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This is an excerpt from an email to a friend whom was trying his best to help me get through a time where I had lost hope and the will to continue fighting.
Trigger warning: suicidal ideation.
I went inpatient after printing this and handing it to my therapist as I was entering her office. Calls were made and I was secured a bed at McLean Hospital north of Boston. I was there for a week and came out better for it.
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9/11/12
… I should be clear about this... I know that you, Suzy, Mike, other friends and family all want to see me get "better". I have no doubts about that and don't question the motives at all. I also understand that there are other options available that may actually produce results that could make this at least bearable again. For me, it's like this... And I don't expect people that haven't been in my shoes to be able to begin to understand this. This is a very debilitating condition. It affects every part of my life, just like any other severe chronic illness. It affects my overall health, energy, friendships, my relationship with Suzy, my family, my work, my ability to advance intellectually and professionally and most importantly, my quality of life. This has been a lifelong struggle and as time progresses it gets worse. The durations of the depressive episodes has increased steadily over the years and the durations where the depression isn't severe have become shorter and shorter. The emotional suffering is continually so intense that there isn't an hour in a day that suicide doesn't only cross my mind several times, but serious consideration is given to the thought/impulse. I almost wish that I had MS or some other neurodegenerative disease so that people could more easily frame in their mind the level of suffering that I endure on a daily basis. That may sound whiny, but it's the honest truth. This is suffering. I've had terrible long-term debilitating physical pain with my lower back, and as difficult as that was to deal with, it's not even in the same league as this. I'd take physical pain over this any day. It's not just the immediate intense suffering that makes me seriously contemplate suicide, but it's where I go from here that is a greater motivator in that direction. Yes, ECT may work. I may have months of relief. I may have complete relief for the rest of my life - I don't know. Maybe nothing will happen with it. The thing is, my quality of life isn't just now becoming beyond what is acceptable for me, it's been beyond acceptable for a very, very long time. Because I don't talk about such things to people, they likely have no idea that this is as much of a problem in my life as it is or what the progression has been like. Though this is an entirely different thing, as far as how I experience this, I see this being no different than a soldier getting hit by a roadside bomb in one of the shithole countries we're in a war with and sustaining horrific injuries. Because of the advances in physical trauma care, even someone who by all rights should have died within a few minutes is brought back, patched up and sent home to their friends or family (provided they have any). These are people that sustained severe enough injuries and loss of bone and flesh that should never, ever have survived. Technically, yes, it's possible to keep a pulse in them, that's been proven time and again, but there seems to be no consideration as to whether they *should* save them, given how significantly damaged they are physically, and in turn will be mentally and emotionally from that point forward. I don't see them as victims of war so much as victims of modern medicine and the relentless heroic measures taken to sustain life. 2/3 of my life was filled with intense emotional and sometimes physical trauma. That sucks. I rarely think about it specifically, but it's molded who I am. It's altered me so far from normal thought processes and interests that it's greatly left me isolated from the other 7.5 billion people on this planet because I simply can't relate to them, and they can't relate to me. I'm not so different that I'm incapable of feeling love, compassion, passion or friendship, but for someone to understand me unless they've been down the same path or nearly so, just isn't possible.. And I wouldn't want them to anyway. This kind of suffering isn't anything anyone should ever, ever have to endure.
A few days ago I was talking with Suzy about things that could possibly be wrong with me medically and she snapped at me pretty harshly about it. She basically said that I need to quit obsessing over trying to find a medical cause and to leave it to the experts to figure it out. That hurt. A lot. Again, we were at lunch on Sunday and I mentioned that I wanted to change my diet to purely organic food with meat that was either wild-caught fish or grass-fed land animals. I started to tell her about my father and his milk allergy and she cut me off, again, kind of sharply this time. I didn't yell at her, but I was pretty short with her. I told her that I was not only hurt by the fact that it seems she no longer supports me, but very disappointed as well. I told her that I was going to go ahead with the diet change regardless if she were supportive or not and that I'd not say anything else regarding the depression or my health from that point forward. It came out yesterday that she was sick of talking about it, because it's almost all I've talked about in recent weeks. I asked her if I still had her support or not with the depression and the physical symptoms, because if not, fuck it, we're done. If I can't count on her now, that trust will never be regained for me. She said that she still did support me, but not much other than that. A few days earlier I wrote her an email saying that I was doing pretty badly with the depression. She knew this, but didn't know nearly how bad it was. I had actually written the word suicide in context instead of a euphemism. She was more than a little upset. I also had mentioned that I know that I'm difficult to live with, especially when depressed. I know that I'm angry and irritable most of the time. I know I have a short temper. I also mentioned that I wasn't sure how much any of my own problems were affecting her, but assumed that they were at least to some degree. I said that I wasn't sure how much living with me in this state for so long may have effected her mood/depression as well. She didn't say anything to any specific statement, other than that I was "very insightful" sometimes. She did tell me that she was very frustrated with it. That she doesn't know what to say or do. She never knows what to expect with my mood. Basically, all things I've heard before from former relationships. She does love me, I don't doubt that, but a person can only take so much. So far in my life, every person that I've loved has bailed at some point. I can't blame them for that. I see that as an inevitability with Suzy too, be it soon or years from now. It's a certainty if I manage to find relief from the depression and slip back into it time and again.
