need encouragement to reach out

[myotherface]

So I've struggled all my life with really severe depressive episodes. I'm high functioning between them but get really unwell (sometimes needing hospital admission) when I'm depressed. Had a really severe episode last year with a hospital admission but recovered pretty well.

We started talking about discharge from cmht around Christmas and I was totally happy about it. Then after Christmas I suddenly panicked and started having these thoughts about them abandoning me etc. I didn't connect these two at first but I started messing with my meds and stopped my antidepressants. Then I started.engaging in some really self destructive behaviour that I'm really ashamed of and wouldn't disclose here for I'm sure I would (deservedly) be attacked for.

After these bad things I've done I'm now massively struggling. It's a mixture of guilt,.shame, isolation and depression. I have thoughts of suicide and self harm floating in my head but at the moment not quite to the point I'd act on them. I can't concentrate on anything and I'm struggling to play with the kids which is normally not something I struggle with.

I really feel like I need help but don't feel like I'm bad enough to deserve any. My CPN is off sick this week. We were due to meet and I had kept on fighting hard to just about cope until then. Now that it's cancelled I don't know what to do with myself. They told me I could contact the duty worker in the meantime "if there was anything". My CPN has also encouraged me to use first response number if I'm struggling. In my head I'm not entitled to contacting anyone though as I'm currently not about to act on these suicidal thoughts. I keep on thinking whether I should/could then decide not at the moment and thus feel like I'm just not bad enough to warrant any extra support.

Just need some hand holding/encouragement really.

I have called duty officer many times, because I don't have cpn anymore. I also talk to gp, who also has called cmht if needed.

I have many times talked with a duty I haven't talked before. It's fine and we discuss about my problems. Often duty talks to psychiatrist and meds are changed. Once when I felt suicidal they asked me to come to there and talk face to face.

I wouldn't be too shy to call them if you need help.

I tried contacting the duty worker but the single point of access refused to put me through. They told me the duty would just refer me to first response anyway with me having suicidal thoughts. I tried to explain that these are chronic and that my cpn is good at helping me being them back down when I hit a crisis point.

So they put me through to first response where this young woman kept saying my (not unusual) name wrong despite me correcting her. She was also judgemental about the stuff I'd done and also asked how I was going to keep my children safe?!! I asked her how this was related to anything and she said children were likely to pick up that my mood wasn't good and suffer from that.

She then said that they were concerned about me and booked a home visit for me for the same evening (around kids bedtime). I then rang back and luckily there was a different person who was really really good. Within half an hour he had gotten back to me and had organised for my cmht to get together with my (amazing) psychiatrist and for them to get back to me tomorrow about how they can best support me before my cpn is back (hopefully next week). I'm so lucky to have a good cmht.

Thanks for the encouragement. I feel a bit more optimistic about it all having gotten through to the cmht. They've been so understanding and helpful every single time.