Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Good on you for seeking help Walrus.

I hope you have some good friends and a good therapist to help you out with this stuff. A support group may help as well, as you're new to this stuff and these groups usually have a/some veterans in them that can give you some insight from a perspective close to yours.

Find a good therapist and know that it can take a few before you find one that works for you.
Find medicine that works for you and know that it can take a few (combinations) before you find one that works for you (I hear american doctors don't really go for Lithium and prefer depacine despite the lower success rate for some reason?)

I'm sure your therapist has told you this is a disease that will end up causing you friends. It's not something a lot of people feel comfortable about. There's a lot to be said about this phenomenon, talk it over with your therapist/support group when you notice this happening.

Got one of these?

Talking to one of my bipolar friends the other day and she was very enthusiastic about this book, though she is admittedly above the central line of the thing I linked above and she may be overstating things.
Same friend recently went in for surgery and the pain killers caused a severe depression. When you've found your medicine of choice get your doctor/therapist to make a list of medicine that destabilizes your brain chemistry.

Your doctor/therapist should know all this, but it doesn't hurt to bring it up yourself.

Good luck. I'm afraid you'll need it.

When you do get on the mailing list. Say "Hi" to John Cleese and Stephan Fry for me. You're in some good company.

How did your first meetings go Walrus? Did you find one that seemed okay?

I am thinking of you. *hugs*

Thanks all for the support. I'm actually doing really, really well. I've been spending a lot of quality time with friends and family that I never see ever, so that's been really good for my little heart. I feel good. Needed, appreciated, loved. All good.

I had someone (ok, polyamorous boy) tell me he no longer wanted to be a part of my life. It hurt. It really, really hurt. Because we had become friends and had been hanging out. But he's my boss, and after I told him I had to go on disability he stopped talking to me. So this has taught me that yes, he is a really crappy person. And instead of letting that send me into a sinkhole, I didn't let it and instead I moved on. Mostly. It still hurts and I know that's normal (please don't lecture me on how crappy he is because I already know and it's still hard to accept) but I am moving on. Finally. I hope.

Anyway, the meds are doing really well and I'm sleeping and happy during the day and that is all I could ever really ask for.

Thank you so much for the support. It means a helluva lot.

My husband is depressed and has been for about 10 years. He needs help, but we have no money and no insurance, and he's resistant to the idea of treatment. I don't know what to do because I fear forcing him into treatment, we don't have any resources here, and he's also got OCD(undiagnosed, but everyone who knows him well agrees that he's got it) and I suspect dependent personality disorder as well. It's killing our relationship and I can't do anything about it.

This is helpful and makes me wonder about my husband - thanks! Also, *hugs*!

Hapax - I understand! *hugs* to you too.

Heck, *hugs* to all of you!!

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Thanks, bigpinkjellybean and CNA :)

Sorry, I don't have any advice or suggestions... But feel better, Jigglypuff!

Jigglypuff, that doesn't sound out of order to me at all, if you feel you need some help, then I don't see anything wrong in asking for it - quite the reverse in fact. I understand your difficulty, I often feel the same, though not to the same extent. Could you try planning something with a friend so you have to go out? Maybe a homework session at the library or something? Hope you're feeling better soon. Loads of luck.

My counsellor seems to think that I may be depressed. I have really bad anxiety and am also bored ALL the time. Nothing seems to hold my interest, even things that I really love and it's druvy me crazy. I hate feeling like nothing is good enough. I constantly need to be doing more than one thing at a time and even then I am bored. I think part of it is because I have been off work for so long that I have no obligations and my motivation to do anything is non existant.

Has anyone else expereinced anything like this, extreme boredom, all the time?

I have not been diagnosed as depressed but can definitely see why my counsellor would think this.

*Sorry if this should go in another thread, wasn't sure if it belonged here or not but was wondering if anyone has has experienced this with their depression...

yep those are some classic signs of depression. glad youre talking to a counselor and hope you start feeling happier soon!

I deal with depression on a regular basis as part of bipolar disorder. The other side of it for me is the terrifying mixed states. I take Lamictal, Wellbutrin, Buspar, and Seroquel...quite a cocktail, but it works as I don't cycle much anymore, usually not at all, and when I do it's bearable. Mostly if I cycle it's into depression. I've been on so many meds I can"t even remember them all. Depression is terrible; I empathize with every one who experiences it. I deal with an anxiety disorder and panic disorder, too. ::le sigh:: The meds really help, though.

Yes, I recognize that all too well. I feel that bored very often, but I try to take as many walks as I can during the day, I've found that it helps a lot.

