While we’re talking about clinical depression, does anyone know of good resources for questions, or somewhere they can just be discussed? I have dozens of questions about it, but where does one turn?
To all: I know that my life will not always be in that dark, lonely place I was in, but when I said that my life would always be like this I meant that the choices I made, or didn’t make, while in the throes of depression will haunt me the rest of my life. It will be a chronic disease, and it will influence everything I do from now on. I have no insurance, so I can’t shop around for the best therapist, but have to take what I can get.
Lady Mondegreen: You know, I have wondered about that–both my kids have ADD, and I have about zero ability to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. I used to play in chess tournaments, and while my friends could sit at the board for hours, I was lucky to sit there long enough to make the next move.
Holy crap. I just read the list of symptoms on the above link, and I have, like, half of them! So that’s where my kids get it from!
I just went on wellbutrin yesterday. It’s funny, I never knew that I was depressed.
Sometimes you don’t, because you are so used to feeling that way, that you think it’s normal.
I was able to do so once and I only came clean about it because I switched employers and needed to have my new insurance cover pre-existing conditions. So I told my HR person about it so she could help me. In the year that I worked there before I got laid off, she never once mentioned it or looked down on me for it.
And I appreciate you starting this thread - you can’t even know what amazing timing you have, Zoe I’ve just realized that I need to go back to my doctor and get my anti-depressants, even if I need to pay for them out of my own pocket. I’ve been off of my anti-depressant for about nine months now, but that was a mistake from the beginning. My depression has been bad for the past six months, but I’ve been able to ignore it by self-medicating with alcohol, weed, and prescription painkillers for a horseback riding accident. I keep asking myself what’s going to happen when I’m not taking the painkillers anymore (And I have been taking them as prescribed and for a legitimate reason for the past few weeks, but they have an added side effect of happiness - they affect the seratonin in the brain - they aren’t even very strong, but they cover up my unhappiness well - when I don’t take them, I can feel myself sinking back into my darkness ), and I know it’s not going to be pretty. The long and short of it is that I’m afraid. I don’t want to be sad, I don’t want to feel worthless, I don’t want to be lonely (and I’m not alone…I have a wonderful SO who’s always there for me via email, IM, or telephone, I have parents who love me, my brother and sister-in-law, my cats, friends, cousins, family). But I’m scared. My SO has seen me through one major incident, and he stayed with me, he promised to stay with me, but I’m afraid that the next incident, whenever it may be, will be the one that makes him leave me. And while I know in my head that this won’t happen, there’s a tiny part of me that keeps saying “He will. You know he will.”.
But after reading this, I realize again that it’s time to stop making excuses, it’s time to stop self-medicating, and it’s time to go back and get a cure for my illness. I hope I haven’t thread-jacked - that wasn’t my intention at all - it just helped to get this all down in words, and to thank you for making me realize that my depression is not my fault and it can be helped.
As far as everyone else who deals with this stuff, you’re in my thoughts. This is a shitty disease.
Ava
I respect that you have all shared your stories about depression. Even though it doesn’t alleviate the bad feelings, it makes me feel better to know that I’m not the only one who’s been through it. I’ve tried most of the medications and counseling. Right now I’m on Lexapro, Wellbutrin and Xanax. I’ve been bad about taking the Wellbutrin and Lexapro due to side effects. Next week I go talk to my psychiatrist, and hopefully she’ll recommend something else that works.
What is Effexor like? I haven’t tried it, but I’ve heard it’s good for anxiety/panic attacks.
Payne, maybe it’s worth checking out the ADD angle. From the stuff I’ve read, a lot of ADD folks (especially women, in which ADD goes largely undiagnosed) are diagnosed as depressive instead, and don’t understand why things don’t get better on the antidepressants (unless they’re taking Wellbutrin, which does seem to help since it has stimulant effects).
If the ADD is treated, often the person feels better because they can function better, etc., and the depression lifts.
My Dr. got onto the ADD angle with me because I mentioned that as a kid my feelings got hurt easily, and I would cry a lot. She said folks with ADD could have extreme reactions like you were talking about–they can get their feelings hurt at the slightest negative comment, or they can become elated at the simplest compliment.
As for me, the jury’s still out. The best I’ve felt (keep in mind I’m still taking all of the drugs listed above) was on Trileptal, which would suggest more of a Bipolar II disorder. Which apparently also shares symptoms with ADD. Ack.
And the kicker–I have to get my drugs through a mail-order service (only way my benefits cover the drugs). And–do you see this coming?—I keep forgetting to send in the prescriptions!! Ha!! So I keep running out of drugs and the cycle starts again… Fortunately my doctor is very patient with me, and keeps giving me samples when I start feeling really bad.
I swear I’m going to mail that stuff out today…
Effexor is pretty good–it has a sort of calming effect, so I can understand how it works for anxiety. I had been taking it for a while when I went to NYC for the first time with my Mom.
