by Band Back Together | Jul 6, 2016 | Fear, Grandparent Loss, Grief, Loss |
I feel like I’m losing everyone I ever loved.
Who could be next?
My mother and I don’t understand.
Now, it’s my grandmother.
Nana.
I’m 10, and in New York.
My grandmother (on my mom’s side), lived in Florida. She lived a long life. I don’t know how old Nana was, but my mom is almost 50.
My mom is a nurse, and she would always check on Nana, over the phone.
One day, she received a phone call – a bad one. Nana had been sent to the Emergency Room, and was sick. My mom was stressing out the entire day, trying to find out what happened.
That night, my grandmother passed away.
My grandfather (on my mom’s side) had already passed away years ago.
In the morning, my mom told me Nana was dead, so I didn’t go to school. She later explained how she had died.
I don’t get life. Everything is falling from my feet. I want her back. I want everything back. I’m scared of what will come next.
By-WeWillBand
by Band Back Together | Jun 29, 2016 | Anger, Chronic Illness, How To Help A Friend With Chronic Illness, Invisible Illness, Loneliness, Lupus, Shame, Trauma |
I push myself everyday often beyond my better judgment. Lupus and Sjogrens are not diseases that I can beat into submission nor is the depression that comes along with the chronic widespread pain.
Yes, I want to do more, but why can’t you see I can only do so much and some days a lot less?
You need to know something else. When you don’t make the time to visit me? it breaks my spirit in ways I cannot adequately describe. I may be broken, but I still have value. I am worth the trouble it would take to make the trip to my house. I know you love me.
I wish you knew how much I need you to recognize this won’t go away by ignoring it and by default me.
by Band Back Together | Jun 28, 2016 | Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Depression, Depression, Major Depressive Disorder, Uncategorized |
My doctor put me on a well-known depression/anxiety medication. This is something I have a great amount of anxiety over, especially since looking up the laundry list of possible side-effects. Damned Google, why do you provide so many answers? But seriously, I’m going to keep taking this stuff and get this Dialectical Behavior Therapy underway.
My shaman tells me that we must look for the medicines that help us, whether they come from plants or from a pharmacy. I agree, especially since this disease, if left unchecked, will ruin the lives of my loved-ones, as well as my own prospects for a better future. I suppose a bit of indigestion or diarrhea will be worth it. I just don’t want the confusion, convulsions, heart palpitations or the most serious, serotonin syndrome, which could be fatal.
But I need to eat. I’ve lost nearly thirty pounds in the last few months …I need to eat! But, since my circumstances have changed, I simply haven’t had the energy to cook anything. I’ve been eating junk, mostly, which is better than nothing, but I’m still losing weight. Even choking down chocolate has become a bit of a chore for me, and it’s one of the things I love! I suppose I’ve been subsisting on what little junk food I’ve managed to eat, water, coffee, nicotine and tea. Food just isn’t appealing to me right now. Junk food, water, nicotine and caffeine are basic food groups, right? I’m not sure what to do about this part of what’s happening right now. When I do eat, I get full quickly and sick shortly after.
Well, Bandmates, that’s my update. I hope you are all well out there in the internet. Love ya!
By-DigitalTreant
by Band Back Together | Jun 27, 2016 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anxiety Disorders, Cancer and Neoplasia, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping With Depression, Depression, Dysthymia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Incest, Major Depressive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Therapy, Violence |
I don’t know where to start. I have had dysthymia for as long as I can remember. My new therapist says it is like a living a half-life. I guess it is. This year, it slipped into something worse. This year has been one of the worst years of my life and I have had some pretty bad years. I had a relationship end, I started a bout of major depression that left me 70 pounds heavier, I had two surgeries, I am in a job that I hate, and on November 21st, I lost a dear friend to cancer. I can’t stop thinking that I wished it had been me. I feel trapped by bad choices. I have nothing left to give anyone anymore. I feel dead inside, but I hide it well. No one really knows how many times I came close to killing myself this year. I grew up with an alcoholic, I grew up in a violent household where I never felt safe. I was molested several times by several men and one female relative.
