Timebuster

You can close the curtains and darken your room, but you can also open the curtains and let light get in. It is a matter of choice. Your mind is your room, fill it with light.

Sending positive thoughts your way

Hugs and prayers
TB

Determined82

Hello Lyoness
I'm Emily and just finished reading your thread
jeez you've really been on an emotional rollercoaster! I'm struggling with just trying to remain sober... I have no idea what I'd do if I was also facing prosecution due to my addiction.

Let us know how you got on yesterday with processing and sending a big hug your way!

Emily x

Lyoness

Thank you all for your support and checking in with me, it means a lot.

I just haven't known what to say, a lot of emotions got churned up and other than crying and feeling them I don't know how to express or talk or think about them. I guess I was waiting to write something coherent but even my thoughts are not very coherent.

So I will write about it but for now I'm just feeling it. Feeling the enormity and magnitude of what I've done and what is now happening to me because of it. So much confusion, so much loss, so much grief. And being thrust into a world that is totally alien to me.

Your support and positive thoughts and words help. I try to hang onto them, remember them. Thank you.

Tiredofdrugs

Hi Lyoness!

Why don't you start with how you were treated while being photographed and finger printed?

TOD

Startingover444

Lyoness, One day you will read this thread and realise it is all in your past and a distant memory.

I so hope that day comes soon for you. But in the meantime, you ARE getting through this hell. Yes it is hard, but somehow you are moving through it.

We are all holding your hand

Lyoness

I'm sorry. My depression is just getting worse and worse and pulling me down I can't function at all. All I do is sleep and cry. I know that's not what anyone wants to hear but it's the truth. I thank you all for your kind words and I'm sorry to be what I am.

Timebuster

(((Lyoness))) Sending my thoughts and prayers your way.

Sorry to hear you're not feeling well


TB

Startingover444

Hey Lyoness. I do understand that over whelming and all encompassing depression. You have no need to apologise for it. Just know you are loved and cared about

kzaug2014

I was wondering if you're able to check in a hospital, Lyoness? And by able, I mean is there enough time before you have to go to court again? I don't mean to offend, on the contrary, I only want what's best for you.

There was a time in my life when I felt so despondent & I thought I had nothing to live for and I checked myself in the psych ward of my local hospital. I had been seeing a psychiatrist for the prior 2yrs & was getting absolutely no where ( eating disorder. ) This turned out to be a great decision on my part because I was finally able to address my issues correctly. Psychiatrists didn't know much about eating disorders in my day, but the doctors from the hospital did.

Really BIG ((( Hugs )))

Tiredofdrugs

Hi Lyoness!

You need to pull your suspenders up and get back on the tractor! This court thing isn't something you can lie down over! It's not going away! Start putting documents together to prepare your case for your Attorney! Don't walk into court w/o a plan!

I can't count how many times I've had to sit down with tons of paperwork and make my case for a battle! I wasn't going to be blindsided by not having the facts in front of me!

Yes it's tough to pull yourself out of the doom and gloom! Get mad at what's happened to you in the past and get yourself ready for the future!

No I'm not trying to be a bossy "B" either! I'm just afraid you're going to sit there in the dark wallowing in self pity! Turn every light on in the house if you have to in order to wakeup!

We have a new little Silkie hen as of today! Go look at her pictures on my Thread! She's a strawberry blonde! I named her Sherry! We saved her from her doom and gloom life! And here I said I wasn't going to get anymore Silkies! Ha Ha Ha!

TOD

Soberwolf

I suffer with depression pls stay & talk with us I want to hear you were all friends Lyoness

Can you book a Dr's apt as if its depression its better to treat it sooner rather than later

XO send me a pm if you ever want to talk rant whatever I'm there hun

Lyoness

Thank you everyone for your kind words of support. For not telling me that I'm just too much bother and throwing me out like garbage like so, so many have in my life. I know it's hard to be friends with someone who is mentally ill, especially depressed. All I can say is I didn't ask for this disease, which I liken to cancer. IT's cancer of the mind and soul and emotions. It eats you alive. There's chemotherapy for it (antidepressants and antispychotics), people are hospitalized and the death rate is fairly high. Plus all the attempted suicides.

TOD, I would love to pull up myself up by my bootstraps but I used the last frayed edge of my bootstraps a long, long time ago. This isn't one where I can use mind over matter. HOW I wish it was. It's a real disease and it's eating me alive. It's a serious, killing illness and I DO want out of it. But I can't just pull myself out of it, sadly it doesn't work that way. I wish I could be like you, had that strength of will, that fighting spirit but I don't. I wish you could wave a magic wand over me and cure me....

