I don't know where to begin

[Anna_vc]

Hello I’m Anna,   I’m new here..   I don’t really know where to start… guess I’ll just lay it all out..? 4 years ago I attempted suicide and spent some time in hospital, while I was in hospital I was diagnosed with PTSD. I was prescribed medication and it was recommended I go to counselling sessions and make a mental health plan with my GP when I came out of hospital. I started to do those things and was placed on a long waiting list for counselling, it all eventually fizzled out and I went about my life pretending the ‘episode’ never happened. I stopped taking the medication because I didn’t like feeling different to my friends and It was hard to wake up in the mornings (I was 20 at the time).  

 So here we are now 4 years later, things have been great. I am engaged to someone wonderful, I have a job that I still cant believe I got and a very supportive family, I hate pets I love like my children and a great social life. I am due to get married in December.  

I have had night terrors since a young age which I can cope with fine, they’re disturbing but usually I can forget about them by the morning. But I have started getting what I suspect are panic attacks. One minute I’m fine and the next minute I will think about something that stresses me out the tiniest bit and my heart starts racing, I have a sick feeling in my stomach, I cant breathe – I literally start choking and gasping for air, my body goes rigid and I throw up. I just collapse into a heap crying and trying to breathe. I have lost control of my bowels a few times which is incredibly embarrassing. I had an attack in front of my fiancé once and he tried to call an ambulance because he thought I was having a seizure.  

 I felt as though I could deal with these attacks even though they leave me exhausted and drained. But yesterday morning I couldn’t get out of bed, I kept thinking about going to work and my heart started racing and I got the sick feeling in my stomach and I tried, I just kept snoozing my alarm and saying one more minute and I just couldn’t do it. I lied to my co-workers and said I had a stomach bug and told my partner I wanted a day to get housework done but none of it was true. I’m meant to be happy and have this under control but thoughts keep creeping into my head and I just walk around all day with the sick feeling (it feels almost like guilt and nausea) until it boils over.  

 I can pinpoint a few things that bring these feelings on. I am unbelievably stressed about money, we are both on decent wages but I will never be where I want in life because I have a bad credit rating and I know that this has really held my fiancé back and I feel SO guilty about it. I feel sick when I think about seeing my mother because I was in foster care (for reasons I don’t wish to discuss) when I was younger and then went to live with relatives and feel abandoned by her even though I have seen her at least once a year since then and never felt anxious about it before. I feel anxious about telling people I lived with relatives. I feel fat all the time (what woman doesn’t? haha) and I feel dumb and stupid all the time. I don’t feel as though I can contribute to intelligent conversation and the meetings we have at work because I’m so stupid. I don’t think I can pull off the wedding I want to because I’m not resourceful enough. I have a million more of these stupid little worries floating around in my head and they are drowning me.  

When I was in hospital I lied and said I didn’t want to die I just wanted everything to stop, I just wanted to feel nothing for a while but I did want to die, I just felt guilty for my family for having to deal with me and didn’t want to hurt them anymore. I wish I hadn’t of lied and then maybe I wouldn’t feel the way I do now. I know there are solutions to my problems but at this moment in time I just needed to vent abit. I have so many more things I could write but there’s no point because I’m not unique and my situation is not unique and I should just get over it. My problems aren’t that bad.  

 Sorry.

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[geoff]

dear Anna, welcome to a group of people who have gone through the same as you are going through now, so there is a lot of understanding and empathy with all of us.

First of all , hold your horses, you said that your problems 'aren't that bad', and that 'your situation is not unique', now that's totally incorrect, they are bad and whether you want to call them unique, then that's what they are, because to you it's now affecting your whole life, and changed from being and feeling 'great' to now destroying your life.

Your PTSD is something that we can talk about down the track, so we will gently push this aside at the moment and deal with it later on.

I am worried that you may be having seizures, and these can vary from being small up to being where you jerk violently and loss of bowels happens.

This happened with me as I have grand mal which is the worst seizure to have, and I now take a heavy dosage of medication to stop me from having them, so maybe google 'epileptic fits' and ask your partner if any of those fits related back to you, because you won't know yourself if it's serious.

