fleurdelis
04-09-17, 16:58
I'm not even sure where to begin. The past three years of my life have been miserable, and it just seems to be getting worse lately (I'm now 28). I've had OCD (mostly obsessional) since my teens, but there was a brief period of time when I had it under control with medication. The medication ultimately stopped working, though, and nothing I have done since then has helped; in fact, I've begun to struggle with depression as well. I've been doing CBT for more than a year, I've been on something like six different medications, I practice mindfulness, I started exploring spirituality, I exercise...but my life just seems to spiral more out of control. It doesn't help that I live in an area with very limited access to mental health care; finding/switching psychiatrists and therapists is a problem, and GPs I've been to haven't typically been willing to tinker too much with psychiatric meds.
Work is a constant source of stress to me (I have major issues with my boss) and it barely pays anything, but I haven't been able to find anything better; in fact, I had to move back in with my mom after finishing grad school to save money. I don't feel like I have much of a future, career-wise, and I certainly don't feel like what I'm doing is worthwhile. I haven't been in a relationship for five years, and I'm not even sure anymore that I'm cut out for one; I've been halfheartedly seeing a couple of guys recently, but I no longer feel able to connect with anyone on any deep level, and I constantly feel as if I'm just performing--creating this version of myself that's bubbly and outgoing and happy. Part of the problem, I think, is that my father was emotionally abusive, so I learned to habitually mask any emotion that wasn't positive growing up--now I have a hard time dropping the act. But there are other issues, too--a lot of my obsessions revolve around sexuality, dating (and, really, most things) feels like a chore that I don't have energy for, etc.
Fundamentally, there are just very few things that engage me emotionally anymore; it's not just that I can't imagine external circumstances improving in the future, but that I can't imagine anything that could make me happy for more than a minute or two at a time.
I'm rambling, I know, but I'm not sure what else to do or where else to turn. I've felt particularly hopeless the last few weeks, to the point that suicide has been in the back of my mind more or less constantly. I don't have a plan, and the idea still scares me a little, but there's also something reassuring about it. I know it would hurt my mom, and that (quite frankly) her own life doesn't have a lot of happiness in it to begin with, but I also strongly believe I'm just making things harder for her at this point.
The thing that's pushed me over the edge today, stupidly, is a sunburn. I was sitting outside in the shade yesterday and somehow still managed to get burned on my back and shoulders--the umbrella must have been semi-sheer, I suppose. Not badly burned--it didn't blister or peel and is basically gone today--but I have fair skin/eyes/hair and can't even remember how many times I've gotten mild burns like this one, so I feel that I am destined to get melanoma. To be honest, the prospect of dying is something I'm fairly apathetic about at this point, but I really don't want to be sick, and I hate myself for having been so careless; I've only ever worn sunscreen when I knew I would be out in the sun, rather than every day like you're supposed to.
I know this worry is disproportionate and irrational, but like everything else, it hasn't been helped much by therapy and/or medication. My health anxiety is managed to the extent that it is not incapacitating--I'm not spending hours every day dwelling on it--but in the back of my mind, I'm nearly always convinced that I'm deathly ill, and living with those kinds of thoughts is not really living. I'm also discouraged by all the stories of people whose health anxiety was "cured" when they were diagnosed with an actual medical condition; my own health anxiety only really started after a medical problem (I had a series of spontaneous lung collapses at 20), so I'm not comforted by the idea that I'd be able to deal with a real problem when/if it arose. Frankly, I dealt with that problem extremely badly, and it's precisely the fact that I don't want to go through anything like it again that is troubling me now--coupled with all the other things going on in my life, I strongly feel I'd prefer to just check out now, while I'm in otherwise good health.
Work is a constant source of stress to me (I have major issues with my boss) and it barely pays anything, but I haven't been able to find anything better; in fact, I had to move back in with my mom after finishing grad school to save money. I don't feel like I have much of a future, career-wise, and I certainly don't feel like what I'm doing is worthwhile. I haven't been in a relationship for five years, and I'm not even sure anymore that I'm cut out for one; I've been halfheartedly seeing a couple of guys recently, but I no longer feel able to connect with anyone on any deep level, and I constantly feel as if I'm just performing--creating this version of myself that's bubbly and outgoing and happy. Part of the problem, I think, is that my father was emotionally abusive, so I learned to habitually mask any emotion that wasn't positive growing up--now I have a hard time dropping the act. But there are other issues, too--a lot of my obsessions revolve around sexuality, dating (and, really, most things) feels like a chore that I don't have energy for, etc.
Fundamentally, there are just very few things that engage me emotionally anymore; it's not just that I can't imagine external circumstances improving in the future, but that I can't imagine anything that could make me happy for more than a minute or two at a time.
I'm rambling, I know, but I'm not sure what else to do or where else to turn. I've felt particularly hopeless the last few weeks, to the point that suicide has been in the back of my mind more or less constantly. I don't have a plan, and the idea still scares me a little, but there's also something reassuring about it. I know it would hurt my mom, and that (quite frankly) her own life doesn't have a lot of happiness in it to begin with, but I also strongly believe I'm just making things harder for her at this point.
The thing that's pushed me over the edge today, stupidly, is a sunburn. I was sitting outside in the shade yesterday and somehow still managed to get burned on my back and shoulders--the umbrella must have been semi-sheer, I suppose. Not badly burned--it didn't blister or peel and is basically gone today--but I have fair skin/eyes/hair and can't even remember how many times I've gotten mild burns like this one, so I feel that I am destined to get melanoma. To be honest, the prospect of dying is something I'm fairly apathetic about at this point, but I really don't want to be sick, and I hate myself for having been so careless; I've only ever worn sunscreen when I knew I would be out in the sun, rather than every day like you're supposed to.
I know this worry is disproportionate and irrational, but like everything else, it hasn't been helped much by therapy and/or medication. My health anxiety is managed to the extent that it is not incapacitating--I'm not spending hours every day dwelling on it--but in the back of my mind, I'm nearly always convinced that I'm deathly ill, and living with those kinds of thoughts is not really living. I'm also discouraged by all the stories of people whose health anxiety was "cured" when they were diagnosed with an actual medical condition; my own health anxiety only really started after a medical problem (I had a series of spontaneous lung collapses at 20), so I'm not comforted by the idea that I'd be able to deal with a real problem when/if it arose. Frankly, I dealt with that problem extremely badly, and it's precisely the fact that I don't want to go through anything like it again that is troubling me now--coupled with all the other things going on in my life, I strongly feel I'd prefer to just check out now, while I'm in otherwise good health.