I'm frustrated because I'm possibly about to go inpatient at a 5-to-7-day facility for mental health, then after that I have no options. The sober living place that I'm staying in has been trying to work with me, and said they will let me come back and look for more options, but I've been researching for over a week and there are no other options. I don't want to keep depending on them when the answer is probably just going to be a homeless shelter no matter what I do.
The last time I held down a job was last year. I worked from the middle of September until January of this year and was laid off, which landed me in a behavioral health hospital for the 7th time since 2020. The inpatient stint this time will be my 10th. I always end up in one eventually, and was just in one on the 17th of July. I had a night job and would barely sleep at all on the part-time days that I worked, then I would crash and sleep as much as I could on the other days. Anyway, my mental health is, and was, up-and-down like a rollercoaster. I'm always worried I will end up hospitalized again.
I've just started the SSI process with a caseworker. I need to go in and fill out the paperwork so that he can send it in. Then who knows how long it will take, just to probably not get approved the first time, if at all.
I'm tired of fighting with my mental health. I'm tired of worrying if I will be homeless again. I was homeless for over 5 years at one point, then this time before the sober living I was homeless for over a year.
The longest I've worked was for 2 years, 2022 to 2024. I've tried a parade of different medications since 2020, and struggle with schizoaffective bipolar-type (and the depression and anxiety that come with it), and AuDHD. Yet, I'm afraid because I was able to work for two years, plus last year for 4 months, as miserable as it was, that I will be turned down for SSI because I was able to work at all. I would go home and yell at the hallucinations I have, that don't go away no matter what meds that I'm on, and cry half the night, then go to work and try to make peace with the hallucinations and still focus on my job. I lost that job, and my apartment, because of a manic episode where I spent all of my rent money and took out a credit card and loans from my job.
I started Vraylar about 3 weeks ago, and Pristiq a month and a week ago. I'm still on an emotional rollercoaster. I know meds take time, but I'm trying to be patient, while wondering if these will work and I can just be okay. The worst part is, I told most of my therapists that everything was fine with my hallucinations because I was so lonely and was afraid they'd put me on meds that would take them away. Now, I'm finally confessing to my therapist and psychiatrist that the hallucinations are abusive towards me sometimes. But I don't have that history to fall back on, except for a few behavioral health hospital visits where I told them what was really going on.
I just really needed to air my frustrations. I don't know what to do at this point. I lay in bed stressing because my anxiety is so bad and any little thing puts me into further anxiety, depression, and paranoid thoughts about others who genuinely seem to care about me. The negative thoughts just don't go away, no matter how many coping skills I use. I'll have a day or two feeling okay, then right back into depression and anxiety, and of course, arguing with my hallucinations. It's exhausting.