Floradrenaline's Diary

[Imissmysun]

My thoughts are with you and your family -

I also truly understand the dichotemy of your feelings - it is hard when someone else's trauma opens up your own wounds... Even harder when the traumatized person is family - it makes the feelings very mixed and harder to deal with - You are making remarkable choices - I am validating your anger and resentlment as real and deserved - you should not have been alone either - your choices or not - You should not have been alone - take some time to go back and comfort your younger self - you deserve to feel safe too - just as much as your sister does -

I hope you see a little bit just how strong you are - how much determination you have - you are an insiration to others who have struggled as you have and felt alone - I think you are an awesome person - I am sending you a huge *hug*!

[floradrenaline]

Here's an update:

My sister and I have actually spent some quality time together lately. Our dad took us both to the fair and we went on a ride together and held an alligator and just hung out. We went on a drive yesterday and she told me she signed up for college classes for the fall. It seems like she's kind of pulling together a bit, and I'm really proud of / happy for her. It makes me a lot less nervous about leaving for a week on my camping trip.

Camping trip: I leave today. My dad and I are swapping cars for the week, since mine is old and rickety and might not make the 1000ish mile drive without breaking down or having the warning lights on my dash light up like a Christmas tree. I have a couple hiking trails and a campground picked out for today, and after that, I'm just going to take it one day at a time. (I do have all my campgrounds picked out, though.) My dad has been calling this my "sanity trip", as in, my "celebration of sanity / recovery trip" and I think that's so accurate. I'm so excited to just spent a week exploring and adventuring through my awesome state.

My last day of work was yesterday. It was weird, it felt both monumental and completely ordinary at the same time. I kept thinking like, this is the last time I will do ____ here, but it didn't really sink in. Honestly I still don't think it has, it just feels like I'm going on a long weekend. Mostly when I clocked out I was just relieved that I made it through that chapter of my life w/o screwing things up completely. When I started I had this sinking suspicion my employment there was going to end via psych hospitalization or other similar disaster, but I feel proud to say that wasn't the case. If anything, I have some confidence now that I can manage life without intermittently needing to be locked up for a week. That should give me a self esteem boost when I'm looking for jobs in the city.

Mentally, I'm doing pretty well. I'm nervous for my move but I feel like I have a solid plan and things have a decent chance of working out. I could have saved more money before I left, but I think it'll be okay. The relapse I was *sure* was coming when everything happened with my sister, never materialized. (Thank God.) My therapist (I guess my old therapist now? we had our last session on Wednesday) always said that I have the tools to cope *especially* when I don't think I do, and that was the case. I'll have to remember that for the future.

I had my last therapy appointment here, and then my last psychiatry appointment here, last week. That was weird/ sad / emotional. I think everyone is very proud of me and still not nearly as proud as I am of myself. The counseling center crew here have probably seen me in worse places than anyone else in my regular life, and in those last couple appointments, I know we all knew how huge it is for me to come as far as I've come in the last six months. Then the agency my therapist (old therapist?) set me up with a referral for called, and I have an appointment for the sixth of September with a therapist there. I looked at his bio and picture online, and he reminds me a lot of the therapist I've been seeing here, at least on paper. So that's good.

Overall, I feel pretty healthy, and spending a week in nature will only help that. Wish me luck!

[hobojungle]

Sounds like an amazing trip Floradrenaline. I'm glad you & sis are getting along now too. Have fun & be safe!

[brownblob]

Sounds like things are going great. Have fun on your trip and good luck with everything.

[rivergirl]

Good luck Floradrenaline, wishing you travel mercies and a relaxing trip!

[floradrenaline]

The trip was... Disappointing. I was lonely and anxious and tired and ended up staying 2 nights in hotels and coming home 3 days early. I saw some nature and I had some good times but overall it was really disappointing and I need a little more time to process how I feel about it and let the let-down sting chill out a bit.

I'm kind of struggling with all the shitty coping skills I used to use, or at least, the urges to use them. This move is terrifying to me and the closer it gets (I'm at 2 days away right now) the less I want to do it and the more I want to just ask for my old job back and live here thru the winter and figure stuff out from there. I just have such a bad feeling about it and I know that's only anxiety and not necessarily factual, but it's so scary to me the suicidal thoughts are starting to come back as a way just to get out of things. Cutting or purging urges too are present and I'm just so scared about everything -- money, family relations, finding a place to live, health, finding a job, mental health, etc etc etc -- that I am struggling to cope healthfully (but am also really stubbornly refusing to give in to the destructive urges -- and just so all of you know, I'm safe, I don't have any kind of plan, I don't have any kind of intent, and I wouldn't burden you guys with that if I did -- I would go to a professional, as I have tens of tens of times before)

I just need to figure myself out or have anxiety PRN and go to sleep for a while. I'm just so scared and feel like I'm unprepared and not ready and just want OUT.

