Feeling stranded

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It's really frustrating when you have mental health problems but you're on a massive waiting list to get services and your psychiatrist has had to cancel two appointments.

Not that I blame him as I am sure he has his reasons and he has been able to give me a substitute one time. It's just that the only treatment I get is meds and even then O'm not sure if they are working. I'm worried that I might be treatment resistant. I thought I might be bipolar as I have hypomanic symptoms but it's so difficult to know if it's that or something else. I went to my GP about it and it's just a case of trying one med and then another and then another until something sticks. Basically, if I am not in a crisis then I'm just waiting about until I finally see someone.

It's also frustrating because I try my best to do the self help stuff and I ask my loved ones to help me in small ways (and sometimes in big ways) but I just can't quite work around my issues.

I'm still unemployed, I am struggling to keep up with domestic chores and I struggle to do stuff I am passionate about like drawing. That hurts to know that I am a liability on the people I love and a saboteur of my own future. I just want to be good for something and I can't even finish tidying a room ffs.

I just exist. That's all I do at the moment. I try desperately to seem relevant and helpful but everything I do is negligable at best. The only reason I haven't killed myself is because I am donating an organ to a loved one. I want to stay alive for that as I don't want killing myself to result in my organs being unusable. At this point I don't even care if I die on the operating table as long as I can give someone else a chance at life. It's just so difficult to endure these feelings and maintain living for this long.

I don't really know where I am going with this. I just feel so hurt and in pain and I don't know what to do or if there's anything I realistically can do. I feel like I have exhausted all my options and I'm just waiting to die.

I can totally relate to what you are going through. I have like a half dozen or more health problems and feel like I have spent much of the last 13 years in health limbo, trying one treatment after another after another(~60 different prescription medications including 12 different antidepressants, 100+ hours of various types of therapy and all the wait times associated with them). There is also the countless and endless wild goose chases of diagnostic tests and appointments all the playing the waiting game in-between.

I wish life came with a fast forward button. I mean I waited 18 months to see a psychiatrist only to find out they had lost my referral and canceled my appointment... I had to wait since spring of 2005 just to get to see a foot surgeon this past summer, only to make me wait another 6 months for some diagnostic proceedure, on Tuesday I will get to find out how many more months I will have to wait to actually have a surgery, likely another 8 more months plus cancelations and delays, so I know all about the waiting game.

I feel like no one understands what I go through, and I am usually too sick to be able to do the s**t in life I am supposed to be able to do, even simple tasks like you descirbe like household chores. I feel like a drain to society. I shudder just thinking about the cost that I have incurred over my life in terms of health care expenses alone not to mention the costs I have incurred to my family. It doesn't make me feel any better about my life.

I am not really living either, I am just existing. I am feel like I am sitting in the stands as a spectator watching everyone else live their lives while mine is forever stuck in limbo. I have felt suicidal on more than a thousand occassions since 2005 so I can empathize with any feelings of suicide you have. While my obsessiveness certainly does contribute to me continuing my efforts to improve my health, I have never really got ahead of my health problems, and I am not sure I ever will. In many ways I just am tired and wish that it would all be over.

Sorry I can't be more comforting, I suck at that, but hopefully my post will make you feel less alone in your struggle.

I wouldn't say it was comforting or necessarily reassuring that I'm not the only one. It deeply saddens me that there are others that suffer as I do (and worse in other circumstances). However I am glad you told me about how you have felt going through all of this. It's frustrating to be in this limbo, especially when you see others able to have more agency than you. It sucks.

I also wish I could say something more comforting but I obviously know very little about your situation and it would be beyond hypocritical for me to lecture you about how you should be grateful you should be for the life you have. But the fact that you have endured all of this since 2005 and are still alive leads me to believe that perhaps I can also find the resolve to just exist for longer and perhaps even learn to live.

I guess both of us just have to take it a day at a time, eh?

I figure I am going to die anyway, everyone dies, we only get one life. So if I am going to die anyway, I might as well try my best to turn over every last stone by trying every treatment possible and try and overcome my health problems before I make the choice to give up, as suicide is a choice you can only make once (assuming you complete it).

I found that when I jettisoned all my expectations of life, that I don't get discouraged as much. I stopped telling myself I should have a career by now, that I should be at such and such a point in my life or I should have this or that by this age really helped. I also turned my focus away from the results of my effort and just focused on the effort I put forth towards life regardless of the outcome. These changes in my approach really made a difference in my life.

I found focusing on my special interests and spending a lot of time in a fantasy world in my head helps give me a break from the harsh reality of my sh***y life situation, and makes it easier to cope as well as pass the time while stuck in health limbo.

I also didn't take the role of being a passenger when it comes to my healthcare, I took an active role in my treatment. Really this is where autism became an asset, as the goal of overcoming my health problems has become an obsession, one of special interests.

This is just what has kept me going. And no, it doesn't mean it suddenly gets easy, a lot of it has been hell, but it certainly kept me afloat.

Btw if you are Canadian (I am wondering since you said "eh") and if you live in Ontario I may be able to help you navigate the healthcare system if you want and may be able to suggest ways to cut down on wait times or get access to certain publicly funded resources that are otherwise hard to find.

Oh, dear. This is heartbreaking. I'm here with you. I think, I KNOW, many of us are right here in this despair with you.

I've been waitlisted for months trying to get an ASD diagnosis. When I was much, much younger (8 years ago), I was being treated for bipolar disorder. I was taking every medication they gave me, sometimes 5 or 6 different meds at once. When I begged to continue therapy after quitting the meds, I was denied care for "refusing care" (no therapy without meds). We're here with you. We know this pain. "If I'm not in crisis, I'm just waiting." <--- THIS! I wish I could get help before I'm a crying, crumpled mess.

People with ASD are more likely to commit suicide than those suffering from bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. I was explaining to my therapist that, based on my understanding of what I've read, people with BPD hurt themselves to hurt or get attention from the people around them. I feel like my desires to cease to exist are because I'm so acutely aware of the probability that I'll never be happy. It's just math to me. I've desired to die since I was 4 years old. I'm 31, now, so I've managed to survive this menace in my head trying to kill me. ("It won't give up, it wants me dead, g*ddamn this noise inside my head")

Having 2 toddlers helps. It definitely trumps every argument I could come up with to hurt myself. I start to wonder if they'd be better off without me, and my therapist points to the statistics for the horrible things that children with no mothers endure. So I just hope the math will give the kids a better chance if I stick around vs leaving them to the wolves.

I know this doesn't make you "feel better". Thank you for listening to us. I'm really glad that you posted - I don't feel better, but I certainly feel less alone. I feel more human, because if there are more like me feeling this way, then I must be human, too. So thank you for letting us see your pain. It's hard.