Clinical Depression + Agoraphobia + Anxiety

Give yourself time @msbertie. There is no set time that you have to recover by. I can't make myself exercise yet either and with your housework it sounds like you are doing some stuff more often than I do so don't judge yourself too much either. Sorry to hear you have PTSD too and that you are also grieving a lost marriage. I think the first step to focus on is just living one day at a time, meeting your basic needs of food, appointments, things you have described in your first post. Try to take the pressure off yourself about your healing and it will happen in it's own time.

My time spent reading really helped me stop thinking about the past all the time. I got very into mysteries and crime novels in particular. I really recommend you follow up that suggestion about library services by contacting the community centre in the nearest town that has one (phone them) - they will know how you can access a remote library service. Or phone the library in the bigger town an hour away that you mentioned and tell them you are not mobile and ask them what services they have. They may have a drop-off point and an on-line catalogue or something. If not that then there are e-books you can download but I don't know much about how that stuff works (bit of a technophobe).

I think the fear you are feeling is likely to be the PTSD, and conditioning from the DV situation. It's like living ready to jump at any moment and not knowing which way we will have to jump. I used to sleep with my bag beside the bed in case I had to run suddenly and for a very long time I would wake up with what I called 'jump starts' - on the move already before I was even awake at night, then not wanting to get off the bed during the day. It's baby steps. At least you are making it to the couch. You could try sitting outside for just 5 minutes a day to start, then after you are ok with that extend it to 10 and so on. I think I understand about you feeling safer to sleep in the day time, but this could also be tied into the depression side of things.

If you want to tag someone use the @ symbol and a box will drop down with the names of those in the conversation, then click on the name, they will get a notification email that you mentioned them and you may get a faster response if they are on-line.

How terrible your experience with the mental health unit was @msbertie. Hopeless of them. Still it might just have been down to one worker making an error in reporting your situation accurately so I would give them one more chance if needed. Maybe your Dr can contact them more easily. Very hard to have faith in the health care system when things like that happen. I've had a few misadventures with services over the years too, but ultimately it's better to use them voluntarily than to be taken in involuntarily in a crisis.

Thank you for reminding me about the tagging thing and yeah PTSD sounds accurate thankyou again you are great to share such personal details I cant imagine doing the whole ready to run bag at my side but I am along way away from him so that makes all the difference I think I will have to stay up for as long as possible to change my sleep pattern and to be honest its painful being awake as long as I am as it is lol so Ill just see what happens with that I like the idea of going outside I might see if I can manage that. Thank you so much for responding I am not much of a reader so Im not super excited about books Im more into streaming and watching stuff online that way I can just concentrate on what Im watching if you can call that concentrating lol anyway thank you have a great sleep.

@eth oh tell me about it I took so long to ask for help as my original counsellor was pretty useless and I have never heard from her again after an initial 4 visits when I first got here not sure where duty of care falls into place but as for the mental health service there is only one person there so its not a choice of getting someone else not really much they can do for me anyway its not as if I can go to them and no psychiatrist is going to do outreach so I dont think they are of much use in my situation I need outreach services which I dont believe there is any but doesnt matter.

Hi @msbertie

im probably not in the best frame of mind tonight to answer you properly, sorry... but i wanted to say that i left a dv relationship 3 years ago and had a lot of trouble ... readjusting and maybe working out who i was.. what i liked/wanted and felt like making choices for myself was impossible.. and still struggle a bit in a lot of areas of my life. have major depression, ptsd that plague me every day. but i have 2 small children and for me i think that has made me to be out of the house.

i started seeing a psycologist about 5/6 months after leaving i think.. and really it took me 6 monts or more to even begin trusting her and be able to work with her on any of my ... stuff. 10 sessions is really not enough (in my opinion) where there has been major trust broken and you have really traumatic stuff to try and detangle. so if there is any way that you can get extra sessions i would keep going if you can. maybe they can discount for pension etc at the end of the 10 sessions... i know i probably wouldnt have survived this far without my psychologist.

hope that things do get easier for you, im glad that you've found the forums.. there are lots of very warm and kind people here,

lj

@Former-Member I'm glad you have found this thread. I wanted to tag you but didn't know how you'd feel about that.

@msbertie I'll be up for a while yet. I had a couple of naps earlier. Be careful with making yourself stay awake for a lot longer than normal. It can sometimes make things worse. I say this because for me it is a trigger into bipolar problems I haven't mentioned to you before.

If there are any outreach services your GP would know about them. Some people have mentioned having a psychiatrist who does web consultations, but I'm not sure where they are based. Your GP might also know about that. @Former-Member do you know anything about this?

Here in SA they do telemed conferencing through community health (usually located at small/regional hospitals) and its free through the public system. They also have a psychologist at community health here but i don't see that one as i'd already been seeing someone before i had a complete break down and preferred to keep seeing her.

Your GP should be able to look into the types of services available but also 1800Respect were really great for me too. They have an online chat too (i am not good on the phone except to a few people) they provided really good information, and also really supportive counselling when i was going through the criminal trial against my ex. They would look up and find out any information that i wanted clarified even legal stuff and get back to me. You may also be able to claim soem compensation through legal services in your state to help with psychological costs (i havent done/applied for that so im not sure how it would work but i do remember soemone at court mentioning it)

lj

@msbertie if your Dr does a mental health care plan with you and refers you under that to the psychologist it can be renewed every 12 months and you get another batch of sessions for free. Also some psychologists if they think you need to keep coming at the end of the free sessions will agree to keep seeing you for just the medicare fee. You still have to pay and then claim but you don't have to pay a gap fee. They also can choose to bulk bill I believe. I have a psychiatrist who agreed to bulk bill me thank goodness and am also about to start my 2nd lot of sessions with the same psychologist I saw last year.

Goodnight for now. Hope you have a good night.

@eth @Former-Member thanks guys all great things to keep in mind I know that there are no outreach services available to me that was looked into there was mental health nurse hour away one way and a mental health service an hour the opposite way and neither would do outreach and one would not put me on a lengthy waiting list if the other was involved and only if I could commit to making the drive which again Im not able to do so im stuck with situation as is hopefully the 10 sessions will be able to be repeated with the plan from the GP my psychologist also goes on long service leave in August so it will be whatever sessions we get in before then and then nothing for however long the break is Im guessing 3 months as far as paying out of pocket between private health insurance, car insurance, rent etc I am in no position to be looking at that as an option I just dont have the cash flow to sustain it. Great hearing from you @eth sleep well thank you again and nice to meet you @Former-Member thank you so much for the input Im hopeing to speak to people with similar experiences so cheers.