How do I get out of this hole?

[clareabouts]

I'm newly separated from my husband and struggling. I'm on Sertraline which I think is helping, but I'm also drinking too much and getting myself into silly scrapes, and trying to boost my ego by meeting up with exes and never-weres, which is temporarily soothing but leaves me feeling flat and more miserable. I have always had low self-esteem and it gets worse when I get drunk and seek reassurance. It's also potentially threatening to my career, because I don't work as well when I'm tired and hung over, and I really love my job and want to do well in it.

I've been to several therapists over the years and I think I've got as far as understanding how I got to where I am, but never managed to actually change it.

I don't have children - we tried, but it didn't happen. I'm living alone and my friends mostly have busy lives. I don't know how to tackle the drinking and I don't know how to stop feeling so lonely and sad. I've been sad all my life, but now it's becoming all I am, instead of just an aspect of me.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks Twinky, sorry I didn't see your post sooner. I think my sleep has settled into a pattern of two or three two-to-three-hour blocks, and now when I wake up I try not to worry about it and I find I get back to sleep sooner. I'm definitely still not getting as much sleep as I'd like, but it's nothing like as bad as it was.

My mood generally is mostly better - I do think the ADs are having the desired effect and I really recommend you give them a go. The feeling you describe of being overwhelmed is exactly what they can help you with.

I still get low from time to time, but that's only to be expected under the circumstances. I decided AA wasnt for me at the moment, but I have cut right down on my drinking - just having the odd glass with friends and not more than once or twice a week. I'll see how I get on.

I have got a bit stuck on the Overcoming Low Self-Esteem book. I think I'm frightened of confronting it! It's at the root of all my difficulties, so it feels scary to face it directly. But again, I'm hoping I'll get to grips with it over time.

Thanks for checking in, and I hope things are on the up for you too.

Bit of a setback here, but a really stupid one. I have an ex with whom I'm good friends, and when my husband left I told this ex all about it, and also confided in him about our troubles TTC. He told me he and his wife have been trying for three years with no luck. Fast forward a few weeks during which he has been fantastically supportive and lovely towards me and he's just told me she's pregnant. Of course, I can only express happiness for them and that's 90% of what I feel, but another part of me is just completely desolate and feeling that everyone knows the way to happiness and fulfilment and being a grownup except me. I suppose I have come to rely on him a bit, which is stupid because his marriage is happy and anyway I would never want to get back together with him, but just having someone around who is so kind and available has been helpful, and now I think that even if he wants to be as around and available as he has been, I can't let him because it's not appropriate now he has a pregnant wife. which probably means it wasn't appropriate to begin with, and I have been kidding myself that it's all fine.

So I'm sitting here in floods of tears, and just glad I'm working from home rather than the office today. It's a reminder that I can't let my mental state be reliant on other people, but it's quite a harsh one! I still don't feel substantial enough to find my way out of this mess alone, even though I know it's the only way to do it.

I have been thinking I'd like to up my meds (I was thinking this before today, it's not just in reaction to this news). I have a doctor's appointment booked, but not until after my prescription is due. Would it be very foolish to get my repeat prescription but take double the dose every day until I see the doc and can get her to prescribe the higher dose?

Sorry, only just read your post there clareabouts.
I don't know about your meds, so I have no idea whether going ahead and doubling the dose would be a bad idea or not. If you are on a very low, introductory dose which you would expect to be going up anyway (as I was) then I would (did, after checking online that it would be safe as no one stays on the low dose I was on for that long, everyone is moved on to at least 4x what I was on) and I would (did) phone the surgery and ask a call back from a doctor on duty and ask them if it was alright to do that, and whether it is safe to continue to take the double dose. They might need you to go in for an appointment, to have access to your notes, but all the more reason to check. (When I called, the doctor said I was brilliant and yes, it was the right thing to do. However, it wasn't that brilliant because I only had enough for the day of of my next appointment, so had to give up an evening's work in order to pick up the next prescription. Now I have got a double dose to start on, and another tiny dose to add to it (that keeps me going to about midday) and in a few weeks I can take a bit more, which will be 4x what I started on. It still won't be enough though.
So, if you can, at your next appointment, ask your doctor if you can have some smaller doses to increase the amount you take by smaller degrees. If it is appropriate to do that with the medicine you're prescribed. It wouldn't work for all medicines, so you could also try finding out more before you meet.

Thanks, that's all really good advice. I think the doctor was planning to up the dosage anyway, but you're right of course - I can just ring up and ask.

Hope things are going ok for you.

Thanks clarabouts, I hope things will be ok for me eventually as well! Now I have a bit of energy in the mornings, I am trying to make myself get a bit of daily exercise (got the wii fit out of it's dusty hiding place) to restore some muscle strength. Just the 15 minutes of stretches, 10 minute running and few other things I do are starting to help a bit.

Your friendship with your ex sounds like it is worth saving, if it really is a friendship and not the start of a fling. Maybe you could go and see him and his wife sometimes, and be supportive of her during her pregnancy and beyond, and then you would get another friend as well. BUT if you wouldn't feel comfortable with that, and what you were saying is you still have feelings for him, then you're right, and well done for doing the right thing! So hard, especially now, but also, be thankful you noticed and won't go down that route.

Thank you. Yes, it definitely feels as though keeping some distance is the right thing just now.

In the very early, despair-ridden days after my husband told me he was leaving, I very stupidly slept with a different ex. Husband has now found this out, so I'm feeling pretty rotten about that. Not actually because of the thing itself, but because he's taking the opportunity to really lay into me about all sorts of things to do with the history of our relationship, and I feel as though I don't really have the right to defend myself. However, this is not a mental health issue, exactly, just the usual ugly detritus of a failed marriage. I wish we could love each other in a positive and productive way, but I just don't think we can.