and I can’t do that. I need my escape route, I’ve gone down that path of no return.

I think suicidal ideation is addictive. Once you have accepted that it is a viable option and your life isn’t really worth living, it’s comforting to have the escape plan in place. I find myself thinking about it every single day, despite what I have told doctors. I see little point in discussing it with them any more. They only have limited options at their disposal, sending the stupid, interfering crisis team round is not going to help me. I can’t relate my entire life story and expose my most deep fears to someone I am probably never going to see again. What good does it do? I’m rarely in an acute crisis anyway, my condition is chronic. 1 hour of chattering isn’t going to change a fucked up life around.

I don’t think I’m unjustified in considering this as a serious option at this point in my life. There’s nothing that gives me any real pleasure or happiness at the moment. I’ve gone through 2 years of crappy drugs that don’t work. I’m sick of being jealous of everyone for having a life, knowing that I’m not a real person and will never be accepted as one by the rest of society. I couldn’t deal with that anyway, it’s easier to be a weirdo, at least I have no image to keep up.

It’s very difficult to explain to people who desperately lonely and disconnected I feel from humanity. I’m sure most people reading this have had feelings for someone but never got to do anything about it and the pain of that. I have experienced nothing except that. A long time ago I stopped even thinking of myself as a person capable of relationships. I’m a hopeless cause, a complete write off. What reason is there to live like this? Would you want to be in this situation?

In answer to why I want to kill myself; There is nothing in my life that makes up for all the shit. It will only get worse from here, why prolong the “suffering”?

edit: taken first one

Numb

I have been awake since midday on Wednesday, the last few weeks attempt at sleep have generally me lying there tossing and turning until the wee hours before giving up and downing a zopiclone, which are become ever less effective as tolerance builds (that’s my own fault for taking them longer than Dr recommended). Wednesday night I decided to try and reset my body clock and just stay up until I felt ready to sleep, and I’m only just feeling drowsy now. I don’t know if the increased (30mg) paroxetine/seroxat has anything to do with it. My GP doesn’t think so but all I know is that it hasn’t helped whatsoever with depression/anxiety and the embarrassing side effects are there.

I can’t help but feel I am just treading water, running out the clock before I finally get the motivation to write an adequate explanation for killing myself and getting it over with. I can’t see what I have to live for any more, life’s passed me by and no matter how hard I try to play at being a real person, I just can’t do it. I don’t belong, I don’t fit anywhere.

The student loan company has decided not to lend me any tuition fees again next year, my mum’s boyfriend lent me vast amounts for the first year and he’s giving me some towards this years but I have to make up more of it myself and I don’t know how I’m going to do it. How can I go to a job interview and sell myself when inside I am wondering how I am going to be able to find a place where I can be undisturbed for 36 hours while I die. I can’t bring myself to make plans for the future because I half know that I won’t be here and it seems futile. I’ve exhausted all options from the mental health services besides being locked up, and I can’t see how that will help me at all. Maybe I am a danger to myself, but what if I always will be? I strongly believe suicide can be rational and I don’t see many counter arguments to say why I deserve or should want to stick around in this world for much longer.

I’m off to try and sleep now.

Will I Always Be Like This?

Due to the extremely long time it takes to get a GP appointment at university and the fact that the crisis team psych would only write me 2 weeks worth of AD script at a time, I had to miss a dose of Seroxat on Friday night. I felt extremely disoriented and not entirely with it on Saturday morning, it was like I was on autopilot. Words came out of my mouth but I had no control, my attention span was like a 2 year olds.

It occurred to me that I am essentially unable to function without these drugs now. My psychiatrist said I had become psychologically dependent on Effexor, I’m not sure how he worked that one out since I hated the stuff but I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about… In any case, I am a mess without them. I hate this feeling, that I am broken and only pharmaceuticals can hold me together and stop me from becoming a complete disaster. They’ve kept me from going over the edge so far but I don’t know how much longer I can stand it.

I know it’s bad, but I’ve been overdoing it with the zopiclone. It takes me ages to get to sleep without it and then its only a few hours. I hate walking around in a daze and then feeling like I’m going to pass out at about 4pm when it catches up with me.

