And so she neglected to title it...

[Magenta]

In all honesty, I don't know what this is. I don't know what to title it or where to put it but I suppose because I feel like I'm about to die from the panic attack I'm having, I'll say mental crisis. I got a panic attack watching Little Mermaid videos. As if things weren't fucking bad enough. Now I'm being triggered by Disney? That probably wasn't it but... whatever.

If you get to the bottom of this plethora of word vomit, you deserve an award and a personal visit from me to get a hug even if I have to walk all the way there... or swim, depending on your continent.

This is going to be a rant or something. I'll spare you now and apologize for making a new thread yet again and just say that I don't expect replies or anything. It's pretty embarrassing going through all my old threads. There's so many of them.

Hey, that even ties in with this. I've been here for almost two years now. I'm not complaining, I love VT. I came here though, not when things started, but when I finally started trying to get help. Seeing all my threads, seeing every miserable post of mine from such a long time of seeing professionals, well, it's discouraging. I'm on my fifth therapist, starting from scratch again. I can't expect much right now. However, the four others? The four psychiatrists, the two hospital stays, the ER visits? Shouldn't something have helped? Not right away, that wouldn't happen, but even a little bit? After two years, surely something should have helped even the tiniest bit in such a long span of time.

I have another psychiatrist appointment again on Tuesday. I don't know why I go. Right now, I'm not ready to be back on medication. I barely even know what I'm taking medication for. For my 'mood'. Well, okay. I don't know what's wrong with me though. I don't know why my 'mood', as he says, is so fucked up that it needs medication. Two years ago, I wanted a diagnosis. I still don't have one. At least not one without an "well, I'm thinking" attached to it.

I'm almost 18. Okay, I know, I'm not even 17 yet so that sounds silly but I'm sure people know that as you get older, 18 months isn't actually that long a time. If two years of this has seemed so long yet so short, why would the next two be any different? Thing is, I'm afraid to turn 18, to suddenly be an adult, to be expected to be all these things I'm not ready for. I guess everyone feels that way at one point but I'm terrified. I don't see a future for myself. I can't see a future for myself when I don't even know if I have a present right now. I don't want to go out into the world knowing myself only as "the fucked up girl" who didn't have a childhood, who couldn't be a teenager because she was too worried about what was going on in her brain chemicals or past to live properly.

Simple way to solve it? Stop thinking about it. Well, we know that won't happen. I compulsively worry about everything, all the time. I'm not as bad as I used to be but... I don't know who I am. I don't know who Jo is. I don't know my own body or my own head. There's someone in there, maybe there's more than one someone, but she hasn't decided yet. People brush it off and say that's normal for a teenager to not know who they are... but is it normal when it prevents you from getting up in the morning? When it prevents you from having proper friends or being able to live? There's someone I'm supposed to be, someone I want to be but not someone I am.

Right now I'm having the hardest time with people. I don't relate to people. I feel so disconnected. People to me are bad. I am so trusting, so easy to get close to and that scares me a lot because I know I shouldn't. People abandon me. In the end, I scare people off. It's a cycle: trust, get close, use them, either I get frustrated first or they do, so much anger, then hatred I don't know if it's mutual or even real on their part but it feels like it, then they leave and I'm alone again. Maybe that's why I can just use people for support. I do appreciate it, even if I am selfish, but I guess I also know that the only pain I'll ever feel is abandonment so I don't have to worry about them causing any other pain. Does that make sense? Probably not but that's okay. I'm just so angry all the time. I can't keep friends. It's easy to make them in spite of having really bad social anxiety. I just don't know how to deal with people outside of high school. I guess, though it hurts to lose people over and over, it doesn't sting as much because it's high school, teenagers are fickle. Adults aren't nearly as much and what happens when this happens over and over and over in the real world? There's very few people who have the extreme patience with me that is needed to put up with me after a few months of knowing about me.

I feel like I deserve the self-harm right now. 12 days free? I don't know why I'm bothering. I was feeling okay for awhile (well, less suicidal basically) and I guess I could manage for a bit but everything is still so dark and I can't pull myself out of it. I deserve the pain. My eating disorder is back to being completely erratic and I don't know whether I was recovering before or not or if I'm going to hit a complete relapse soon. I don't know how to be if it's not hurting somehow. If I'm not a whole person right now, at least I have the problems? It keeps me here, I suppose. There's something there. If I were to stop all this damage to myself, I'd sort of just be floating somewhere. I can deal with the float-i-ness on occasion. Isn't that why I started doing fucking over the counter drugs? Just for the stronger dissociation I can't manage on my own... but that's only on occasion. I can't feel so empty all the time or I'm completely lost. It's a break from the destruction but not the permanent one from if I stopped completely. It doesn't make sense but it feels... basically just like my life. I don't know what a normal life should feel like.

