Feel so unlistened to

[musicken]

Shaz, I'm the same.  it's like an all pervasive fog that surrounds me and I can't seem to escape its grasp.

There is nothing worse than some health professional who has never experienced depression being patronising.

[Metaxa]

Really sorry to hear about your situation. When i 1st suffered with depression about 10 years ago saw my Dr and didn't actually get much help apart from being signed off work and given sleeping tablets (thankfully got a better Dr this time)
I guess i'm lucky in a way as well cause my wife has suffered with depression for years (longer than i've known her) so she is able to talk to me and help me. She had a suicide attempt a few years ago herself by taking every tablet she could find in the house. Luckily she was ok as i got her to the hospital and she got admitted for a day.
Hopefully things will start to go better for you very soon now

[Catbrian]

One of the hardest things I had to come to terms with in my fight against depression and other MH conditions, is that I am very much on my own.  Yes, there are MH services and places like the depression Forum, which all help.  However, when in the grip of acute depression, nothing comes near to fulfilling our needs, most of that fight needs to come from within

[musicken]

Yes, Catb that's true. I think most of us are on our own.

Though speaking for myself, sometimes all I crave is to be somewhere safe and warm with someone to look after me. but I know it's not going to happen.

[Sweetpea]

I am also lucky to have a very good GP and a family that are supportive. My sister also suffers and we are there for each other and know just how the other feels.

S x x x x

Sent from my BlackBerry 9300 using Tapatalk

[Sadgirl4]

Thanks guys
It really helps to be able to talk with people who actually understand. one guy on the crisis team has suffered from depression himself and he doesn't talk rubbish - but it's a lottery who turns up and I've only seen him once.
The muppet who came today also told me I should write down my negative thoughts and throw them away because it would get rid of them. My thoughts on hearing that are unrepeatable.
My husband has gone to Brussels for five days. I tried to tell him how bad I was.  But he has been worn down by the cycles of depression and didn't even ask if I would be ok - just said he would see me on Friday.
I am done in.

[Sweetpea]

  for you.  If only throwing our thoughts away would work! Crazy. Its often hard on our loved ones, very often they don't know what to do to help.  You are not alone here.

S x x x x

[Catbrian]

These people from the Crisis Team sound like they don't have a clue.

The cycles of depression can be very difficult to deal with.  It is a very lonely illness, not helped by people becoming impatient with us.  I hope you manage to get through the next 5 days.....

[Pip]

Somebody suggested that one to me years ago but writing down negative thoughts and throwing them away doesn't work for me.   

[smokey]

Hi sadgirl4, I understand the frustration with the crisis team, My experience was virtually the same, different random people, then a few who I got on a level with after I'd seen them a few times, then another random person who I'd never met before! I said about the lack of consistency with the visits and they all agreed it is a poor system and that they never know who they will be seeing from one day to the next. Plus some of them seem to have no understanding of depression, I've asked a few of them about others they go to see and they've said "well some people just lie in bed all day or on the settee because they can't be arsed to do anything". What???? If that's what they think then they really shouldn't be in the job!!

[Catbrian]

That's shocking, Smokey, but comes as no surprise

[smokey]

I think that's just how the nhs mental health services work catb, they don't!

[Sadgirl4]

So - in spite of my psych saying i needed to be seen by a psych every week while he was away, the ct neglected to sort out an appointment at all last week - when i queried this on the thursday, they told me i had one arranged for the following tues so that was alright, wasn't it?  What could i say? i'm not very assertive at the best of times, but when i fell like this.....
Somehow held on till the tues with the tiny hope that subbing psych would alter meds.  She didn't.  She was very kind, and agreed that 14 weeks was long enough to trial something, that if i felt it wasn't helping then it probably wouldn't, and that in my psych's shoes, she would make a switch, but she couldn't do that.  But my psych was back next week and she would talk to him on my behalf.
I came away in total despair.  What was the point of me seeing her if she couldn't do anything because she was afraid of stepping on my psych's toes, other than to let the record show i had been seen and so the mh services had done all they could?  My psych is back on tues, she is going to talk to him on wed, so i wont see him till thurs at the earliest.  And what if he continues to dig his heels in and not change the meds? Even if he agrees to change meds, he will want a gradual withdrawal from the parnate, (i'm on 50mg) then a 10 day washout, then 3 weeks on a starting dose of something else - which never works - then augmenting agents and higher doses etc - so at best another 3 or 4 months of feeling like this.  I can't do it. I walked the dog early this morning and let him off the lead, and i just thought i am sick of living tethered to this illness. i want to be let off the lead, and i have no hope that that will happen.  I do not think i will get through this weekend.  The ct member who came yesterday was the only one i really have any faith in (and have only seen her once this depression), so i did tell her that.  I also told her i would not use the pager when it came to it.  She wanted details, and me to give her my means - but i refused.  Why don't they understand that when things are this bad, you don't want to be stopped? She said someone would visit every day, hopefully one of the few I find ok, but that they are only operating a skeleton staff over the next 4 days, so the few people who actually help a bit may not be working.  And honestly, even they have no suggestions for how to cope with feeling like this.  Going to hospital will not help.  Try as I might, I cannot find enough hope or faith to overcome the utter blackness.
My counsellor is so concerned she emailed me after my last session with the number of the samaritans, and the suggestion that i start seeing her twice a week.  I am finding her helpful, and i know i should try and hold on and give the therapy a chance.  But I am overwhelmed. She also said that it would be the worst thing possible for my kids if i do succeed.  I know that, i agonise over it, but the darkness is relentless.  I don't know what to do.

