I am a delicata squash.

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I mean "a" as in a very specific one. It's in pieces in a few plastic grocery bags, all shoved into one grocery bag, which was then hastily jammed into the trash can in the kitchen.

This was after a very loud, very tearful, quite honest and also funny confession that I was extraordinarily depressed.

So depressed, I told my shocked roommate [who, though bad at hiding reaction, was actually taking it fairly well], that when I discovered the squash was rotting from the inside outward I started crying.

I saw the rotten insides of a squash and I started crying like a five year old missing their mother.

It wasn't really about the squash.

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I get a produce delivery now and then because it can be difficult for me to go to the store .The produce delivery provides options that are so much better in variety and [usually] quality. I was so excited about this squash. This delicata squash. I had never had one before.

Most of my other delivered produce was gone and I hadn't eaten much the past few days. I just wasn't that interested. I wasn't feeling up to making dinner but then I thought of the squash and I actually wanted to try.

I started thawing chicken and smelled one end of the squash. It smelled amazing- sort of sweet and buttery.

I started cutting it and then noticed toward the other end it had a small bruise. I carved that bit out and kept cutting.

Then suddenly it was brown inside.
Clearly it was rotten, so I split it down the middle.

Most of it, no all, just completely ruined.

I was so mad, so frustrated. It wasn't just this squash- this promise of something, this ONE nice thing I had wanted.

---
This very simple thing had been able to motivate me into actually eating, and pushing through this damn desperation I have been feeling- past the horrible understanding of why people want to die all the time; past the idea that I will always be in pain; past the thought that I will never ever finish school or work again; that i will never be what I once was.

It was not just this one thing gone wrong, however.
It was that this very simple thing was me, too.

I am a delicata squash. I am rotting from the inside out.

I am very seriously, very desperately depressed. I verge on the edge of suicidal fairly often but those around me have little to no idea. The reason being that I absolutely HAVE to laugh my way through life. If I did not I would simply make the leap straight into suicidal and beyond. I would be no more.

Very few people understand this. They can not comprehend how the idea of death can hang around ones head while watching Spongebob daily. They also don't understand that because I actually make it out of bed it does not mean it is easy and it does not mean I am "ok".

There is no winning- if I were to actually stay in bed, people would say that is the reason I am depressed. If I fight with all I have to get out of bed, take a shower, even do some damn productive thing? There is this assumption, even suspicion, that I am not actually depressed.

I have to say... that cuts so deep. Every step, every breath, every blink can be a struggle. I find myself reaching far beyond that a lot of the time.
If I didn't I would rot completely into goo. Maybe I'd disappear into the sliver between the sink and the counter. No one would ever find me.

Honestly I am reaching the end of my rope.

Pain piled on top of forced non-productivity on top of frustration on top of medication side effects [for meds that don't help] on top of sorrow on top of loss- for what I used to be and what I'll never be again.

If things don't change soon I quite literally have no idea what I will do.
That is no kind of threat.
I simply don't know.

I don't know how to fix that.

I relate to pretty much everything you just said (apart from the specific example of the delicata squash).

I'm really sorry this is happening to you. You've done really well coming on here and talking though. Is there anyone else you can talk to? Have you ever been in treatment for depression or some kind of mental health problem?

You don't deserve to feel like this.

The overall feeling of depression, and the inability to visualize a happy future, is a condition you could never explain to someone who has never experienced it. I know exactly what you're feeling because I feel precisely the same way, at the moment. (I won't go into details because this is your thread, not mine.)

I hope you find a way way to work through it very soon. Just know that there are people out there who understand.

I also know what you are talking about. For me it looms on the edge of every action I take and every thought I have.... my best worst friend in the world this dark cloud that hangs around all the time ruining even the chance that I may enjoy something.... even if I find myself in a moment of blissful distraction from my overall hopeless state I realize just how fleeting that moment was and long to have one come around just once more... to give just a tiny bit of hope that such would return for good.....


In the meantime I'll keep trying to find that elusive silver lining and will also look for yours since both of ours have been misplaced.

You sound fatigued and not hopeful about things. I noticed you mentioned not being what you were. ASD/Aspergers is not progressive or degenerative condition or disease like some some things. It doesn't get worse in time. So what is going on is something related to it, like a co-morbid (ie. Depression) or maybe something else entirely. One thing that surely isn't good is medications that don't help anything. That is really very common, and even having something work for a while but then cease to. Seeing your doctor and re-evaluating and maybe changing the med might be a productive step. Other then that I can only think to say to focus on the hope part, and seek it out purposely. It really is a key part of a healthy life. Not unreasonable hope, but something you know actually attainable.

I get precisely where you are coming from.

