I'm broken too.

About a year ago I had, what I like to refer to it as, a complete nervous breakdown. I'm the only one who likes to call it that. Probably because doctors don't like that term anymore, and no one else wants to call it anything. Most people don't even want to talk about it. At. All. But fuck them. I want to talk about it, and I'm the one who had it, so I can call it whatever the fuck I want.

Back to the story.

 A year ago, I was really struggling with depression. For months I would wake up numb, go to work, feel overwhelmed, cry in the bathroom, pretend I was fine to my co-workers and friends, go home, pretend I was fine to my partner and family, try to sleep, feel overwhelmed and cry in my own bathroom, until I passed out on the bathroom floor, only be carried/dragged back to bed by my partner. Things were not great. I started cutting myself, something I hadn't done in years. And when my partner discovered it, he stopped suggesting I go to therapy, and demanded it. I told him that I couldn't. I physically could not call another therapist's office only be rejected again.

Previously I had called several offices. Only to be turned down, because my insurance wasn't the right one (despite what their website said). Or that they weren't accepting new patients (despite what their website said). Or that they weren't accepting patients with my insurance. Or that they weren't accepting patients who hadn't been diagnosed. (I don't even know what to say to that.)

My partner told me that he would call, and find me a therapist. It took a week. Hours everyday. But he found me one. One who didn't just put me on a waiting list, but agreed to see me, the very next day. I cried, because for once I could imagine the pain I was in, someday not being so bad.

I took the day off work, and went to my first appointment. I was scared. Terrified, really. What if she couldn't help me? What if I was unfixable? What if I was so wrong, that there was no way I would ever feel better? I had every reason to be horrified. And unfortunately, she couldn't help me. She made everything worse. So much worse.

In the two months I saw her, she convinced me that the reason why my step-father and I hadn't gotten along when I was a teen, was because he wanted to rape me. She gave me prescription advice, which she was not licensed to do. And told me that the only way I would ever be happy was if I dumped my partner and married someone I met in a bar. Every session (weekly) would start with her asking if I'd broken up with my partner. I told her that I hadn't, and she would berate me for the next half hour.

Eventually I started lying to her. Just so we could move on to another topic. Like, why I wasn't feeling any better? I'd been to therapy in the past. I knew that things took time, but two months, and no improvement was unusual.

After lying to her for two weeks, I decided I couldn't take it anymore. And by "it" I meant living. If this was what my life was going to be like for the rest of it, I was going to make sure the length was a short one. And I told my partner and mother. "If you don't get me better help by tomorrow, I'm killing myself."

"May we take you to the emergency room, to get you a psych evaluation?" My partner asked.

I told him that if it would help, he could. I was fully willing to be committed in an institute if it would just make the pain stop. So I went to ER with my mother, and talked to a woman named Margaret, who told me to stop going to my therapist immediately. She was very concerned that the psychiatrist that my therapist had been working with had prescribed me anti-depressants that I was having severe reactions to. Instead of feeling less depressed, the medication made me more tightly wound (anxious) and extremely paranoid. She also gave me a prescription for Xanax so that I could finally sleep. Margaret made a list of doctors she recommended. Ones who she trusted to help me with therapy, and ones who could put me on the right medication. I was released, with my Xanax and list of doctors.

I took a few weeks off of work, and rested. While my family called the doctors to make me an appointment with anyone who would see me. I started seeing a new therapist, and a new psychiatrist. I was starting to feel better. I went back to work. I'd been taking Xanax daily, and was sure that I was calm enough to make it through a measly 8 hours-a-day work week.

I made it 45 minutes.

45 minutes is long enough to clock in, start up your computer, lie to your cubicle mates about why you had to take such a long emergency break from work, open your e-mail, start stressing about how full your e-mail inbox is, and start hallucinating.

Hallucinating isn't exactly the right word. But it's much more dramatic than the correct word. Disorienting. See? That just sounds like I got lost. But if put it in the context, disorienting is much more terrifying that just seeing things that aren't there. I was sitting at my desk, when suddenly I started "believing" in things. Not about God, or Jesus. I didn't "get saved". I started to believe that despite having no evidence of such, that the air was suddenly become unbreathable. I believed that I was going to start suffocating, and so was everyone. Why was I the only one panicking? Didn't everyone know that we were all about to die? My brain was on loop, "I can't breathe, we're all going to die." I may have even said it out loud. I don't really remember. I do know that the woman sitting next to me, asked if I was okay, and when I made eye contact with her, her eyes went wide and she told me I should go home. I practically flew to my car, but couldn't figure out how to turn it on. I called my mom to pick me up, and told her about the air changing. She told me she was on her way to get me, and not to move. She stayed on the phone with me, and listened to me scream because I could see the air turning into liquid (there's the hallucinations!) until minutes before she reached me, and my mind couldn't take it anymore, and things got really calm and slow.

