Venting

Hi everyone. 🙂

The short version of this is I might not be on SP as much in the future. The longer version is just a vent about everything that’s been going on lately.

It seems surreal to me that only a couple of months ago I was texting a friend to say I thought I was starting to recover from depression. I’ve said it twice in the last five to six years. Things started to get worse again this time when my ME/CFS got worse. That seems to be improving now, although it’s been up and down lately, but the depression is still going downhill.

I cut again yesterday. Before then, I don’t remember the last time I did it. I don’t think it’s happened this year, although the urge came back repeatedly this summer. It feels like a couple of years since it happened last, though it’s probably happened several times since then. For a couple of hours before I started, I felt close to a panic attack. I only cut lightly, but I’d forgotten how overwhelming the need to carry on is. I was so shocked that I did it again. I always tell people that doing it once doesn’t take away from all the time you’ve managed to go without it, and I firmly believe that. But it still left me stunned and frightened. My feelings and thoughts have been feeling more out of control lately, and that felt like another step towards losing control over my actions too. Feeling the agony of depression as it becomes more severe is close to unbearable, but in some ways it’s worse to feel that the depression and all the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that can come with it are out of your control.

More and more often, I feel hopeless about recovery and helpless to take the necessary steps towards it. I realise I need help. It’s the least that the people around me deserve, and I don’t want to keep feeling this way. Even the better days are incredibly difficult. I don’t want to go back to my GP. For the time being I don’t want any of the help they can offer. There’s one course I’d like to get a referral for, but mainly I’m still looking into newer or alternative treatment programmes. At the moment I’m slowly reading about them and trying to figure out which to go for. Social anxiety was stopping me getting in touch with one of them for a while, but since I’ve been looking into others I’ve been comparing prices and thinking about recovery rates, money back guarantees, the illnesses I need treated, which to begin with, whether having one could hold me back from getting past another more than the other way round, whether or for how long I should focus specifically on one before the others, etc etc.

The social anxiety has got worse lately, to the point that it’s made it a lot harder to comment here. I think it’s mainly caused by the confusion from ME. No one has commented about it except when I’ve completely misread something or forgotten something important, but it makes me so uncomfortable when I’m talking to people and I’m unable to understand the things they’re saying. I talk about it a lot but I mostly think of it as an inconvenience, and I haven’t really realised until recently how deeply it’s affecting me. I know I’ve been struggling with it for a long time but I usually try not to think about it except when it’s affecting me badly. I always feel like I shouldn’t allow it to bother me when it isn’t at its worst, and I only realised recently that I’m being so harsh with myself. For a week or two it usually seemed at its worst, where I couldn’t remember who people were or where I was through most conversations, and my mind was constantly vaguely remembering and piecing things together again, then completely forgetting, on fast repeat. The cognitive difficulties have been getting a lot worse. In the last week or so they’ve improved significantly, which I’m so glad about, because they’ve become more distressing than you’d imagine them being, and they’ve been making me feel a lot more isolated. They’re still there, though they’ve improved so quickly. I don’t feel as anxious when they’re less severe. But the anxiety has existed for years and I still feel it constantly, and it feels like it’s getting worse again.

I’ve never thought about anxiety as being one of my worst problems. I pushed it further and further away until it finally stopped me from being able to function in day to day life. When I was a child and young teen, I was given everything and had everything done for me. One of the things my parents gave me was the right to make my own decisions. So when I became more ill, when the world became too painful and terrifying to be a part of anymore, my mum tried to persuade me to see a doctor. But I wouldn’t. I didn’t think I could. Most of the time she was comforting, but there were times she shouted, times I tried to escape her and tried hard not to hear the things she said. When I was at school, at one point I managed to go back and they let me stay away from my regular lessons one day so I could spend some time by myself, which helped. After that my friends were supportive, and I felt like I join them again. But there were other times they wouldn’t take it seriously, and at the time I let those have a much deeper influence on me. Years later when I was 16, the anxiety, linked stress and severe depression got to their worst yet and my life completely gave way under my feet. Two years went by, and I got worse. When I was 18 I finally built the courage to speak to people in writing online. One of them said he was angry that my parents hadn’t made me get help. It wasn’t something they’d do, but I wish they had, or that they’d found something that could have worked more easily for me. I thought the only way to get help was going to see a doctor, and anyone I spoke to until then thought the same.

