Planning - what would you do?

[funnymum71]

I've been planning my death tomorrow, all day today. I am in contact with services and they had made me promise not to do anything over xmas as it would fuck up my children and ruin christmas for them forever. My brain has decided that tomorrow would be OK as its not christmas any more. I don't want to contact the crisis team again. I don't want to make myself look even more of a needy idiot than I have been doing over the last few weeks. I hate being like this. Its so far removed from the well me that sometimes I don't even recognise the person I've become or the way that I'm behaving.

I have made plans. I've even worked out what I will write to my other half and what I will write to the children. This isn't good. I know that it will fuck them up whether or not its christmas, so why am I doing this? Why do I feel like there's no way out. I'm so tired of the whole fucking thing.

[funnymum71]

reading this back made me think about how stupid I was sounding. I called the crisis team, told them what was going on and they're coming out 1st thing tomorrow and have also told me to take more valium tonight. Thats a much better plan.
ignore me. I'll get through this.

[Millie2013]

Sounds like you could do with someone to hold your hand tonight :offers hand:

xx

[Millie2013]

Duh, didn't realise that : and o made a silly smiley!! But you know what I mean x

[Selks]

So glad that you have called the crisis team - that was the right thing to do. Wishing you strength. Be kind to yourself tonight, and keep thinking of your children.

[funnymum71]

thanks for replying. I told my DH that I had the crisis team coming out first thing tomorrow as I wasn't feeling so good. He finds it hard to deal with. He finds all of my illness hard to deal with. I do wonder how much longer he'll put up with it. I don't blame him as I know I wouldn't have the patience that he does with me.

Millie the ffers made me smile. I'm starting to wonder what the crisis team can actually do other than keep feeding me valium in the hope that this is going to get better. they keep reminding me that it has got better before and it has, but everytime it goes wrong again I just get so down at the thought of being stuck like this forever.

[jessjessjess]

Please consider calling Samaritans on 116123.

The crisis team won't think you are needy. They are there to help you.

[jessjessjess]

OP it's not going to be okay for your children just because it's not xmas.

Please keep reaching out for the help you need

[amillionyears]

It sounds like, [as another MN who replies on here often says], it is the ill ness that is talking.

Glad you have got the crisis team coming tomorrow.

[Millie2013]

How did it go with the crisis team? Thinking of you x

[funnymum71]

I spent over 2 hours with someone from the crisis team and the psych today. I'm keeping up with taking the tranquilisers. Someone is going to call me later tonight to see how I'm doing and then tomorrow my Care-co & someone from the CT are going to visit me as well. They've put me onto daily contact as I'm high risk.

The psych wants to sign me off work for a month and I just don't think that I can do that as I just can't afford to to take time off work, both financially and in terms of keeping my job. The only way I would take the time off is if they forced my hand by admitting me, but thats the one thing they won't do as while it will give me head-space it won't actually address any of the problems, so its a bit of a stand off.

I've been here before and I've got through it, so I just need to keep plugging away until it gets better. DH and the DCs are out at the moment and my first thought was to go out too, but I called the CT instead and talked to them, so something somewhere wants me to keep going.

I want my life back. I managed to stay well for nearly 10 years before, but have been going down for so long this time its taking a long time to get back to where I should be.

Thankfully I still have my sense of humour. If that goes I'm really fucked.

[amillionyears]

Glad you are getting some help.

Keep plugging away, and hopefully you will feel a lot more like you normally do, soon.

[Millie2013]

I'm pleased that there are people out there, helping in real time. Have a think through your options re. some time off work, I am guessing that you don't have to decide anything right now

Still here to hold your hand xx

[funnymum71]

I really feel like my life is turning into a slow moving car crash. I'm watching all of the pieces fall down around my ears in slow motion as I'm standing in the middle of it all.

I'm on daily Crisis Team visits. They're telling me to apply for DLA as I am not well enough to carry on working at the same level. They've arranged a carers assessment for my DH and want to set up a meeting with the CAB where they'll take me along to discuss what can be done about my mortgage and finances if I can't keep up with my job. They want me to be signed off again.

Crash, crash, crash, crash, crash.

Suddenly I'm back to being a fucking vunerable adult again who has constant supervision either from her DH or sodding professionals to make sure I don't do anything to myself. I'm entering a world of benefits and external support agencies that I never thought I'd ever need to touch on.

I'm educated to post grad level. I've had a successful career. I have a fucking senior management Job, I speak at conferences, mentor people in other companies and in the community. I am NOT the person who I am at the moment.

Now I'm going to have an accompanied visit to the fucking CAB. Ha. Ha. Except its not funny.

I WANT MY LIFE BACK!!!!!!!! I want the life I had before I got ill back. Not the one I have now on never ending fucking medication and support and people taking over my fucking care. I want to me the me who kicks arse and is massively sociable and who manages a department and doesn't spend all day wanting to jump of bridges or in front of trains.

Its like I've stopped being me and I'm just a parody of someone who used to be OK. I want my life back. I hate the person I am when I'm ill. I really, really hate it.

[xmasbanana]

Are your thoughts of jumping from a bridge intrusive thoughts or real wishes? I have had intrusive thoughts of self harm. I have selfharmed in my past but never so much I would actually die. Have you ever tried to kill yourself with real intention?