Suddenly everything was fine. But I was so tired. Thinking was exhausting. Why did people have to talk so much? It was hard to follow the words people were saying, let alone have a full conversation! It was like my brain had shut off. I was awake, and aware, but I just wanted to sit and do nothing. That's what I did, for days. Maybe even weeks. I don't remember much about that period. I know that I ate when people told me to ate. I went were people took me. I made child-like crafts when people told me do something creative. I slept a lot. In that period of time I lost my job, because I couldn't handle talking to people on the phone to get on short-term disability. I couldn't remember or understand the questions they needed answered. I cried a lot, again. Not because I was miserable, but because I confused and scared. I felt like I had suddenly regressed to the mind of a child, and I didn't understand why.

I got a diagnosis. Many in fact. Depression, bi-polar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder. Wow! That's a lot of disorders! I joked that from what I've learned about medicine from TV medical dramas, you can't have multiple diagnoses, you can only have one thing wrong with you that describes all your symptoms (i.e. "House"). No one found the humor appropriate. My psychiatrist told me that some of my conditions were genetic, like depression, bi-polar, and anxiety. That the symptoms would pop up for the rest of my life, but that I could take medication to help with the struggles. The others, OCD, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder came from my history of being abused physically, emotionally and sexually (I call it the Power Trifecta... because saying that makes people feel uncomfortable, and it's an uncomfortable topic. Plus it happened to me, I can call it whatever I want). As a small child, teen and as a young adult (again, it happens in threes). She went on to tell me that while medication could help with the symptoms of these "reactive" disorders, through therapy I could free myself of these disorders. It would take years of work, and there was no guarantee that I would be successful, but that it was possible to get better.

It was very inspirational, and I almost jumped up fist in the air yelling "I can do it!" like a character from Pokemon determined to someday become a Pok-e-Master. But then my psychiatrist told me that she didn't know how to medicate me and so couldn't see me as a patient anymore. I got dumped by a doctor, for being too sick. She referred me to a doctor who specializes in my type of disorders.

I should say specialized, because when I called him, he told me that he was getting ready to retire, and wasn't interested in taking on "difficult cases" like mine. (Thanks for nothin' asshole!)

I wasn't quite back to square one, because I did still have my new therapist, who really was helping me. And I still had my trusty Xanax. But Xanax is only available by prescription, and my supply would only last so long. I called every single psychiatrist in the phone book (actually my mother did, I was still playing with legos, and having a hard time of it). The second you mention "borderline personality disorder" to a psychiatrist on the phone, even one who said they are accepting new patients, they suddenly don't have any available appointments. Or they hang up on you.

I finally found a doctor who would accept me. Though "accept" isn't really the right word. He scoffed at my diagnoses, and told me that he would assess my case and tell me what I actually have. (He later agreed with all of them.) Also, where my previous psychiatrist would see me for an hour each session, he would only see me for 15 minutes. Even in my first session, where he "evaluated" me. Squeezing the information usually exchanged in an hour, into 15 minutes was overwhelming, and I always ended up crying that day because I couldn't remember which pills I was suppose to take when, and would have to call the office for clarification. This doctor didn't want patients to bring in family, because he felt that patients wouldn't be honest around their family, so I was never allowed to have a witness in room, even though I just wanted someone to help me remember my medication information. He also kept prescribing me medications that my pharmacy refused to fill. I had been going to the same pharmacy for a while, the pharmacists would look at my file, see the list of medications I'd been on and was on currently and tell me that they couldn't give me whatever new medication had been prescribed, because the combination of what was currently in my body and what would be added with the new prescription would kill me. Or they wouldn't fill a prescription for a sleep aid because the prescribed amount was fatal to even someone the size of an elephant. (I know I'm a little overweight, but not THAT overweight.) He insisted I stop going to the pharmacy that kept track of my medications and go to a pharmacy on the Spanish-speaking side of town that couldn't counsel me in how to take each medication. He reasoned that I should only be taking it as he directed anyway. But then he confused my chart with a different patient and nearly gave me a seizure. I stopped going to him.

I stopped even trying to find a psychiatrist in this town. I didn't have any insurance (lost my job, remember?), so I could no longer afford to pay to see one anyway. I kept going to therapy, and learned some cooping skills. I finally got my brain functions back, and even returned to work (different job, different company, a lot less stress for about the same amount of money, whoo!).

But things aren't much better. I still struggle with depression. I still get disoriented, and hallucinate if I get too overwhelmed. Not to the degree as before, but it's still scary. I still wish the world would end sometimes. Sometimes I wish my life would end. And sometimes I try to make it end (I have yet to succeed, obviously). I don't have a great ending to this. Because it's not over. Even if I ended this post with something happy, how I love each day, it's a gift, whatever, it doesn't mean I would feel that way tomorrow. Some days are good. Some days are bad. Some days are very, very good. Some days are very, very bad. It's a journey. It's not over yet. I don't know how it's going to end. I just hope that if someone's going through something like this, and they read this, they know that they're not alone. Because sometimes that's the only thing that can comfort you. Knowing that you're not the only one who has felt like this. Or is feeling like this. You're not the only one. I'm broken too.