Depression Forums
General => Welcome our 'NEW MEMBERS'!! => Topic started by: SteveW on October 29, 2011, 07:01:29 PM
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Hi there I'm new to the forum.
I am 61 and was first diagnosed with depression when I was 21 and have lived through 12 or 13 episodes. Mercifully I had
periods of years in between when I was OK so I've had some kind of life. I always followed the Forums advice of getting on
medication as soon as possible and in my early episodes they worked fine. I'd be back to normal inside a few months.
Unfortunately as the years went on the episodes got deeper and the drugs worked less well. I'd find myself having to take 3
or 4 different anti-depressants before something would work. Eventually somewhere around episode 10 in 1998 the drugs
stopped working pretty much altogether and I stayed more or less depressed.
Luckily for me I had good support in the shape of my partner of 30 years who understood depression from back to front and
my father who was pretty good too. I still took anti-depressants but the best I could say was that they stopped me getting
any worse. Unfortunately for me I lost my partner to a heart attack in 2008 and my father 12 weeks ago.
I descended into the mother of all depressions and am struggling to keep my head above water. I'm trying to do this without
any support and living on my own in complete isolation in the middle of rural Lincolnshire. I've obviously resorted to
drugs again Mirtazepine 45 mg and Venlafaxine 225 mg, but without effect so far.
All I would say is that depression is certainly a chemical imbalence and drugs the answer, but the drugs don't always work no
matter how many you try.
Love
Steve Wellam
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I too have suffered depression long term but fortunately each time one drug has started to become ineffective another one has worked for me.
You have suffered two traumatic life events in a relatively short time so its not surprising your depression has returned :(
Have you thought of counselling in conjunction with the drugs stevewellam?
Zaf xx
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I liked counseling so much that I became a psychotherapist and had 4 years therapy as part of my training ! I've had different forms of therapy along the way although not in this episode.
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I think if I was younger and had less commitments I'd train for counselling, it certainly helped me a lot and it would be lovely to e able to do the same for others
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Welcome Steve. I have only been on here a few days and already I can see how wonderful and how this place has helped other people. I'm so sorry to hear about your father and your partner. Life certainly throws us curve balls sometimes. Hope to get to speak to you soon xx
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Welcome Steve Wellam. I am so sorry to learn of the loss of your partner and the loss of your father more recently and extend my sincere condolences. You are going through an extremely difficult time and it is very difficult for you to cope with your depression on top of your grief. You have lost your main frames of support and understanding and you feel overwhelmed and struggling to cope with it all. It is very difficult to cope with this in isolation and I am glad to hear that you have sought the help of your GP and are once again on medication. How long has it been since you recommenced your meds?
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Thanks for your condolences. You are right about depression and grief being hard to cope with together. For example I often hear my father calling out for help in the night which my doctor tells me is normal in grief but feels anything but normal to me. I went on anti-depressants for life years ago but I increased my dose substantially nearly 3 months ago. You'd have thought I would have seen an effect by now.
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I'd have thought you should have felt some improvement by now, possibly time to back to your GP?
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To Bexwa
Thanks for your welcome. I hope you do well on Quetiapine. May you stay awake and your weight remain constant
Love
Steve
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Thanks for your condolences. You are right about depression and grief being hard to cope with together. For example I often hear my father calling out for help in the night which my doctor tells me is normal in grief but feels anything but normal to me. I went on anti-depressants for life years ago but I increased my dose substantially nearly 3 months ago. You'd have thought I would have seen an effect by now.
I'm sorry this is harrowing and torturous for you. I think as Zaf says it would be a good idea to go back to your GP and explain that you are not seeing any effect. I'm sure he would have expected some by now too. You seem to know what to do and even be able to rationalise your experiences which is admirabe but it does not negate how awful it is to live through. I'm sorry you are having to cope with these side effects/symptoms of your illness/grief, it must be truly disturbing for you. Please keep talking here if it helps.
