Depression.......

Heidi-hi

Hi all,

apologies if this has already been the subject of a thread but I couldn't find one that answers my questions....

I was diagnosed with depression and prescribed anti-depressants yesterday. Still in shock I think. I mean I know I'm unhappy but....
I don't think I am ready to go down the medicated route. I want to try and see can I get better without them. So I figure the obvious steps must be taken - stop drinking alcohol, start exercising and start talking to someone.

I'm just wondering is there anyone else out there who has been prescribed anti-ds and felt "this isn't for me".
And if anyone can give me tips on other steps to take I would really appreciate it.

tbh

hi Heidi - have a look in the long term illness forum where you'll find plenty of support and threads about this subject. Link in my sig.

Black Swan

Heidi-hi wrote:

So I figure the obvious steps must be taken - stop drinking alcohol, start exercising and start talking to someone.

Also review your diet and make sure you get enough sleep at night.

Heidi-hi

Thanks!

Beetlebum

Heidi-Hi,

I was prescribed anti-depressants last Summer. I was feeling really low and the Doctor immediately put me on a course of anti-depressants. I knew in my heart that I wasn't clinically depressed, just unhappy with my life at that time. I was doing quite alot of drugs and sessioning alot at the times, plus I'd just broken up with my long term bf. In short, I was miserable but not depressed. Alot of my misery was self inflicted too, ie drinking too much etc.

I took the anti-depressants for about a week but felt really bad about taking them, guilty or ashamed or something. I decided to stop taking them and take back control of my life. I stopped doing drugs and haven't looked back since. I still drink but not nearly as much and I take really good care of my health. Try to assess why you are feeling so unhappy and see if you can come up with a possible solution to each problem. It may not seem like there is one at the time but there always is. Diet is also important. Eat feel-good foods like bananas, nuts, oily fish etc and get plenty of shut eye.
Alcohol is your enemey when your depressed. It looks like your friend and calls out to u but ignore it!! It will make your head fuzzy and your mood even lower.
Hope you feel better soon and I hope you ditch the anti-depressants unless, of course u feel they are working for you.

Take care of yourself.

LegacyUser

heya Heidi hi!

I get the whole mixed feelings about taking anti depressants, Ive been there too but the thing is its important to remember what anti depressants are and what exactly their role is in helping you.

They are not, as so commonly thought, as 'happy pills', they will not fix you by themselves. They are good, they have their uses but not for a quick fix.

Anti Depressants will lift your mood in order for you to better tackle things in life and get yourself into a more positive place in life. Effort is required from the individual to get over depression but most depressed people dont have the motivation to do this. anti depressants are designed to overcome this hump and help you help yourself.

Dont discount them, they can certainly help you, try and not buy into the stigma surrounding them.

Your on the right track with wanting to change diet and get exercise. Exercise is a wonderful mood uplifter and will work wonders.

If you want to talk to someone ask your doctor to refer you to a counsellor. Its amazing how theraputic yapping away for an hour about yourself can be. It will certainly clear the clouds around your head.

Use the anti Ds as an additional tool to get over this hump, theyre not the evil they are made out I promise.

LegacyUser

'I have to agree with "Anti-D's".

When you are prescribed the right one for you, and you have the right dosage, they are excellent. They will cancel out your predisposition to feeling awful, but have to work hand in hand with sorting out any aspects of your life that may also be contributing to your depression. When I was prescribed them first, I thought that they could make me happy on their own. Because I wasn't sorting out my life, I just kept saying they weren't working and my dosages got increased again and again, until it reached a point where I was laced with them. This made it difficult to sleep and I was prescribed sleeping tablets too. Also, I found and was told by doctors that they take 6 weeks to take full effect in your system. It's incredibly difficult to get through this period of time while waiting to know whether I was on the right type of anti-depressant for me or to wait and see if my dose was sufficient, so it's best to take the help they can give but don't think that they will sort you out like an antibiotic sorts out an illness.'

stcatherine

Hi,

sometimes just going to the DR and admitting we have a problem is enough to get us on the road to getting sorted. I've suffered depression on and off for years , the first time I was given Meds my Ma went nuts because I have history of epilepsy. She flushed 'em, I had counselling and got better.

Last year I started on 40mg a day and to start with they were great but like the others have said they only treat the chemical imbalance and not the root of the problems, they tried upping my dose to 60mg to treat me for self harming and in the end I was a nervous wreck, it was too much and it wasn't helping anymore.

So I came off again and with some life changing decisions I beat it, if you feel you can't cope then take the pills for a while they may give you the courage to face up to your problems and tackle them head on, then you can wean off the drugs.

Don't feel like your letting yourself down by 'giving in' to taking the pills, sometimes we need a little help in life and thats nothing to be ashamed off.

