Long days and short nights
Apr. 2nd, 2002 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeBeen floating for a while. Feel a little unreal, a little disconnected. Not used to having good things happen on a regular basis. Keep wanting to feel something painful just to remind myself I'm still alive, still real, still flesh and blood. Not particularly rational, but there just the same.
Work was exhausting, though I didn't realise it until I got home. Slept for two hours, then had dinner, then got onto internet. Had interesting conversation on ICQ with Bunny's girlfriend. Turns out she had a major panic attack two weeks ago, and is now on Paxil. She was anxious about being on meds and seeing a psych, so I did my best to allay her fears, told her all about my own experience with it (with some of the more gruesome details omitted as it wouldn't have helped nor been relevant to her), and I think she's feeling a bit better about it. Amazing how taboo the subject of psychiatric meds still is. My friend VL is also on Paxil, and it took nearly a year for she and I to actually discuss it.
Guess it has a lot to do with people's attitudes. People with depression and other mental health problems, from my limited experience, seem to have problems with chronic invalidation of their feelings. Either constantly being told or just convinced that their feelings, thoughts, opinions don't matter, will never matter, aren't real, aren't important enough to warrant attention.
Certainly that had a lot to do with why I never sought out help until November. Looking back I wish I'd gone before I got to be suicidal, before the self-injury got so bad I'll have permanent and very visible scarring, before I was *this* close to just giving up. Six years of psychological torment that I could have avoided if I'd known, if I'd been reassured, if I'd been told... Thank God for Firewillow.
Have further musings, but it's late and I have to go to bed. More tomorrow, I guess, after Incarnate.
Work was exhausting, though I didn't realise it until I got home. Slept for two hours, then had dinner, then got onto internet. Had interesting conversation on ICQ with Bunny's girlfriend. Turns out she had a major panic attack two weeks ago, and is now on Paxil. She was anxious about being on meds and seeing a psych, so I did my best to allay her fears, told her all about my own experience with it (with some of the more gruesome details omitted as it wouldn't have helped nor been relevant to her), and I think she's feeling a bit better about it. Amazing how taboo the subject of psychiatric meds still is. My friend VL is also on Paxil, and it took nearly a year for she and I to actually discuss it.
Guess it has a lot to do with people's attitudes. People with depression and other mental health problems, from my limited experience, seem to have problems with chronic invalidation of their feelings. Either constantly being told or just convinced that their feelings, thoughts, opinions don't matter, will never matter, aren't real, aren't important enough to warrant attention.
Certainly that had a lot to do with why I never sought out help until November. Looking back I wish I'd gone before I got to be suicidal, before the self-injury got so bad I'll have permanent and very visible scarring, before I was *this* close to just giving up. Six years of psychological torment that I could have avoided if I'd known, if I'd been reassured, if I'd been told... Thank God for Firewillow.
Have further musings, but it's late and I have to go to bed. More tomorrow, I guess, after Incarnate.
