@cheasty mate. I think you need to check yourself in.
I’ve visited people in both St Pats and John of Gods, my missus sister has had regular struggles. While neither are where you want to be obviously, it is the chance to get proper help on a round the clock basis across a range of treatment types. It is help, you obviously know yourself, that you need.
In both places I encountered some people obviously in a bad way, but generally it was just normal people who for whatever reason needed help. A lot of people are in there for addiction issues, or eating disorders or whatever. It’s not one flew over the cuckoos nest with everyone in strait jackets.
You meet mostly other people like yourself, people having a shit time of it. Mostly they sit around smoking copious amounts of cigarettes and talking shite. It is boring more than anything. But it gives you a sense of security for yourself
John of Gods has a basketball court, and tennis and lovely grounds to walk around, daily activites etc
I get the reason you don’t want to check yourself into one of these places, but if you’re struggling like you say, I don’t think you have much to lose. In general you are free to leave, unless you are in a bad way.
Some great advice there… The stigma around these places does instill a natural reluctance to go but you have to try everything @Cheasty . You can also solicit new posters for here while youre there.
My sister did a stint in Pats @Cheasty after hitting a seriously low depression after having breast cancer. It’s probably the main reason she’s still with us. Keep an open mind if you can. It’ll help you, if you want to be helped.
Most definitely at this stage @Cheasty, especially when and while you are still able to articulate your thoughts and anxiety the way you are. Go there with the purpose of getting better. Please.
@Cheasty, a little levity if I may; if you do check yourself in please try to recreate the greatest movie ending scene of all time from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (except for the killing McMurfy part).
Keep fighting on. You’re posts on your current suffering are admirable, powerful, moving and dare I say it, necessary for your own well being.
@Cheasty you mention a few times throwing yourself in front of cars or trains. As someone else mentioned before this would have massive consequences for the drivers. My daughter’s best friends dad drove a train into someone taking their own life and hasnt worked since and now drinks like the proverbial fish. This has a huge negative effect on his family especially a teenage son. I think you should write a book.
I do not want want to go in not because of the stigma but because I am scared to fuck of being in hospital. My honest belief is it would not do me good, but the opposite.
I currently have one foot in normal life and one foot in a dark place. Right now as I write this I’m OK. Going into hospital now will send me into a worse mental place than the one I’m already in.
I am open to going to A and E for psychiatric assessment, perhaps that is something I have to do, and I don’t know where I go with counselling if I don’t do that, but I am not going into the psychiatric ward of that fucking hospital as an inpatient and definitely not now. My father, my grandmother and my grandfather all died in that hospital. The idea of going into it chills me.
Earlier this evening I talked to a person who was in the psychiatric ward of the Regional three or four times over the years. She’s a wonderful, kind, generous person. She was in the previous ward, not the one that opened in 2018. She reassured me somewhat about it, but there have not been good reports about the new ward, there were reports about staff bribing patients with chocolate to rat out smokers and a spike in attacks on staff. She said there might be some sort of home care thing rather than going in as an inpatient. She runs a peer support group so I might go down to that.
In my view the safest place for me is where I am now, in a warm chair with a mug of cocoa and a vape pipe and access to Tayto and optional hot water bottle and the World Cup on the telly and my bad eye occluded. I need all these things and I will not have them in there, and if you go in there you’re likely in for a good stretch.
There are certain things I have to do. I have to get out of bed early and not stew there for hours. I have to get off that Facebook group and other information on the internet about eyes. I have to start washing and shaving and getting my basic bodily functions moving. Not doing all of these things is dragging me down into a morass.
Until you’ve developed the discipline to do everything in the latter paragraph, I’d strongly challenge your thinking on the former. Home may well be the safest place for you but you need the tools to be able to avoid your normal pitfalls / traps. Getting help from others to do this is ok
As I posted previously my kid was depressed etc and attended Pieta house
Your spot on ref tools to cope
These brilliant ppl up there did just that
Not only did they give him the necessary toos and education on how to cope when he feels shite ( thank God and Pieta them days are few v few and far between - now a happy content boy in UCC/ working and in a relationship )
Equipped son mam and dad with coping tools
Why our schools don’t have ppl coming in to show our young I don’t know
Need to keep the mind busy @Cheasty , get out and walk the best you can, sea swimming like what @flattythehurdler suggested, help your poor mother out best you can.
If you’re writing as well as you are on your posts then most likely that’s on a laptop, get some work from a GP who dictates and needs stuff written out. Busy mind, very important.
Take care.
Minimum u should and are entitled to are sessions with a counselor
HSE is free and if you’ve a good quack he/she can push it
Mine did several years ago
And though vv reluctant to go and see one
I found the sessions worthwhile
Painful at times
Physically and emotionally draining but twas like emptying out a bag of rubbish
PS not saying or intimating anything ref you
But any criminal etc stuff that you may wish to discuss - DON’T
As the counselor by law and ethics is obligated to pass it on
You’re doing some great writing, keep it up. You have to try and put yourself into a mindset of just taking it day by day, starting as you said with taking care of hygiene and diet etc and see how you feel after even a few short weeks. Force yourself to get up at the same time every morning, get into a routine and follow it strictly. Right now you are catastrophizing about a future situation that might never come into being. Could you pick up another interest, do some research and in no time you’d be an Irish authority on it. Cinema, jazz, baseball, learn a language that allows you follow soccer in depth in some country’s own papers and podcasts. Stay journalling on here, and stay away from the hellscape of politics on twitter. But if it gets too much keep asking for help. Fair play to you for being brave enough to do that so far. Many aren’t.
