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...

"Summery of my Time in Hell" OR "What Happened at Mondays Counseling Session" (yet another rant)

Seems that I am in a ranting mood. I apologise for this. Maybe though someone who has not been through such a situation but may in the future will run across this and it will not be so unfamiliar to them as it was to me.

What in the world am I talking about? Have any of y'all been in what mental health professionals like to call a 'crisis situation'? I have. At least, they thought I was. The fact that I wasn't in immediate danger of offing myself seemed to fly directly under their radar. Just a tip before I go on, it is not a good idea to tell your therapist (among other things) that you just aren't sure why folks are so worried about dying, why they cling to life so, after all all life is is waking up, surviving, and going back to bed.

But I digress...

Have I been suicidal in the past? Yes. Have I been suicidal recently? You bet 'cha. Was I, at the time of my session yesterday afternoon suicidal? No, not really. Did thoughts of suicide float through my head yesterday? Yes, they often do. As a matter of fact after I finally got to go home they just got stronger. I was humiliated, after all.

Here's the story:

I went to my normal Monday counseling session... And wound up in the university counseling center for something like 3 1/2 hours... How long is a normal session you ask? 50 minutes. And what took so long? Let me tell you...

First my counselor and one of his supervisors discussed whether or not to call the guy from the county office in (one of the folks that comes and tells you whether or not you need to go to hospital). Once that was decided he needed to be gotten a hold of (which took much longer than either I or my counselor -who had to sit and watch me chip off my nail polish- had figured). Then he and I butted heads for a bit. Mostly on what I was willing to agree to (which wasn't much). As a matter of fact I DISAGREED to one thing that wound up on the 'contract' but was eventually told that if I didn't agree to what he was proposing he would have to 'make some phone calls' (a backward way of saying it was either that or hospital). Come to think of it I didn't really agree with much that wound up on that contract. But giving in kept me out of hospital which means my family doesn't have to know about it.


So,what wound up on the contract?

*No alcohol or 'any other drugs' other than those prescribed to me.
*No cutting (did you know they call razors and knives 'sharps' when they think you're nuts).
*I had to throw out my razor blades (you have no idea how tempted I was to tear apart my shaving razor).
*I've got to go in again today (sadly my counselor is busy so I have to see someone else) so they know I'm still alive and behaving myself and then I've got to call in until my next session with my counselor this Thursday.
*And my room mate had to baby-sit me last night. Actually I think she's kind of got to baby-sit me till Thursday at least... I had to call another friend to come hang out with me while she was at work last night.
*And I had to give my room mate my Tylenol (which she took out and locked in the trunk of her car on the county guys suggestion).
All this to continue until Thursday when I see my counselor again and then we'll go from there.

I am completely and utterly humiliated AND I've got a bill coming that I am sure is going to be rather substantial for services I didn't even want (county guy bullying me for an hour and a half)!!!

The End

Just a Rant...

Exactly what it says. A reaction to my supervisor at work bothering me (AGAIN) about my cutting... Not just toward this one person though...

"For heaven sake, please, JUST STOP!!! Don't you know it makes things WORSE?! Don't fuss, don't care, don't bother! Don't worry about me, don't try and take care of me or figure me out! I cut, yes. I've ODd several times (not that you know that). I've wished to die, seen myself slitting my wrists. I know how many pills I need and the best way to do it. So you have every reason TO worry. But don't. If it happens it happens. There will be no stopping it. It will be a well thought out decision. But you won't be able to stop it. And fussing over me, coddeling me... It just makes things worse. So please, stop. You just push me closer..."