Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I wonder if I should start going to therapy again. I went for a little while; apparently I have a mild case of BPD? I got the impression the therapist was getting bored or annoyed, so I just sort of stopped going one day.

Tea, I had a similar experience as you. My depression often used to affect my self esteem, so I thought I was boring the psychologist I was seeing. The idea that anyone could be interested in anything I had to say seemed impossible. I ended up making things up to entertain him. I wouldn't worry about what your therapist might think, after all, they're getting paid handsomely to listen to you. Also, the therapy should be completely about you and what you get out of it. How he or she feels is irrelevant. I would encourage you to see someone, especially if you didn't get what you needed the first time around. Everyone can benefit from seeing a therapist.

I would definitely suggest going back to therapy! I see leaving therapy unexpectedly akin to stopping medication. Our mind (ego?) is weird and likes to try to convince us that we don't need certain things to be well. I left therapy last year randomly after a holiday - I didn't return - and only after I got a letter from the therapist asking how I was and if I wanted to continue did I go back. I got all weird and thought because I'd skipped sessions that I would be too embarrassed to go back or that my therapist would be mad at me.

As TheHerbivore said, your therapist doesn't take anything personally. It's about you. But I understand the weirdness that can come with a relationship like that. It's pretty intimate and we start to read into things.

I hope you give it another try, Tea!

my counsellor seems genuinely upset at things I say.. like I said I realised I don't like my mates wife. I find her selfish and spoilt and when I mentioned a specific incident that led to my realisation, my councillor said she would be really hurt by the situation I mentioned. I wasn't hurt by the wife and it didn't effect the evening, I just realised something about her. Like she's spoilt, and it just made me realise what a cow she was. But the fact the councillor said that she would be hurt by the situation I described made me feel weird like I should be hurt... I still disagree with the counsellor.

I felt like I had run out of 'material' for weekly sessions last week and asked for 2 monthly sessions and I was given a list (pre written to be fair, the counsellor turned up with this in mind so my cynical self has to ignore the fact I think she's getting more cash out of me) to describe what 1) I am angry because 2) I am upset because 3) I am sad because and 4) I am glad because

I started the list tonight thinking yeah I can do a page... and am now drinking rum and am on 6 pages... this stuff runs and runs. There I was thinking I was back to normal now we know my childhood was a mess due to my alcoholic mother :( but no this is just the start of counselling isn't it? most of the shiitake I have written about isn't even about my mother :(

my older brother - who I wrote a post session mother issued based email to - is in AA and SA is glad I have 'opened the box' I was hoping it was just a match box and now am scared the box is a huge mother forker moving box :(

hugs to all you guys. this shiitake sucks. we need hugs.

Anyone else with Summer SAD? I hate this stupid season. Please, Autumn, you cannot get here soon enough.

I think I might, but I haven't been diagnosed with it or anything. I'm also very eager for autumn to get here!

I was diagnosed by the school shrink in high school. In Dallas, the summer heat is oppressive, and the days are way too long. My sleep schedule gets all jacked up so I am always tired, and I feel all heavy and weak; like I am full of rust and cobwebs. I just want to eat all the time. There is way too much sun here. I think I need to live in the Pacific Northwest.

Anyone ever have someone mention dysthymia? I searched on the boards, but didn't see it mentioned. I've always had some symptoms of depression, but they never seemed as severe as other people's. My therapist read me the DSM entry about it today. The symptoms are spot-on, and it really seems to fit what I've always felt.

So my doctor had me take a super low dose of abilify. 2mg. I worked. Insurance says I can't get the medicine. I've been off it again for a week and I'm crying and up and down constantly. HATE INSURANCE.

I am still on the waiting list to be referred to a psychiatrist... my family doc is "uncomfortable" prescribing for me because of my "complex psych history". Another highlight to add to the special skills section of my resume!

Waiting lists here are quite long, and it's already been 2 months. I'm thinking of asking my doc if he'd consider prescribing lamotrigine again--I tried it once before, but literally couldn't stay awake on the dosage my previous psych prescribed, so I stopped it after less than a week. I've heard it works really well for bipolar depression, as long as you don't get The Rash. I'm currently only on a low dose of Seroquel.

Anyone have any experience with lamotrigine?

assilembob - I'm sorry! insurance does suck. Is there any way of getting samples through your doc, or even through the drug company? Not sure how they work, but I know some companies do have compassionate programs for folks who can't afford their meds. Hang in there!

