How do you avoid reaching out for help?

[Eastone]

I have a great support system, but not a great prognosis. I am in my thirties, and I have always reached out for help when things were literally do or die, but things always end up back at this same place, and the older I get, the more I regret not CTB earlier in my life. I don't want this regret to continue to grow. All of those commercials and campaigns about it getting better? It does for some people for sure, but not for all of us.

My issue is that I do get weak and I do reach out for help. There is nothing wrong with reaching out for help if you actually want it. I don't though, I just get these moments of hope mixed with guilt about what I am going to do, and then I reach out, and then I get locked up, and then things get better temporarily, and then I end up back in this moment. The cycle just repeats.

I have removed myself from most of my supports over the last few weeks as best I can. I have appropriately distanced all of my friends. My family isn't a concern because I am not comfortable reaching out to them (we are all very close, I love them and they would be very supportive, but I have my reasons for never wanting to reach out to them). The problem is pretty much with my therapist and my psychiatrist. They are easily available, really non-judgmental, basically what everyone wishes for in mental health professionals. What they aren't is miracle workers. So no matter how much they WANT to help, and no matter how great they are and well-respected in the industry and on and on, they aren't going to be able to help. Yet I find that their reassurance and lack of judgement causes me to want to tell them, to believe that they actually could help this time even though rationally I know they can't.

So what do you guys do to stop yourself from reaching out? I think what I wish is for them to just tell me it is okay to give up, and it is okay to put myself first and rest. I know they will never say that, their whole job is about saving people from CTB. I think that is what I hope for though every time I share with them. I don't want that to happen this time.

 

[Soc]

I have mentioned it to some of my friends though there is only so much they can do. I have recently lost a lot of friends and got some stressful shit going on. As much as they try to chat to me and get me to do things I still struggle to see anything good coming up in the future. I even get good support at work and am given a lot of slack but I just feel so empty and hollow. It's like I feel I am closing myself slowly to the world. I don't want to just talk to someone who nods and tells me that must be hard and distressing and connect with my emotions. At least the medication seems to work better for now.

 

[Ash’Girl]

I think for me I kind of started a deliberate shame spiral. I absolutely do not think mental health struggles are shameful for anyone else to be going through or admit to or talk about but for myself, I started to apply a mask of high functionality to the world so others perceived me as stable. I don't want how much I struggle mentally or emotionally to be known by anyone. I stopped talking about my struggles to anyone. Actually, I think I just stopped talking full stop. I have become increasingly isolated from everyone and though some people still reach out to check on me I mostly ignore them. I do not want to be seen, I do not want to be saved, I felt increasingly detached from everyone and everything after my partner died and I've never come back from that: I don't even want to come back from it. Maybe my thought process is that disappearing from everyone's radar, fading away slowly, loneliness and isolation will push me to finally ctb. I'm not sure.