Brandon, Who Lives At Home

Ive come to realize that depression has many faces, each one a different version.  Two faces years apart could be "the worst depression you've ever had" but present totally differently. It can be high functioning and low functioning. One version you might not be able to get out of bed, you might not shower and you do not a anything at all. While another version you're doing your normal tasks perfectly fine, going to appointments, talking with friends and family, but your depression is as bad as its ever been. It can be confusing, often asking yourself, am I that depressed? Is it that bad? Only for you to go into a sudden 40 minute spell of the most self destructive thoughts, and an impulsive urge to act on them, that you realize yeah its bad. Somehow you overcome it time and time again. Wheres our "x" week token/chip for remaining symptom free? Where are the tokens for utilizing our CBT skills? Wheres the reminder of " yeah, you're doing really good...

Sigh. Sometimes knowing which emotions are real and which aren’t feels impossible. The extreme-ness of this condition is overwhelming. I’m constantly over-reacting internally. My mood playing jump-rope and changing with every loop. Am I a bad person? Does having BPD make me inherently bad?  Yesterday I had one of my signature emotion-based overreactions. A frivolous accident occurred, a slipping of one’s mind really, but I implied the person involved did it on purpose. Granted I was warranted being upset, but part of me knew it was just a simple mistake, but I couldn’t regulate the intense hurt and venom I felt and after calling them out I threw in “you probably did it on purpose!” Why, why did I do that? Now said, unsaid person isn’t talking to me. Even if part of me genuinely did feel like it was deliberate, I used a “you” statement, I know better than that. You statements just make people defensive.  Now I’m stuck between all these extreme emotions, the original hurt and ve...

There is no other way to put it than I've relapsed. Crash and burning.  The deep truths are that I am just total lost cause. I suppose it's good then that the few people who believed in me are blowing in the wind. This story doesn't end with me being some  kind of weight loss success story. It ends with me succumbing to my mental health, someone used  this to describe a loss of theirs last year. Or me dying from gaining my weight back and letting my health deteriorate. I'm 31. I should have tried this all in my early 20s. Trying to reinvent myself and start living for the first time at 30  is such a joke. But I have food for now, and thank goodness for that, because I've learned not only is my existence dull without food, it simply doesn't matter. I must mean something to food, food understands, if nothing else it doesn't forget about me. Doesn't leave me lonely.

I didn't recover from Sundays blow. I started to eat off track and more often, things I shouldn't have. Slowly old habits started reforming. I had some cookies, a whole package, been taking meds later and later, mind slipping to even bleaker thoughts. I was up 24hrs. I see the signs of total relapse, the skipping medication, and not drinking my water are major indicators. I'm going to attempt to stop this.  But as of this writing I don't feel good about my prospects. 500lbs could be in my future. I got a new water bottle that same infamous Sunday, held 67 ounces. Loved it. ...Left it at an appointment Wednesday. I really beat myself up over this for some reason. It just made me a lot more enthusiastic about getting my water in and actually showed the water ounces on the side. I gained 5 lbs over last weekend, I knew it was water weight but it still sent me into a mental spiral. I knew I should not have looked at the scale. I've been feeling weak, tired, joints ...

Today will be my last day in the partial hospitalization program. I actually really enjoyed the program and met some truly amazing people, people with incredible stories. A newer person's story just recently touched me, shes been through hell and back. It's hard to digest that I've met someone in real life with such an absolutely horrifying story. I will miss the program but I think the other members will actually take my leaving harder, which is odd and kind of flattering. Somehow I've managed to touch all 10 people that have come along in total to the program. I hope they all can recover and live healthy happy lives, truly. I wish people didn't need programs like this, I wish people didn't get suicidal, and morbidly depressed. So today will be my last day and what's next I don't know. I feel like I've learned some things this past week though, some crucial things, thanks to php, and therapy. These people have kind of cracked me a bit and help...

If you follow me on Instagram you're probably aware I entered a partial hospitalization program sometime in January. If you don't, now you do. If you've followed this blog long enough you know I was fully hospitalized twice most, recent being 2016, after which I was told I should enter this program, I refused. Suicidal ideation had increased quite a bit leading up to January and so I reluctantly decided I'd give the program a try as a last ditch effort to try to prevent what I felt was the inevitable. Last year at the beginning of the year I set some goals and failed them all. I recently turned 31, and honestly anytime I think about my age I  sink.  My weight is up, way up, in back into the mid 400s, yes it's that bad. And I've just been floating by. In 2016 I started following a woman, she mostly posted about her family but she was trying to lose weight initially. I enjoyed seeing updates about her kids who were in their late teens, nearing graduation....

