[This here is a warning that the author has written a post about, amongst other things, being depressed and suicidal. For this reason there is a clicky thing. Use it in whatever health you got. Also please note that with respect to my wife and our marriage you are getting exactly one perspective--mine--and everything is filtered through my experiences of abuse. This is not an objective reporting of events.]
Y’all who’ve been following this adventure know I’ve been fucked up for a while now. It’s been next to impossible to get any work done–it took me until five-thirty this morning to get caught up on my inbox. Today I got to explain why I should keep my job. On the phone. I don’t know as I was very convincing. Being highly ambivalent about wanting to keep it at all isn’t helpful with the convincing. Nor the panic that comes with phones, the stammering dysphasia aphasia that is so heavily influenced by stress.
Maybe I’ll get to keep it through the end of the month. I keep telling myself I should be at my desk now working.
I’m in bed with the notebook and I haven’t gotten dressed. I woke up six hours ago.
The thought of telling my psychiatrist about this makes me feel sad and hopeless: I told him about being sexually abused and he said something that sounded really perfunctory about being sorry that happened to me and moved on to meds. It’s how he does. He is actually pretty okay compared with other psychs in my experience–I’ve dealt with far worse. I’ve had a few better, but I’ve had way worse.
I dread telling my therapist. I’m kind of dreading telling her much of anything. I feel really battered and not. safe. after last week’s session with her and my wife. My wife worries I spend too much time on computers. (She is also hurt that I seem to want to spend more time with the machine than with her.) I read things that upset me. I was happier and more stable when I got out of hospital and had been offline for a couple weeks. I am terrified they want to take this away from me. They both speak better than I do and process speech better than I do and I don’t think I could defend myself if I had to. I did really badly last week.
They want me to not hurt. I’d like me to not hurt. It would be awful nice. I don’t know how to stop hurting. They both are unhappy when I react to things they do and say the way I react to things my abusers have done and said. They do the same actions. They say the same words. They want me to react differently because their intentions are different and I should know that.
They say their intentions are good. They want what’s best for me. They love me and want me to be healthier and stronger.
That’s exactly what my abusers said. Often while they were beating me or humiliating me or throwing away my books and music and clothes or trying to ruin my intimate relationships with anyone who might have provided support outside the abusive relationships. They love me. They want what’s best for me. They want to take care of me. Even if I could know their intentions for certain which I can’t what good does it do me when they have the same intentions as my abusers?
What the fuck am I supposed to do? I am not getting better. I am afraid of the caregivers in my life. It feels as if my employers and my therapist and my wife are angry with me for what being sick does to me and I somehow manage both to accept this as something I deserve because they’re not wrong I do suck and to be hurtangryafraid because I’m sick and I need help. I am going to be unemployed and unemployable real soon and there’s about zero chance I can actually navigate the bureaucracies for getting government assistance without help.
The parts of me that hate me and want me dead keep telling me there’s a thing I can do. It would make all the fear all the anxiety all the hurt stop. Forever. I’m afraid there will come a time I will no longer be able to keep telling it no. It’s exhausting. It is a thing I have to fight against every day. Those same parts of me that hate me and want me dead tell me I shouldn’t say this. I have no right to say this. It’s melodramatic. It’s manipulative. I’m just trying to get attention by bleeding in public and that’s inappropriate in teenagers never mind someone thirty-eight years old.
I fear those parts of me are right about everything. And I am so very tired.
Cross-posted to kaninchenzero’s Tumblr.
I recently wrote about being suicidal as well. I am linking you to my post because I cannot puzzle out the words right this second. I know that being told you are not alone either helps or doesn’t, but you aren’t.
Also have you tried pointing out to your carers that they are using the same words as your abusers and that this is triggering for you?
here is the link. You should have my email with this blog, and if you need to just talk email me. I will respond as soon as possible.
http://textualfury.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/being-suicidal-trigger-warning/
I’ve been in a similar place, and it’s hell.
My heart is with you.
I have told them. We are working out ways to do this without making me panic. Much. It’s not easy for any of us.
Thanks, y’all.
.-= kaninchenzero´s last blog ..The More It Hurts the More Sense It Makes =-.
Oh, I’m so sorry you are feeling this shitty. I think the work you do online is incredibly valuable and you would be missed if you took a break.