Good luck x

leninbenjamin

i'm surprised nobody's mentioned to read "Feeling Good" by David Burns, well worth a read for anyone feeling a bit depressed. in this country we have a well documented propensity to prescribe anti-depressants when they aren't fully needed, influence of the pharmaceutical companies and that. you certainly wouldn't be the first to feel the anti-depressants are overkill.

leninbenjamin

i'm surprised nobody's mentioned to read "Feeling Good" by David Burns, well worth a read for anyone feeling a bit depressed. in this country we have a well documented propensity to prescribe anti-depressants when they aren't fully needed, influence of the pharmaceutical companies and that. you certainly wouldn't be the first to feel the anti-depressants are overkill.

Esel

@leninbenjamin: 'feeling a bit depressed' is not the issue here. Everyone feels like that from time to time.

OP: you went to the doctor. Either take their advice, go back to discuss further, or go to another doctor. Ask for info on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

Skadi

I have my doubts about anti-depressants. You need to realise that first they can actually make you worse, feel worse about your situation. Also i found that my doctor was too quick to have me on them for several months without doing anything.

For me I find taking valium for short periods is far more beneficial. When taken before bed, it helps me sleep the whole night. Also taken when I'm extremely agitated helps to calm me and be able to cope with things.

Dalfiatach

Heidi-hi wrote:

I don't think I am ready to go down the medicated route. I want to try and see can I get better without them. So I figure the obvious steps must be taken - stop drinking alcohol, start exercising and start talking to someone.

Firstly, I Am Not A Doctor, I have no medical background whatsoever, these are just the opinions of a random dude on t'Interwoogie, IMNSHO, YMMV, etc.

It seems to me that in the last few years huge numbers of people are being put on the happy pills by Irish doctors. It seems to me that very few of these people are actually medically depressed, they're just going through a rough patch or are a bit unhappy with some aspect of their lives or some other relatively trivial (medically speaking) underlying reason. It seems to me that most of these people then go on to believe they do have something "wrong" with them because The Doctor Said So And Put Me On Drugs, and that this then kickstarts a vicious cycle of psychological issues, anti-depressant dependancy, and learned self-destructive behaviour.

I have a couple of friends who have genuine mental issues, extreme bi-polar disorder, Aspberger's, and so on. Some people genuinely need medical treatment. But I firmly believe that huge numbers of people currently being prescribed anti-ds don't really need them at all and that this overdosing is actively harming the recipients!

OP, this weekend I'll be off the drink for 4 weeks, and doing a small amount of light exercise a few days a week for the last 2 weeks. The first three weeks were slightly unpleasant as my body purged itself of all the accumulated toxins. But this week I've felt more mentally alert, generally brighter, much less irritable and much better able to cope with the everyday petty little frustrations of life than I have in years - and I'm generally a fairly cheerful, "get stuff sorted" kind of guy, even when I was drinking pretty heavily! So if I feel this much better, I can imagine the difference it would make to someone who is generally cheesed off and feeling down.

Diet - try to eat a little healthier. Cook for yourself in the evening. And see if you might be allergic to certain foodstuffs (quite a lot of Irish people are intolerant of wheat and/or dairy products. Comes from our genetic heritage from the mesolithic original inhabitants of Ireland, allegedly). Poor diet, or eating something your insides don't particularly like, can have a massive effect on general health, energy levels, mental agility and general mood.

I think human contact is very important too. When yer feeling a bit off, we all tend to withdraw into ourselves and not talk to people as much. This actually makes things worse. We are pack animals at the end of the day, and we need constant contact and conversation with other humans. So if you have a solitary job, or the people in your work are a bunch of dry boring eejits, or you have little contact with other people outside work, or if you only ever have lengthy conversations with the same 3 or 4 people week in, week out.....do something about it. Try to get yourself into a situation where you are in the company of people just chatting about random stuff at least a few days a week. You actually don't have to say much yourself if you aren't much of a talker, just being part of a group of people in a social setting and taking occasional part in the conversation is food for the mind and soul. Remember, lots of people love to talk about themselves and their hobbies, you just have to give them an excuse and they'll be rabbitting on for hours :-) Just avoid people who are always negative about things...

So cut out (or at least greatly reduce) alcohol and caffeine intake. Eat better. Get a little bit of exercise (even a good brisk walk, 45mins, 3 nights a week will have a very positive effect after a few weeks). And work on your social contact.

If you don't feel much better and much more able to cope after 4-6 weeks, then you might have to consider that there may indeed be a real medical problem.

I just don't think starting down the anti-depressants road is remotely worth it, unless you definitely have a serious clinical medical issue.

Best of luck.

Esel

Skadi wrote:

For me I find taking valium for short periods is far more beneficial. When taken before bed, it helps me sleep the whole night. Also taken when I'm extremely agitated helps to calm me and be able to cope with things.

Different strokes. The OP is not asking about benzodiazepines, which are not regularly prescribed for clinical depression.

leninbenjamin

esel wrote:

@leninbenjamin: 'feeling a bit depressed' is not the issue here. Everyone feels like that from time to time.

OP: you went to the doctor. Either take their advice, go back to discuss further, or go to another doctor. Ask for info on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

well it is the issue here to some extent. the OP doesn't feel she fully needs them. the whole point of my post was that doctors are perscribing anti-depressants to people who don't fully require them, but do so because the vast majority of the info they get on the disease is from the drug companies.

regardless that book is worth reading whether your mildly depressed or full blown.

