Sad story and (partial) recovery

[ryanmcdonald234]

So this might be pretty long but I have never found a place to share how I really feel, read it if you want I don't care either way.

I lived in Australia until I was 12, at which point I moved to the USA. I guess the whole mental issue deal started when I was at college. My girlfriend of nearly 4 years and I were at odds and I knew the end was near. To top it all off I was failing badly at school and the only thing I cared about was smoking pot and forgetting it all. I got really sad when it became time to sleep but never did anything about it. Eventually she called it quits between us and I made the choice to move back to Australia with my parents and start fresh.

I met up with a few of my old friends from before I moved, and we all shared a passion for smoking copious amounts of weed and losing ourselves in drugs. One friend of particular is notable. She was my "girlfriend" before I left (12 year old relationships lol). Anyway after about 2 months of being home I started feeling really nauseous after eating anything, anything at all. I noticed however that this feeling was heightened in public places and unbearable around my friends. I continued to smoke myself stupid and almost completely stopped eating, to the point where I had one meal a day for dinner during the week and ate nothing from friday night to sunday night (my friends live about an hour away from my parents so I only saw them on weekends). Eventually after a hard weekend of partying we were lazing about on sunday afternoon when I started to feel really odd. I remember being sick to the stomach, but most of all when I got up to go to the bathroom as I walked my hands and face become numb and tingly. Anyways next thing I know I'm on the floor looking up at all my friends who are saying "call an ambulance".

At this point I knew something was really wrong with me so I went to several doctors and they all said anxiety. After quitting the marijuana and doing some soul searching I knew what my real problem was. I was in love with my "girlfriend" from when I was 12. The only issue was that she was gay so I never told her. I couldn't hold it in any longer and told her everything and surprisingly she was very comforting and helped me out of the hole I was in. Then out of the blue one day she says she wants to be with me, as more than just friends. We give it a shot and on my side things are going great, we are intimate but not that intimate (as in we didn't do the dirty or whatever the kids are calling it now days). Then she says to me one day I'm sorry but I'm gay and this will never work.

I return to my black hole of self hate and pity. Slowly I regain some confidence and go up to see my friends. After a few weekends of this me and a whole bunch of my mates, including her, are just hanging out having a few drinks and she says to me "hey I need to ask you a question'. So of course I say sure (we have since worked around the dating issue and emerged better friends than ever before). And, excuse my french, but she says to me word for word "fuck me, I want to know what it's like". Alcohol and lust get the better of me and we spend a night together. I am of course confused by this but I talk it with her some time later and things are looking good.

Which brings me to the real theme here. She has a girlfriend (who she was with when this happened) and myself, her, her GF and few of our friends decided have a big night and celebrate our youth. I drank an entire bottle of rum (explained later in post) and at some point I told her current GF who she cheated on with me the whole story.

She hates me now. She never wants to hear from me again. It really hurts, knowing that the one person who could pull me out of the deepest pit of hell is no longer there for me. It has been over a month and I have tried to make it up to her but she remains distant. I plan to deliver her an ultimatum regarding us, but I haven't been able to do it because I know if she doesn't accept I'll lose the best friend I'll ever have. Without going into too much detail she is everything I have ever wanted in a woman, exactly like me and I know that if she was straight I would have asked her to marry me by now haha.

Perhaps the most important thing to note here is that after I stopped going up to see my friends and was diagnosed with anxiety the way I have dealt with everything is by getting drunk. I can't go and see my friends without 4-5 drinks under my belt (which is bad because it's an hours drive), and I usually get completely trashed while hanging out with them, even if I don't intend to. When I spend nights up with them I wake up feeling really shitty and often have panic attacks on the drive home. I'm usually fine during the week at work though, it is only when I go to see my friends I really NEED to be liquored up, although I drink during the week just because I have nothing else to do.

I fear I am becoming an alcoholic, I have cut myself many times. My arms and chest look like I have been through hell and back. I don't know where to turn, so I tell you guys. I just want to be normal again and be able to hang out with my friends sober... for the love of god help me if you can I go to bed every night thinking how nice it would be if I never woke up again.


EDIT: told you it would be long. If you took the time to read and can help I'll be eternally greatful. Medication/therapy has proved useless, maybe there is someone else out there like me

[miami]

8)
I'm sorry to hear that you are so down in the dumps. I have at times felt the same way...I know that it is difficult, but you need to push yourself to go for walks, put on the radio and sing happy songs, and just keep looking for the positives in life. No matter how sad and deperate you are, you are still important and you can help yourself. A doctor is probably a good place to start. Dont give up on yourself. I remember being very down, and unable to get out of bed and then my good friend ( a young mother) was diagnosed with liver cancer and she new she was going to die. She had a short time to live, and even though I was suffering from my own hell of depression I had to help her live the last few months of her life. She said to me that I was so lucky that I only had depression!!Through it all she passed away and I learned that all of those things that bothered me were really small compared to what she went through. Live life while you can.

