I am, it seems, experiencing some mental aberrations. I've ranted and raved at friends. I've been rude and even cruel to some who didn't deserve it. I've been experiencing wild swings in my emotions, laughing one minute, crying uncontrollably the next.

There have been some upheavals in my life recently, and there are more to come, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to deal with some of them.

I'll be speaking to my therapist/counselor tomorrow, and based on what she thinks, I might check myself in for observation. I no longer feel myself capable of dealing with life and it's slings and arrows. I really don't know what's wrong with me, and it's beginning to frighten me.

I want to say that its only been the friendship, generosity, and love of all of you, that has enabled me to come this far in my transition. Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be enough, as I find myself slowly slipping back into the clinical depression I experienced some years ago.

I know I am not unique in suffering from depression, but as it must seem to all who suffer from it, I feel like the only one. I feel very lost and alone, and so frightened of what the future is going to be for me with no job and no means of support, as well as the loss of a supportive group of people at work who were completely behind me in encouraging me to begin my real life test next month.

Now I am faced with losing all I have worked so hard and carefully to build up, through no fault of my own, and I have been crying, off and on, for the last few days.

My only real hopes rest on the possibility of getting Social Security Disability and being able to draw my Social Security Retirement benefits a little early. If either or both of those things fall through, or if I am forced to leave my present, minimum wage, part time job, I might as well just surrender myself to the tender mercies of the county mental health system and let them try to do whatever they can to help me.

I do NOT want any of you to offer me ANY financial assistance or anything like it! I will refuse any such offers out of hand. It's not that I wouldn't appreciate it. Its more that it would seem, to me, to be the final nail in the coffin of what little is left of my self respect.

I wish there was some other way out of this, but I can't see one.

If I vanish from the internet for awhile, I do NOT want any of you to worry overmuch about me. I will, I'm sure, be in the hopefully capable hands of mental health professionals who will do all they can for me.

Who knows? This might all turn out to be a bad dream, or those bar-b-que wings I had a few nights ago, coming back to haunt me...or some kind of really weird PMS thing. All I know for certain is that I feel incredibly wrong and hopeless and, as I said before, lost and alone.

God bless ALL of you and keep you safe if I have to go away for awhile. I will be thinking of you, and praying for your health and other good stuff.

I WILL update tomorrow (Friday) if I am able to do so. If I don't, I will be safe within the mental health system here.

Don't forget me.

I'm off now to do some more crying. It seems to be the one thing I can do well right now.

Love and hugs,
Catherine Linda Michel