I just want to know what's fucking wrong with me. There's no way that all of this (my past, what I'm doing now, everything I feel) is just the bad luck of depression. No, I don't want something worse than that, so to speak, but it just doesn't feel like any of this could be a natural depression. A hamster could tell me I'm depressed and all I'd say is "no shit". I'm just seeing this psychiatrist and he's my fourth one. Can one of them just finally tell me what is wrong so my therapist can actually help me through it? Maybe that's why therapy to me is so... disorganized and useless. It feels like I'm flailing through seemingly related issues that, one their own, are just a mess to deal with. If there was something specific to deal with then maybe I'd feel like it would get me somewhere. I need order, there's enough in my head already that can't be organized. I don't need everyone around me taking their sweet time while I feel like I'm drowning. It's been two years. They hospitalized me twice for observation. They can't blame it on me being too young, I grew up a long time ago because I didn't have a choice.

Like I said, I want to start dealing with this now, not when I'm an adult and have to tackle everything else too. I don't need my mental health looming over me while I try to get a job, go to school, start living on my own. I want to feel safe, like there's a future for me not a dark pit. Worst part is, I can't kill myself. I know I can't. I have enough hope to know that there has to be something for... whoever I am... isn't there? I just can't get there on my own. My friends are no help (well, what are left of them) and it's not their fault. It's mine.

I. Can't. Do. This. Myself.

And it doesn't feel like anyone else wants to help. Like my psychiatrist wants to prolong it. Like my therapist wants to comb through fine details, which I understand, but the two can't work together if neither have answers or neither wants to tell me. I hate to act conceited but... I am not a child. I may legally be underage but I can do almost everything an adult can right now. I hate people treating me like a child. I was never a child and I'll never get that back so we might as well just move on. I'm just fucking angry. I feel like I'll just explode. When I do, I just insult everyone. I can't help it though. All my life, I focus on others, I put myself in the backseat.

When I finally come out of the corner, there's no one there. For god's sake, I want these professionals to DO SOMETHING. Anyway, I think now I'm just turning into a whingy, crying, angry teenager. I guess I can't claim to be an adult when I act like this. I'm done now, I've covered almost everything so I suppose it's just survival until Tuesday (and trying to stop shaking now). I don't want to die but swallowing my pill collection feels tempting. It's that impulse to be reckless... just because I can't feel much else.

Damn, uh, sorry for the novel and wasting the server space or whatever.

In the end, I'm alright but I'm not. I want to be better, I guess.

[Amaryllis]

Jo, I adore you and I understand. Not in a "yeah your mum died, I'm sorry. I understand" type of curtesy but as in we probably have the same freakin' problem.

I don't know what to say and more than anything, I want to run back to 2011 and beg the helpful, motivational me to come the fuck back. You need someone helpful and patient, I don't know if I'm either. You're lost. I'm lost. But we should at the very least try.

There's nothing "wrong" with you. You're not some deformed other species and even if you did have some horrifically terrible mental illness - like an eating disorder - you're not going to let that control you and run your whole life and it isn't going to be absolutely incurable.

It hurts and the pain is unbearable, you feel you don't deserve anything better, the world is falling apart and you don't know who you are, you want food to not exist and your brain won't shut up. That's really, really hard to live with and you really are tough for coping for so long. Now perhaps you need to find better, less destructive ways of coping.

The few psychiatrists I've been to have urged my mother to let me be put on medication but she refused so I went to psychologists. And since I can no longer afford to pay, I go to the school counsellor now. I'm doing okay, as in probably not any worse than you.

Perhaps you should just go to a psychologist and not tell her about past diagnoses and the like. Start afresh. Let them figure out so -you- can decide.

I'm a bitch to treat. When they tell me I have dysmorphia and it's something I'll have to live with forever, I don't believe it. Because I'm special and it's all a matter of resilience and taking your fate into your own hands.

It's great that you're posting this and even better that you're seeking help - it takes a deserving person to do that because letting people in and asking for help is not an easy feet. We're really, really proud of you.

Do you remember the first time you went to a mental health professional? If you were like me, you'd have thought they would fix everything. That with them, everything would be better. It obviously didn't turn out that way, so we found another and another.

Not saying this to destroy your hopes, saying this because -you- helped yourself. -You- got yourself this far and diagnosis or not, you're going to keep going because there are and will be moments and people to live for.

