Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabyunbound
I've succumbed to depression. And searing anxiety. And soulless loneliness.
I'm at my breaking point.
It's mostly about this 'situation,' the politics, the isolation, that I'm stuck home, working (though with far less hours), I'm now told at least through the summer... I work in healthcare, I work at a hospital, I can only do part of my job through video. I'm heartbroken. I want to be there to fight the good fight. And to be with my co-workers who I miss so so much. I attend zoom staff meetings only to see them.
And my mother, who is very ill with MS, COPD, and others... Well, I can't see her. If I'm a carrier, I could kill her, she would never, ever survive this virus. She is talking vehemently about lowering her care-giver hours. She desperately needs her caregiver and I've offered to help financially.
She is also declining cognitively. She is forgetting more and getting more confused. I have chalked this up to anxiety because of the virus. But I was in a therapy session on Thursday and broke down crying about the possibility that this is not, or only in part, about anxiety related to the virus, but the beginnings of the steep cognitive decline of someone I may no longer recognize in I don't know how long. This tears me apart. I want her to get a full neurological evaluation, but I'm not sure it's the right time, for various reasons. Meanwhile, I mourn.
Last night I took 2 klonopin. No big deal, because I'm allowed to take 1-1.5. But I'm afraid it will get worse. I feel most lonely and awful in the evenings and taking klonopin and a lot of it, would shorten that pain and I'd fall into a deep sleep and skip that pain. Or some of it. The cravings are terrible.
So I need some support right now. All of us do right now.
I've just hit a new low.
Thank you for letting me share how I feel...  |
Very sorry you are struggling. My bp 1 was heavily, heavily depression-dominant for decades before my first full manic episode clarified things. I am not familiar with your meds. Mind offering what they are, by chance? Any recent med shifts? Do you have a seasonal element to your illness? Have you been sick with a virus or anything else? Do you have chronic pain of any kind?
I was in healthcare for a few decades. I also feel a lot of guilt not being in the unit helping right now. But you know what? I did all that. For years. You re making your contribution in your way. Do not belittle that work. Everything counts. Everything.
When I left general surgery for dermatology the "real"surgeons told me I was throwing my life away. That I would not longer be "saving lives." To these tough guys and tough gals, if you are not in the ED shoving your finger in a gunshot hole in the heart, you 're not a real doctor. Before I finally found lasers as my life's work, I was a skin cancer surgeon. I buried melanoma patients all the time. Young ones. I think what we did was plenty important.
Just a little tale to possibly recalibrate your perspective on all this.
Now, for the Klonopin. I have been clean and sober for 13 years. It's easy now, but was hard a long time ago. I thought if I was depressed and if my doctors were not adequately treating me--and frequently, frequently, they were not, that is totally true--that I was
entitled to try to help myself. That is how I h=got addicted of Ultram (Tramadol).
So, my unsolicited counsel is to be very aware of your thinking surrounding the Klonopin. It can be an extremely dangerous drug.
As for your mom, don't freak until you have some real, solid data. It could be anything. How old is she?