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To Lol
I keep going back to my doctor every two weeks and she keeps increasing my Venlafaxine. But I have this awful feeling that it isn't going to do any good. I was diagnosed with drug resistant depression in 2002. I so envy those on this forum who take one anti-depressant and feel better within 3 weeks. Finding the resources within myself to cope is incredibly difficult and I am not sure I'm going to make it. I feel like I have battled depression for 40 years and am not sure I have the strength to do it again. Even if I do recover I have to completely rebuild my life and I'm not sure I have the strength to do that either.Things seem very bleak indeed at the moment.
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I understand that you are saying that you don't feel you have enough resources to fight this any more. You feel alone, desperate and exhausted. I am not surprised. You have been through and are going through, a truly awful time. You have been fighting for so long and it is just too much to carry on at the moment. Do you have friends and other family around you that you can talk to? Are there any support groups in your area?
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I have no close family and over the years depression has caused me to lose touch with the few friends I had. I have checked for support groups in rural Lincolnshire. There aren't any.
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I have no close family and over the years depression has caused me to lose touch with the few friends I had. I have checked for support groups in rural Lincolnshire. There aren't any.
well were here 24/7 practically :) welcome aboard :)
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Thanks for your comment
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Had another very bad night. Heard the voice of my dead father calling out to me at intervals throughout the night. Did my best to ignore the voice but found it hard. I was his carer for 3 years before he died and I am programmed to respond. Despite my GP assuring me that it is normal I just can't see it that way. A few years ago one of my depressions got so bad that I started hearing voices telling me to kill myself. I am afraid that that is starting up again. I have some anti-psychotic drugs left over from that time and have started to take them again. I have also made an appointment with my GP to see about continuing taking them. I am getting incredibly low about the whole thing, especially about my prospects of recovery. There just seems no end to this.
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Definitely a good idea to see your GP if you're worried about the possiblility of other voices, Ive heard, felt and seen things after a loss so I think he might be right about that
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Hi Steve. My condolences for your troubles, that must be a large sense of loss that you are living through. It is good you have an insight into depression. Keep on looking for good ways to get better.
I am new on this forum, but it has genuinly helped me so far.
Steve
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Thanks for your post Steve. I should have insight into depression after fighting it every 3-4 years throughout my adult life or I'd be a very slow learner. Depression and me are old enemies-I've fought it personally and in my work as a therapist. I only hope I can beat this episode since I'm in the most difficult circumstances I have ever found myself in. At the moment depression is winning but I haven't given up.
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Stevewellam you are indeed fighting this in the most difficult circumstances you have ever had to. Hearing your fathers voice in the night sounds incredibly difficult. I am sorry you are going through this very harrowing experience. I hope you have an understanding GP who can help you through this with appropriate, effective therapy. Is there anything specific we can do for you?
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I wish there was something specific that anyone could do. Just as for depression, the answer to hearing voices is drugs-
just a different class of drugs. I am lucky that I have a residual supply of anti-psychotics that I have started taking and
will get a proper supply when I see my doctor on Friday. Maybe my situation of drug resistant depression and depression so
deep it causes you to hallucinate may be of use to other people on the forum ? It fills in the picture of relatively mild depression
that most people seem to suffer from. To be honest I could do with specific suggestions because other than swallowing pills I am
pretty much at a loss. I do find it useful to post and receive responses as it eases my isolation somewhat.If it is OK by you I'd like
to continue doing that. I hope people will respond however they respond - anything is welcome.
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I wish I could help more but its outside my experience of depression, do keep posting if it helps and hopefully someone will come up with some help or suggestions
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Absolutely Stevewellam, then that's what we'll do. I don't have experience with this level of psychotic depression/disorder, I have had auditory hallucinations following a car crash when I was little, but that's as far as I go. But I understand that it is very difficult for you and am here for you if you want to talk about it.
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Woke up this morning to be greeted by a hallucinatory voice telling me to kill myself. Were it the first time it would have frightened me but since this is the third time I am starting to get used to it. Anti-psychotics get rid of voices and I am already taking what I had left over from the last time. I will have a good look around the house to see if I can find another packet so I can increase the dose pending my visit to the doctor on Friday.What is worrying me is the fact that it means the anti-depressants aren't working yet, but there are plenty of options for drug treatment left. May anyone reading this who suffers from normal depression never have to experience psychotic depression.
