(wanna preface this for a warning about some suicidal ideation, frank discussion of suicide, and general brainfunk that might be triggering) Earlier this week, I realized that if I didn't pinpoint a direct event in the future with my mind (next year's fruit harvest, boyfriend's birthday, that sort of thing), I had zero concept of myself existing. Like, my 5 year plan didn't exist, because why would I? I mean, I guess it's been lingering in the background for a long time, so I should back up a bit. I was diagnosed two years ago with PTSD as well as panic disorder. I also suffer from a weird kind of epilepsy that occasionally rears its stupid head in my general direction, usually with some connection to my general stress levels. I take klonopin and a high dose of gabapentin to manage these episodes and limit them. For the PTSD/panic issues, I take 20mg daily of lexapro and 0.5mg xanax as needed for panic episodes. In a normal period, this might end up being a thing I resort to once a week. If I have the chance, I do like to replace xanax with a small bit of medicinal weed (I'm in CA, so woo?) because side effects and chemical dependency do concern me. Recently, I've started to have a mental nosedive. My thesis advisor and I were pushing to get a few grants pushed through, and so that was a massive stressbomb. On top of that, my neighborhood has recently seen some pretty serious violence, and so I'm in the process of moving. On top of THAT, I'm having major issues with executive dysfunction. I just... can't figure out what the hell to do, and every day that passes by makes it a little bit worse. I can feel myself slipping a little more into the depression-anxiety PTSD death spiral every day, which is very, very bad. Last week things kind of culminated in a not-entirely unexpected way with me having a seizure, and my entire mental balance being completely thrown off. I've cried multiple times a day, every day, about things in my head. The most recent example is my boyfriend gently rejecting my offer for him to stay with me at my new place tonight because he's as introverted as I am and has been going through a funk. I'm already wrestling with feeling like his funk is my fault (since my brain is assaulting me with feelings of inadequacy, being annoying, basically the whole combo that it could possibly muster), and he did tell me outright that my constantly assuming that I'm the root of his woes stresses him out. Which. Reasonable. But fuck, I didn't want to stress him out! So then he offered to help me move things to the new place, and asked if I wanted him to bring the things I had at his house as well. Of course I've launched off that thought pattern into assuming that this is so that he can remove me from his life. It's stupid, and I know it's stupid, but. My PTSD is in part due to my father committing suicide when I was 9 after a rough time with brainfunk of his own, and in part due to an 8-year long and highly abusive relationship that I was in from age 14-22. The person I'm with now is incredibly important to me and very supportive, and that is setting off the bad feels in a way that's frankly fucking terrible. So that's part of it. The other part is that my school (I'm a PhD student) has noticed my absences and my lack of presence, and my advisor and I had a long chat about that. I spoke with her and the program coordinator, and they've both talked me into taking the rest of the quarter off as a medical hiatus. It's probably a good idea, but I can't help but feel like a failure. Like... I should be able to recognize this is happening, fight through it, all of that stuff. But I can't. I'm going to see my psychiatrist on Thursday, and see if we can't come up with an alternate treatment regimen. I have no idea what to expect. We talked about the possibility that the executive dysfunction is related to the lexapro, as it started to creep up around the same timeline as effects would make themselves be known. She mentioned backing off on that as one treatment possibility, since the other SSRI I tried (zoloft) over-activated me into intense spikes of constant anxiety. I just don't know what to do, because the way I feel right now is completely unmanageable. I'm terrified they won't be able to help stabilize me, and I'm just gonna... peter out. Or ruin the good things I have going in my life (education, significant other, general living situation), and that would honestly be too big a hit for me to recover from. I don't know what I'm posting this for, really, I know I've not been a big part of the forums. I just... I need help, and I don't know how to help myself, and that's terrifying.
Hello from another person who had to take a medical hiatus from grad school to get her mental health issues under control. I'm not doing a good job at writing anything helpful tonight, but I wanted you to know that I read this and I'm sorry you're in a place that sucks so much and I'm glad your advisor and department are being understanding. Witnessed, and have a hug if you want one.
