Catherine84
16-03-15, 17:06
First of all, I'm sorry for the lengthy post. I've got so much weighing on my mind and it's becoming overwhelming.
I posted on here just over a year ago, during which time I was using alcohol to 'self-medicate' severe episodes of anxiety and panic attacks. I know now that it was never the answer, and I haven't revisited that phase of my life. I felt I was making great progress last year - I had a six month period of complete abstinence and have since drank rarely - maybe every two or three months, and never to the point of being intoxicated. It was like I was slowly getting my life back.
I'm under the care of the Mental Health Team for my county - I started seeing a support worker some time last year, but she was promoted and I was handed over to somebody else. At first, the new person seemed a lovely woman - very approachable and easy to talk to. However, recently, she has been piling the pressure on. She mentioned a 'coffee and chat' a while ago in passing - I guessed that she was just suggesting it as something available to me, but I felt that I couldn't cope with it yet, as I have extreme social anxiety and find it very hard to talk to people, especially in groups. In addition, it was also, rather ironically, in a pub. As you can imagine, my social anxiety was a huge problem when I was still working.
A few weeks ago, out of the blue, she was much more forceful about me attending such an event, and told me that she would be there the following week. During the same session, she mentioned that she'd feel much better about discharging me if I at least had a part-time job at the end of our sessions, but that she'd arrange me to talk to another support worker about volunteering first. I asked her if she could give a timescale, but she wasn't forthcoming with information - just said 'ideally, two or three months', and 'you know how it is with the NHS'. This was a lot to take on, having essentially not done as much as maybe I should have last year, but my advice from my rehab centre was to focus on my recovery. She then proceeded to lecture me about how the longer I leave finding work, the less employable I will become, and it would be sad for someone so young, and with a degree, to find themselves out of work long-term, and how nobody ever feels that they are ready to return to work. I had this attitude when I tried to return to work in August 2013. A month later, I was in hospital needing an alcohol detox. I was very aware of what she was saying, and the extra pressure was not helping.
The same session, I spoke about my desire to one day have a family, but how I felt my medication was keeping me stable, and I needed it at present. I was then told, contradicting what she said about my age earlier, that I 'wasn't young any more' and I 'may be ok until 34', but after then my fertility will dramatically decrease. I'm 30 now. I'm on Pregabalin (600mg daily) and Diazepam (4mg daily), and, from what I understand, being pregnant and continuing on such medication is out of the question. I won't try any more antidepressants - they made my anxiety unbearable, and I feel much more stable on what I am taking. I'm also filled with sadness, that I may leave things too late and have regrets for the rest of my life. I frequently wish I had been struck with mental illness later in life (or preferably not at all!).
I found all this too much to take on in one session (we also discussed my alcoholic mother), and I broke down crying. She came back in, when I had managed to control myself, and I got a talk about how I needed to stop thinking of myself as 'sick Catherine' and get out there and 'be a winner'. I'm sure if it was as easy as that, we'd all have 'snapped out of it' by now!
I got home, and continued to cry my eyes out, until my partner came home to find I'd self-harmed and was sobbing on the bathroom floor. Since then, I've been having several panic attacks a week, including one at 3am in the morning, that took me at least two hours to calm down from. I hadn't taken my Diazepam that evening, as I try to go without occasionally, but it was only after I took it that I started to calm down. I'm finding it hard to function, which is difficult when your support worker has a timetable of your weekly commitments that you've drawn up together (at the moment, I do French class and Slimming World on Monday, see my support worker and do voluntary work archiving for my piano tutor on Tuesday, have a piano lesson and the coffee and chat on Wednesday and see a psychology student on Thursday), and only have Friday free at present. About three months ago, I was barely doing any of these things. I would go to the GP, but she was reluctant to put me on Diazepam long term (she finally agreed after I came off it for three weeks and ended up in A&E after a particularly bad panic attack) and I'm worried she'll tell me it's time to come off it. I could change support worker, but they all comply with the same system. I've become good friends with another woman from the coffee group, who sees someone different, and she finds it too much at times. She told me that they discharged her sister before she was ready.
My partner has phoned my support worker and told her in a polite way to back off, and how much I'd been struggling, but she just sent me a text saying not to do anything I'm not ready for and that she would suspend my sessions with the woman organising the voluntary work 'for now' (I organised the work with my piano tutor independently - she offered me the work so there was less pressure (she's very flexible and easy going) and I wouldn't be forced into something public-facing by the Mental Health Team), which implies that I will have to do more volunteering with them. She sent me a list of things I should be doing each week - she seems to contradict herself.
I just feel so alone, and don't know where to turn, or how to force myself out there when my panic attacks are crippling. I feel that the root cause of them is not being addressed - a severe form of OCD where I'm constantly aware of my breathing, together with social anxiety, paranoia and very low self-esteem. If I just try and get back to where I was in terms of activity levels without properly addressing any of these points, I'll be back to square one before I know it, and the progress I have made the last year will be lost. I'm seriously considering going private (my parents have offered to pay), because I just don't know what else to do.
