I’ve been trying to put what’s going on with me into words, and I don’t have anything but CRAYYYYYY CRAYYYYY, which makes for a somewhat lackluster post. But I’ll try anyway. I’ve struggled with my anxiety / depression for a while now. And the anxiety finally reached a breaking point on Thursday when the counselor suggested I go to le Chateau de Mentals.
It probably shows how twisted I am that it occurred to me that might make an interesting blogpost, going into the mental hospital. Possibly I have been blogging too long. Anyway, it also terrified me, and I’m not totally sure how it would help anyway. Sharing a room with another crazy person, going to group therapy with a group of crazy people, and paying through the nose for it. Actually, there is not enough money in my nose or elsewhere for such a thing. And I have insurance, good insurance, that will pay 30 percent of a stay after a rather large deductible. In other words, I will still owe thousands of dollars. If I were on medicaid, it’d all be paid for, but since I have insurance, this hospital offers no financial help.
I have nothing against anyone on medicaid, but I believe everyone should have the chance to be treated. If they want to, which as I said earlier, I’m not even sure if I do. If I knew for sure they would help, I might try it, because I am getting pretty desperate. My body is one giant exposed nerve, like the White Rabbit on LSD having a really bad trip. A sudden noise makes me jump out of my skin, and leaves me shaking. I can’t handle conflict of any kind. It’s just bad.
I am taking FMLA (unpaid but at least I keep my job) to try and get things together. But right now I’m in limbo, cause I have no idea what they plan to do with me since I am not going into the hospital. I don’t know how much time I’ll have off, what medicines they’ll try, nothing. I just know that I’m taking the paperwork to the doctor on Monday, so at least I don’t have to go to work then.
One of the worst things about the state I’m in is that I have upset other people without intending to do so. I fear I’ve lost relationships, or at least damaged them, and I have no one to blame but myself. I’ve had to take a break from Facebook for a while, and I should probably take a break from
other WordPress blogs. I have honestly considered just unfollowing everybody and starting over slowly. I mean nothing personal, but the number of blogs is overwhelming. Everything right now is overwhelming. When I’m better, I will pick back up on them. I would like nothing better than to be able to help others, but right now I’m not in the shape for it. And I know I’m not the only one.
I do have some posts, funny posts, that I plan to get to because I do still need this blog. I treasure all your comments and I’m never happier than when I make someone laugh. As I mentioned before, I have some Game of Thrones reviews – I have become addicted to that stupid show like Crack, but I guess it beats reality TV. Also, the girls and I recently composed a post about dead dogs in children’s literature and how much those books suck. It’s a real romp.
I appreciate all my readers. To my surprise, my stats have not fallen completely into the toilet in my absence. Thanks for that. I hope the rest of you are doing well, or at least better than Sad Pony and Squirrel.
Alice
aliceatwonderland 
Oh Alice, please take care of yourself. We’ll be here when you return. You are in our prayers and have our love.
Thank you, Paul. I really appreciate it.
Really sorry you’re having such a tough time. It’s so frustrating, because if you needed hospitalization for liver failure or an appendectomy or something like that, your insurance would likely cover it. But when it comes to mental health, they set coverage limits, and woefully inadequate ones at that. I hope you can find a treatment that works for you.
So sorry to hear you’re in a rough space. There aren’t enough platitudes to assuage how one feels at such times but know there are people who understand that lonely place and wish you well. Sending hugs and comfort your way. Completely understand the feelings of being overwhelmed and it is safe to either shut down, suspend or ignore social media until you are able to open the door a crack again. 🙂 Linda
Things can get overwhelming and a social media overload doesn’t help – I get into a panic sometimes worrying I’m not reading everyone’s posts.
Take care of yourself and do what you need to do to feel better. We’ll still be here when you come back 🙂
Don’t panic and take it easy. Hoping you feel better soon
xxxxx
Sending prayers, hope, love, peace, and support. Hang in there!
Best of luck with everything!!
Oh Alice! I wish I knew.I’m here for you. I’ll come bust you out. Call me any time. ❤
Hi Alice, I’m sorry to hear you are unwell.
To look on the bright side, you may not be in much of a state to judge whether you really have damaged relationships or how badly.
I don’t know if this is relevant to you but here’s what helped me through a period of depression and anxiety a long time ago.