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I'm so sorry Stevewellam that was still an awful experience for you and will continue to be so regardless of how many times it happens I'm sure. Could you bring your docs appointment forward from Friday? This sounds like an emergent problem that would warrent a change. Especially if you can't find any more meds.
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My search for drugs produced another nearly full strip so I have enough now to constitute an effective dose until Friday. My doctor is away until Friday and if I see a Locum it will only freak them out so I'll stick with my Friday appointment. The first time I heard voices telling me to kill myself I was frightened but as time wore on I realized I didn't have to follow their advice and they became just a pain in the ass. I'd rather not have them but it is amazing what you can get used to. Trouble is they do indicate that I'm not exactly getting better.
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Yes, indeed. It sounds like there is more than one? Do you hear them all the time? Are there any particular triggers? Is the medication you have found affective in silencing them?
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I am only getting the one voice at the moment, although in the past I have had two voices arguing about me. At my worst in a previous episode I was hearing them all the time. Today I have only heard them 3 times and hopefully the anti-psychotic will stop them getting any worse. So far as I can tell they are completely random-I look on them as my brain misfiring. I use Haloperidol to get rid of them and just keep increasing the dose until they go. The first two times I experienced it it took a couple of dose increases but they went in the end.I have got in early with the Haloperidol this time so hopefully they shouldnt get too bad. I wish the depression would shift as easily.
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It must be a very unsettling experience, especially at first :(
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Gosh yes, in a way it must feel like peeing on a blazing fire. I'm glad you know to ignore them. I have heard advice about engaging with voices if you can't get rid of them. Something about if you acknowlenge them rather than try to ignore them you can learn to block them out? I have no idea really just something I heard. Can you interract with yours? When I heard things I couldn't engange with them, only be aware of what I could hear and try to gain some perspective on it. sometimes it was voices but many many voices all at once, like in a chattering crowd. sometimes it was other environmental noises like traffic or phones ringing. Sometimes now if a have a fever I hear chattering whispering voices, phones ringing or dogs barking, but only when I have a high temperature.
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No suicide themed voices today. Instead I woke to a voice repeating "you'll never get better" for 10 minutes. This worries me because there is the possibility that it may be true. From reading the literature and personal experience over the years I know there is something called chronic depression. You can throw all the drugs in the world at it but you remain exactly where you are. Some psychiatrists claim as many as 30% of people not responding after two trials of anti-depressants at maximum dose. I am currently in the middle of one of the strategies for dealing with this. Essentially this says if one doesn't work take two at the same time from different chemical classes. You can pay quite a high price in terms of side effects but it often works.
It doesn't seem to be working for me at the moment. I am deeply depressed and making no progress on Mitazapine and Venlafaxine, though I'm not on the maximum dose of Venlafaxine yet. All I can do is press on and hope for the best because depression has reduced me to the point of complete inactivity at the moment. Oh for the days when I could take Prozac and be back to normal in 12 weeks.
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Hopefully your GP will have some answers when you see him steve
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Hi Steve, sorry to here that you have got it so rough. I hope that things start to get better for you soon and that you start feeling better.
Are you still feeling isoloated?
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I'm still feeling isolated. It isn't helped by experiencing hallucinations, which make me feel different to other people. I'm aware that psychotic depression isn't that unusual but it makes you feel like a strange and unusual person. For instance I'm not aware that there is anyone else with it on this Forum.
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I'm sure having psychotic symptoms would make you feel odd, I was supprised to learn how common it actually is, and how common hallucinations to a degree can happen in non psychotic people. I went through a bad patch a while ago, in which I slept only about an hour an night. I permenantly could hear bagpipes playing in my ears.
I hope you manage to overcome the isolation, it must very very difficult for you having lost two close people from your life. I have being feeling quite lonely recently, I've started going to the shops etc, and just being friendly to people I come into contact with, I find it helps my slightly. That could be completly useless advice for yourself, I don't know.
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Thanks for your post. At least I've been spared the bagpipes- I don't think I could cope. I have trouble getting out of the house because of various physical problems I have with arthritis. I do go out to the shops once a day to stock up on bread and milk and do chat to the shop assistants, which does help. Then I have to go home and spend a couple of hours recovering from the pain in my knees. I still spend the bulk of my time on my own and don't see that changing anytime soon. I'm in touch with a couple of friends through email but they are running out of encouraging things to say.