My career crashed 10 years ago. I was bright student but I got ill. I managed somehow to get phd but no successfull career to speak of. I can't take stress so I can't take managial jobs (i have been offered).

[Fluffydressinggown]

You can do this, telling people and accepting the support means you can get back on your feet, your world might look a bit different afterwards, but it will be ok.

I have had a similar thing career wise and it is just horrid, really soul destroying stuff, but you are more than your job.

Take care of yourself.

[Hoophopes]

Hi - can you get signed off for a month, in order to see how you stabilise and then return to work if ok.

Your company must have sick pay? You would not lose your job if your gp signed you off with stress for example - especially if you saw OH and told them you were starting taking medication to help you and hoped to return to work. Even if you ended up having to stop or change careers, if you have a job with sick pay would it not be sensible to take the full 6months or so of full sick pay rather than waiting for DLA money to be sorted, or other benefits? A few months off work, with CT and CPN support may be what you need. You are entitled to a phased return to work and OH support.

If you have worked at such a level for so long, one crisis does not mean immediate stopping of job. You say you want your life back and control, so why not find out what your work sickness policy is?? Why not get signed off work and take it from there. People do burn out in jobs, do need time off - that is why jobs have sickness pay, or at least statutory sickness pay by the government.

Or can you take holiday days, that is paid work without work knowing you are ill?

[funnymum71]

Hoop - I've already had 7 months off sick this year, with a 2 month phased return, the second of which came out of my holiday allowance. Sadly, its not burn-out, its a diagnosed MH condition, which up until this year I'd been able to manage and had overcome for the last 20+ years, but this year caught up with me.

The reality of me taking more time off work is no pay, when I'm the main wage earner and probably a lengthy competency procedure where they push me out of my job as I'm not able to do it any longer.

I just feel like I'm running out of options.

[EmilyMurphyLegallyAPerson]

oh, sweetheart. You are so much more than your job. you really are. I know you don't feel that right now but it's true. You just need to hang on. We'll be here with you every hour that you need us. x

[Hoophopes]

Hi, you may have had lots of time off this year, but has Occupational Health suggested any alternatives? Would you be able to get your hours reduced at work, which may be more money than benefits - only if you could manage the hours? I had to go part-time due to mental health issues also. It is great you managed for over 20years.

Hope your mental health treatment and support helps you during this time.

[funnymum71]

I've made it through xmas and new year - go me. I've been having daily visits from the CT although I cancelled the one today after having a bit of a barney with the woman who I saw on Mon. She basically said that I didn't have a health problem and in her opinion, it was because I couldn't cope with / do my job.

What a load of bullshit. So I've basically been working at this level since 07 but suddenly I'm not ill, I'm just incompetent? Fuck that. Which bit of two psychs diagnosing me as bipolar AND the fact that if I'd not fucked about with my meds I wouldn't have ended up in this mess, does she not get. If I want someone to tell me that I'm just not good enough at what I do, or to undermine my self-esteem, I can go and see my mother, and at least then I'll get a cup of tea while she's making me feel like crap.

So there you go. The incessant thoughts of suicide, the planning, the sorting of my financial affairs, the panic attacks, the hallucinations and the depersonalisation - not a mental health issue. I just can't do my job and its making me stressed. Words can't describe how I felt after that meeting. Once I'd managed to stop crying and moved into being fucking furious, a whole day had passed.

The only thing that is keeping me going is the shed loads of tranquilisers that I am taking to get through each day. When I said to her that things just seemed pointless, she said "Well thats life really isn't it. Its monotomous and maybe if you accepted that you'd be able to get on with it."

So there you go again folks. If you start feeling that your life is pointless and not worth living, go and embrace monotomy and get on with it.

I'm bloody howling again now. 7 months off work, nearly 2 months as an inpatient, 3 suicide attempts and a complete sense of being detached from reality and its because I can't do my job and its making me stressed, and I am expecting too much from life.

How am I meant to bother with the CT after that? How?

[Selks]

I'm glad you are angry about what that woman said - rather than believing it or it affecting how you feel about your job further. She displayed a staggering lack of understanding imo.
One thing that is obvious through your posts is that you are competent and able to do your job but are struggling with staying well. Hang on to your sense of identity - you are a professional woman who is good at her job.
Dont give up with the CT though. That was just one person; it sounds like other support you have received has been more helpful.

Best wishes.

[xmasbanana]

She must have been related to my HV. She told me more or less the same.
Did you challenge her?

[natsyloo]

You sound like an intelligent, self-aware person who has coped, and continues to cope remarkably well through a really difficult experience. I have some knowledge of how you feel as a 'high achiever' who has a good set of credentials against my name and was completely blown sideways by PND a couple of years ago.

I can't pretend to imagine I fully understand all that you're going through but I think, despite the pain of your current situation, you do still have a grip on the 'real' you...the one that is behind this horrible illness and the person you need to hang on to.

Keep talking, keep asking for help, keep hanging on in there because you are worth it and your family loves you very much.

I too would do well to remember that my job doesn't define me. We are all many things and it's really easy to get wrapped up in achievement, expectations and all that comes with this. You're good enough just the way you are. This will get better. Take each minute as it comes and keep asking for help.