Depressive Episode

Recently I suffered from another severe depressive episode. My way of "dealing" with it was to post the following status on Facebook, while I sat in my car outside the mental hospital:

"Why is 3 o'clock in the morning always the hour of choice to put on Nick Cave, get depressed and kill yourself? What's wrong with the middle of the day when everyone's awake and ready to call an ambulance?"

This is a quote from the movie (and book?) "He Died With a Felafel in his Hand".

Then my phone ran out of battery and powered off. No one could reach me, and this lead to the police getting involved. After they took me to the hospital, and I made my way home again, I posted the following details of the story. I am back dating it, and reposting it here, with some slight additions:

I am OK. I am home.

I had another major depressive episode this morning. I'd had enough.

Things have been bad for a long time. My job is unfulfilling and has been so for the last couple of years. This leaves me frustrated and grumpy all the time, and doesn't help my state of mind in general. I have been looking for other work for most of this year, but not having any luck finding another job I want.

My constantly grumpy mood was a major contributing factor to my girlfriend dumping me a few months ago. I haven't dealt with that.

I have recently been seeing a psychologist for some CBT to try to deal with this, after having become unreliable at work, which I thought was working, but I guess I was just deluding myself.

I feel like my life sucks. I have no money, because I piss it all away drinking too much, and recently I have been drinking more and smoking too much weed chasing short term relief from my depression. I haven't been sleeping. I've had no appetite for months, I don't think that's even helped me lose much weight since I've replaced food with beer. Everything is a mess. This isn't working any more.

I have still been in contact with my ex-gf, trying to make sense of the situation, but I don't think this has been productive in my trying to move on, as I keep hoping somehow I can fix things, and things have happened which help and lead me continue to believe this.

We were messaging last night. I initiated the conversation. We told each other that we missed each other, and that we missed holding each other. We told each other that we loved each other. She asked me if I thought we may get back together at some point in the far future, and that she wanted to get back together, later. I really want(ed) this.

We agreed that I could come to her place [for us to hold each other and talk], but she escalated things into slightly more than just holding each other. I didn't resist, even though I should have, but I missed her and I wanted it, and I had also been drinking and smoking weed earlier that evening, so I wasn't in the best state of mind, and very quickly she realised she was doing something that she didn't want, and she threw me out.

This didn't really help things. So on top of feeling like my life is a failure in general, being 35 years old and feeling like I haven't really achieved anything with my life, like I thought I would have by now, being poor, a drunk, and just thrown out by a girl I still love, again, I was done. I gave up.

I don't remember making a conscious decision to, or the time or actually doing it, but I drove myself to the mental hospital. That's when I posted the quote from "He Died with a Felafel in his Hand" about 3am being the hour of choice to listen to Nick Cave, get depressed, and kill yourself.  (Since it coincidentally was about 3am). My phone battery ran out. I don't have a charging cable in the car.

I sat there for 4 hours, being unable to go inside and ask for help. I kept turning the radio on in the car, but I don't remember actually listening to it, just noticing when it would time out and turn itself off because the car was off, and I would turn it back on again. I was kind of hoping that someone would come out, find me in the car, ask what was going on, so I could accept their help, instead of asking for it.

During these hours I started cutting my wrist with a crappy pocket knife I carry. I discovered it's too blunt, and it hurt too much, and wasn't working, I only managed to basically scratch myself. I think the cat did a better job on my other wrist a few days ago with her claw when I picked her up, which she doesn't like. I drove home to get a proper blade to finish the job properly.

The police had been notified hours earlier of concerns for my well being, as a result of my status, since my phone had died no one knew where or how I was. I had wasted a lot of their time out looking for me.

When I got near home at about 7am they had been nearby, and one of the cars followed me, and a few police cars arrived. They blocked me in the driveway, and intercepted me. A good friend's car was there, and she came out, gave me a hug, and asked me if I was OK. I told her I was not.

The police took me into custody and took me to the hospital in the back of one of the police cars. Over the next few hours I waited in the police interview room, being watched by several officers, and I spoke with different people who assessed me. Eventually I spoke with a psychiatrist, and we reviewed things.

They prescribed me some anti depressants which also work as tranquillisers so I can sleep (trazodone). The plan I made is that I'm going to stop drinking and smoking/as much. I'm going to go back to counselling again, and I'm going to go see my family doctor in a week to review things, and may increase my dosage of the anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication I have been on since my last episode nearly 3 years ago.

They discharged me at around 1.30pm, and I dragged myself home on the bus since I had left my dead phone at home when the police took me away, and I don't know anyone's phone number and couldn't call an Uber etc. I had only had an hour of sleep perhaps, while I waited in the police interview room at the hospital, so I went to bed.

I'm OK. I've been through this process before, several times. This one was slightly worse since I've gone and got help before actually starting to do anything about ending my life, so this one may be harder to come back from, I don't know yet.