I am struggling. I have had periods of depression before, but this one has been long-lasting and all consuming. After a couple of episodes of self harm, and realising I had everything in place for accessing a successful suicide, I swallowed my pride and sought a referral to a psychologist. I felt more positive after the first visit, and felt I had the beginning of the tools to start climbing out of my abyss. At the second visit, many of my childhood traumas where cracked open, and like a Pandora's box, the poison has spilled forth, never to be re-constrained. Rather than making an appointment a week later, the psychologist made it at 3 weeks, and I felt like a victim of abuse all over again. He constantly refers to my inner voices of failure and hopelessness, which has the affect of making me feel more hopeless, more of a failure. Despite this, I have already developed a dependence - like a hostage dependent on the kidnapper, or a victim dependent on the abuser. Today he introduced Schema therapy, but I was unable to focus on that enough to get benefit. He is again unavailable for the next 5 weeks, and I feel like I'm drowning with no one to turn to. My husband doesn't know I've been attending the psychologist, and it's not a conversation I feel I can have. To make it worse, I have started getting menopause symptoms combined with dreadful PMS symptoms at the same time. I dread the next one as I swing between suicidal and homicidal during that week. I don't feel I can speak with my GP as he is also a work colleague, and living in a small town, I know or am known by people at each practice. In the meantime, I have started to get serious concerns that this isn't just a simple depression, but the manifestation of a borderline personality disorder, and that terrifies me. I don't know where to turn or what to do. Do I try a different psychologist and have to start all over again, risking ripping open the Pandora's box further? Or do I bide my time, work on the Schema therapy exercises the psychologist introduced me to and wait for him to have time for me? Do I do nothing, drowning deeper and deeper? What if it is a mental disorder rather than just a depression? GP suggested medication, but I'm not ready to admit I have a problem to that degree. Like an alcoholic that attends their first AA meeting, but isn't yet prepared to tell anyone they are going, or admit they have a problem. I'm sorry to ramble - I feel so lost and alone, drowning, terrified. In the Abyss.
