Matthew's Journal

Feel free to drop round some time. Phone or check on IRC or something first to avoid standing around outside an empty house wondering where I've got to - I'm not in all the time, though sometimes it feels like it.

*hug*

I'm so glad you're back. I've missed you lots.

On the stuffmountain: you can't do it ALL - not all at once. It'll take time. Find one thing to do, forget the rest. Do it, relax, reward yourself, move on to the next thing. Continue until done :)

On relationships: I'm probably utterly the wrong person to try to give any consolation here. But on the depression - and suicidal ideation is a big giveaway, particularly if you can do it so dispassionately - Get Help, Matthew. NOW. If I never tell you to do anything ever again, listen to me for that one, please?

I don't believe in the dignity of suffering. I wish I didn't believe in suffering at all. I certainly don't believe in knowing that a friend is suffering and not saynig anything at all. Tell me to butt out if you want, I'll respect that: otherwise... let me help, if I can, any way I can. Please?

Candles and good thoughts for you.

I'm sitting here doing nothing. I've done nothing all day. I have a *mountain* of stuff to do, none of which is getting done. So, I hate myself over not doing it all.

I went to my GP last month, with pretty much exactly what you describe. It had been going on for nigh-on five years; I only started looking for help because it had got far enough that I was in danger of losing my job over it. (FWIW, I'd also been fantasising about knives and suicide for much of the five years as well, but like the accidie I thought it wasn't bad enough to get help with. Or I couldn't get around to getting help. Or I was scared, or something. Probably all of them.) Missed appointments, broken commitments and unpaid bills weren't enough of a cue, but after a written warning from my employer I finally made the appointment (and predictably missed it, but made another one).

The advantages of doing so were:

1) They put me on sertraline (aka Lustral, aka Zoloft). This (after a week of side-effects ranging from troublesome to vile) has meant I've felt merely crap for the last few months, rather than feeling like I was dead and fantasising it was true.

2) I'm officially ill. I don't have to worry about it being something I made up, and whether I'm just incompetent/lazy/stupid rather than ill. This makes a big difference to me, believe me.

3) Following on from this, the doctor told my employers I had to take a week off work. I mostly spent it asleep (it was one of the three most obvious side-effects).

Apart from that, things are still bad. But these three things were worth even the trip to the doctor.

*huggles*
I'm sorry sweetie. I will try to give you a call sometime soon. I wish I could be right there for you, but i will at least call asap. I don't know what to say about the knife thing - I've thought similar things for years but i know that I would never kill myself that way, so it doesn't really scare me (jumping off a building was always my plan). I will assume for my own sanity that you're not going to do anything more than just painful in the near future, and i'll phone and tell you off for that too as sooon as I can. *morehugs*