Treatment Records

how am I supposed to be happy? how am I supposed to want to keep going? I don't have anything to live for anymore.  I don't have a lab to work in.  I don't have classes to struggle through.  I don't know if I still have friends.  I miss people and can't bring myself to accept that.  I'm not where I'm supposed to be, because I failed to stick to my plan.  I don't have access to professional support.  I don't have the will to take any more antidepressant than what is necessary to stave off withdrawal.  I don't like anything about myself. I don't have any redeeming qualities. Loving bees isn't enough. how am I supposed to be happy?

1. Shotgun, head - 99% - 1.7 min  2. Toxins, cyanide - 97% - 1.8 min 3. Gunshot, head - 97% - 2.5 min 4. Shotgun, chest - 96.4% - 1.4 min 5. Explosives - 96.4% - 1.6 min 6. Impact, train - 96.2% - 17.9 min 7. Impact, great height - 93.4% - 4.6 min 8. Gunshot, chest - 89.5% - 7 min 9. Hanging - 89.5% - 7 min 10. Impact, car crash - 78.5% - 20 min 11.  Toxins, household - 77.5% - 24 min 12. Fire, self immolation - 76.5% - 57 min 13. Fire, structure - 73% - 52.5 min 14. Toxins, carbon monoxide - 71% - 21.5 min 15. Impact, automobile - 70% - 19 min 16. Electrocution - 65.5% - 2.4 min 17. Gunshot, abdomen - 65% - 69 min 18. Drowning, ocean/lake - 63% - 18.5 min 19. Stabbing, chest - 58.5% - 96 min 20. Cutting, throat - 51.5% - 15.5 min 21. Overdosing, illegal drugs - 49.4% - 116 min 22. Suffocation - 23% - 7 min 23. Drowning, bathtub - 21.5% - 18.5 min 24. Drowning, swimming pool - 21.5...

The rest of my life stretches out ahead of me like a dark, gaping void. No amount of plans can change that perception; I don't know what lay in the future. My life has no structure, and no goals, and nothing to work towards. I'm still just as unwell as ever, with no real access to ways of helping myself. No longer can I meet with a counselor whenever I want, or see a psychiatrist once a week, once every other week. I'm not okay. I'm fragile. I have to hide it. The real rub of all this is that that old urge - that deep desire  to no longer exist is stronger than it's been in a long time, and now more than ever, it would be easy for me to make myself disappear. It would be no challenge to take grams of salts with me, ride a bus out somewhere far away from home, walk into the forest, and be done with it all. It would be easy. I have the means. But I can't. Death isn't an option. I can't do that, not here, not in such close proximity to my family. Being so t...

It's an inevitability.  I knew it would happen.  It had to happen.  There's no avoiding it. And it has absolutely, positively nothing to do with me.  KH is moving out. Favorite Person - she's leaving. I know that this has nothing to do with me, and yet there's a wave of hurt. Like it's my fault she's moving across the country, not that the lease on the townhouse is ending and she's starting grad school. This is something that I've been bracing myself for for months now, but now that it's only a few days away, now that there are only a few days left where my emotional anchor is still in close proximity, a few days left before I won't see her again for God knows how long, if I ever see her again - none of my preparation feels like it'll do any good. I can feel in my bones that next week will be one of the hardest that I've endured.  The loud, irrational feeling that this is all my fault and that she's abandoning me and that  I...

What do you do when the person you're most dependent upon emotionally is also your worst trigger? What do you do when every good memory you have with your favorite person has been contaminated by fear? What do you do when revisiting places you've gone with one of your closest friends is enough to trigger anxiety attacks? What do you do? 

I have no name and I have no face.  I have no form, no person. No abilities, no character.  I have no skills. I have no purpose. I have no circle. I have no connections. I have no people. I have no support. I have no roles to play. All I have are a handful of letters. I am my disorders, and my disorders are me. 