What I value most in life is pretty simple. I want to love and be loved. It truly is that simple. I want a mutually loving and lasting relationship. That's all I've ever wanted. Money, is nice, but not necessary beyond basic needs being met. Social status means nothing to me. My work means very little to me, though I do loathe what I do for a living. Family, I'm glad is there, as well as friends, but above all else, it's having a meaningful and loving relationship that is most important. It's become painfully obvious to me, not just recently, that this is perhaps not realistic for me to ever have in a lasting way in my life. The splits are always horribly painful. I'm not expecting perfection, or to get along 100% of the time, or that we agree on everything, just that there be equal acceptance and commitment there during both good and bad times. I've always been willing and in many cases (figuratively), walked through fire for my mate, be it joining them in intense emotional suffering while they healed, helped them financially, supported their goals no matter how realistic they were or not and generally accepting every flaw and never resenting them for it. When that's missing in my life, I don't feel much purpose. It's not that I don't feel valuable or that I have any impact on the world around me, but for me, personally, I just don't see the point.
I honestly and truly believe that all parties involved, professionals, family, friends, Suzy, myself and others that I've entrusted for help have for the most part gone above and beyond the call of duty in order to help me with my lifelong struggle with depression. At some point, as with all serious illnesses, as I mentioned before, quality of life has to come into question. No, my suffering isn't physical in nature. I am not going to die from my symptoms, at least not of natural causes anytime soon. For me, the question is when enough is enough. The more I ask myself this question, the less and less conflicted I am about it. My greatest fear with moving forward with any more treatment options is that I will likely end up in-patient at a hospital and unable to check out of my own free will if I don't respond to whatever treatments they throw at me. I'd essentially be drugged just short of staring into space drooling on myself and would essentially be incarcerated for suffering from severe depression. I'm already a prisoner of this fucking condition, minus the walls. At least without the walls and supervision, I have the option of deciding when I'm truly done. That may not be acceptable to society or people close to me, but by god, it's terribly important to me that it remain an option of last resort. I frankly don't want to continue to try. I really, honestly at this point, have no interest in it anymore. I've made a commitment to try at least some of the alternatives, including ECT, and I will follow through with my commitments. The only reason I made them in the first place was that there seemed to be sincere and genuine hope that they may help while nothing else in the past has. At the time I was still being motivated by not wanting to cause anyone any pain or suffering from loss. As of today, that's still a concern, but I'm looking out more for my own interests at this point, as truly selfish and horrible as that is within this context. In a way I've kind of been searching for understanding from those closest to me about the intensity of the suffering for some time. I guess I've been looking for approval or even permission to give up.
I'm sorry for my long diatribe about this... I know you have enough of your own things going on and that reading this probably is the last thing you need right now while trying to cope with your own problems. I do very much appreciate the alternative perspectives and insights into things that you've continued to give me. I am taking those to heart and into consideration, though the tone of this email doesn't imply that at all. Writing all this did serve an important function though, I at least got some of it out of my system. The last few days I've been forcing myself to communicate about what I'm going through even though I would prefer to continue to withdraw and isolate myself at this point.
I do have a safety net set up with Suzy and Mike. They are both aware of how badly I'm handling things, or not handling them, depending on how one wants to look at it. I also had a very honest and frank conversation with my eldest brother about it last night. If worse came to worse and Suzy were no longer in the picture for whatever reason, I know that I can count on Mike to help out, or at worst, relocate back with family in the midwest. Before being too concerned when I say family, it would likely be me staying either with my father at his house, or at his house on the lake depending. Either way, my father and me are good. Living with him wouldn't present any real problems.
If you wouldn't mind, with your permission of course, I think I've outlined pretty well over this and the last email where I'm at with things at this moment in time, and think it would be useful to cut excerpts of my side of the communication and give that to the therapist and to Dr Carter to get a better handle on what may be best for me at this point and in approaching therapy right now. As much as I don't want to let go of control in this situation, I've come to the realization that I've pretty much lost control anyway... So, I'll let those I trust make the calls from this point out, at least for as long as I can tolerate this.