I've been on medication for 7 years, since I was 11, but I don't think my pills are really working. I've tried a lot of different kinds of meds, and even tried to stop taking them many times, but that has always ended in disasters. But am I really supposed to feel this way? I'm crying all the time, even though I'm not a very emotional person. It feels like nothing and no one matters to me. My self esteem is so low, I don't consider myself a real person anymore. I can't sleep without my sleeping pills, and during the days I get nothing done. What should I do? I don't know who I can talk to about this, since I'm in the middle of transitioning and I don't want anyone to think I'm to "mentally unstable" to go through this process. Gah.

I didnt go to my internship last week. I just admitted I felt like shiitake and couldnt deal with other peoples problems (I'm counseling intern).My supervisor at my internship gave me some recommendations for counselors, but i am so broke, I made anppt to see a doctor at the health center on campus too, but then i realized my appt. is during one of my finals and it was one of only two open appts left for this semester... I'm so ready for the break...
I have really lost motivation for zchool/internship everything. Im afraid of driving the one person I really talk to about my feelings insane with my neediness. Its like I cannot just be with just myself with out feeling negatively. And then I ask my friend all the time if we can talk but I cant even figure out what i need from them, or i dont know what to even say. Its like I just need to know someone out there cares all the time. I need reassurance all of the time that stuff is okay, that I am acceptable and that someone cares all the time, every second and it overwhelms me to know i need so much from people that I cant seem to give myself right now.

Both I and my boyfriend Pete suffer from long term depression. He has some personal aspects to his condition that sometimes make it hard for him to function in a social context so his very sympathetic doctor referred him to the local mental health team for psychiatric help. This morning I accompanied him to his screening appointment - it was honestly the worst screening I've ever been present at (I've had a few of my own screenings). The 'gateway worker' arrived half an hour late with no explanation or apology - bearing in mind that Pete gets really agitated around people in general, never mind those sharing the waiting room who were suffering with other mental illnesses.

She started the screening by asking 'Whats wrong with you?' then proceeded to consistently interrupt him while he was trying to answer any of her questions. She took a phonecall during the screening, asked him questions about a sexual assault he endured in his late teens and then immediately afterward wanted him to talk about our relationship (to him this felt as though she was trying to link the two together) and told him he *might* get an appointment with a consultant next year but in the meantime to keep himself to himself and to talk to me about his problems (I'm not a therapist!). She also twisted a statement he'd made about his teenage alcohol consumption to make it sound like he had a drinking problem. She didn't refer him for any talking therapies and was acting astoundingly unprofessionally. I've never witnessed anything like it from a mental health worker.

I got so angry that I got up and left and took him with me. I'm so glad I didn't let him go alone. We're going to be making a complaint.

MAY BE TRIGGERING, I don't know

My doctor gave me a prescription for Citalopram (the active ingrediant is citalopram hydrobromide, equivalent to 20 mg citalopram). It's an SSRI. But I'm reading through the information leaflet and it says
But I'm already having weird thoughts about harming myself. Usually detailed imagining of cutting, while not actively wanting to. There have also been several times when I have hit my head, hit my arms or bitten my arms (without really wanting to beforehand; it kind of feels like a reflex or something, except I can control it in public).

So I don't know whether to start taking them.

In fact it does refer to that in a different part of the booklet:
But that almost contradicts itself. 'we know this will probably happen to you, but if it does, panic and go to hospital'

It it something to worry about? I feel like I'm always at the doctor at the moment and don't want to go back again. And I never manage to say what's wrong when I'm there anyway, I even wrote stuff down before this visit but couldn't show it to her.
I will ask a pharmicist, but does anyone here have experience with this type of drug?

I've never tried medication other than prozac for a few months...

Anyhoo. Im glad to report i've finally scheduled an appointment with a therapist. Also my teacher is letting me take my final a different day so I can go to a doctors appointment to discuss meds. They only had one appointment time left open at the student health center this semester and I'd made it a few weeks ago, before I knew the final time.

Walrus, thank you for sharing, it is incredibly brave of you and I appreciate it.


(skip to end if you just want to see how i'm doing right now, I feel like my history is important to understand why I don't want to admit that I'm having trouble again)

I have been diagnosed with depression and various anxiety disorders multiple times since I was about 15 (when I tried to kill myself.) I've been off of medication since I was around 16 and I decided that I felt like shiitake. I was going to a therapist for most of junior and senior year in high school, then I stopped. When I was in between schools and had no job (for about 2 months in the middle of the winter) I fell in to a really hardcore depression where I mostly just lay on the floor in my room and watched movies all night, then slept all day and my poor mother almost had a heart attack because she knew I was not in a good space and she was working so its not like she could watch me all the time to make sure I wouldn't do anything stupid. I feel so guilty for putting her through this. Then things got better, I have no idea what happened, but one day I was able to physically pull myself out of my house (my anxiety manifest in a deep fear of social interaction) and I got a job, started regularly hanging out with a friend of mine (and she will never know how important our silly codependent relationship was a t the time) and life was good. in the 2 years that followed I did my bike trip, went to night classes, hung out with my cat, and decided to go back to art school. I was feeling pretty good, and I felt that maybe that was behind me, maybe I wasn't going to have crippling panic attacks as much, I seemed to be capable of interacting with humans in a normal way, as long as I did certain things to calm myself down. I have a lot of silly tricks that kind of help me deal with the blind panic.