LegacyUser

Over the last two years i've been feeling so depressed and it's only gotten worse. I know its me who should be the one to take action about it, but I can't help feel worthless after no of my friends or family have noticed how much of a loser ive become. I used to love making jokes and having a laugh with people and always had a smile on my face so much so that i tried to stop it. Now I rarely laugh at anything. The worst thing is that nobody even seems to have noticed the change in me which makes me feel like crap. I feel so bad at times and cry in bed and im a 21 yr old male. Every night I now find myself feeling sorry for myself and thinking about suicide, even though I know there's millions of people worse off than me but I can't help it. I convice myself i'm not looking for sympathy from family and friends but I think I am seeing as i've been imagining my funeral for about a year now, although at the same time i'd never tell anyone. That's why I know I can't get real help. I'd never tell anyone in person. I don't know what to do anymore and fell like **** nearly all the time. I can't see any possible solution to my situation because of the way I am. I just want to start life again as every day I live makes me feel worse. I don't know where I ****ed everything up. Please help me feel normal again.

Marksie

Ianit9: have alook at the sticky at the top in the charter, there are some addresses of people you can talk to. Also, if you wish, start a separate thread to separate your issue out.
There are plenty of threads here covering your issue and you may find it helpful to reveiw those.
But talking about it is a first step in recognising and tackling your issues.
You may wish to see your GP and ask for referral to professional services.

The issues you describe are so common that you are not alone, no matter what you think. Seek support in whatever context you need and do so now as thoughts of suicide are a strong indication that things are beginning to fall out of your control.

AckwelFoley

I've being on Anti depressants for over 5 years now. I suffer from severe clinical depression.

The most difficult thing to overcome is many ppl ignorant misunderstanding of the illness.

I am not ashamed or embarressed to tell ppl i have depression because if you met me you would never ever think i had it. But thats typical of many ppl.
I talk to ppl about it pretty openly in tha hope that perhaps there may be one person that i talk to that has it realises its not somthing to be ashamed of. As a man it is a bit of a stigma to have it because its perceived by us as some kind of weakness - this is not the case.

LegacyUser

'Hi, I've just read your message and it reminded me of how I was feeling the first time I was told I suffered from depression. Everyone is different and some things will work for you and some wont. I was put on anti-d's 6 years ago (im 31 now) and I found it difficult to deal with. I took them for a while and them tried to come off them myself...... Bad idea. I ended up worse than ever. The moral of my story is if you've been prescribed tablets, stay on them. If taking one tablet in the morning helps you cope with life, isn't it better than falling to pieces? I've gone to lots of different councellers and I finally found one who really opened up my eyes and helped me to realise that this is who I am and to accept it. If you had asthma you would use an inhailer....... so you suffer from depression so you take tablets... Same thing!
I hope you feel better and always know your not on your own.'

Esel

Coming off ADs 'on your own' is not a good idea. Depending on the particular drug, the 'withdrawal' symptoms can vary from very little to mild to severe.
The doctor will usually taper you off on a phased basis, if they think it is appropriate for you to cease taking them.

Most people don't have to remain taking them forever. I can see how if you had a bad experience after stopping abruptly you would be happy to go back on them and be apprehensive about stopping again though. Speak to your doctor about this if it is relevant to you.

Heidi-hi (OP), how are you doing?

Call Me Jimmy

ianit9 wrote:

Over the last two years i've been feeling so depressed and it's only gotten worse. I know its me who should be the one to take action about it, but I can't help feel worthless after no of my friends or family have noticed how much of a loser ive become. I used to love making jokes and having a laugh with people and always had a smile on my face so much so that i tried to stop it. Now I rarely laugh at anything. The worst thing is that nobody even seems to have noticed the change in me which makes me feel like crap. I feel so bad at times and cry in bed and im a 21 yr old male. Every night I now find myself feeling sorry for myself and thinking about suicide, even though I know there's millions of people worse off than me but I can't help it. I convice myself i'm not looking for sympathy from family and friends but I think I am seeing as i've been imagining my funeral for about a year now, although at the same time i'd never tell anyone. That's why I know I can't get real help. I'd never tell anyone in person. I don't know what to do anymore and fell like **** nearly all the time. I can't see any possible solution to my situation because of the way I am. I just want to start life again as every day I live makes me feel worse. I don't know where I ****ed everything up. Please help me feel normal again.

It is almost unbelievable how close to my situation that is, I can't believe that someone else wrote this...

LegacyUser

'I couldn't tell a doctor I felt depressed. I dont think i can explain it but i feel bad most of the time when i know shouldn't. it seems to hit me out of nowhere and i feel like hanging myself. i sometimes have a great time and then it hits me so fast. i feel very awkward writing this that its taken me almost an hour so i know i couldn't talk to someone face to face about it.
(sorry to hear that,maybe you can see what people say here and it will help)'