u/fraidybug

tw si mention spoilered

my parents are helping me survive rn by bringing me food and water and meds. but they won’t help me take care of my hygiene and i don’t really want them to either because of the humiliation of it. all im capable of is sitting in the tub and letting water run over me for a few minutes once a week right now. i can lazily brush my teeth with an electric toothbrush once a week too, also in the tub because i can’t stand at the sink.

i use bathroom wipes on my armpits and genitals whenever i can, about every other day or every three days. i change clothes once a week. i’m disgusting and >!i want to kill myself out of shame over how disgusting i am.!<

i cannot afford a full time caretaker nor do i have the energy to go through that application process and i don’t think they’d believe me anyways. what are my options to hire someone professional to help bathe me once a week? even once every other week? is that possible? i’m scared and ashamed and humiliated and disgusting. i just want to be clean. i miss having the agency to wash my body.

edit: thank u for all the advice, im sorry i dont have the mental energy to respond to everyone rn but im reading them when i can. thank you ❤️‍🩹

i can’t handle fighting just for the unknown possibility of getting better bc if i’m going to suffer like this forever i don’t want any part of it, i don’t want to keep fighting, it’s not right or fair. i wish god or whatever would give me a very clear sign that it’s going to get much better or it won’t, so i know if it’s worth even fighting for. this is not living, this is barely even surviving anymore

how do you even accept this life?

i developed CFS in 2022 after getting Covid and then it suddenly got significantly worse a year ago, which i suspect was due to another infection, but who even cares what caused it, it’s here now. my life is at rock bottom. i live with my parents and can no longer work a job or even engage in my (low physical exertion) hobbies. i am crashing all the time, every week. pacing is not possible for me in my current situation. i have no partner and only 3 friends, and only 1 of them has the ability to visit me irl and that’s only if i’m feeling well enough to leave the house. i am constantly trying to catch up on a never ending pile of chores because even simple hygiene tasks i used to do daily are too exhausting now. i shower once a week, brush my teeth once a week too, haven’t washed my bedding or done any other cleaning in months. as soon as i feel well enough to do a task i do it and then crash and more tasks build up. i cry every day about this. i can’t accept that i’m going to be like this the rest of my life. i don’t know how it could possibly get better unless i somehow get into a relationship with one of my 3 friends and they become a caretaker.

how do you even come to terms with it? how do you accept it? i just can’t do it. i miss my life, i miss being a person.

title says it. i don’t have the strength to type it all again. things are very bad. i have nobody. i don’t know how to keep going .i dont know if i want to

EDIT: i’m sorry, i realize now that i was wrong and naive. i didn’t know all of this stuff, i apologize. i am still learning about this. i really thought maybe there was a way. i’m sorry and i realize i was wrong. i also used the incorrect terminology and im very sorry, i meant hypomania not mania. thank you and i really apologize for my mistakes.

first off i'm sorry if this has been answered or i'm doing something wrong, i read the rules but this is my first time here and i'm just looking for assistance while i wait for my psychiatrist appointment in a few weeks.

i was recently (a year ago) made aware that my psychiatrist believes i have bipolar type II and has been treating me for it under the guise of major depressive disorder treatment for about a decade since i seemed extremely averse to the idea of being diagnosed with bipolar (which is true, and i have told her several times i didn't want any more official diagnoses on my record, so imo she was doing the correct thing or i would've probably been in a lot of danger when i was younger. anyways this isn't about that)

i went off my meds* at the end of 2024 (with guidance) after being on them since puberty. in the first half of 2025 i had my first unmedicated mania basically ever and it was amazing. i did not do anything risky, my mania was not a bad thing for me, i actually felt happy for the first time in my life instead of just numb, i got so much work done, i felt like life was actually worth living for the first time in my entire boring miserable life. my psychiatrist was not worried because i was not doing anything risky.

however i crashed really hard at the end of the year and have been in the worst depression of my entire life for the past 10 months. i won't go into details bc it's not necessary but it is extremely bad and simply not safe for me to be unmedicated like this any longer.

i am REALLY scared of going back on antidepressants because i felt like they dulled my entire life to the point where i was a robot with severe brain fog and no personality. now that i've had unmedicated mania and felt a desire to live for the first time in my life i don't know how i can go through life knowing i've squashed the possibility of having that again. but all the bipolar treatments i look up tackle either JUST mania, or both depression AND mania. i completely understand that mania is bad for most people, but even my psychiatrist didn't feel it was dangerous for me. is there really no way to only treat the depressive episodes? i don't want to live a life of dull nothingness, but i also can't handle a year or more of severe suffering for little blips of happiness every once in a while either. is there no middle ground?

sorry for ranting, i have nobody to talk to about this. i feel very lost and confused and i'm scared that i have to choose between euphoria AND suffering, or complete numbness.

* MEDS:
meds i was on at the time that i quit: zoloft, zyprexa, abilify
meds i have tried in the past: wellbutrin, topamax, i think seroquel, i think citalopram, i think gabapentin, xanax. i say i think because it has been over a decade and i have extreme memory loss from being on meds
meds i'm on right now: klonopin, adderall (neither for bipolar)