Confused and scared

[GracieLoo]

I feel like I'm becoming someone else, like this depression is trying to ruin me and it's winning, and one day it's going to get me. I can't relax, my brain won't switch off. I'm looking after my dd, taking her places, I have to, I'm her mum and we're on our own. But I never feel normal.

Anxiety is taking over, I often drive around and around, voices in my head arguing over where I can go, or not to go or something bad could happen there. I over analyze everything. I'm surprised I get anything done, but I do eventually, after a battle with myself.

I'm scared because everyday is a struggle, if dd wasn't here, I definitely wouldn't be. On the really bad days, I feel she would be better with someone else before I damage her emotionally, and she ends up just like me. I think I've ended up like my dad.

Today I've become obsessed with wanting a baby, as I had a dream I did last night. I feel I will have one, I need to or I can't go on. I know this doesn't sound right, but I just desperately want a normal family. Not sure it will ever happen. I just feel so sad and alone, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm scared I'm really not well. I'm aware this post sounds like I'm strange, I'm really not, on the outside, but my head feels so messed up.

Hi, glad you got the sick note. Gp probably thought being kind saving you having to go in. But if you think seeing go will help just book an appointment. You are entitled to sick pay, so why not talk to Cpn about work as perhaps resigning is how you feel now when not well buts perhaps after couple of weeks rest you will think differently?

Hope Cpn appointment useful.

Feeling so, so guilty! Friend just took dd to nursery, I should be doing it. Sick of lying but I hate people knowing, makes me feel vulnerable and ashamed. Not saying people with mental illness should be ashamed, but that's how I feel. And I'm not writing in the mood diary, or doing the stuff my cpn tells me. It's like my brain is shutting down!

Just seen cpn, feeling shaky and tearful as starting having a panic attack on the way out. Feel like I'm desperately screaming for help and no one can hear.

She's given me a list of things to do, not hard stuff, just like tell my mum I'm off sick, challenge thinking and don't put myself under pressure. It's like they're just words and I can't think about doing them. I want to be able to, I just get jumbled up and the bad stuff is easier to think about.

Don't know what to do now, where to go. Don't feel like going home.

Sit on a park bench in the sunshine if you have any?
I always find nature quite soothing.
Are there places that you find soothing?

sorry you are suffering so gracieloo i hope these awful mood etc states will recede and go by themselves in time as they did for me. i am sorry for the pain you are getting on a daily basis- again something i can empathise with.

Had to sit in my car to calm down a bit, then been driving around, went to my dads grave, went for a coffee but thought I was going to start crying, so now looking over fields thinking what has my life become. Going over the appt in my head, analysing what I said and how I came across. Said about not feeling/being safe but she must not believe me as she didn't mention crisis team. I don't feel I can get through the next few days like this, but I suppose I've got to now.

Crying now, can't stop. This is so hard, I'm so tired, want it to stop.

My opinion, fwiw, is that you need to live with someone.
I think that, on the whole you have too much time to think.

I think you moved recently?
Would you be able to take in a [safe] lodger?
Or have a friend to live with you?

I realise that that will not solve all your problems, but it might help a bit.

It hasn't helped in the past. I'm not on my own too much if I don't want to be, but right now I need to be.

Fair enough

Gracie- I am sorry but I only read first and last pages but I think I get thd gist- I am so sorry you feel like that but you are not alone in having a constant script running in your head or self criticising a lot. I sadly have no advice to help, I wish I did. Can you perhaps find one fun thing to do each day that you really enjoy? Take your mind off your mind sort of thing? I found reading fiction really helped as it helped to stop the internal dialogue a lot.

It's like i'm stuck in this place and can't get out. Things I used to do for fun, I just get anxious about now. I like reading but can't concentrate on books right now, I can't relax or calm down. Neighbours are being noisy and I feel like screaming at them. Want to get out of this house and I can't. Want to get away from these thoughts. Starting planning again as it seems the only option but I don't want to keep repeating myself. I look like crap, losing weight, pale and tired, i'm making myself ill but i'm taking the meds. talking to cpn, getting help with dd, what else can I do?

Hi, you said you were not doing all the things the Cpn suggested that were helpful. So how about tomorrow you try to do one of the things suggested and see if it helps? Also you mention that she did not suggest the crisis team, did you want the crisis team? Could you tell her next time you see her you want the crisis team? They do not refer to the crisis team if they do not think you are a risk to yourself or to others. I have been very low and even thinking or saying things that are suicidal before but the Cpn did not refer me to crisis because it is only if my risk rating is too high or the community health team cannot support enough. If the things suggested were not helpful can you think what can be? I was told having the tv on even if could not focus on it can help, it does for me when cannot read. Or I get magazines with more pictures in instead of words which are easier to focus on.

Hope we'd a better day.

No I don't want crisis team, there's no point anymore. I can't do this, I've failed, I'm not as strong as others who get better. This thread just sounds self-pitying and I don't deserve anything. I've hit rock bottom and it's not good for those around me. I don't want to be a burden anymore.

[hugs]
It is not a matter of you being as strong as others.
You have had a lot more happen to you than some others.
And everyone's situation is different.
I would not have liked to go through what you have had to go through. Nor would anyone else.

Didn't sleep much and when I did I had horrible dreams. Feel more exhausted now than before bed. Don't want to get up. There's too much to deal with.

Trying to convince myself to stop feeling so guilty about not working, to accept I've been signed off, really struggling right now, probably won't go back to that job but plan to work again in the future. I've got a little one not yet at school, and no partner to support me so I need to find out if I'm entitled to anything at the job center. I know it might be difficult as I chose to leave, but for medical reasons?

