I feel frozen. Please help.

I can't get off the couch. I have no motivation. I recently quit/was fired from a job. I'm trying to find a new one but the market here is really bad...there's almost nothing I'm qualified to do (I'm still a student...no experience in anything and everyone wants experience), and what I am won't pay enough to pay my bills. My bank account is overdrafted by about $200. I've been applying to jobs all day for three days straight and have heard nothing. Now I just...can't move. I need to clean. I need to exercise. I need to eat. But it's taking all my effort to type this. I have no one to help me. My boyfriend has never dealt with mental illness and idk how to explain this to him. So I act happy and fine when he's around. My family lives thousands of miles away and I have no friends here. I thought I could do this. But maybe I can't. I feel like I'm sinking in the mud and anything would be better than this. My limbs feel cold and heavy. What do I do? Every time I move, I think about the fact that I have no idea how I'm going to make it through the month and I freeze again. I'm putting this here because I don't know if this is anxiety...or depression...or some weird aspect of my Bipolar Disorder that I haven't dealt with before. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't move. Please help me. I keep moving from hysteria to this silent, frozen feeling. I can't get it together.

When I get to feeling this way I go take a hot shower. I know the feelings are mental but sometimes treating the body ....as if.... the feeling of coldness and heaviness are physical it does this thing in the brain of stimulating \activating the brain into action again. kind of like on a cold winter day a hot cup of chocolate will bring about a change in moods and physically feeling better, or a nice glass of an iced beverage on a hot day helps to change the mood and helps a person feel emotionally better. sometimes when the mental or emotional shut down happens doing something that is at its most extremely simple most basic self care step like standing under a nice shower can cause the brain to activate all the positive stuff in the brain.

as for the no job, maybe set a small goal each day of applying to one place today or two or what ever you feel you can handle instead of maybe trying to get it done all at once. take little step

Thank you, that was really good advice. I had a super nice cup of tea today and just didn't put any pressure on myself. I think I'm rapid cycling: once I snapped out of it a little, I started overthinking everything that has happened to me lately and now I'm angry and wanting to vent. I've been posting on here almost every day, and I don't know what else to do. Right now I'm dealing with the fact that my previous employer, the job that I just quit/got fired from, refused to pay my final paycheck and wasn't paying the taxes she was withholding from my check, so she owes me about $1100. I filed a claim with the department of labor, but the process could take months, if I ever even get my money. I just feel helpless and angry, and I'm alternating between that and panic over paying my bills this month. The panic makes me freeze, the anger makes me type. I'm just in this awful cycle and I'm so, so, so frustrated. I'm a control freak and I hate being out of control. I did get a job though, as a waitress at a steak place. It should be okay, but I just found out that the waitresses here earn less than half of what they did in my last state, so now I'm scared that even with this job, I won't be able to make my bills. Which makes me freeze. Again. And I have homework assignments due, but I'm just so scatterbrained and I can't focus. I'm obsessing. UGH!

Hey Rayne, I replied in your other thread re: the last job and how crazy that was.

I'm so sorry it's affecting you. You have every right to be mad!

For how you're feeling now... sometimes I find it helps to break this into very small tasks. For me, finding something small that's not overwhelming to think about and do is the key, and it helps me get up and take action. Usually, once I actually start to make progress on something and mentally engage with it - it helps the break the spell a bit.

I don't know if this will work for you, but part of what helps me is engaging the logical part of my brain. It helps get me out of the emotional side, and helps me be functional, I guess?

Hang in there. I hope you get some resolution with your last job, and get the money that that woman owes you (sooner, rather than later!) and that things work out well for you with the waitress job. When do you start?