I feel trapped
Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 2:34 am
Strap in cause this might be a long one, I'm feeling really desperate and panicked right now.
I'm not sure there was really ever a point when I wasn't depressed but for the last few years it's been an entirely different beast. I was feeling pretty good when I left for college. It was a good school, not a flagship but solid and I was somehow accepted into the honors college (impostor syndrome ahoy, I never felt so out of place). I felt great and confident. It didn't last long.
The first few weeks I only left my room to go to class and get food. Eventually some people from my floor coaxed me into hanging out and I started to make friends but that was a pretty good microcosm of the semester. For a while i did great, for the first time in my life I was even doing all my homework. Then I started sleeping through class. I started sleeping a lot. Like 20 hours some days. I would force myself to wake up and eat and then pass right back out. I failed all my classes and had to come home admitting that I wasn't ready. I haven't been the same since then.
I've been hospitalized 6 times for my mental health, I've tried to kill myself 3 times, I've tried a cocktail of drugs that didn't do anything no matter what the doctor tried. Not even side effects, nothing negative, nothing positive, I might as well have been taking water pills. My experience with therapy has been equally underwhelming. I got along well with my therapist and was comfortable with her but i just don't think it did a whole lot. She was a massive DBT cheerleader and despite how many people swear by it i dont think DBT is right for me.
At this point I just don't know what to do. I will literally die before I step foot in that horrible hospital again. They're incompetent. They've sent me home without treatment plans, they have a rotating door of psychiatrists so no one knows what's going on with anyone's meds, one of the techs said right in front of us that she was scared of schizophrenic people, a tech made a wild and inaccurate extrapolation about something I said and put it in his notes which the entire treatment team took at face value and were reluctant to believe me when I tried to tell them he was reading subtext that just wasn't there, there was a girl there one time who would walk around crying literally all day and the staff acted annoyed with her never once trying to console her that I saw, and another girl told me she was told to quiet down by a nurse while she was having a seizure at night. I haven't experienced any outright abuse there and I like the psychiatrist and psychologist but in every other way the facility is terrible and I will fight the cops before I go back.
Problem with that is i don't live in a large city and there aren't any other options around for inpatient. Okay fine, I've had enough of the inpatient rodeo for one lifetime but like what else can I do? I've essentially given up hope that traditional antidepressants are going to work for me considering I've tried all the ones they're willing to prescribe around here. I'm willing to try another form of therapy but I don't have a lot of confidence in DBT. I'm really disillusioned with the mental health establishment and given how many times they've failed to do their duties, like releasing me after an overdose with no follow up plan, I think that's a fair and rational assessment.
I've been getting increasingly self destructive lately and I don't want it to escalate any more. I feel like if something doesn't get better soon I'm going to die. I'm not currently actively suicidal but I only have so much stamina for this fight. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I just want it to end and if nothing changes I think I don't think I can count on surviving again, if this keeps happening eventually it's going to work. I don't want that, I'm trying really hard to fight it but I'm losing the war. I don't have much left in me to keep doing this.
I feel trapped and out of options. And that's dangerous for me. Any mental health practitioner who works with me is going to have to be able to stomach me questioning and criticizing their theories, models, and treatments because if they can't handle that it'll be a waste of time. I'm analytical, I'm inquisitive, and if I disagree with how they're treating me I'm going to say so. I can't afford not to, at this point it's a matter of life and death. I'm not optimistic about finding someone like that. In my experience medical workers don't like it when you know what's going on. They don't like it when you're on their level. They don't like it when you ask questions or challenge the presumptuous axioms their theories are based on. They dont like smart patients. I'm not a belligerent person. I'm very slow to anger but I have no patience for condescension and that's all they give me. "How dare the lunatic challenge me!?" As if I'm not the one going through this for half of my entire life so far. In fact the one psychologist who has been happy to meet me at my level and take me seriously when I say I know what's going on is the only one to have any lasting impact. Sadly he's the inpatient psychologist so I wont be seeing him ever again if I get my way.
Maybe I'm being too pessimistic and my judgment is clouded by bad experiences but I'm so used to getting a look of "no one told me how to deal with this" when I have any medical or psychological knowledge or when I dare to have my own ideas that don't work with their textbooks. I'm worried I'm coming off a bit arrogant but that's not my intent. In fact my self esteem is pretty much nonexistent. My point is just that a lot of medical professionals seem to love power trips and hate it when you act like an equal. My ex girlfriend was treated like an idiot by a doctor when she tried to discuss pharmacology with him until he learned she's a mathematician. I'm not saying they're all like that, I have complete faith in my cardiac treatment team, but the local medical scene is nose diving in quality lately and mental health seems to be the first department to start giving out completely.
I dont even know what I'm talking about any more. I'm not even sure if I just wanted to vent my pessimism or if I actually expect anyone to have any answers for me. I know there's no magic button to make depression go away. But I can't even take care of myself most days. Even if it just gets moderately better I'll be able to deal with it. Just enough that I can keep a job without having a complete breakdown after a few months. So I can at least pretend to be normal. God I just dont want to die and I dont see any other way out. I'm afraid.
