On Mental Health

Almost one month ago, I was taken to Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, ultimately for attempting to slice my own arm open, which would have occurred if not for the timely interruption made by my boyfriend. But there were other reasons that needed to happen anyway. I was non-functional in almost every aspect of my life, and my meltdowns were getting longer, scarier, and more violent, and they would leave me more drained than ever before. I had gone so long without knowing what it felt like to have a "good" day--or even a decent--one that I just didn't see the point in fighting with myself anymore.

I think one of the biggest realizations I have made in these past three weeks is that I am not fighting with myself; I am fighting for myself.

I've written every single day since coming home, and I had written eleven out of the thirteen days I spent as a patient on Floor 13. I wrote enough in those 13 days to fill almost 100 pages.

This weekend was not good. I had meltdowns each one of the last four days or so. I remember falling back into saying that none of it mattered last night. I wanted to run away and let something horrible happen to me. I wanted it to end. The meltdown would subside for a few minutes at a time as we practiced various techniques, but it would always come back just as intensely as before. Two to three hours of that is exhausting. It is understandable that I felt like a failure. (Notice how I am not saying that I believe it, but I am acknowledging that it is what I felt at the time, and that a reasonable person might come to a similar conclusion in those circumstances.)

I've had a bad couple of days, and we are still learning why. We might have made some progress today.

I had been getting on the bus, attending partial for six hours a day, getting on another bus, and then spending two hours in the gym before getting on another bus or walking/getting a ride home. Then I would end up having meltdowns or shutting down around 6:30 or 7:00 each night. The pattern became clear this afternoon when I started to notice that feeling of losing control of my mind, body, and environment. I made the choice to come home after attending the program to give myself a break from social interaction and even social presence. It's almost 7:00 now, and even though I felt the stress building and needed to lie here with my face in a pillow for about fifteen minutes, I am not anywhere near as overstimulated or overwhelmed as I have been at this time for the past week or so. My plan is to walk or get the bus to the gym at the time I had been going before, which is 8:30 or 9:00 pm. I am going to experiment with this to see if it affects my meltdowns in anyway.

Having to chart my own behaviors, even if it is just duration for now, is still very strange to me. But it keeps me honest about the progress I've been making. Having the schedule and checklist has helped me avoid the anxiety that comes with trying to decide what to do and when to do it, decreasing my overall level of anxiety so that triggering events are more manageable. The goal seems to be to create an optimally functioning version of me, however imperfect he may be, so that I have the capacity to handle my obstacles, regulate my emotions, and function as an independent adult in society. This is a long term goal in many ways. Right now, the goal is to make it there and be present each moment of the program.

The goal is to observe, describe, and understand.
Without judgment.

Having written about mindfulness for so long, I find it funny that--now confronted with working the philosophy into every facet of my being--I am having an extremely difficult time. But people are working with me, and they are also working to understand me. I haven't seen her in a few days, but I met a girl in my group that also has Asperger's, though she was only very recently diagnosed. Knowing that and being able to talk with her about things that no one else in the room really understood helped me feel much more comfortable, even on days when she wasn't there. I just needed that initial welcoming feeling, and it didn't come from the typical gestures offered by our society. It came from simply knowing there was someone else like me going through the same thing, sitting right next to me.

One important thing I have finally stopped is allowing myself to write when I am in a cycle of negative thoughts. I have learned to put the pen down or close the computer. I come back to writing when I am in a space that is more neutral. Writing down negative, irrational, or catastrophising thoughts only serves to make them more concrete. It strengthens them, and I no longer desire to give strength to the negativity by which I have sworn for so many years. That doesn't mean I'm doing that well with it at the moment, but I am working on it.

I am working. And it really is like working every minute of the day. But hopefully, in time, it'll be like riding a bike, and I will never have to revisit those dark moments as the person I was when I lived them.