So, right now my semester has just ended and I am faced with a couple days of being alone. I am learning that I cannot be alone with myself. Yesterday I was just feeling so horrible. I hated myself so much, and for a brief moment i started feeling like I was young and depressed again, and I couldn't use my normal tools of rational thought to get me out of that slump. And I still feel like shiitake. Aaannndd my hardcore insomnia has kicked in again. Its not that I can't Sleep, its that i just have this completely irrational and deep feeling of anxiety when I think about being asleep.
I've been trying to read books, because I have a sneaking suspicion that the internet is starting to trigger my social anxiety (since the internet is mainly a tool for social interaction for me) and I started freaking out about not being able to get away from people. So I went and I read for a while, then I fell asleep and woke up at 11pm, and I still feel like crepe and I'm kind of worried about being able to pull myself out of this hole in time to get my place cleaned up.
Oh, I have a friend visiting soon, that could potentially help or hinder my psychological state.

It sounds silly, but I pretty much need to see my cat. She became kind of a tool of comfort for me when I was in a really bad place before. She was awake when I was (and felt like no one else was) and she would love me no matter how horrible I felt I was.
I don't want to think about going back on meds, I don;t want to talk to a therapist, I just want to be psychologically sound. gr

Hi guys. How's everyone doing?

Have you decided what to do yet LoveChild? I think I would go to a doctor if it was me, but that's always easier said then done for me, so I understand if you don't feel that you can.



This pretty much sums up what I want right now. I only have my boyfriend and one other friend who I feel I can talk to about things, and I want them to spend all their time telling me that everything will be ok. I'm going home from uni for Christmas tomorrow and I'm terrified that not being near either of them will affect me badly and make me get angry with them, and leave me by myself. How are you feeling now?

8ball that sounds awful! I'm so glad you were with your boyfriend to support and that you're both going to complain. I also hope that he gets the help that he needs soon.

GreenDuck, I think that a lot of this stuff is said because after a month or so the build up of the drug can make some people begin to feel worse. But I'd definitely speak to your doctor about it, they should be able to reassure you and explain exactly what to be worried about. I hope it works for you.

I hope you're feeling ok boober? I'm feeling quite similar I think, really reclusive and scared of speaking to people because I'm scared that they're going to be horrible to me. I hope that your friend coming over is positive for you, rather than negative.

I'm thinking of all you guys and hoping that you all have a nice time over Christmas.

so apparently what I thought was anxiety from an unhealthy relationship with food might actually be depression. my counselor suggested that I go on anti-depressants, and I've been thinking about it for the past few days. I've always been against medication like that, but she explained that they'd be SSRI's, so they wouldn't mess with my hormones, there's no chance of dependancy or anything, and I wouldn't feel fuzzy and unfocused (my main concern). I'm still kind of weary, though. but at this point I'm so tired of going through feeling like this every day that I'm willing to throw in the towel and try them out.

There's no harm in trying. Even if you change your mind later you can always come off them and try something else can't you? I'm so sad that so many people suffer from this.

As I said in another thread, I have the same thing. I feel normal for about half of the month, and the other half is severe depression that i relate to my period. They've starting me on fluoexitine. I haven't taken it long enough to see any changes, but you should definitely see your doctor. i know how it can really get in the way of your relationships with others and overall well-being.

So I am legitimately depressed for the first time in about 2 years. I have an anxiety disorder and deal with that all the time, but I rarely get depressed. I've been having a really rough time with my anxiety the last few months, and I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing myself to endure lots of stress, and I feel like I've just gone limp and numb. Why aren't my meds (Celexa / Citalopram) helping? :(

I just had my first therapy session in forever with a new person. I felt really odd and wasn;' sure what I wanted to say or what I wanted out of it. I was filling out the paperwork and said outloud the things I feel are my biggest issue seem so broad. I can't really afford to go, certaintly not weekly, so i dunno how I would possibly suddenly love myself, not worry about people rejecting me/abandoning me, etc etc. etc..... in a session or two. I saw my old doctor (who I hadnt seen in two years now) and she put me on prozac again. I feel very jittery today... Really jittery.

Could you try writing down issues you want to look at for next time? And maybe look at some strategies that you can use when you can't get to a therapist or are alone? My therapy was often about how to be able to deal with things myself when they came up, instead of turning to harmful things like ED.
I hope the prozac helps you. It's really helped me a lot, and I've been on it a while now. Just make sure you go back if you don't feel like it's working.