My depression was gradually starting to take a nose dive but now it seems like it’s in full dive and I keep getting closer and closer to crashing. I’m BARELY hanging by a thread. I told my therapist everything and I showed him my journal (my recent entries were very disturbing and worrisome). To be frank, I’ve been feeling extremely suicidal and I’ve started self mutilating regularly (even at work, and I’ve NEVER done that before-it’s not me). It’s not nearly as bad when I’m hanging out with someone or when I’m around people that I like, but it’s been especially bad during work and at night when I’m in my apartment by myself. I lay on the floor and cry, I rock back and forth, I stare off into space without moving an inch for more than an hour or too, my weight is all over the place, and I hardly ever sleep. When I’m in a good mood or having fun, I’m so frantic to hang onto it that I start acting obnoxiously positive/goofy/energetic/etc. and I know people have noticed.
told my therapist everything and I showed him my journal (my recent entries are a bit disturbing and worrisome). He stayed calm and composed, but I could see him [figuratively] sweating. You know it’s bad when your counselor gets scared. At first, he was thinking that I should go to the hospital immediately or that he would call someone into the office from the main branch to evaluate me. However, I begged him to let me try to make it through the week because my best friend and I planned a trip for this coming weekend that we’ve been working on for months and I’m thinking it will be a fun break from everything. He was reluctant to agree, but he said it DID make him feel better to know that I have at least one thing that I’m looking forward to- a purpose of sorts. When he asked me what my plan for suicide would be I told him about the fact that I’ve been stockpiling my refills for my prescription sleeping meds instead of taking them every night like I’m supposed to (they make me to groggy to function during work). He put a ban in the system so that doctors cannot prescribe me sleep aids and then he called my boyfriend and let him know that I had them in my house and asked if he would help me clean them out and take them to the police station (which he was more than happy to do, he said that he was really proud of me, so that was nice). ALSO, I am to call the office’s 24 hour suicide hotline every night before 9 p.m. to check in, let them know I’m safe, and talk about what’s on my mind. I have to do that until he decides I’ve improved, and honestly, I think that’s fair. Instead of once-a-week hour-long meetings with him, I will have an hour long meeting once a week and a 30-minute meeting later in the week to check-in in person.
All of these plans that we have in place are just to make sure that I’m okay until after my trip. When I get back, and if I’m still having suicidal thoughts, I agreed to go to the hospital. I know it’s the right thing to do, I’m just so scared. Even in this blog, I’ve barely scraped the tip of the iceberg regarding how severe my thoughts have been. I’m truly afraid of myself. I know I need help. I’m not even on medicine because I don’t have a psychiatrist at the moment and I’m on a 2-month wait list. That’s too long to wait, I need treatment NOW. I’m just so scared. It all feels pointless because even if I get help and eventually feel better, it’s all just going to happen again in a few years or so. No one will ever want to spend their life with me. My sweetheart is happy to support me now and says that he’s not going anywhere and that he knows what he signed on for, but I can’t imagine that he would be okay with this forever. It has got to be exhausting for him and it’s not fair. He deserves better than that. I don’t know…I’m rambling now. I’m just scared.
Two months is definitely too long to wait when you’re feeling this bad. It’s a shame that it can take that long to get help. Especially when you need it that badly. Of course you’re scared, who wouldn’t be? But even if whatever you do right now doesn’t fix you forever, it needs to be done and it is helping you build strength for the future. Having a therapist you like is a real advantage. So if, in a few years, you do go through another period like this, maybe it will be less severe, and you will have a better idea what to do when you feel it coming.
It takes both strength and courage to speak up and to let the good people in your life help you. These are traits that attract people, the right kind of people who are willing to go the distance with you. I know it’s really, really hard right now, but you are doing the right thing and you can get through it.
Hold on to this fact: you can’t kill yourself without getting off your chair, moving your arms and legs to whatever method you have chosen, and actually performing the act. It won’t happen while you’re asleep or in another room. You have to actually do something. And you are capable of saying ‘no. I won’t do that.’
Nothing in your life will creep up on you without your consent. Everything you are doing, you are doing with your own consent. If you don’t consent to it, don’t send the messages to your arms and legs that make it take place. You are 100% in control.
Now: sleep. Sleep is a thing. If you don’t get it, you go cray-cray. That’s what I’m getting from this. I’m getting ‘maybe she needs a different form of sleep aid than a sleeping pill?’ I am on a sedative. It doesn’t lose effectiveness. It doesn’t stop me dreaming. It’s great actually, I can be on it a couple of years without feeling I’m losing out. A bit hard to get up in the morning, but I have to remember to take it at 8pm at night, and not wait till bedtime.
It’s called quetiapine and I take it because I’m on wellbutrin which is an upper, and so I need the sedative to counteract the wellbutrin or I do not sleep. That is apparently a very common mix, and a very common offlabel very low-dose use of quetiapine is a sleep aid.
So maybe talk to your doctor about that? I don’t know. Maybe half a pill would work for sleep.