Hi! My name is Blake. I am a 58 year old Gay male. I was diagnosed as having :
1) treatment resistant Chronic Major Depressive Disorder
2) PTSD
3) social anxiety
3b) my ego/self esteem barely exists
4)possessing a classical "Death Wish"
5) grief. I was mum's primary cargiver for three years (24/7) and she died Sept. 9th 2016
6) being treated for Chronic pain ( at times debilitating )
7) a month after month's death I was feeling extremely unwell and went to the ER with my sister. I thought it was a reaction or grief from mum's death. The doc came back a few hours later with a nurse and moved me to a room where the poked me with needles and and intravenous bag. Told me and my sister that I had a "blood/sugar reading of 51 and that I should be in a coma or dead at that level.( I know every country uses a different way of measuring - I am in Canada ) He said that if I had put it off for another couple of days I would either stroke out or have a fatal heart attack. My first thought was " I screwed up. I could be rid of all the pain if only I hadn't allowed my sister to talk me into going to the ER."
8) So the diagnosis was type two Diabetes.
I do see a therapist and she is great, but sometimes she can't seem to understand how difficult choosing "life" has become. So I think that having someone else who was supportive and not someone who decided that being a Listener would somehow make them "cool" - or whatever the comparative term is these days.
On the third of May ( 2017 ) I woke up to find that I couldn't stand up, couldn't breathe and it felt like I was drowning and in intense pain. That's the last thing I remember until waking up in the ICU at the hospital. They stuck tubes into my lungs to draw off fluid - and it was the only way they could diagnose what was wrong with me. Leave it to me to come down with something rare which affects one in every 168,000 people. Acute Interstitial Pneumonitis ( AIP ) has no known cause and no cure. Shocked all the doctors by surviving the first two weeks when most people with this illness don't, and continued to shock them by doing as well as I have done. After six weeks in hospital I am finally home and intend to keep on shocking the doctors. Little scared. And some days it just doesn't feel real. Other days it feels all too real. So I am going to be leaning on all my 35 and over roomies to get me over the weepies when they hit. And encouragement when I feel like giving up.