diagnosed with depression

LegacyUser

Today I went to my gp and explained how for the last year how depressed I've been.I've been put on antidepressants and sleeping tablets.What I want to ask is should I tell my family.I've been on a downward spiral for ages drinking too much taking drugs and generally been self destructive and I think this has harmed my relationship with a lot of people especially my parents.I feel too ashamed to tell them,I know if I do they will be so worried and upset.They are already trying too much to interfere in my life (I'm 20 and away from home in college) and I think if I tell them I will have no peace from them.Also they will probably try and make me come home for the summer.I know I should tell them and my brother but the thought of them knowing makes me feel sick.I've tried counselling it didnt work out and now I don't know who to turn to.Also I've final year exams in 3 weeks and I haven't done a tap,I've failed the christmas ones already.I've no motivation or interest to study.I just feel so alone and afraid right now.

scoby

It's a horrible feeling when you feel like you're letting down someone you love but don't panic and make things worse. While your family might not be delighted that you're going to fail exams I'm confident that they're more concerned about your health and wellbeing than whether you nail that exam on 'economics in micronesia' or whatever. Not taking the piss but there are more important things in life and exams can be retaken.

I had to make a phonecall to my mum to say that I'd dropped out of college and was working in a shop for minimum wage
the week after I broke up with my girlfriend. Needless to say I was not a happy camper
She was really disappointed, she cried on the phone saying "Do what you want, you obviously know best!" then hung up.


A couple of days later I actually got a hand written letter from home in which she apologised for being such a bitch on the phone ( her words! ) and said
"We loved you before you ever took an exam and we still love you."

I still have that letter and it lets me know that they'll look out for me no matter what.
Your situation seems a lot more serious than mine but hopefully things will get better and I reckon you could do with the support of friends and family.

Victor

dddfg wrote:

I feel too ashamed to tell them

Depression is an illness, just like having a cold or asthma or ulcers or a broken leg. We go to the doctor for a cure and we rely on our friends and family for support through the worst of it. Your, or should I say our, case should be no different.

Admitting to someone that we "aren't right in the head" can be difficult (its mostly skewed perception, not reality), but realise that 20% of the population will experience depression at some stage in their lives.

I think try to find a quiet moment with you parents and explain to them. You might consider picking up some leaflets from your doctor / pharmacy on depression that they can read over.

Regarding your exams, have a talk with you tutor / senior lecturer and explain the situation to them. There may also be a college counsellor you could go to.

Whether you go with counselling or not, find someone you can talk to and open up with, someone to act as an anchor for you when thigns aren't going right.

Villaricos

hey! i know exactly how ya feel, I was diagnosed with depression this year too. should have been doing my finals too except i was admitted to hospital so i defered.
Anyway only telling ya this because my parents were so supportive that i couldnt have got through it without them. you'd tell them if it was any other illness wouldnt you? Depression is no different and telling them could do a lot to clear the air. having someone to talk to is so important when ya feel like this. my advice tell your family, but do get some information/leaflets etc if this is a topic they know nothing about. i found people who thought there was a stigma about depression were the ones who didnt understand it or know much about it.
my doc showed me a poem he kept in his office and the last lines sum up depression "do you really think i would choose to feel this way if i could?"
its a good line to explain how depression is just an illness.
I hope you feel better soon, its not a fun thing to go through but its so cureable, may not feel that way now but trust me it really is.:)

Esel

NB: Be sure not to mix alcohol with sleeping tablets.

