u/LyraeMoon

I (29F) am wildly uncomfortable with people being kind or helping me. Every time I start to feel attached to someone, I start worrying I somehow manipulated them into liking me and that when they realise, they will reject me. This is worse than never allowing myself to be cared about or supported in the first place, so I push people away. I have struggled with crippling low self worth for a very long time.

I’ve had various short stints of talking type therapy over time. There were helpful elements but nothing ever really changed.

Then I met my last therapist. She just somehow seemed to know me, in a way nobody, therapist or otherwise, ever had before. She helped me realise the patterns I described above, which I had never made sense of before. Seeing her soothed my soul, and I just somehow opened up and trusted her automatically. So naturally, this triggered the “I’m going to lose her” panic alarm. She noticed me close off and asked, so I discussed it with her, embarrassed though I was. She said we could keep working together so that eventually I might learn it is safe to rely on someone emotionally when you need to - that not everyone will abandon you just because you need help sometimes (aka are a burden temporarily). Still I struggled with the thoughts that she was secretly fed up of me and didn’t want to see me anymore. She told me that if I pushed through this, there would come a time when I truly no longer felt scared of not seeing her anymore, because I would have shown myself that it is okay to be helped by someone and if you let yourself, you can heal and be stronger and ready. I desperately wanted to believe her but the opposition was too intense. I stopped.

The grief was as terrible as I feared. But what I didn’t expect was the hurt that came later. I actually felt hurt that she hadn’t somehow tried to stop me from discontinuing our sessions. She was the first person to ever get close to helping me believe it was safe to accept help and be cared for by others. But insitead, she reinforced the belief that when the chips are down - people will abandon you. After some time, I realise she didn’t reinforce that, abandon, or reject me at all. It was *me* and only me who sabotaged the process once again. I am back to feeling thankful for everything she did for me.

My question is, how can I move past this? I thought time would help, and it has. But it has been a year and I still think about her most days. I think I see her in a crowd, wonder if she would remember me if we ever passed each other in the street. Every time something knocks me I miss her so badly. I even have dreams that something bad happened to her. This feels wrong, is this an unhealthy obsession? Im not stalking her or anything, but I just feel like it’s the worst breakup I’ve ever had, which is concerning given I recently broke up with my partner of 8 years (probably testament to the healthiness of that relationship lol).

My mental health has been on the decline again, and I’m having low-intensity CBT on the NHS. It’s not helping and making me feel like I blew the one chance I had to heal.

How can I move on? And what type of therapy might be able to help me heal my attachment problems?

TW for brief, non-detailed mentions of SI & SH

Is this normal? I feel I’ve fallen between the cracks (or chasms) in the system and don’t know where to turn.

I was prescribed quetiapine almost ten years ago by an NHS psychiatrist. No diagnosis, just for “labile mood” (low dose). I would veer from rational, struggling badly but trying to help myself, engaging with treatment, to no control over my actions like I wasn’t even me. Impulsive reckless behaviour, self harm, multiple overdoses with no care if I lived or died. Completely detached from myself in those episodes. I had no idea how this could happen or why it was happening.

It helped. I got myself to a better place over a couple of years, came off SSRI but was too scared to come off Queti in case that was the thing holding me together and I didn’t want to lose the life I had rebuilt. This lasted about 5ish years. The GP kept my prescription going with no reviews, no monitoring, I only found out I was supposed to have yearly bloods years later after moving to a new practice.

Fast forward and I’ve been on the decline again for the past few years. Some GPs I’ve seen said they wouldn’t alter the queti because a psychiatrist should do that, then eventually I saw a GP who increased my dose. That worked for a while, then didn’t. He increased it again, no help. Added an SSRI again, helped for a bit, then didn’t. Added buspirone (anxiolytic). I stopped going back to the GP after begging for help again and just getting told they couldn’t change my meds anymore because it wasn’t working and signed me off work instead. It feels like as soon as I wasn’t an imminent threat to myself anymore, to them it was problem solved and they don’t care that I’m still just surviving each day, feeling more and more hopeless that anyone can ever help me.

Talking Therapies say I’m not right for their service (3 separate times) a neighbourhood team referral last year was rejected (not unexpected but how am I supposed to get help?) I’m now wondering whether the meds are doing more harm than good. I’m in such a deep depression now and my life is unraveling. I’m on review at work, I am failing uni, and I have withdrawn from my friends for so long they’ve given up on me. Last night I self harmed for the first time in years, out of nowhere. I wrote letters. I made plans. The sad thing is I don’t want to do this, I just can’t keep going forever with no help. I called 111, they said to call my GP the next day. I can’t bring myself to do that again, I just feel I’m wasting their time if they can’t help.

I feel like a passenger in my own life, asking for help, wanting to get better, but forced to just watch things fall apart all over again. The hopelessness is seeping into my bones now, and it’s agony.

Sorry for super long post. TL;DR:

If you have come off quetiapine, did your GP help you taper or did you have to see a psychiatrist? Any advice greatly appreciated.