✓ A persistent, intense fear of abandonment, including extreme efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment ✓ A history of unstable relationships that can change drastically from intense love and idealization to intense hate ✓ Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self ✓ Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating ✓ Self-harming behavior ✓ Recurring thoughts of suicidal behaviors ✓ Intense and highly changeable moods ✓ Chronic feelings of emptiness and isolation ✓ Inappropriate, intense anger, such as being sarcastic or bitter ✓ Difficulty trusting, accompanied by irrational fear of other people’s intentions ✓ Feelings of dissociation ✓ Periods of stress-related paranoia and loss of contact with reality ✓ Rapid changes in self-identity and self-image, such as seeing yourself as bad or as if you don't exist at all ✓ Strong feelings of anxiety, worry an...

i'm sorry that i've been a burden to you  i'm sorry that i'm paranoid, possessive, jealous, overly sensitive, and insecure i'm sorry that your friendships with other people makes me anxious and upset i'm sorry that i'm neurotic and i'm sorry that i overthink everything you say and do i'm sorry that i'm afraid you secretly hate me  i'm sorry that i need to be reassured that you don't  i'm sorry that i'm so, so deeply afraid that you'll abandon me one day i'm sorry that i need to be reassured that you won't  i'm sorry that i can't help any of this  i don't like the way that i am but i don't know how to be better  i don't know if being better is even possible  i'm afraid that you'll never want to see me again once you move away  i'm sad that you don't want to spend time with me anymore  i'm sad that i'm too anxious to talk to you in person  i'm ...

Thus far, Cymbalta has made me nauseated and little else. I've noted in the past few days a deep and clear separation between more "normal" thinking and thoughts more characteristic of my depressed mood (including but in no way limited to intense suicidality and profound terror in regards to multiple aspects of my current and tenuous future friendship with KH). It's as though I'm listening to two radically different songs being played concurrently while understanding both, allowing myself to discuss one, and being able to turn off neither. Not enough time has elapsed to be able to say if this is due to the new drug, an effect of being in a different location (I took a brief, desperate five day vacation back home to Chicago), or just an odd fluke. Most probable is that the sort of separation, compartmentalization even, that I'm experiencing is a result of locale and nothing else. I don't anticipate that it will be maintained once I have returned to Carbonda...

Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Remeron, Prozac, and now Cymbalta. Six different psychotropic drugs that I've tried in the past 16 months. The more drugs I try, the less hope I have that anything will work. I don't anticipate that the Cymbalta will do me any good. I'm tired and I'm hopeless. I'm broken in ways that medicine can't fix, and there's nothing that I can do to help myself. I don't know why I even bother fighting anymore. This is a losing battle in a war that I can't win. With no supports, there's no reason to not quit. It isn't like I can't be replaced. 

What if I lose my battle when there is no longer anyone around to find me?

Why do you have to get so upset about the littlest things? Of course they went somewhere without telling you anything; you should just expect to be left out by now, and even if you aren't, you ought to know that you aren't capable of being a part of that group anyhow. Just get over yourself. Drink more. Nothing matters, you'll never be happy and you'll never be socially fulfilled. They probably do it on purpose. They know how badly you want to be a member, and they don't care about that at all. They probably know how much it hurts you, and they probably smirk at the thought. Just accept that neither Curly nor KH will want anything to do with you after you part ways. You're just a burden to them, and the sooner they can forget about you, the better.  Drink more. You know that you can't do anything to fix this. You can't fix yourself, you can't fix your illness, you can't fix your friendships. Drink more. Get over it. You know that no one thinks ...

Every morning that I wake up, now, I wake up wanting to scream. Mornings are increasingly times when I feel most powerless, most worthless, most like a burden to the people around me. Most desperately needing to talk to someone, but most terrified to tell anyone exactly what goes on in my head.  If I make an attempt on my life in the near future, it'll be around sunrise. This much I know. Mornings, now, are the times when I feel closest to that divider between this world and the next, and the least inclined to keep continuing to fight to keep myself on this side of it. The end is the ultimate path of least resistance, and I don't know how long I'll have the willpower to walk a more difficult road. I don't care that things might get better, because everything is hard now, and I can't foresee them getting any easier any time soon. Eventually isn't a goal to work towards; it offers no comfort. I don't know what to do. 

What's the point of fighting anymore? You can't actually fix anything.  No one gives a shit about you. Why do you even bother? They don't care is you live or die. Nobody does. You know this. If they cared people would talk to you, and do they? No. Never. Only Curly ever actually checks in to see how you're doing, and that's probably out of some sort of pity more than anything.  KH definitely doesn't give a shit what happens. She probably wants you gone more than anyone else does. She just won't say it. Why bother going to grad school? Why bother with anything? You know that you're gonna end it before your twenties are over, why waste money on something that won't lead anywhere?  She doesn't give a shit, just like everyone else. If she did she'd talk to you. And she doesn't. Nothing actually matters, you might as well give up.  You should carry cyanide with you wherever you go, because you deserve the reminder that you're wor...

