new to this forum

Hi, everyone..

I have been posting in the bipolar forum (since I am bipolar!!!), but have  moved over here becuase I spend 90% of my time depressed and I am considered rather complicated as far as meds go.  I feel like I  have been depressed forever and maybe very 3 months I will have a mood shift to mania for 3-4 days only to plunge nack in depression.  By depression ranges anywhere from mild to severe (suicidal)  It.s  been hard to deal with.  I work as a licensed counselor and find it helps to be distracted by others' probelms.  If I respond to a post, sounding like a counselor. I apologize now, because it is not my intent to try to be anyone''s counselor here on the forum.  I am here for support and to give support.

Hi HorseCrazy,

I am horse crazy too. Always had one when I was a kid, but dont' have the energy to take care of one now. As they are so much work.

I am glad that you have posted here. And glad that you want to support others. We do have a wonderful group of members here, I am so proud of them. Today is chat day if you are interested. We usually have chat on Tuesdays. And it is all day, so that people from other places can join in. So please do if you feel up to it.

Keep posting, let us know how you are doing. I too have seen you on bipolar as I was moderating there until Happy Bill got to be a mod. He is quite a character, I like him.

Take care my friend. Know that we all do care about you.

Hugs, Karen

Harrington, Getting by, and Jamie..

Thankj you for the welcome.  A bit more info...I have been married forever (41 years) to a guy whohad a horrible time at first adjusting to my mood swings and now backs me about 90% of the time.  I have 2 adult sons who have learned to support me without letting my problems consume them.  The youngest (23) is a paramedic and studying to be a nurse and he is a bit of a caretaker...but has learned to set loving boundaries with me.  Because without a doubt, when I am very depressed I can be a handful.  Officially, I am bipolar I, but for the past 2 years have been quite deoressed (with a handful of hyper days) and thus far the depression has been resistant to medication.  In late July, I will go to University Of Micigan's Depression Center for a total evaluation and hopefully, they will be able to offer my pdoc some guidance in dragging me out of the never ending depression, which runs from moderate to severe.  Some of the depression was PTSD when in Feb'09 one of our horses out of the blue attacked me, injuring me quite badly and I had to be hospitalized.  It was a very scarey, brutal attack that sent me into a downward spiral of depression for months, but PTSD counseling finally helped me resolve that.  Having had horses in my life since I was a kid and trusting them 100%, the attack was something I had a terrible time coming to terms with.

And yes, Harrington, I do love to garden.  Last summer I was in sort of a depression haze and really did not garden.  This year at first I forced myself to garden and now am really back into it.  Gardening is very healing and centering for me.  I love to dig around in the dirt!!!  I only have a couple tomato plants and then a flower garden.  A full fledged vegetable garden is impossible because we have a huge population of vegetable loving deer that live in and around our property. Winning the war with the deer can be frustrating.  It sounds like you have a wonderful garden and I am glad you get so much pleasure from it.  I hope to hear more about you.

Getting by...yes, Happy Bill is a neat sounding sort of guy.  His upbeat posts and encouragement were always helpful to me.  I am glad to be "catching" up with you over here in the depression forum.

Hi Horse Crazy

I have been married 37 years to the best husband in the world, although he doesn't understand depression and why I have it. He has such a good outlook on life, I wish I could catch it.

My depression was caused by my only daughter moving to Sweden 10 years ago, so yes I have been depressed all that time on and off but mostly on. She has been home to Australia to visit quite a few times in that 10 years but since 2008 our relationship has been on a downhill slide to the point that it is at now of her having cut off all communication to both her father and I. However we did receive a birthday card each but that is the only contact she has had with us since Christmas Eve last year.

We have written to her, sent her cards and tried to ring her repeatedly, all to no avail. She totally ignored Mothers Day and to be quite honest I am totally gutted by the whole situation. Some days I just can't pick myself up, I do a lot of crying in secret and lie awake at night till all hours until I finally cry myself to sleep.

However, I found this wonderful HW forum and I have made some good friends on here who I know care about me.

How lucky are you to have your own personal paramedic? I can only imagine how he must look after you. I also have a son who has just turned 30, but he doesn't look after me the way your son does you.