I think you did a good job of articulating your concerns in this post without sounding like you’re blaming anyone, not your wife, your therapist, or yourself, so maybe printing this (or an edited version of this) out for them might help them see where you’re coming from.
When I was in the worst points of my depression I was told the internet was bad for me too because I would get so angry about social justice issues, but like, the alternative wasn’t not being angry, it was hating myself, and at times the world online was the only one I thought I could handle.
I think it’s very hard for non-depressed people to understand that the alternative isn’t “have a wonderful life with no problems.”
You have my best wishes and thoughts.
“I’m afraid there will come a time I will no longer be able to keep telling it no. It’s exhausting. It is a thing I have to fight against every day.”
You know, I wish there was a way the people in my life could understand that. The constant fighting that makes life so exhausting.
I have good days now, as well as bad ones. It’s taken years and a lot of anger and tears. But it’s worth it. Those good days make the fighting worthwhile.
I really, really hope that you find a way through all this.
Your therapist should never make you feel as if she is angry at you for being sick. It is not your fault. Your therapist should be working on solutions, not making you feel like the problem.
I also (like Gnatalby above) know what you mean about the internet. When I was having panic attacks in college, a friend’s therapist mom tried to make me stop computering, and I refused. It’s a part of my life. I might feel better when I spend less time on the computer but I don’t think that’s a cause/effect thing, I think it’s a correlation. I don’t feel like going outside and doing things with people when I’m depressed, so I go online more. Taking my computer away wouldn’t make me happier.
I love reading the things you write. I hope you find a way out of this bad place you’re in.
One thing that sounds really weird but that worked for me after years and years of such thoughts (but that took years to see much obvious change) was to treat those thoughts as if they are external, and respond to them the same way I would respond to an external force trying to kill me. I don’t know why it’s worked, maybe something about the human psyche, but it’s made a big difference. Not in isolation, I did other things too, but that was a big one.
.-= Amanda´s last blog ..Don’t just hand me things. =-.
I am so sorry that things are going this way for you right now. It’s hard enough to feel this way without the people in your life who are supposed to be supporting you making you feel worse – whether their intentions are to make you feel better or not.
Just as a point of experience-telling, there have been times when a therapist of mine has said or done things that made me feel angry and unsafe. It took a lot (A LOT) of courage, but I managed in some of those times (the later times, the earlier times I just stopped going) to bring the issue up in the next session and the other parts of therapy stopped and we did some meta-therapy. Because the most important part of therapy is feeling like you are in a safe space. You can’t go any further without that, really. So we worked through the issues, and thankfully these were really good therapists who generally had styles that worked for me, and we were able to work through the issues and eventually continue with the other therapy work. So, maybe you can do this with yours?
Beyond that, I just really hope you can keep fighting off those parts of you that are saying the things about you sucking and being dead. If it helps, remember that so so many of us have felt that exact same way and found ways to keep fighting and are now grateful that we kept fighting. If you can imagine a future!you looking back on this time and feeling that way, maybe it can help. Even if you don’t feel that way now. I dunno. Sometimes it’s helped me.
In the meantime, and Most Importantly, there is nothing inappropriate about being honest about your feelings and your situation – no matter what age you are.
I read this not long after it was posted and I cannot re-read it, so I apologize if I mess up.
I am so sorry you are in this situation and I hope it improves.
My mom is less than helpful with my depression and when it gets me bad. Apparently it’s happened before and I need to grow up and not let others boss me around. (As she bosses me around.)
But I am not in a situation as bad as you are, and all I can do is tell you that we’re here for you, and even if we can’t always read and re-read what you write, you know the internet is a great place for screaming. Sometimes you even find a listener who cares.
As for “avoiding” the internet or news, what? Should I stay in my head all the time? Yes, 5 years ago, before I got the laptop, I was more likely to retreat to a book. But I still need the internet. It gets me out. I get to be all outraged about …things… and get out of my head and not think about myself and my future and whatever is depressing me at the moment.
We love you k0.
The words of support are very much appreciated. It’s extremely gratifying that y’all have felt safe enough here to talk about your own feelings and experiences with being suicidal. I feel like we’re doing something right; there is so much shame and stigma and fear around the subject and it’s really hard to talk about even anonymously or pseudonymously.
Thank you for that, too. We have the best readers in the world.
.-= kaninchenzero´s last blog ..The More It Hurts the More Sense It Makes =-.