What if I finally decide one day to just disappear? What if I gather my things one day and just set off with no destination in mind? What if I just leave without a trace? How long would it take for my roommates to notice? Would anyone care? Curly would, that much I know, but would KH? How long would it take for anyone to worry? To act? What if no one looks for me?

My mind feels like it's full of fog, and convincing my thoughts to coalesce into words is challenging right now. Nonetheless, here I try. A lot right now hurts and aches, and for once, it's due to an external truth and not some distortion that my depression whispers to me. KH has officially stated that she'll not go on the trip up to Chicago for the Pride parade that I've had in the works since winter break and have been excited about for just as long. I'm aware that she likely doesn't care about how I feel about it, but given that my whole aim of this trip was and to spend time with my favorite people that I met as an undergrad (and my favorite people that I met in high school) and that I was always incredibly transparent that that was my goal, her choosing to not be a part of this feels like a betrayal of sorts. I know that there's nothing that can be done on my part to change this, and that the way I feel about her participation plays no role whatsoever i...

The worst of the psychological parts of stopping Wellbutrin ended a couple days ago, and I get the sense that the worst of the entire process has passed. I feel considerably better now than I have in quite a long time, with the most marked improvements being a dramatic reduction in my anxiety, a general increase in my ability to be productive, and a return in my appetite. The changes are all very welcome, to varying degrees; that being said, the most difficult thing to adjust to now is actually feeling compelled to act when I get the sense that I need to eat. It feels like I've been constantly hungry since Sunday, even after eating way too much, and I need to figure out how best to keep this in check. The biggest thing, though, has been noticing just how much of my perception regarding social dynamics has been so thoroughly tainted  by the anxiety that I'm now aware was generated by the Wellbutrin. At least for now, the generalized feeling that KH wants me gone is at the lowest...

Symptoms of withdrawal from Wellbutrin officially began yesterday - Thursday evening - and I don't have anyone that I can call on that can or will help make things easier. It feels like absolutely no one cares about how I'm doing, and like I can't tell anyone how I'm doing anyway. It's as though I'm trapped in every sense of the term. I'm trapped in my physical space. I'm trapped in my mind. I'm trapped by withdrawal - the only way to alleviate symptoms is to start taking Wellbutrin again, and that isn't an option. Knowing rationally that the reason why I feel as awful as I do is because my central nervous system is going  haywire in the absence of the drug boosting concentrations of neurotransmitters doesn't help at all. Right now, I can't logic away the feeling that there is no one in the world that's concerned about my well-being. I can't reason away the sensation that KH would be completely, utterly, thoroughly glad if I bit ...

The fog lifts, if for a moment, in burning alcohol and garnet pearls glistening against skin. Clarity and stillness beget by measured pain; weakness as safe haven.

I need to scream. Something, something profound and dark - something terrifies me right now, and I don't know what it is.  Everything in me wants to scream right now.  And I don't have anyone that I can talk this out with.  I have no mouth, and I must scream.  It feels like I'm starting to go insane. I don't like this. I don't know how to handle this. There's no one that I can turn to for help. First depersonalizing so badly I miss class, now this, this anxiety through the roof? What's next? I can't deal. I need help, and I don't know where to get it. 

2:10am. I'm going under, struggling to cope, desperate to be alive and hating living all the same. My life is increasingly becoming polarized between the desire to scream until my throat bleeds and wanting to drink until I'm unconscious, and I hate it, because it seems like nothing I do or say or change has any impact on anything. I'm a sheep marching to slaughter and every bit I fight the process speeds me to the inevitable end.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need a drink.  I need...

Having depression is draining, but so is the process of finding a long-term management plan that actually works.  In the past year, I've tried three different antidepressants - two alone and one combination. Lexapro (escitalopram) was the first, and while it seemed to help at first, it was ultimately ineffective, and I ended up switching to something else after four, five months. Then I tried Wellbutrin (bupropion) alone, and it was the same story, though it seemed effective for longer. For less than two weeks, I gave a combination of Wellbutrin and Effexor (venlafaxine) a try, and that was horrific. Dr. Gilbert's recommendation was to take the lowest dose of Effexor for about 5 more days before stopping, but I think that one more day is all I can take. The drug gave me a continuous headache that ranged in intensity from annoying to so severe that I quite literally could not get out of bed and missed most of my classes last week as  result. On top of that, it's completely...

