In some forms of depression, bipolar or other, a person can plunge into a delusional state. I know of one person who did that and wound up walking along a road in the rain, in her PJs, mumbling to herself. She was picked up and hospitalized and brought out of the delusional state within short order.
There are times in depression when things get real dark and ‘strange’ thoughts can drift through a person’s mind that can seem both real and unreal. I have experienced one episode, in all my years of depression, where it seemed like, for most of a day, I moved through a dream and that scared me. Apparently the episode was brought on by a high level of stress which I had allowed to build up by reluctantly getting involved in a family situation. Shortly after, my medication doctor increased my medication and there has not been another episode.
If the lady you are talking about is not in therapy, then she needs to be there. Her high potential for suicide is a good indication of that. You, and her family, need to know that A: Therapy is a custom field in that if you do not like one therapist, you get another. B: If the medication she is on is causing her problems, then the doctor needs to know and it can be changed. (I went through something like 8 different types including combinations of more than one until I found Paxil, for me, was sufficient.) C: Medication ALONE IS NOT SUFFICIENT. It needs to be combined with seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist. (Sometimes, a persons medical doctor will prescribe an antidepressant by himself, without benefit of a psychiatrist. This doesn’t always work well because, as excellent as your medical doctor may be, he/she is NOT a psychiatrist.)
She might need to be admitted to a mental hospital for intense therapy and observation for a period of time ranging from 2 or three days to a week or so. Currently, many mental hospitals concentrate on NOT looking like the old, scary television images of State hospitals and many work towards limited time in hospitalization.
Make sure she is taking her medication. Many of us depressives get so damn tired of taking the stuff, especially if we get tired of waiting to feel better or it has side effects we dislike. Some of us just get tired of taking the pills. Unfortunately, with many of the medications, unless they are stopped slowly, there are withdrawal symptoms and often a depressive doesn’t realize just how well the pills are working until he goes off of them.
A basic symptom of depression is the feeling of abject hopelessness, in that one will often feel that NOTHING is EVER going to change and that the mental and physical energy needed to continue getting better is just NOT THERE and it seems that the fight has gone on for SO long and often, suicide seems like a viable option to end the distress and general crappy feelings. There are times when it seems like nothing the person does to get better seems to work and, remember, the person is usually looking at the world in shades of depression gray NOT normal Technicolor.
One day the person can feel great and feel the ‘energy’ and hope of getting better and look up out of the ‘grayness’ of their normal existence and see the brightness of life about them and, without any warning, hours later, THAT feeling ‘SNAPS’ off and they plunge into the darkness again. Now, that can be a real drag, but those are manic episodes and they feel good and they allow the depressive person to see and feel what they have lost. THAT is what often makes the depression so bad, that GLIMPSE of what was and COULD be again.
Us ‘older’ depressives get used to those ‘snaps’, knowing that when we feel REALLY GOOD, that within a certain period of time, we’re going to feel really bad and we’re prepared for it. Medication eventually helps us level out those really high and really low periods.
Getting out of depression is often akin to climbing an enormously high ladder. You start in the bottom in the darkness and have to go up rung by rung. Frequently, you might slip down 4 or 5 and have to climb up them all over again and it can take a long time, but depression is, in many, if not most cases, curable and if not, then it is manageable to where the person can live a mainly normal life.
Still, it sucks when you are in it. In a way, I’m lucky because I’m legally disabled, certified nuts by the State and Federal government and have family and a small income to help me out. I don’t have to deal with the pressures of a job, working with others, worrying about lack of rent (I live in a separate apartment attached to a family members’ home) or having my power cut off.
Trying to work with my form of depression would be a nightmare, especially with the attendant other conditions. (By the way, a depressive is often Obsessive Compulsive, and THAT nice little condition can be extremely frustrating and scary to one who does not under stand it. Medication controls and virtually eliminates it.)
A last comment here: therapy. If she is not in it, then get her a psychiatrist or psychologist and get it going.
What? Me worry?’