If I get up and function, then I must be "OK." And any un-OK-ness must be something I am choosing, a whimsical self-indulgence if you will.

If I do not get up and function, then I am obviously "NOT-OK." And I can expect to be berated for allowing not-OK-ness to take over, for expecting someone else to carry their load and mine too.

I am not suicidal. But I profoundly wish it would just END.

I know exactly where you are coming from. And I have no idea of how to help.

Yes, actually. You are right with that one.
I have OCD and bipolar. The bigger issue is that I have some sort of unidentified physical issue going on- it has been going on for a pretty long time but has been getting more and more severe since late November/early December of 2012.
...I didn't even realize that until right now, when I looked at the calendar.
That is extremely depressing. Only that's not the right word at all, because it just really hit my heart so bad to realize that. It's devastating.
I feel like my being is just corroding, so the idea that I'm rotting inside is really not that bizarre- in my mind.

I'll try to keep it short:
Around that time, I was injured at my part time job- I got a piece of metal through my foot and then had to get a tetanus shot. I've always had all kinds of joint pain in general, but there are some joints where it has been worse, and my shoulders are one place where it's worse- following the shot, my associated shoulder got really bad so they put me on a steroid pack because they thought some mild bursitis had been aggravated to severe. Lucky me, that aggravated my neuro stuff into seizures.

Then I got the flu- pretty bad. Also lost my job. General joint pain continued to get worse and my TLE kicked up and never settled down to the controlled state I had managed to get it back to as well as my migraines, which flared up.

I started to have increased GI symptoms.

Many months later, I had gotten and lost two more jobs because of pain and increased OCD symptoms [both]. It just got to the point where I just was non functioning complete so I was finally referred to a rheumatologist while my neurologist was struggling to get me to keep my appointments.

So at this point I'm actually seeing the rheum and keeping appts with my neuro but the "maybe rheumatoid issues" continue to get worse. My hands and feet really hurt- it kind of hurts to type right now, some days are really bad, some days not so bad. I'm exhausted a lot. They tried me on Lyrica, which is the med that just doesn't help at all. But I said fine I'll try it. It makes me uncoordinated to the point where I keep knocking things over and hitting my head- which is sort of funny, or was. Then I realized my head really hurt today, and it hurts to the touch in a place but i have ZERO recollection of hitting my head in the past 24 hours.

...so there'sthat.

I've really been struggling with some sort of building depression since about March but been kind of coping. The last 2 or 3 weeks have been really really extraordinarly rough though so i feel like I need to farm this out to someone.

I've talked to my case worker today, but I just... I need some kind of peer support on top of that.
I really consider myself to be one of those people who is constantly like "ok we can figure this out". i don't generally think I have sunshine coming out my butt, I just feel like I generally have a decent outlook- I always think there is an ANSWER or solution, just maybe we haven't found it yet.

I do always have hope, I have a tattoo on my wrist that says "have faith"- because i always want to- I always want to have faith that things will be ok. I always want to believe that. Sometimes I might need that reminder, but it has worked.


...lately though, that well is just starting to run dry.
I'm tired. Like, just... existentially tired.
I'm kind of crying as I write this because that makes me really sad. I'm always the one who just has that little extra "we can do this" and maybe I'm not going to have enough of that?
I just don't know.

I think I was able to express the severity of the situation to my case manager- just that we need to really look at my medications and probably most urgently adjust my OCD med and my AD med also. Which will help. But ultimately we need to be WAY more aggressive with figuring out the physical stuff. I literally fear it's going to drive me to my grave at some point- though indirectly.

I'm sorry to be all doom and gloom, I'm just so beyond sugar coating anything.

i do really really appreciate people just writing and it's so helpful.
I'm sorry if I've come off as a jerk to anyone. It's not... I'm not a jerk. I'm just very straightforward. I come off as angry to people nbut I'm not angry- that's even how I am face-to-face. Particularly when i just don't havve the energy to add the "happy sunny" filter?

I'm not angry I just am writing.

Babble.
Thank you. sorry fo rthe babble. I'm just really lost.

ha.

Ok well last time I pull all that "open and honest" vulnerable crap.
I think we're done here.
Thanks for all the fish and all that crap.

It disturbs me that this is such a common occurence.

I can't relate to the pain you are in physically but your description of how you are feeling could well have been written by myself.
I personally have been thinking... I am only alive to benefit others. I am only alive because i would hurt those I love if I took myself away from them.
It's a shitfight every day, with brief periods of reward in self-directed activity, and some social interaction... Though I've been engaging in less and less of that as I've really made a committed effort to stay away from using drugs. The realisation I wrote above hit me like a sledgehammer.
I made a post in the general section about redefining ones' abilities. That's the method I'm trying to use to pull me away from this dangerous kind of thought.
I understand now that it will always be a part of me, but I can choose... Because ultimately, I want to live. It's just incredibly difficult to do so.