One of the most prominent characteristics of my depression is and always has been the intractable feeling that no one cares about me in general. The closer I am to any given person, the stronger and more distressing that feeling is. While it never fully goes away, just being asked how I'm doing helps a ton in alleviating that sense, and by extension improving my headspace a little bit for a little while. All that being said, no one ever really checks in with me - KH doesn't, and Curly generally doesn't if I'm not clearly agitated - and asking people to do so makes me feel like a pest. Even though it is the one small thing that almost anyone can do to help me, even if I don't really have an answer or, worst case scenario, I'm so deep in an episode that I'm physically and mentally incapable of really responding.  I think that being asked how I'm doing is so deeply reassuring because when I ask someone that, I genuinely am concerned about their wel...

" You're a fucking alcoholic. Do you want to be like Loretta? Because Loretta does that shit. " This is what a friend of mine said to me when she came to my place last night, partly to check up on me - I'd sent her a string of increasingly unhappy and kind of distressed messages - and partly to be supportive, because I felt like garbage and my outlook was correspondingly bleak. And she's almost right; I've recognized my own alcoholic tendencies for a while now, though I haven't exactly done much by way of keeping them in check. Whatever part of the brain that typically goes hey, maybe I shouldn't drink an entire bottle of wine on a Wednesday and while I'm dehydrated doesn't work in me, because drink an entire bottle of wine on a Wednesday while dehydrated is exactly what I did. I'm a lot less concerned about my drinking habits than I probably should be, considering. Downing a whole bottle of wine in a sitting, desiring to get still more alc...

My world is on fire and more often than not, it feels good to fan those flames onto the people around me. I know that it's not a good thing to do, and it's generally something that I try to keep contained when possible, but I would be a liar if I said that loosening my resolve and turning into a ball of thorns to the people close to me doesn't feel good . It's something that I discussed with my counselor last semester - at least the ball of thorns bit, not it feeling good. I know why I do it; it gives justification to the feeling that people don't want me around, which in turn stems from the feeling of being unworthy of the friendship of those that for some reason haven't gotten rid of me already. Be nasty, be mean, push them away - do that before they have opportunity to ruin you. Be a ball of thorns and be lonely but not hurt, because people will always cause hurt, it's all people are capable of, it's all they want to do. Or at least that's how the...

I feel like I'm trying to get somewhere that I've never been to without a map or a clear idea of where I'm going. I'm frustrated to tears and I just want to make things right, even if I don't know exactly how.

I drink way too much.  That much is becoming clear to me. Sure, I've never blacked out, been hungover, or thrown up, but I still drink too much nonetheless.  It's never a reasonable amount. It's always a binge - half, an entire bottle of wine; three or four ciders in under an hour; not stopping until I can feel that my equilibrium is affected. I'm not even sure anymore what my motivations for quaffing multiple glasses of wine in a sitting are. I used to get a sort of pleasant fuzziness in my head, a soft block on all the garbage that normally churns around, but not anymore. At best, my thoughts are slower, and my tongue is looser, which is a help because while I've always had a hard time voicing my thoughts/feelings, it's become especially pronounced lately. The old benefits don't happen anymore, but the reflex remains. Even though there's an awareness that my coping habit is beyond unhealthy, I'm reluctant to outright stop, even though it's ...

My worst dreams are never the nightmares that leave me feeling thoroughly unsettled for days after, where the amorphous, unstated fears and anxieties I try not to address in waking decide to wreak havoc in my sleep. No, my worst dreams are the ones that are objectively normal in every sense of the term, because they're of a reality that I desperately wish were mine. I dream about being happy, and most prominently, about being easy friends with my roommates. All of them, even Dave, who in life is on the extremely short list of people I actively dislike. I dream about laughing, about sharing meals, about sitting outside and watching the antics of the dogs. One such dream played out last night. The two details that stand out in my memory are of watching Morris (the chihuahua puppy that Curly and Favorite Person are fostering at present [I don't feel comfortable using an inclusive "we" here because those two are doing all the work {I'm somewhere between annoyed and hu...

Originally, today's post was going to be on how I've been feeling somewhat better over the past couple of days. I'd planned on musing on how the urge to harm myself had lessened, how I didn't feel a strong compulsion to drink, how the endless ruminating on death and how best to bring about my own was less constant. That's changed. I've returned to how I've been. I made it home a bit earlier than I usually do yesterday, early enough that there was still activity in the house. Likewise, I turned in earlier than I normally do, and for a while, as I worked to quiet my thoughts for long enough to fall asleep, I found it impossible to tear my attention away from the conversations happening in other rooms. The apartment's walls are paper-thin, and I can hear essentially anything said on my floor or on the main level.  I found the sounds of voices incredibly loud. They were no higher in volume than normal, and yet the discussions were intolerably loud. Aside f...