We took a shuttle from LaGuardia to Manhattan and I got to see New York traffic at firsthand. First lesson: in NY, lines painted on the road are more of a general suggestion rather than any sort of legal demarcation of whom should be driving where.
I remember sitting there in a situation where normally I would be freaking out, thinking “Oh look. We nearly swapped paint with that taxi over there. Oh well.”
The thing with Effexor is YOU CANNOT STOP TAKING IT COLD TURKEY. Very important. If you want to quit, you have to taper it off. I’ve had occasions where I’ve forgotten two days in a row and I start having symptoms.
I’ve heard the symptoms described as “brain shivers” and that seems to be what I have. Imagine having a long, closed container half filled with sand. Tip it back and forth and you feel and hear the sand shifting. Now, imagine that going on in your head everytime you cut your eyes or turn your head from side to side. Not painful, but weird. Also, I would have problems with lightheadedness.
Not to scare you, I think it’s a good drug; you just need to be careful w/ it. YMMV.
This other message board seems fairly well known . .
Excellent and supportive thread. Thanks.
I’ve been depressed much of my life. I remember being depressed before I started grade school. I remember feeling sad when my grandfather died, too, and that felt different from my normal sadness & anxiety.
Anyway, I used to be one of those high functioning depressed people. I pushed myself through and English MA and a library school degree. I pushed myself into what I thought was my dream job and a literature bibliographer at an Ivy League school. And somewhere along the way, I’ve lost the ability to push.
I think related to that, my memory is severely compromised, as well, whether by the depression or the anxiety or both. There were times in my life I could see the pages of what I’d read in my head – not a true photograhic memory, but an excellent memory. Now, I have to keep a diary where I write down what I did each day just so I can feel like I lived in the day. If I don’t write down stuff like, “Did dishes, played with dog, watched Buffy” I will have absolutely no recollection of my non-work time after a day or two has passed. This scares the shit out of me. It’s like I’m not there in my life.
And, you can image that work is hard to do, too, with such a compromised memory. I try to write stuff down…but sometimes I forget to do that.
This all sounds bad. It is. I admit it. But I’m on a new SSRI, seeing a therapist again after a year’s hiatus, and am trying to confront issues I’ve chosen (because of the anxiety involved) not to deal with at or, or effectively in the past few years.
For me, recovering from depression is constantly waking up and I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON!
I was diagnosed with [ur=l"http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20-md04.html"]Dysthymia (aka Double Depression) after a second bout with suicidal thoughts but it was the first time I had made an attempt. In my case, the disorder isn’t severe enough to warrant medication. My mood does hit some serious lows about every 4½ years, one of those low points put me in the psych ward of a local hosptial for a couple of weeks. That couple of weeks and about a month afterwards was the only time I’ve ever been on medication.
Lady Mondegreen, It’s interesting that you bring up Wellbutrin as helping with ADD. That’s what I’m on, and if anything, I’m worse. I can’t get motivated to do anything I need to do, like write this paper that’s due in two weeks. I just couldn’t care less, although I’ll hate myself if I don’t get it done.
Hmmm. I don’t think it’s an absolute guarantee that Wellbutrin will help ADD, though apparently it has shown some success.
Did I mention IANAD? 
Obviously, you should check w/ your doc, or do a little more online research, but it may just be you need to up your dosage of Wellbutrin, or try a stimulant like Adderall.
Once again, in case you didn’t catch it, IANAD. But I do take a buttload of prescription drugs. Good luck!
I’m already near the maximum dosage of wellbutrin, so maybe something like adderal might help. It really helped my kids, practically overnight.
lel, I’m told that alt.support.depression is a pretty good place, if you do usenet. Its FAQs are available at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-support-depression/faq/ .
There’s also a community intended to mirror asd somewhat on livejournal (called “crapweasels”), but it has very low activity (perhaps because I don’t think it’s ever had more than a half-dozen members).
It’s complicated, innit?
Payne - I was 30 years old when I was finally diagnosed with depression and put on SSRIs - first Paxil, then (currently) Zoloft. At that point I was in the middle of a fourth major depressive episode.
I can’t say I’ve made a 100% recovery, but it’s higher than 10% for sure.
Well, 30 is still pretty young… Hey, I never said it was impossible, I’m just saying what I heard on another message board. And it depends what you mean by cured. I would say it means you never need the drugs again. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll fall into that category, because, even with the drugs, I still feel depressed. I just don’t care as much.
Now that I’ve ruined any chance of hitting it off with my fellow Dopers, I’ll shut up.
I made an appointment to see a shrink today.
If I had to self-diagnose I would say A-ADD causing mild depression. I am sure I had ADD as a child, but it was not recognized then so it went undiagnosed.
Thanks again all.
I just figured out what you are saying. :smack:
I meant that only 10% of people meet the standards for a cure, i.e. they need no meds, and have no more depression. I myself am a lot better than I was a month ago, but will I ever be as if I had no depression? I doubt it.
And the more I think about it, the more I think I may have a mild case of ADD.