I'm sorry I can't provide any actual advice, though I hope that you can find some solidarity in the fact that it's a symptom common to all of those who have replied here. At the very least, you've found an audience who understands. May you find what you need to stay with us, because you're wanted here.

...I guess I changed my mind. Reason being that unless I end up at the emergency room[because I then would be desperate enough for someone to prescribe me completely inappropriate medication], I don't have really any resources until my case manager decides to actually, well... manage... my case.

I'm progressing steadily toward the "don't know what the **** to do with myself" stage.

I'm just very much not ok. I saw my case manager on Monday. He had come to the apartment and we had an appointment for near-on an hour and a half, going over kind of everything. One of the salient points was [see first sentence of this paragraph] "I'm just very much not ok". I wrote before that I thought I had been able to express the severity of the situation- probably because he expressed something like "yes i understand" and then said he would get right back to me.

I take "get right back" to me as being a day or two. On Thursday I try to call but no one is in the office. I write an email- which is how we've often been communicating.

No response by this 930 this morning [next day] so I sent a text, which is upping the urgency. Nothing. Around 130 pm I page him. I have explicitly asked when it would be appropriate to page and this is appropriate time to page. Conveniently, when I am downstairs without my phone for all of ten minutes, he calls back. At around 430, saying he has had a busy day and I can call or text back and he'll get back to me as soon as he can.
I text back and say I'll let him get back to me when he has a few minutes.

It is 830 and I have been flipping out because on monday it was urgent. Now it's edging closer and closer toward a pretty bad situation. In my mind [and this has always been the case], if I am past the point of coping on my own, with whatever current resources I have then things need to change fairly quickly. As well, the more time that goes by before issues are addressed, the longer it will take and the more difficult it will be to get back up to "baseline" even after med adjustments or whatever adjustments have been initiated. So basically the fact that i have explicitly expressed that I need help asap and not gotten it is a big problem.

Because now it is 830 on a friday night, and it's not like I can try to track down doctors one by one or even my general practitionar and attempt to convince her to do something temporary. Because I had thought that the case manager was actually going to do something. At this point if the case manager doesn't do something like have a doctor on call call something in, it could be at least tuesday before I have meds, and that's if he decides to actually just pressure someone into calling things in and not coordinating stuff- like he was supposed to have been doing this entire week.

So... it's 830 on a friday night and I'm freaking out, but figured maybe its just going to be a really late work night for him so i send him an email reiterating the pretty bad state I am in and going over the issues as i've just summed up above.

...I receive an auto response that says he is out of the office until the 15th.

This has got to be a damn joke.

I feel slightly better, since that was about two hours ago and I'm kind of exhausted- you can only be at code red for so long- but I'm going to go back to sitting and staring the wall eventually. A little while ago i was having trouble holding back from hitting my head on said wall so long and hard I would be knocked unconscious. The only thing that REALLY stopped me is that I was sitting in the hallway and if my roommates found me there they would spend the rest of the current lease treating me like a freak and walking softly around me using delicate tones.

I figured the [psychosocial] pain endured by that alienation over the long term might be slightly greater than the pain I was enduring at the time, but I may think differently later on.

So. I'm back to: I was attempting to be proactive and told my case manager. So he tells me he understands, he'll get right back to me, then sets it up so not only is he no going to actually do anything about the issue immediately, he is not going to do anything until he gets back ten days later AND DOESN'T LET ME KNOW.

That voicemail he left earlier? Nope, didn't tell me he was out of office until wednesday.

I get that this guy is busy and probably has a thousand super incredibly important things to do. I'm not crazy enough to think I should be at the top of his list, or even near the top, at all times.

But surely there should be some point where I'm sort of in the top-ish?
I should be given realistic expectations and it is fair that I expect he actually follows through.

I have been sleeping on and off for the majority of the past two or three days and the laundry that I started on monday is in a gross not-entirely-wet-anymore pile next to the machine and I'm having trouble what, except sleeping, I have done this entire week [with the exception of the appointment on monday which basically may have ended up doing more harm than good] and HOLY HELL I am sick of all this crap and I just want a life.
I am SO tired.

The "funny" thing about often being the one to assist others in learning about self-advocacy and related issues is that often if the same individual [me] ends up in such a position as to actually need help with this stuff it means that the situation is already pretty damn bad.
It also usually means that no one has been listening to "please help me" for a while, but has instead been responding with implicit or explicit "you're always fine" type remarks.