I want things in life, though I don't know how to get them. One of the hardest things for me to do is be 100 percent present. My brain runs in so many different directions at the same time, and this is hardly something I can control. I don't have one train of thought. I have at least seven, it seems. Sometimes it feels as if I am watching seven TVs in my head and still trying to pay attention to the world around me. Even if one of those TVs can be turned off, it's not like I can access them all at the same time. I feel like it'd be like playing Wac-a-Mole. But maybe there are skills I have not learned yet. Maybe this is something I actually can handle. (Again, as you can see, staying in the present is hard.)

My boyfriend has been helping me identify patterns, try new distress tolerance/distraction techniques, and he has even been writing quite detailed descriptions of my meltdowns when they do occur. That last one gets me every time. It's one thing to see it written about a seven-year-old boy who can't speak. It's entirely different to see that those words are referring to YOU. I've just never been able to put myself into the other person's shoes enough to actually visualize how my behavior appears to others. Having a partner so dedicated to helping you be the best you can be is absolutely incredible. I would not be able to do this without him.

I am beginning to be more comfortable asserting myself when I need something, though this is by no means predictable. While I sometimes feel that I am moving backwards, I know that adjusting to so many new things--especially new ways of thinking and approaching situations--will cause things to get worse before they get better in many ways. I am accepting of this. Change can be painful, and pain is not necessarily good or bad. Pain is just pain.

Nothing worth having is ever easy. And my life must be worth having if I am working this damn hard to make sure that it can be better.

Quiet Time

Today I've oscillated between being full of energy and drive and being so completely engulfed in my own anxiety/misery that my brain decided being asleep for 17+ hours was a more appealing option than staying awake and resolving whatever issues it's been having. In the last several months, I've noticed that I have been falling more quickly from a generally positive state to a rather miserable one, and the fall has been getting harder and harder to resist. I'm running out of energy to deal with this, all the while still fighting increasingly debilitating anxiety and the prospect of maybe getting one meal a day for an indefinite period of time.

My brain is all over the place anymore. I can't finish anything I start, and sometimes the anxiety I feel about having to do something completely overwhelms me to the point where I don't even begin whatever it was I had planned to do. Big or small, it seems that any task is enough to roll this snowball downhill, and it starts the instant I open my eyes every morning and doesn't stop until I pass out from exhaustion, long after lying down to attempt sleep.

Mere annoyances have become triggers, and triggers have become automatic switches that send me from zero to meltdown in about as much time as it took you to read this sentence.

I've more or less lost whatever it was in college that kept me so focused and able to be so productive and functional. Granted, I wasn't the best at coping then either, but I thought I had gotten past all of this. I only know part of the problem, and I know nothing of the solution. My brain is already several steps ahead, and I really can't trick it into doing anything once it gets going in a certain direction. I don't know how to bring myself back. Most of the time, it seems completely illogical that any of these skills will work for me--since I know how they work or what the ultimate aim is--so I get more upset when someone tells me what to do to calm myself down, refocus, etc. I just don't work that way, and I need to find things that really DO help. Maybe some of the issue is that things that help other people actually make it worse for me, or they make it more likely that I will exhibit some sort of behavior or have an outburst in the future. I've never really had a good chance to analyze myself because once I am removed from the situation, the feelings get locked away.
Every now and then, I am able to access that information and translate into words, often poetically, and I gain a little more insight into the puzzle of how this lump of cells in my head works. Unfortunately, that little bit just isn't enough most of the time.

I was able to get a decent workout tonight, take a nice long walk home, and sit here for a little bit before the noise came back into the picture. I feel close to the words I'm writing, and the silence I've had has been helpful. My head feels a little less like a whirlwind, and I don't feel like I have eight TV sets to watch at once in my head while trying to navigate my way through the day. (Maybe just two right now.)

So it's clear that I'm depressed and that I have been for some time. It's also becoming more clear that it may not be depression alone, which would explain why medication hasn't ever helped that much. Severe anxiety, ADHD, bipolar depression, and the big one, of course. It's not surprising, but I always thought they were all part of the same thing. But now I realize that the reason I have never really been completely okay is that, at any given time, I am dealing with one or more of these things. Sometimes, I'm just fucking anxious. And sometimes, I just can't focus. And I'm talking can't focus long enough to finish brushing my teeth or get something out of the fridge, in addition to the more important tasks of everyday life.

