DESPERATE FOR HELP!

Hi and welcome to the forum. Please check out the first thread called "depression resources". There are numbers to call and sites to visit when in crisis.

Also are some sites on mindfulness. Being in the moment really helps.

Do you have any idea as to what can be causing the terrible anxiety? Is there things or events that trigger it for you? Just curious. Try to be relaxed and if possible go with the flow. Try not to demand anything of yourself. Just to breathe...

I will get you some numbers.

Hugs, Karen...


National Suicide Hotline
1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433)
This is a combined network of the Amerian Association of Suicidology, the National Hopeline Network, CONTACT USA, and many other organizations. Call are automatically routed to the nearest crisis center to the phone from which the call for help is placed.

Helpful Web Sites:
Suicide Hotlines (listed by state)
Suicidal.com (includes Suicide Crisis Center and Depression and Suicide)
www.teenhelp.com/teen-suicide/teen-suicide-help.html

I really believe that the breathing and mindfulness plus meditation has really helped me with my anxiety. I think it would help you too. Once you get anxiety under control, I think that the depression will get better.

Karen, thanks so much for taking the time to respond. I have always been a Type A personality and a worrier, but this overwhelming anxiety I've been experiencing along with the very severe depression is something that just started 8 weeks ago. When I went thru the 10 day program I talked about in the first post, they taught me all about mindfulness and some calming exercises, but they weren't of much help. As far as what triggered this nightmare, I can only guess that I had been under a lot of stress for more than a year fighting a battle against the State I live in because our Governor has made health care unaffordable for the most part for retired and active State employees. That, along with a lot of other family business that I had to tend to because there was nobody else to handle it, I'm sure played a part. The insurance business had me really maxed out stress-wise. I am also extremely close to both my parents who have been my best friends as well as my parents my entire life. I have one sister to whom I am also very close, but she is married and has her own life. Neither of us ever had any children, and I have been divorced for many years. Because of my circumstances, my parents and I have been practically inseparable all my life since I didn't have a family of my own. Our friends were the same, we went everywhere together, did everything together. They are both now 83, and I am TERRIFIED OF LOSING THEM. My Mom broke her hip and had to have surgery back in January, and it was about 4 - 5 weeks after she broke her hip that this awful episode started. No medicines have worked, nothing I try to help myself works, my family is worried to death about me, and I've just reached such a bad point that I don't want to wake up anymore. I'm just so desperate for help of any kind, and even though my doctor comes back tomorrow, I think even he is at a loss as to what to do with me. Whether you are just starting an anti-depressant or coming off one, you know how long it takes, and I just don't feel I have that time anymore. I don't know who I am anymore or what it feels like to have once been me. I am so lost and hopeless.

i send many healing thoughts your way. know that we care.

How are you feeling today? How was your weekend???

Otherside

welcome to the forum.

Tough spot you are in.

Perhaps you need something a bit stronger for the moment like ativan, ask the doc.

www.mindful.org

is a great site to check out to calm your self and find wonderful coping skills for anxiety and depression. It is well worth the time to search and read through the site.

Keep fighting, where there is breath there is hope. You are not alone, we know how hard it is.

Peace and strength
Trina

other, i am taking lexapro. it is a good med, esp in combination with others, boosts, that is what i would say. some meds are better second time around, as your body will recognize it. in regards to TMS-in australia it is trialed here and mainly in use in the private psych system. say no more. magnets.........look at the scientific data on magnets!!!

now ECT. well, let's actually de-stigmafy it. firstly it is used used as a last resort to treatment for at risk persons. and where treatments have failed. secondly, it has a **** load of street cred, it has been done and increasingly improved, also the success of it, whilst some early memory loss is aparent, but does return, it is simple, and safe. thirdly, look at the severe side effects we put ourselves through with meds, med combos and other meds for other illnesses and there reactions to our entire system. it begs the question, a little zap lasting 2 seconds, with a seizure that only makes your fingers tremble. no different to an serotonin, noradrenaline uptake to the receptors? ECT is drugless. it has excellent scientific merit and longevity. some people may not be conducive to this treatment. it is only done as a last resort and is taken very seriously, therefore much pre-discussion takes place before the course begins.

obviously i have had a course of treatment. i am an advocate of ECT for persons whom are indelibly depressed and at risk. not eating and taking meds, and where an intervention is required. just my 2 cents. many healing thoughts.

sherlock, a true fan always rides the lightning!!! sorry for the little hijack of ya thread other.

keep strong my friends.

