I’m Way Below Baseline

I want to preface this by saying that the current crisis is humiliating because I want to be doing well and instead I’m falling apart. So I’m writing this to synthesize things I’ve said to various people and try to make sense of the situation. It’s not my best writing by any stretch.

The main trigger is that I’m afraid I’ll never have kids because money sucks, so my world is collapsing.

Meanwhile, clinical supports are dicey. Ketamine was never supposed to be my main support, but for a long time it was the most helpful thing I had. Apparently, due to neuroscience, it doesn’t work very well after you’re on it for too long, which is why in many countries, they stop it entirely after a few months. So, now that support is less helpful, which is terrifying because I don’t want my life to go back to how it was before. Ketamine also previously was a safe place to crash because it was the one space where I could be brutally honest without fear of going to the ER. Unfortunately, DMH told my ACCS team that I can’t go from Ketamine to inpatient anymore or they’re going to start claiming that ketamine is triggering to me.

So then my main support was neurofeedback, but now there are financial concerns that I could lose that. The next 20 sessions should be covered, but I’m not sure if I can continue after that. I talked to my siblings about it and it would have been fine if they’d just said they couldn’t help financially, but instead they implied that I was lazy and should just be working more, as though I hadn’t thoroughly explored that option.

It feels like all my supports are on shaky ground for various reasons. I was spiraling on Sunday and talked with my therapist about whether the ER was appropriate, but ultimately I decided to soldier on and see if I could get into the Hill Center at McLean. Then I found out that I’m on the Hill Center’s permanent blacklist because of that time in 2023 when I didn’t have food. Which, I feel like most of us would have left the program early under those circumstances- I was eating like two meals a week! The problem with poverty is I’m always held to a different standard than everybody else, so I can never reach it or be “good enough.”

I don’t know where to turn. I could go on Psychology Today and get on 99 waiting lists for EMDR, but this feels too urgent. Besides, I feel like I need more than an outpatient level of care, but I’m terrified to go to the emergency room. I’ve done a zillion other PHPs and they just make everything worse. The ideas on my safety plan are like a garden hose to a forest fire. There just aren’t a lot of great options.

Symptoms

I made a list of current symptoms, including:

• Somatic flashbacks (ie, I keep feeling like I’m being pushed back against a wall and hit in the face or whatever. This is happening constantly.)
• Anhedonia
• Hard to out of bed, want to hide under weighted blanket and avoid everything
• Passive SI
• Can’t focus
• Mental fog
• Isolating
• Moving/thinking slowly
• I feel like a burden
• ALL stimulation is revolting
• My whole body hurts
• Pessimism about the future
• Command thoughts are not the worst they’ve ever been, but they’re escalating- sometimes I can’t go five minutes without my brain bombarding me with reasons to kill myself.
• Sleep has been difficult, mostly because somatic flashbacks are out of control. Then once I am asleep, I could be out for 12-16 hours.
• Food has been difficult because it would require washing dishes, plus I’ve had no appetite and a lot of low-grade nausea for the past several weeks.

I’m at that stage where command voices are really bad and my whole body is tensed to the point of pain and I can’t focus on anything else. ADLs are nonexistent. Everything feels like it’s collapsing and I’m even avoiding text messages because I don’t want people to know how hard things are right now. I don’t think I’d act on SI, but I’m worried that I’ll go into “crisis” and end up losing everything.

Work

I wasn’t very effective at work this week because I was dead tired after being up all night with flashbacks. I have to go in tomorrow and I’m scared. My whole body hurts, so chasing kids all day is really hard. Besides, I’ve been dissociating WAY worse than normal, so I genuinely don’t know if it’s safe for me to be watching kids when I’m staring off into the void. But you’re discouraged from taking a sick day for 90 days, so if I can’t handle this, then is it like I just can’t have that job? But what am I supposed to do for money? And if I can’t afford to live… well, we all know where that goes.

I actually did take a sick day today but I feel like if I’m home sick, I need to be DOING something to get better. Which is why I’m writing this blog entry.

ER

Pros to going to the ER

• It’s kind of at the point where I can either go to the ER now, or wait until after I blow my life up
• It feels like going to the ER would take some pressure off of social supports

Cons to going to the ER

• When I go to the hospital, therapists terminate
• I have to work
• The experience in the ER is so profoundly degrading
• I’m concerned about being bounced, because I appear fine and I’m managing to keep SI passive (at least for the moment)
• There’s a risk I’ll end up in a concentration camp because “You don’t get to PICK what hospital you go to.” 
• The pet sitter is out until next week, so I’m worried about the turtle and cat. Besides, the cat has a vet appointment on Monday for his annual shots and I want to be a good mother

Supports

Previously, my primary reason for not unaliving myself was the cat. Now I have a HUMAN who would be devastated, and it feels like this huge responsibility that I have to make 100% sure I’m “safe.” Whereas previously, I was fine with ~87%

My turtle of course is important but he’s a reptile so he bonds differently. At the same time, I do have 12 years of experience studying his preferences, so he’s probably better here than in a sanctuary. Fun fact: Back in the Dark Days, before Emerson, I would be all ready to do myself in, but I’d tell myself I’d have to rehome Tannîn first. And the thought was so horrible that I just never killed myself . So that’s why I feel like the value of my turtle’s life is equal to mine.

Conclusion

I don’t think I would go through with suicide, I’m just exhausted and I wish I could go to the hospital where they have resources and can help me. And I wish I had the ability to communicate my level of distress, since I’m trying to ask my outpatient people for permission to go to the ER, but I don’t think anyone has understood that that’s what I’m saying. Everyone seems to think I’m okay, when I am not okay. I just want somebody to say that it’s acceptable if I can’t handle it and need to go to the hospital.