I am unable to do this on my own, and I don't know where to start. And even if you told me, I probably wouldn't get to doing it anyway, which has become quite a problem for me.

The noise is coming back, and my heart is starting to race again. No reason, really. But I guess that means I'm done for now.

No Way Out

I am getting very tired of having more bad days than good. I'm also just tired. I haven't been able to eat even half of what I am supposed to on a daily basis, partly from lack of appetite and partly from not having food. I feel out of it all the time, and I sleep a good 16 hours a day at least. I've thought about doing some pretty stupid things, none of which are worth the time to repeat here. I have been anxious and in meltdown mode for a week straight. Anything and everything can set me off, and I don't like the person I become when that happens. Nothing is working anymore. I may have a job again in a few months if I can figure out how to be a normal person. I'm still not sure what "taking a break" means. I'm fired but not fired? It's not as if it makes much of a difference. My last paycheck wasn't even for 100 dollars.

We are apparently going to a food bank this week.
I almost started drinking maple syrup this evening.

I was told that there are some people at the DoD who are impressed with my resume. But I've been told that before, so I'm not expecting much to come out of it. Even if it did, given my history, I would probably fail at that too. Whatever it is.

I've already learned that I am just not capable of doing anything I have ever wanted to do, which is probably why no one wants to give me the chance. Maybe they all see something I haven't been able to see until now.

A normal person would take some menial job and just deal with it. But we already know what happens to me when I have to work in a customer service environment. I'd be okay with it if I could spend less than three hours trying to get myself out of bed because I am freaking out about whether I need to shower or eat first.

I feel like everything in my life is getting really out of control.
I really don't understand how this always happens or what I can do.

Am I just not capable of doing this? Of living and functioning like everyone else? Of doing what I need to do and being happy? I am starting to believe it more and more.

There really is no way out. And I don't want to live with that.

Connected

You are the most amazing person to have ever come into my life, and I never want to let you go. This time, I know for sure. But you were right, as you often are. It's one of the things I love about you the most. You are intelligent, and you are more like me than you ever realized before. I did think those things, briefly. I allowed them to play out in my head, over and over again, because I knew that resisting those thoughts and feelings would only make it more difficult for me to understand what I needed to do. I have learned to mostly allow myself to experience without analyzing--without passing judgment. That has been the most helpful skill in controlling my anxiety and meltdowns. But it is not always easy. There will always be days like today.

However, in allowing myself to experience that world in my mind, I came back to the same conclusion I had reached numerous times before. Of course I still felt things. But those feelings are for a person from a different time, and they come from a person from a different time. I have made the decision to love truly and completely the one person that is right for the me that exists in the here and now, not the past. 

I want to believe that I have grown into more of the kind of partner I want to be--that I have learned from my mistakes. 

I don't want this to end like all the others, and I know that it comes down to my actions in the end. I must choose to better myself. I must choose to fight all the time. I can't let myself fall into the same patterns as before. I'm learning how not to do that, and I am only succeeding part of the time. 

But you are patient. And I can hear everything I need to in the tone of your voice. And I don't get that with everyone. It's almost as if the actual words don't matter when I get that way.

I'm waiting for you to come upstairs, still feeling so connected to you after you read my cards tonight. I know this was difficult for you, and I am sorry I wasn't completely honest with you that night on the couch. I was (and still am) so afraid of losing the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. 

Three months

I really just want to be a better person.

He makes me want to do that. 

The person I have to fight the most is myself. I don't mean to be ignorant or selfish. Sometimes I just don't know. 

I can only hope that patience will serve both of us well. So far it has, and that makes me so happy. 