The end of the university year is coming up, I have to go in and demonstrate the website that I made on Tuesday and I have an exam at the end of the month but after that I have done until September (assuming I don’t fail any modules). You might expect that I should be happy about this, pleased that I have finally achieved something worthwhile. Certainly if you read my posts a year ago, I am in a better position than I was back then, but I don’t feel anything

I was talking to an online friend who I’ve met a couple of times the other day and they wondered why I can’t ever be pleased with myself of congratulate myself for doing things that are challenging and that I wanted to achieve. I just can’t do it, but I can’t explain it properly either. I don’t think it’s logical to congratulate myself for doing something 99.999% of the population can do without blinking an eyelid, it’s dumb. I don’t pat myself on the back for getting out of bed in the morning, why should I deserve plaudits for being able to talk to someone?

Various mental health people and folks I’ve spoken to online say that I shouldn’t compare myself to others so much and that it’s pointless. To me that makes no sense though. In life, you are always compared to others. People can’t judge you in a vacuum, they can only get a sense of what you are like compared to other people. In any situation, social or otherwise, you are always being compared to others so why shouldn’t I worry about that?

I don’t walk around with a sign saying that I have a mental illness, nobody knows that walking into a room full of people makes me shake with fear or that I’ve seriously considered taking my own life on numerous occasions this year alone. They take it for granted that people can do those things, normal things easily. I have to strain and push myself to even be considered at the baseline of what a functional human can do, there’s no way I’m ever going to be a worthwhile friend, employee or anything else.

I’m sick and tired of being me. I hate myself because I am self centred, pathetic, utterly repulsive and probably manipulative even though I don’t mean to be. I don’t know whether to call it a day after I finish uni for the year. I don’t have much else to look forward too. I’d honestly rather die young and not know what a pathetic and miserable old man I’d become if I didn’t take things into my own hands.

It seems no matter what happens, I can’t be satisfied. I’ve had probably 3 days this year where I was briefly happy but within a day or even hours, I was already deconstructing what happened and discovering reasons to be sad again. It’s hard putting on a front for so long when you just want to die. I think that’s one reason I dislike being at home just lately, I have to put on a happy face and not let my mum know what’s going on in my head. She wants to help but cannot possibly understand or maybe she just doesn’t want to accept that her son (and by extension, she) isn’t perfect.

Messed up

My mood and general feelings have been all over the place this weekend. I finished venlafaxine/effexor for good on Wednesday night and I honestly felt much better to be off the damn stuff. On Friday and Saturday night though, I began to feel energised and restless but not in an entirely unpleasant way. I’m not used to having energy and wanting to leap out of my chair and up and down the stairs, I even went into town on a Saturday to buy a few things, something which I never normally do.

Being on such a high (225mg) dose of effexor wasn’t doing me much good, in my layman’s opinion. Last night I started the first of my 2 week supply of seroxat, but not without a struggle. I went to purchase them on Thursday from Boots, where I always go when I’m in Nottingham but even though the script was only for 2 weeks worth and they had to cut a blister pack up and repackage the pills for me, they somehow ended up giving me prozac instead. The pharmacist did not notice this either and signed off on it, leaving me to discover their mistake on Saturday morning. It’s a good job I checked and I don’t just unquestioningly swallow everything they hand over, being on 3 ADs in 2 weeks wouldn’t have been much fun, I imagine.

I went back and caused a minor panic there, the manager even came out and took me to one side to apologise and assured me they would do an investigation into how it happened. I hope no-one gets into trouble, after all I am ok.

Nothing to report about the new meds yet, I still feel reasonably ok for now but things still lurk in the back of my mind, as I fear they always will.

Psychiatrist Visit #49230

This one went ok, answered the usual questions yet again, haven’t had any particularly strong or vivid suicidal feelings this week so there was no time wasted with that. We agreed that I would switch to 75mg venlafaxine starting this weekend while I am off uni for Easter. Then next Saturday I will stop altogether and spend a few days med-free before starting on this particular guys shot at fixing me up (or least stopping me complaining): paroxeteine AKA Seroxat, Paxil.

Which will it be?

Apparently it is effective for treating SA and depression, which sounds good in theory. I have heard horror stories about it’s withdrawals and increasing suicidal ideation (ha!) but I guess it’s worth a try. That image took way longer to make than it was worth, by the way. 

Only one more day to go until I go home for 2 weeks for Easter. I have mixed feelings about it. It’s strange to think there is a part of me that would rather stay here than go home for the whole time. Back in September I never would have thought that would be the case. I’ve come to appreciate my little bit of independence and especially privacy here, not to mention the city centre is within walking distance and doesn’t require a 30 minute bus journey among chavs and criminals. 

I’m in a fairly good mood today, managed to make dinner twice this week and have talked to my flatmates a bit. I also went to the post office twice to send some items I sold on eBay which required me to converse with the people at the counter so I think it’s been a reasonably successful week.