I hope your loneliness eases for you.
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Roll on your appointment on Friday then! I hope that your GP has a plan for what to do next. Are there any social groups in your area that might help with your isolation? Are you able to drive and have transport?
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I am confident that my GP will be able to help with the voices. This will be the third time we have gone through it together and we both know what to do. At least this time I know the dose of anti-psychotic that is needed to solve the problem so I don't have to go through a starting dose and gradual increments process. I can jump straight to the effective dose.
There are no social clubs around here - I have checked. I really do live in the middle of nowhere- 12 miles from the nearest very small town- which has few facilities. I live surrounded by wheat fields-literally. There are a few services for the over 65's but I'm a bit too young for tea and bingo. Luckily I can still drive but in terms of social contact there is nowhere to drive to. I also find it difficult to walk which makes things like going to the pub an insurmountable obstacle.
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I'd love a bit of tea and bingo me. :o
I'm glad your GP is some one you can rely on and has been through this with you before. You sound like you have confidence in each other which must make for a more comforting relationship through this very difficult time.
What other hobbies and interests do you pursue?
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I have an excellent relationship with my GP. She has an interest in psychotherapy which being my former profession we shared. She used to visit my dad every two weeks to see how he was so we had a lot of contact outside of my own illnesses.She trusts my judgement as to what drugs I need,which helps no end.
As to hobbies and interests I remember those. I used to be into photography and music mostly. I lived in a university city so there were always plenty of bands to see. While I was a carer I did nothing but care. It was 24/7 and I was lucky if I got time to read the paper most days.The only rest I got was when my dad was sleeping by which time I was ready to sleep myself.
Since he died I've had difficulty picking up things again. I should have had surgery on my knees years ago but had to hold on because of the caring. I've left it far too long and am in a lot of pain. All I can do these days is listen to music on my iPod which I do virtually full time. The upside to being free from caring is that I can now go back to orthopedic outpatients and see about surgery which would help the depression no end. Being virtually unable to walk really gets you down.
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That sounds like a sensible aim then? Getting your knees sorted would bring such new realms of possibility for you and could be just the breath of fresh air you need! (literally!!). Suddenly having all this time on your hands must feel very strange. Have you ever been interested in art? Painting/drawing? There are lots of really good 'teach yourself' DVDs out there, could you start a project like this do you think? Could you like building things? - a kit plane maybe? are there any musical instruments you have always wanted to learn? Could you even publish your experiences with your depression, complimented by what you know as a psychotherapist?
It is difficult to find the entheusiasm for new projects and the thought can be more daunting than exciting can't it. This is such a difficult period for you, and such a stressful change.
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You're right. The thought of starting new projects seems extremely daunting indeed. At the moment it's taking all the energy I have just to stop from going under. But you are right about extra time on my hands. The morning my dad died I found myself sitting in a chair without the faintest idea what to do with myself. It was worse than that because the regular visits I'd been getting from health professionals like District Nurses and doctors stopped dead too.
The trouble is I am really reaching the bottom of depression, I'm not eating, am barely drinking, have no energy at all, and have the concentration span of a goldfish. Cleaning my teeth on a regular basis is becoming a major task. I can't imagine taking on anything that I could actually achieve. A book seems as difficult as climbing Mount Everest. I am hoping that my state will improve and I'll be able to do routine tasks like cook a meal again. For the moment I am effectively paralyzed. But thanks for the suggestions.
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I understand your explanation. This is so difficult for you. Even the simplest tasks are almost impossible and the amount of energy it takes just to do the simplest things is exhausting. You have been used to keeping going full time 24/7 and now that you don't have to you simply can not. You miss the need to terribly and this is something that is hard to come to terms with on so many levels. All the trappings of your life have suddenly disappeared and it is not a welcome change. Getting through this period is going to be the most difficult thing you have ever had to deal with.
