Good point. People have to be open to doing their own research and using meds in unconventional ways. I know someone who had horrible night terrors that were not even dealt with by powerful narcotics. It was ultimately an antihistamine, cyproheptadine, that helped her.
I think it’s a little irresponsible to recommend that people self-medicate without a doctor’s supervision. Even Tylenol can hurt you if taken at the wrong time and with the wrong combination of other drugs.
I understand getting frustrated, but I think the frustration should be channeled into finding a new doctor or therapist who is willing to listen and try new treatments, not to hit the OTC aisle yourself and start trying things.
Let me check in with the following: There is a way through.
The wife and I both dealt with our own demons and psychological scars. We’ve both had many different medications, and have both had therapy in addition to pull through.
I am symptom and medication free. Took three years to get there.
Wife was completely symptom free then undertook some SERIOUS stress in a hobby (really. Won’t go there, it’s too long a story). Her symptoms are completely managed with the medication she’s on now. Her commitment is now winding down to a close. It’s anyone’s guess if she’ll relax, or take it to the next level. (High level leardership in a nationwide volunteer organization) At any rate, you can deal with chronic depression if you stick with it long enough and find out what works for you.
Oh, mine is a prescription. I didn’t read deltasigma’s post as advocating self-medicating, just doing research. My doctor always asks me if I have any ideas, and takes them into consideration.
She didn’t selfmedicate. If you search on the name you will see that it is Rx only. It was prescribed by her psychiatrist.
The idea is to do your own research and discuss the ideas with your shrink. If you have one that isn’t open to experimentation when you have unsuccessfully tried many other therapies, then you need a new shrink.
edit: precisely so - thank you Ms. P.
I’ve struggled with depression and schizophrenia and who knows what else for a long time. After years of feeling bad, going without help, and, um, self-medication, I finally decided to get help.
For the past little while, things have been going well for me, and I’ve been feeling not so sad. I fear, though, that I’m slipping back into feeling bad.
Also, mental illness runs rampant on my mother’s side of the family. My mother recently had a breakdown - lost her mind for the third time in her life, and ended up in the psych ward again. Every day, I fear, I know, that I could just lose my mind. Start talking nonsense and making no sense to anyone. Behave even more weirdly than usual to everyone I know - and perhaps not even know it. The thought scares the shit out of me.
So… if I ever get more weird than I usually am here on the Dope, could someone please notify me? Thanks.
hugs to everyone else in this thread.
I wonder if meditation can help deal with depression. I’ve heard great things about transcendental meditation but its price tag is a bit questionable.
I went through a significant period of depression about two years ago when I went off Zoloft cold turkey. It sucks and anyone who tells you to just get over it has never really felt real depression. But I’ve also begun to wonder if all this problem I’ve had with depression wasn’t caused by the medication I’ve been put on to begin with. I’ve always had issues with OCD and that’s why I was put on Zoloft initially. And it helped to a great deal. But to make a long story short, I’ve been off and on these meds since my early 20s and for the greater part of my 30s. I’ve been fairly stable but then, when I go off the meds, I get punched in the gut with this awful, evil depression. Didn’t want to get out of bed. Wouldn’t care if I just died in my sleep. Awful.
So I’m struggling with depression too. And whether that’s due to me taking the medication or stopping it or whatever doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is dealing with this depression if and when it comes back. With OCD - as hard as the symptoms are to overcome - there are techniques that can be done to ease them. But with depression, it’s like a boulder is sitting on your soul. Even if you try to distract yourself by reading, it’s not possible because you have no energy or concentration. But maybe with meditation some tools can be developed to ease these awful feelings so that life can be a bit more livable – for those folks who don’t take medication (for whatever reason) or those for whom no medication might work.
