Too close to the bone, too close to home

First off, my ‘date’ yesterday afternoon was really rather nice. I think I’d like to see him again.  I’ll stop before this gets too schmalzy.

Some things this week have been tough, though. I know I am prone to a lot of introspection, but I think that this week with all the other things going on (job application: finally submitted!) has led to me thinking more than ever about mental health, and my own path through it. More specifically, after seeing pretty quickly that 30% of beds on accident/emergency are perpetually filled by overdoses, self-injurers and suicide attempts, it’s made me question what made me, to put it bluntly, manage to hold on when I was at my lowest. I don’t always know the answer to that. I don’t know what separates me, from the people who come in to the ER and sadly never leave. I don’t know why I was brought out, and they were not. I do not know. Sometimes, I think it’s mostly because I was too scared that if I tried anything, I’d end up being treated in this same ER, with my peers on placement peeking at me round a curtain. It was the potential for shame, that kept me alive.

But on the other hand, I’m kind of struggling with having a flatmate (and best friend) who is now being started on treatment for mid-grade depression. I encouraged her to go back to the doctor’s this week for follow-up and afterwards,  and was trying to explain that she shouldn’t assume that her medication won’t work just because mine didn’t, but just ended up frustrated. I think part of it is that when I really really needed someone to hold my hand through things, there was no one quite up to the job. I know I asked her, at one point, to phone and make an appointment with the psychiatrist I’d been referred to for me, as I just couldn’t face it, and I needed her to go and fetch the number, and do it, there and then and take that task from me. I needed her to do it and give me a date and a time, and make sure I went. I couldn’t face it myself. No one rang for me, and so I never went. No one encouraged me to go back and see another doctor, or keep taking medication. With depression, you sometimes need someone to take charge and just force your hand; I think they were unsure or afraid or doing that; perhaps it seemed too difficult. I fought my way out of last year without medication or psychiatric input, or anything much, really, and am still reeling from it. I’m still not back to where I was. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there.

And I want so badly for this first, low dose to work for her. I want her to be one of the ‘miracle cures’. I’m praying for it. But I also am just so bogged down with wondering why it did not work for me, why I was less worthy, or deserving, or able of mending myself. I ended up on three times the starting dose, and it was never right. I’m helping guide her through it, but that small part of me is angry that I had no-one who knew enough, or was confident enough, to tell me, show me, how to get through depression. My flatmates were not medical and did not know. I know it doesn’t mean at all that they didn’t care – but sometimes, caring isn’t quite enough. Sometimes you need action and motion. It’s hard. Sometimes, I feel like I’m always leading the way or teaching from my experiences, but having to learn the hard way myself – and I know that’s partly because I hardly make things easy, but by the same token, last year, there were all these people I was having to go and talk to, and to be honest, none of them really did much for me. They didn’t return my emails, or check in. They didn’t chase me up or ask my tutors to keep an eye out. They just looked awkward when I cried at them and promptly forgot me.

And it makes me angry when she says things about counselling not ‘being for her’, as though you have to be a bit self-indulgent or attention-seeking to benefit from it. It makes me feel fobbed off – I’m not sure anyone who has not ‘done counselling’ knows how hard it is, or how much effort and courage it takes to go, every single week. I’m not sure she realises that it’s no easy option. It’s been the most painful experience of my life. Perhaps it’s my fault for never telling anyone that I get there fifteen minutes early so I have time to coax myself through the door, or that it still makes me cry myself to sleep every single week, and leaves me drained – but I don’t appreciate feeling as though I’m a weakling for trying it. I’m a stoic, in many ways. Counselling has gone against all of my instincts and taken away any feeling of safety and privacy I had. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

I guess, in ‘mental health’ terms, this week has just been ‘extremely triggering’. I’m not sure I’d really appreciated stuff like triggers before. I’m on the nightshift this weekend, and spending twelve hours at a time surrounded by drunk people, is wearing me down. However, this time in a week I will have a week’s holiday to look forward to, and I really can’t wait to have a few days away from the city and medicine, where I don’t have to think about all of this.