Everything hurts, and I want to die.  This has been my mantra for the past month or so. I'm not sure anymore if it's a statement of how I am at present, or some sort of prayer for relief put out to the universe.  Wellbutrin does not work for me anymore.  I don't have access to counseling anymore - not the kind of extended counseling I need.  I can't try to voice what's going on in my head to Favorite Person anymore, and after the way that things have soured between us, I'm terrified to completely open up to anyone else.  It's getting harder and harder to maintain an image of being okay to the people I work with.  I've been somewhere in that grey area between being passively suicidal and actively suicidal for over a month now, and I can feel myself spending more and more time in the latter region.  Fantasizing about suicidal gestures is a continuous background process, no matter how I may be doing at the moment or what may be going on....

Each day that passes reduces my faith that things will get better. This evening, I began drafting the letters I would leave behind, should my pain finally reach the point of completely exceeding my ability to cope. Favorite Person, Curly, Soul Sister, my mother, my father, my dear sister, my grandmother. Other friends that have touched my life in some way. They will all have some last vestige of me, once I've gone. If I leave. A normal person would be deeply disturbed by this, by the urge to begin putting down the thoughts I'll leave behind, but this feels more like an inevitability than anything. It's as though the whole of my existence has led to my inhabiting the depths of distress that drives people to contemplate ending their own lives.  It's truly a strange state to exist in. There's the continued awareness that this...this urge  is completely nonsensical, and that it won't actually solve anything, and that regardless of what the depression tells me, oth...

I'm not getting any better. This morning, the intense, desperate desire to die was a horrible complement to the empty hopelessness that I'm all too familiar with. For the first time in a while, I was completely unable to attend any of my classes today, and didn't have the energy to leave the house until nearly 6pm. I'm used to this sort of thing happening over the weekend, but having that sort of smothering, heavy distress come over me on a day when I have responsibilities to attend to is frightening. I already know that I struggle to take proper care of myself, not eating, drinking, socializing, or exercising nearly as much as I should, but having this kind of nonfunctionality during a time it doesn't typically happen makes me afraid that I'm slipping into being completely unable to care for myself in any regard.  I'm deeply afraid that I'm getting to the point of needing to be admitted. Favorite Person has asked if I've looked into inpatient trea...

More than anything, this blog is feeling less like a record of my experience than a gaping hole to toss thoughts I can't otherwise express into. Hardly anyone will read these, so whatever I say here is more or less shouting into an infinite void that will never respond, no matter how much I want it to. I know that a lot of people talk to themselves more or less continuously in their minds, but I wonder how many have to endure a constant internal war between two mutually exclusive perspectives. A constant war where you have no idea which side is real, or if either side is real, or if anything that goes on can be trusted in any capacity. It's a miracle that I'm able to function at all when I can't trust any thought that crosses my mind. She doesn't give a shit about you, and she probably never has. Probably wants you gone, out of her space, out of her life.         She does care, she just needs space. You know exactly the toll you've taken; she deserves to take...

Hello, anyone that reads this. I'm not really in a state much better than I was when the last post was published. I felt for a while that today was going to be a good one, but the feeling evaporated once I was fully awake. This is the kind of thing that a normal person would be concerned about, but this is my standard; it's the state I occupy most frequently now. I have no appetite. I very rarely speak to anyone more than once a day. I hardly see other people; days go by between sightings of or interactions with my roommates, and no one  seems to be hugely concerned about how withdrawn I am now, more so than normal. They probably are, or at least one is, but I don't see it. Or, more likely, I can't see it. I seldom get enough sleep, and when I do, I wake up still feeling unrested. I don't see much of a future ahead of me for myself. There are things that I still want to do and experience, but I don't believe that any potential joy or sense of achievement that I ...

Hello, anyone that for some reason is still reading this blog. It's been quite a while since the last time I posted anything, and I'm not going to fill you in on what's happened in that time. None of that is important. What is important, though, is that my thoughts have been turning to suicide more and more frequently as of late. It's a vague desire to not be here anymore, a sense that everyone would be better off if I were no longer here. I no longer have people to discuss these feelings with, and not having a real outlet intensifies the feeling. My out plan has existed for years now, just getting more refined over time. I would park myself on the bathroom floor, down the largest bottle of the strongest sleeping pills I can find, and follow it with as much good wine as I can stomach. I don't know if it would be quick or painless, but if I timed things right, it would work. Handwritten notes for the handful of people that are still important to me would be left on m...