Just can't do it (triggers)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Just can't do it (triggers)
2
Thu, 04-13-2006 - 2:12am

This is after I took my dose of Ambien, which let me relax enough to eat for the first time all day, and also to let out all the tears I've been half-holding inside...so sorry if this doesn't make sense...I'll try to keep it short (yeah, right!).

I'm just not tough enough for this, for any of it. The one word my therapist used to describe me in one of our first sessions was "fragile," and it's still true. Right now I'm physically and emotionally just right on the edge, and supposed to start an exhausting year of rotations in the hospital in just a few months.

I can't even go into all of it...but my friend, also a med student, confirmed that my feet do have something definitely wrong with them...my toes have become deformed and red and swollen just recently, and I hadn't even noticed until now because all my doctors insisted there was no physical cause for my feet and leg pain. I saw my doctor about it today, and though she said she couldn't explain my feet, she also thought I was over-worrying about every symptom I had, and that I probably needed to go back on psych meds.

But I feel like I *know* something's wrong...and maybe that is just my obsessive anxiety taking over (which has had me panicking, not sleeping, etc lately). And even if it's just my feet, if they stay like this, it hurts even to stand up...when I used to jog and do all sorts of things...how on earth am I supposed to be on my feet for 14 hours a day this summer and for the coming years of training?

I didn't even get to talk to her about how I have zero appetite, have lost at least 12 lbs in the past little while (and now weigh 97 lbs at 5'3")...and still, my stomach is swollen like a pregnant woman's. Just another hypochondriac, that's what I am...

She did point out that I've visited her very often in the past few months, which is a sign that I'm more depressed...and I even started crying in her office. And then talking with friends later, a girl mentioned how I may have caused real injury to another student when trying to draw his blood (he now is getting an MRI!), so I immediately burst into tears again...just couldn't stop. They had to leave...but not until my friend told me she was crying earlier about her mother who had passed away...wow, did I feel awful...

I just can't do this. I don't want to go through the rounds of meds again, to try to give me the personal strength that I should have, to control the neuroticism and worrying that I need to get under control myself.

Even my doctor told me how exhausting this coming year of working in the hospital will be, and how I couldn't do it if I'm miserable...I feel like there's no way I'll make it through anyway. I know no meds can make me tough enough (physically or mentally), self-confident enough, energetic enough...I've been worried for so long that this will be my downfall.

And now that it's almost here, maybe I just want to let it take me, not try to put up another losing fight with meds and more struggling that will have no better outcome. I hadn't even admitted that to myself before, but I think it may be true. Why is it that I even have to take meds (Ambien) to allow myself to be able to think of these kinds of things???!

And I guess I know the standard answer to this kind of thing...that meds only help you feel better so you can reach your own "full potential," so I should take them and see how things go. And to be completely honest, I guess I did feel better not so long ago (especially when I felt like I was floating on air, metaphorically speaking, which my therapist has last said was probably just anxiety!), though of course I feel like now I'm seeing "the truth," and then I was being overly optimistic.

Oh well. It's getting late, but the tears are still streaming, and I haven't been sleeping much at all lately (only dozing off when I try to listen to recorded lectures, of course!), so it will probably be a long night. I am supposed to see my therapist next week, and I have an appointment with my pdoc on the 24th, but I just don't know...I just don't know what to do anymore.

Rose

Edit: Oh, I just realized this is the week before my period (or so it should be if my period were regular, which it never is!), but anyway...I'm sure that's making it 10 times worse...still, I don't think it matters much now...




Edited 4/13/2006 2:26 am ET by rosa444
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 04-13-2006 - 8:02am

Hey Rose...I'm sorry for your pain, both physically and emotionally...now, I would really like to say, hey, you CAN do this...but you, yourself, already know the answer...you can not do it, not without some meds to help you through. Even then its going to be very tough...you knew that when you chose this profession for yourself way back when...remember? But you can TRY...and you can FIGHT...but when you aren't able to do those things, fight and try...because of depression, terrible depression, then no, you aren't going to be able to do it.

Get back on your meds. I don't think you have a choice. I wish with all my heart that you did!

And ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS talk to us here...if anywhere in IV you fit, you fit with us!

Love you,

Keli

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-06-2005
Thu, 04-13-2006 - 8:21am
I can't say much more then Keli did....you really should consider getting on meds.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

God could not be everywhere, so