Finally breaking down...major triggers

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Registered: 03-27-2003
Finally breaking down...major triggers
9
Thu, 12-02-2004 - 6:21pm

Hearing what major things some people on this board have been going through, I have to preface this by saying that I know it is silly/stupid for me to be so upset over something so small...I am ashamed that I feel this way, and yet I do.

So on top of this being a really bad week for me mood-wise...and this morning cursing myself out for trying to wear contacts when I usually don't, then thinking I was unable to get one out of my eye, then running to the eye doctor and missing class only to discover there was nothing in that eye and I'd just given myself abrasions poking around in it...just a little silly thing that made me realize what a screw-up I am (can I say that here without being censored?)...

But I was OK with that...until just now I got a call from a med student in charge of the transcript service here at school (basically, students tape the lectures and then have to type the dictation out). What had happened was, I'd offered to type a lecture when another student completely shirked his responsibility and refused to do it. I don't normally type the lectures since I am an "editor" and edit them instead...so I tried to do it for the first time...but got so frustrated by the process that I soon gave up (and figured that it wasn't that important since it wouldn't have gotten typed out anyway).

Argh, long story, hard to make shorter...but what ended up happening was, I accidentally forgot to take the tape of the lecture out when I returned the tape machine. I've checked back at the library several times, but it seems to be gone. So I just got a call that I need to give the tape to another student to transcribe it if I won't...I said I wasn't sure where the tape was, that I hoped I hadn't lost it...I just couldn't admit to having totally lost it...and the student got really mad at me because he said everyone in the class is asking him where the transcript is, and that he was counting on me and I completely failed. If I lost the tape, no one will even be able to transcribe it...so what do I do then? The whole class is out of luck, and all because of my stupidity and laziness.

I told this student in charge of things that he could tell everyone that it was my fault (since it was)...but he said he didn't want to send out some mass email blaming me for it...and that it was going to come down on his head. I don't even know why I offered to transcribe in the first place...guess I'd forgotten how I screw up everything I touch...

This is not even a rare kind of occurrence for me...there have been countless things in recent memory that I have similarly forgotten about or been completely irresponsible with...I just can't keep up. I know a lot of this may just have to do with the stress that has been building up inside of me lately...but finally the floodgate of tears has opened up and shows no signs of stopping...and I have another class in an hour, so I'm not sure how I'll manage (my face stays swollen and red for a while usually).

And this whole issue may be better suited to some other board (e.g. the Suicidal Thoughts and Feelings one), but I feel like I know you all a lot better. There have been several tragedies lately for people on this board, I know...so losing a transcription tape is absolutely nothing...and I feel awful for being such a selfish, petty person and getting upset over something like this.

But I feel like I can't help it...can't help noticing the paint thinner by a workers' area in our building and wondering how much you'd have to drink to cause harm...things like that. I am an absolutely hopeless case...the worst part is, I know there are going to be so many more little and big mistakes that I make later in life, so there is no way I will make it through...and I shouldn't, I should just end it now if I know I'm going to cause even more problems later on.

Already my entire med school class is going to be mad at me and come to view me as the careless, irresponsible person that I am...guess my nightmare is coming true once more... the longer people know me, the more they end up hating me...and the more I end up hating myself.

My class later tonight is on psychiatry actually, with a psychiatrist leading the discussion...what irony. I do have an appointment scheduled with my own psychiatrist tomorrow (scheduled long ago, coincidentally enough)...and I will most likely go, although I don't want to...don't want to discuss my childhood anymore (it's no use to me), don't want to try any new meds, and especially don't want to admit how I'm feeling, which may be hard to avoid over an hour-long session. Finals are coming up in less than two weeks, so it is absolutely no time to be put in the hospital (as if there were a good time, especially with the gossip that circulates through my class)...even my parents think I'm doing fine...guess this all kind of came to a head at once.

I'm so sorry for writing this post, but I guess I needed to vent somewhere...I don't know what else to do at this point (I'm going to have to tell the other student that I lost the tape, but then what can I do about it? Nothing, as far as I can tell...).

Hope you all are having much better days,

Rose

Edit: I don't know how to deal with this pain...recently when I was having digestive problems, I was in so much physical pain that I held on to a metal buckle so tightly that it was digging into my hand...but there doesn't seem to be any way to do that for this kind of emotional pain...I just don't know what to do...




Edited 12/2/2004 6:34 pm ET ET by rosa444
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Thu, 12-02-2004 - 8:58pm
(((Rose))) I e-mailed you. Hope it went thru. I can't find your phone number---so call me if you need to on my cell. Debbie
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Registered: 10-04-2004
Thu, 12-02-2004 - 9:35pm

(((((Rose))))), honey, you need help. I'll say it again, you are a loving and caring woman who has a lot to offer in this world - you just happen to have a really sucky disease that makes you feel like you are worthless - and that is NOT true. That is the disease talking! So often we make the disease part of our persona - my AA sponsor once told me that I have to objectify the disease - and she was right.


