30 Year Antidepressant Dance
I am at the end of my rope. I've got to find solutions.
I was 32 and seeing a counsellor about my marriage, she suggested me seeing a psychiatrist to see if drugs would help. Prozac turned the lights on and I could think clearly to make decisions. They would take me off the drugs when my life was calmer. I was divorced with a 3 year old and an executive at a financial services firm. So when did my life calm down? Never did. One pill, up pill, change pill, add a pill, add another, etc. That has been my dance for 30 years. I played that game. April 2022, I was to add the 4th pill and I was done. I weaned myself off them and I have been struggling for the last year and a half. Wake up every day with a sense of dread. Had a stroke August 2022 and another stroke January 2023, by the grace of God no residual, Neurologist said it wasn't because I got off the antidepressants, they're unsure why it happened. (Had a mini stroke in 2017). Live on a blood thinner. The good thing about being off antidepressants is I lost 40 lbs.
The counsellor suggests seeing a psychiatrist to see if TMS would be the answer. That is the protocol for drug resistant depression. I am scared to death. I don't want magnets on my head. What if it doesn't work? What if there are side effects? What if it does work, but then it stops working? I've had those disappointments on antidepressants.
Keep cancelling counsellor appointments because I haven't made a psychiatrist appointment. If I could roll back 30 years, I wish I had never taken the short cut of pills and just pushed through with the counseling. My life may not be the "nightmare" I perceive it to be today.
Set counsellor appointment for Oct. 11th. Promised my husband and daughter not to cancel it. I want talk therapy to work rather than being back on pills or TMS.
My life is good except for me - my depression. I have a supportive and wonderful husband, daughter and mother. We do not have financial worries. So many others have horrible financial issues. Yes, I had 3 strokes, a minor heart attack, stage 1 breast cancer/lumpectomy and cervical cancer scare/hysterectomy, but all of this is minor when compared to what other people go through. I have every reason to be joyful and I feel shame to let depression and anxiety overtake me.
I dont talk about this, I hate to bother people with 30 years of boring depression. So, I don't have real friends. I am trying to be more social because my counsellor told me to be, but I have a hard time connecting. I make small talk, ask alot about other people, not sure when to share. I see other people chit chatting and look so comfortable socializing, I am in awe of them.
Thank you for this forum and would appreciate insights.
Great link below - I need to read it over and over till it sticks:
https://www.intrepidmentalhealth.com/blog/12-things-not-to-do-if-youre-suffering-from-depression
@Punkinkitty I don’t have any insights or answers, but I want to say thank you so much for posting this. I resonate with the decades of chasing depression and trying med after med after med. It’s exhausting and can feel hopeless.
Thank you so much!
Know that you can start to connect to people right here. If you write something on this post, I will respond once a day every day.
Also, comparing your depression to anyone else's just makes you miserable. You have been suffering for 30 years with a brain chemical imbalance that isn't your fault. You deserve to feel better no matter what you have suffered with or not.
Something someone has labeled as "drug resistant" isn't necessarily so. I had someone suggest those magnets to me once. I never needed it. It was right before I really began to recover. It did involve lots of therapy and medication. At one point I was on three different ones. I very, very slowly weaned myself off a quarter or half a dose at a time. I am now off anti-depressants and just take two very minimal doses of anxiety meds to help me sleep. Every summer when things are a little calmer, I try to take out more medication. It didn't work this summer because things got hectic, but that doesn't mean I can't try again. I will keep trying and I will get to an even better spot.@Punkinkitty
Thank you so much. Hearing your experience is very helpful.
I was thinking about it after I wrote and it was my current psychiatrist who suggested the magnets. Then he began to realize that I was getting better. We both just kind of let that happen.
But it was really like I was emerging from a cocoon and could not see it happening because I had been ill for so long despite the loving family and all the rest of it. What turned it around for me, I think, was being less obsessed with trying to control my thoughts and more concerned with what I was doing physically. When I started walking every day, coming to help people on 7 cups every night (thus saying to others all that stuff I couldn't say to myself), doing a daily jigsaw puzzle, coloring, etc. then my brain finally started to move in new directions.
So healing is ALWAYS possible. You just have to find the right path.
I hope that you had a good day today. @Punkinkitty
Great input. I think about my depression all of the time, which isn't healthy. Being outward instead of inward is good thoughts. Thank you for sharing.
I hope that you had a good day today! @Punkinkitty