Can you identify anything that might make a positive difference? Your medication and consultation with your GP is coming up and getting this done will be quite a milestone of accomplishment. Are you entitled to home help yourself? either for your depression and grief, or for your arthritic incapacity?
You have been a wonderful son. Thank you for caring for your father so tenderly every moment of his last phase. Your compassion and loyalty for your beloved father did not go unnoticed by him. You gave comfort, stability, kindness and reassurance. You are an amazing person. I admire you very much. You have suffered such loss.
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Its a nightmare feeling like that, I do hope hings improve for you very soon
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Woke up this morning without the benefit of any voices-perhaps the anti-psychotics are starting to kick in. Celebrated by having a couple of pieces of toast-the first time I have eaten in 5 days. Still incredibly depressed though. It's getting difficult to look after myself and force myself to wash etc. In 40 years of depression I have never been this low. Started planning my next move if Mitazapine and Venlafaxine don't start to lift me soon. I guess it will have to be Lithium. Lithium is a pain. You have to get it to a certain level in your blood, below this it's ineffective, above it it's toxic. So you have to have weekly blood tests until you get it right. Lithium always gives me a spectacular tremor but I'll put up with anything to get even a bit better. I'll settle for improvement never mind cure.
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HEllo Stevewellam. I'm so pleased you heard no voices today that is brilliant and hopefully means your drugs are starting to work. I'm also glad to see that you have eaten. It has been difficult for you to find the motivation to eat and wash and it is a positive step that you have managed to do this today well done.
Doctors tomorrow, I hope it does you good to have a good conversation about it with your trusted GP and that she echos your back up plan or has suggestions of her own.
I hope you manage to accomplish some more positive steps today, but you have already done well so please don't over do it and find yourself back at stage one!
Take care and keep posting here if it helps.
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Went to my doctor and came back with a big bag of anti-psychotics which should see the back of the voices I've been hearing. I took the opportunity to ask her to increase the pain relief for my arthritis which she did and which will help. Being in pain constantly will make anyone depressed. I just wish it was as easy to get help with my depression. I got a phone call from my psychiatrist apologizing for telling me he would refer me for grief counseling when he hadn't realized that Cruse don't operate in our area. No grief counseling,no support groups. There is a crisis team in the area. With no support services I should think they need one.
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Hi Stevewellam I'm glad your visit to your doctor proved fruitful. I'm glad you will soon be feeling relief frorm your voices and your arthritis. Pain is enough to depress anyone let alone the other things you are having to cope with. I'm so sorry to hear of your psychologists phone call and the hope that has taken away. What an awful thing to have promised then taken away! How did he feel the crisis team could help you?
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I have already had the benefit of the crisis team once- they only work with people for 6 weeks maximum. They used to come and see me twice a week and try to convince me of the benefits of not committing suicide. At the moment their involvement has started up again. They ring me on Saturday and Sunday. They ask how I'm feeling and whether I have eaten anything and suggest I eat if I haven't eaten. That's about it. I don't think I'm in the sort of crisis that they specialize in. Their main work is with schizophrenics who have come off their medication, broken down, and need injections of anti-psychotics or admission to hospital. They support all concerned through the process. I'm sure they do a good job, I just don't think depression is their thing.
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Pain is so tiring and debilitating, hopefully the increase of pain killers will help, being in constant pain definitely wont help your depression as I know from padt experience :(
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Posted a link to an article on treatment resistant depression. Hopefully to let people know that there are options to just taking a succession of single anti-depressants. Unfortunately from my own point of view there is a very ominous phrase in the article " despite aggressive treatment some patients never achieve an adequate response". I am working my way through all these options and getting nowhere. I am worried that I will come to the end of the list and still be severely depressed. There is such a thing as chronic depression-I just hope I am not part of it.
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Hi Steve, you are very knowledgable. The doctor told me I had chronic depression, after I told him the length of time I had been depressed for (about four years). In your opinion, does this mean that I have chronic depression? If so, will I be able to live a life depression free, or will it always plague me? I think I quite probably have been depressed for much of my life. I beleive I can make a very good effort to keep bad depressive symptoms at bay, but I am dubious as to whether or not I truly can kick depression out of my life.
I hope you start to feel better soon.