I am so glad that you have an appointment tomorrow with your pdoc, and I urge you to be honest with him/her about how you are feeling. Just because you are having those thoughts does not mean you will necessarily be hospitalized. Talking and sharing about them really helps (I have personal experience from numerous occasions on this one). And worst case scenario (which I don't think will necessarily happen), you do go into the hospital and miss your finals - you are not the first and will not be the last who this has happened to, and your professors should be able to come up with some sort of arrangement for you to make them up at a later date. What if you had diabetes and had a diabetic crisis and had to be hospitalized during finals? Yes, there is still some stigma associated with mental illnesses, sadly in the medical field as well, but it is the same thing.

peace and love,

just_a_big_kid

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 12-02-2004 - 11:40pm

Thank you, Debbie...I didn't get the email and later checked my settings on my profile... for some reason it was set up not to allow me to get emails...so I changed it to allow them...so anything else you send should go through.

I'm really sorry to bother you when I'm sure you've been going through your own struggles...I know mine are nothing much to worry about.

I did go to class (after hunting down a tube of concealer for my splotchy face) and just now came back from a school "film night" screening of the movie "Philadelphia"...maybe not the best choice when I'm feeling like this, but it gave me an excuse to go back to sobbing (I've never cried at movies until recently) and also put things in some perspective. I will try to hang in there.

Thank you again for the email, and I'm sorry my account was set up not to receive them...I really hope you are doing all right yourself,

Rose

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 12-03-2004 - 12:13am

Sue, thank you so much...you have no idea how helpful your posts are. I will do my best to be honest with my pdoc tomorrow, although she seems to want to focus on my childhood and feelings toward my family situation, and I wonder if that will just make things worse.

I told her at the last session that I felt completely hopeless...well, then I agreed "not completely" because I wouldn't have come to the session if I had no hope of getting help...but then she asked me what I would like her to do, and I had (and have) no idea. I'm generally averse to trying any new meds, and I feel like I don't have the energy or emotional strength or anything else it takes to work through the many issues I apparently have left from my past.

But I guess I've said that already. I see hospitalization at this point as utter failure, although I definitely see your point about the necessity of treating crises...and I do at least recognize that this thinking of mine is totally black-and-white...hopefully the hospital will not be an option, though (especially since I had a conversation with my dad just earlier today and told him I was fine...if I had to be hospitalized now, they'd never trust me again, I think).

I find it very hard to objectify my depression, or even to conceive of doing so...I have had it literally since before I was an adult, and it has continued pretty much consistently (to one degree or another) since then...it is so much a part of my thinking and my motivations that I think that it is almost inseparable from my personality. I know that thinking that way isn't healthy or helpful...but I don't even really know who I am as a non-depressed person...except for when I'm an ecstatic, loving-every-part-of-the-world hyper person on rare occasion, and those two people aren't easily reconcilable.

But I know I need to try...it's just very hard for me to think of my own depression as an illness like any other (even when I can think of other people's depression that way!). Even with the example of fibromyalgia...today a class of mine had an interesting discussion of our recent patient visits, and one girl told a patient's story that was so similar to my experience with fibromyalgia that I could hardly hold my tongue (although I am now doing much better, while this patient was not)...I didn't say anything about having that myself, though, since I haven't told anyone at med school anyway and didn't think that would be a very appropriate time.

And good thing, too, because the physician leading the group (who actually has a quite debilitating illness herself) later went on to make the point about "illness" and "disease" being different entities...that a person with arthritis, for example, could have very obvious physical effects of the disease but deal with it very well, but that this other person with fibromyalgia could have no apparent "pathology" but still participate little in life. And then she went on to say how (as I know) scientists don't agree on what causes fibromyalgia, but that it is most often linked to depression, and treatment of the pain involves mostly treatment of the depression.

All things I've heard before, even from doctors I've seen about my own problems...I don't know why I'm rambling on again (get a journal, I tell myself, and stop taking up board space!). I guess I just wanted to agree with you about the ideas of making mistakes and the impossibility of perfection...I sometimes feel that I can't even manage to have a decent disease correctly, so I end up having something that is shadowed by the stigma of depression, something that I feel I have to hide from everyone.

I will try to at least allow for the possibility in my mind that I am seeing these mistakes of mine through depression-clouded glasses...but I feel it is so obvious to me and to everyone who encounters me that I am a failure. About the transcription, the med student in charge did tell me point-blank that "no one else in the entire class has had a problem doing this, so I don't know why you would"...I'm pretty sure it's true that I'm the only person who not only failed to transcribe the lecture, but also lost the tape so no one else could transcribe it either.