The trouble with having a serious condition like what you previously had and no appropriate professional help, is that once we fall in love, we hope that it will just disappear, well it does, but it's still there within you, and eventually it will raise it's ugly head later on, and that's exactly what has happened for you.

Sure you love your partner, kids and pets and have a good job, but even these won't stop the onslaught of depression down the track, simply because these serious issues weren't handled with before and after your attempt, so now is the time that you must go back to your doctor or whether you want to contact BB under 'get help' at the top of this page, which I suggest maybe your best option to start all over again with someone new.

These professionals will have a variety of psychologists or if you prefer a psychiatrist that will see you under a new medicare plan, and it's very important that this time , and for your sake that it's followed through with, in other words, even if you start to feel better, it still has to be done, but at the moment this doesn't seem to be the case.

Your health now is of prime concern for yourself, plus your family who now will just add to your stress levels, because you can't understand what has made you fall into a heap, that's why you are important for all concerns.

The other problem is that when you were in hospital and from what you said to these people surely would indicate that it's just another way of saying that you wanted to be asleep for the rest of your life, and if these medical staff had any 'gumshun' they would have kept you in hospital to determine.

You won't get till Monday, so I hope that you can get back to us. L Geoff. x

[Neil_1]

Hello Anna

Firstly, welcome to Beyond Blue and I'd like to say "well done to you" for coming to this site and then to post your thread.  That's a good positive sign to put things down in a post - in a way it can be kind of therapeutic;  and also it's a sign that you're wishing to reach out for help  And that what you'll receive on this site;  you'll receive advice when we can give it, care for you and above all, we'll support you 100%.

Anna, at the end of your post you said you aren't unique.  I beg to differ ... that everyone is unique.  We'd be cloned otherwise.  Everyone is unique and everyone has their own story - people can be similar but not the same.  And when we get this awful illness attached to us, that then joins us because we all suffer.  But we also suffer at different levels and different kinds of this illness.

But everyone who comes on here ... or even if they don't, everyone is their own person, and everyone's problems ARE bad.  And it doesn't matter again what level they are ... if someone has problems, even little ones, they are still problems and still need to be cared for and supported.

You've mentioned that you have children??  How many and what ages?  I'm not being nosey, just wishing to find out a little, just a little about them.  Because near the end you talk about wishing to end it all.  When you're suffering these awful thoughts do come to the fore of the mind, but please please Anna ... this is something that just can't be done.  As you said, you've got children ... they need you.  Your fiance would be devastated as well as your friends.  I really hope that you can somehow push these awful thoughts to the very back of your mind and deeper.  If nothing else, please think of your fiance and your children.  Sorry, I'm not meaning to be harsh here, but this is a big concern that you have raised.

Anna, you cannot be dumb or stupid ... I can tell that immediately anyway, simply by the way that you've written your post.  You articulate yourself very well;  you have a wonderful fiance ... and you have a brilliant job ... now all of these things simply wouldn't be possible if you were correct with your description of yourself.  It's the illness that makes us think very low and unworthy things about ourselves and then we beat ourselves up about it.  What a mongrel thing this illness is.

Money is always a major stressor for so many people ... it's just something that is needed and it's evil that people have to rely on it so much.

With regard to your upcoming wedding ... we're still half way through Feb, so there's still, I think, a number of months to still get things sorted out, yeah, for your December wedding?   You've mentioned that you have a good network of social friends.  I'm guessing that one or two or even three will be on the bridal party?  I don't know if this will work, but I would be suggesting to them or one or two of them to sit down with you ... you can then run through exactly what you are envisaging how your wedding would be;  and then together you can set up a plan to get that done?  I know that sounds very simple and actually doing things like that take a lot more time and effort, but is it something that might be possible?

Anna, thank you so much for your post ... I haven't touched on everything in your post, but I hope the things that I have done, well, I hope that you found something there to be a little helpful.  I have no doubt that over the weekend, you'll receive responses from other members here.

I also hope that you can get back to us whenever you feel able to.

Kind regards

Neil