[Kaitlyn]

What do you do when the one person who actually understands what you're going through isn't able to be supportive and everyone else you've reached out to doesn't know what do or how to help you? And you end up getting worse and are now to the point where you're slowly shutting down and withdrawing from everyone...what do you do?

[Elana05]

(((Kaitlyn)))

I'm sorry to hear that things are so tough right now. Hang in there.
You are important and deserve to feel better.
Do you have a therapist to talk with?
If you need to talk because you feel really down I hope you'll call a hotline. They're there to just chat. 1-800-273-8255
We're here too.
Please let us know how you're doing...

[missbelle]

you post here.....thats a good start!!

You grab that phone and reach out to a Dr. or therapist or agency you can talk too

There might be, as in our area, a walk in mental health emergency clinic where you can talk to someone immediately

We are here 24/7 as you know...sometimes just writing down the things that are upsetting helps!!!

Quote "normal" people have no clue what we go through.

Thinking of you tonight!

[Kaitlyn]

Elana I do have a therapist but she isn't always available for me to talk to and when I'm like this all she can do is offer me an emergency session. Right now I'm going through a typical "emotional explosion" it happens whenever I bottle up my emotions for too long. Like I've been doing since Saturday night. Unfortunately talking about it to someone on a crisis hotline isn't going to work....and neither is talking to my therapist. I just need to work through the emotions I've got bottled up. Which will take some time and a lot of crying in order to work through the stuff.

Missbelle, contacting my therapist when I'm like this will only make me feel worse because she'll scold me for not calling a crisis hotline first. For starters that isn't also do able and they don't know me....I can't open up to a total stranger. My doctor is a bit more understandable but she'll to ask me why I didn't call a crisis hotline.

[online user]

Sorry to hear you are having trouble dealing with your pent-up emotions now. Another thing which sometimes works for some of us is writing in a journal. Has much the same effect sometimes as talking with someone who understands. You are able to vent what's bothering you, in black and white, on paper. There is a precise record of how you are feeling now. That can be powerfully healing in itself, just to say it to yourself. Also is something that can be shared with a therapist.

[Kaitlyn]

Originally Posted by online user

Sorry to hear you are having trouble dealing with your pent-up emotions now. Another thing which sometimes works for some of us is writing in a journal. Has much the same effect sometimes as talking with someone who understands. You are able to vent what's bothering you, in black and white, on paper. There is a precise record of how you are feeling now. That can be powerfully healing in itself, just to say it to yourself. Also is something that can be shared with a therapist.

The thing is writing in a journal doesn't help.......I just get the words out and NOT the emotions. Writing to my big sister (the one person who understands and isn't able to be supportive) is one of the only ways I get a healthy release when I need to vent about something. Thankfully she realized that I need to be able to vent to her even if she's unable to read those emails. So, she's going to let me vent to her whenever I need to and for the time being she'll just delete those messages unread. Before she only wanted me to write to her about the story I was writing and that caused me to have to vent to people who didn't know how to help me. And venting to them just got the words out and I still bottled up my emotions. Right now I'm feeling like crap physically, which is either a result of the emotional explosion (and not eating or drinking anything yesterday), or I'm coming down with the flu.

[egoalien]

Hey, just wanted you to know that I think I know how you are feeling. I have only one person IRL who I can confide to. Unfortunately, at the moment she is deeply in a depressive episode herself too, and for her own protection has told me that she just cannot deal with my issues for the time being. I do understand so very well but it leaves me out cold. I have cut ties to anyone else that I ever thought understood anything. It's extremely painful to hear her tell me that I should seek someone else for support when I have absolutely no strength - and have not been able to do that even when well.

[Rose76]

It is really tough when there is just no one really to turn to. Coming here has made me feel less isolated.

I've experienced how over the years people I once confided in get - well - I guess they get burnt out. Then they close the door and may even disable the doorbell.

My depression is chronic. Nice people I know who would do a lot for me to resolve a problem they see as resolvable don't want to hear about a problem that is chronic.

Therapists have sometimes been least responsive when my need was greatest. One told me that "If I talk to you right now, you'll just escalate."

Once I was in bad shape and getting worse. The therapist whom I had seen for over 5 years said, "Don't delude yourself into thinking that you have ever really worked on your issues." I wondered why did it take her 5 years to tell me that. Previously to her saying that, she had been warm and positive and gave me no idea that I was not doing my part. I think it was her expression of frustration over what bad shape I had gotten into. But, it was very painful to be spoken to like that. It still rings in my ears as one of the worse invalidations I've ever received.

