Coming back to life - where I've been

I've been away from blogging for a while. I've had a lot going  on. Last Wednesday, the 9th, I attempted suicide. I took an overdose of sleeping pills, painkillers, and anti-anxiety pills. I realized what I had done and called my mom about 15 minutes after wards. I was taken to the hospital by ambulance, forced to drink an activated charcoal solution in the ER to absorb the pills, was put on oxygen, a heart monitor, pumped with IV fluids, and had tons of blood drawn. I had self-harmed prior to my suicide attempt and my arm was patched up with ointment, and a gauze bandage. About an hour or so later, I was transferred to the psychiatric facility next door. I only spent 48 hours there. The first 24 I mostly slept, sleeping off the medications. My blood work came back with my kidney function impaired, and low liver enzymes. I still don't if there was permanent damage done.

After getting out of the hospital, I moved in with my parents, where I have been since last Friday. It's been really hard. I miss my house, my bed, my room, my privacy. My therapist wants me to stay here until Monday, because she's out of town and wants to make sure I stay safe. My parents joined me in therapy on Monday, and it went okay. They know the full extent of my trauma and how painful and hard it has been and how it's affected me (PTSD, dissocation, etc), yet my mom feels it's okay to question me about it. I'm going nuts.

I'm not feeling depressed anymore, maybe a little bit. But no longer suicidal.  My anxiety is pretty high. I guess that's from living at home and...I went back to work today. I will only be at my babysitting job for 2 more weeks. They have to let me go. I understand their reasons. It's the second time I've been in the hospital in 6 months, they need someone reliable. It makes me sad but at the same time I understand.

So, the next couple of months I will just be taking it slow. I will continue to work at the restaurant, and look for a volunteering job.

I feel incredibly regretful for what I did. But I also have made the decision to live, I realize I don't want to die. I reached the ultimate rock bottom with my depression, anxiety, and PTSD. It can only go up from here.

My faith is as strong as ever. I am clinging to God these days, for strength, wisdom, forgiveness, and hope. He makes all things new.

I used to be pretty incapable of taking care of myself. I think I'm finally doing a pretty good job of it though. It's taking time and a lot of hard work, and I'm not perfect at it. I'm becoming more and more normalized with my eating. I saw my dietitian last night and she said that my eating for the past week was normal! She was so shocked (and honestly so was I). I don't really know what changed. I guess I just felt more hungry. It helps when I have an appetite. I had a big freak out last week because my dietitian weighed me and I found out I had gained xlbs over the holidays. People kept telling me it's normal to gain weight over the holidays, but it's never been normal for me. I've always been sick during Christmas. I was so upset over the weight gain. I didn't even care that my dietitian said that all of my numbers were right where they should be. I just felt huge and fat and disgusting. And I still do. But I accept that fact that probably the reason why I gained weight over the holidays was because I was screwing up my metabolism by skipping meals. So I guess that motivated me to start eating normally, and that's what I've been doing.

There are other ways I've been taking care of myself. Even though there are times when I still feel REALLY guilty for reaching out for help, I have been doing it more. I've been in close contact with my treatment team during this past few weeks, while things have been really tough. I'm trying to see if a medication change will help. I'm working on my eating. And I'm allowing myself to be more vulnerable in therapy. My therapist mentioned possibly telling my mom about my trauma history, as she knows very, very little. At first I said NO WAY. But now I'm actually thinking about doing it, only of course if my therapist is there. And she says she absolutely agrees that she should be there. I have therapy tomorrow and I think we are going to discuss it more then.

Other ways I am taking part in self-care is going to sleep earlier, aromatherapy, distraction, and asking for what I need.

I'm still having a rough go with depression. I think maybe it's a little less intense, maybe not so much suicidal ideation going on. It's still something that needs to be watched, however. I have good moments and bad moments. I had a really powerful experience a couple weekends ago. I went to the Saturday evening service at my church. I go alone, I always have. For some reason, I wanted to walk out in the middle of the service. I just didn't feel connected to God or to any of the music or the message that night. I stuck it out though. And at the end of the service, the pastor got up and said if anyone wanted to be prayed for, to approach him afterwards. Something just pulled me over there. And I admitted that I was struggling with a severe depression, and he prayed for me. It was what I needed. I felt God and His presence. Part of the message of the sermon that night was, "God makes the impossible possible." I keep thinking about that.
I've always felt it was impossible to recover from my eating disorder and to heal from all of my trauma. Maybe it's not impossible though. Maybe I can get to a place where I will be okay.