Startingover, thank you for your constant words of support and understanding and caring. They mean so much. I know that unfortunately you know what this disease of depression is like, how it eats you alive, from the inside out. I appreciate your constant acceptance more than I can say.

kzaug, I think about hospitalization. Two things stand in my way. ONe is that there is only one psych unit in the entire region where I live so getting in can take weeks or months. Two, is that I am housesitting right now and I made this commitment to take care of their cat and house and I can't get out of it. Maybe when it's over I will try to get in the psych ward. I've been there once before, when I attempted suicide in my early thirties. I only stayed a few days and the biggest help was two things. One, that I was safe and couldn't hurt myself there because I was going to try again. Two was that I was around people like me. I didn't have to pretend. I could be the suicidally depressed person I was and no one tried to make me pretend I was different or smile or feel what I didn't or couldn't feel. I was only there a few days but it helped. Thank you for your understanding.

Timebusters, thanks for the hug and kind words.

Soberwolf, thank you for reaching out and asking me to stay and talk. I am so used to either hiding myself or being hated by others that I was afraid I would lose everyone here too.

I want you all to know I'm NOT trying to be this way, honestly. I just cannot help how I feel. It's not just the court thing but it's also losing that last friend and finding out how glad she was to be rid of me. That's the theme of my life, people being glad to get rid of me, throwing me out like garbage. That is what my mental illnesses have cost, that's what the abuse has cost, that's the price I pay every day.

And I'm just so alone and lonely and I feel I've used every last bit of strength I had left. I'm running on empty as they say. I've got nothing to reach down into and pull strength out of. It's just me, empty, crying, depressed, sinking. That's the honest truth. It's very hard to write that because I fear with each word I send you all away. You all give up on me and say, well, she doesn't even want to try. So why waste effort or breath or care on her. I mean that is how it has always been.

I have tried hard all my life. Just surviving has taken everything I am. And there's just nothing left inside of me. For 52 years I've been fighting this battle and I am exhausted, alone, without family and f2f friends. I have my counselor but I can't ask one person to fill the job of many.

I don't know, I just feel like a defect. Like everything I am and do is wrong. I can't get out from under this disease of Depression, PTSD, anxiety, it just all wins. I AM taking my medication but I seem to be getting more depressed. How much longer do I give it? At this point I need something underneath me, to hold me up until I can try--again--to function. And medication, "chemotherapy" for this cancer called depression is all that is available.

Thank you all so much for reaching out to me. I am truly sorry that I cannot be other than what I am. But I read your posts, many of which make me cry--the good way--and for a few minutes my pain is eased. Thank you.

Lyoness

Since people asked and maybe it will make me feel better to write it out, I'll describe it.

It wasn't as bad as I feared mostly because the place felt empty. I got my neighbor to go with me. We're not friends, we used to be, but I knew she would go with me so I didn't have to be alone even so. She's a "charity" type and I couldn't face going to the jail alone.

I got there and had to press the button to talk to someone and then let me in. The waiting area was empty, concrete, cold, and I had to fill out a form with no pen. Finally after two trips back to my car I got a pen and filled out the form. Then they directed me to go back out side, follow the fence and the sign to another locked door with a button to push. I talked to the woman inside and she said she'd come and get me. I couldn't have anyone with me nor anything on me except car keys.

So my neighbor stepped away and I went into the big, cold, empty, concrete building. The young woman who I mostly spoke with was polite and kind enough. I was too scared to say much of anything which she probably sees all the time. I was told to sit on a concrete bench with handcuffs attached every few feet. I was terrified they were going to handcuff me.

Then she told me to go stand around the other side to get my "mug" shots. That was after being frisked for weapons. She was respectful about that though I HATE strangers touching my body anywhere. Especially police strangers who can lie and say anything and strip you of your rights just like that. (Just watch the news and all the deaths of black people in the U.S. and you see this is horribly true.)

They took my picture where I'm sure I looked like how I felt. I am terrified where those pictures end up, who has access to them. Can anyone see them? I tried to minimize my piercings (I have a few facial piercings along with ears) just so they didn't stand out. Thankfully I have no tattoos (no money for it) so I don't have any "identifying" features.

Then a young male officer took my fingerprints. I just talked nonsense with him, trying to keep my mind busy while doing this abhorrent task. Then I filled out paperwork and went out the first door which locked behind me. Then the second door to the outside.

It wasn't a horrible experience in anything that happened. It was horrible in that it happened at all. I felt very dissociative (out of my body) and spaced out after. I felt dirty. Like I am a "criminal" and just another piece of scummy humanity.

I felt for all the other people who come in there, terrified, alone, overwhelmed, surrounded by dismal lighting and concrete and holding pens/cells. I know that the majority of people who come in there are terrified like I was. Shut down. Just trying to survive and get through this awful, dehumanizing thing.