Currently, I'm not making therapy appointments. I am very depressed. I know therapists don't mind if you come in real depressed at the start. But, after some visits, they don't like it if you come in seeming to be making no progress. That's my experience.

Hello, Kaitlyn. You mentioned several things you could do in your posts starting with getting food and water. What can you do to stop bottling up your emotions? You have mentioned what you cannot or will not do. What are you able to do?

[Kaitlyn]

Originally Posted by Rose76

It is really tough when there is just no one really to turn to. Coming here has made me feel less isolated.

I've experienced how over the years people I once confided in get - well - I guess they get burnt out. Then they close the door and may even disable the doorbell.

My depression is chronic. Nice people I know who would do a lot for me to resolve a problem they see as resolvable don't want to hear about a problem that is chronic.

Therapists have sometimes been least responsive when my need was greatest. One told me that "If I talk to you right now, you'll just escalate."

Once I was in bad shape and getting worse. The therapist whom I had seen for over 5 years said, "Don't delude yourself into thinking that you have ever really worked on your issues." I wondered why did it take her 5 years to tell me that. Previously to her saying that, she had been warm and positive and gave me no idea that I was not doing my part. I think it was her expression of frustration over what bad shape I had gotten into. But, it was very painful to be spoken to like that. It still rings in my ears as one of the worse invalidations I've ever received.

Currently, I'm not making therapy appointments. I am very depressed. I know therapists don't mind if you come in real depressed at the start. But, after some visits, they don't like it if you come in seeming to be making no progress. That's my experience.

Yeah..I've had one person who was NOT a trained counselor think that talking to me for a year would get rid of my depression. But she didn't know what she was doing and she ended up doing MORE damage than good. My depression is also chronic and it's because of complex PTSD.....which means I'm unable to regulate my emotions and I can go from having a normal day to having melt downs and flashbacks in a matter of minutes. My doctor has seen that happen during a few of my appointments with her.

Burn out is common for people to experience when they try to help someone with depression and they're not professionally trained to deal with it. It's happened to me before.

Thankfully I have my favorite support person back slightly. She realized after having me NOT vent to her when I really needed to, that doing that isn't good for me and it will cause me to experience an emotional explosion. So she decided to let me vent to her if I want, but she won't read any of my emails that I write "vent" in the subject line. That way I can still vent to her without making matters worse for her. She knows that just the act of me writing to her helps me. And she didn't like the fact that I was suffering so badly and had been venting to others and that it wasn't helping.

[Rose76]

Kaitlin: There is something about "the act of writing" . . . isn't there. It sounds like for it to work for you, your writing has to be to a specific someone who has a particular grasp of your situation. (I hope I've understood.) I'm glad that your favorite support person did not want you to be hurting badly. And so, between yourselves, you came up with an inventive compromise. Also, I hope you can feel better in spirit and in body.

I hear what you're saying about not wanting to be scolded and about how there can be a lack of value in calling the crisis hotline.

[Kaitlyn]

Originally Posted by Rose76

Kaitlin: There is something about "the act of writing" . . . isn't there. It sounds like for it to work for you, your writing has to be to a specific someone who has a particular grasp of your situation. (I hope I've understood.) I'm glad that your favorite support person did not want you to be hurting badly. And so, between yourselves, you came up with an inventive compromise. Also, I hope you can feel better in spirit and in body.

I hear what you're saying about not wanting to be scolded and about how there can be a lack of value in calling the crisis hotline.

It only works if I have a really strong connection with the person I'm writing to. And the connection I have with my big sister is the strongest connection I have. Plus, she personally understands what it's like to have PTSD. I'm glad my big sis understood that just having me write to her about the story I'm working on was too big of a change for me to handle. With my big sis, I can tell her anything...no matter what it is and I know she won't tell anyone in my family except for my cousin (her husband)....and he wouldn't tell anyone.

[Kaitlyn]

Just wanted everyone to know that things started looking really great between my big sister and I last night and then things hit a MAJOR snag last night and now I've decided to not write to her for the next couple of months. I told her that and she hasn't said anything in response to it....which figures. I probably won't hear back from her until either sometime late tonight or tomorrow early afternoon. If I do get a response from her. Now all I have to do is hide my emotions this has caused....I see my doctor on Wednesday and she won't be to pleased with me if I tell her what's going on between my big sister and I. Why do I even bother to connect with people and let them get really close to me?