I'm Done... and I Don't Care (A Rambling)

It's all rubbish. Who cares anymore? I'm so tired of this all.

Had a therapy session today, my second this week. My regular session is on Mondays and as next Monday is a holiday I requested an additional one. I was hoping for an opening next week, just so I didn't have two weeks to wait as my last one (this past Monday) kind of sucked. See, that was the session I told him I was 'done'. Even as I write this it sounds pathetic, but admitting that I'm 'done', well it rather sucks to be honest. After all, as my therapist so bluntly put it, by 'done' I mean dead. I am done, but unfortunately not really done (because I am -sadly- still alive). Anyway I wound up with one today.

Little did I know todays would be worse than Mondays.

How so? Well before my 'confession' of being 'done' we talked of a few other things, one being whether or not I would continue therapy after I graduate. He asked me what it would be like for me to not have therapy any more. I told him it would be one less thing on my schedule. I didn't tell him I have the vague fear that I will be at a loss, that the thought causes some amount of anxiety. Doing so would have been greatly uncomfortable for me, making me feel ashamed at my seeming 'needieness'. I don't know, I can't explain it, but I couldn't do it. And my inability to admit to what I think of as a weakness proved disastrous.

I needed to talk about Monday, I needed to talk about being 'done' and the distress that being 'done' but still being stuck is causing me. However we were not to get to that for some twenty or thirty minutes into the fifty minute session.
I am a bit unclear as to what exactly we talked about. The gist of it is this: my comment about not having therapy being just one less thing on my schedule did not sit well. There was mention of not making progress, of there being 'ethical' concerns about continuing therapy when progress is not being made. What I came away with is that he took my comment as a sign that we were not getting any where, that there was no point to this. I believe that I managed to hurt the guys feelings to some degree and that's cool, he's entitled to those feelings. It wasn't intended. I didn't mean it that way. In my attempt to avoid feeling stupid and ashamed I managed to totally convey the wrong message. And suffered for it today.

It was horrible. I felt bad for his misunderstanding, and hurt by what I interpreted as his giving up on me. That is what it felt like. Like he had given up, like I had failed. Ugh, I wish I could describe it, all I know is that it sucked.

I left feeling worse than when I went in, and have ten days in which to sit with that. Ten days to continue to abuse myself, harm myself, drown in this pain, remain in this misery... And I don't want to do it any more...

I'm Done

I've thought this quite often recently. I only voiced it yesterday. I am done. D-O-N-E, done. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to go home, but I don't want to stay here. I don't want to be anywhere. Life after university looks like one monotonous existence. 'Get up, survive, go back to bed'. And so I'm done. It's all rather matter of fact really. And the fact that I am done doesn't bother me. I'm OK with it. It feels... I don't know, normal, just... what is. *shrug*

The distressing part (for me any way) is that I'm not REALLY done. That is, I am done, but I'm still here. I'm done , but I still have to function, I still have responsibilities. And it sucks. It sucks to be done and to still exist. It sucks to live day in and day out when you're done. It's not worth it.

Now I suppose such an attitude could seem pretty alarming. No worries y'all, I'm too well medicated to kill myself. Not medicated enough to be OK with living despite the fact that I'm done, but too well medicated to kill myself. The thought has crossed my mind that, if I stop taking my meds I'd get to a point where I COULD... But so far I'm still on my meds and so I'm stuck.

My Drawings, My Feelings

Ramblings of a Medicated (and Yet Still Depressed) Mind

I can't give in. I can't allow this Nothing to totally consume my being (though it has already consumed my Soul), to render me compleatly incapacitated, incapabul of anything more than sleeping, breathing, hurting. I suppose it is strange that I should want this, to just be consumed by this Nothing, this Darkness. But at some point fighting becomes too exhausting. To drown in the Darkness, the Nothing is so much more desirable than continuing to fight it. Going about your life as if everything is OK. Functioning while running on empty. Giving what you don't have. When there is no end in sight, when you can no longer see your future, to be consumed by this Nothing is preferable. It's terrible, to be sure and I very much hope you do not have to know what it feels like (though I know a number of you do). But it's familiar, comforting, in a way. It has no expectations, no demands on your time. The only thing it takes is your life and at that point how much do you really care? With no future what worth does your life have?