26

I haven't written anything on paper in a while, other than lists of things to do and places to be. I also haven't written anything here either, but that should have been obvious. I fought with myself about how I wanted to get these thoughts out. Usually, when there are too many things, I opt for my computer. I can write pretty quickly, but I'm a much faster typist, and sometimes the clicking of the keys seems a little more calming than the scratching of my pen. I've never been able to figure out why one is a more preferable sound at any given moment.

This weekend really showed me how important it is to maintain my routine, even when new people and things are introduced into my life. Maybe the last few weeks should have been a warning. I felt like something big was coming, and I don't think I've gone a single day in the last week without having major problems that have scared and aggravated everyone around me. In addition, I exhausted myself just trying to keep my head above water and spent most of my actual birthday in pain and fighting throwing up, failing about three times. Do you know how much fun it is to do an Eminem number when you are nauseous and wearing a plastic coat? You don't want to.

I feel bad for not having been in contact with so many of the important people in my life, but there hasn't been enough time to even keep in contact with myself. My sleep schedule has been drastically altered, and I find myself doing things that just aren't me, thinking thoughts that don't seem to be my own. I have been having anxiety attacks before bed every night for the past 6 days, and they keep me awake until some time after the sun has risen, and then I sleep until the late afternoon or evening.  I'm depressed, from what I can tell. Getting knocked out of my routine tends to do that, but there have been other things on my mind.

My job is great, but it doesn't pay nearly enough to move forward in ANY direction in my life, and applications to more lucrative positions have been entirely unsuccessful. Financial anxiety is something I'm learning how to handle, but what I don't think I will ever learn how to handle is the idea that I won't move forward. I need a way in to what I want to do, and I just don't know how to make that happen. With so many good things happening in my life, it upsets me that one or two things, big as they are, can bring me down to this level. I don't like when almost every minute of every day is a fight against myself, and I don't like how I can be to other people. I don't like the burden I place on people. I don't like people having to worry about me.

Right now I don't like how I am having to type this from the bathroom because my anxiety has taken its toll on my intestines. I've lost like 5 or 6 pounds this past week alone. That's another thing that's been contributing to my worries. I work hard at what I do, and I don't need this right now, and the worst of that is that the resultant anxiety only fuels the anxiety that caused it to happen in the first place. I need to get out of this cycle--and many others--but I do not know how.

These are the times when I feel like I haven't grown or learned anything at all from my past experiences. When I feel that the work that I have put in to make myself a better and stronger person has been for nothing, much like how I feel about the work I have put in academically. I don't want this to be my story.

I'm visiting my parents this weekend. I'm hoping to have a few days where I can relax and refocus after an absurd couple of days. There is more that I should be saying, but I can't get to it.

Maybe it'll be different in a few days.

Advice

Please don't touch me without asking. This applies to everyone, even people with whom I am very close. This has absolutely nothing to do with you, so please don't be offended.

If I tell you I am okay when you ask, don't ask me again. And please don't make reference to how miserable I look, make fun of me for being awkward, or continue to comment on it all night. That's a good way to make sure what you are worried about happens. 

Sometimes I just don't feel like talking, but it doesn't mean I am not listening. If you try to force me to interact, again, it will probably just make things worse.

When I ask you not to do something, and you refuse to listen and say that that's just what you do and will do it anyway, I REALLY bothers me. 

If you don't understand, please ask. But don't make everything about this. I would prefer that you treat my interests and needs like those of everyone else you know. Sometimes it just gets old when everyone gets to laugh at how weird I am or how abnormal the way I do something is. It makes me not want to be around you. Or people in general. 

Obviously I haven't been okay recently. 

Don't make it a big deal, and it won't be. 

I have a very hard time trusting ANYONE. It will take a lot of time. Please don't try to jump into my life and assume a role that you haven't earned. It actually scares me and makes me really uncomfortable. You can't fake a relationship of any sort or just make one up, and if you can, I have no idea how that works. I have no idea how to interact with new people anyway, though sometimes I make an educated guess that works pretty well, and I have gotten better at this. But when you try to jump to a point further along the line--if you could envision the relationship as being linear--it messes with me too much, and I just can't figure it out. 

At this moment, I am not okay.