Your future is not going to be a dark pit because you're not going to let any mental illness hold you back. Having a mental illness is really terrible and sometimes it feels like that's all you are but it isn't. Recovering does soften the voices, if not make them disappear. Sometimes our heads get too loud and only self-destruction seems to quiet them down. But focusing on a life -beyond- your mental illnesses helps a ton.

When you think of yourself differently and the world differently, things become different. That's partially why I stopped seeing a mental health professional, because I didn't want to be the broken, messed up person I generally felt/feel like I am/was. Not that I'm recommending it because we all have different methods of coping and different roads to recovery and you'll grow with every step backwards, forwards, to the left and to the right.

The are no mistakes, misfortunes and failures you cannot learn from.

[mosin1942]

Well, I've been there, I know what you mean, it really sucks to not know who you are, for me personally my parents never cared enough to notice that I needed help, so I never got any, however, I am rather thankful for that, because in my opinion a lot of the "proffessional" help is just telling you things that don't really make any difference whatsoever, and perscribing medications for things that don't need meds. I also know what it feels like to be deserted by all your "friends" I also went through a new set of friends every few months because they all got sick of me.

I can definitely say that hurting yourself is not the right way to go about it, I used to repeatedly punch rocks until my hand was bloody and broken, and looking back it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. I'm afraid that I cannot offer an instant fix, but I can offer you the two things I have, first, I am always up for listening, and second, and this is the one that really got me on track, and really showed me who I was supposed to be. I began to seek God, and when one seeks God they find Him. The only One who can really show you who you are intended to be is God. My advice would be to search for Him, go pick up a Bible, read it, it took several years for me to actually get broken enough to realize that the only One who could help me get my life sorted out was God.

I am sorry that times are tough, and that people are not willing to be patient enough to help you, it is unfortunate that the majority of the world no longer is willing to put the welfare of others above their own welfare. Feel free to message me if you ever need to rant, I am always willing to listen.

[Magenta]

Well, not to sound completely ungrateful for your response to this monstrosity of a post but I doubt God really has much to do with my life. If he did, wouldn't things be better because I'm pretty sure God was supposed to love everyone. Well, he certainly shows no love for me. He didn't when I was a little kid, when I went to a children's bible study everyday and still returned home to the same screaming. Sitting and waiting for God isn't going to do me any good, whether he exists or not.

I'd much rather take my chances with professionals, people I know actually exist. My issue is mostly that it seems like they've given me pills and forgotten about the rest of it because the pills are supposed to help. Well, I wish they'd finish what they started and just tell me what's wrong. I could have explained it better yesterday but now I'm just out of words to describe how empty it feels.

I'm already Catholic, it's done me nothing. :/

[mosin1942]

God never promised that times would always be easy, but He did promise that He would always be there, we just have to seek Him, God does love you, but the question is do you want to accept His love, for a long time I didn't, I kept thinking "Oh if God was really loving than my life would be better", but eventually I realized that it wasn't God that was distancing from me, it was me that was distancing myself from God, and once I started seeking Him, I found Him.

[Amaryllis]

I assume you've told them the medication isn't effective - if they haven't found alternatives or they aren't trying to talk to you about -what- you need and how to get it, you really should switch.

It's a good idea to go to different doctors for help, since they all have different methods of teaching you to cope. Find out which road -you- want to take and add your own additions. There's no cure-it-all pill (not that I can say cause I was only on medication for a short while) and no best way of looking at things so decide for yourself. Of course, self-destructive methods of coping are short-living and generally don't work long term.

God works if you have faith. However, god is neither omnipotent, omniscient or all-good so it's no way you. You're fine and "god" isn't trying to punish you.

You're Wiccan, yeah? I used to wicca to help me through anorexia at one point. By thinking of food as gifts of nature rather than a bunch of calories that add up in my head. And this may sound silly but I prayed. Sort of. More of like a gift of thanks and meditation to remind myself to tough it out.

What worked for me when I had faith was visualising light flooding into me from the top of my head to push out all the darkness back into the ground. It still comforts me somewhat now.

When I was younger I carved what I wished to banish on an apple (fear in this case), imagined all the ____ flooding into the apple, dug a hole far far away, buried it, covered it in salt and dirt while imagining my life without fear. It actually worked for quite a long time! At least a year, perhaps 2 or 3.

That's saying a lot because I have a horrible, hallucinating, numbing case of anxiety.

Paganism goes on and off for most of us but my life's much lovelier when it's around. Good luck, Jo. Love you always.