Hi Otherside,

It can take a long time for these meds to get stabilized in your body. So try to be patient with both. Even though you are at 8 weeks with the remeron, it can still take a bit for it to reach full potential. But 8 weeks is usually the time we expect to feel better.

If the Lexapro causes some anxiety, know that this can happen to some people. Also some people tend to feel a little more depressed at the beginning two weeks or so. It is tough but we need to keep being patient. With the meds and out selves.

The Ativan will help with any anxiety that comes up. I also preach the breathing and meditation. Mindfulness... These three things can help more than medications at times.

I hope you have a good rest of the day...

Hugs, Karen...

I know everybody's probably in bed by now, so I'm just venting I guess. It's been a bad day & night. I know it's too soon for the Lexapro to do any good because I just took my first 5 mg. early this morning and I just took my bedtime 30 mg. of Remeron & will take my Lorazepam (Ativan) in a little while. I have just gotten to feeling progressively worse as the day has worn on. Maybe, when I was feeling a little bit better for the first time in so long when I awoke this morning, I shouldn't have taken the Lexapro, but as I said in a previous post, the Remeron has let me down so many times before. Who ever knows what's right or wrong? I sent my psych. an update but didn't ask for him to call me or anything because there would be no point. But I just feel so hopeless, jittery, & lost again tonight. For anybody out there, thanks for listening.

I so confused I don't know what's going on. As I stated previously, I took the Lexapro Wednesday, but then felt so bad all day after taking it that I contacted my doctor about what was happening. I spoke with him & he said he honestly could not tell me what was going on but that if I wanted to skip the Lexapro for a few days to see what was going on, I could do that, so I didn't take it Thursday (yesterday afternoon) BUT, when I got to feeling bad again yesterday afternoon, I realized that I was still going nowhere fast with just the Remeron and wanted to try and get something started that would get me back to myself again, so against my better judgment, I took the Lexapro again this morning (Friday) and have suffered for it all day with EXTREMELY OVERWHELMING DEPRESSION that has knocked me back to the depths of hell. The depression has been so bad that I can hardly put one foot in front of the other, crying all day, scared, and my doctor is out of pocket again until Monday. I know it takes time for meds to work, but with such a violent reaction again, like all meds were doing me starting in January before I started on the Remeron, I just don't think the Lexapro is going to work with the Remeron. I've just been too sick again both times after taking it. It has really knocked me for a loop. Now I'm back to Square One just like I feared, with seemingly nowhere to go.

Thank you so much for checking in on me, Happy Turtle. Yes, my doc is a psychiatrist, but he's kind of at a loss my case is so confusing. Which is why he referred me, back in April, to the other docs who did put me on the Remeron but weren't of much other help. That's why I went back to my original. He's so good about calling back & not even charging me for it. Of course, he charges for the visits, but most charge when they even call you. This guy has stuck with me even though I haven't made much progress, but in my area, many people, including my sister, have said he's one of the best. It's not his fault all these crazy things keep happening to me and I seem to be resistant to almost every med. I take. I'm in a really bad way today - almost paralyzed with depression and scared to death. I can't contact him until Monday, but I'm so sorry I ever took the Lexapro. Even though what I took was such a minimal dosage, it apparently once again triggered this extreme, overwhelming depression. I wasn't feeling great before taking it, but the depression wasn't all-consuming like it was when this episode started in late January or early February. Now I feel again like I did then. Again, thanks for being kind enough to check on me.

No, Happy Turtle, it has not been mentioned, but that could be because my sister had them with drastically bad results. She lost a lot of memory which she never gained back, and they did not help her depression one bit. All of that, combined with my heart condition, the defibrillator, etc., are the reasons I would not consider them. But thanks for the suggestion. I have to contact my doc tomorrow so I can go meet with him to discuss some plans of action because again today, I woke with depression so bad it feels like it's choking me. My family (especially my beloved elderly parents) are worried to death about me, and I wake up every morning hoping I'm going to feel better. That's only happened twice, and it didn't last but a day or so. And the second time it happened, which was last week, that was the day I took the Lexapro, and it was like physical hands actually pulled me back down into hell. And then 2 days later, I took it again in an effort to help myself feel better, never imagining that I would wind up like I am! I should never have taken the Lexapro, but while the Remeron, in a way, saved my life 8 weeks ago, it never makes the depression so much better that I can say I actually feel good. It's just that twice, I woke up feeling "better" for a very short while. I'm just feeling so bad and so hopeless this morning. I hate myself and I'm sick of myself and I'm disgusted with this godawful feeling I live with inside me.