I’ve made a personal decision to get off of medication and it’s not an easy decision by any stretch. Nor would I ever tell anyone else to consider doing what I’m doing. If your meds are working, stick with them. This is just my own personal decision and I want off. I’m sick of the side effects. And if I’m right that the depression was just a discontinuation symptom and not a “relapse” (into a condition I never had before ever taking Zoloft) and I can live medication and symptom free, why not try it?
The problem I have with the psychiatric profession is that they just throw medication at everything. It’s probably due to a number of factors, but when insurance won’t pay for therapy these professionals really have no choice but to push these medications instead of offering therapy that only rich people can afford to pay for. I don’t think that a person grieving a loss in the family should be put on medication. I think that medication should only be a last resort thing for the most stubborn, debilitating depression. I think that if someone has suffered a tragedy, therapy would do better than to throw chemicals in the brain that even the experts don’t know exactly how it’s working. I wish that I had been put in intensive cognitive-behaviorial therapy before ever trying Zoloft. Maybe I would have been a happy person right now instead of a fatso with bad teeth and almost no sex drive. It would have at least been worth a try.
This whole episode and discussion has gotten me interested in this whole depression matter. Very obviously there is something wrong with the brain of a depressed person. But I don’t think there is any definitive conclusion about what that is. For a long time, it’s been a “chemical imbalance.” Now, I’ve just read a theory about something to do with synapses between cells, etc. Whatever it is, people with depression need relief and the stupid advice of “just get over it” is useless and even offensive. But maybe (whether one takes medication or not), there might be some techniques to help a depressed person get out of bed in the morning instead of lying there and rotting away in pain. Meditation? Learning how to replace negative thoughts with more positive ones? Maybe there is a method and someone just hasn’t found it yet. After all, I’m sure people with OCD type of illnesses once didn’t have CBT to help them with their symptoms either and were thought to be hopeless.
Does this mean you are planning on seeking help, or that you have seen a doctor, and are feeling bad in spite of it? If you were prescribed something, it may just be that you need a dosage tweak.
Maybe it’s time to see a professional before you slip too far. I should have taken this advice- I always think I’ll “snap out of it”, so I put off seeing the doctor until I’m a near-suicidal mess. :rolleyes:
Can you be more specific about what you mean by “sticking with it”? Do you mean just weathering the storm until the depression finally passes? Did you try some kind of cognitive therapy to teach yourself how to think more positively?
I’m interested in learning more about how you overcame this.
Well I think I can speak for everyone here when I say, whoever figures it out first better be sharing with the rest of us!
I used CBT to good effect. I mean: When the medication is correct, it helps. If you’re taking medication and it doesn’t appear to be doing it for you, see the Doctor again. Yeah, it’s a pisser titrating off one and on another, but ultimately, when they find the right balance that works for you, it really DOES help.
While I’m not a psychiatrist/psychologist, in my experience: CBT doesn’t make you ‘think more positively’, it helps you recognize that the loop you’re in has no basis in fact and helps you break that habit.
In my case, I was confusing a fear of infidelity with nothing more than panic attacks. I made great strides once I realized that the feelings went away in 20 minutes or so, and they weren’t in any way triggered by my wife.
THIS. I may not accomplish much in a given day, but every single day I get out of bed, and that is a triumph. I may not even get dressed, I may not leave the flat for days at a time, but I’m out of the bedroom and at least part of me is vertical. I may have the urge several times a day to go back to bed and bury my head, but I DON’T. YAY ME!
There were times in my life when I couldn’t even manage that, much less keep looking for work and make passable Christmas presents for the family out of junk mail. I have to be sure to give myself at least some credit for what I DO manage to do, instead of just beating myself up about what I don’t manage.
Most people don’t seem to understand that.
On another website that I inhabited for years, in a forum that incorporated a certain amount of roleplaying, I wore an avatar who has big, fluffy white wings with healing feathers (this lady: http://www.jonathonart.com/beck.html ). I don’t remember how I determined the feathers had healing properties, but from that day I would make sure to give anyone who needed healing a big, fluffy, warm, feathery wing hug. So imagine a pair of big, white, feathery wings wrapping up everyone in this thread in a warm, gentle hug.
