I'm Breaking Down.

[krikkit]

I am losing contact with everything. It has been seven months since I applied for Disability and SSI. They haven't even given me an appointment to meet with anyone yet. I keep calling and the answer never, ever changes. I'm so tired of therapy, I'm so tired of how strained "There are other options" keeps getting each and every time I admit that a therapy technique isn't working or that a therapist doesn't seem to really want to connect. Why isn't there any help, I don't understand how no one can want to help at all.

I can't even leave the house. My family is breaking down trying to cope with what is happening and all I want to do is give them the room to think that maybe it will be okay some day, if that's really what they want. I am crushing innocent people around me and watching them try to hide their own increasing dependency and how now some of them are so depressed that they sit and cry all the time. I hate the way we interact, everyone is frozen and trying to pretend like the situation is okay. I don't even leave my room anymore, I can't handle how horrible it feels.

The Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis was caused by the one set of medication that seemed to be working. I could do things and go places, I was starting to feel confident again. Now even just the panic attacks are crippling and I've added an actual fear of medication and hospitals to the list. My body still isn't all the way healed from the illness and my nerves are ground down to a bloody mess. I see old friends and people around me going and doing and experiencing and I want so badly to join them and I'm so scared that being near them is necessarily going to involve them in this and then they'll be trapped too.

All I want is the help I need to disappear from everyone's lives. If they knew I had a place to stay and access to medicare then they could at least give up this stupid idea that they are responsible for helping me. They try to ignore how hard it is for me to eat because I have not had dental insurance in years and the damage to my stomach still is not undone but still try everything to get me whatever they can to make it easier.

I don't think this is going to get better. I can't handle doing this to everyone around me. I've started to scream at them and hurl abuse, anything I can do to make them leave the me alone and stop getting scared and upset when I won't get out of bed. If I'm going to melt down I don't want to take out everyone around me.

I have no idea what to do. I have been through so many kinds of therapy. EMDR, CBT, DBT, group therapy, talk therapy, medication, meditation, exposure - almost five years of this now and none of it is helping. It's piling everyone in medical debt because they know I have nothing to pay with right now and I can't keep doing this. I want them to accept that this is not going to ever get better and if anything they really need to just stop caring and leave.

I feel so crippled and isolated and lonely. I want to talk to someone who understands and whose face doesn't break down into sadness when I start to talk about what is actually going on. I can't even go back to the psych ward because if I do, they'll want to come visit and try to take care of me and pretend like they aren't missing work and activities and dinners and parties to sit in some horrible school cafeteria for broken people and talk for half an hour in the same set of lies we always do.

And I'm so scared to tell anyone besides them because I get the same reminder every time that if I give up on myself then it really will be my fault. I'm never allowed to be sad or realistic or to reframe what I want in the context of maybe just never being able to be who I was again. Strangers really don't care, they want to expend the least amount of energy possible in getting you to at least pretend like you aren't suffering so they don't have to see it. Therapists, doctors, everyone. They get so angry and exasperated when you still feel hopeless. I didn't know people would actually become angry with me for not wanting to use xanax. It's one of the few things I can use, and I hate it. I'm a worthless addict leaning on a crutch when I use it and I'm a stubborn attention-seeker that doesn't want to get better when I don't.

I'm just stuck and everything is closing in. I don't know how long I can handle the pressure, but I've started to think about ending it again. I don't think at this point anyone can really say that a call from the police would be any more painful than the constant disappointment and tension and sadness and anger. At least that only happens once. This keeps happening every single day. And if I had the means to just get away and stop people from ever having to be near it, I would do it in a heartbeat. If I don't get the means soon, I don't think this is going to last for much longer

 

[krikkit]

Maybe this was a bad idea to post. I think I'm just doing this same thing now to people here. There's not really anything anyone can do. Good luck to everyone else, I hope it goes better for you.

 

[Hashi]

I don't think at this point anyone can really say that a call from the police would be any more painful than the constant disappointment and tension and sadness and anger. At least that only happens once. This keeps happening every single day.

I'd like to very gently say that I don't think you can say this. You can't speak for other people's feelings, you can't know how they would feel. If people in your life feel disappointment and tension and sadness and anger then that means they care. Maybe they'd rather feel those things a thousand times over than get a call from the police. And it doesn't happen once. I'm not trying to guilt trip you about it, I don't believe in doing that, but since you've said this I have to point out that this is something that stays with people. That doesn't mean you should have to put on an act for them, though.

I want to honour how difficult your situation is. Most people seriously struggle with only a part of what you have to deal with. At the same time, I believe that healing is possible for everyone. I also felt that I'd tried everything. I once rang a suicide hotline and kept asking them - what else can I do? I didn't want them to listen to me, I wanted to know what I could possibly do that I hadn't already done. I wanted a practical answer but I knew they didn't have one, because I'd tried so many things and nothing had worked. Somehow, I'm starting to feel better now. But I've had a lot of time in the darkest of places, and trying to deny or hide that wouldn't have helped me.

