I just needed to make a new thread I guess. I've been struggling with this, too. I can't seem to start anything... too hard, too many decisions, agh, agh, freak out, oh no, stop, go away, do mindless stuff quick.... etc.

So basic update on current struggles. Just on self/health, not even gonna start on situational... yet.

I am having:

-- Bad depression

-- Bad anxiety (maybe depression-driven)

-- Stomach issues/can't eat much (maybe anxiety-driven)

-- Head cold/viral thingy


I just need a place to put my stuff.

okthxbai.

waves

And it is 29 degrees here, not 41. Stupid airport weather station.

Waves,

The malfunction of the stupid airport weather station is not helpful.


These are serious except we hope for the last . . . The head cold /viral
thing we hope will clear up with time. In the meantime of course, it magnifies the other issues.

The Stomach issues not being settled is bad in its own right and also makes the other less bare-able.

What can you do to solve the depression? Does it lesson sometimes?
Do you have meds for it?
Has the same depression been around for months and months?

Is it better some days or maybe better at certain times of the day?
Does it get better (or less bad) with certain actives?

I can send hope your way. I have hope that things will get better.


M

The depression is new...ish. I have certainly felt down a lot in recent months -- but there were reasons, too. I don't really consider it depression until/unless it gets bad. This is bad. 2 weeks is the cut-off for a Major Depressive Episode by DSM coding. I'm past 1 week already.

I see my therapist/ex-pdoc again in January. If it is still bad, I will see if he thinks I need meds or whether it could still be a "normal" reaction to very bad but unfortunately real things in my life.

I was a little better off today, but partly because I have been left alone. Really left alone. And this takes a little pressure off is all. I still feel bad, but I don't feel watched, don't have to answer questions, especially not about food, dammit. And I thought about going outside? Just to get about. See the pretty bits of snow left? Could care friggin less about the friggin pretty snow.

==============

Christmas was awful, was at it with mom all day. And yesterday finally had a melt down at her. She has been asking things over and over, about food, to boot. At one point she really fussed at me, "I need to know what you are going to eat...!" Seriously? When I cannot stick a piece of bread in my mouth without feeling it for the next 2 hours, I'm drinking baking soda just to stay sane on top of my prescription acid-reducers, and you "need to know" what I will eat? Geezus freaking please. I finally lost it, bad. I bellowed at her to leave me the hell alone, just leave me the hell alone, why can't you.... (repeat ad nauseum for like 5 minutes). She got mad or hurt enough to retreat.

As for me.... I cried. Alone. Without having to totally smother myself and hide, for once.

She has barely been talking to me. I made efforts today to be nice to her, and things have settled a bit, but honestly, I need her not to chat at me all the time, and not require decisions from me, especially not about food! I don't think it's so hard to follow the indications I gave her: "Do not include me in meal plans. I will forage in the fridge."

==============

I spent days bent double crying or avoiding crying, and shaking, and just feeling sick all over from life. There have been multiple bad peaks like that. I've gone out walking... in this cold I ordinarly keep up a pace... can't. I am interested in nothing. I watch zero tv, and have piles of recorded DVR stuff... more piling up.

Legs of lead. Heart of stone. Mind of mulch.

I used to differentiate depressions by quality. The hazy grey ones where the mind and emotions simply fade, and one carelessly becomes a wisp, at one with nothingness. The deep thoughtful ones, where a gentle sadness hangs softly over the heart, cradling it into a woeful sleep. The dark, heavy, murky, deep sludgy ones, where one wants to sink into a bog, never to return. The painful ones where desperation gouges a hole one's gut, and leave one crying for mercy, even to gods in which one doesn't believe.

This depression is all of them rolled together. It is the badass mother of depressions.

-- It is wispy and I feel myself fading.
-- It is softly sad and quietly weepy at times.
-- It is dark, sludgy and massive.
-- It is excruciating and desperate at times.

And while I'd not say it's mixed exactly, not inherently anyway, my reactions can get pretty high up on the irascible scale. Messing with me -- or even crossing me -- right now is a bit like messing with a wounded animal. I've nowhere to run, or hide. So I bite.

waves

P.S. I've adopted a new weather station but I can't show the time with this sticker.

Waves,


The Broken Record Technique is effective.

Even though you preferred not to have to use it and at a cost, you got what you wanted. I hope that she lets you forage.

This really sxxx, Waves, and you need to contact your guy. It is time to bring someone in to help you.


I am worried about you.

The crying: Waves, if we were close enough I would find a way to get you to the ER. What ever time line you said here and in the earlier post I feel is longer than you make it out to be.
Do the equivalent of the ER and get competent immediate progressional help.
As I have said over and over again (maybe not recently but it is documented here), bipolar/ mental illness/ incompacity is not a do-it-yourself job.
Reach out. Get a team.

Let them throw you a life line.


M

Thanks for the weather station.
It works.
We can celebrate small victories along with the not so small.

Mari

Thanks, Mari.

