Triggering (Suicide): Depression, Part III

Hey guys.

I thought I would officially say I got out of the hospital on Monday after spending five days on a psychiatric unit. I pushed hard for me to go home on Monday. I was feeling a lot better. After two days I didn't want to hurt myself any longer. I made friends and was having really good days, so on Monday they granted my request and sent me home.

It was fine...for about ten hours. Then that night all the thoughts hit me like a train. I was having thoughts of suicide and self-harm again, about as bad as they were in mid-December, which is when they were at their worst, before I went on an anti-depressant. I'm thinking about it throughout a good portion of the day. I get some relief when I spend time with my friends with my friend or my partner, but when I'm alone it seems like it's all I think about. Things are getting increasingly dark. I've started becoming more preoccupied with what things would be like if I died, how to kill myself, etc.

I have no immediate plans to kill myself, but these thoughts are overwhelming and make me want to give up and cry. In addition resisting the urge to self-harm is very difficult. I think the only reason I haven't is because I don't want to self-harm before the big trip I have this weekend. It's also why I haven't been completely honest with my healthcare providers. I have been reporting the self-harm urges and suicidal ideation to my DBT therapist but I have rated the urges as low instead of high. I have individual therapy tomorrow and I'm going to tell her that things are fine and I feel better after the hospital. I don't want to go back in before this trip; I've been looking forward to it for months, and besides, I'm not going to hurt myself in the next couple of days. After this trip, though, there's really nothing to keep me going.

I don't know what to do. I really don't want to go back into the hospital again. I would feel like such a failure for going back, and this time they would keep me much longer. I'm also struggling with whether or not to withdraw from class this semester, which is difficult. On the one hand, I'm still very troubled. On the other, it would give me structure. I don't know. I don't know much of anything these days.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I feel like I am about to give up.

How long do you have to decide to withdraw from classes? I know that here we have three weeks to make the choice to drop without anything showing on our transcripts and then we have nine weeks to get a W. School does give you structure but it also causes a lot of stress and if you are struggling this much it might just add to it.

Do you think that after you go on this trip (since you say you can keep yourself safe till then) that you could then go into the hospital or at least be honest with your support team? I know that might be hard to do but I assure you it doesn't make you a failure. I think reaching out for help and accepting that you need more help then you are currently getting makes you strong.

You have only been out of the hospital for three days? It is possible that the structure you got at the hospital kind of messed with you and is making the transition back into the real world more difficult. I know when I got out of the hospital the first time I was acting really weird, was super depressed and cried. My parents ended up calling the hospital and asking if they needed to bring me back and the hospital told me that this can sometimes happen to patients. I hope this doesn't sound like I am belittling your experience but it could be a factor in to why you are feeling so badly. So, as you adjust to being back in the real world you might start feeling better and be able to re-evaluate what you need.

I think I have two weeks to drop the class without it being a withdrawal, but I'm unsure of when that date is counted from. The course is a distance learning course so it isn't the same as other college classes and it's a certificate program, not a degree plan, so that's different, too. My class schedule says it started on the fourth of January but we didn't even meet until this past Tuesday. I didn't make it because I'd just gotten out of the hospital and didn't want to push myself too hard. I emailed the professor and she said we could reschedule. She sent out an email with the information for the textbook and went over some stuff she talked about in the first class. She said the syllabus was posted in the email, too, but I didn't see it. I haven't written back because I don't know what to do about school. Even if I withdraw in my state I believe if you withdraw from all your classes at once it doesn't count, and since I'm only taking one course it would be withdrawing from all classes at once. Worst case scenario I have evidence saying it's a medical withdrawal and I won't be penalized for it. It just feels a little overwhelming. Going to the bookstore downtown to pick up a textbook seems stressful, but I need to do it now if I'm going to, or else I'll be really behind. I've asked some people what they think, and actually posted a separate thread on here. I just don't know, and I hate being so indecisive. It's driving me nuts.

I'm also tired of lying to people about how I am doing. No one knows how bad it really is. Everyone says I seem better but that's the scary part- I'm actually worse. I'm just hiding it better. I will be honest with my treatment team when I come back from my trip next week. The problem is I don't want them to stop me. I don't want to be put back in the hospital, failure or not. I don't exactly know what the hospital will do, anyway. Every time I go I start feeling fine after a few days and then it get irritating because it feels like I don't need to be there, then I go home and start fantasizing about suicide again. That's why I am so scared- I know all the skills. I know what to do. I do it, even, but I still feel like this. I feel so hopeless and I'm terrified. I'm terrified the only way out of this madness is death.

The hospital definitely had a lot of structure and I don't have as much of that at home. The past few days I've gotten up at noon and then gone to appointments or hung out with people, then spend time with my family in the evenings. It takes up time but it's not as structured. Every time I try to create structure, though, I resist it. The things I usually do to structure my life aren't happening right now- I'm too depressed and anxious to go to work, and school is up in the air. I'm not sure what I'll do with myself without those things. I suppose I could volunteer, but I wouldn't know where to start.

I guess I just feel so lost and trapped, like I'm in this purposeless void. I have goals but they seem so unattainable. I feel like I'm never going to graduate. I can't finish moving into my girlfriend's place because moving would be too stressful right now. I love volunteering here on TeenHelp, but right now even that is difficult. Those were the main three things keeping me going- school, my family (girlfriend and her other girlfriend), and volunteering here. All of those things are suffering right now and it's tearing me apart.