I'm not sure there was really ever a point when I wasn't depressed but for the last few years it's been an entirely different beast. I was feeling pretty good when I left for college. It was a good school, not a flagship but solid and I was somehow accepted into the honors college (impostor syndrome ahoy, I never felt so out of place). I felt great and confident. It didn't last long.
The first few weeks I only left my room to go to class and get food. Eventually some people from my floor coaxed me into hanging out and I started to make friends but that was a pretty good microcosm of the semester. For a while i did great, for the first time in my life I was even doing all my homework. Then I started sleeping through class. I started sleeping a lot. Like 20 hours some days. I would force myself to wake up and eat and then pass right back out. I failed all my classes and had to come home admitting that I wasn't ready. I haven't been the same since then.
I've been hospitalized 6 times for my mental health, I've tried to kill myself 3 times, I've tried a cocktail of drugs that didn't do anything no matter what the doctor tried. Not even side effects, nothing negative, nothing positive, I might as well have been taking water pills. My experience with therapy has been equally underwhelming. I got along well with my therapist and was comfortable with her but i just don't think it did a whole lot. She was a massive DBT cheerleader and despite how many people swear by it i dont think DBT is right for me.
At this point I just don't know what to do. I will literally die before I step foot in that horrible hospital again. They're incompetent. They've sent me home without treatment plans, they have a rotating door of psychiatrists so no one knows what's going on with anyone's meds, one of the techs said right in front of us that she was scared of schizophrenic people, a tech made a wild and inaccurate extrapolation about something I said and put it in his notes which the entire treatment team took at face value and were reluctant to believe me when I tried to tell them he was reading subtext that just wasn't there, there was a girl there one time who would walk around crying literally all day and the staff acted annoyed with her never once trying to console her that I saw, and another girl told me she was told to quiet down by a nurse while she was having a seizure at night. I haven't experienced any outright abuse there and I like the psychiatrist and psychologist but in every other way the facility is terrible and I will fight the cops before I go back.
Problem with that is i don't live in a large city and there aren't any other options around for inpatient. Okay fine, I've had enough of the inpatient rodeo for one lifetime but like what else can I do? I've essentially given up hope that traditional antidepressants are going to work for me considering I've tried all the ones they're willing to prescribe around here. I'm willing to try another form of therapy but I don't have a lot of confidence in DBT. I'm really disillusioned with the mental health establishment and given how many times they've failed to do their duties, like releasing me after an overdose with no follow up plan, I think that's a fair and rational assessment.
I've been getting increasingly self destructive lately and I don't want it to escalate any more. I feel like if something doesn't get better soon I'm going to die. I'm not currently actively suicidal but I only have so much stamina for this fight. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I just want it to end and if nothing changes I think I don't think I can count on surviving again, if this keeps happening eventually it's going to work. I don't want that, I'm trying really hard to fight it but I'm losing the war. I don't have much left in me to keep doing this.
I feel trapped and out of options. And that's dangerous for me. Any mental health practitioner who works with me is going to have to be able to stomach me questioning and criticizing their theories, models, and treatments because if they can't handle that it'll be a waste of time. I'm analytical, I'm inquisitive, and if I disagree with how they're treating me I'm going to say so. I can't afford not to, at this point it's a matter of life and death. I'm not optimistic about finding someone like that. In my experience medical workers don't like it when you know what's going on. They don't like it when you're on their level. They don't like it when you ask questions or challenge the presumptuous axioms their theories are based on. They dont like smart patients. I'm not a belligerent person. I'm very slow to anger but I have no patience for condescension and that's all they give me. "How dare the lunatic challenge me!?" As if I'm not the one going through this for half of my entire life so far. In fact the one psychologist who has been happy to meet me at my level and take me seriously when I say I know what's going on is the only one to have any lasting impact. Sadly he's the inpatient psychologist so I wont be seeing him ever again if I get my way.
Maybe I'm being too pessimistic and my judgment is clouded by bad experiences but I'm so used to getting a look of "no one told me how to deal with this" when I have any medical or psychological knowledge or when I dare to have my own ideas that don't work with their textbooks. I'm worried I'm coming off a bit arrogant but that's not my intent. In fact my self esteem is pretty much nonexistent. My point is just that a lot of medical professionals seem to love power trips and hate it when you act like an equal. My ex girlfriend was treated like an idiot by a doctor when she tried to discuss pharmacology with him until he learned she's a mathematician. I'm not saying they're all like that, I have complete faith in my cardiac treatment team, but the local medical scene is nose diving in quality lately and mental health seems to be the first department to start giving out completely.
I dont even know what I'm talking about any more. I'm not even sure if I just wanted to vent my pessimism or if I actually expect anyone to have any answers for me. I know there's no magic button to make depression go away. But I can't even take care of myself most days. Even if it just gets moderately better I'll be able to deal with it. Just enough that I can keep a job without having a complete breakdown after a few months. So I can at least pretend to be normal. God I just dont want to die and I dont see any other way out. I'm afraid.