So I did it and survived. But had a lot of swirling emotions and crying for the whole d*** experience.

It's over. But I do feel changed, dirty. Like I just sunk even lower in my life. Like that's all I ever do, is sink lower and lower and lower. I don't see or feel hope for myself. I just see and feel myself sinking and sliding into the muck and slime and drowning in it and never being able to get myself out. That's what I see and feel. That is where I am at right now.

And the only bits of light are the words of support and kindness and acceptance that you all have been sharing with me. Thank you. Thank you.

kzaug2014

Hi Lyoness,
I know how dismally black depression can feel like. People who haven't battled depression just don't understand & it's near impossible trying to explain it to them.They can empathize w/you, but do not have a genuine understanding of the disease.

I think you'll find a lot more people here at SR that understand, as opposed to your f2f friends or acquaintances.

So, you don't need to worry ( such a worthless, good for nothing emotion ) about your friends here discarding you like a piece of trash.

I think you should read every book about "self love" that you can get your hands on. There's a couple of great online used book stores. I can look them up if you'd like.

Extra Big ((( Hugs )) & I still have you in my prayers.

Marcus

Lyoness! Sorry you are having a tough time. This post is meant to be supportive so if it doesn't come off that way I apologize.

First off I know several people with long term sobriety that have mental illness. Actually an old sponsor of mine who I talk to regularly still has been sober 23 years (he is 51 now) and has dealt with mental illness since he was young. He is currently on disability due to his mental illness and for lack of a better term gets bat sh*t crazy at times, but he has learned how to manage it and stay sober. He goes for blood tests once a month to make sure his medication is working for him. I admit I do not understand it exactly, but he is an amazing person. He still attends meetings. There are also dual diagnosis meetings and other support groups out there that he has been a part of. So it is entirely possible.

I understand being low - lower than low. Drugs and alcohol brought me there. I swore I just wanted to die. Every time someone would suggest something to me I would have an excuse why it wouldn't work. If you believe addiction is a disease you can hold onto that and say I can't help it - I can't change it - I am so screwed. Unfortunately excuses are just that. Mine were mainly built on fear of change and stubbornness. It is easier to just say I am screwed and I can't do it - I can't change. I am different and nobody truly understand me. Trust me there are plenty of people out there who understand. I finally had enough and realized if I wallowed in sh*t I was going to feel like sh*t and continue to get sh*t.

Yes it is hard to pull yourself up and make a change. Put yourself out there and try new things. Unfortunately until you have truly had enough and push yourself to try and make each and every day count it will be a struggle. Yes it is harder when you are dual diagnosis, but not impossible.

I hope you can continue to reach out and find things that work. Find things that help. Excuses are just excuses. They really get us nowhere - actually send us backwards. You are truly a kind and caring person and deserve better. The past is the past and at some point you will need to at least loosen your grip on it. Look forward - don't look back. You can't change the past. Make the future count. Make every day count. I am rooting for ya!!!!

Startingover444

Hey love, we will never discard you so don't ever fear that.

Marcus made a valid point, what about a support group. I cannot remember if you have ever tried any but maybe that would help with some face to face contact? Or maybe even online meetings if you have that facility? Just something where you can feel not so alone. Is there a PTSD support group somewhere in your area or similar?

Yet again you have got through one of your most abhorrent fears and that is to go to have your fingerprints taken. You did it. Yes you feel raw, low and beyond help now and that is understandable. But you did it and now it is done. So well done you I am proud that you have got through another massive hurdle.

I am currently learning something called the Three Principles. It is not a new whacky woo woo type of thing and I cannot begin to even describe it but it is helping me with my thoughts and maybe it might give you some peace too. Check it out. Let me know if you would like to post you some links. You tube is a good place to start.

Lots of prayers, good vibes and caring thoughts are coming your way xxx

kzaug2014

Hi Lyoness,
I hope you're feeling a bit better today.

I believe in the power of forgiveness. It frees your mind & heart in ways you'd never believe. And I believe it's necessary in order to move past your afflictions.

Thrift Books is the name of my favorite online used book store. Most of the books are $3-$4 & shipping is free w/$10 order. Check it out.

Soberwolf

Thinking of you xx

tomsteve

"kzaug, I think about hospitalization. Two things stand in my way. ONe is that there is only one psych unit in the entire region where I live so getting in can take weeks or months. Two, is that I am housesitting right now and I made this commitment to take care of their cat and house and I can't get out of it. Maybe when it's over I will try to get in the psych ward. "

lyonness, if it takes weeks or months why cant you start the process today? how long are you house sitting for?
even with that imo it would be wise to put your well being first and foremost. you deserve to get the help. you deserve to put you first.

Dee74

how are you feeling now lyoness?

D