Thank you to all for your patient and understanding replies. I have food for thought here. My first post was bristling with anger and frustration, and I'm glad to see it's been edited to take the cussing out - I'm really fairly civilised as a rule. I'm not bipolar, but I do bounce from the state I was in when I posted yesterday - angry, barely lucid, increasingly contemplating suicide or disappearance into vagrancy, brimming with self-hatred and on the verge of panic - and the state I'm in now - burnt-out, exhausted and almost mellow if you approach me right....The situation with my therapy was that a six-week block was paid for by my employer (good employers), but now it's over there is no way I can afford to carry on. I have seen my doctor a couple of months ago, and I'm on the local health service waiting list for state-financed therapy/counselling. But I may have to wait six months for that....so I'm here looking for other ways to help myself.   I shall make a start on the program this very night (night here in England!) whilst I'm not in a frenzy of self-contempt and hopelessness. I shall also go back to my doctor. I didn't feel suicidal when I saw him before, and if I have the courage to tell him now, he might be able to speed up some more professional help for me, and prescribe something to balance me enough to work rationally on my state of mind and spirit.

This community feels good. Feels like friends. I suffer from social anxiety and don't have any personal friends, so it's good to come here and hide behind the anonymity of the web. And my jokes? Nowhere near joking yet I'm afraid.

Breanne, Bilingual Health Educator

Hi byblion,

Welcome and I appreciate your willingness to share your feelings so openly with us.  Most of us here have contemplated suicide and can relate - I even typed letters one night when I was so down I could hardly stand it.  I didn't do it because as much as I hate it that my son has a Mom with depression I couldn't word his letter well enough to explain why I'd leave him.  I couldn't come up with a reason that would suffice for the permanent condition our relationship would always be in.  Even if I could word it well I had no guarantee that he would understand.  So even though I am defective and he knows it, giving up would not be better.  He may have my issues and what kind of example would I be if I decided not to go on.  Do I want that for him? NOOOOOOOOOOOO! And so I battle, I still am in pain and find it unbearable but sometimes I must look beyond me - for him I will.  I pray every day that God will keep me from making that decision, but it lurks close.