I'm also having a super tough time with PTSD and other trauma issues. Next week is the 2 year anniversary of my rape. I'm growing increasingly anxious about it. Last year on the first anniversary, I took the day off of work and medicated myself and slept all day. This year, I am making it a two day event. On Monday I am walking the labyrinth with my therapist. I did this last summer as a part of the eating disorder group I did, and it was a very powerful experience. On Tuesday, my therapist and I are going to a park near her office and I'm bringing a balloon and she's bringing a sharpie. And I'm going to write on the balloon everything about that night that I want to let go of and release. Then, I'm going to let the balloon go. I'm glad I will have extra support on those two days.

I'm back to my normal work schedule this week. I'm already exhausted. I'm counting down the days to Spring Break already.

As always, taking it day by day, hour by hour.

Hurting So Much

I am hurting so much these days. I feel so, so much sadness, grief, pain, fear, etc about my traumas. It literally makes me heart ache. I feel it in my chest and in my stomach. Sometimes I just want to scream. I love to write, it's one of my favorite coping skills. But lately that's been too hard because it makes me think about the pain. And I just want it to go away. It feels like it will never stop coming.

Flashbacks are becoming more frequent lately. I'm not sure why, maybe because Winter is when some of the trauma happened. I feel triggered by the smallest things, and it sends me into panic mode. I have had nightmares two nights in a row and it's left me almost non-functional.

I asked my therapist if we could increase our sessions to twice a week, and she is on board with that. So that helped me feel some relief. But it still hurts so much. I never knew it was possible to feel so much pain.

I'm so scared of everything. I wish I could build a bubble around myself and not be in touch with reality.

I cried a little bit about my trauma last night. But not much, because it felt scary and I was alone and I don't want to be alone with those emotions. Night time is the hardest and I have trouble relaxing.

I know I'm not alone, but I'm lonely. I just want someone to wrap me up in their arms and hold me tight until the pain goes away.

Darkness

I hate this time of year. Starting a couple weeks ago until warmer weather gets here, I absolutely loathe this time of year.

I've always struggled with depression, but Winter time is a scary time for me. I'm already feeling really scared about it. It seems like no matter how good things are, I am always depressed. Like right now, I'm doing really, really well with ED recovery, and while my jobs are stressful...at least I have a job. But lately, I've been thinking about dying a lot. I wouldn't call myself suicidal, as I have no plans to kill myself. But, I guess I'm such deep emotional pain these days that dying would feel like a relief. I told my therapist all of this today, which was really hard because I don't want to scare her or worry her. She gave me a few reminders as to why I CAN'T hurt myself. She said it would hurt the kids I babysit, and it would hurt her too if I did anything to myself.

I just get so paralyzed by my depression sometimes, and it totally sucks. It's the heaviest feeling on my chest and I feel so incompetent of handling real life. I just way to lay in my bed for days. I don't really know if this depression is something that can be fixed or made better with medication. I'm on a pretty high dosage right now, and I guess I could go higher, but that also makes me uncomfortable because I also don't want to be totally numb.

I'm not nervous for Thanksgiving, not about the food part. I have really no worries about it. I'm just not a huge fan of spending extended time with family. But, I'll deal with it.

PTSD sucks and it has really been tough lately. I learned a valuable lesson this weekend. Alcohol and PTSD are not a good combination. Needless to say, I won't be drinking again for a while. I just feel so on edge about sudden noises and movements these days. I felt so stupid because tonight in the grocery store there was a big bang behind me from something falling and I jumped probably a foot in the air. I nearly had a heart attack. I get so frustrated with things like that.

I'm just not in a good place tonight. I feel very sad and very depressed. And very lonely.