I have written about mental health issues in this post and if you're feeling low, you may not want to read any further.
If you are considering suicide or if you are in any kind of mental health crisis, please call the Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 or head to your local emergency room. Please reach out and get help.
I've been sick for months, too sick to work, too sick to do much of anything.
If you are considering suicide or if you are in any kind of mental health crisis, please call the Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 or head to your local emergency room. Please reach out and get help.
I've been sick for months, too sick to work, too sick to do much of anything.
I've slept a lot like one does when one is ill.
It's embarrassing, because when I say I've been ill what I mean is, I've been depressed. As far as I'm concerned, mental illness is a real thing, and those suffering are actually ill, but there are still folks around who don't think depression is a life threatening disease, or a disease at all, and that those of us afflicted are merely lazy whiny "snowflakes" who'd rather lie around and do nothing than make an honest living.
I am certain I internalized that negative appraisal of the mentally ill, no doubt about it. Those messages seep into our minds without our knowledge and only become clear when we become clear to ourselves. For as lowly regarded we are by others, we judge ourselves the same, and that self hate adds to the illness and multiplies the already debilitating self loathing that comes in the depression goody bag.
Anyway, lately I think I've been feeling better. Not entirely better, but somewhat better. I've been pacing the house, antsy, bored. Sleep is no longer something that can occupy me for several hours. This increase in energy has brought me a whole new level of guilt. Even though I could acknowledge the severity of my illness these past 6 months I can't quite get my head around the fact that despite my increase in energy, I may still not be well enough to work. I'm not at death's door, nor am I working. How dare I?
It's one thing if I'm sobbing uncontrollably for hours a day. Of course one can not go among the people and toil away for wages. One is in a state, and unfit for decent company. One should keep out of sight, one is a friggin' emotional disaster, that's pretty fucking clear. But when one is pacing the house, bored out of one's ever loving mind day after day, it's a little harder to figure out why exactly one is not out in the world doing what other adult ones do all day.
Despite not weeping like a Greek chorus, the truth is, I'm still not well. I still become fatigued easily, I still become panicked in social situations, I still have days when I pull the covers over my face and say, nope. Not going to happen. I still cry for no apparent reason. I still, though not as often, I still think about suicide.
When depressed folks start to regain some of their energy and appear to be firmly on the road to recovery, that is a crucial time. It's then that many depressed people take their own lives.
At the deepest depths of despair, suicide was nearly impossible for me to carry out though I thought about it all the fucking time. I longed for it, begged for it. I couldn't stand being alive. But, I could barely move, there was little chance I would have been able to coordinate all the actions necessary for taking my own life.
But NOW, I'm well enough to wander the house muttering to myself, and the full impact my illness has had on my life, my family, and our finances is sinking in, and I'm blaming myself for the whole freaking mess and it's overwhelming and terrible.
At the deepest depths of despair, suicide was nearly impossible for me to carry out though I thought about it all the fucking time. I longed for it, begged for it. I couldn't stand being alive. But, I could barely move, there was little chance I would have been able to coordinate all the actions necessary for taking my own life.
But NOW, I'm well enough to wander the house muttering to myself, and the full impact my illness has had on my life, my family, and our finances is sinking in, and I'm blaming myself for the whole freaking mess and it's overwhelming and terrible.
I won't kill myself, of course, but I can understand the thinking of those who do at this point in their illness, at least I think I can.
Everyone is different, so actually what do I know. But I think I might know.
A couple of days ago a new idea hit me: you know after a bad bout of flu, how it takes a few extra days to get over feeling shitty, even after the worst of the illness has passed? I think maybe for me the same is true for my depressive episodes. And because the descent took a long while, and because I was sick for so long, the time it takes to crawl out of the hole is equally protracted.
So, I'm up and around, taking solid food, even though I'm not still puking my guts out, I'm still not well, and it's okay for me to be scuffing around in my slippers and pajamas.
I'm doing better, but I'm not 100% okay and I need to make sure I'm well before I go out into the world again, or I risk setting myself back and that's not going to help anyone.
I'm doing better, but I'm not 100% okay and I need to make sure I'm well before I go out into the world again, or I risk setting myself back and that's not going to help anyone.
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