This has the potential to be long, so forgive me and thank you for reading it if you do.
I'm currently in hospital for what feels like the umpteempth time in the past 5 years. I've had problems with things going back to my teen years and I'm 27 now. For a good while, 7 or 8 years or so, things were consistently bad. I'd have a high for a bit, then a very prolonged (months) low with psychosis in various stages of severity throughout.
Then I moved here, to Ireland, where I was engaged in the mental health services, something that never happened in England. The first year was terrible, though my self harm decreased and almost stopped my psych had diagnosed me with BPD and basically refused to treat me. Then my first hospital admission came about in 2011 and his attitude seemed to changed. My mood was low, but lifted with meds and I was discharged and tried to get on with my life. The highs continued but the lows were at bay for a couple of months until the meds stopped working and I ended up in hospital again in 2012. Then I was started on lithium and the highs stopped, but the lows continued.
Basically, that has been the cycle since then. I get a few good months, maybe 3, then my mood starts to slip again as the meds stop working. I've tried CBT, DBT, psychology and counselling alongside the medication and nothing seems to work. I end up in depressive episodes for months and months on end and usually end up in hospital for 3+mths.
I mean, when can enough be enough? I've exhausted all the therapies available here and I've tried more medications than I care to think about. I'm currently stuck in hospital, tired and fed up and just wanting an end to the cycle now. Desperately suicidal with no way of ending it, threat of a section if I try to leave and not allowed out for walks on my own. When will they say enough is enough and just give up on me and let me go? Is it so far fetched to think that maybe this is terminal and sooner is best rather than to prolong the suffering?
Even the psychosis is creeping back in, though I'm not 100% sure whether it's real or not right now so I might just be cottoning on the system rather than being 'unwell' (oh how I hate that term).
The only thing that's vaguely helping is the self harm and even that is hard to do in here, though not impossible. I just want to go home and be surrounded by my creature comforts and my wife and my babies. I would even be willing to refrain from outright killing myself if I were allowed to cut myself to get through the days.
Sorry, I think this is very woe is me, but I'm at the end of my tether and I can't cope with this any more.
I can understand your frustration and your lack of belief in a positive change. In many ways i can relate so much to this because i feel the same. I guess after a long stretch of being sad and feeling empty, hopelesness sets in. The small doubt in the mind whether anything will ever be able to change for the better.
I spoke to a friend a while back about how my suicidal thoughts had become a part of my background noise in my head. How they sometimes, and quite often, force their way up to the surface where they poison my life and everything in it. What she had to say was quite simple but it's something i try to think about every time i start feeling like giving up. She said we have to keep believing in a better tomorrow. She said that if the hope dies then life will lose its meaning.
I try to tell myself that there is hope. Even when i can't see it. It's just one of those things that is always there even though it is invisible. Like atoms. And gravity. I also try to remember that i have heard a lot of older people say that life did not really start getting better until they were way past my age.
I can't tell you what the meaning of all this is. My life is a constant existential crisis. A lot of the time i can't see past today. And i can't see a point with anything. But i try, very hard, to keep believing in a better tomorrow. And who knows, some day they may develop a medication that will give me a chance of living a decent life. Or some day they might develop a new kind of therapy that will work wonders on people like us.
I've had friends who gave up. They didn't believe their lives could get better. Suicide creates a certain kind of grief. A wound that never really heals. And an awful lot of, often, misplaced guilt. Sometimes we can't see hope and that is okay. But every action has consequences. I try to keep that in mind when i want to fetch my stuff and leave.
This was probably not very helpful. I just kind of wanted to say i can relate. And i really do believe there is hope even when we can't see it.
I hope you'll stick around, Amy. If for nothing else then just to keep us company.
Thank you for your reply, Kat. I guess the problem is that I've run out of hope. I used to have hope but this whole cycle has beaten it out of me.
I have a good life. Don't get me wrong. A very good life and I appreciate it but it just doesn't feel like it's enough to keep me here.
I also appreciate that suicide moves the pain onto others but I don't feel like I can keep living for other people. It's making me resent them which isn't fair either.
I'm tired and beaten down and so, so sad that I can't cope any more.
I think the fact that they won't give up is a reason you're supposed to be here. My roommate's mom is an ER nurse and she said other than losing kids, the next hardest thing is losing a suicidal patient, because it's preventable. Take comfort in the fact that you are wanted on this earth and you don't have a choice in it. Someone recently told me I may want to kill myself every day of my life, and that's not necessarily my choice, but staying alive is. It sounds like you can't live for yourself right now, but people love you and need you here. You may be treatment resistant, but never ever worth giving up on.
What do you think could make a difference in this way of thinking and contribute to a feeling of wanting to stay in this life????
Hope is a hard feeling to hold on to when you're faced with a course of obstacles that seem to never end. I wish i could promise you an amazing future but sadly that is not in my power. But i want to say that i am a firm believer that during the dark and hopeless times, there is always a lesson to be learned. And there is something to gain even from the bottom of the pit of darkness.
I know it is easy for me to say but i do believe your life can improve. I have not yet met anyone who i percieved as a hopeless case. Sometimes the thought that death is a kind of redemption can be the very thing that stops us from living life to the fullest. I do realise you may think this a load of bullshit but i thought i'd give it a try anyway
Everyone has given such good responses, I really agree with Zurg and lilred. I can understand a certain extent how you feel as I've been in similar places/situations and things are currently very crap. Please dont give up Amy. You are very much loved, and things will start to feel better for you. Try to treasure the good times, even if it's a fleeting few minutes here and there. And they will build up slowly. No-one will give up on you, and that's a good thing. You're not a hopeless case, it can take time to find the right combinations of meds and therapy and over the years those things will need tweaking. But you will get there.
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different…
you once called your brain a hard drive, well say hello to the virus.
Thanks all for your responses. I'm living out of powerlessness at the moment and for other people but that is a quick way to start resenting everyone.
It just feels like over half of my life has been given to the darkness and I've found the light switch but the bulb keeps blowing and it's getting harder and harder to change the bulb every time. I do hear what you're all saying I just can't correlate it to how I'm feeling right now. I do feel like a hopeless case and forgive me for being ungrateful but the good times are just not worth it any more. I've given years of my life to try and find the right balance of treatment and to no avail. I just don't see what there is left for me to try.
Sorry I'm awfully negative right now. I'm fed up of the hospital and of people asking when I'm going to be discharged when my psych is the one who won't let me leave.
I wish I had some useful words for you, but I don't.
I wish I could fix it all and make you okay but I can't.
For that I am sorry.
Just sending my love ans well wishes I guess. I need to come and see you and the Midget at some point. I'll put you on the list.
Look after yourself Voldemort, heaven knows we need a dark lord, and I'm sure Midget and the various animals in your menagerie will give you some hugs from me when they can.
The world is just illusion always trying to change me.
You will find wonder wherever you can, and spread joy whenever you are able.
I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, divide within me. - Frankenstein.
My diagnosis is under question at the moment, yes. Bpd is off the table at the moment and I'm being assessed for autism and after that has been explored they're going to look into my mental health. It's all a bit up in the air at the moment though my psych is treating me for depression at the moment.
That's the thing. I can sit with the feelings. I do sit with the feelings but if I want to do them then why shouldn't I? It won't be available here anyway. I live in a very small county in Ireland and there's not much available in terms of treatment unfortunately.
Sorry to be all negative but there's literally nothing left to try except this medication that my psych is suggesting that is technically a thyroid medication. Not sure if I'll be starting it soon or what the story is there either.
Also my vitamin d and b12 are low so they're trying to boost them at the moment too.
