not doing well :(

it seems like I've been in a downward spiral all week, and now my sui thoughts are to the point of not being able to think about much else. I don't want to call my T but I don't know. I'm googling overdose side effects of the meds I have on hand, calculating if I have enough to do the job. I guess I don't know where else to reach out TO, so part of me doesn't want this or I would just do it without posting here. I don't know what to say to my T if I call her or what she can say that would help. I'm just really struggling right now...

edited to add: I called my T. I told her how I'm feeling and thinking. She said just keep doing what I've been doing. I know that makes sense sort of, but what I've been doing isn't working. She didn't tell me not to overdose, she didn't have me contract for safety, she clearly did not hear me. I know I tried, in DBT we are supposed to call our T before we do anything that could be considered self-harm. I think this fits. I called her, I tried my best to tell her what's going on with me. I guess that's all I can do. Feel much worse now than I did before calling her.

(((((((((zoo))))))))))

PLEASE call T. PLEASE. Remember that you need to call her BEFORE you take anything or she won't talk to you.

This is why T is there. I have been in the same place as you (googling side effects) and it is a bad, bad, scary, sad, awful place to be.

I read once that we really want our PAIN to end, not our life. It won't hurt this bad forever.

Will you call T? And maybe knit while you wait for her to call back, to keep your hands busy? What has worked for you before when you felt like this?

SO many hugs, zoo. Please be safe

I guess I was editing my post while you were posting, tree.
I have been knitting so much, trying to keep busy, trying to be distracted. Watching stuff online (movies, tv shows, whatever), smoking, eating, cleaning, crying, knitting, knitting. I don't know what else to do. It's important to me that people know I tried. It's why I called my T. I'm trying everything I can. She didn't really hear me or didn't care or has heard it all too many times before, but I did try.

keep trying. we are here for you.

((((((((((zoo))))))))))

Please don't stop trying. If you can't try for you, can you try for your kids?

It's so hard when T doesn't hear us. I almost ended up in the hospital a couple of years ago, and part of why I spiraled down so far was because I was struggling and suffering SO much, and T wasn't getting it at all. When he FINALLY got it, the downward spiral finally stopped. It was SO hard while I was going through it. When do you see T this week?

You ARE getting through this, zoo. It hurts and it's hard and it just sucks, but you ARE doing it. Each moment that goes by, you are a little bit closer to getting past this.

Can you find the moment that you are IN and just concentrate on that? Kiya used a phrase once that really stuck with me. "The thinnest sliver of now". Can you find the thinnest sliver of now?

Thinking of you, zoo. Keep writing. Sometimes writing helps.

I'm supposed to see T on Monday. I'm not really interested in ever talking to her again after the conversation we just had. I feel like if I'm there for my appt on Monday she's just going to talk about therapy interfering behavior, and that this will have been the last straw, and I'll be fired by T.

I have been living for my kids for so, so, so long. I thought I was starting to live for me. I thought I was past this kind of $hit.

I guess part of me is trying to find something to hold on to, the thinnest sliver of now as you say, tree. I thank you for trying to help me.

I actually just called my local crisis line because I'm THAT freaked out, and kept getting a message saying "unable to complete this call". I'd like to think one day I will be looking back and laughing at the irony. Of all the times for their phones to be down....

Calling my T is pretty much at the bottom of my list of "Ways To Survive". Once I've done that and been given the brush off, I'm not feeling like there's much left. Tried to call a couple of friends, I AM trying. Drank some more tea, staying out of the bathroom where the pills are. Considering SI because it might be the lesser of two evils. Pretty much I just want to say fuk it.

I don't even know if posting this is against some PC rule, I should just delete the posts probably. Pretty mixed up in my head and heart right now.

I have to go to sleep, zoo, but I am thinking of you. Please be gentle with you. Please be safe.

((((((Zoo))))))

Please go to the ER if you can't keep yourself safe. They will be there to help you and you will be able to talk to someone face to face. Even if you can't contact the crisis line in your area you can call:
1-800-784-2433
or
1-800-273-8255
if you are in the US.

Please keep posting.

thank you googley. I can't believe my local crisis line is down. It's crazy. I can't go to the ER, I don't know. I just don't know. I will call those numbers. thank you.

Why can't you go to the ER?

(((((((((Zoo)))))))))))
Please take care of yourself. I'm sorry your local number is down, but am very glad you are going to take advantage of the national numbers. Keep calling until you get the help you need.

I called that number, googley, and talked to...someone, I have no idea actually who it was. While I was on hold waiting for the person to answer the song that came on was one that has a great deal of personal meaning for me. I can't even describe the feeling, really, but hearing that song was pretty much all I needed to know I can get through at least one more night. If I believed in god I would say it was a sign. It was amazingly powerful.

I feel messed up and scared that my T is mad at me, but I'm not going to od tonight. I think I can go to bed and think about the reasons I have for living instead of the other stuff, including a certain concert I'll be attending this summer where I'm sure to hear that song and many others that mean so much to me.