My judgement went wonky, the uncertainty was exhausting. To get by I made some rules:
1) Trust people. If uncertain ask, and just believe what you are told. (Sometimes I first explained I was having a tough time and didn’t trust my own judgement).
2) Choose beliefs which are useful rather than worrying too much about what is true. Typically that meant to temporarily ignore any negative thoughts which might be the product of anxiety and live in a fake happy world. (After recovery it turned out my fake happy thoughts had nearly all been either correct or harmless).
That and a course of antidepressants got me out of it eventually.
It sounds like you might be headed more toward tranquilisers. All I know about them is the shorter-acting they are, the more addictive they are.
Best of luck
I’m sorry you had such a bad time. I hope it will be better soon. I’m always there to read your posts, imagine I would miss the one where you really would puke in E.L. James petunias?pegoinas? . That would be like missing the Big Bang, right?
You make me laugh, Alice, you really do. So I really hope to see you coming back.
And 30% insurance coverage for mental health after a deductible… if that’s not crazy, that’s sociopathic at the very least.
Do what you need to do, ma’am. If you need anything, you holler, and I certainly mean it. 🙂
Heya sweetie, I’ve missed you. I’m hoping that your doc has some good outpatient options for you, those sometimes help as much as being inpatient. I’ve had to do both, several times.
As for the blog stuff, what I did when I was getting overwhelmed was just turn off notifications in the Reader thingy. That way I wasn’t confronted with all the emails every time I got in to check messages, but if I wanted to visit a blog I still had the record of who lives where. Just a thought.
Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. Lots of love, MM
Hi there. Please take care of yourself. That is priority number one. We will be here whenever you return. This country has it so wrong when it comes to mental health. When will we learn? So sad. *hugs*
Hugs. As others have said, taking care of yourself is more important than any of the rest. And, thank you for all the laughs!
((((Alice)))) I’ve been feeling overwhelmed myself with social media, and not able to read much or post anything at the moment. I think a lot of folks are feeling this way, actually. Please know you are not alone.
To clarify, none of the above was meant to in any way minimize what you are experiencing. My daughter deals a lot with severe anxiety and depression, and while I cannot truly ‘relate’, I can definitely sympathize and understand that there is a real problem needing to be solved. I hope and pray you find a great doc who can do just that!
Some thoughts:
Have you ever tried a more ‘holistic’ approach? For instance, I have known folks who experienced anxiety and depression, then found out some of it was related to a food they were eating which served as an unknown trigger or perhaps a missing element they needed in their diet. I have no clue if any of that will help, but as you can see from all of these comments, there are MANY people who care about your well-being and want to know that you ARE well.
We love you, Alice! Hang in there!
-C
When I open my blog feeder and I see that there are 25 unread posts, I have an anxiety attack. Nothing as bad as yours, but it annoys me. I have to un-follow anyone who posts daily. I can’t handle it.
My wife gives up Facebook for lent every year. (I am religiously agnostic. Me no care.) She finds it a great, cathartic, joyful experience. So much noise. Facebook causes a lot of grief in the world, methinks. Bail out. You might enjoy the peace.
I’m here if you need me.
Take care of yourself, Alice. I certainly understand. So many things about health care need to be fixed. I say even if you end up owing, go in. Your health is most important. You can worry about the bills later. I feel for ya girl. Get well soon. I need your funnies in my life.
*hug*
I’m so sorry you’re going through this, Alice. Take care of yourself.
I came back to add one thing: your post made me think about an expression I’ve seen a lot (mostly from The Bloggess): depression lies. If you think you’ll lose friends because you’re taking time to take care of yourself, that’s depression lying to you.
Sending love & hugs & tea & chocolate. (Unfortunately the last three are virtual.)
I can’t do anything practical (like turn up and do your ironing) but I will be praying for you. And I’m at the end of an email if you need a splurge to someone different. Drawing back from social media is probably a very good idea, so I second the suggestion made above about turning off notifications about new posts to be read rather than unfollowing people. And anyone you think you desperately do want to read, set it so that you only get a weekly email for them. That makes it much less overwhelming (apart from on a Monday when all the weekly digests will turn up, but they’ll just sit there quite happily in your inbox until you either read or delete them).
❤