I feel…better?

I quit my job 3 weeks ago and while my knee has not gotten better despite not standing on it anymore, my mood has improved.  My regular shrink upped my dosage of Lexapro to 30mg from 15mg the same day I quit my job, so I don’t know if my elevated mood is because of the meds or because I am not working.

On Wednesday I started a day treatment program in Chanhassen.  It’s a bit of a trek to do every day, but I feel that having something to get up for everyday at a normal hour has helped me too.  Today I was exhausted before group and really wanted to just skip.  I knew I could get away with skipping too because my mom was out of the house all day.  When I thought about skipping though, I had a thought pop into my head that the therapist said yesterday, “Integrity is what you do when no one is looking.”  It struck a chord with me because I haven’t been living with integrity.  I managed to get up for group and get there 15 minutes early too.  I feel quite proud of myself for that.

I want to do some writing tonight, but I am feeling really tired, so I think I might just read a bit and then head to bed.

I’m Still Here

I saw my psychiatrist on October 3rd.  I managed to survive those two days.  My shrink essentially told me to take a few weeks off work and get off the night shift because the overnight hours seem to have been worsening my depression.  I ended up just quitting my job because there simply isn’t a job there that isn’t overnights.  So yet again, I am unemployed.  I applied for disability, so we will see if anything comes from that.

As much as I hate to say it, life has gotten a lot better since quitting.  I don’t have any money and I am basically dependent on my parents, but I feel like I am free from that anxiety.  I hope to someday soon be able to get back into the workforce but at the moment it isn’t something I am actively pursuing.  I have found myself laughing a lot more than I was the last two months.  I feel such immense joy when I watch Castle.  I missed that.

My shrink recommended me for a couple of partial programs.  I went to an intake appointment last Friday, but they didn’t think their program was the right fit for me, so they referred me to three other places.  I made an appointment with one of them in Chanhassen for next Tuesday.  I want to get started on all of this.  I want to change my life.

The Aftermath of my ER Visit

I went to the ER today.  Life has basically been kicking my ass and I don’t know how to fix it.  While I haven’t been very suicidal lately, I have had thoughts that my only way out of this emptiness is death.  I don’t want to die, but I feel like I don’t have any other options.  This terrifies me.  How do I change?  How do I even make the steps to change?  I don’t need to make a complete 180, I need to make a 540.

I feel so overwhelmed.  I can’t see my psychiatrist until Friday, but I feel like I won’t be able to make it until then.  I don’t plan on doing anything drastic, but it just feels like this emptiness I have been experiencing is just going to engulf me.  It’s like I am standing on the shoreline and a giant wave is just going to drown me and my lifeless body will be swept to sea.  It feels like I have no control over this.  I feel like someone is going to find me dead, not by my own hands, but by some unforeseen force, like I spontaneously combusted with despair.

The ER counselor did not admit me to the psych ward, instead opting for me to talk to my psychiatrist about a partial-hospitalization program that I participated in last year.  I don’t know what to do.  The counselor was saying how I need to get my life back on track, but I don’t know how to do this.  How do change?  They don’t make how-to manuals on changing everything you have let yourself become.  I need someone to tell me what to do.  I need steps to take.  I can’t do this on my own because I just don’t care enough to make the steps.  I need for something to switch in my brain.

I want to erase every memory from the last ten years.  Nothing good has come in the last ten years.  I don’t want to remind myself of how horrible life has been.  I don’t want to remember all of the negative self talk I have experienced.  I want to go back to my high school self where the world hadn’t yet killed my spirit.  I imagine my spirit as this decrepit soul, weighed down by chains, carrying a boulder the size of a small car and dripping wet from being doused with ice cold water.  It is seeking solace, warmth, relief, but all it does is get colder, wetter, heavier, weaker.  How do you come back from that?

I’ve reached the end of my rope

I don’t feel anything.  I don’t care at all.  It just feels like I simply can’t care anymore.  I really don’t know what to do.  I do not want to die or anything, I just don’t care.  I am a huge disappointment to everyone in my life, yet I can’t get myself to stop doing what I have been doing.  I feel no purpose in life.  I feel incapable of loving people.  I feel incapable of everything.  The world is pressing down on me and I am not fighting back.  I’m letting it crush me, asphyxiate me slowly.  The light inside of me is no longer the sun always shining, it is a candle constantly being blown out.

How do I start caring when the thought of doing so crushes me into immobility?  I can’t face living.  I don’t want to die though.  I’m not only at the end of my rope, it is fraying quickly under my weight, under everything I am going through, everything I am feeling.

My cat is my everything.  She gives me purpose, yet I feel myself losing that sense of purpose when I look at her.  She deserves better than me.  She deserves someone who will fight for her, who will give her everything and not give up on themselves.  She loves me unconditionally and I her, but when I can’t even seem to care about feeding her when she is begging for food, how does that show her that I love her?

I don’t know what to do anymore.  I’ve been considering checking myself into the mental hospital because nothing seems to be working.  I have no idea where to go from here.