Steve
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There are different patterns of depression over the life span of the individual and the fact that you've been depressed for
4 years doesn't mean you can't get out of that episode and not have a recurrence. On the other hand you could get out of
it,be OK for a period of years and then have a recurrence ,which was my pattern. All your GP meant by calling your
depression chronic was the fact that it had gone on for a long time. I ,probably wrongly, tend to reserve the term chronic
depression for depressions that have failed to respond to drugs and therapy. You had long term untreated depression in my
terms.
I think its fair to say that the longer a depression has gone on the harder it is to shift by drugs or therapy. But that is
harder not impossible. It seems like you can still benefit from CBT -you can't have received the full benefit if your
therapist got scared and referred you back to the hospital at too early a stage. There's good evidence that CBT is good at
preventing recurrences as well as getting people out of their current episodes. You also still have plenty of drug options
left. All the treatment options in the TRD article whose link I posted are open to you.If you can get out off your present
episode there is every possibility that you could stay out. A lot depends on how life treats you. For instance I wasn't
doing too badly until my partner and my dad died and there's no legislating for factors like that.
I know you're off the idea of NHS therapy but I'd say don't give up on it yet. CBT is too powerful a therapy to write off.
And when you go back to your psychiatrist you may need to widen your drug choices and start thinking of yourself as
treatment resistant rather than simply depressed.
I had episodes of depression all my life but even I went 12 years completely OK. Why shouldn't you ? And plenty of people
have one episode and that's it.
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Still struggling to keep on going. The anti-psychotics have coped with the voices but nothing seems to improve the depression. I am having great difficulty in looking after myself-eating,washing and the like- and my mood is on the floor. My problem is that I have never had a depression complicated by grief before and am in unfamiliar territory. It looks like I won't be getting grief counseling now which is a blow. All that leaves me is swallowing anti-depressants and hoping they help the grief as well as the depression.I wish I could see some small signs of progress but I can't as yet.
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Hello Stevewellam. I am so sorry you are feeling this way it is so difficult isn't it. I too am grieving and finding it very difficult and complicated to get through. I am having trouble with belief and acceptance and I can't for the life of me see how I can ever get past this. My logical brain does however tell me, along with a lot of people including most on here, that it is time that will heal. I understand this but it is not making me feel any better about the here and now. Some one told me 'chin up' the other day which, as I'm sure you can appreciate, is possibly the single worst thing a person could say in times like this. I came so close to actually clumping him one. I shifted body position and everything which actually frightened me a bit because I'm not like that AT ALL.
If it is time that will heal, we must focus on doing whatever we can just to get through the day. You are finding it very difficult just to look after yourself. I understand. Have you eaten and washed today?
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Thanks for your kind words. I had forgotten from reading your posts that you were also grieving.The advice that time heals doesn't help much when you are in a virtually intolerable situation in the here and now. I am doing my best to keep on going. This depression seems to be hitting me physically and I have completely lost all appetite. The weight is dropping off me and I keep having to put new holes in my belt to cope! All I feel I can do is keep struggling on. When they say time heals they never say how long do they. All I can see is the present stretching out into an indefinite future. I'm not confident that anti-depressants do much for grief either. I've reached the point where I don't really care whether I look after myself or not. It doesn't seem that important.
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I understand. I have felt the same. I'm so sorry.
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Thanks for the advice Steve. I have managed to make some progression using Buddhist philosophy and meditation ( I dont beleive in the religous side of it). It has helped me recently because I feel as if I have found something that I can use myself to make me feel better, and hopefully prevent future catastrophies.
I am sorry to hear that you are finding it so difficult at the moment. I have been to the stage where I have stoped eating and lost all will to do anything, a few times, and it is only the last two weeks I have started dressing and shaving properly. Is there anywhere you can travel to for a while, people you can go to see? I don't know if this will help you feel any better, but it could just, even for a very brief moment, change the monotony a little bit.
Please take care,
Steve
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Time does heal but its a long and painful process in my experience and anyone that thinks that you can snap out of it really can never have experienced true devastating grief.
