*ED team
*ED team
That's so cool that your Mum can do them for you!-.gif ")")
Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!
No pin cushion arms from nursing assistants essentially playing darts (badly) for Em!
Haha yeah Suzi! It's handy alright... Or 'arm-y'
Haha, ATTMP! Bless her, she gets so stressed when she can't get them and I get so nervous when she takes them but we never let on to each other! She's a real gem though!.gif "(happy)")
Hi all!
Hope everyone's doing as okay as they can be right now.
I'm not in a very good place at all and I needed somewhere to rant and air my hurting brain. I don't even know if anyone will read this.Anyways, here goes.
My depression has become a hell of a lot worse lately. I think now I've achieved everything I set out to do and I've always had a goal ahead of me which gave me hope and something to work for... but now, summer's ending and it feels like everything's been 'wrapped up' if that makes sense? I need a goal because otherwise everything can feel so pointless and hopeless, and with the evening's slowly getting darker and winter coming....
I'm struggling to fill my days. Physically, I've become too weak to work (no pity here as it's mostly self-inflicted) and my energy levels peak for an hour or so but then I'm depleted. I did the ironing the other day for an hour or so and had to lie down on the bed for a while before returning to it. I also get really dizzy in the shower and struggle to muster up the strength to clean the bath out after having one. I take short little walks through the day to help boost the old mood but my legs get wobbly and all I do to attempt to fix that is drink a can of sugar-free diet coke?.gif "^)")
Mentally, I'm washed out. Sometimes, I can still appear to be alright and even just totally fine to others... but I'm finding more and more that I'm just getting overwhelmed by the simplest of things. Like yesterday, I couldn't even tie a cushion on a garden chair and sometimes I can't be bothered with washing the dishes. It's like an overwhelming sense of 'I absolutely could not give a crap about this and I absolutely can not do it'.
These reasons have been why I've finally accepted my inability to be at work. (As much as I want to work, I have easily had over 25 jobs this last year and have quit/walked out/walked out after swearing at the manager which is SO not my personality, and it came to the point where I have finally said 'Enough now!') They've always been the SAME job and I have fully committed to myself never to do this type of job again! At the start of this year when I was feeling better (but still not my usual self), I applied for different jobs... childcare and in the charity sector, but didn't get them or felt too anxious and intimidated by other professional staff to go ahead with them.) I didn't have any support around me then to have helped me get through this so I kept taking the crap jobs, got treated like rubbish, got into vulgar environments, and worked too many hours and left due to mental and physical exhaustion until about a month ago I decided to stop work.) Since then, I still have the odd 'I really want to work again!' thought, but now my body and my mind have continued to become much worse and I'm just too sick for it.
I'm also experiencing a MASSIVE amount of stress. There's no real stress going on around me but I feel stressed by the simplest of things. I currently have family staying with me which includes two screaming children and it honestly melts my brain like nails on a chalkboard. This paired with my brother's total lack of understanding about mental illness (He says things at 11pm to me like 'Why are you so tired? You need to fill your days more so you're not so tired all the time.' before he goes to sleep in my bed whilst I happily take the sofa. I am trying by visiting different members of family and I even booked myself onto a youth camping retreat but if I go, I spend most of my time sleeping up there and come home early or I cancel (if it's not family-related, like the youth event) at the last minute because I just know it will be too much for me. It's like setting myself up to fail!!
I'm currently under a tier 3 eating disorder mental health team. The occupational therapist I see three times weekly has been off on leave for two weeks. In the meantime, the ED Team Leader has filled in for her with two phone calls and another phone call promise that never came. Which, as you can imagine, has been a massive help?!I've had to chase up my psychiatric appointment by contacting the CMHT, tier 3 and tier 2 services to get them all to communicate with each other. I shouldn't have to be the one who does this!!! So the last couple of weeks have honestly been awful. I've gotten a lot worse.