[floradrenaline]

I ended up using PRN and putting myself to bed early. When the suicidal thoughts come out, no matter how fleeting, they really scare me b/c of all the drama I've been put through with them, and there's no way for me to rationally process them in the moment. (At least, not that I've found yet.) So I'm just going to go to sleep and try again tomorrow.

[floradrenaline]

Sharing an essay I wrote about an emergency therapy appt this morning -- originally meant for my blog but not sure if I'm comfortable sharing it there. Will share it here regardless. ~~

"These sound like old problems, things you would have experienced before all the work you've done. Thinking errors." My therapist, immaculately coiffed and clinically distant, sits back in his chair across the desk from me. I, in turn, look down at my feet, shake a little, worry my sweatshirt sleeve between my index finger and thumb.
"I don't think you believe me," I tell him. He is infuriatingly silent. I glower. I have come too far in the past five and a half months to be back in the exact same goddamn position I'm always finding myself in: halfway to hospital in a shrink's office, rocking on my heels, shivering from nerves. Damn it.

He asks me if I want to go to the hospital or go home. No, he asks me if I'm safe to go home or do I need a higher level of intervention. He admittedly "doesn't care about what (I) want". I understand that when self-destruction is on the table, it doesn't really matter what people want anymore, as long as they're breathing, but I wish for a shred of empathy, a tidbit of compassion, anything. Unfortunately, this particular therapist has worked with me long enough to know that a soft touch, in my case, only breeds more insanity. I take love as a result from suicidality and turn it into a reason to become suicidal. Either way, I think about his question for a long time before I tell him I want to go home.

"Call or come back in if you change your mind."

"That won't happen", I say, possibly the last words I'll ever speak to him, as I step out the door.

Alarming as that statement sounds, this isn't because I'm so suicidal that I am planning on stepping in front of the nearest car I see. This is because I'm moving away in less than 24 hours, and I've already technically wrapped up therapy with this person. (The upcoming move being the trigger for this most recent bout of hopeless anxiety.) Our meeting this morning is of the on-call nature, an unexpected bonus therapy session that I believe everyone involved wishes we weren't having.

I walk across the dirt parking lot and hoist myself up into my car, a 2003 white Honda CRV that I love even though it had three different oil leaks in its first month in my possession. As I turn over the key to start the engine, my mind whirs back to life a little bit as well. What was slow and sluggish in his office is now a little less murky, a little more clear. I realize I am scared still, scared to leave, scared to risk, scared to potentially fail, but I am not so scared I feel dangerous. And anyways, I have come too far to throw a monkey wrench in things now.

Thinking errors are dangerous because they feel permanent, immovable. When the sickness is inside your brain it feels impossible to combat it, because all your tools for battle are trapped in the mud that is the diseased thoughts. It isn't until the fog starts to clear that you can start to pull yourself up and fight.

I will come home, have coffee with my dad, walk my dog, drive out to the water. I will take a shower and brush my hair and pack my car up for tomorrow. I will eat burgers with my family tonight and go to bed on time and in the morning I will pull up anchor and move my life to a new city where I may or may not be successful, but I will be alive, and I will be trying.

Little bits of my old brain try to speak up, telling me that I can make everything go away, or I can at least put it on hold for a while. I choose not to listen to those parts, because a) they're lying and b) it will be so satisfying to email my therapist in a month to tell him how hard I'm rocking my new city life. I have done too much work to give in to the little monkey brain pieces anymore. These are old problems, and I have a new life with no room for them. As I pull out of the driveway of the counseling center and turn towards home, I am full of a hope that didn't exist half an hour prior. The sun feels soft on my skin. I will make it.

[Imissmysun]

I love your essay - I think your therapist must know some of your story and think he is helping you but he sounds like a prick to me - I say good riddance - I hate clinically austere doctors - look my brain is messy and I can't deal with someone pretending that its going to be like a precise operation to fix me - let me cry laugh with me - help me yell and find my voice - don't wear heals - don't look down on me -

I know that mental health professionals are also among those that have a lot of stress - don't pretend for my sake that you have your stuff together - my therapist is awesome - she is a perfect fit for me - I have come quite a ways but I think I have a looooong way to go -

But I love the way you end this - and I believe that you will be great - that you will land on both feet running - that you will make your life just as you need it to be - and I kind of envy that creative flexibility you have to be and do anything - this new city is your oyster - find the pearl

[HowDidIGetHere]

Thinking errors are dangerous because they feel permanent, immovable. When the sickness is inside your brain it feels impossible to combat it, because all your tools for battle are trapped in the mud that is the diseased thoughts. It isn't until the fog starts to clear that you can start to pull yourself up and fight.

This really resonated with me. I used to hear all the time "you can't cure a sick mind with a sick mind," which was their way of saying "get help," but it just as often makes me feel hopeless, since I'm always going to be stuck with my own brain.

Good luck in the big city. Kick ass, take names, and don't be afraid of "failing." Most likely, failing is just a different-looking way to succeed.