If anyone could offer any comforting words, reassurance or advice, it would be appreciated so, so much.
I posted on here just over a year ago, during which time I was using alcohol to 'self-medicate' severe episodes of anxiety and panic attacks. I know now that it was never the answer, and I haven't revisited that phase of my life. I felt I was making great progress last year - I had a six month period of complete abstinence and have since drank rarely - maybe every two or three months, and never to the point of being intoxicated. It was like I was slowly getting my life back.
I'm under the care of the Mental Health Team for my county - I started seeing a support worker some time last year, but she was promoted and I was handed over to somebody else. At first, the new person seemed a lovely woman - very approachable and easy to talk to. However, recently, she has been piling the pressure on. She mentioned a 'coffee and chat' a while ago in passing - I guessed that she was just suggesting it as something available to me, but I felt that I couldn't cope with it yet, as I have extreme social anxiety and find it very hard to talk to people, especially in groups. In addition, it was also, rather ironically, in a pub. As you can imagine, my social anxiety was a huge problem when I was still working.
A few weeks ago, out of the blue, she was much more forceful about me attending such an event, and told me that she would be there the following week. During the same session, she mentioned that she'd feel much better about discharging me if I at least had a part-time job at the end of our sessions, but that she'd arrange me to talk to another support worker about volunteering first. I asked her if she could give a timescale, but she wasn't forthcoming with information - just said 'ideally, two or three months', and 'you know how it is with the NHS'. This was a lot to take on, having essentially not done as much as maybe I should have last year, but my advice from my rehab centre was to focus on my recovery. She then proceeded to lecture me about how the longer I leave finding work, the less employable I will become, and it would be sad for someone so young, and with a degree, to find themselves out of work long-term, and how nobody ever feels that they are ready to return to work. I had this attitude when I tried to return to work in August 2013. A month later, I was in hospital needing an alcohol detox. I was very aware of what she was saying, and the extra pressure was not helping.
The same session, I spoke about my desire to one day have a family, but how I felt my medication was keeping me stable, and I needed it at present. I was then told, contradicting what she said about my age earlier, that I 'wasn't young any more' and I 'may be ok until 34', but after then my fertility will dramatically decrease. I'm 30 now. I'm on Pregabalin (600mg daily) and Diazepam (4mg daily), and, from what I understand, being pregnant and continuing on such medication is out of the question. I won't try any more antidepressants - they made my anxiety unbearable, and I feel much more stable on what I am taking. I'm also filled with sadness, that I may leave things too late and have regrets for the rest of my life. I frequently wish I had been struck with mental illness later in life (or preferably not at all!).
I found all this too much to take on in one session (we also discussed my alcoholic mother), and I broke down crying. She came back in, when I had managed to control myself, and I got a talk about how I needed to stop thinking of myself as 'sick Catherine' and get out there and 'be a winner'. I'm sure if it was as easy as that, we'd all have 'snapped out of it' by now!
I got home, and continued to cry my eyes out, until my partner came home to find I'd self-harmed and was sobbing on the bathroom floor. Since then, I've been having several panic attacks a week, including one at 3am in the morning, that took me at least two hours to calm down from. I hadn't taken my Diazepam that evening, as I try to go without occasionally, but it was only after I took it that I started to calm down. I'm finding it hard to function, which is difficult when your support worker has a timetable of your weekly commitments that you've drawn up together (at the moment, I do French class and Slimming World on Monday, see my support worker and do voluntary work archiving for my piano tutor on Tuesday, have a piano lesson and the coffee and chat on Wednesday and see a psychology student on Thursday), and only have Friday free at present. About three months ago, I was barely doing any of these things. I would go to the GP, but she was reluctant to put me on Diazepam long term (she finally agreed after I came off it for three weeks and ended up in A&E after a particularly bad panic attack) and I'm worried she'll tell me it's time to come off it. I could change support worker, but they all comply with the same system. I've become good friends with another woman from the coffee group, who sees someone different, and she finds it too much at times. She told me that they discharged her sister before she was ready.
My partner has phoned my support worker and told her in a polite way to back off, and how much I'd been struggling, but she just sent me a text saying not to do anything I'm not ready for and that she would suspend my sessions with the woman organising the voluntary work 'for now' (I organised the work with my piano tutor independently - she offered me the work so there was less pressure (she's very flexible and easy going) and I wouldn't be forced into something public-facing by the Mental Health Team), which implies that I will have to do more volunteering with them. She sent me a list of things I should be doing each week - she seems to contradict herself.
I just feel so alone, and don't know where to turn, or how to force myself out there when my panic attacks are crippling. I feel that the root cause of them is not being addressed - a severe form of OCD where I'm constantly aware of my breathing, together with social anxiety, paranoia and very low self-esteem. If I just try and get back to where I was in terms of activity levels without properly addressing any of these points, I'll be back to square one before I know it, and the progress I have made the last year will be lost. I'm seriously considering going private (my parents have offered to pay), because I just don't know what else to do.
If anyone could offer any comforting words, reassurance or advice, it would be appreciated so, so much.