major depression

hi i'm new here as of this minute. i am 63 years old woman. I have chronic major depression and it never lets up very much. it is so bad that i have anxiety when i have to go any where. i stay inside most of the time, thats where i want to be, but not by my choice alone. i have no energy, no motivation, i am tired all the time for no reason, most of the time i only get 4 hours of sleep and i don't sleep in day time unless its to go back to bed in the morning after not sleeping well or long enough and then only if i have to. i am unable to function, whether it be house work, very little cooking, even to doing any thing that should be fun, almost nothing. I don't enjoy any thing. I can't concentrate enough to read. I am totally miserable almost every day, and i'm never much better. i feel like i'm so low i'm always on the ground. i've been hospitalized about 3 times, once for trying to commit suicide. i won't try that any more but i often wish and wonder why god doesn't just take me. my family isn't close so i am alone except for the infrequent phone conversation with one of my sisters. i do have a dog that i love. i have been going to a mental health center for treatment for close to 25 years constantly. I take my meds without fail but my depression has been untreatable. My mental illness is inherited, my grandmother and her sisters were schizophrenic. there were suicides in my family, 2 of my grandmother sisters and 1 of her sons, that i know about. i feel hopeless, helpless, guilty because of my inactivity, which makes me more depressed and feeling so depressed that i can't get started at any thing makes me feel worse, guilty, hopeless and down on myself. I am so bad that i can't get the energy to help myself. I was in counseling for years for an unloving alcoholic father who didn't take care of us and who was abusive, for not being loved by my father, not feeling loved as a child and for childhood rape at 8. when i was little i felt so unloved and alone that i would hide behind a big tree and cry some times crying myself to sleep. why can't the doctors find some thing that works? what i take eventually stops working at all, if it does work and rarely it works and never works nearly enough to take care of the symptoms. because of the counseling and my study on depression i know what i need to do but i can't get better enough to try, i don't have the energy and maybe the will power any more. i have been depressed all my life and i've always had low self esteem. I am a diabetic, have high blood pressure, shoulder and back pain, anxiety and some panic. my pain isn't severe enough to cause me to be more depressed yet at least. i'm taking pristique, lamictal and colazopam. (prob. mispelled) i need all the advice i can get, i don't know how much longer i can go on like this. it is emotionally painful. i wonder if i need to look at another place to get the help i need. i'm so sorry this is so much to read but i have so many issues. nothing helps me and i cry some times because i want god to take me. i can't see for crying right now.    

Post Edited (Joyce A) : 1/22/2013 6:06:23 PM (GMT-7)

Hello Joyce,

Welcome to the depression forum. I am sorry for what you have been through. I am sorry that you are suffering so much. Iam thinking about your shoulder and back pain. I have that, I have fatigue and also have trouble sleeping. I have fibromyalgia, have you been tested for it? Is the pain constant? Maybe you have it and arent diagnosed for it???

Can you take walks during the day? It may help you feel better. I take vitamin D3 especially in the wnter months as the days are so short. It helps too.

If you arent getting better with your counseling, you may want to look elsewhere, though sometmes that is hard to do. If you aren't happy with your counselor, I would look elsewhere. I am taking 100 mg of pristiq a day. I also take abilify and xanax. I have a situation with the xanax though and don't know if I will get what I need. The pharmacy says no refills, and my psychologist said she called in two. I hope that the pharmacy gives me the two that were suppose to be on there. They probably will. I am trying not to think about it because it makes me anxious. But I amgoing to try to go off completely. I have been on it for over 20 years. It works well for me.

I am sorry about the losses in your life. We can't discuss suicide or self harm here so I am going to leave it at that.

You said you know what you need to do but don't have the energy to do so. Take it one day at a time. Live in the moment. The time will come when you will be ready. Keep posting. And if you feel up to it, go on the fibromyalgia forum. On the first thread (called fibro101) there is a list of symptoms. See if it fits you, and let me know what you think.

I hope that you feel better.

Hugs, Karen

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and encouragement. I just recently started taking Pristiq so i'm only taking 50 mg. at the time being. I always wondered about the lamictal because it's used for manic episodes and i have never had a manic spell. I wondered if it is supposed to keep your manic moods down, would it also make a depressed mood lower? Just thought i'd ask. It would be hard for me to go some where else but i've been on just about every medication you can think of. i do know that some times a combination of 2 anti depressants works best but it's hard to get them to do this. i feel like i'd be better off the lamictal and on another anti depressant. The place where i go need doctors more than anything. I used to have good days every now and then but no more. I am going to make an effort tomorrow to do a timed task and try that. I don't think i have fibromyalgia. my sister has it and i'm not in the pain she is at times and no my pain isn't constant. i will check on the fibro. forum tho. i think i need shoulder surgery, first there was pain and now a boney feeling knot came up on top of my shoulder. doctor knows about pain and now have an appointment to have the knot looked at. some times i'm able to walk without much pain or no pain if i'm careful but at times i hurt so bad that i feel like i can't take another step. you mentioned the D3, what does that do? Thanks again, i do find that talking helps.    

Joyce!

Welcome to the forum. MY goodness! My dear person, the first thing I want to impress upon you is to BREATHE! You must slow yourself down.

count to 3 1 2 3

breathe in 1 2 3
out 1 2 3
repeat this slowly for at least 3 times until you feel yourself calming down some. I can feel the anxiety and tension in your posts. This is an important skill to use all day long to practice and help control anxiety.

