I got in the car and drove back home. Then with much hesitation I drove all the way back to the school and found the Student Counseling office. I walked up to the door then turned around. I took a deep breath and walked back in. I asked if there was anyone I could see immediately. They said they were closed after July until the beginning of the new school year, and even so they wouldn’t have been able to talk to me if I wasn’t a summer student. They gave me a piece of paper with the name of some emergency clinics on it. I chose one not too far from my house and again drove there and walked in with much hesitation and trepidation. From eveything I’ve heard and read it seems that if I were sent to a psych ward the unhealthy atmosphere, shitty foods, and the drugs would leave me even crazier than before. I saw a counselor and a psychiatrist and they prescribed me prozac and sent me away since I said I didn’t really want to kill myself but I just felt fed up and didn’t know what else to do. Now I am at home hiding out. I haven’t taken prozac before but I have taken paxil, zoloft, and lexapro and none of them seemed to have much good effect, maybe like 5% good, but mostly just bad side effects. Lexapro was the worst because it seemed to leave me with persistent numbness in my clitoris that has not gone away even though it has been 4 years since I stopped taking it. I have read other accounts of this from antidepressants on the internet. I can orgasm but it is more difficult.
I’ve been depressed for 8 years, never a day of happiness. Well there was one moment where I went to the dentist and for some reason was quite relieved I did not have a cavity. That was the only moment I recall in all these years of feeling joyously unburdened. I cannot recall any specific traumas or abuses in early life but I have a long history of anxiety. I did not speak to anyone other than my parents, sister, and two friends until age 13. At age 18 I came down chronic back pain practically overnight due to the stress of school and my distress over our treatment of the environment since I was studing environmental science. After that my health continued to spiral downward and I suffer from fatigue, chronic infections, stomach problems, sexual dysfunction and the like. I can’t shake the feeling that the fearful me that I think I am, that everyone knows, is just an accident, is not who I REALLY am and that I’m destined for much greater things.
I didn’t start out hopeless or suicidal. I have an open mind and (once had) a good deal of ambition. It is more like the hopelessness has been slowly drilled into my after years of trying and failing to recover my health and sanity. I have tried it all: western meds, naturopathic meds, psychotherapy, psychics, prayer, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, energy medicine, shamanism, fasting and diets, yoga and meditation, positive thinking, not thinking (trying to remain in the present). I have no health insurance and approximately $15,000 in credit card debt from all this, and from not really being able to hold down a regular job. Lately I’ve tuned to the sex industry for money because it is quick and easy and pays well. I take full responsibility for this decision, I’m not saying I was forced into it, but my poor mental health is definitely part of the picture.
I’m very angry at all the money I have spent. I wish you didn’t have to pay people unless they helped, but only one person out of the dozens I’ve seen over the years has refused my payment. Others have actually tried to insist that I seem better or look better even when I insist I don’t feel it! A couple of people have helped me for free, but I find they are a lot less likely to continue to return phone calls and emails when they have paying clients to take care of. I feel like I’ve often been ignored. People have insulted me, insinuated that I wasn’t trying hard enough, or that I didn’t really want to get better. I asked my doctor about possible residential treatment programs for depression and he never got back to me. I’ve emailed lists of friends and aquaintances before asking for help, company, food, anything, when I was really devestated and desperate and no one really responded. Too busy with their own shit or maybe I made them a little too uncomfortable. It was very discouraging. I’m waiting to hear back from a woman right now who was supposed to get in touch with me weeks ago. I’ve contacted her twice and still nothing. People suck.
I kind of have a business as an herbalist and I am enrolled in a counseling psychology masters program. I’d like to do good in the world and help others in my position, but I have no real ambition confidence or motivation to help others when I can’t help myself, hence the porn career.
What brought me over the edge yesterday was watching the documentary “The Bridge” about the golden gate bridge suicides. I sobbed the whole time I was watching it because I emphasized so heavily with the subjects. For the most part it was well-known by their friends and family that they were suffering and still it seemed there was nothing anyone could really do. That’s the way I feel. I may not be in a psych ward but plenty of people know about my trials and even the professionals seem befuddled by my lack or resistance to treatment. So they refer me to someone else, which feels like I’m being given up on. Or they say things like “you know not all acupuncturists (chiropractors, doctors, etc.) are the same, have you tried _____. He’s really great?”
Fuck you.
I’m at the point now where I am not willing to try very many new things anymore, even if they are free, because it is too frustrating, each time you take a chance and reach out and someone fails to help it gets a teensy bit more depressing. It’s kind of like being slapped on the wrist. Each time I complete another tear-stained session with a therapist I am left so drained and exhausted I can’t really do anything for the rest or the day. I feel like I should be the one getting paid!
Well now I don’t know what to do. I’m not so incapacitated that I couldn’t go back to work, or get out and do something if I wanted to, its actually boring here and hurts my back unbearably to stay in bed all day, but at the same time I can’t go on living this apathetic half-life where nothing ever changes. I think true hell is this limbo of mostly wanting to die but having some little thread, a glimmer of hope or a sense of obligation to friends and family that is keeping you alive so you keep on living day after day in total misery.
My 27th birthday is coming up. Each year on that day I think as the day approcahes, that there is no way I can stand another year of this. People have promised me I’ll feel better someday but I don’t. Obivously I have my doubts about the prozac after taking the other stuff. I’m running out of options but before I off myself I’m thinking of at least hunting down some ibogaine. It is an illegal drug in the US from an african root traditionally used for religious initinations that often miraculously cures heroin and other drug addictions and also can be used to treat depression, anxiety, and biopolar disorder. You can see testimonials on You Tube. There are clinics in Mexico and Vancouver BC, and other countries where it is legal but it is very costly, 3000-4000 dollars. I just don’t see any way of saving up that kind of money in my current state, so I will look for it underground in the city I live in and although that is not preferable to a clinical setting, I might be able to afford it."
Source: http://suicideproject.org/archives/2009/08/06/this-one-goes-out-to-those-who-have-tried-everything/
