Unpredictable mood swings, depressed again

[rav3n]

i appreciate you @D1ng0 and i'm alright, thanks for asking 😊

first of all - i'm so proud of you for trying the webchat crisis line!! i know how hard it must've been to reach out to them, it shows a lot of strength. i'm sorry it didn't end up being a great experience, unfortunately it's a bit of a hit or miss - but don't let that experience take away from the fact that you had the courage to reach out. seems like having a routine helps you redirect your focus away from the unwanted thoughts/feelings? 

hopefully sleeping it off tonight will help - if not, there's always crisis services and maybe tonight you get someone better? good night, hope tomorrow's a lil better for you 💙

also - dingo is a pretty cool animal to pick! they're known for their resilience, something you share.

[tyme]

Hey @D1ng0 ,

Thanks for sharing. 

I'm sorry things continue to feel so tough for you and that your anxiety is really sky high. 

What are some things that help with your anxiety?

[tyme]

Oh @D1ng0 !,

And thanks for sharing about your username. It's exciting that it's not exciting lol 🙂

[tyme]

Heya @D1ng0 ,

I was passing through and wondering how you are travelling?

[D1ng0]

hey @tyme, thank you heaps for asking. I'm struggling a lot. My mood is all over the place. I'm having the dark thoughts I mentioned in the original post. I was relatively okay when I woke up this morning, I actually got a lot done. Kept going through the motions, ticked things off a list. And I recently went to therapy, which helped I think, but it was so intense to open up and talk about everything, and now I'm so emotionally raw. I did type out replies to you and @rav3n but I just couldn't post them. everything I say/do feels clunky and wrong. I'm using all of the tactics I know about but shit just feels bad. I feel more alone than ever. I'm gonna go to sleep now and hope tomorrow is better.

[D1ng0]

I'm really struggling today.

I've been keeping up appearances and pretending to be happy for so long.

I took the risk. I told a couple of people how badly I'm doing.

One person didn't understand. Or didn't want to. "Let's have some fun together." "I can distract you by telling you some happy stuff from my life." No. That's not the point. I'm telling you that I'm numb. I'm telling you that I can't pretend to be happy anymore. I'm telling you that I'm not functioning. I'm not okay. I can pretend to be okay so that you can have fun and feel like you're distracting me by talking about how cool your life is, but that's helping you, not me.

The other person kept asking me what I'm doing to help myself. Surely I just need to get out of the house more. Surely I'm failing to do this right. Surely I'm not doing enough. I just need to do this, I just need to do that. I just need to enjoy things. Wow, what a bloody revelation. I'll just do that, shall I? Easy peasy. Wish I'd thought of that before.

I feel so alone.

People have been saying "I'm here for you". What they really mean is "I'm here for you when you're happy." "I'm here for you when you can pretend to be okay. Otherwise I'll just lecture you about what you're doing wrong."

These people see 1% of my life.

They have no idea about the work I do every single day to stay sober, to manage my eating disorder, to combat suicidal thoughts, to stay employed.

When I try to tell them about that work, about the 99% they're not seeing, they don't want to hear it.

I took the risk of being honest, and not keeping up the ruse of being okay.

I really needed people to just listen. Instead of trying to solve me. As if I'm sitting here on my arse, doing nothing.

[tyme]

Well, if it's okay, I just want to say that I'm sitting here with you. Even if I wanted to 'fix' or 'solve' things for you, I can't. 

Whilst I can share my own experiences, we are all unique.

I hear how much you are struggling @D1ng0 . I hear what a battle life is each day - just to exist. 

All I can say it that I've felt a similar way in the past. And believe it or not, I still have chronic SI. It's just always there. I'm not planning to act on these thoughts, but I hear you when you say you are struggling each and every day.

My heart goes out to you.

[rav3n]

hey @D1ng0 how's the start of this week been for you?

i just read your post about opening up to people, i know how hard it can be to speak up and i'm sorry that they weren't able to understand. i really am proud of you for taking a chance, i know how much courage it takes and i'm sorry it didn't go well this time, don't let that stop you from realising what a massive step that was for you to reach out regardless of the outcome. 

 i can see how hard you've been working on this, i'm also here to sit with you. if you just want a listening ear, i'll be a listening ear 💗

[D1ng0]

Thank you @rav3n, that means a lot.

This week has started out very badly, but having this forum is a genuine lifeline. I'm grateful to have a space where I feel mentally safer to be a complete mess.

I'm still feeling all of the raw emotions I wrote about. And I'm still really depressed. But if I think about it objectively, I guess I understand why I got the reactions I did. Doesn't make them any less hurtful, but I suppose the "just be positive" and "I can figure out what you're doing wrong" mindsets are just misguided ways of helping. I only wish that would actually work lmfao

Also...

When I was a teen, I had a bad habit of trauma dumping. It got to a point where I was genuinely treating a close friend like a therapist. I'm definitely not doing that nowadays, because I'm so wary of becoming that person again. It leaves me in a weird place, because my whole life has become about managing my bulimia, depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, chronic pain, etc. Talking about my normal life seems like trauma dumping, but it's not, because I'm not doing it needlessly. It's just my daily experience. If someone says, "how are you doing?" then an honest answer is going to be pretty dark. I'm leaving out the heavier stuff (suicidal thoughts) because I don't want to make people feel like they're my unpaid therapist.

But even when I censor myself, I still feel like that selfish kid who was needlessly dumping traumatic stories on my friend, even though this is completely different.

I dunno. Sorry for the rant. It's just on my mind. I'm stuck between "make this conversation comfortable for others" and "I'm in a crisis, I can't pretend to be okay".

I really feel like I'm doing it all wrong, no matter what I choose.

So, all that to say, thank you for saying that reaching out matters, and you're proud of me for trying 🙂 Hope you're okay, too.

[D1ng0]

@tyme Thank you for sitting with me in this mental state. And thank you for telling me about your life.

I really do want to properly enjoy being alive again. I worked so hard for this body. I love this body. I'm pretty angry that health conditions have made my relationship with it so complicated. I found some old pictures today, of my pre-transition self, and holy hell was I miserable. It did help a bit. It's hard to even think back to those days of dysphoria and zero sense of self. No matter how bad I feel these days, I'll never be that hopeless again. It's hard to keep that perspective, but I'm going to try.

I'm actually living my happy ending, right now. Or I should be. I adore how I look in the mirror, especially my beard. I've finished my transition and I'm complete in a way I never imagined before. My gender is so settled. There's nothing left to agonise over or explore. Which is amazing. It's such a big thing to achieve that it just feels unfair that other life shit keeps happening.

I'm so excited to have fun and hook up with guys, in this body that I love so much. With every new physical and mental health issue added to the pile, that seems more hopeless. That fuels my dark thoughts. I really don't want to be stuck here. But I guess I am, for now.

There are generations of mental illness in my family, so I think some of that is in my blood. I just happened to be born with gender dysphoria too, so it's an extra twist which shapes how I'm experiencing all this.

Thanks for reading all of that, I just wanted to talk about it.

And again, thank you. I hope you're alright, tonight.