...so, I'm kind of starting to circle the drain and this is the situation I find myself in. I'm really pissed off. There is way more going on then I have let on even here, but to go into it would require much more effort than I really can deal with- only the fact that there is literally no one to talk to about any kind of practical action at this point short of the ER is daunting and distressing and seems grossly unfair.

Going to the ER is going to be completely unhelpful right now so it's just... a level of frustration that I can recall feeling as a six year old. I had ZERO ability to deal with frustration and had pretty much no concept of even the idea of frustration tolerance- so I would just have a drop down drag out freakout/meltdown until I literally passed out. And it wasn't about making anyone else upset. It was just that I was so upset I had no idea what to do with myself. I'm on and off at that point- right now off because I just finished freaking out for a time.

I get that this isn't a blog and my repeating posting to the thread isn't meant as an attempt to be guilt inducing or anything. I don't know if this makes sense... but it's kind of like I'm checking in for myself and I just appreciate everyone's tolerance with this. I actually need an audience [whether people are actually responding or not] to be ok right now. sorry.

I'm trying not to be all crazy here... which may actually be part of the problem. No one listens to my words [face-to-face] they expect that if I say I'm doing dangerously bad that I should have this crazed look in my eye or something. The fact that I can describe pretty clearly what is going on... must somehow mean what I'm describing isn't actually an accurate description of my mental health or what I'm feeling.

I don't know how else to be though when I'm trying to ask for help at this point. I've worked hard to be explicit in my communication to others, particularly when I need help.

Blargh.

Well, I don't know what to say. At this point, I'm sure it will all sound like white noise. You did want an audience though. I read your words. No one gets through life unscathed, but at least we're alive. That counts for something, right?

No. Not "white noise". And not to say it doesn't provide some comfort, because it does in a way. But realistically- and this is not what anyone here can provide, and I know that- I really just need my medication fully reinstated. I'm just beyond the point where self-talk and every single coping technique and skill and tool in my therapeutic "tool box" has been worn out.
I've used them all.

So that's not me being ungrateful or throwing anything back at you or anyone else who has responded to any of my nonsense- because having this interaction is some comfort.

It's just that realistically it has now gotten to the point where medication intervention is necessary [which, to be fair, is not always the case],. No one here can provide that, and I know that. Getting angry about that or stomping my feet and trying to demand people pay attention to me or try to give me via words what really only the meds specifically can [for right now] is kind of silly. Writing here is a holding place, one of those odd things I do to just keep from getting worse and worse and probably one of those things that people don't understand.

It's like if I keep... checking in...? Than it's like in my mind I would know that there's probably at least a couple more people who would notice if I just stopped writing. I already have made this incredible pact with myself about why I can't suddenly disappear from the face of the earth- but think that I am making myself visible in a routine and kind of personal way also makes it that much harder to break the pact with Me, Myself and I.

It's not about making other people say "NO WE CARE" and creating some kind of continual emotional blackmail feedback loop weirdness. It's really about making myself accountable for my ultimate actions and decisions- even if I want to give into the idea that nothing really matters, that there is no actual light at the end of the tunnel. [And this is what I hold myself accountable for- a different standard than how i judge anyone else]

...I hope that helped to make more sense of this stupidness without like, being too upsetting or triggering or seeming like... I don't know. *blah* anything other than what is going on.



Heh. I mean, it does. It does count.
Living day after day peering over the edge of the precipice is no way to live though and is awful exhausting. So I look forward to eventually having some relief from that- the fact that I look forward to having some relief may actually be a sign that i've considered taking a step back already.

At least I can look forward to giving my case manager a rash of s**t when I finally get a hold of him?
which may or may not end up mildly darkly humorous. ...so at least I still kind of have some poor excuse for a sense of humor.
There is that.

No, I totally get it. It's self-medication. It's something to keep things together in one's own head. Creating a stronger sense of self by expression. Reflection and acknowledgement will have to do while you wait for those meds.



That's a good way of looking at it. I suspect that when we all post stuff like this it's meant to create an added layer, rather than just jotting it down in a personal file and staring at it. It gives the action more meaning.



Yeah, absolutely. That's the way to go about this. It's tough to follow that line of thought, so kudos to anyone who keeps that alight. (Looking forward to something.) I struggle maintaining that level of composure myself every single day, especially when trying to find the humor around my circumstances. That old adage is true, you're either going to laugh or cry, might as well laugh. Some people don't get it. They question why I would laugh, they think it's cold and unfeeling, but to me, it's like I've discovered the layers underneath what others are just looking at on a skin deep level. It might seem haughty to say such a thing but is it? So many things out there are just given a cursory glance these days.

Anyway, awesome that you're still keeping that resilience going.