LegacyUser

Thanks for all the replies.Scoby you are right health is more important than exams.I think I'm going to defer them.I'm going to go home today and tell my parents.I did try to broach the subject once before with them but they kind of dismissed it as nonsense.Victor,if I had a friend suffering with depression I would be the first one to say there is no need to be ashamed,its an illness.But I'm still finding it hard to accept that I do have an illness and I suppose I still feel that I should be able to get rid of it without tablets.At the moment I have just waken up the sun is shining I feel totally normal and i'm thinking there is no way I'm depressed.For the last year I've just tried to block out my feelings acting like a happy person until I get into bed and cry my eyes out and don't sleep and feel haunted by my thoughts.So I know I just have to try and accept it and get rid of the feeling of being ashamed.Villaricos "do you really think I would choose to feel this way if I could" really does sum it up.I'm going to tell my parents and close friends I really do need their support.I know this is curable but at the moment I've lost all hope.As regards my drinking and drug taking I've given that up.I only took drugs very occasionly usually when I was drunk.On nights out I would drink so much to block out everything.I did so many stupid careless things while drunk this year.I was in a dangerous situation where I could have died,thats when I admitted to myself i had depression because to be honest I nearly wished I had.Sorry for the long post.

Lindaloo

Your thread has helped me out with a situation with a friend of mine, reading your post has made me sure he's in the same boat as you and I'll find out how to help him out so thanks

Do tell your parents, they'll be there when you need them and you won't have the added burden of keeping a secret. Best of luck

finnpark

dddfg wrote:

Today I went to my gp and explained how for the last year how depressed I've been.I've been put on antidepressants and sleeping tablets.What I want to ask is should I tell my family.I've been on a downward spiral for ages drinking too much taking drugs and generally been self destructive and I think this has harmed my relationship with a lot of people especially my parents.I feel too ashamed to tell them,I know if I do they will be so worried and upset.They are already trying too much to interfere in my life (I'm 20 and away from home in college) and I think if I tell them I will have no peace from them.Also they will probably try and make me come home for the summer.I know I should tell them and my brother but the thought of them knowing makes me feel sick.I've tried counselling it didnt work out and now I don't know who to turn to.Also I've final year exams in 3 weeks and I haven't done a tap,I've failed the christmas ones already.I've no motivation or interest to study.I just feel so alone and afraid right now.

A lot of research has shown that anti-depressents is the wrong treatment. It can cause real bad long term effects and only makes the problem worse.

You should really be on Lithium tablets I think. A elderly relative of mine suffered from depression but the only thing that helped him was Lithium tablets.

Good Luck with your illness and research the Internet to find out more about your problem.

scoby

Well done on getting away fom the drink, it's one thing that feels like it helps for about 5 minutes and then makes eveything worse. I always felt ashamed of the stupid stuff I did when drunk and it landed me in hospital once.

If your family still try to 'dismiss it as nonsense' then you'll have to educate them. Some leaflets or a chat with their GP might put them right and make them realise that while it's not the end of the world, it is a genuine illness and needs to treated.
Good luck.

Victor

dddfg wrote:

But I'm still finding it hard to accept that I do have an illness and I suppose I still feel that I should be able to get rid of it without tablets.

Then you are in a very similar position to what I was in during 2002-2003.

Celtic67

Hi,
Depression is a very big deal in Ireland at the moment and I often wonder if I have it. I'm 30 with good job, house, car etc etc and on the face of it everything may seem fine going to the gym 3 times a week etc. But for some reason I find myself going on the P**S from Thurs nights straight through the weekends (all day), drinking with different groups of people/friends each time just to be out in the pub drinking, its like something just triggers inside my head. As regards antics when drunk I've done all the pathetic things when drunk, arrested for fighting, arrested for drink driving, drugs, sleeping with married women, barred from nightclubs, abusing everyone in sight, missing work. After all of which depression kicks in hard. I'm like the guy in the Diageo/Heineken ads on TV but on a larger scale. Strangely though, other times I can go out and just have a few quite drinks with friends no hassle, but sometimes something clicks and I have to go on 3-4 day binges as if to block something out. I know I've rambled a bit but I should do as the OP has done and get some sort of diagnosis from my GP. Best of luck to anyone with similar problems.

Litcagral

finnpark wrote:

A lot of research has shown that anti-depressents is the wrong treatment. It can cause real bad long term effects and only makes the problem worse.

You should really be on Lithium tablets I think. A elderly relative of mine suffered from depression but the only thing that helped him was Lithium tablets.