Thankfully, I did meet the CPN who will be my care coordinator from the CMHT last week. She was really annoyed about the lack of support from the ED services and promised to 'kick them up the bum!' for me!FINALLY, I am starting on AD medication. I really liked her and the psychiatrist and they took all my concerns into consideration when prescribing so that today when I took my first pill, I don't have any anxiety or fear about it... but only hope.
She is meeting with me next week to draw up a community care plan. I felt like I could finally breathe when she told me this! I really do want to get well.
The OT is back this coming week too so it will be nice to have someone popping in to check I'm okay and dropping the odd text in between. It's reassuring to know there's someone I can call on, you know? My eating is really poor though. I eat as little as 300 calories a day and max at about 400-450. I'm so hungry and weak. It's not anorexia this time, it's like some kind of self-punishment for this depression. I've started taking laxatives too and I have no idea why. They don't exactly work on no food anyways!!
The ED team also said they will be able to offer me therapy, too. But it's yet to be explained as to what that is exactly. I continue to see my CBT therapist weekly though and she is fantastic.
She works for a mental health charity that offer a voluntary work scheme for sufferers of mental illness. It's a big, beautiful gardening project! They're due to get back to me shortly. I feel it would be a nice opportunity. Therapeutic, new skills, a supportive environment.
I flirted with the idea of going to some support groups. One is an eating disorder one but I felt that would be triggering and it's also difficult to go to a group for depression and anxiety if you suffer with depression and anxiety!! They're also like a two and a half hour bus ride there and back too which is a bit of an outing and I don't want to go alone but don't have anyone who would come. I do use a daily online support group though for ED sufferers which helps a lot!
I also have an appointment with the job centre on Tuesday to discuss training, volunteering and placement opportunities. This is something that I would really like to explore and access! Even if it's just tiny baby weeny steps for now. I hope to go back to volunteering with the homeless once weekly too. This was something I used to LOVE and was the highlight of my week!
I decided this morning before scrawling down this never-ending post that I would give the community care plan at least one month-six weeks through the whole of September and maybe into October where I really try to get myself feeling better. But, if things don't improve or get worse... I think I'll have to spend some time somewhere as an inpatient. The same place that run this gardening project actually have an inpatient place not so far from my home which I feel would be the type of place I would be happy to go into. I REFUSE to go to an eating disorder place because major depression is at the core here and the not-eating is caused by my depression this time. (ALL the professionals and my family agree on this). And I don't want to go down the general hospital road on a psychiatric ward... We'll see what happens.
There's a rehab centre I've been looking into, too. I know people who have gone there and I know it's incredible. But that would be in Italy or Bosnia and I'm in the UK.
But now, it's today. If you made it through this waffle, thanks for reading.
Sweetheart you've been really going through it - why didn't you post?
Hunni, you know all the lectures about food and bodies as engines and fuel, so I'm not going to give you any - but instead of eating something like 3 meals a day, could you break it up so you have little and often instead?
That gardening place and inpatient place sound good and it's good that you've a plan in place if things don't see more of an upturn in the near future.
Keep talking lovely.
Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!
Can I just say that, even though I know it's unimaginably hard right now and even the smallest thing seems impossible to deal with, you ARE dealing with it, you're making plans to help yourself, you're pushing the right people to get things done, you're refusing to give up. And I am so very proud of you!
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Hey Suzi
I don't know why I didn't post. I had the thoughts around 'I don't want to be a burden' and such. Silly, I know, but there we are. Now I've vented!
We're all hoping that the medication will lift my mood and that from there other things will help too and then the eating will improve. Time will tell!
Yeah, I always have to have a few positive goals even if they seem to be getting smaller and more basic (but still always realistic) as time goes by!And the recovery centre is a positive safety net, yeah. Hopefully I won't need it but the way I see it... If I go there or even if I am admitted to hospital, it's because I NEED to be there, right?
But I'm in a better place tonight than I was last night and this morning so that's a good thing.Thankfully, I have a wonderful and supportive family around me. Things would otherwise have become a hell of a lot worse for me.
I hope you're doing as well as you can be, Suzi. Thanks for always posting back. It means a lot.
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