All things "mental health" - share resources, seek help, offer support, and work on developing healthy habits!
First Post - struggling with health problems and trauma
Hey, I'm new here. I guess I've just been struggling and wanted somewhere I could open up. I'm 21, and came from an abusive home life. Physically, sexually, and emotionally. I self harmed a lot when I was younger and was very suicidal. But I moved out when I was 16 and I felt like everything would be okay, and I would never have to go through that again. But then when I turned 18 I had my first relationship, and he seemed nice but ended up being horrible. I found out he had been cheating a year and a half into the relationship with a bunch of people, including friends of mine. I broke things off immediately, but he kept contacting me and harassing me. Then he broke into my house and raped me. He continued stalking and harassing me for months, moving a block away and breaking in whenever he felt like it. I didn't know how to tell people, so I said nothing. He had started hurting other girls and I remember feeling like it was better me, than them. Eventually I reached out and got support and managed to get out of that situation, and thankfully he's been out of my life for over a year now. I have a girlfriend now and she's amazing. She's been so supportive and caring. However, the sexual assaults I experienced with him were so violent and aggressive that it caused a bunch of health problems for me, and I ended up having to have a pretty serious surgery because of it in February this year. I was meant to have it last year but I was so traumatized and triggered by the whole thing I just couldn't handle it. Anyway, the surgery was awful and I didn't get proper care after. It's not a common surgery so most GP's I saw had no idea how to help me, and the hospital didn't make any effort to connect me with people who could. I ended up chronically bleeding for half of the year before going to emergency in August. Since then I've been seeing doctors and nurses every day. It's just so exhausting and every time it seems like I'm getting better.. I just don't. Before this happened I was running and eating healthy, but now I can't even walk to the shops, let alone carry groceries. It's made me so depressed to feel like so many things have been taken from me because of something that was out of my control, and it makes me feel totally hopeless for the future. I just don't see how anything could make up for all of these horrible things, even if I do get better physically. To top it all off, I have a bunch of work due for uni, and when I saw the surgeon at the start of the week he said I need two more surgeries, one because I might have skin cancer. It just feels like blow after blow, and I don't know how to change my attitude or see things differently. I have a lot to be grateful for: my girlfriend, a close relationship to my grandmother, supportive friends, good grades, and I live in a beautiful city (Melbourne). But I just have so much pain that it's hard to appreciate them properly. Lately my psychologist wants to discuss childhood sexual abuse from when I was a kid, and even though it's OK when we're talking, in the weeks afterwards I just get so suicidal and depressed. I mean. I'm 21. How can I be expected to process all of this stuff? It's too much and I'm exhausted. I don't know what I'm looking for. I just feel pretty alone. It would be nice to just hear anything from someone.




Hey. I'm so sorry. You've had a lot of really shitty things to deal with. ❤ It sucks. There's nothing that can really be changed about that part. :( I'm sorry that you've had to deal with so many terrible things so close together and young. I don't necessarily have a lot of help I can give, but I have a few thoughts:
Dealing with problems usually means things get WORSE before they get better. The same way if you really want to clean out your closet, it means dumping everything out across your entire room and making a huge mess in order to be able to sort through everything and figure out what's what and what fits and what's worth keeping and not. A couple years ago I went to therapy for some issues that weren't really impacting my day-to-day life but were something that I knew I needed to deal with eventually in order to be able to move forward and do some normal-person things that it was kind of keeping me from doing. But I would have said I was a normal, perfectly mentally stable and healthy person going into the therapy. Three weeks in, I was having panic attacks ALL the time and really, really struggling. And honestly, those didn't really go away completely for several months. It was horrible. But that's because all those things that had been sitting buried and ignored in me were brought to the surface and had to be dealt with. They exploded all over my metaphorical room until there wasn't any room to stand, in a way. But then I worked with the therapist and my SO to slowly clean up the room, and in the end, things were much better than they had been in the first place, because now my closet works a lot better for me. Maybe not a great analogy, but, well, ¯_(ツ)_/¯. I guess what I'm really saying is, it's maybe okay that dealing with these issues with your therapist makes you so depressed. Because in the end, you'll be much happier than you were starting out. Work closely with your therapist, your girlfriend, your grandmother, etc., to really make sure that you have all the support you need, especially during the times you're suicidal, so that you can keep the risk under control, but don't run away or give up just because it hurts. Sometimes, it has to hurt a little bit more in order to get much better.
In terms of other support in a different way, the /spoonies community might be a good fit for you. It's aimed at people with chronic illnesses, and it's a place where we can vent and complain and be sad or anything else. Many of us there deal with a lot of physical limitations in our lives, and we all know just how hard it can be. It doesn't matter if your situation is caused by an illness or an injury, we're a pretty welcoming group who can commiserate with you. :)
The last thing, is learn how to take care of yourself. That sounds weird and obvious—of course you know how to take care of yourself—but really learn. A lot of us really aren't that good at it and don't know how to help ourselves when we're feeling bad, physically or mentally. Two things related to this: 1. there's a really neat interactive self-care guide here that someone posted to the spoonies community a while ago (see, you should join!). 2. try every day to think of one thing that will make you happy, and do it. Try to consciously take the time to stop and think "what would make me happier right now?" If it's snuggling with your girlfriend, go find her. If it's eating a piece of chocolate, do it. If it's sitting outside in the sun for a little while, do that. These can be 5-minute projects. Finding happiness doesn't have to be a giant or an ephemeral pursuit. Just try to think of one small thing each day.
None of these things help fix your situation completely (or unfortunately not even most of the way), but hopefully they can maybe help you find a little bit more joy, peace, hope that things can get better, or at the very least, some more people to talk to. I'm always here too if you want to talk more!
You have been through incredible unfair things
I know it's difficult and cliche to say things get better, but they will - the truth is that you are on a journey, a journey strengthened by your own hard work, overcoming adversity and obstacles.
You are 21. And you are blessed. I don't know you, but as I sit here, there are actual tears in my eyes. It's not sympathy, but pride and love for you, a person I don't even know, a person who is awesome, and we'll overcome, will rise, who will succeed.
So, blessings to you. Take a deep breath now and go forward. Get well. Get healed, be happy. Succeed. In everything.
So yours is an old post and you'll probably not read this message but I've found it is possible to cope if you can find something positive to fixate on, for me that was my Bichon Frise which I got after I was released from a MH hospital in London that was fortunately nearish to my house. Having my Bichon makes things much easier to deal with when I have severe distress periods which come along oftenish.