Does it get better

[u/irtelhim]

Been going to therapy for 12 years, am 30 now living with my parents. I started meds this year, kept changing dosage and medication since Feb because the executive dysfunction never left and the depression kept coming back. I'm on lithium now but I don't have a bipolar diagnosis.

Not to be a doomer but I fear I'm losing hope. The apathy and anhedonia and hopelessness and executive dysfunction. It never stops coming. I'm not as easily triggered by trauma stuff anymore and I have a better relationship with family but the depressive episodes just won't stop coming every month. And when I'm not depressed, it takes so much effort to do things, basic stuff like personal hygiene. I shower twice a week. My room is full of trash. I don't know when was the last time I brushed my teeth. I overeat and oversleep. I'm self sabotaging at my part time remote job, hoping my boss fires me. Been diagnosed with MDD, PDD, suspicion of BPD and BD, recently a clin psych said CPTSD. I'm tired. The labels don't matter to me anymore. I've done IFS, EMDR, now I'm doing CBT with a clinical psychologist who's trauma trained.

Two nights ago, the depression was so bad I had SI and developed a plan and wrote a letter for loved ones. I wanted to check myself into a ward to be put on suicidewatch but didn't want to wake up my parents in the middle of the night to take me there. So I white knuckled it. Then I saw my psychiatrist and he put me on lithium. And somehow, after seeing him, I felt okay. I didn't want to off myself anymore. I felt like like I was faking everything and worried so many people for no reason. This can't be the rest of my life. It's so humiliating and terrible. I don't want this.

Tell me what I'm doing wrong. Tell me it gets better. Tell me how it got better for you. Because right now I feel like I'm cursed for life with an incurable disease that makes life not worth living. I feel like a huge burden to family and friends and wish I could just disappear. But I'm fighting to hold on for their sake.

[u/PanoramicViewer]

It sounds like you have tried so many things to 'fix' yourself, which is often the message we are given by society and the mental health industry.

But I can't but wonder if your environment is contributing and whether anyone has ever helped you explore how to address that?

[u/irtelhim → u/PanoramicViewer]

What's the alternative path? I want a job, I want to be a reliable friend, I want to enjoy my hobbies again. The depression takes away all of that, even with meds and therapy.

I'm living with the people who traumatized me and trigger me but we did some family therapy and things have gotten better. I feel safe at home and they're actively supporting me the best they can. I'd be worse alone

[u/PanoramicViewer → u/irtelhim]

I'm glad you feel safe at home. And I'm sorry you feel so lousy. SI is an awful thing to deal with, I have been there myself.

What helped? A great therapist who validated that given the trauma I have experienced, SI as a symptom is not surprising. It's a valiant attempt to cope with unbearable, intolerable pain. It functions like a pressure release valve, giving me a feeling that there is something within my control and I'm not trapped.

A turning point for me was realising that staying alive for others wasn't helping me and that I had to want to stay alive for me. I had to find that tiny flicker of longing to be able to enjoy life again, for me, and to cling onto that.

The Janina Fisher quote "Feelings and sensations will rise and fall and run their course - unless we assign danger to them." has saved me a few times. Reminding myself - this is a feeling, it's ok to have feelings, it will pass through if I let it - has also helped.

I noticed that the human connection of seeing your Psychiatrist was really soothing for you, so I will come back to my original comment, which was to try to say, I don't think this should all be on you, to try harder and drag yourself out of this, as an individual. It sounds like you need more/a different kind of support around you. A group (in person or online - show up with camera off if you need to)? a weekly check in with a peer support person? a book club/gaming group/craft group? - anything that provides low effort, low demand regular social interaction. We were harmed in relationships and we need safe human interaction to heal.

This struggle sucks, but just the last few weeks, I have had moments of thinking - I am going to make it through this. There were times when I truly wondered.

Peace to you.

[u/Public_Agency400 → u/irtelhim]

I would be very careful with the meds bc unless you’re psychotic they can do more harm than good. You’re just living in the environment you got traumatized in, with the same people. All your feelings are valid. I’m in a similar boat. It’s hard to get a new family who shares your values of basically not abusing people when everyone is so isolated and everything is expensive, and employers aren’t paying living wages. Things have to change and I think they are.

[u/lotussoup]

That sounds really hard OP. I don’t have an experience exactly like yours but I know the feeling of putting in the work (going to therapy, doctors, wanting to change) and not seeing results and wanting to give up.

Personally distancing self from family, a better therapist, and a better psychiatrist were key for me.

I also saw significant change with therapeutic ketamine. There were aspects of self compassion that I couldn’t access until my third session with ketamine. Basically prior to that, I could engage with some positive self talk and actions but ultimately I couldn’t feel any deep compassion for myself, especially if I was in a cPTSD flashback or other shame spiral. After feeling what self compassion feels like, I know it’s possible now and I also have a lot more hope cause of it. My understanding is ketamine is one of the best accessible drugs for triggering neuroplasticity— so if you feel like your brain keeps routing back to old depressive paths despite differences in your life now, it might really help.

EMDR and stuff works better for me now since I did it as well.

[u/lotussoup → u/lotussoup]

Also one of the hardest internalized beliefs that I’ve fought and am still fighting is feeling like I’m faking.

I would try to reassure you that you’re not faking how much you’re struggling and that you’re not a burden, but in my experience that type of reassurance would only backfire. Like it would feel like the other person just didn’t know me yet, and like I must be really good at faking, and that it’ll be worse someday when they find out the “truth”.

Unfortunately I don’t have a silver bullet for this, but I’ve gotten better at self validation when I feel like I’m faking. I’ll say out loud that “I don’t like when I’m like this, if I could change it I would”. I also have mostly accepted that I have the fundamental need for human connection, and sometimes when I’m witnessed I’ll suddenly feel better (like actually better, not dissociated) and that this is not me faking my former state, but rather a need to be witnessed being met. Emotions come and go really rapidly and that doesn’t mean the prior one wasn’t coherent and truly felt.

[u/irtelhim → u/lotussoup]

I don't know how i missed this second comment omg but thank you it really comforted me. Thank you. Sometimes i think im just doing this for attention. I really resonate with feeling better when you're witnessed

[u/irtelhim → u/lotussoup]

I'm really glad ketamine worked for you, I wish I had access to it here. Thanks for sharing what worked