I've just spent 6 months on waiting lists for talk therapy (can't afford to pay and the waiting lists for free/charity ones are super long). Finally the day has come for counselling, and the counsellor can't do the session because she has to care for her daughter. I know it's only one more week but I'm fed up with waiting.

I took time out of uni at the end of 2011 in order to go back this September having been able to focus on support during my time out. It's now July and I'm only just getting some support, so I'm worried about going back in September having done little other than sitting on my asparagus the whole time and not getting much help.

Gah.

So... I had been going to therapy on campus in roughly September to early December. I started going shortly after a couple of suicide attempts. I stopped going for really no reason at all - I got busy and didn't feel like I actually needed help. But, before I dropped out the therapist figured I had relatively mild borderline personality disorder and referred me to a program targeted at people with BPD. I was freaking out in general and completely ignored their attempts to call me for a phone assessment and they gave up after a week so I figured I had just completely blown off the whole therapy thing. I mean, I don't know if I even actually need it or if it would even do me any good.

I guess they didn't forget about me. They called again just right now to do a phone assessment. I was taken by surprise, panicked, and asked to call back later.

I don't know what to do. Waitlists for stuff like this is helluva long. I don't know if I need it. Would it even do me any good? Don't other people need it more? On the other hand, I very regularly get into states of mind in which I think I'm pretty much the worst person imaginable, or fly into panics or get enraged when someone doesn't respond to an e-mail within a couple of hours, so I don't know if I qualify as "sane". I'm also pretty much incapable of accepting compliments, because they're usually lies. But I don't know if I actually need therapy - I mean I stopped going months ago and I haven't gotten any worse so maybe it isn't actually a problem?

What should I do? I guess if it's a phone assessment, I'll just answer a bunch of questions and they'll be better able to judge if I actually need help or not. This is so stupid. I have a bad habit of reading about mental disorders on the internet and then convincing myself I have them, so for all I know I'm just acting out on my psychological hypochondria to the extent that I managed to convince a random therapist who doesn't even have this as his area of expertise.

Mr8 takes lamotrigine mainly for epilepsy however it works in conjunction with the sertraline and citalopram he takes and is the most stable I've seen him.


Earlier this evening I was looking at an online news article covering the first carnival my town has held in around 20 years. When I saw the photo of the carnival queen in her pretty dress it reminded me of how I used to feel as a child, knowing I'd never be the carnival queen, believing that nobody would ever think I was pretty or love me for what I was, purely because I was overweight. The extra weight was due to my mother attempting to comfort me with food treats because she didn't know how to deal with how I reacted to my father's emotional abuse. I'm taking positive steps to battle the hurt-weight I've carried my whole life and sometimes wonder if having nothing to do with my parents would be better.

I've been the most depressed I've been in, fork, almost a decade. What's hardest for me right now is my depression usually manifests itself as acutely painful feelings. But for a month, I've been feeling something more like a grinding listlessness: nothing good, nothing to look forward to, etc. I learned tools for dealing with the former, through therapy and life experience, but I don't have tools for what I'm feeling now.
So l should go to therapy, but I'm uninsured & unemployed (that helps with the feelings of worthlessness!) . Trying to sort out free/low cost options is exactly the type of grating, irritating task I'm least equip to handle right now. I'm just forcing myself to do the minimum that I need to do everyday: apply for jobs, send out proposals for freelance work, wash dishes, fulfill volunteer commitments.

I was on it (and should be still) for bipolar disorder, but I don't take it because it makes me sick to my stomach when I swallow it. I have no other complaints about it as it seemed to keep me pretty stable.

I am really sorry you are having such a difficult time.

I'm a bit worried about you based on some of the recent posts you've made about your weight. It seems like you're really fixated on having a certain number on the scale or being a certain size, and based on what you post here, it seems like it's making you really unhappy. It seems like talking to a counselor or therapist about your feelings about weight and size would probably be really beneficial, whether your unhappiness about it stems from your childhood and upbringing or from something else.

Take care of yourself. <3

@8ball & jigglypuff - thanks for the feedback on lamotrigine. I'm on day 2, and so far so good, except for this wicked headache.

Hugs to everyone struggling.

