Posted by Indie on July 13, 2004, at 23:48:40
Where to begin?? I can’t start from the beginning or it would be a novel. Let me start with me…I am 31 years old, bipolar II and have been fighting the illness for years, sometimes with great success, sometimes a complete failure. That is where I am now…knocked down and I can’t get up. I have been reading here for years and have found great info and support just seeing that others felt the blackness and came out the other side…I was hesitant to write because I am bad about follow-through when I am depressed and did not want to let anybody here down. But, Last week some time I was reading a thread started by Angel Girl and it made me cry....and cry…and cry some more. I wanted to give her hugs and give her comfort. Then I realized that I wanted that same support that I wanted to offer…I think I need the support of a group such as this.
To start, I was diagnosed with major depression when I was 19 having suffered several bouts with depression. It was only when I began to experience the blackness of wanting to die, of wanting to take a bottle of sleeping pills and swim as far into the ocean as I could, that I sought help. That seems silly now as my father suffered with depression as well. We should have recognized the signs…but we didn’t. At the age of 24, around the same time that my father killed himself, my diagnosis was changed to bipolar II. Much has happened in my life since then, but I will keep it as brief as I can.
I have always responded poorly to medication. It seems that any drug that works once just stops working at some point. It has often pushed me to my wits end where I feel hopeless and want to end it all. However, with my fathers death, I know the devastation that suicide brings to all of the people that care for you so I have promised them that I will not follow in his footsteps…I almost always cling to that promise when I am at my worst. At one point in 2000, I was rapid cycling, desperate and responding to nothing. My p-doc and I decided to give ECT a try. At the time it seemed to be the magic that I had searched for…for three years I was off of meds and almost completely stable (doc thinks I was a bit hypo-manic for a lot of it…I just know that I was happy and doing very well in my career). I hated the memory loss, but it was worth it.
Having been stable for that long, I felt safe to get into a real relationship with an amazing man. Shortly after that I decided to go back to school to get a masters degree in International Business. So off I trekked, half way across the country to school. The first year was great. School was good, I learned to speak Portuguese and the relationship seemed to be surviving the long distance just fine. At the end of the year my classmates and I went to Brazil to study for six weeks…the boyfriend joined us and all was well. However I started to feel the familiar tug of depression in the back of my head. Like the smart girl that I am…I chose to ignore it. After Brazil I was off to Portugal for an internship. One of the requirements of the program is a 4-month internship. (Yes I am aware of how great my life is.)
Portugal is where the storm really hit. The internship that I had set up fell through and I was left to my own devices alone in a foreign country. I recovered well from this little glitch. I went to Lisbon and quickly lined up a new internship. The boyfriend was to join me in a couple of weeks. However, the stress of all of it pushed the already blooming depression into full swing. I did not want to leave my apartment. Every time I was in the train station, I looked at the oncoming trains and though how easily I could end it all by just stepping off of the platform. I even planned on doing it once…put a note in my purse and headed to the train station. Right as I was ready to go, a little girl walked into the station and I did not want her to see that. Maybe I was looking for an excuse to live. At any rate, it got so bad that a friend of mine who lives in London had to come and help me pack and get home.
I came home to my friends and the only p-doc that I trust to get some help. After several weeks I felt better and decided to do a semester in Australia. Again…smart girl, I should have known that the beast would follow me where ever I went and should have stayed in reach of a good doctor but I was determined to follow my dreams, so off I went with boyfriend and a couple of classmates. The first couple of months were good but I started to decline again. I finished with my classes but my boyfriend could not take my moodiness and dumped me and one of my dearest friends from school decided that I was incompetent and dumped me too.
After Australia I returned to the states and spent the new years with my family and then headed back to school to complete my final semester. The depression just got worse and worse despite taking my meds, staying completely sober and exercising every day. I was extremely suicidal and could not get it under control. I decided once again to get ECT. I hated the thought of memory loss but it worked so well the first time that I needed to do it. Not this time…the only effect it had this time was to increase my anxiety because I couldn’t remember anything. Half of me was going to school, determined to finish…half of me was planning my death. I found one of the most deadly tropical plants and ordered seeds on-line. One of the seeds has been known to be fatal…I ordered 1000, sure that that would be enough. When I received them I put them in my pantry and felt a certain assurance that I could do it and told myself that I wouldn’t. Determined to live and pursue my dreams.
I continued to study but my sleep was getting in the way. I needed 10 or 12 hours of sleep a night and couldn’t function without it, this lead to my sleeping through my morning classes quite frequently. One morning I slept through my favorite class…again… and decided that I was tired of feeling like an incompetent fool. I took the seeds out of the pantry and ground them in my coffee grinder stirred then into a morning smoothie and drank it down. I wasn’t sure how long it would take so I got my backpack and headed off to school because I had a presentation to give. By sundown I was beginning to feel ill, started vomiting and having diarrhea. I went to sleep and the next day I barely had the energy to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t even drink water I was so week. That is the last thing I remember for several days. That Friday I was picked up in a Wal-Mart and almost arrested because I had no money and started fighting with one of the clerks. Ultimately they called an ambulance and sent me to a hospital instead. I was 2 hours away from my apartment. I had become delirious and started having hallucinations but somehow managed to drive 120 miles without remembering anything. I woke up several days later in the hospital and my sister and mother were there, my mother had returned from a trip to Italy to be there. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks…the doctors said that I would have died it I hadn’t made it to the hospital when I did. Near success…but not quite. The poison was never identified and nobody identified it as a suicide attempt…nobody besides my p-doc knows what I did and it haunts me to know. I need to talk about it but it is such a betrayal to my friends and family that I cannot tell anybody. It is a betrayal of myself.
That was 2 months ago. Needless to say, I did not complete my schoolwork. However, they allowed me to graduate with several incompletes. All I have to do is complete 3 papers and take 1 test to finish. But I can’t do it. Currently I am paying my best friend $150 for the privilege of sleeping on her couch and be left alone to ignore the passage of time. I do nothing. I somehow pass the time, occasionally reading a book and surfing the Internet. All I have to do is finish those small tasks and I will be able to complete my studies and get a great job…but I do nothing. Every day I promise myself that tomorrow will be different…every day I break that promise. I have no self-confidence, I feel unlovable, I do not want to talk to anybody, I am scared to take any steps forward for the fear of failing again. I do not care about anything. I do not want to talk to anybody. I am alienating everybody in my life.
My p-doc assures me that all of this behavior and self-hatred is depression. He assures me that we will find something that works and I will be back to my ambitious self, working hard and traveling as much as I can. I am not quite convinced. I feel like I am just being lazy and making excuses. I keep thinking that if the drugs aren’t working that I must not be sick. I am currently seeking nutritional treatments but I am afraid to get my hopes up. I do not want to die but I often think that suicide is inevitable. I tell myself that since I survived the attempt that there is a reason that I am here but I don’t believe it. I feel worthless. I just want to live again but the pain and anxiety are too much to bear.
HELP!!!
Well, I would be very happy if somebody has taken the time to read my story and write back. If not this has been good for me to just get it all out and on paper, or rather on computer.
I hope everybody is smiling today and that I can join you in laughter soon!!!
Indie
poster:Indie
thread:365893
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040706/msgs/365893.html