Hi, I'm not really sure where this should be posted but this seemed like
the most relevant category. In 2009 I was diagnosed with severe
depression, I had suffered from most of the symptoms that I described to
my psychologist for most of my life grow...
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Hi, I'm not really sure where this should be posted but this seemed like
the most relevant category. In 2009 I was diagnosed with severe
depression, I had suffered from most of the symptoms that I described to
my psychologist for most of my life growing up before that, but ended up
seeking help because of encouragement by the supportive people in my
life after I started self-harming and experiencing suicidal episodes.
This happened around the same time I realised I was a lesbian, but I
don't think the two are that related, because I grew up in an
environment very accepting of that and it was never a big problem with
the people I cared about. I kept seeing the psychologist over the course
of about three years, I believe the last time was in 2012. Despite
going, I don't feel I was totally honest with my psychologist and my
doctor about the things I was experiencing, for the most part. I told
them about the self-harm, and the suicidal feelings, the emptiness and
exhaustion and hopelessness and self-loathing on a superficial level
(general concerns about my appearance and things) but I didn't tell them
about the delusions/other symptoms I was having until very near the end
of my treatment because I was so wrapped up in them that they prevented
me from doing so.I became convinced that I was in some way evil
incarnate - it sounds so ridiculous to say but it really scared me at
the time. I felt like I was tainting the world by existing, and I don't
mean these things in the metaphorical sense, I really believed them. I
felt like the reason I had to self-harm and plan my death was that in
some way I doomed everyone around me by being in their lives. This only
got worse once I sought help because I thought by needing my friends'
and family's support, love, and energy that I was draining them like a
parasite, and the feeling only strengthened. I also suffer from a
chronic physical illness that caused constant intense physical pain and
has been very expensive to maintain, which both further increased my
feeling of draining the resources of people around me, and drove me to
start drinking heavily & using drugs (nothing too serious) at a young
age. This feeling of being a burden drove me into a weird cycle where I
felt like I couldn't suffer because it would make the people who cared
about me suffer - but the fact that I was so awful so as to cause that
meant I DESERVED to suffer - because I was evil incarnate. This started
to cause some very strange symptoms in me after a while - that I was
told by my psychologist could have been symptoms of OCD or some kind of
anxiety disorder, but I refused to go into it because of the above
thought processes. I started to feel like I had to do things to protect
the world from myself - or to keep the truth a secret. Whenever I sent a
message or an email I had to read it over and over to make sure I hadn't
revealed something incriminating about myself or verbally abused the
recipient without realising - behind my own back. I developed strange
superstitions - like when I turned my bedside lamp off before bed I had
to stare unblinking at the glowing wire inside until the last light had
disappeared - otherwise the evil side of me would take over in my sleep.
If I blinked I had to turn the lamp on and off and do it again. I
randomly fixated on particular objects - rubbish on the floor or my
phone or a pencil on a table, and I had to move them because they didn't
seem "right" to me and I had to make them "right" to make up for all the
disturbances I had caused in the world. If I couldn't get it "right"
then I had to hurt myself to make up for it.I don't know how I came out
- or seemed to come out of this cycle. I went through a period of
complete and utter exhaustion and emptiness in 2012, and when that was
over, I guess a sense of normality kind of returned. I didn't feel the
urge to hurt myself, or to kill myself. I didn't feel intensely sad or
hopeless, I didn't feel like I despised myself anymore, I didn't think I
was evil. But I guess that idea always kind of stayed with me - because
even though I could go back to school, and enjoy things, and work hard
and get good grades and so on, I guess I had this conviction in the back
of my mind that I was trying to "outrun" that side of me by being
normal, but it seemed so harmless to my day to day life in comparison to
what I had been suffering from that I didn't really think of it as a big
deal. I knew then that the things I had believed were ridiculous, but I
still didn't entirely forget them.Recently I've been getting some of the
weird behaviours back - I have times where I feel like I have to move
things or read things I've written over and over. Sometimes in social
situations I'll avoid being around people - not because I'm worried they
won't like me, but because I'm worried that I'll ruin what they're doing
for them with my mere presence. I don't feel depressed, I'm not losing
my ability to function or work or interact, but it's starting to scare
me a little. It feels like all my old symptoms are getting jumbled up
together and slowly coming back one by one and I'm scared which one will
be next. I was never diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder or any
of the other things I have been told could explain my symptoms - and
even though I'm not in any HUGE danger at the moment - I'm wondering if
it might be a good idea to seek out professional help to try and help me
understand what I WAS going through back then, so maybe I can stop it
this time.I'm sorry this was so long - it's just a really big complex
mess of a mental health history I'm hoping it will be easier to
understand with all the pieces to the puzzle (or all the ones I can talk
about).Can anybody help me? Does anyone have any advice or has been
through something similar?
LGBT+ members - got a question - need somewhere to start - here is the place