Especially thanks for understanding about the screaming. I feel so awkward, and ashamed, and then I do that, and it is really shameful behavior, really shameful. And of course I feel more ashamed, and guilty. I thought a lot about how to change it. I am working on some ideas. I will try to channel people -- people who can respond better to those situations. But so far, impulse has gotten the better of me.

As to your worry. I am sorry. Maybe this will reassure you: I am not in danger of suicide. Not wanting to be, wishing I weren't, etc., that is different, and that is the case at times (not always). But I am not thinking about it or setting about making it so.

I already have an appointment in January. 2nd week, when my buses pick up. I do not feel I need to go anywhere before then, nor could I get an appointment any sooner. It's actually better to go a little longer. The horribleness really came on fast, and the severe part has been less than 2 weeks. I noted it near the beginning, in a dated document, so seeing it was keeping on, I was able to go back and stick that date in my migraine log (where Excel does the math). The appointment will be 3-4 weeks in. If he saw me sooner than that, the doctor would say to wait and see.

I'm not in an emergency situation, and even if I were, the ER is here perfectly hopeless for these things. They are hopeless unless you are having a heart attack or have a visibly broken leg, and even then it's like a box of Forrest Gump's chocolates.

Even though ER's in the US are more competent, I honestly do not feel I am ER material. The desperation might be what is scaring you. It is a feeling, a deep, cutting feeling, but it does not go anywhere and it does not cause me to do anything. I am helpless to it, but that, at least, does not stay. It happens in waves. If that quality stayed, I would have texted my therapist/pdoc by now.

I feel that I am stable, even if that stability is way, way below baseline right now. I do not know if it qualifies as "depression" (I kind of think so by quality) because of the sad events and difficult processing I am doing. In other words, how much of this is a "normal" reaction to heavy stimuli, and how much if any is pathological.

I'd think only bereavement could cause this degree of emotional ailing. But some of the news I had comes sort of close to that, in a way, and it came in a painful package to boot. (I will not go into those details here.)

Then there are other things, too. There was the shock of seeing my friends' successes. Their resumes, their positions, their lifestyles. Where I have not been comparing myself, suddenly, the comparisons were in my face. I was hearing people exchange offers and talk about jobs... I could barely follow what they were saying. It was frightening, and humiliating. I had to smile and make pretty. I made Candy Crush jokes and made myself even more ridiculous... if ya can't beat 'em, beat up on yourself. When I did talk about seeking work, some showed disdainful disinterest. Others seemed keen to help, but could not. They cannot reinvent my life.

But I MUST. I must do exactly that: reinvent my life. And it looks like I'll have to rebuild it from ground zero. I quake under that mountain of a proposition.

waves

i think it was a huge transition from spending time with your friends in the US and then coming back. that could be very depressing. i wish i could do something to make you feel better. you handled yourself well in the us which shows that you are competent and have good nonvirtual friends. that is so positive.
love you
bobby

Waves,

It happened. It is over. Your "behavior" helped her understand what you had been saying. If you do not want to use "Broken Record Technique" in the future, you do not have to but it is o.k. to forgive yourself.
. . in other words, totally not shameful.
Not impulse. You are overwhelmed perhaps.

I am comfortable knowing that you have an appt soon.
I am aware that you are not in danger but I think you are possibly at a turning point OR a place where there should be a turn to get better.
I really believe that we should not be alone to decide on health matters by ourselves when we have access to medical help and such.


I will go with my broken leg metaphor for a minute:
If someone had a broken leg, we would not ask the person to wait it out or do home remedies. We would tell that person to get help as soon as it was possible. In effect, that is what you are doing with the Jan appt. THat is good.

Well, I am sorry about that and I am sorry that I used the broken leg as an example.

What you describe is major stinky. Sorry.


Lots and lots of hugs.



That helps maybe --- in terms of thinking about how you feel.
So, maybe not something to "get over" but to "get through."

I totally hear you on that. Because I am there too.

I cannot talk to people very well because I have no life. Even with people at work, I cannot make small talk -- and thus cannot connect well. I have nothing going on to talk about beyond the minutia of today or yesterday. I am not even aware of cultural reverences because I am not reading/watching the same tv, news, or movies, or listening to the same music as they are. And that is because I have to "hide" from the world to protect myself and my bipolar.
The siblings "get" each other, but I believe that one degree past that -- to first cousins -- would put me in a place where I might as well be talking to a stranger. Actually talking to a complete stranger would be easier than talking to co-worker/neighbor/close relative.

I wish you had someone to help you not see a mountain before you.
It is a step pathway.

Or maybe the mountain is underneath you and holding you up/ giving you standing.

Keep posting.
Keep letting us know what is going on.
=======

I have to be up at 9:30 to drive two people to the airport.
If necessary, hubby will drive and I will ignore that he is freaked out about driving through the airport signage.
Dad can tell him to get in this lane or that lane for departures.
Maybe I will sit directly behind hubby and tap hubby on the left or right shoulder as he does not seem to respond well to verbal commands when he is stressed.

Take care.

M