I spent my life thinking all those problems were something to avoid. It felt weak to let them affect me, but they started to more deeply over time. I did an activity on MoodGYM a couple of days ago which was quite interesting – you have to make a list of things you like and dislike about yourself. One of the things I wrote down as a negative point was still having the mindset, at times, that it’s weak to let any problems affect you until they reach depths that you can’t ignore.

Depression has always been my most severe problem, and a lot of times over the years I never really let myself accept the anxiety as another problem that needed attention. Like depression, it’s been there all my life, and I realised I find it harder to imagine getting past the anxiety than any other problems, even severe depression that’s lasted 5-6 years, and even ME which not many people completely recover from. I think it’s because I’ve normalised anxiety. I didn’t just see it as something I have – it feels closer to something I’ve always been.

I know there are people who fully recover from anxiety, but I keep struggling to believe it’s possible. It’s a hurdle that’s stopped me from doing so many things, or made me worry about small, everyday issues time and time again, while depression was (and is) something I could usually hide. Even if I can stop anxiety from being the constant experience it’s become, it’s like it’ll be left behind in some form no matter what else happens. My mum said the other day that she thought I should go into support work like her when my ME improves. She thought I’d like it, and she said there are lots of volunteer opportunities to get into it and much less of a demand for qualifications than there usually is nowadays. If I was well enough I could take a course at the same time. It could be perfect for me, though I would never consider doing that kind of work while my depression is so severe. But I can’t imagine being able to do it without constant panic or worrying.

I can’t stand feeling like I can’t control my own mind, but my instinctual response is still to try to escape the painful thoughts, rather than facing them and trying to change them. I’m trying not to let my past influence decisions about the future, but the anxiety itself is much harder to overcome than thoughts. It’s like a block, in the same way that depression is a block against happiness.

As my depression has grown worse, so has the disconnectedness between other people and myself. One of the things I value most is being able to love and value people, and I’m always grateful when those feelings are returned. It’s like there’s a force inside me, still stronger than my conscious mind, which is aware of that and tries every day to take those feelings away. Sometimes it comes in the form of thoughts, which I can try to overcome. At times they’re convictions that people don’t care about me. Much, much worse are the times when it’s like someone is trying to convince me not to love or care about them. Thoughts like that make me feel nauseous, and lately the pain and guilt following them is enough to make me want to die. Other times there’s just a feeling of being completely separate to others. Often I forget about people. When I try to remember and finally think of someone I love, it’s like an alien concept to me. Sometimes the feelings towards them are only clouded, but other times I can’t feel anything towards them. Sometimes all I can feel is fear or animosity. I don’t know if part of it is the less evolved parts of the mind thinking that psychological pain and fear must = an outside threat, so I start to see everyone that way. It’s probably a combination of that, severe forgetfulness and depression making me focus on the negative to shocking extremes. It’s bizarre how suddenly it can turn around the direction of my thoughts, until I’m close to believing the opposite to moments before. It’s exhausting trying to repair it every time. All I can do is rationalise my thoughts. I can never bring those feelings back. I can’t bear that phenomenon where the things you love the most can become the worst things to think about when you’re at your worst, because they can seem so different or unrecognisable to you in a single moment.

I’ve been thinking for a couple of weeks that if my depression keeps getting worse I might have to leave SP. I really wanted to stay. It’s a huge comfort to comment and post here. It’s been harder to do so while the ME symptoms have been more severe. They’ve been improving, but depression is making it difficult too now. At times like this, I’m usually unable to comment, and I start to feel worse when I come here. The suicidal feelings become more pervasive and a lot more painful. There are times when I can’t afford to risk it becoming a trigger, and I don’t feel I can help myself or anyone else by being here. Coming back here has changed so much for me. I couldn’t bear it suddenly becoming so difficult. I’m coming to terms with it now (along with the things in the paragraph above) but I don’t want to leave unless I have to, and I don’t know what will happen in the next few weeks or months. So I’ll be quieter, but I’m not planning on leaving for good.

I hope you brave souls who read to the end of this are doing okay. Sorry if my writing is clumsy. Thank you so much, anyone who read this or any of my other posts. There was a lot more I wanted to say, but it can wait for another time. I just wanted to get some things of my chest while I still feel physically and mentally able to.

love to you all,
Y