It’s never lupus. grins, ducks and runs
The terrible thing about depression, which I’ve only learned recently since having a few good spells from my meds, is that it destroys your ability to learn. That is, when everything feels like dragging boulders uphill and nothing gives you a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, then you can’t tell what’s a good idea and what isn’t. On a good day I feel like my IQ has doubled, because what seemed like hopelessly intractable puzzles before now have solutions come to me like manna from heaven.
Oh, don’t worry too much about me - I should’ve been clearer. I have been getting proper help since about 2008 or so. Thanks for your concern. 
I just want to emphasize again how important support groups can be ESPECIALLY if you’re in a situation where you can’t afford therapy. I’m not saying that this is an adequate substitute by any means, but it IS better than nothing.
Not only that, having a network of people who understand what you’re going through, even if all they can offer you is a hug, can be an invaluable resource. If you’ve never tried, please at least give it a shot.
I mentioned DBSA early in the thread but failed to mention that you can have pretty much any psych issue and still go to their meetings. They’re very open - at least the groups in my area are, you should probably check in advance but I really don’t think they turn anyone away.
Beyond that, check to see if there is a self-help clearing house for your state and give them a call. Here is the site for the national version (which I just found so I don’t know anything about it). They will probably have a web site but there is even more information usually available if you talk to one of the people who’s job it is to match people with available resources.
THIS.
I used to pride myself on how quickly I learned things, but between the memory problems - which I’m afraid may be permanent - the inability to focus, and the low level of energy, learning anything is a huge challenge.
Thanks!
I’ve had depression for about 20 years, since I was about 11. It’s been better and worse but it’s never gone away. I like to keep to myself a lot and it’s a struggle for me to make myself get ready for the day. That’s one thing that’s good about my psycho ass bf, because he makes me do stuff. But he goes too far the other way and is ALWAYS out doing stuff, so he’s mean about me not and calls me an introvert like it’s an insult.
There’s some mental illness in my family. One relative that isn’t close enough for me to know exactly what she is (second cousin or something?) has depression that’s a lot like mine, another has schizophrenia. One aunt is nuts, all paranoid and weird, but has never sought treatment. My mom has a lot of anxiety issues but I don’t know if it would qualify as an actual disorder (but it is enough to make my life really fucking annoying since she has no boundaries with me). My daughter is prone to depression and anxiety too. I never know if that’s just genetic or if it’s my fault because she’s seen me model it.
That was all on my mom’s side. Now, on my dad’s side, they’re all nuts and many of them are drug or alcohol addicts. I have no idea what other things they should or have been diagnosed with.
Not. Cool. :mad:
I had a boyfriend who was always accusing me of being a snob/hating his friends/thinking I was “too good” for other people. He made fun of my social anxiety and would tell people I was scared of them, with me standing right there…
I’m probably projecting, and hopefully you’re just venting and he’s usually a good guy? Because that sounds… not good…
No, he can really be mean. He doesn’t understand social anxiety at all. He NEEDS some social anxiety, seriously. BUT, he has a REALLY vast social network, lots of activities he enjoys, isn’t scared to try new things, etc. And I wouldn’t want to do those things to even half the extent that he does, but I want to more than I do. And he’ll never understand or be supportive of why I don’t just do it then.
That’s really messed up your ex would say that about you right in front of people! Not that it would be okay to say it behind your back either, but in front of you would be really embarrassing. Not to mention counterproductive. Mine didn’t do that, but he used to put me in situations where I looked like I was just being a bitch even though I wasn’t. Like I’d be mad at him for good reason, and he’d come pick me up supposedly so we could talk about it, and then bring his friend along without telling me. His friend would just see me acting all pissed for no reason that he knew of. Anyhoo, that was years ago (the last time we were together) and at least he doesn’t do THAT anymore.