If you think your therapy is not working, have you asked yourself this question. Am I being 100% honest with my therapist? We all hide things because they are to painful. We can not get well unless we talk about them.

Your emotions seem to be in a worldwind. Have you tried journaling to get
the feelings, thoughts and emotions out of your head and stomach, and into a dumbing ground? this works for a lot of people.

If you have trouble starting you can get a great work book entitled. Writing for Emotional Balance. I found a copy on www.half.com

Joyce you are in charge of your illness and your emotions. D3 is great suggestion by the way it will help.

Keep posting here we listen and support each other.
Stay strong
Peace
Trina

Great, Joyce! Great job on the cleaning! I hear you about the journaling...My journal for past fifteen years basically has same entry on every page..."Dear G-d please take me home and have mercy on my soul"....I stopped this and started writing every little thing I was thankful for on each day...stuff like...thank you for the mockingbird who sings outside in the tree, thank you for my blanket, etc... Also I pretend that a person has escaped a concentration camp and come to me for help. I have to feed and bathe and rehabilitate and love this person. And this person is me.

Very sorry to know about the suffering you are through. If a person suffers from so many problems its obvious it will make a person to reach to the stage of depression. Well say me one thing whether you have been diagnosed for your back pain? And also happy to know that you have been started trying to engage and deviate yourself towards different activities like cleaning and writing is really a good practice that will make you to express your feelings and keep your heart out.

It's been a while since i last posted, so some new things going on. First of all i went to my appointment with my primary doctor and i told him everything about my symptoms. He says he thinks the shoulder, elbow and arm pain is caused from a tendon and he wonders if the knot on my shoulder is an old fracture, but i didn't have that until after the pain had been there a good while and i don't remember any injury. He is sending me to a bone doctor that i know and the diagnosis will be his of course. I can't tell too much about the depression right now because i am so tired and drained of energy all the time. I am so sleepy and drowsy that i can't sit still enough to watch TV because I fall asleep every time. I recently went to sleep while watching TV and had a glass of cola in my hand and I dropped it in the floor. I went to sleep while watching TV and eating a hot dog and fell asleep with it half eaten. It's not the TV of course, it's being so tired and sleepy that i fall asleep when i sit down. I couldn't stand it anymore so yesterday I went to bed at 3:00 PM and slept until 12:30 AM. I went back to bed early this morning and got so sleepy i went back to bed at 12:30 PM. I am so exsausted all the time and the back and shoulder pain take up the rest of my time and also interrupt my sleep sometimes. My diabetic doctor( a different doctor) diagnosed that i had a slight thyroid problem and a small goiter but wasn't bad enough to treat. I went to my primary doctor for all these problems and I started crying and he is so tender hearted that he told me he was sorry. I complained about my depression and anxiety and i told him something had to be done and he said, "it's going to be ", after my telling him all my symptoms he asked me about my thyroid. I had told him what the diabetic doctor told me much earlier on. He checked it and he said let's get an ultrasound of your thyroid. My question was and is, if you can do an ultrasound on a thyroid gland, then why didn't my diabetic doctor do it then? I told him i had all the symptoms of this, but he didn't go further than a blood test. My doctor took 5 big tubes of blood and is sending me for the ultrasound and to a bone doctor that has treated me for a knee injury and trigger fingers sucessfully in the passed. I know, like and trust him, he is a good doctor and so is my primary doctor. This could be the answer to a most of my problems, but of course not all but could make my depression easier to treat and i may respond to the treatment. Despite all my problems i still manage to set aside at least 5 minutes when i feel the best during the day to do a task, which is mostly when i get up from a sleep or nap. I'm at my wits end with all this other but doing something, no matter how small makes me feel better about myself. My sister came over for a few minutes the other day and commented on how good my kitchen looked. So if i can get this other done and over with, i will feel better. I can't stand to stay tired and so sleepy i can't stay awake. It's horrible. I just decided if i was going to fall asleep in my chair and wake up and fall back asleep, i might as well go to bed and get the rest i need. At the moment i am so miserable with all this. Any feedback or comments?

Post Edited (Joyce A) : 2/1/2013 7:14:33 PM (GMT-7)

Karen, what kind of doctor diagnoses fibro? I will ask about that when i go back and if nothing else shows up. It's not just the TV. I get sleepy at the computer too and have fallen asleep there too but i just don't sit at that very long. I've lost a lot of interest in the computer as i have a lot of other things, most everything. I fall asleep just sitting, not watching tv. If i'm not asleep, i'm sleepy when i should not be. I stay sleepy most all the time no matter what. I'm not taking any new medicines and they haven't made me sleepy before, as a matter of fact before this all came on i couldn't sleep because of the depression. I stayed up half the night and all night at times and watched a lot of tv then and i've never been nearly this tired or sleepy. This is definately a change. I am almost totally inactive because i am this tired and sleepy. I feel totally exausted all the time. I haven't tried the D3. I had pain in my elbow last night for a couple hours, and my lower back had a dull ache in it. He thinks the elbow pain is tendons also but fibro isn't easy to diagnose is it? I am tired all the time whether i do anything or not, for no reason. about the lump, it came up a good while after the pain started and the lump itself doesn't hurt. Thanks for the feedback. This forum helps, it's a good place to talk and share problems with each other, and the ideas offered are helpful. Question, how do i find where everyone is sharing. I'm on the page where i post and get replys, but not to read others post. Thanks