Well, I could make this even more long and complex if I related all your thoughts to my life experiences, as they ARE pretty similiar, but i'll try and keep things simple, so forgive me if i sound overly frank. Feel free to ask me to expand, or do so yourself, on anything in particular though.
It sounds like youve allways had depression. You just have been motivated by the thoughts that you will eventually pull through if you just listen to some music or do whatever else helps you deal with those periods of deeper sadness (and it sounds like those strategies worked pretty well for you). I'd guess that at your age, its becoming more and more apparent to you that there really is something mentally 'off' with your mood (as in you find yourself depressed and apathetic more often than others). Its best described as a sink hole i guess: youve been able to avoid being dragged entirely under by keeping a positive attitude and doing things you enjoy to keep your spirits up. However now you have just really become fed up with clawing to avoid being dragged under by your depression and have started to give up (or given up, realizing that things are not as emotionally 'difficult' for others as they are for you most of the time; and sulking in that realization). OR, a massive amount of stresses has kind of just shoved you into the middle of the sinkhole and under, so to speak, which is not hard to imagine dealing with life at 26 years old.... I hope none of that comes across as condescending, the first part was exactly what I lived like, until eventually at 7 years old I got pile driven into the middle of the sink hole, so to speak, by a massive stressor.
Anyway, I had guessed you were taking imipramine from the changes in feelings you described, and I was right (toot, toot). ;)
Everyone reacts differently to different meds but a real common side effect of Imip is sedatedness. Like I said, imip helped with my depression in terms of 'worrying about
things' but it also made me really lazy and made me want to avoid people because I just didnt feel like talking with anyone. I described it better in my other post.
Like I said, ive tried about
everything made, I have been on paxil and had the same effects, depression was definetly better but I was pretty off the wall too.
In my unprofessional (but probably more qualified than most professionals) opinion I would suggest you try a medicine like effexor, lexapro, or the cymbalta med I mentioned I recently started taking. Tricyclics like imip are good at helping depression, but their side effects usually bring on a bunch of other issues like the ones i mentioned before.
As strange and ridiculous as it may sound to alot of people, a pill that helps balance your brain chemistry and therefore improves your depressive symptoms IS somewhat similiar to taking a tylenol that makes your headache go mostly away. However, finding the right med/combinations of meds is a helluva lot more complicated. I guarentee you there is a med/s out there that will help with what symptoms you describe. However, alot of newbies to psych meds get skiddish after they try a couple meds that are ineffective for their symptoms and say, "well I tried meds and they didnt work." They give up on meds entirely and even sometimes carry around a negative stereotype of all meds because they tried a few that made them feel messed up. Thats ignorance. Dont be one of those people, you'll just be doing a MAJOR disservice to yourself. Also, dont put up with a doctor that makes you stay on a med for months at a time that is ineffective for you or possibly even making things worse.
One last thing, when you do find a med that helps, you probably will think you can stop the med because your 'feeling better now'. Dont, you'll start feeling your symptoms again. The goal of psych meds isnt to 'take a break' from depression. It is to help balance your mood consistently. Smoke if you only want temporary relief. :)
Post Edited By Moderator (els) : 7/20/2006 12:50:03 PM (GMT-6)