Thank you so much, pc friends, for being here. Nobody else was, for various reasons. You guys helped me SO MUCH tonight.

farmergirl, to answer your question, because my van is broken down so I don't have transportation. I guess if I had to I could call 911 but...yikes

((((((((Zoo))))))))
Yes, if you need to please call 911 and take an ambulance to the ER. Also you can call back the other phone numbers. Let us know how you are doing tomorrow and sleep well.

Can you call her again, and let her know you need more from her at the moment, or to schedule an emergency session?

Someone once shared with me that sui thoughts are quantitative: it is a way of saying "I hurt THIS much" "I am in THIS MUCH pain." Let those thoughts speak instead, give them words, give them lots and lots of words.

Please let us know how you are doing, ok?

(((((((((((((((Zooropa))))))))))))))))))))
I've been there before, and I know the place you are in. For me the thoughts of trying to rationalize the reasons NOT to do it always circled back to doing it, because it seems like the only option to end the pain.
I could really relate to what you said here:

It almost seems unfair, to have to live for someone else. And it is so tempting to just be selfish for once.
My T (well, old T) disclosed that her father 'completed' sui, and the effects it had on her.
(I was never sure how I felt about her disclosing this. Sometimes it felt kind of manipulative and scary.)
Anyway, it is an awful awful way to to lose a parent and puts a huge burden on the kids for the REST OF THEIR LIFE.
When I am struggling I try to think of it this way, I would be (possibly) ending my pain, but sentencing my children to a lifetime of pain and confusion. And that is not fair to them.
So, as much as it SUCKS, we just have to keep going forward for them.

I'm so glad you called that number, and heard that meaningful song.
It WAS a sign. It really was.

Zooropa, you are needed in this world. You are important.
The pain will not be this way for ever.
I hope you got some sleep, and you are feeling a little better this morning.
You are very brave for trying so hard. You are an inspiration.

I think you can see that by the way people here respond to you...

thank you. It is so good to hear that it won't feel like this forever, I know that in my head sometimes but when I'm in that dark place it always helps to hear that.

My T has also experienced a sui in her family, and she shared with me once that that person's adult child later also completed sui. She has told me how common that is. I try to think about that and sometimes force myself to imagine my kids attending my funeral & how sad they would be, as a way to snap myself out of that moment of not caring about the consequences.

But other times I need to know that I can have a purpose for being on this earth besides being my kids' mom, as important as that is. Sometimes I need to know that I am a person outside of being a mom and that my life is worth something on it's own.

I can see that, by reading this thread, and while I don't feel like I deserve the love and support I get here, I will take it.

I did get some sleep, in fact, and do feel a little better this morning. Hoping I will be brave enough in my session tomorrow to talk to T about how I felt dismissed and invalidated when we talked last night. But the point is, I made it through the night and I used my skills and resources to do it without self-harming in any way.

((((((((((((((( zooropa ))))))))))))))))

have been away from PC all weekend.
If you want a pocket rider, when you see T today, I'm available.

Please let us know how you are. OK?

Z, it seems that this DBT program is just a program. You follow the program, you call T like the program says, T responds like the program tells her to. It sounds like this is what is so triggering for you. You are not a program! You are a person who wants an individual response like you are a person. You are getting a canned, programmed response because your T is following the program like she is supposed to..............

I'm sorry zoo that your T didn't respond in a helpful manner. She's human and maybe she didn't really hear how distressed you were. That happens to me a lot of times because I don't quite express myself the way I think I am expressing myself. I know you are seeing T today. Maybe you can ask her to help you identify the skills you can use instead of SI when you are feeling so desperate. Let us know how your session went.

Sannah, it doesn't sound like you know much about DBT therapy. DBT is a life saver. In my experience, I have never felt more cared about and that someone was "there" for me than I have with DBT. It probably isn't too helpful to knock down DBT when that is the kind of therapy Zoo is currently doing.

I agree and disagree with this, sannah. I guess that's the dialectic at work, lol!

You are right that DBT is a program, with protocols for both the client and the T to follow, protocols that have been found to work scientifically. DBT has truly been a lifesaver for me, literally, as TayQuincy says. So I try to remember that the DBT protocols are a part of that.

However, it's not as if the T, or MY T in particular since I don't know any others, is some kind of a robot or emotionless automaton. Also, my T has been practicing for 20 years and most of that was before she was trained in DBT so she does use other therapeutic approaches.

The thing about DBT is that it DOES work, and it works because and only if the T follows the protocols. But within that framework they can and hopefully will respond with empathy and compassion and warmth. I know my T usually does, but I also am hyper-sensitive to rejection and abandonment so when she is not perhaps as warm or caring (in my perception) as usual it triggers me.

anyway, I hope that makes some sense. I can just add that DBT is why I'm here today, why I'm alive, so I won't knock it, even though sometimes it seems too strict and "by the book".

I responded to you in another thread, SAWE, but I will take you up on that! Into my pocket you go, and I'll do the same for you tomorrow

I didn't think that I was knocking DBT, but I guess it might have sounded that way. I have never experienced it. Some of the concepts I have found quite helpful like acceptance and the dialectical part of it. Everything has good and bad parts about it, strengths and weaknesses. Didn't mean that I was throwing the baby out with the bathwater........

Deal! and thanks!!!!!