To just exist... I want more, and yet am not sure there is more out there... And giving in to this Nothing sounds rather lovely, though unfortunatly impossible. Responsibilities remain. University. Work... it never ends...

Words

It has been brought to my attention that I have a slight preoccupation with words. Not just words as, well, words, but using the correct word to describe something. More than once I have corrected my therapist when he used the 'wrong' word. Most of the time it has to do with feelings. See, I don't do feelings well. I don't like them, I don't describe them very well (at least not the same as others do) and I don't experience them nearly as often as I have been lead to believe is 'Normal'. And so, I suppose, yes, I am particular about my word choice, especially in that context.

I had a meds appointment this morning. As I noted in my last blog the Wellbutrin that has been added to my daily medication has succeded in making the urges to cut and thoughts of suicide much less noticible, however it has also left me feeling flat, colorless, lifeless. I told him that. That is, I told him that it makes me feel 'flat'. He looked at me and said 'You feel empty?'. Since when did flat and empty mean the same thing? The cup is empty, the table is flat. It's not rocket science people. I am very careful when I pick my words especially in therapy or at a doctors appointment. What I say is what I really mean. I use a specific word because that is what it is to me. Disgust does not mean I find something 'icky'(yes, I have actually had that suggested). Lousy is worse than Out of Sorts but not as bad as Awful. And Flat is not Empty.

Vacancy (like a hotel sign, get it ;-)) *insert groan here ______*

I've recently started a new medication in addition to the 200mg of Zoloft (maximum therapeutic dose) I have been taking since last July. Apparently cutting deeply enough to require stitches is something to be worried about... especially when it happens about three weeks in a row.

I'd started on 150 mg of Wellbutrin and spent the first couple weeks exceedingly anxious (a possible side effect). During this time I cut deeply enough on my wrist to necessitate a trip to the ER where I was stitched up and narrowly escaped the confines of a psychiatric ward. I told my therapist that Monday who told other medical staff at some meeting they have to discuss some (not all) of their clients/patients. At my meds appointment that week my Wellbutrin got bumped up to 300 mg and I was told it would go up to 450 mg (maximum therapeutic dose) this week.

Why in the world did I just tell you all about my meds? Should you care? Probably not. And what has it got to do with the title anyway? Let me tell you.

I've been taking the Wellbutrin for almost a month, four days at 300 mg, and I've noticed something. My mood is different. Thoughts of suicide and self injury (for me that's cutting and occasionally burning), while present, appear as ghosts, slightly distressing but not as before. But something else has changed. I've become, for the most part, flat. Colorless, without that spark that animates us as humans. Where as before feelings were hard to recognize, sometimes hard to even feel, I still had my constant Companions Out of Sorts, Lousy, Awful, and Beyond Awful, reminding me that I was human, that I DID feel, that, while Broken, Damaged, I was still able to exist alongside my fellow homo sapien sapiens with a passable disguise that sometimes even fooled myself. Now I seem to be cut off from one of the things that makes us uniquely human: feeling. Don't get me wrong, I get short bursts of feeling often during the day, my Companions reminding me that they are still with me beneath the medicated mantel that has enveloped me. But is that enough? Just a glimpse, just a whisper of reeling? I'll tell you something, it isn't enough for me. I had a relatively good friend pass away this last Friday. She was 24. 24 year olds are not supposed to die, especially of uterine cancer. Know what? I haven't shed a tear. I've not actually FELT bad. Intellectually I know I should. I've had memories come to mind that would usually be accompanied by a torrent of tears. Nothing. Absolute Nothing.

So, two medications (and months of counseling) later I am no longer plagued with the suicidal thoughts and urges to self injure nearly as much as before. But at what cost?

I think, maybe, I would rather stop taking my medication and welcome back my Companions than continue to stay flat, colorless, life less. Maybe out of fear of the unknown? I have lived with these Friends for so long I must admit to some nervousness about life without them. But that is for a later blog...