I am a former patient of CMH. I have been diagnosed with Bipolar 2, Anxiety, PTSD and am prone to self harm. I have a job, but my take home pay is less than $300 a week because I pay a lot of child support and have a long commute to work each day that costs me about $60 a week. I do not get medical insurance through work and buying Obamacare is too expensive, and even if I did have insurance I can't afford all the copays... I might qualify for Medicaid, but probably don't... I need help and I need it now... I have been off my meds for two years and the downward spiral is out of control. Even on a 'good' day my emotions are on 'simmer', all I think about is panic and suicide and self harm and how bad of a person I am... I hide from everyone and everything. I self medicate, I have chest pains and panic attacks and headaches... I keep razor blades in my purse as a way to ground myself, knowing that they are there allows me to breathe, knowing that if it gets to be too much (which it is...) I have them to use... To self harm and ease the pain for a little bit, or to end it for good. I'd rather have Xanax and someone I can call. But I fall through the cracks, I don't have insurance and I've been told over and over that I don't 'qualify' for real help... I've been hospitalized 4 times, I've attempted suicide multiple times (2 that would qualify as real attempts as I was found unresponsive from an OD once and blood loss once). But I have tried many more times, sometimes waking up before I'm found and other times making myself throw up. I don't want to die, I know this... I have man that loves me and I love him too much to put him through all of the pain again, and that makes me stop, makes me change my mind... But the pull to 'do it' is getting stronger than the pull of the good things... I can't afford to be hospitalized again, I can barely function enough to keep my job, I'm struggling to keep the lights on and food in the refrigerator. I will lose my job, I will lose my home, I could even lose the one person that gives me the reason to not kill myself. I've already lost my children and my family... I have no real friends and for as much as I love my man and I know he loves me, if I tell him how I feel, I'm afraid he'll run... He stood by me before and it nearly killed him, I can't put him through all of it again... Who wants to spend their life with someone so unstable, someone that can't control the demons in their head? Even 'falling through the cracks' in the mental health system hurts, makes me think I am meant to suffer. It is my punishment... My intellectual self knows this is not true, but my emotions, my screwed up brain chemistry, my anxiety, my sucking vortex of depression make me 'feel' that its all true... I'm tired of 'existing' - I get up, I shower (sometimes) - I drive to work - I go through my work day in 'zombie' mode - I drive home - I eat (sometimes) - I hide from my reality - I try to sleep - I do it all again the next day... I don't 'live', I am on autopilot... I want help, but I am so afraid of the fall out of getting the help I know I desperately need. I still haven't recovered from the fallout from last time... I can't lose my job, I can't lose my place to live, I can't lose the one person that still loves me... I have clients that are relying on me to get work done... But I'm tired, I'm beyond sad, I'm beyond scared... I need more than a handful of pills and seeing a therapist once a month... I need someone to be my advocate to get me help, to teach me to not be afraid and help myself. I need someone to save me from myself, save me from my demons... Is there someone there that can help me, that can promise me that they will fight for me so I can learn to fight for myself? That won't read to me from a script or dismiss me as being too much work... I'm drowning and tired and cold and scared... Someone that can keep me out of the 'cracks'? As I type this I can't breathe, my heart is racing, my chest is tightening, my head is pounding, and I'm dreaming of those damn razor blades easing the pain. The searing pain that runs like fire fire through my skin for a fleeting moment. That grounds me to the here and now, that tells me not to push harder... That's all the sanity I have left, just enough to not push too hard as I drag the razor blade over my skin. Enough to hurt, enough to bleed, enough to wound and to scar, but not enough to really make a difference. Not enough to put out that last ember of hope, that last spark of the person I used to be... The happy girl who had a vivid imagination and exceptional mind. The young woman with dreams of a great career and doing something amazing in this world... The mother that would do anything to keep her kids happy and safe. My insides are nothing but dark and emptiness and torment... I don't want to be this way, I want help, I want it to get fixed, I want it to get cut out of me or radiated or something. But I am so afraid of the fallout... I am trying to reach out for help, but am afraid that I'm going to end up in the psych ward again, being belittled by doctors for not taking my meds, for self harming, for self medicating, for not facing the realities of my world, only to be shoved out into the world with no job, no money, no home, no one to keep me from falling apart again... All I see is more devastation, more heartache for my man, my family, more people pulling away from me... More pain, more pills, more redtape... But I can't let my last paragraph in life be that I killed myself... I don't want to do it... I know better... But I don't know how to not let it consume me... Sometimes it's like being consumed by fire in the middle of a room full of people, but no one can see the flame but me, no one can hear me scream, no one is willing to help me... This is my state of mind, my daily struggle. But I am told I don't 'qualify'... I am so afraid... I don't know who is going to read this, if they can help, if they care about this woman they have never met... Or will this email just get sent on to someone else who can't or won't help me because of red tape or my lack of money or insurance? How would they handle this email if it was from their mother, or sister, or daughter or lover? Would they be outraged, would they fight tooth and nail to save her? How do I get help, how to I make all the pain stop, how to I keep the tattered remains of my life in one piece? I am so very afraid...
Submitted January 26, 2016 at 12:19AM by 3blueeggs http://ift.tt/1WKOdBV bipolar
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