Matthew's Journal

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.