Good Luck with your illness and research the Internet to find out more about your problem.

Effective medication can depend on whether the depression is 'clinical' or neurotic. I don't think this has been established yet in this thread.

Victor

[QUOTE=eselNB: Be sure not to mix alcohol with sleeping tablets.[/QUOTE]Alcohol can affect a huge range of medications, often rendering them useless - the alcohol blocks the receptors the drugs need to work.

Esel

finnpark wrote:

A lot of research has shown that anti-depressents is the wrong treatment. It can cause real bad long term effects and only makes the problem worse.

You should really be on Lithium tablets I think. A elderly relative of mine suffered from depression but the only thing that helped him was Lithium tablets.

Good Luck with your illness and research the Internet to find out more about your problem.

Cite this research??? This is a serious issue for the OP, and your generalisation is not particularly helpful, imo.

Lithium is used in bi-polar disorder (aka manic depression), a very different condition from clinical depression.

@Victor:

Alcohol potentiates the effects of benzodiazepines, the family to which most sleeping tablets belong. The combination is dangerous.

AFAIK, alcohol negatively interferes with some or all antibiotics, rendering them inneffective, as you said.

@OP: Good luck.

jrey1981

There is a theory that depression is an emotional reaction rather than a clinical illness that should be treated with medication.

Having been through a period of it myself, I still find I am prone to those black moods, but I tend to agree with the emotion theory and prefer to avoid the medication route.

www.depressiondialogues.ie have monthly meetings, which might help.

I realise every case is different and that there will be people who swear by antidepressants - I am just throwing another option into the debate.

finnpark

esel wrote:

Cite this research??? This is a serious issue for the OP, and your generalisation is not particularly helpful, imo.

Lithium is used in bi-polar disorder (aka manic depression), a very different condition from clinical depression.

@Victor:

Alcohol potentiates the effects of benzodiazepines, the family to which most sleeping tablets belong. The combination is dangerous.

AFAIK, alcohol negatively interferes with some or all antibiotics, rendering them inneffective, as you said.

@OP: Good luck.

.

he Priory Hospital Hove, 14-18 New Church Road, Hove, Sussex BN3 4FH, UK. marcoprocopio00@hotmail.com

Despite the widespread use of antidepressant medication, there are no signs that the burden of depression and suicide is decreasing in the industrialised world. This is generating mounting scepticism on the effectiveness of this class of drugs as an approach for the treatment of mood disorders. These doubts are also fuelled by the increasing awareness that the literature on antidepressants is fundamentally flawed and under the control of the pharmaceutical companies. This article describes systematically for the first time what is probably the most insidious and misleading of the biases that affect this area of research: the "multiple outcomes bias". Most trials on the effectiveness of antidepressants, instead of first establishing a hypothesis and then trying to demonstrate it, following the scientific method, start instead "data mining", without a clear hypothesis, and then select for publication, amongst a multitude of outcomes, only the ones that favour the antidepressant drug, ignoring the others. This method has obviously no scientific validity and is very misleading, allowing the manipulation of the data without any overt fraudulent action. There is the need to generate new research, independently funded and with clear hypotheses established "a priori ". What is at stake is not only the appraisal of the balance between benefits and potential damage to the patients when using this class of medications, after the realisation that they are not as harmless as believed. It is also to establish whether the research on antidepressant medication has gone on a "wild goose chase" over the last half century, concentrating almost exclusively on molecules that modify the monoaminergic transmission at synaptic level and virtually ignoring any other avenue. .

There has been quite abit of research that shows the negatives of antidepressants. In the US doctors are phasing out antidepressants and will only be matter of time until it reaches here. Antidepressants are a money making racket by drug companies. Used by doctors as there is no cure for depression.

Villaricos

finnpark would have to agree with esel here, you seem to be scaremongering and just throwing generalisations out. ok, fine you found one article against anti depressants but imo they do have their place for treating depression as i am curently on them myself. I (and my psychiatrist agrees) they are are most effective coupled with councelling or other therapy but they arent quite the terrible thing you seem to be making them out to be.