Something very difficult for me has been how much some people wanted me to take medication. I can understand that they desperately wanted me to feel better, but I didn't feel it was right for me so it was an additional burden to have to disappoint them in this as well.

It seems like people around you can't sit with how you really feel, and that sounds like too much pressure for anyone who's feeling like you are. I think it's what we often have, but the last thing we need, to be put in a position of making other people feel better about how we ourselves are feeling. To be expected to make things more acceptable to them, rather than them accepting the reality for us.

I'm really sorry you're feeling so bad.

Sending you wishes that you find some relief from this.

Hashi

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I hope you come back!

It wasn't a bad idea to post. We have the ability to understand a bit more as we deal with similar symptoms. Your family and friends, while they can be supportive, don't have the ability to see your situation quite like we do....KWIM?

 

[JustBe]

(((Krikkit)))

That's why we choose to be here. We understand the bad stuff. You can't scare us away. We are all here for each other by choice...for the good and bad.

 

[Shellbell]

This is a good place for understanding. People who want to be here to support each other.

I agree with all Hashi said. I'm really sorry you are feeling so bad.

Big hugs if you accept them (((((krikkit))))).

 

[DharmaGirl]

I hope you come back too. We are here to listen and help, and when we are in your place, we can ask for help. We have probably all been somewhere like where you are, if you know what I mean, and we can listen without judgement.

 

[99Phoenix99]

I can't even go back to the psych ward because if I do, they'll want to come visit and try to take care of me and pretend like they aren't missing work and activities and dinners and parties to sit in some horrible school cafeteria for broken people and talk for half an hour in the same set of lies we always do.

And I'm so scared to tell anyone besides them because I get the same reminder every time that if I give up on myself then it really will be my fault. I'm never allowed to be sad or realistic or to reframe what I want in the context of maybe just never being able to be who I was again. Strangers really don't care, they want to expend the least amount of energy possible in getting you to at least pretend like you aren't suffering so they don't have to see it. Therapists, doctors, everyone. They get so angry and exasperated when you still feel hopeless. I didn't know people would actually become angry with me for not wanting to use xanax.

Krikkit,

I'm sorry to hear everything you've been through.

And I know it's not the same.... but I can relate to you in a way.

From the age 15 to my present age of 22 I've been hospitalized more times than I can count from medical problems. Blinded with physical pain I completely isolated myself. I still do most of the time.

And what I hated more than anything else was the lies and the placating gestures. If I was ever pessimistic (even if I was in the hospital on morphine) I would get scolded. Talked down upon. And they wouldn't leave me alone until I repeated whatever feel good thought patterns they were "emitting" to me.

I've even had fights with my doctors because I refused treatment, and I've fought about medications. They wanted to fix the ailments with meds that somewhat helped but made my mental well being hell.

And anytime I tried to talk to family they would break down on me. They still do that.

Again I can't completely understand your situation but I can empathize a great deal.

I hope you're well even though everything sucks right now.

 

[TeaLeaf]

Krikkit- It's awful to be in so much pain and not know when it is going to end. It sounds to me like you are doing the best you can and that's gotta be enough for now, don't be too hard on yourself with where you "should" be. I hear you saying that you don't think this is going to get better but I encourage you to hang on and be open to the possibility that it can get better. It you commit suicide it for sure will not get better for your family, it sounds like they love you and are doing their best to be supportive of you and would miss you terribly if you were gone. Maybe your family would be interested in joining a support group?

Did it help at all being hospitalized? If so, I would encourage you to look into being hospitalized again, you sound like you are really struggling. If you do decide to go, don't feel like your family has to come to visit if you don't want them to. Maybe it would be best for you to not have to feel pressure to be ok when they come to visit?

What do you think about calling a crisis line for support? That can be another resource for help when things are looking hopeless and there aren't any options.

In regards to the doctors and other medical people that don't care or can't handle your hopelessness and anger, that is their issue, not yours. I'm sorry that you have not found a therapist or doctor that you are able to connect with but it is a failure on their part.. Their job is to meet you where you are, be able to tolerate when you don't want to do something, when you are angry, frustrated, feeling hopeless. Their job is to find solutions with you (especially a therapist).

It took forever for my brothers SSDI to finally get started, he ended up getting a check for the months and months he had to wait, I think it was about a year for it to get approved. Keep following up with them on until you get some sort of answer about your benefits. My brother I think initially got denied and then appealed and was approved.

I have not had the exact same experiences as you but I have been at the end of my rope more times than I can count and have thought about suicide many times. It is very difficult to think that things might get better when you are in a place of extreme pain, hopelessness, frustration and anger. Please consider hanging onto hope that things can get better. You are doing the best you can right now, keep doing that and as much as you are able to, reach out for help- crisis line, therapists, doctors, hospitalizations etc.

as Movin'On said "We understand the bad stuff. You can't scare us away. We are all here for each other by choice...for the good and bad." so let us know how you are doing.