Returning to life... how?

I don't exactly know where to post this, hopefully here is ok. I just got done with spending almost the whole month of December in the hospital. I was in for about a week at the beginning, out for a week and attending a partial hospitalization program, and then readmitted for two weeks towards the end of the month. I ended up being diagnosed with depression and PTSD (I had been previously diagnosed with those). The thing that was really weird to me was that I never saw the whole episode coming. I was ok over thanksgiving, then the week after that whatever it was snuck up behind me and hit me over the head with a sledgehammer. I went from ok to suicidal in about four days, with no unusual stressors.

I am trying to figure out how to get back to normal life. I still feel depressed. I am making myself get dressed every morning and trying to incorporate some form of exercise and stuff every single day. I am in my early 20s. Right now I am not working because of this, I am taking a medical leave. I am obsessing about whether or not I am going to be able to go back to work - I don't think I will, but I also don't think I should probably be deciding three days after I got out of the hospital.

I am on a bunch of new meds that are making me sleepy and are causing some other mild side effects.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone has any similar experiences they can share. How do you return to normal life after being in the hospital that long? Has anyone ever quit their job because of something like this? Were you able to find something lower stress?

Any ideas, experiences, comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hey

I can understand where you're coming from. I was in the hospital for a week, and when I was sent back home was forced to go back not even two days later. The problem for me was that I became so used to the environment at the hospital, so used to having people I could relate to around me and being able to talk about how I felt every day and honestly feel understood. So when I came back into the real world it was overwhelming and too much for me, hence why I had to return to the hospital.

The psychiatrist I saw while at the hospital the second time suggested I go to some sort of day hospital. It was a place where you went for about four hours in the day, and then returned home. For me it was at the hospital I had stayed in, but I was outpatient instead of inpatient. He said that it would help me get used to the swing of things again and be able to learn to function again in normal life.

In the end it helped me a lot. It was easier to ease myself back into life than it was to go from that supportive environment back to the environment that made me suicidal in the first place. So maybe you could look into something like this, a day treatment facility that you can go to until you feel more comfortable on your own.

You should also should attend therapist appointments regularly because if you were to go to a day treatment you would be in the same scenario once you left if you didn't have a therapist to turn to. So my recommendation is to look into the day treatment, and if you decide to go forth with it then make sure you have a therapist to turn to afterwards. It's what has helped me most.

I hope that everything works out for you. Good luck.

Thanks - I went to a day treatment after the first time but told them I didn't really want to go back this time - I didn't feel the people there really listened to me when I thought I was begging for help and that's why I ended up back at the hospital the second time.

What's hard is that I live alone and having to motivate myself to battle the depression and do everything I need to do is really difficult sometimes. And it just doesn't seem fair.