Its great your meditation has helped Stevie, I find it helps me too but I know its not for everyone, strangely enough in the past it was my responsibilities that helped me recover from depression but now its responsibilities that have caused it. I guess its finding something positive to grasp on to, however small, to edge a bit closer to that light at the end of he tunnel?
I'm sorry to hear you feel so grim Steve, I wish I knew what to suggest :(
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Good luck with the meditation. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one on the forum who gets so down they can't look after themselves. Unfortunately as well as depression I suffer from bad arthritis. I have reached the stage where I'm struggling to get the 2 miles to the village shop. I kept in touch with a few friends when I moved to Lincolnshire to look after my dad but they are so far away there is no way I could get there at the minute.
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Thanks very much Steve.
Are you able to drive? Or could anyone come to get you? Have told anyone about your depression?
I know this is of little consolation, but I hope you are ok, and I am hoping that you start to get better soon.
Steve
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Thanks for your post. Everyone who knows me knows about my depression. I am very open about it-it's why I use my real name
on this Forum rather than a nickname. Trouble is the few friends I have got left are all suffering from health problems and
I can't really inflict myself on them. One of them is dying of lung cancer, one is recovering from a burst brain aneurysm,
and the last is struggling with diabetes. They email me regularly which is about all I can ask. If the isolation gets too
much the local mental health services have a respite house where you can spend two or three weeks as an alternative to
going into hospital. I can always make use of that.
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That sounds like a good idea steve? What do you feel about that? Would it help at the moment?
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Agreed.....change of scenery and being with people? Maybe it could help you?
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To be honest I'm quite ambivalent about the respite house. My psychiatrist knows I lived in a commune for some years during
the 60's and he presented it as some kind of mutual support commune for people with mental health difficulties. When
pressed a slightly different picture emerged. He told me that the bulk of the clients were schizophrenics in the middle of
breakdowns who were there to give their families respite from their behavior. Having just escaped psychosis by the skin of
my teeth recently I'm not sure I want to be dropped right into the middle of madness.
Then there is a matter of pride. In 40 years of depression I have avoided two things-in patient treatment and ECT. The
respite house sounds very close to in patient treatment to me. It could be that I could be forced into it. I might get
completely unable to look after myself, or get seriously suicidal, then my choice might be forced. At the minute I am
regarding it as an emergency backup. If things become impossible at home it's open to me. I'm still not on the maximum
dose of Venlafaxine and I still have hopes of responding. There are other drug options too. At the minute I'm avoiding
overdosing despite having a house full of drugs so I can carry on a while longer.
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I understand your point of view there Steve. Any chance you're rolling in cash and could afford a much nicer type of 'respite care' that is more like a holiday for recouperation than a dose of the same? I really think being around people would be good for you at the moment. It sounds from what you have said that you need some mental distraction and stimulation and a reason to get up, wash and eat. A pleasant social surrounding might be helpful? but from what you have said about the respite care I agree that maybe that isn't the best way for you to go unless absolutely necessary right now.
On the off chance that you do have a lotto type amount in your bin,... a cruise?? ;)
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the local mental health services have a respite house where you can spend two or three weeks as an alternative to
going into hospital. I can always make use of that.
I have experience of one of these and I can recommend it for what it's worth, the staff were great and treat you much better than on a ward, they'll talk to you whenever and take you out for walks, plus you can talk to other patients, good luck :)
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Have you thought about over dosing? This isnt a suggestion....I'm responding to your comment about you being able to avoid doing it.
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Hi Stevie. Whenever anyone tells me they suffer from depression but have not thought of suicide I tend to think that they can't be very severely depressed. I'm down in the depths of psychotic depression and my mind regularly turns to being dead as an option. But I've been fighting depression since 1971, and that includes suicidal thoughts. I've never made a suicide attempt along the way and I am programmed to resist it. The only complicating factor in this episode is that I am amply supplied with drugs to do it. Before he died my dad was on oral morphine for his breathing and s/c Heroin for pain. When he died I inherited quite a big stock of opiates. So far I am limiting my consumption to the odd dose of morphine when I am in a lot of pain and I haven't been tempted to start drinking it by the glass full. Although I am low I haven't yet lost all my fight.I think I will be carrying on for a while yet.