Other Mental Health

There will be some mention of suicidal feelings here, just a gentle warning.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder, and I'm an empath (or a highly sensitive person), I feel things to such an extreme degree that it literally makes me collapse to the ground in pain. It feels like my heart has been torn into thousands of pieces, and I sometimes feel like I'm choking from the grief. https://C.S Lewis was right when he said, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.". But this time, I am actually afraid. I had to end a very unhealthy, co-dependent friendship with my best friend and closest confidante. The only person in my entire life who refused to judge me; he treated me with the love that I always wished I had. I was able to tell him things I couldn't even tell a therapist. He always gave me the benefit of the doubt. But we were co-dependent. We fed off of each other's darkest emotions, and our friendship was so often characterized by tumult. But what really did it in for me was that I loved him, I wanted to be his partner forever. But he just wanted a friendship. He isn't smart with emotions; he told me he loved me without realizing that when a man tells a woman he loves her, she feels like it's romantic. He just was saying he loved me as a friend..I felt led on, and it caused me so much pain. I pushed it aside though, just because I valued our friendship and he treated me like a partner anyways (spending time with me all the time, calling me a pet name), so I just kind of pretended and hoped the inevitable wouldn't happen any time soon: that he would fall in love with someone else.

And he did. After spending a week on vacation with his ex, he fell in love with her. And he suddenly, randomly confessed that he fell in love with her. I broke down immediately. My whole world was turned upside down in an instant. My support system, foundation, and source of stability fell in love with someone else. I lost it, and I immediately panicked. I spent eight hours straight texting him everything I was feeling, writing all the pain I was feeling. My heart rate shot up to 140. I collapsed on the ground. I was weeping and mourning and wailing. I've been through this before. The last time I went through this I fell into a deep depression for about six months. I found it hard to eat, to sleep, to breathe. I lost interest in the things I loved, and crying spells were frequent. I get so upset with people who tell me one day later, "Do you feel better yet?" No, my friend. this pain doesn't just go away in a day.

And to make it worse, the pain has reignited all the other mental health struggles I face, like shame and OCD.

All I want to do is reach out to him again. He was my FP (if you aren't aware, for people with BPD, a FP is someone "someone with whom a person with borderline personality disorder (BPD) has an intense emotional connection and dependence". My life is turned upside down and I don't know how to cope with the grief. I don't know how to cope with the loss of identity. I don't know how to cope without my best friend as my support system.

I'm grieving the friendship, but I'm also grieving the loss of someone who never judged me and always treated me with mercy, empathy, and kindness. I'm grieving the loss of someone who I could confide in, who I could tell everything. I'm grieving the loss of someone I shared my life with.

I don't want to live with this pain. I'm leaning on my faith, but it's so hard. I'm shattered and broken.

It's another brick in the wall.

#Grief
#MentalHealth
#BorderlinePersonalityDisorder
#Loneliness
#MajorDepressiveDisorder
#CheckInWithMe
#MightyTogether

Hi, my name is Kevin. I'm here because I have BPD (amongst many other mental health conditions), and I am also a recovering addict (5 years clean!!). Honestly, I am really here because I do not know anyone like me or who has experienced the things I have, so I think meeting and interacting with people with similar backgrounds will be beneficial, to my healing journey!

#MightyTogether #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Anxiety #Depression #ADHD #PTSD #Grief #OCD #EatingDisorder

Hi, I'm Dr Tulika Shukla, a psychiatrist dedicated to helping individuals navigate the complex challenges of mental health. Whether you're dealing with anxiety, depression, trauma, or other mental health conditions, I am here to offer support, understanding, and tailored care. I believe that everyone deserves the tools to build a healthier mind and lead a more fulfilling life. Let's work together to break the stigma around mental health and make healing a priority.

#MightyTogether

I've been trying to avoid OnlyFans, but it hasn’t been working. The way she makes me feel is all-consuming, especially when the job hunt is still leading nowhere. I’m stuck in this apartment that I can’t afford, and the dark thoughts keep creeping in. I’m exercising less, showering less, brushing my teeth less. Then, I found a glimmer of hope—an Instagram influencer who talks about breaking away from social norms and living a life of financial freedom. In my desperation, I was drawn to it.

She always says in her stories to DM her to talk about getting started. So, I did. She asked me how old I was and where I was from. When I told her, she said that considering where I’m from, the fastest way to make money on the side would be in crypto. I believed her and followed her advice. I opened an app to buy crypto, and she set me up with another app called Coda Investments Limited. It looked legit—I even got a KYC status.

