The road to hell

Sweet Christ, will it never end? Therapy day yesterday turned into a shit storm of epic proportions. I had a nice conversation with my psychiatrist about how I'm fighting my depression the hard way. With fists and teeth and kicks and claws instead of with the drugs, which were causing my anxiety to get worse.

Three years of agoraphobia and I have gotten used to coddling myself. Anything to keep my head above water, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other etc. etc. I worked my ass off in Prolonged Exposure Therapy to get a grip on my panic attacks. I endured the worst torments of hell to gain some measure of control. I still HAVE panic attacks, but they don't have me if you follow me.

Since then I've been sort of, adrift. Letting shit slide, if you feel me. I nosh on comfort food, and read and read and read until reality is far enough away that it can't quite get me in its grip. I suppose I may have grown a bit complacent, leaving a way for the depression to sneak in and get its hooks in deep. I have a hard time focusing on what is real and right in front of me. I digress.

Enter the fucking social worker, my actual therapist. She jumped my shit about missing appointments (as if the meaning of "agoraphobia" had temporarily escaped her), and then insinuated that I didn't really want to get better. She suggested that I try a residential treatment program out of state, which instantly triggered a grand mal panic attack. Then she wouldn't let me leave her office, while I was busy freaking out. She made snide comments and was generally a pain in my ass. Her posture, tone of voice, and turn of phrase all suggested some hostility. At any rate when I was finally home and sedated, my boyfriend called, and the wretch said I must have misunderstood her. She ought to know better than to fuck with the crazy people.

At any rate, I called my dad freaking out, and he slammed my ass about going into the treatment program, and I just wasn't ready to hear it. He worries about me being stuck at home all the time alone. It isn't good for me, I know that, but what the hell else can I do? Then my dad called my fucking brother who wanted to talk to me about the program, so I had another panic attack, and thanks dad for making shit harder on me than it already is. I asked dad to back off and give me time to think about it, but now half the family knows the VA wants to lock me up out of state for three months and everybody is "concerned" and wants to talk to me about it. So I spent half of today sedated as well, and I'm stressed and have a headache from clenching my teeth all the time.

It pissed me off that the social worker so easily dismissed the efforts I have been making to get the depression under control. It pisses me off that she suggested that I didn't want to get better. It pisses me off that my dad thinks the VA will or ought to take away my disability if I don't go to the damn treatment program. In the words of the wordslinger Stephen King "Every hand is against me now."

God save me from good intentions. Everybody just wants to help, and I just want to throttle them all. The insidious whispers of depression beckon me to hide in bed and cuddle my teddy bear and let the world go to hell in its own way. I want to scream and scream and scream and never stop til I'm dead.