Trying to convince myself that at the moment I just need to get through the day, pick dd up, make sure she's happy, get her fed and bathed etc, even though it's all damn hard. Wish my anxiety levels would drop, and I wasn't thinking about killing myself all the time. But deep down I do feel bad, guilty, a failure for not earning money and making everything worse. I know I'm on the edge right now and very scared something will tip me over. It's horrible feeling unsafe and making plans, and feeling unable to call anyone.

Oh Gracie, what a horrible place you are in, it must be very hard for you to get through each day.

You don't need to feel guilty about not working. If that's what it takes to make you feel no worse right now, you are doing the right thing.

You are doing incredibly well to have got this far and you have far from 'failed'.

You said further up the thread that you had contacted Samaritans by text. Do you think you could call them? They are the ones who will hear your screaming. There will be absolutely no pressure from them for you to talk but they will help you to talk if you are finding it difficult. They will understand your need to 'plan' and won't judge you or try to talk you out of it. If you do ring and you get someone who you don't 'connect' with or who you think isn't helping you, just put the phone down and try again and keep trying until you find someone you can talk to. You won't be offending anyone, the most important thing to them is that you get someone you are happy with.

I know someone who suffers with BPD and so have a tiny insight into what it is like. Please try really hard and let your family help you if they can in anyway. I know you have said that it is hard for you to do that but you need to rest and find some space. Let others deal with the everyday stuff, so you can concentrate on you.

Keep posting on here. You don't sound self pitying at all, just someone who is struggling to make sense of the world and finding it difficult.

Take Care x

Thank you for your lovely post, made me tearful as I didn't think people would be so understanding, and I've had such great support here.

It's been so sunny which I thought would lift my mood, how wrong was I? Just feel worse as haven't cut the grass or washed the car etc, I took dd and a friend to the park and I just sat for hour and a half watching them play. Just having a major panic about cpn not being in til next Tuesday now, and I start stressing that there's no one for too many days, and I can't get through them on my own with these thoughts especially as dd's away again this wkend. That's just me being too dependent and pathetic but I just get this awful scared feeling. I know I can use Samaritans, it's not the same in a crisis I don't find, and I know I can phone out of hours. Just getting this panic rising inside of me.

Hi, you are signed off for a month not forever, so hope you can not feel guilty. Your job will allow you a certain length of time of sick pay so instead of thinking of resigning and benefits, why not take as much sick pay from your job first? That may count for more if you try to get benefits later, rather than choosing to leave before your sick pay ceases?? Also occupational health mayo suggest reduced hours which may help you?? Just thinking about what I did when struggling. Had six months off ill then two months reduced phased return. Then got part-time as needed less hours for health reasons.

Going to the parc sounds lovely. You have to with your dc, too young to leave at parc alone and am sure dc preferred being at parc to you washing a car. Mmm I have not washed my car all year. No need to feel guilty for doing lovely things with daughter!!

I've said i'm not going back and i'm so ashamed I haven't told anyone. I've got so much to try to sort out and I feel so muddled. The days are all rolling into one, I don't know what i'm doing half the time. There isn't occ health at my work, and I was only doing p/t and couldn't cope with that.

I don't see how I can carry on, I feel strange/detached and can't get back into the real world. I don't kow what i'm doing the next day, just have to take each day, hour by hour, but that scares me that that's all I can manage. Urges and thoughts are getting stronger, as it's nearing the long weekend. Also i've realised I always seem to get really bad this time of year and I have no idea why? Two years ago I took an od, and last year I got really low, always around May? Mind you, I can't remember the last time I was genuinely happy, and that sounds awful as i'm a mum.

Oh god, things are getting worse! I really don't know if I can do this. Actually feeling dizzy and spaced out, head aches and I want to cry so much but can't.

Gracie - I've not asked before, but are you taking your meds as prescribed? Also, have you thought any further about what I said about going to stay with your mum, particularly over this long weekend?

I really think you need to start taking practical steps to help yourself. You're not eating - low blood sugar and not enough 'fuel' will make you feel dizzy and shit and lethargic. You need to take the advice given to you by the Crisis Team and your CPN to give away your pills or give them to someone for safe-keeping and go to stay with someone, like your mum.

I really, really do know what its like to be depressed, but you need to start taking the advice of the professionals around you - if you won't work with them by taking their advice, they are really limited as to how they can gelp.

Getting better is 1/3 support, 1/3 medication and 1/3 your own effort. If the first two are in place, you need to start working on the third.

You CAN get better. I keep saying this, because its true.

I take sertraline 100mg, that's all i've been prescribed and I do take them, just been on them a few weeks as switched over. I eat when I can, it just takes a lot of effort to think about what to have, then get it etc, I know it sounds like excuses. I had dinner last night. I have plans for every evening this weekend that were made weeks ago, I feel like crying when I think about going out and seeing people but i'll make myself go, even though I can feel worse after.

I just don't want to be here and I really can't help how I feel right now, everything seems unreal and far away, and I feel so tense and aware i've messed everything up. I'm really sorry, just don't see much hope. Sorry

There is nothing wrong at all, for anyone, to take each day hour by hour.
Im fact, if we could all magically stop worrying about tomorrows,we would all be better for it.

Also, I do think that quite a lot of people have good times of year, and worse times of year. I have no idea why. Just the way we are made I suppose.

Even if you have messed up, which I sincerely doubt, there is always hope imo.