She started me off with a live trade, and it seemed good. I was making money. She told me that the next signal would be even better, that I’d make more money, and I believed her. I did it again and again, using credit to fund these investments. Now my credit is almost maxed out, and I get a notification saying my trading bot needs to be upgraded. They want $14,550 USD in Bitcoin to reactivate it and give me access to my portfolio.

My heart sank when I told her about it. She said to speak with support and that if I offered a small installment, they should allow me access to my funds. But when I talked to support, they were evasive and raised even more red flags. They wouldn’t provide any documentation or literature about this supposed fee, just generic answers. I finally caved and asked for the minimum payment, which they said was $2,300 USD. I maxed out my two lines of credit and my credit card to come up with the money. He told me my funds would be available in a few hours.

The next day, he told me there was a mistake—it was actually $3,500 USD. I told him I didn’t have that kind of money. I told him the truth: that I have nothing left. My checking account is empty, my savings are gone, my credit is maxed out. I have no rent money, no grocery money, I can’t even do my laundry. I'm nearly $40,000 dollars in debt as opposed to $7000 just a little over a week ago. He just said, “Well, just pay the money, and you’ll have access.”

I told the influencer, and suddenly she turned into a different person. She just told me, "Don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine, just pay the money." I kept thinking, how can she be so bold, portraying this life on Instagram while running this investment scam? It can't be real because it only takes one person to expose her. But now I’m stuck, and no one in their company is helping me.

I managed to get through the night despite all the dark thoughts, including driving my vehicle into the river. I'm to ashamed to tell my father. His anger atop my shame, and guilt would break me, let alone him, who's recovering from a heart infection. I’m not that cruel, even if I don’t get along with the guy. But now I’m facing the reality that I might have to go back to my hometown, the last place I want to be. The crooked police that gave me PTSD, and there’s all the emotional baggage—the fair-weather friends, the ex-wife, the family. I might have to live out a meaningless existence in my parents’ house, drowning in debt, unable to even afford bankruptcy.

I can’t even get a job. I’ll just have to live off disability and hope I can pay off the debt before I die of natural causes. That’s where I’m at. I haven’t showered in days, haven’t brushed my teeth in days, trying not to think about the OnlyFans girl in a transactional relationship that I know isn’t supposed to go anywhere. It’s the only place I find any semblance of happiness.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck in what’s likely an investment scam. On top of that, I answered a casting call ad on Instagram and got accepted. I used credit while I still had it to make the first payment, but I won’t be able to make any more. I’ll have to switch tiers, but even then, I don’t know if I want to keep doing it. Acting has always been my dream, but I’m so depressed that I don’t even know if it’s worth it anymore.

Despite all this, what frustrates me most is the awareness of how irrational this all is, yet I feel powerless to change it. I know that these feelings—this obsession, this fear, this hopelessness—are driven by a chemical imbalance and past trauma. I can rationalize the situation: I know I should step away from OnlyFans, stop pouring money into what’s likely a scam, and focus on rebuilding. But the weight of it all, the ingrained habits, and the fear make it nigh impossible to act on that knowledge. I can see the right path, but I can’t seem to take it.

I just hate that we're such an emotional species. One of the only differentiating factors about us as animals, compared to other animals, is our ability to emote in a way that allows us to reason differently and basically create, fabricate idealistic landscapes of fantasy, and philosophize with our imaginations. The power of these thoughts has the ability to do what it does to me, just completely debilitate and take me out. These thoughts are just mere fabrication. If I actually thought more with my logic brain, as opposed to my emotional brain, life would be so much easier.

But all it takes is an imbalance of chemicals, in my case serotonin, environmental factors, and trauma to render myself into this state of paranoia and borderline personality disorder and the entire goodie bag of other mental health issues. I hate that trauma can damage a brain in such a way that habits can be so ingrained, that doing the best thing actually seems scary, that I'll subconsciously self-sabotage myself from doing the right thing. I mean, it just seems so illogical and stupid, and yet I can be so self-aware and see it, and rationalize it, and still do nothing. I mean, that's beyond frustrating.

I can look at my situation with Jane and say that she's not worth my time, that it's a transactional relationship, that she's not emotionally invested, that I deserve better, that I should have left a long time ago, that I consistently waste my money on content that is fleeting, that it's just a quick dopamine dump, that I would flourish without her, and that if I actually committed the amount of time on Jane and video games, into the gym, that I would be so much more fit, and have so much more energy, and be so much more happy.

