Okay, so it’s not entirely crashed down, but this week has been pretty shitty. And it’s only Wednesday! At least I’m over the hump, right?
The quick recap: Therapy Monday. Insanely difficult. High self harm urges. I decided to stop for a 6 pack of beer on the way home and proceeded to drink most of it. Then, around three AM, I decided in my drunken stupidity that I may as well just self-harm. What could go wrong?
As it were, a lot could go wrong. A lot of Tuesday was spent nursing a hangover and forcing myself to eat, not to mention the hours I spent at the Student Health Center. I had a meeting with my new dietitian, then sat and waited in the health center for someone to see me. They don’t even bother to look at my leg and make an appointment for me for later that afternoon. I start freaking out over the fact that my appointment is really close to my two PM class, but the triage nurse assures me that there will be no problem and I will get to class on time.
Luckily, I thought ahead while I was sitting and waiting for my appointment and e-mailed my professor and told him in the vaguest of terms that there was an incident related to my “documented disability” and could I please make up the quiz if I get to class late. An hour and some stitches later, I arrive to class in the middle of some sort of presentation about the honor society and while interested, berate myself for ever thinking that I might be able to qualify for something like that.
I skipped my Tuesday night class because I just could not deal. I couldn’t handle the thought of being awake and alive for three hours worth of research methods so I bailed and asked one of my classmates to catch me up on anything that I might miss. (Most of the notes, etc. for this class are online, making it really easy to miss a class without getting behind.)
Among the accommodations I requested when I went to my school’s Office of Disability Services at the beginning of the year was my “worst case scenario” accommodation: my disability may at times require me to miss class or need an extension in deadlines. This was there just in case I wound up in the hospital for some reason. But there was no way that was going to actually happen.
Or so I thought. Last night was the first time I really considered that I may not be able to make it through this semester. 2013 is the first year in a few that I’ve NOT had a trip to the psych ward. I sort of assumed that I’d be able to make it the whole year and break that little pattern. But last night I seriously wondered about how the next month or two are going to go — while my depression isn’t so bad that I’m thinking of suicide right now, there is definitely something going on with my brain chemistry and my depression is worse than it’s been in a while. (And yes, I am taking my meds! Every day! As prescribed!) And I’ve proven to myself that I can do quite a bit of physical damage — so what happens if I accidentally cut a bit too deep?
I am certainly not posting this to be attention-seeking or to make people freak out. I’m posting this to try and make sense of my own thoughts. I am posting this because I need my hands to be occupied. I’m posting because I need ideas on how to make this insane depression abate so that I can be the totally kick-ass grad student I know I can be.
Because I will kick-ass. Grad school ass. ED ass. Self-harm ass.