I feel trapped in this fatsuit. I feel like the best years of my life are behind me. I feel damaged and broken. I am trying to get help. The mental health resources where I live are spread pretty thin. I get to see a therapist once a month, if I am lucky, and I see a doctor for meds for ten mins a month. He switched me some of my medications because of the weight gain. I have tried about ten different anti-depressants and all of them had some kind of unpleasant side effect. I keep hoping I will find one that actually works. I also take an anxiety medication. I take it to control the panic attacks I get when I am out in public. I take it to quiet the loop of negative thoughts I have going through my head everyday.
This is my first post. I come here and I know that I am not alone. I thank the brave people who share their stories here.
I am trying to get better. I am with The Band.
by Band Back Together | Jun 24, 2016 | Abandonment, Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Coping With Depression, Major Depressive Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder |
Whenever something good happens to me, I always assume that there’s a Catch. Most of the time I am absolutely correct – there’s always something.
Always.
Thanks to the wonders of artwork sites and mutual interests, what started as some back and forth communication and chit-chat about all things relating to art and nerd shit, with a fellow nerd with similar views/interests, soon developed into a friendship that has lasted a little over a year now. We grew as close as you can get to someone you have never – and will never – meet in person, though her tendency to be so open, and to share really personal, and HEAVY, stuff led me to perpetually think I was being trolled. Nevertheless, she was still my friend. We talked about so much shit via email and instant messaging, and we were “there” for one another.
Over time, she started displaying some behaviours that were a bit erratic. Like fear of abandonment, extreme depression, shit like that. I always had a far-off feeling that something wasn’t quite “right.” There was something keeping me from trusting her a full 100%, but I thought that perhaps it was my imagination. I have a tendency to be paranoid because of my own issues (I have some epic social anxiety, and I’m Bipolar II as fuck), but I shook it off because she proved time and again that she wasn’t Catfishing or trolling. Even when she was being really weird, I continued to be there for her because that’s what friends do. She’s my friend, and it would suck if I just bounced whenever she was having a shitty day. I know I would feel horrible if someone did that to me.
After a series of erratic events that spanned the winter, she decided to hospitalize herself because it was clear that there was something very wrong.
So, remember that Catch I mentioned? Yeah, it’s Borderline Personality Disorder. We shared short emails here and there while she was hospitalized, and she finished her three-month stint just last week.
I started to feel like something was up. Something wasn’t right, and I couldn’t place it. I’m extremely perceptive, so I asked point-blank via email if there was anything wrong.
Here’s where The Catch comes back into play because, well …it’s a goddamn catch.
You know how people with BPD will idealize people, and shit like that? Well, she admitted that she had become obsessed with me. Like, to a creepy extent. To the extent where she and her wife decided that one of the best options is for her to limit contact with me as she continues to get sorted out. She told me all of this because she wanted to be 100% honest with me. I knew something was up, and I would have kept asking until she told me because …Spidey-Sense.
Her treatment has helped her a LOT; this is something that I can feel, and she is a million percent sincere in her apology. She has stated that she no longer thinks of me as “some ÜBER-human” (her words), and will understand if I decide to cut off all contact with her, since, apparently, friendships with BPD-folks are basically impossible to maintain.
In light of all of it all, I have blocked her access to my Twitter stream and I switched her Facebook access to “Restricted.” The less she knows about what I’m up to, the better, right? But I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to block her out. I don’t want to lose her. I absolutely adore her, and I want her in my life, but again, every piece of literature that I have read, as well as what her doctors say is that this friendship is doomed. Plus, you know, that whole idealization thing in the first place (which has left me with a lot of questions that I fully intend to ask her). I know that’s part of the disorder, but I’m still trying to process it.
And now I sit, at a proverbial crossroads because there’s always a goddamn catch.
