I've been hurt by a friend who does not understand what I am going through. I sent him an email trying to explain what is going on with me and he replied with some very condescending suggestions that really triggered me. I held off on replying, I actually wrote a reply and did not send it. I decided not to answer him. Then on Friday I decided that I should answer him so I wrote a new, shorter reply. I knew this was a mistake. It was. In response I got an email full of anger because my behavior has been less than satisfactory. I am very hurt because he is right, I have been nasty and snapping at people. I had asked for some understanding for this and instead I got anger and an implication--well, more than an implication, he basically outright said--that I didn't deserve understanding because of how badly I've been treating people. He's right that I have been treating people poorly. He's wrong that I don't deserve a break after an eleven year history of being kind and helpful to people, maybe they can understand that something difficult has been going on with me instead of just assuming I've suddenly turned into a horrible person and suddenly I don't care.

This has triggered me really really badly. I really regret answering that email and prompting his angry reply. I am in a tailspin. I hadn't been doing well before this. Part of my not doing well has been my grief over not talking to him so I thought reaching out would be a good thing. Instead it has made things acutely worse. Yesterday I couldn't get out of bed all day. I showered and dressed at 7pm (yes I am still pushing myself). My appetite went from poor to yesterday I couldn't eat anything at all--I tried making a sandwich at about 8 or 9pm (first attempt at food all day) and couldn't even finish it. I struggled to take my antidepressant but couldn't take any of my other meds at all. I don't have panic attacks but yesterday my anxiety level was so bad that I was physically nauseated from it.

So I did sleep well last night in spite of being in bed all day yesterday and I woke up early. I've been obsessed with reading his email over and over which is extremely unhealthy. To my credit I have not been acting on that impulse. I am obsessed with replying to the email which is what led me to send the previous email. It is the only thing occupying my brain so after a week or more I decided to try to get it out since writing but not sending it didn't help me.

So this morning I lept from bed again obsessed with answering this new email. I figured again it would help me to write it. I tried to make it very non-angry and simply apologetic and explanatory. Then I sent it. I know I should not have. It made me feel a sense of great relief to send it but chances are good I am going to get an angry reply back and I am going to be even worse off.

I can not stop obsessing about this, or about my job. or about my finances. When I was in partial hospital I worked very hard on separating these issues so that I could deal with them one at a time instead of being overwhelmed. Now they are combined and overwhelmed again. The person I am emailing is a friend (or was a friend) but also a coworker so my obsession and inability to deal with him and by extension my other coworkers has impacted my ability to get back to work (I haven't been to work more than one day a week for months, and the last two weeks I wasn't even in contact with them) so now that one issue with one freaking person that I can not get over is destroying my ability to work killing my position at my job and eliminating my ability to get my finances back under control (I am two months behind on paying my bills and rapidly depleting my savings... In fact I only have enough for about two more months.) I have thought about going on disability but fear that I won't be able to go back to work at all (the last time this happened I was unable to return to work and after a year of unemployment I had to find a new job... This job, which until now I have been successful at for eleven almost twelve years. This depression event is unfolding almost identically to that last one.) My anxiety and perseverating thoughts have been through the roof and I can't sleep and I can't get out of bed. I can't eat and I can't function. This weekend has been a nightmare just trying to stay afloat. I was on a hotline and my therapist is bumping me up to two days a week so it is not that I am not trying. Tomorrow I see my pdoc and I will talk to him about upping or changing my medication. I am reluctant to do that. I had this coming under control a few weeks ago. I want to be able to get it under control again. I haven't admitted to many (I have been open with my T about this) that this slide has been due to my inability to get my feelings under control with this one freaking person. I am seriously grieving the loss of this friendship and I'm partly though the anger stage but not over the grief yet. We haven't been speaking and since I was starting to feel better then started to backslide I thought the best thing I could do for myself was to make an effort to break the silence between us. We have to work together so it is not like I can just accept the silence as status quo even if it wasn't so uncomfortable.

How can I be letting one freaking person destroy my life and drive me to thinking suicidal thoughts? Please no cliches... Although I think I am acting self destructively in this regard it is not because I don't think I deserve better. In some ways I think it is because I do believe I deserve better. I have high regard for my value at work, and for my value as a friend, even though I haven't been myself lately. I know I shouldn't let one person bother me so much. I know his opinion is flawed, and that his anger at me is unfair, and that his expressing his anger to me at this time is cruel. Maybe not meant to be but it is. I know that.

Something in my personality and with this depression will not allow me to dismiss him.

It is a part of my personality that I am proud of... That I can accept criticism and not dismiss dissenting opinions... as is my sensitivity and empathy. I think these traits serve me well when I am healthy. But when I am depressed they conspire to kill me and they become a serious life threatening flaw. This weekend has been simply miserable.