[northstar]

hi there, sorry to see you feeling so low at the moment :( i hope what i say here will help you out even a litte.

i don't know if you know this, you haven't mentioned it in your post, but marjuana is well known for causing anxiety problems. so with the amount you were smoking, as well as the fact that you weren't eating properly on top of that, i am not surprised at all that you found yourself having panic attacks. not eating will totally wear you down and stress out your body in all kinds of ways like messing with blood sugars and lack of nutrition, but if added to that you were smoking copious amounts of pot then it all kind of adds up. i'm just theorizing here, but from reading your post i think what may have happened here is that the anxiety was induced by the pot & lack of proper diet and not knowing what was happening in your body you have transferred the anxious feelings onto your female friend.

this is not unusual, people who suffer with panic and anxiety will often connect the problem to certain situations or people without realising that where the real feeling is coming from. for example, i often got anxious about my relationship with my boyfriend & tended to blurt things out to him when i was feeling panicky, thinking it had something to do with how i felt about him or things i had hidden from him. but actually my anxiety was stemming from low blood sugar problems, but because the anxiety hit when i was with him (i spent a lot of time with him) part of me thought that it must be related to certain issues in our relationship. does that make sense? when i sorted things out for myself with diet and lifestyle changes my uncertainty about the relationship dissolved.

do you think it is possible that you may have done something similar with your ex? it is worth thinking about. she was there with you through the initial problems so you may have begun to associate your anxiety with her rather than thinking about the fact that how you were treating your body was probably the main reason for the feelings. of course the stress of the ups and downs that you have gone through with her will have affected you and added to the problem, but my instinct is that the actual problem was with the pot and lack of eating. please keep in mind that these are only my thoughts, i'm not an expert i'm just throwing ideas out there!

you may also be aware of the fact that alcohol is another major source of anxiety. it messes with your body in two main ways: it plays havoc with your blood sugars, the resulting blood sugar crash can often result in all kinds of symptoms like anxiety and panic. it also makes you burn through your body's nutrients, mainly vitamin B i think, and without these nutrients your body and nervous system will be quite stressed. if you're already prone to anxiety from your pot smoking years then the extra stress from the alcohol binges is going to cause problems. i really feel you need to stop drinking like you are right now if you want a good shot at getting better. think about what you're doing to your body and the resulting quality of life and be aware of the consequences.

i think you already know what you have to do here, it's about wheather or not you will find the strength to make the right choices. you need to stop looking at your ex as the only one who can save you and take some of the power back into your own hands here, take responsibility for your own life. medication and therapy are never going to work if you're still living life the way you do, you need to care enough for yourself to be proactive about your own recovery. i would suggest that you go talk to your doctor about joining a group like the AA or look them up yourself in the golden pages. it might be helpful to go back to therapy and look at why you're treating yourself so badly? be kind to yourself, take the steps you need to start getting better. there are lots of things you can do to help with anxiety, i've written a big post about all the things i found helpful you can read it here: http://www.anxietyforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4087

i hope none of this thread sounded chastising in any way, that's not my intention, you sound intelligent enough to know a lot of this stuff already but i just wanted to be straight forward and honest with you in my reply. i really hope this gives you even the slightest bit of hope, i've been through anxiety and i know how bad it can feel. i wish you the best of luck :)

[ryanmcdonald234]

took me a really long time to post back here I know, my net was out for a month or so. Northstar... thanks heaps for the insight.

As I mentioned, I quit smoking marijuana and haven't touched it for nearly 6 months. Every doctor I go to has said that is most likely the cause of my anxiety, and when you consider the fact that I was going through $50 of highly potent shit every day it is almost without a doubt the reason. I am eating normally, 3 meals a day with all the vegetables and what not (I moved back home with mum and dad so they force it on me :) ). Doing everything I can to crawl out of this hole.

The ONLY time I have panic attacks is on a sunday afternoon after I go spend a saturday with my friends, it's almost like clockwork. I am fine in the morning then 2-4 hours after waking up my hands go numb etc. etc. I'm so sick of this shit to be honest. I dealt with my issues, changed myself as a person (I was a complete asshole in my youth, no kidding) and I still have these moments when I lose control. And in case it matters, yeah I still have to get drunk to see my friends or I'll freak out on the drive up.

I have been talking with my therapist, he did some EEG tests on me and discovered some brain wave irregularities that need to be investigated. He thinks that maybe this is the cause of my anxiety and the other weird symptoms I get on sundays. We'll find out soon enough I suppose.

Have talked to the girl mentioned in my original post, she doesn't hate me but doesn't want to be friends either... so yeah I dunno we are gonna talk about next saturday and try to figure some shit out.

Still kind of down in the dumps, haven't cut myself in ages though which is an improvement I guess. On an unrelated note, i didn't cut myself because I hated what I was, I did it because it gave me a rush... something real and tangible to do. Really helped me out in a fucked up way, although it means I have to hide what I have done from the world. hate to be vulgar but I have slept with a few girls since all this and really all I see is one of the two girls who meant alot to me during my life (my lesbian ex-bestfriend and my US ex). dunno if that relates but hey there it is.

Anyways, thanks for the input northstar, I'll post more after the brain tests. Hopefully it's good news, I can't live my life like this.