For "K" from thebloggess comments
This post is going out public because I am hoping that someone who commented on another website will click on my link. This is for her.
Anonymous “K”, you said you were feeling ready to end it all and that your husband told you to just suck it up. Please please please find someone else to talk to. If your husband isn’t supportive, try another family member. Or someone from your church/temple/mosque/etc. Your doctor can recommend you to an affordable mental health counselor. (Your doctor may be the best place to start because prescription anti-depressants can help - if you’re adamant about not medicating, consider at least using meds until you pass the crisis point and can feel more stable again.)
Many employers have “lifeline” phone numbers - use them. If you’re feeling too brittle to register with anonymous person on the phone, start with your HR department. (Don’t feel funny, it’s the job they’ve trained for - more than paperwork!)
Depression lies -I know you read Jenny Lawson (thebloggess.com), so I bet you’ve heard the phrase. Repeat it to yourself when you need to do something that’s ‘too hard for me’ or ‘probably not worth trying’ or any of the other evil little voices that can sound in our head.
I mentioned briefly in my comment on thebloggess that I’d been in the “ripple effect” of suicide. I’ll give you more detail here that I didn’t want to put there.
Twenty years ago, I was an unhappy office manager who’d believed pipe-dream promises that I’d be moved to marketing within the month when they hired a second non-engineer. (Yeah, that didn’t happen.) Because we were a startup, we had no photocopier - we just walked things across the street to Kinko’s if we needed them. I became friendly with one of the full-timers. Just visiting for two minutes while he ran an order could give me enough encouragement to make it through the next stretch of my tedious, unpromising day. He made me smile every time. Every damned time. I was trying to work up the nerve to invite him out for lunch, but it never happened. He committed suicide. He was lonely and felt unloved - not knowing that so many of his customers and co-workers would grieve at losing him. Kinko’s was amazing - they had a memorial gathering at the store, and I was not the only customer there. If he could have heard past the lies of his depression, he would have seen the love and friendship that surrounded him.
Please look past the lies of your own depression, K, no matter what Mr. “Suck it up” said. You are loveable and huggable and deserve to feel better.
Good luck.
Anonymous “K”, you said you were feeling ready to end it all and that your husband told you to just suck it up. Please please please find someone else to talk to. If your husband isn’t supportive, try another family member. Or someone from your church/temple/mosque/etc. Your doctor can recommend you to an affordable mental health counselor. (Your doctor may be the best place to start because prescription anti-depressants can help - if you’re adamant about not medicating, consider at least using meds until you pass the crisis point and can feel more stable again.)
Many employers have “lifeline” phone numbers - use them. If you’re feeling too brittle to register with anonymous person on the phone, start with your HR department. (Don’t feel funny, it’s the job they’ve trained for - more than paperwork!)
Depression lies -I know you read Jenny Lawson (thebloggess.com), so I bet you’ve heard the phrase. Repeat it to yourself when you need to do something that’s ‘too hard for me’ or ‘probably not worth trying’ or any of the other evil little voices that can sound in our head.
I mentioned briefly in my comment on thebloggess that I’d been in the “ripple effect” of suicide. I’ll give you more detail here that I didn’t want to put there.
Twenty years ago, I was an unhappy office manager who’d believed pipe-dream promises that I’d be moved to marketing within the month when they hired a second non-engineer. (Yeah, that didn’t happen.) Because we were a startup, we had no photocopier - we just walked things across the street to Kinko’s if we needed them. I became friendly with one of the full-timers. Just visiting for two minutes while he ran an order could give me enough encouragement to make it through the next stretch of my tedious, unpromising day. He made me smile every time. Every damned time. I was trying to work up the nerve to invite him out for lunch, but it never happened. He committed suicide. He was lonely and felt unloved - not knowing that so many of his customers and co-workers would grieve at losing him. Kinko’s was amazing - they had a memorial gathering at the store, and I was not the only customer there. If he could have heard past the lies of his depression, he would have seen the love and friendship that surrounded him.
Please look past the lies of your own depression, K, no matter what Mr. “Suck it up” said. You are loveable and huggable and deserve to feel better.
Good luck.