Do you ever just hit a wall?

[erigby]

Dear all,

I have been doing so well with my recovery from depression, an 8 day hospital stay due to SI plans etc. My meds have been working well. I see a therapist once a week. Things have been gradually improving and I have been feeling so much better over the past 2 1/2 months. Then the past two weeks I have felt myself sliding back. I feel like I have hit an emotional wall. I want to cry...a lot...! I am having so many different emotions...all at the same time. No SI but remembering how close I came has been haunting me. It makes me sad. Though grateful I don't feel that way now. Has anyone experienced something like this?
I was doing so well!
I still feel I am doing better but what in the world is happening?

 

[trying to heal]

I did a month in the hospital back in March and came out much better... over last month or so have definitely seen myself sliding back to where I was. Didn't help that my Dr took me off all meds and have finally convinced him to put me back on an antidepressant. Make sure you talk to your T or Dr about how you are feeling. They will probably try to help to put some strategies in place so you don't end up back in that dark place.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

Yes. I hit a wall on a fairly regular basis and can count on at least a weeks worth, if not more, of crippling and paralyzing uncertainty. I can be having the best week/day ever, feeling like I finally might have a handle on this game called life, and then boom! Emotional tsunamis come crashing in and taking me under before I know what's hit me.

I start feeling overwhelming sadness, impending doom, guilt and shame from past behavior of self and others, an overall anger at how so little attention is paid to the little things that lead to overall misery and destruction in the environment, missing out on all the things I never had a chance to do thanks to the abuse, etc., etc. and just wish I could just jump out of my skin and not feel a damn thing anymore.

Instead of trying to avoid it or numb it, however, I now let myself go ahead and hit the wall and feel all the feelings I need to feel to get through it. I call it releasing. Usually needing to use damn near every tool in my therapeutic tool box, and then some, to nurture my way through. Sometimes I fail miserably and just try to sleep as much as I can during those times.

Without healthily releasing and making more space, one hell of a painful back-up starts congesting things up via various physical symptoms often labeled as many other things and it gets harder and harder to navigate the moments. No one ever mentioned or gave us permission to go ahead and feel these things, rather we're taught we need to avoid them and hide them at all costs and just get on with their definition of what life "should" be. That's simply not realistic from what I've experienced. Feelings demand to be felt and the more we try not to feel them, the more insistent they become.

 

[notsurewheretoturn]

Yep. Been building up for a while, hit it yesterday. Police were called because of the meltdown I was having on the phone. Most of my neighbours saw four police officers arrive, then saw two leave, one outside making phone calls to the crisis team. None came over to see if everything was ok.

Saw my dr today, she wants me to go on Sertraline, but the pharmacist said that would mean coming off my current medication for two weeks first. I take st johns wort. She said I could take both together, he said I couldn't. I'm not sure I can go through two weeks of no medication at all with how I'm feeling now. No one is giving me a straight answer.

After leaving the drs I bumped into one of my neighbours, she seemed concerned but got the feeling she was pumping me for information, or I could just be paranoid. But I will be the subject of the local gossip for a while.

Right now, I'm not feeling much at all, not even hunger. I know I'm hungry because my stomach growls, I know I'm tired because I yawn, but I don't really feel any of this right now. I just exist, a human robot on autopilot.

 

[Friday]

There's a lot of 1 step forward, 2 back ...& 2 forward, 1 back... With this business.