M is for Mental Health

I promised myself that my next blog post wasn’t going to be another musing on the mental health merry-go-round, but I read this & discovered that there was a Blog for Mental Health 2014 project. If you’ve been following my posts, then you’re well aware that I’ve got a mental health condition, more than one in fact. So I thought I’d join in on the project. Here’s my pledge:

“I pledge my commitment to the Blog for Mental Health 2014 Project. I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others. By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health. I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.” (Tallulah “Lulu” Stark, founder of Blog for Mental Health 2014)

Frankly this is a big step for me, as I never thought I’d be one of those bloggers who joined any kind of blogging projects &/or blog-link-along kinda thing. But mental health is a huge thing for me, so here I am. You can read more about the project here.

To bring any new readers up to date, I have “Reoccurring Major Depressive Disorder with Suicidal Ideation”, “Anxiety Disorder Not Otherwise Specified” (otherwise known as “she’s got it but we can’t give it a category”), and “Binge Eating Disorder.” If you want to learn all the dirty details about my hospitalizations click here, here, here, and here. If you want to read a post specifically about suicide, click here, or bingeing, click here. A bit about my family can be found here, here, and here. And other bits about my mental health can be found here, here, and here.

So here’s what’s new about the state of my mental health:

1. My counselor is leaving me. Well, not just me, she’s leaving the facility I go to. Unfortunately, it’s the only place in the area an unemployed, uninsured person can go to and still get help, so I can’t follow her to wherever she ends up going. To make it worse, it’s just as we were starting to get somewhere. My last session with her is this week. I’ve no idea why she waited this long to tell me, but I hate that I don’t have much time to adjust to it. She says she has to go because she’s got to “model” what she tells us to do. I’m not exactly sure what that means, and she can’t really tell me anything else because of the whole client-counselor separation thing. I’m guessing there’s something major going on in her life and she’s gotta take care of herself in order to take care of something/someone else.

Nope this isn’t me.

As a full grown adult, I’m happy for her that she’s taking care of herself. As a messed up person, I AM PISSED OFF!! This is gonna be the third counselor (not counting the intake and crisis counselors) I’ve been assigned at this facility. This is also following a pattern that started a couple of years ago where just when I think I’m getting somewhere with a counselor or major issue in my life, that counselor or person who is helping me leaves. And I have to start all over.

Why? Why do I have to have these problems? I don’t get it and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of having to explain myself and my life over and over again to yet another person. Frankly, I just want to throw things. This leads to:

2. My depression seems to be getting worse. I think it’s because I’ve been missing some of my meds, or it could be because my unemployment was cut off (at least until congress re-authorizes Emergency Unemployment again). Or it could be because the weather sucks. Or it could be because I suck.

Wait, I’m not supposed to say that. Okay, time to use my CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) skills: “sucks” is a negative word so I’ve gotta replace it with something positive. Um… Let’s say “it could be because I’m currently in a difficult situation that anyone would have a hard time with.”

Still not me.

Not nearly as fulfilling as saying “sucks.” Sigh.

In any case, I’ve been sleeping a lot. 18 hours last night, 12 the night before. And I’ve been spending money that I shouldn’t be spending on stuff I don’t really need (this is one of my ways of distracting myself). I’m still bingeing, but not any more than before my mood started dipping. Oh, yeah, it started dipping right around the holidays. Coincidence? I think not.

3. My anxiety level has gone up. This one is easy to address. It happened because a drunk guy wandered into my building and was creeping up the stairs next to my apartment. He turned out to be harmless, but it triggered all my safety anxieties. And it doesn’t help that one of the abuse incidents in my past happened right after someone crept up a flight of stairs right next to the room I was in. I’m doing all the CBT stuff that I’ve practiced about this and I can see it working. I’m thinking at least this’ll get better soon.

Coming up next week: probably a post about writing (cause I’m sick of staring at my navel).

Kittens. Just cause they’re cute. And I
LOVE cats.

Blessings to you all.

Be well.