And yet here I am, in my bed, depressed. It’s very difficult not to feel lost when it feels like my world has come to an end—like everything’s closing in and crashing down around me. I’m trying to stay positive, but it’s really hard when there’s this dark void of uncertainty staring back at me. I feel like I’m on the precipice of life, just trying to figure out how to survive the night. And the endless circle of suffering continues. Round and round I go.

That’s the long and short of it—my life feels like one big joke. Knowing how irrational this all is, but knowing and changing it seem worlds apart. #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #ParanoidPersonalityDisorder #Depression #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #IntermittentExplosiveDisorder #PTSD

Tw: Suicide Attempt
I chose to stop working as a counselor after my attempt. Having a personal suicidal crisis or mental health struggles does not automatically mean someone can’t keep working as a counselor. If the counselor gets appropriate help and takes time for some healing, they are often even better at their jobs because they have had these first-hand experiences. I chose to step back to put more time and energy into my own mental health and relationships. It was hard for me to take care of other aspects of my life the way I needed to when I was in that professional role. I know not everyone is able to stop working like I did.

Even with less responsibility, all the individual and group counseling, and family support, I often felt like nothing was really helping. In the weeks and months after my attempt, I continued to struggle with feeling lost, stuck, traumatized, afraid, guilty, and ashamed. I wasn’t going to attempt suicide again, but I wasn’t really okay either.

Getting through each day was hard. I really didn’t know how to move forward with my life. I was grieving the loss of the “counselor” part of my identity while trying to figure out what to do with the newest aspects of my identity of being “unemployed” and a “suicide attempt survivor.” Surviving was all I felt like I was doing sometimes. I shut down and withdrew from other people because I didn’t know what to say to anyone.

I tried to use coping skills, to stay busy, and to have some routines and small goals for each day. I went for walks with my dog, wrote in my journal, listened to podcasts, and spent time with family. I found supportive and helpful spaces online. I read stories about other attempt survivors, including other mental health professionals. I slowly gained more insight and perspective into my own experiences.

About 6 months after I finished day treatment, several of my closest loved ones faced their own significant medical crises and unexpected grief. I knew I needed to be here for my family. I was committed to maintaining my own stability so the focus could remain on them and their needs. I was also committed to doing what I could to support them the way they had supported me during my time of crisis.

Nothing is more important to me than the relationships I have with the people I love. I want (and need) to be here to share the good and bad of life with them. This includes my aging parents, my amazing sister and her young adult children, and my husband and his family.

It has been almost 3 years. I am still trying to find my way and to heal and recover as much as possible from my suicide attempt and the time around it. Progress is slow and there are small steps forward and then steps back sometimes. I continue to struggle with depression, anxiety, ADHD, and insomnia.

Things are better in some ways. I don’t have certain thoughts very often anymore. I am better at challenging thoughts that aren’t true or helpful. I have gotten better at being able to step back and notice my thoughts and feelings in a more detached way. I have also gotten somewhat better at self-compassion.

I want the work I’ve done to recover to benefit other people, not just me. It was too hard to not have a bigger impact. I know my knowledge, skills, years as a counselor, and personal experiences related to mental health and suicidal intensity are valuable. I seek out research opportunities to participate in around these issues.

I want my story to help others (especially other mental health professionals) who are struggling emotionally and having suicidal thoughts to feel less alone. I also want my story to help dispel some of the myths and misconceptions around why people attempt suicide. I also want my personal experiences to help bring about positive change to how we treat individuals experiencing a suicidal or mental health crisis.

Education and advocacy are very important to me. I regularly post about these topics on social media and have participated in awareness walks for mental health and suicide prevention. There is more for me to do and I am trying to be open to what the future holds for me. I know my story isn’t over.

Hi, my name is rissdiculous_1. I'm here because I have Bipolar and work as a peer. I want to understand more about others' experiences of altered states. I want to share and contribute specifically around women with BP and other mental health conditions. I've also been diagnosed with PMDD and carry some trauma from my treatment for BP.

#MightyTogether #BipolarDisorder #PTSD

Hi, my name is CourteousGrizzly76. I'm here because I am trying to learn how to best support my wife, who has been diagnosed with BPD and a few other mental health disorders. In addition to supporting her, I want to gain a better understanding of how to navigate the challenges associated with her diagnoses, including those that impact me and our relationship.

#MightyTogether

Hi, my name is Atlas_sketching. healing from self harm/suicide and other mental health stuff (see # + emetophobia)

#MightyTogether #Depression #Anxiety #OCD #PTSD