I was warned that drinking on sleeping tablets is highly dangerous too, more so than other meds. obv though taking and antidepressants then drinking alcohol(a depressant) aint the best plan but it wont trigger the same effects as the sleeper can.

OP - glad your telling the folks hope it goes well, and you will feel better it just takes time but hang in there

Esel

I trust the doctor is only prescibing the sleeping tablets for a short period (say 2 weeks-ish), as benzodiazepines are addictive if taken over an extended period. Try and get your 'sleep hygiene' organised (google it). Keep regular hours to help establish a regular sleeping pattern.

Hope things went well with your parents.

Do you have to decide now to defer your exams? You could be feeling a lot better in a month or two. Only you know how prepared you are, how well you have studied and scored on your projects etc., so the decision is for you to make. A year is nothing in the scheme of things - look on the bright side - you get another year in college!

@finnpark: One paragraph from someone with a hotmail address is not a 'lot of research'. What you quoted is more a summary of an article which apparently describes how "multiple outcomes bias" affects research on anti-depressants. Anyway, let's not get into an argument on this thread. I will try not to comment further on this.

Victor

finnpark wrote:

Antidepressants are a money making racket by drug companies.

Perhaps, but so are pain-killers. Just like a broken leg is treated with a cast and pain-killers, a traumatised mind is typically best treated with a combination of medication, talking and other treatments.

Folks, please lets not hi-jack this thread on the OP. Detailed discussion on the merits and de-merits of any particular medication or other treatment can be had on the Biology / Medicine and Psychology boards.

LegacyUser

Its done!I told them,felt really nervous and sick waiting to tell them but it went well.Their first reaction when I told them I needed to talk to them was that they thought I must be pregnant.So their reaction when I told them it was depression was relief.They just both hugged me and I told them all about how the last few months have been hell.They were both so supportive,they weren't panicky and upset.They did take me to another doctor to get a second opinion who took me off the sleeping tablets reduced my tablet dosage and told me to get a gym membership.I told the college I'm going to defer and take a year out;there was no problem.I'm going to live at home for a few weeks.The relief I'm feeling is enormous it is like a load has been taken off my mind.There is light at the end of the tunnel after all!To anyone else who might be feeling the same way go and talk to someone,its frightening telling someone you need help but it will be the best thing you will ever do.

Victor

Thanks for the update, you sound relieved, indeed ecstatic.

One thing to watch there is the ecstaticness. Going from ecstatic to normal or ecstatic to depressed feels real bad, so best to have someone about for the next few days to talk to.

have you thought further about a talking therapy or even a support group like Aware? Its really useful to have someone that can both "show you the ropes" and empathise with you.

LegacyUser

I suppose I am ecstatic at the moment.But at the same time this morning i felt really down.Spent practically all day talking to my mum.She will be home for the next few days with me.I'm not sure about joining a support group,the counselling I tried did not go well.It made me even more upset.I dont know yet whether I could talk to strangers.But from looking at the website aware sounds like it could be helpful maybe when I go back to the city I'll try it.At the moment i'll just keep talking to my parents.

Victor

dddfg wrote:

the counselling I tried did not go well.It made me even more upset.

Perhaps it made you more upset because you had to put words to your thoughts and share them with another person? Yes, it can be painful at the time, but it helps us to deal with things.

Villaricos

hey! glad it went well with your parents and that your feeling better! if ya are feeling donw again remember it can kind of take a two steps forward, one step back kinda technique so if ya feel donw again just remeber your progress!
and yea councelling can be really upseting the first time because it does pull out kinds of stuff out of ya but ya gott give it a chance to see the good it can do!
take care!:)

Steveland

esel wrote:

Lithium is used in bi-polar disorder (aka manic depression), a very different condition from clinical depression.

Lithium is often used in the treatment of unipolar depression, both singularly and in combination with antidepressants.