There's a genetic predisposition to depression/mental illness that runs in my family, and after a major surgery I had right at the onset of puberty, I pretty much spiralled into depression. I was fine till about winter of my freshmen year, then I really lost it. I was just crying, sleeping, being sick, missing school all the time. And I've been misdiagnosed so many times. I once had a doctor when I was like 8 or 9 offhandedly say I might be schizophrenic, since it "runs in the family" - my father was diagnosed as such at 19 or some such, but I REALLY think he was misdiagnosed. Anyway, I'm diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I was on lithium for a bit but no more. Now I'm on Zoloft and it works pretty well but it's hard to remember what it was like before. I feel like it is numbing me a little, and I don't like that. I want to totally feel feel feeeel. People take that for granted sometimes. I think it's more likely that I have seasonal depression (it gets really bad in winter for me), with an avoidant personality type. I also have so bizarre OCD tendencies that the meds haven't squelched (lists, but not really - they aren't organized, there's no rhyme or reason, if I think of something for some reason I feel like I have to write it down, even though it'll mean nothing to me by the next day - really random stuff).

I don't think I'm in a bad place necessarily, I no longer feel like killing myself, and I want to go off my meds. I feel like I should at least be attempting some self-therapy (because I can't bring myself to trust a psychiatrist) but the thing is, I don't have TIME. I'm going to be so busy with schoolwork this year because in the midst of my depression freshman year, I made a goal to graduate in three years instead of four. I think a lot of my probably is environmental - I feel so, so, so out of place here (really small town) and lonely. People aren't unkind to me generally, but there's just this sense of having no one to really talk to on a deeper level. So next year I'll be off to college in some bigger city, I don't know where yet, likely Knoxville, D.C., or Evanston/DeKalb/Chicago, and I think it'll be different. Better. Newfound freedom, new people, new environment. I think I'll be able to deal, but at the same time, I know it's going to be stressful - the work, the new place, being away from my mom for the first time. And I still might not have friends. So I'm just a little bit terrified that I'm going to come unhinged next year. I know what that feels like and I never want to be back there again. Advice? Thoughts?

Weirdly, winter and autumn are probably my favorite seasons but they're also the seasons that kick my asparagus mentally. (Walking paradox here!) Summer gets me a little down because of a lack of motivation, nothing to do, so I start feeling unimportant and miserable. My favorite summer days are the rainy, stormy, dark ones. Maybe try doing something that reminds you of fall? Like baking a pumpkin pie if it's not too hot to bake. Or doing fallsy crafts. It helps me sometimes. For example, I just made a pumpkin pie milkshake a little while ago and it cheered me up. Feel better.

It might be too late but i wanted to say that you can always convince yourself that there are other people who need it more, but it is here, for you, right now, and there's no reason why you shouldn't deserve it or get it. I've been there, and thought the same thing, and I hear what you're saying, but I encourage you to take that deep breath and go for it even though you're not comfortable doing so. You're worth it.

Big hugs to all of you guys.

Thanks JP.

I had no idea I'd posted enough about it to cause concern. I guess it's on my mind all the time. I'm not comfortable with my body and sometimes have dysmorphic thoughts and feelings about it.

Yeah, maybe. I did the phone thing which was just a few yes or no questions and have an appointment in a few weeks for an in-person assessment which is apparently a 3+ hour thing in which we'll determine if it would be good for me or not. I guess I'm just telling myself to ignore my second thoughts and let that be the judge of things. Whatever happens it'll probably be useful.. Maybe they'll be like "this program probably won't help you, but here's a referral to someone else who can"?

Whoa...... anxiety has crept back up on me like a ninja and I've been having some pretty obsessive, unhealthy thoughts. Maybe it's time to see the doctor.

Thanks for having this chat out in the open.

It's really helped me to see everyone getting help and finding ways to cope, though it breaks my heart that some of the US people can't get meds because of your forked up insurance system.

I have finally had a chat to my doctor and been prescribed Lexapro. I'm only on the third day of the meds, but I can already feel the misery starting to lift. In a few weeks I'll be starting therapy. I can't remember a time when I wasn't struggling with depression. I am finally ready for it to lift, though I'm nervous about treatment.

Anyway, you guys on this thread and others talking about treatment on the PPK were a big reason why I was able to push myself to take the big step. Thank you so very much.

Hugs to everyone.

BrisVegan, glad that you've found something that's working for you!

I have my appointment with my new psychiatrist at the end of the month--I am nervous, somehow. I'm not sure about what--perhaps that my problems won't seem terribly serious to them, or that they'll tell me I'm faking this somehow. Or that since I'm starting to feel better, I won't be "sick" at all by the end of the month.

In positive news, the lamictal is already helping things seem less dark and life seems a bit more manageable. I'm really hopeful that this med will work out for me.