I too find the garden very therapeutic, although it is winter now but I have all my winter veges in and we have been eating from the garden for quite a few weeks now. I just live on a normal suburban residential block, so we don't have the deer to worry about, in summer I just have to worry about my golden lab Holly, who absolutely loves tomatoes, strawberries and basically anything you can eat, she loves it. So we have had to fence the veges off but she can still get at the ones that hang over the fence. I often come out in the morning and there are green tomatoes that she has pulled off the vine lying, not eaten, but chewed on the ground (LOL). But I wouldn't trade her for the world.

Well Horse Crazy, I hope we too can become good friends, I am sure we will, so keep posting.

Harrington...

I cannot even begin to imagine the pain of losing contact with either of my boys (even tho, I am sure they have had rheir moments of wishing I would disappear).  Seriously,  I feel so badly for you.  I just am glad you have a wonderful husband to help you thru this, even though he doesn't understand depression.  As a marriage counselor, I see alot of depressed women whose husbands are at a total loss what to do with a depressed wife, but they still love her very much.  I have been married 41 years to a guy who reallygave me a rough time when I first was diagnosed bipolar (however, I tend towards the depressed end of it), he slowly accepted it and now is pretty supportive.  I do think at this point he is as sick of my depression as I am and actively helps me search out doctors, programs, you name it in hopes of hitting on something that helps.

I feel bad that you are crying at night and by yourself.  I think it is a very lonely thing to cry by yourself, but I understand your tears.  I hope there is something that gives you comfort.  You know. as a counselor, I do see a lot of young adults who "write off a parent or parents for awhile....each seems to have a different time frame and a different reason.  But when they come to me, they are at a point of wanting to reconcile and they do...once they figure out how to do it.  So don't give up hope.  My brother's son wrote them off about a year ago...in fact, he wrote every single one of us off, including his very elderly grandmother, who he loved dearly.  Nobody knows what happened, but much to his parents' despair it seems like for the time being, it will be this way.  As I said, I can't imagine surviving one of my boys writing me off and my heart goes out to you.  I certainly can understand your depression and how hard it must be for you to crawl out of that hole.  I know I would be very depressed.  Use the support of this message board and maybe you might want to find a counselor to talk to.

Yes, I do have my own little (really not so little) paramedic.  In  Feb '09, one of our horses for some unknown reason attacked me quite brutally and I was hurt pretty bad.  I had my cell phone with me and was able to call 911 for help.  My son was on duty and when he arrived, he was so calm and comforting, but also busy getting me loaded into the ambulance and taking care of some of my injuries.  Anyway, first hand I saw him in action and he is very good at what he does.  And he has always had all the patience in the world for me when I am depressed.  After the horse attack I was severly depressed for 8 months and was treated for PTSD.  My oldest son is supportive of me, but he tends to take out his frustration by getting hopping angry at my doctos  or the fact nobody can make me "better"

You are in my thoughts.  When you cry, try to remember I am thinking of you and with you in spirit.  Hoping to hear from you again,

Hugs,

Gail

Horse Crazy,

I believe I remember you talking about the accident with the horse on the bipolar forum. Like harrington says, that had to be horrific. Do you still own this horse? Or did you have to get rid of it? You are very brave. I remember when I was a kid, my uncle and the kids and I went horseback riding. MY cousin was jealous of me and hit my horse when I had my foot out of the stirrup. The horse went running doen a big hill and I was being dragged. I hit my head on a rock. I was so scared. I didn't know until years later that my cousin hit my horse to make it run. She felt so bad, but I still couldn't understnad why she did it. I wasn't scared of horses or anything, thank God. But I sure was shook up. I couldn't believe my cousin did that to me.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, yes, I do try to read all of the posts. I have to check for spam or rule breaking. We need more moderators on this forum. But when we get them, they don't last long. I don't know if it stress or what. But they always leave. I have been doing this for a couple of years now. I enjoy it. But sometimes it takes me a while to get to all of the posts.

I hope that you are having a good day today. The sun is out here and it is suppose to be cooler today. Which I am glad because I can walk my dogs.

Take care my friend.

Hugs, Karen

Hi Gail,

I am so glad that you are over the fear from that horrific event. I don't know what I would do if that happened to me, horses are so big and powerful. I am glad that you had a good counselor and doctor and that your family was there for you. It really helps to have the support that you need in a situation like that. You are very fortunate. Which is wonderful.

I am sorry that you have been depressed so much. I know that it robs us of all of our energy. I have been through that. Plus I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Fortunately I take adderall and that helps me to have the energy that I need to get through the day.

