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Soooo Tired of living this way

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Posted 9/22/2010 5:34 PM (GMT 0)
I am new to this site, came across it at 3 am this morning, one of my nightly trips up from bed. I am 39 years old have been living with depression, panic disorder, and  gad for

9 years now. I have been on several antidepressents, have been suicidal on some, and very nervouse feeling on others. I started taking cymbolta about 6 months ago,

worked great at first, I am on 60mg daily.  Latley i've been having more bad days then good, I know I need to up this medication or try something else, I'm very scared to do this. I have had 2 really bad episodes with this. I dont know what to do. But I cant keep spending my days crying, and telling myself what a bad mom I am, and worthless, You know the

routine. This effects everyone in my home, and I cant keep on this way, I feel like i'm a burden..... I dont want to kill myself, I just want to feel normal again, my happy, funny ,

bubbly self, where did she go. I want her back.....So gonna try taking my cymbolta at night and see if I can get at least 2 hrs of good sleep. Hopefully this works, I also take lorazepam for my anxiety. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks for reading, and caring...

 

Posted 9/22/2010 6:05 PM (GMT 0)
Hi E,
Welcome. Sorry to hear you're struggling right now. Seems all too common with depression. I do want to encourage you to talk to your psychiatrist. Sleeping is so key to our physical and mental health. There are some things that you can try to see if they help. They are called "sleep hygiene". This site give examples of the kinds of things that can make a difference: www.sleepeducation.com/Hygiene.aspx. A lot of physical changes can really set our minds up to know it is time to sleep. Personally, I keep my bedroom 5-10F cooler than the rest of my house. I start turning down the lights about one hour before bedtime. Often I make a cup of Passion Flower tea with a tiny bit of sugar (something in the tea promotes sleep; can't remember right now but there have been some very basic studies on it). I take an anti-convulsant about 30 minutes before bedtime (anticonvulsants can also help slow the brain down & promote sleep). Then I crawl into bed. I made a simple fountain because the sound triggers me to think about sleep. In the morning, first thing even if I can't get out of bed right away, I turn off the fountain so my brain knows it's time to wake up. My room is painted a dark color so I try to be good and open up all the shades at first light since getting 10 minutes of sunlight early in the day apparently also promotes getting good sleep at night.

There are a few other things that I do, but those are the main ones. The key is to make your bedroom into a destination location for sleep. It's worked really well for me, but then I would struggle with waking up in the middle of the night. But I saw a counselor this week & she was able to give me a strategy to deal with feeling stressed in the middle of the night. So far it's been working pretty well. I haven't been on sleep meds for over a year & now that I can settle myself down and get back to sleep when I wake up I'm feeling much better.

I sure hope you can find something that works for you. Know also though that sometimes there is a physical reason that you can't sleep. If you try the techniques & talk to your counselor and nothing is helping, it might be worth finding a sleep specialist and getting a sleep study done.

take care,
frances
Posted 9/22/2010 8:31 PM (GMT 0)
Frances, Oh yes, Passion Flower Tea, Drink it everynight!

To the original poster,

I so feel for you.  I was not too long ago in your place.Anti-depressants only made me worse.  I was on Xanax and when I weened myself off, my depression was gone, it was the culprit.  But still had anxiety, I worked through that with big diet changes, big attitude changes that you do have the power within you to make and when things do get bad, make myself keep going until it passes.  I read a quote one day that said " A person will get well when they are sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Do the hard work to get yourself well, make your life the way you want it and I really hope you feel better soon.

Gem

Posted 9/23/2010 8:29 AM (GMT 0)
i am on 120mg cymbalta. it has been helping, albeit other extraneous factors have

dropped me a bit. otherwise a good med. maybe an increase will help you. keep

talkin' with your doc. hang in there, jamie. the mad professor.
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