Its been an interesting couple of days, I'm glad to say my eating is on point. Mental, that's another story. Our microwave died which is how I usually cook my veggies, well I decided to boil them on the stove the other day. As I sat in the kitchen watching the pot waiting for it to get to a boil, a fire suddenly ignited underneath the pot. Suddenly there were flames starting to consume the pot. At first I was so shocked at what had just unfolded, after all I originally planned to go back to my room and let the veggies tend to themselves, but I didn't! A first wave of panic hit me, as I got up and saw the flame getting bigger. I removed the pot real quick before it would be completely engulfed. Once I had removed it all I could see was the fire engulfing the entire burner, I suddenly imagined the entire house burning down, if nothing else a completely destroyed kitchen. I literally said "oh no" several times as it was totally a bit overwhelming. Finally I snappe...

So I must have truly had personal growth as many of you have noted, and my therapist has noted, and my psychiatrist noted and myself off and on. I spent a few days at my friends just recently where I dropped my iPad cracking the screen, it still works, I'm writing this post on it. It just truly is in bad shape and can't possibly take any kind of drop or  bump now, it looks tragic. I'll have to eventually get a new one, but I'm thinking this one will hold up for awhile (I hope), but because of the cracked glass it's now off limits to the nephews and that will devastate them because I always get them really cool apps based off of things they like. Anyways I wasn't really upset about cracking my iPad to near smithereens, I was a little sad but in the end I thought of the pros of the situation, hey I can still use it . This one of those times where depression monster could have come and just uppercut me right to the face and had me constantly sinking lower, but I...

Yesterday Nick and Melissa asked me to help them move. They are moving from their apartment here in town to a cozy little house out of town in the suburbs. I mainly moved boxes, it was lot of  up and down stairs, I was sweating like a cow (because apparently they sweat a lot) and of course the headache came upon likely due  to dehydration from the sweating, which I think is the common link to my so called migraines. I consider the moving my days workout. Melissa picked me up and she had a lengthy talk to me about how much her and nick care about me, I had nick pick me up from the hospital the day I was discharged so they were filled in on my hospitalization. She wanted to assure me I could always come to them to talk, but more importantly they would truly be devastated if any happened to me, it was a very nice reassuring conversation. I've been in contact with one of my friends from the Behavioral health facility. I recently described my current state as serene , which...

So the big question one might ask, did being hospitalized help? The answer isn't exactly clear cut. I'm not magically cured of my depression or anxiety or body dysmorphia, I'm not suddenly at my goal weight of 180 lbs, while I was there in the beginning it all felt a little redundant. Like it wasnt really catering to me, I couldn't quite see what I was to get out of it. I finally started getting  my head together mostly through journaling and there were actually a few group classes that were beneficial too. I also started realizing how much I liked their time structure which gave the day fluidity. Breakfast was at 730am, the first group was at 9 etc. I decided to copy the format  down and structure my days with certain tasks or hobbies at various times to make my days more fluid. Yesterday was the first day of this and it was a rather successful run. How have I been since Ive arrived home? Pretty good, taking it day by day.  I do feel like I'm in a better place,...

I've Spent the last 5 and a half days in a behavioral health facility or psychiatric unit of a hospital after seeing my psychiatrist last Wednesday. In short, I told her I  was suicidal and had a few ideas or plans but lacked the courage for follow-through. This lead to me being taken to the hospital via police transport. For the second time in my life I was in a psychiatric unit of a hospital, but this time it wasn't voluntary. This one was also  quite larger than the last one I had been to, with many more patients. My anxiety was pretty high the first night, I was talked to by various doctors who often asked the same questions what seemed like hundreds of times, and there was this lingering feeling of shame just for being there. Now once again the entire family would know how unhinged I've been, and I'd much rather a lot of them stay in the dark than to know and continue not to give a crap. It was a lot more structured than the Behavioral Health Pavilion, there were...

A few weeks ago my friend Melissa's aunt committed suicide. Her death shook her family to the core, and even though she had attempts with suicide throughout her life as early as a teenager and as recently as earlier this year, the family had, and is having a hard time coping with her passing. When I went to hangout with Nick and Melissa that week it was a bit awkward, anytime I hear anything about suicide I enter a weird place, but typically it doesn't hit this close to home I know that her aunt was an emotionally torn person that didn't feel her family loved her (I've been there), I also know that Melissa's  family is actually very nice and her aunt took on some rather destructive habits and introduced people into her life that enabled those habits. I know she must have already had some pretty distorted thinking, that those bad habits only amplified. When I was first talking to Melissa about it she was so upset, and confused, the word selfish kept coming up a ...

Ive decided to go to bi-weekly weigh-ins, therefore I won't be weighing in this coming Monday. This is just for mental health measures. A bad weigh-in simply wreaks havoc on my entire week, so now this new system is in place to kind of balance me out. I'm not particularly fond of weeks where I maintain, but I tend to handle them well, however when I gain everything hits the fan. I'm not sure if I've ever gained weight two weeks in a row, at least not in the current year. This new system ideally should ensure that I don't see the numbers go up unless it's muscle related, (and granted even determining that's a tricky slippery slope) Suddenly it's October it's that time of the year where I begin realizing what I actually won't be able to achieve by the end of the year and my anxiety takes the wheel. Somehow we are on the precipice of a new year already, in just 3 months it's over.  I'm still in the high 300s, in terms of numbers I cert...