How dumb can you be?...oh earth PLEASE swallow me!!

Yeeeeah!!! SO confession time. And this is HARD!. And this post will be long- make some coffee!

This happened to me on Friday but I have honestly felt so stupid and so embarrassed and ( probably worried too) that it has taken me until today to finally pluck up the courage to share with you how I @#!%*** up!. Feel free to laugh because it is funny in some ways and feel free to be perplexed because and the other hand it made me realize how bad things are.

I had two appointments with Dr Shaw last week. One on Monday and one on Friday. This was all fine the week passed by quickly. I wrote in a post last week that I was struggling with some pain due to BIH and severe fatigue due to a combination of BIH and depression. So I was really out of it, the days seemed to run into one another. My mother was away concluding the sale of her business, my father was locked up in his office as always and my grandmother....well, you never go near my grandmother when you have a headache. I remember feeling relieved on "Wednesday" night, thankful that my appointment wasn't until the day after next.

BUT when my mom woke me up on Thursday I learned that....it was actually Friday. WTF? I was dumbfounded- what had happened to Thursday? Where had the week gone? HOW COULD IT BE FRIDAY?!!!. The most comical argument started between us ("no it isn't!"..."yes it is!"..."no it isn't!"..)  I had never been so confused in my life! What was worse is that my appointment was at 11:00...and it was 11:16 and a few seconds later my blackberry started ringing with Dr Shaws number on it. My mom told me to answer it,  I handed it to her and told her to answer it (cue next comical argument). Eventually I covered my head with my pillow and let it ring off. After much pleading with my mom she eventually went downstairs and phoned Dr. Shaw  to apologize and see if I could get a later appointment- yes I know I should have done this myself but I was to occupied with wanting to shoot myself.

In the end we couldn't get another appointment and Dr. Shaw landed up having a loooong conversation with my mom- who was mostly silent except for "hmm", "oh", "yes" and one "That's not good". And I knew that this was not going to go down very well. All my mom would tell me is that Dr. Shaw told her I was resisting and retreating.

When I got to the appointment yesterday (10 minutes late as usual). She opened the door for me and I knew that I was in for it. She told me she was very worried by what happened and gave me a stern talking to about what happened and that it showed her that I am not living in my life, that I am loosing touch with reality which meant that neither she or my church counsellors were helping me. The word "no" slipped out before I could stop myself. But then I told her that it wasn't anything that they were doing or weren't doing. It was actually me. I felt like crap! And I realised that I should have told her what I had written on this blog weeks ago when I first started therapy.

Basically I didn't have the strength to fight anymore, I was burnt out. I had gone so far down the road to suicide before I started therapy and had just taken a step back from it. Yet I feel to exhausted,  to crawl my way back along the road to recovery...yet again. There was also doubt about seeing Dr Shaw- originally my godfather hoped that six sessions would wrapped things up nicely. Both he and my mother hadn't realised that some people spend months....years in therapy before the are finally able to see some light. So there is always the threat that it will be discontinued....again- Dr Shaw is one of many psychologists that I have seen in my lifetime. And that threat really does affect how I feel about getting help and what I do with it. At first I felt I had to put everything I said in keywords to save time because I didn't know what session would be my last session. So I just haven't really taken it seriously yet.

I didn't have time to tell her all this (mostly because  we ran out of time). But the main topic of the whole session is what I could do to pull myself out of this- I didn't have a whole lot of ideas on that one, because I just don't know. But one thing that has been on my mind for a while is for me to start working  at a non- stressful job- to get me out of the house and in contact with people again. I entered the corporate world at 19 and worked my way up in London to a managerial position in human resources for a big company. I was working for a grocery distribution company in America when I had my breakdown. Since then I have been studying and doing menial jobs for my mother's company which she has now sold. Last year I was booked off any work because of my BIH and I decided to defer my studies this year because I was so ill.

So I have been out of the workforce for a while. I don't know if returning to work would be the wisest thing for a person who so very depressed. But if you spent one day in my house you would understand that it is probably the best thing to do. My house is a circus. I live with my mother, who has been supportive but is mostly unavailable because I am not her only problem. My grandmother who is 83 is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's- a fall two months ago fractured her hip and she is now mostly bed ridden needing full time care- the energy she drains out of us all is the biggest problem we face. My Dad is bipolar but refuses treatment and also has heart disease. I need to get away!

One thing I worried about when I was talking about with Dr Shaw about getting a job is 1) my family needs me at home. However she pointed out that what was happening wasn't fair, I had been sick too and had mostly had to take care of myself. There is nothing more I can do for my grandmother. And if my sister and I constantly have to keep making sacrifices in the name of family issues we will never get anywhere, or have our own lives. 2) My family is very image conscious, they will really be concerned about what job I get and where and how it will "look" if someone I know sees me. I am thinking of a simple job in a coffee shop or something but if someone "sees" me the impression will be made that I have bombed out with life and the only success I could make was working in a coffee shop. I went to a well known private school and this makes it worse. Such are the petty circles we move in.

I've gone a little off topic. We also spoke about not letting my parent's attitude and words have any control over me, which is part of what I mention above. That will take a lot of work. Old habits will die hard...

Anyway I've got a huge amount of work to do and it all seems to be overwhelming. By Friday I have to come back to Dr. Shaw with a journal of how I am going to go about getting a job. She has also told me she will give me 15 minutes to be late before calling and rescheduling the appointment- which means a cancellation fee. This is more of a motivation to my mom who drives me to these appointments and has made me late nearly every single time. I guess you can call this a little wake up call even though I still feel like I am sitting in a heavy cloud.

Yesterday wasn't all that bad though, I went to my support group and it had a nice ending which I will post tomorrow.

Still feeling a little sheepish :/ and I'm STILL wondering where Thursday went.... :)