Downward spiral

As you can probably notice, I haven't posted in quite a while, I've been in a major downward spiral and I didn't want to post nothing but depressing thoughts, but some of you have asked that I say what's been going on anyway.

Well, the short story is that I've been very depressed and thinking suicidal thoughts.

The long of it is that my recovery is taking longer than I was expecting or ready for, and my care providers are telling me that I shouldn't even think about going back to work for another year, and that I have years of therapy and medications and tests, etc before I can expect any real relief. So I'm hearing these things after I've already been thinking that I've had this disorder for almost thirty years now, and I've been in active treatment for it for almost three years already, I've been on 15 different medications already, my therapist pretty much tells me that there aren't any coping skills or techniques left that I don't already use, and that he's never seen anyway try as hard as me to get over this. Then the guilt and shame started to hit me on top of that, because I already feel bad that my dad has had to cash in his retirement to cover my butt while I go through recovery, and to think that I have years to go and the stress that will put on my family was just as hard to bear as my everyday struggles with the anxiety and the persistent intrusive negative thoughts. Not to mention that the levels of medicine I'm on are extremely high, enough to "put a horse to sleep for days" and they don't even phase me one bit. To sum it up, there are very few things left to try, and I've been told that the idea of electro-shock treatment may be an option! Great, just what I need, amnesia!

I cried everyday for over a week. I decided to start planning to say my last good-byes to all my loved ones, plead with them to understand and it's not their fault, but I want to be euthanised.

Well, my cousin caught wind of this and called 911 and had the police take me to a mental clinic, where some idiot nurse told me to just stop thinking so much. God, I hate people that are so ignorant.

The next day, I held a family meeting and explained to them in great detail what it's like inside my head, and why I had come to this conclusion, and made them understand that if I decide to live through this and struggle each day, it may take years before I get over this, and it is in the realm of possibility that I may never get over this, and that I will be dependent on them the whole time for my well being. Yeah, I've recently applied for federal and state aid like social security and stuff like that which will help, but it will still be a drain on them.

Well, I'm very lucky to have such a supportive family, they understood and they're on board for the long haul. I was glad I had a chance to talk with them so candidly, but it didn't improve my mood. I just took the attitude that well, now I'm stuck having to live through this hell, I'll just bear it and wait for a miracle.

My depression and anxiety have been so bad I went for a week without a shower. Constant level 9 anxiety. That's even after an increase in my medication dosages.

And what really pissed me off today was at my group therapy session, the doctor who runs the session and everyone else said Dave, you just have to try harder. You just have to stop thinking. They gave me a homework assignment for this week - my assignment is to stop thinking for 15 minutes. HELLO! If that were possible, I wouldn't be in therapy! For crying out loud don't dare tell me to try harder! Ask my therapist, he knows I'm trying harder than any other patient he's seen. And if you think I can just say fuck it and stop thinking, then you are one ignorant SOB! OK, technically, I think I stopped thinking on two occasions where I was under full surgical anesthesia. Then one girl told me I just have to control my mind. Hello! The chemical imbalances in my brain are stuck on! All I can do is redirect the thoughts or try to rationalize them or just accept them or change my train of thought. But I can't just stop thinking. I've tried all kinds of mediation, sure, my muscles relaxed a bit, but it either didn't work or left me with scary visions.

So, I am very frustrated and depressed.

My therapist also has me on an exercise where I have to write letters to all the significant women in my life (without actually sending the letters) and in the letters write about all the good and bad things about the relationship. I'm reluctant to do that right now, because I am feeling very vulnerable and I'm afraid to open up even more bad memories from the past.

OK, I guess that's enough for now. Say a prayer for me.