Inpatient

So, I was gone for awhile. Christmas was a really, really tough time for me. I tried to reach out for help from some family members a week prior because I had been over doing it, extending myself beyond healthy limits to help my mom, but I got no response. On Christmas I needed help lifting her , obviously I can't anymore but when I stood up for myself and set boundaries tantrums were thrown and basically I am estranged now from a good chunk of my family, which is honestly okay. My family , most of them, are quite toxic, they don't get together to resolve things, they get together to see who can hurt the other the worst with their words. I didn't have much to do with them before my moms illness and I won't have much to do with them after. I was accused of being selfish, cowardly and told I should be ashamed of myself....that threw me over the edge. I knew that there was no truth in their words but it still threw me over the edge.

For weeks I have been struggling, I've had Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety for most of my life and I am vigilant about seeing a counselor and someone to monitor my meds. Due to a shortage in Psychiatrists I have a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I had seen her to tell her I was struggling, she didn't think a med change would help since it was more situational but she did bump one med up slightly. But I kept getting worse, angry outbursts, hysterical crying jags etc, and I didn't know what to do because I thought it was just normal grieving but on a huge scale seeing as I lost many people this year, my mom is dying and I have my own illnesses. So I didn't get help because my nurse practitioner had told me that a med increase wouldn't help. I began to think about suicide, I knew I would never do it because I would never leave this world willingly and leave my daughter without her mother...but that night, I felt really unsafe, I worried that I would have a moment where I did something impulsive , not thinking about my daughter, something I wouldn't be able to take back. So I got help.

There is a wonderful privately owned Psychiatric Facility near where I live, it isn't a hospital setting, its more like a little campus of cabins, you wear your own clothes, have a team of doctors and counselors. It's a mix of adjusting meds, changing meds if needed and going to classes such as Interpersonal Effectiveness, Understanding Your Illness, Codependency/Setting Boundaries etc and holistic things such as aromatherapy, meditation, mindfulness etc. They did increase my meds which did help me deal with things, I learned that I was on the lowest therapeutic dose of my  most important med...time to find a new practitioner!  But more important I learned a lot about myself.  When they signed me up for the Codependency class I had no idea why, I always thought Codependent meant you needed people or a certain person around all of the time or relied on them in an unhealthy way. When I went to the class and they went over it I was like WHOAH! I'm a class Codependent Caretaker. I'm little miss fix it and a mother hen....I always thought that was a good thing but I have done it at the expense of myself and I've done for others what they could have done for themselves.....

I could keep going on but this post is already too long.

Bottom line-if you need help get help! Its nothing to be ashamed about! Yes, there is a stigma still out there but screw them, you need to live your best life. If you are physically sick you go to the hospital or a doctor, if you are critically ill you get checked in to the hospital. Well our brains are just like any other body part....well more important lol, it gets sick too, its nothing we caused, it isn't cause we are weak, its just chemistry and genetics. If you need help, go get the help you need and be proud of yourself because knowing when to ask for help is brave.