Today we went strawberry picking on a farm. It was kind of nice. Not too hot and there was a nice breeze. I am itching from the plants though on my arms from picking. But we got two crates of them. Enough for my husband to make his strawberry freezer jam. It is so good. I picked up a half of a gallon of french vanilla ice cream to go with them. Now I have to get some pound cake. His son went up to Charlevoix to pick yesterday I guess. They got a lot of them. They have four kids though so they wont last too long.

I hope that you are having a good day today. You take care, keep your chin up. Know that we are all here for you.

Hugs, Karen

Hi Gail

I am in Australia, so yes we are in winter but it is pretty mild so far, quite bearable in the day but colder at night.

Thank you so much for your post to me, it made me feel better about things, it is just a waiting game I guess. I also think the first counsellor gave me a bum steer in telling me to tell my daughter that I am depressed because of her, that only made the whole thing worse but the thing I can't get past is that she is now claiming to be traumatised, a complete fabrication to discredit me as her mother, knowing how hurt I would be. I was never a bad mother and she was never traumatised. I am pretty angry over her claims, as you might have guessed.

I went to the doctor this morning to see if he would change the meds as they're not working but he is reluctant to do that but he has agreed to increase the dose as he said I am on a very low dose (I don't know why) so starting tonight I have to take them morning and night and then see him again in a month and he may increase them again.

You said the same things as my counsellor said to me the other day, that I am grieving for my daughter, that pretty much sums it up but like I have said I am angry as well. The sessions with the counsellor come in lots of 6 and the goverment pays most of it but I have to pay a small amount, so I have three left from the prior counsellor and then my doctor can authorise for me to have more if I need to, I think I will be.

Thanks again for your great post to me Gail, I will try and take a lot of what you have said on board because you certainly make a lot of sense. Keep posting.

jocelyn...

I believe in one thing about Moms....No matter what, they do their best to be a good Mom  and sure, there is a handful that neglect or abuse their kids, but I have found that number to be few.  We all at one time or another hurt our kids' feelings or whatever and sometimes we don't even know it and certainly don't do it on purpose.  Your daughter saying she was traumatized sounds to me like the words of a counselor....counselors are quick to say stuff like that.  Then the kid points the finger at Mom.  Of course that makes you angry, especially when you know otherwise.   The important thing is to hang on to the fact that you know you were a good Mom and probably created many good memories for your daughter.

Right now she is choosing to hang onto negative stuff...try not to let it get to you too much.  As I said, this all sounds like it is coming from a counselor.  My okdest son recently sent me an email, saying he realized that at times in his childhood I was not the best Mom ( I was raving, unmedicated bipolar....once I got on meds I settled down), but as an adult he chose to think of all the happy times I created for him, and that was how he thought of me...a good Mom.  Made me cry.  (happy cry).  Your daughter has a choice to make either to hold onto this idea that you tramatized her or to let it go, and let the happy times surface, so you two can have a good relationship.  At this point, try not to take what she says too seriously. No matter whar you were the best Mom you could be.  When one is angry usually there is a feeling underneath the anger.  Anger is a great cover up emotion,  because usually under it is hurt, frustration, rejection, sad or a host of other emotions.  I think you are deeply hurt by your daughter's accusations.  Maybe her anger is fueled by by one of these emotions.  whatever in the end of all this, you and your daughter will end up forging a new relationship which will probably be a whole lot better.

I am glad your doc increased your meds.  You will not see an immediate effect.  Yakes awhile for the new dosage to kick in.  Sounds like you have a much better counselor this time around.  I hop you get more sessions.  It is important that you learn to have compassion for yourself ( you have been thru a lot) and deal with all  the feelings (as painful as they may be) you are having.

Not much news here.  Except I am having a terrible time sleeping at night.  Don't know how or why...I take enough meds at night to put an elephant to sleep!!  I also tend to sleep walk which often has me doing really off the wall things.

Well, talk to you later.  Hang in there. You are going to be OK.

Gail

Karen... I used to take ambien, but I started sleepwalking and doing really crazy things.  Like I smeared the cat with salsa; same cat (she is a calico) I colored all her white spots with permanent marker, so she had red, green and blue spots; I would try to eat non-food items, like a piece of cardboard covered in butter...anyway, the doc decided that ambien was not for me!!!  However, I did love it...put me right to sleep (until I started sleepwalkng); now I take klonopin for sleep and it works so-so.  I have had problems staying asleep which accounts for my middle of the night postings.

Gail