[musicken]

Hi Sadgirl

Reading your post was difficult; by that I mean it is clear that you're really struggling at the moment, and your pain is evident.   I really hope you can find the strength to continue to fight on a bit longer.  If there's anything at all any of us can do to help you get through, we're all here for you.

I'm quite angry at the way you're being treated, but I know it's all too common.  Perhaps the only way to get results is to focus on how appalling the mh services have been to you and to allow yourself to get angry with your psych/cpn/ct at the next appointment.  Could you go down on Tuesday even without an appointment? demand to be seen or else you're not going away?
I know it's difficult if you're not able to be assertive, but often, allowing the anger to build up can be enough to overcome the barrier and make yourself heard.

My own experience with psychiatrists has not been a positive one. After the first session, where he talked about gradually reducing Citalopram over a few months, I got so incensed by his attitude, and the fact that the next time he could see me was four weeks away, that I took control and just stopped taking the stuff.  There was no way I was waiting four weeks for a 5mg reduction, then six weeks on that dose before further action.  it would have taken a year to get off it.  I don't recommend this course of action at all, but it's not the first time or the last that I've stopped medication suddenly.   The only one I didn't was venlafaxine, but that was due to the withdrawal effects I was having with that one.  Perhaps I've been fortunate that I've not suffered withdrawal symptoms on most of the meds I've been on.

I know there's nothing much  I can say to help at all, but your post has touched me, and for what it's worth, I care enough to worry if you'll be ok. 
There are plenty of us here that are willing to listen, and I'll certainly continue to respond here when I can; I work odd hours - late evenings etc, so can't always get on to reply (though I can read the forum on my phone I find it too frustrating to try to type more than a few words on it).
 

[Sadgirl4]

Way ahead of you there Musicken.  I actually stopped parnate, lithium and buspirone last Friday.  My thinking was that as they aren't working, it won't make a difference, and since my psych had previously told me to cut parnate dose by 50mg overnight (had a borderline psychotic episode probably due to high dose of parnate coupled with ECT), although he subsequently increased it to 50mg, that it would be ok.  I have had some physical symptoms - nausea, restlessness and headaches, but psychiatric symptoms unchanged. I restarted lithium on tues because subbing psych said she was going to recommend me coming off buspirone and parnate, then starting an ssri - probably escitalopram, but staying on lithium because my history shows I usually need an augmenting agent.
Obviously I haven't told crisis team because they would whisk me off to hospital and also assume my current low is down to that.  I know it isn't - it's because the last bit of hope went when psych said I had to wait till my psych came back. I did tell my counsellor - she is in a different town, and also I know she won't contact them. She made me promise to call her if things got too bad. The guy from ct who came this morning was very sweet and said he could sort out someone to be here in the middle of the night/early morning since that was the worst time.  I declined - agreed to a phone call this afternoon. Person who phoned didn't seem very bothered, and just said they would phone tomorrow to arrange a visit.
I guess there must be some part of me that wants to go on, or I wouldn't have told ct guy that I didn't think I'd make it through today.  But not enough to agree to someone being here - although tbh, I don't actually believe they would do that.
If I do make it, my plan is only to tell my psych what I have done if he changes my meds. I am also going to say I stopped them on tues after other psych did nothing. Either way I will have been parnate free for 10 days by his reckoning, so he should be able to start new AD straight away. Even so it will be weeks before that kicks in, if it does (4th ad in a year), which may as well be eternity. And still no-one can offer me any coping strategies. It feels like they think the longer I go without acting, the lesser the risk. A big assumption to make with someone's life at stake.
The only thing I can think of to do is to cover the wall in my study with post-it's and photos of anything good in my life, and keep looking at it.  But it feels inevitable that at some point tonight I will take the pills.