I’ve suffered from clinical depression on and off since I was ~10. There’s a high incidence of depression on Dad’s side of the family, and of suicide on Mom’s. I would classify my previous episodes as moderate.
Last May, I graduated from law school and moved to a city where I don’t know anyone. I began a demanding job at a corporate law firm last September.
Around Thanksgiving, I stopped taking pleasure in any of my usual hobbies. I began to suffer from a lack of motivation. I could not make myself do the things I need to do to take care of myself: take out the garbage, change lightbulbs, do laundry, etc. I began to come home from work every day and sit in front of the television in a stupor. I did just enough to make sure that no one from the outside world could tell something was wrong.
Right after Christmas, I was MIA from work for several days. I called in with the stomach flu, but in truth, the problem was that I could not get out of bed.
A week later, I had a severe cold sore outbreak (sores inside my mouth and all over my lips) that was probably caused by extreme stress.
My memories of events since then are a little fuzzy. I know I had a big blow-up with a longtime friend that I discussed on these boards. It was serious, but my emotional reaction to it was extreme. I remember crying uncontrollably in my car, convinced that I was going to die alone, unloved and friendless. I felt cut off and disconnected from other people.
Two weeks ago, my stress level at work increased. I was given a number of assignments by difficult-to-work-with lawyers; all of them required me to learn new skills ASAP. I began to have panic attacks in my office and in the car on the way to work in the morning. I began to suffer an almost complete inability to concentrate; sometimes, I literally could not read. I had to work 14 hour days to rack up 8 billable hours; the other 6 hours were spent in a useless stupor in my office.
I began to feel like a zombie in my own body, like there was a blanket between me and the rest of the world. Talking to people and making myself coherent was so difficult and painful that I would grit my teeth.
I was convinced I was going to be fired because of my incompetence. Yet no one noticed. In fact, my work was praised, and my semi-annual review was completely positive. When they told me this, instead of feeling good, I thought I would be sick to my stomach. I felt like I was invisible.
Then I started having uncontrollable thoughts about suicide. When I’d go into the garage in the morning, I would think about closing the door, turning on the car, and exiting peacefully. I wondered who would find me, and how long it would take. I found myself sitting in lunch meetings at work, eating pizza and making a mental list of all the ways to kill myself that I could implement with things in my very own apartment. Meanwhile, my colleagues learned about cost-effective legal research. While sitting in my office during my “spells”, I imagined throwing myself out my office window (I work 30+ stories up).
Fortunately, I have a good therapist who got me in to see a psychiatrist ASAP. I started taking 300 mg of Wellbutrin a week and a half ago. I am no longer having the uncontrollable suicide fantasies, and I don’t feel so incredibly unhappy, but I’m still having problems with concentration and lack of energy. Work still takes so much effort. At the end of one very stressful day, I realized I was actually panting as I struggled to finish drafting a simple affidavit.
I told my supervisor in confidence and am taking some time off of work. The bigwigs have been very good to me–they told me to get well and not worry about anything else (i.e., I still have my job and I’m still being paid). My best friend, who lives in California, is flying out to see me at the end of this week at her own expense to help me clean my apartment, which looks like a trash dump. I finally told my parents, and my mother has told me that all I have to do is ask, and she will come stay with me–she has lots of vacation and comp time saved up. Even my dad, whom I have hitherto considered a complete emotional retard, surprised me with his attempts to reach out and comfort me.
But I still don’t feel like myself, and I am starting to be afraid that I will never, ever feel normal again. I have always had incredible self-control, and now I feel like my whole life is out of control, and that I’m teetering on the brink of disaster (financial and emotional).
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about clinical depression and anti-depressants lately. And a lot of what I read is disheartening. Medications don’t always resolve all the symptoms. Prolonged use can lead to tolerance, which results in a need for increased doses, and sometimes the drug simply stops working for you. Many of the medications cause drowsiness, and a sleepy lawyer is not a good thing. I read “Prozac Backlash” and now live in fear of brain damage and long-term side-effects like tardive dyskinesia. I’m 25. I picture myself taking drug after drug, each one working for a time and then failing on me, and ending up at age 40 in the same place I am now. SSRIs can cause weight gain and loss of orgasm; I’ve gained 40 pounds during this depression, and damnit, orgasm is sometimes the only pleasurable thing I’ve got left.
When I told my therapist I went to Harvard Law School, she congratulated me. And I burst into tears. I don’t see a bright future for me anymore. I see a mountain of student and consumer debt and the cold, hard fact that I may be unable to practice law–that I may have to choose financial ruin just to save my sanity.
I really want to get married and have kids someday. But now I wonder–who would want to marry someone who’s seriously mentally ill? Probably no one I’d want to marry! And it would probably be selfish and irresponsible to pass on this misery to my children.
My point: I really need to hear from people out there who have had it this bad and gotten better. I need to hear that what I’m doing–the therapy, the medication–will eventually work. Especially if there are lawyers out there who have coped with this, because of the intense intellectual demands and high-stress nature of this profession. I need to hear that I can be cured, or at least send this sickness into remission.
'Cause if I don’t get back to feeling normal, I don’t see the point of going on. The glimmer of hope is really the only thing that’s keeping me going.
Sorry this was so long. Thanks in advance for any responses.