Lived Experience Forum

[mybrainisbroken]

Today the trigger was waking up. The opening of my eyes combined with the pounding of my heart informed me that today would be a hard day. Anxiety had already begun its day long before I started mine. I could handle the pounding heart as I did everything that a responsible mother does school lunches, hair styles, monitoring teeth cleaning, uniform dressing and the never-ending task of finding 1 socks that actually match. Surely this would pass there had been no noticeable trigger today not that there usually was, but a day off to do nothing surely my brain doesn’t hate me enough to ruin that for me. Just breathe and relax seems like a simple answer right there is no problem that can’t be solved…. Except that my brain was inherently broken. Broken in a way that can’t be fixed without extreme problem solving.  Never ending stream of drugs designed to help your brain and the imbalances in it, there’s a hundred different combinations to try but what happens when you have that brain that small percentage of people who can take all the combinations and not have the desired effect because your brain doesn’t play nicely. You have the brain that doesn’t respond like it should to the easy fixes…. Pop some pills, take a walk, talk to somebody no none of these will work, the pills will keep you “stable” so maybe you only have one week of suicidal thoughts, maybe the cuts will only be superficial not enough to end the pain and maybe you can be trusted with enough of those magic pills and not want to eat them all like candy, the walk that you can’t take because that requires you to leave your house and maybe interact with people those creatures whose existence scares you back into ur fort of safety, the somebody you need to talk to not the usual somebodies no ur brain is above their paygrade you need the ones who study for endless years getting into a load of debt only to overcharge and hope to cover that debt. This is what your brain might need maybe months of intense psychotherapy will work, maybe unpacking every traumatic experience of your life will work, maybe you will be strong enough to survive that, all just a MAYBE and then if it doesn’t and you actually survive it you have 2 choices….. ECT or ketamine so really you can choose the illegal drug you have been told never to take or the electronic zaps deep into your brain. That is it that is your choice pray to a god you maybe believe in to find a way to fix your brain the one that is so broken it’s taken 20 years to find a way to MAYBE fix.

[eth]

Hi @mybrainisbroken  and welcome to the forums.  I can hear that life's seeming very hard at this time.  Sorry you haven't had a reply yet - sometimes it's just that we are all people with mental health challenges of our own and having difficult or busy days.  I hope that coming to the forums proves helpful to you - I'm sure there are lots of us here who have given up hope at one stage (or multiple times) and often we are able to pull each other through the darker times.   I'm 56 now and have had several years long periods of darkness in the past.  And I did give up hope more than a few times so I think I understand where you're at.  FYI I have complex PTSD and bipolar 1.

But here I am now with goals I can see progress towards.  For me it is a combination of making efforts on self-management, having good therapists (including EMDR) and medications that took many years to get right.  Many years of neither meds nor therapists really helping me make progress.  Many hospitalisations. I hear you that those things aren't what you want, and they weren't for me either for a long time.  But I have reached a point where I'm prepared to give them a try (a couple of years ago) because nothing else had helped - it goes against my grain taking pills every day and sometimes the EMDR is really hard work requiring recovery time after a session - but my mental health is now more stable than ever before and that has to be my number one priority in life.   I've managed to stay out of hospital now for a little over 10 years (even tho' I was still in a holding pattern and having episodes of depression/mania while meds were repeatedly changed, I did manage to stay out of hospital so that was some sort of progress) and have not had a major bipolar episode for over 2 years with the balance of meds working well for me.  And have learned to manage my PTSD much better, to remember without re-living events and to be triggered less often and less extremely.

So this is a pretty long-winded way of encouraging you not to give up trying.  You are worth the effort.  Of course I can only speak from my own experience and am not telling you what you should do.

For me, the secret of surviving was simply to stay alive and not harm myself one day or even 10 minutes at a time.  There are a few threads on here that have suggestions of self-care activities - Coping Box , Re: what’s in your tool box ? , toolbox  that might be helpful to you.

If you want to talk to someone (e.g. me)  you type @ and then the name you want and you get a dropdown box where you can select the name you want.  You can also use the search bar to look for topics you want to read or share about.  There are also some social threads where you can meet new people Re: The Weekly Friday Feast , Saturday Soiree - all welcome!! ,  A long rave  (ok to share at length there too) and Good Morning! 

Tagging @greenpea @CheerBear @outlander @Teej @frog @Shaz51 @Zoe7 @Faith-and-Hope @Former-Member  in case you want to contribute to this discussion or tag any suggested threads.

Take care @mybrainisbroken   Looking forward to seeing you around.

[Shaz51]

hello and welcome @mybrainisbroken 

letting you lnow you are not alone my friend

i agree with what @eth  said

my husband has have soo many diagnosis, MDD, inherited depression ,Adhd and now Bipolar 11

He has not been back in hospital for 4 years now , still has ups and downs everyday

one step at a time , keep on keeping on

and please chat anytime , someone is always hear

[Owlunar]

Oh hi @mybrainisbroken 

One thing you are is a good writer - I could really get a picture in my own mind of your broken unfixable brain refusing to play nice and refusing to be kind to you in reacting in a favourable way at least some of the many combinations of choices given to it.

Yes! I could see it 

I take it you have tried most things - but one thing comes through clearly - it's your brain that's feeling stuffed up - not your mind - your mind shows itself to be working really well with your pattern of child care and thinking clearly - 

I even detect humour there but I do hear you too - you have had enough stuff happening that hasn't worked - and that is frustrating

Welcome to the forum family - many people here have had the same kind of frustrating tangled path through all of this. You are not alone

 A couple of people have responded already - I know both of these people as well as anyone can in a forum where it's safety-first for all of us - we don't know anyone's name or face or where they live - this is great because we can open up and share things we would not with people we knew

So I wish you the best here - I am already looking forward to reading more that your write - you are most welcome

Dec