Depression & Obsessive Queries

collie666

Hi,

I'm hoping that someone here can suggest a course of action for the situation my partner and I find ourselves in. I've detailed how we got here to hopefully give a better picture - hope you all don't mind reading a short-story...

Background:
During the entire period of this story, my partner has been suffering from; anxiety, obsessive cleaning, trichotillomania, eating distress (alternately bullemia & restrictive eating) - and to varing degrees depression. They each appear and regress at their own (seemingly random) pace.

June 2004 - Mar 2005:
Partner is becomming increasingle depressed, some self-harming, occasional thoughts of suicide. Attended counselling for eating disorder for a period of 8-9 months, no medication.

Summer 2005:
Our son is born

Aug 2005 - Dec 2005:
Baby-blues arrive and don't go, depressed mood is quite severe with frequent thoughts of suicide. Eventually in Dec 2005, partner attends GP and is prescribed Lexapro.

Dec 2005 - Feb 2006:
Partner took Lexapro for 3 months, but it's not tolerated - severe insomnia, irritability - which becomes physical. GP changes prescription to Prozac

Feb 2006 - Feb 2007:
Prozac taken continutally over this period, reasonably tolerated. Depression, anxiety, and most other 'background' symptoms continue, with the exception of self-harm, which is largely gone.

Feb 2007:
Depression getting worse, my partner attends a different GP on recommendation of a colleague. Full bloods taken, etc - nothing. GP thinks my partner may be bi-polar & recommends a psychiatrist.

Feb 2007 - Aug 2007;
Attends psychiatrist. Physc says 'not bi-polar' - declares it's depression and general anxiety disorder. Starts working on anxiety and compulsive behaviours. So minor progress with the compulsive stuff during this stage.

Aug 2007: Partner stop taking Prozac as 'she feels better' (without psych's knoiwledge). Psych stops therapy and refers partner to CBT therapist

Dec 2007: Still waiting for CBT therapy, depression getting worse, partner visits GP who prescribes Lustral (Zoloft).

Mar 2008 - Mar 2009:
Partner attends CBT with therapist - who in retrospect appears to have preferred listening to their own voice, rather than listening to their patients.
During this time, my partner becomes increasingly disillusioned with therapy and medication and stops meds in Dec 2008, but continues therapy until Mar 2009. Therapist (to me) seemed unprofessional - no notes, took phone calls during session - unfortunately I only heard about this recently.

Present: Partner is suffering from severe anxiety issues - but rather than external (ie can't leave house) it's mainly internal (ie - incessant circular thoughts about things she should do, analysing them and then re-analyzing)... coupled with great difficulty in making the simplest decisions.

Phew! That's the essay finished ... so, I guess the advice / opinions I'm hoping to get are:

* Where to go now? I'm not asking the board to diagnose - but rather, can anyone suggest how to get a proper clinical diagnosis? To recap, so far, we've had: depression, bullemia, anorexia, bi-polar, gad....
* Support groups - general opinions and recommendation on which types? Given the list above, would an OCD group be good, or an anxiety one?

Any other advice is really welcome.

Thanks.

btw, I have my partner's full support in posting this, just she doesn't feel strong enough to honestly catalog all the above.

Kevster

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear that the CBT didn't work out for you. However, I had to attend some CBT sessions too but actually got worth out of them. If you want, you can PM me and I will send you the details of contact.

Kevin

collie666

Kevin, thanks for the reply, it's much appreciated. I'll ask my partner what she'd like to do and get back to you by PM.

To the wider audience, does anyone have any advice on how to get a broader psychiatric evaluation done? To date, most evaluations have been GP based, so after 5-10 minutes discussion the doc(s) have declared her to be suffering from any one/more of the conditions in my first post. The one psychiatrist evaluation was off the back of a GP thinking this was bi-polar - and it appeared to me (I was present at the initial consultation) - that the psych's first concern was to disprove the GPs' bi-polar conclusion.

Does such a thing as a 'full psych evaluation' exist & if so, is it reasonable to expect it to help answer my partners' main question of what kind of therapy to seek?

Odysseus

collie666 wrote: »

Kevin, thanks for the reply, it's much appreciated. I'll ask my partner what she'd like to do and get back to you by PM.

To the wider audience, does anyone have any advice on how to get a broader psychiatric evaluation done? To date, most evaluations have been GP based, so after 5-10 minutes discussion the doc(s) have declared her to be suffering from any one/more of the conditions in my first post. The one psychiatrist evaluation was off the back of a GP thinking this was bi-polar - and it appeared to me (I was present at the initial consultation) - that the psych's first concern was to disprove the GPs' bi-polar conclusion.

Does such a thing as a 'full psych evaluation' exist & if so, is it reasonable to expect it to help answer my partners' main question of what kind of therapy to seek?

The course of action I would suggest is a different form of psychotherapy, CBT helps alot of people, however, even though I have done a fair bit of CBT training [work imposed it on me] I'm not a fan of it personally, though that says more about me. It sounds like there are some complex issues there that could take a long time to work through, it you want help finding a different therapist pm me, I will be able to provide you with a few options depending on where you live.

Now just as important if not more so, is your partner on meds at the moment if not I would suggest talking to the GP again and trying different meds until you get a good result. If you feel you are not getting a good service from the GP change doctors. Secondly the last psych appointment was in 2007 if I read your post correctly, so if it was a member of my family I would tell the GP that the symptoms are still there, that quality of life is severely effected and request a new psych referral.

Sorry to hear about your partners bad experioence with the therapist, but like every other profession there are good therapists, half descent therapists and of course bad therapists. Hope this helps a little. Best of luck to both of you.

emir27

I have been given a diagnosis following a standard month residential stay in a pyschiatric facility...pm if you want further info. I suffered intially with depression but was very distressed when other symptoms presented, the most distressing was external anxiety. I began self harming, developed bulimia and suicidal tendencies. all of the symptoms progressively got worse. I developed substance and alcohol dependancy also. Is your partner drinking alot to cope? best wishes for your partner and dont forget your own needs too!