At times like these, even over such tiny little things, I ask myself what I could do to "make it better" or make up for it...and since there seems to be nothing, I jump to the idea of ending my life as the only way to apologize for the failure that I am and the trouble I've caused...doesn't seem too logical in this instance (over a lost tape)...but a big part of what makes me feel hopeless is the knowledge that I am bound to make bigger mistakes in the future and feel like the only "fair" apology is to end my life...so what is the point of studying hard and trying at all if that's how it's all going to end?

I'm sorry that you've caused yourself physical pain to deal with the emotional pain... here is one person who doesn't think that you deserve that kind of punishment. I will try to find a way to deal with this (although I asked my pdoc a similar question at our last appointment, and she didn't have any real suggestions)...I wish I could even go somewhere to scream or something, but I am in a thin-walled dorm room...I'm sure my neighbors have even heard me crying already. I guess I need to try to get back to exercising every day like I was before...but the last time I tried to get my emotional pain out through exercise, I exercised so hard I gave myself a migraine! Well, I guess the physical pain did at least take my mind off of the emotional for a bit anyway!

I think I've won the long-post contest, haha...sorry for the wordiness and everything that the words said (guess that covers it all). Again, I really appreciate the help and support...it means a lot. Thanks again, and I will try to hang on and hope that my appointment tomorrow will help (although last time, I was counting on it to help and it didn't, and that made me feel even more hopeless).

Thanks, and have a good night (guess I am a little calmer after typing all this),

Rose

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-04-1999
Fri, 12-03-2004 - 4:58am
Sue: what an excellent post to Rose, and it helped me too! We are blessed to have you here on the board, have a good day, hugs, Josie.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-04-1999
Fri, 12-03-2004 - 5:02am

Dear Rose: Don't know what to say, except I know Deb's personal email would be helpful to you, and Sue had tons of good suggestions also.

I agree for you to bare it all to your pdoc today, I once shared with my therapist some very irrational thoughts I had once when the stewardess goes through the safety lecture, and it sounded so insane to even say it out loud, but I knew I had to as how can someone help me if I am not 100% honest with what I am thinking.

Take care of yourself, I also deal with reminding myself I can't be perfect, but for some of us, we keep expectiong ourselves to somehow be more than human.

sending you much love and hugs, Josie.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 12-03-2004 - 12:50pm

Hey Rose! I see you everywhere on IVillage!!! Honey...I'm worried about you. I hope you're honest with your pdoc and that if he/she recommends meds, you'll try them. You're getting WAAAAY overwhelmed and you know what happens when we get that overwhelmed. Sue had wonderful advice for you, that I don't have much to add to. I just wanted you to know I heard you, I'm here with you, and you are not alone.

Hugs,

Keli

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 12-03-2004 - 5:43pm

Thank you, Josie...I really appreciate it. I'm back from my pdoc appointment and was honest about what had happened recently...and she got me trying to think about why I seem to "sabotage" myself at every opportunity. This is something I know I do, but I'd never mentioned it to her...I realized today that she probably knows what she's doing since she's seemed to pick up on issues I didn't realize I still had, but things that are even now dominating my life.

Anyway, thanks again to all...I am calmer today (after junk food eaten out of anxiety and stress and depression, ugh! The pdoc also said she was concerned about the possibility of an eating disorder, which really scared me, but that that wasn't the main issue now). But I am still consumed with bad thoughts. I mentioned (and tried to emphasize) my recent self-destructive thoughts... she didn't seem to focus on them, though, but just told me to call her if I was in danger. I guess that's probably a good thing since I'm not likely to act on them, I guess.

And I have another appointment for early next week...I still feel completely worn out and basically hopeless, but I guess I have to hang in there.

Thanks again,

Rose




Edited 12/3/2004 5:53 pm ET ET by rosa444
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 12-03-2004 - 5:51pm

Thanks so much, Keli...I know, I've posted so much on Ivillage lately, it's pitiful (especially since my final exams are coming up in less than 2 weeks...so soon I'll have to try to take a break from the computer in order to study). I've even gotten kind of worried that people who know me are reading my posts...I've had that worry off and on before...guess it's a little paranoid, but still possible.

I really appreciate knowing I'm not alone in this...thank you so much for listening. My pdoc didn't mention any meds today...I'm guessing she thinks it may be more of a psychological problem than a biological one right now for me. I was honest in answering her questions, and she was great about reminding me that, even though I feel guilty for feeling so horrible in good circumstances, I am in a lot of emotional pain and she wants to help me figure out why I think and act how I do.

And she did say that the most important thing now was to help me figure this out so I don't hurt myself or continue to act in self-sabotaging ways...but she didn't seem as concerned about my suicidal thoughts as other pdocs have been in the past. I think that may be because I have never taken really drastic or potentially fatal action on my thoughts and because I told her when we first met that I thought about suicide a lot but don't tend to act on those thoughts.

Sorry to get into that again. I really appreciate your post...hope you are doing all right too,

Rose