Posted 9/27/2012 3:45 AM (GMT 0)
Hi there *waves*
I hope everyone is doing alright. I have been better, but I am not terrible. I have a question. How many people here are depressed and have (or because of) other sicknesses that make the depression worse? I have had depression my entire life, and I really took a bad turn about 5 years ago. I fought really hard to get out of there, and was doing really well (people said that they didn't even recognize me). Over the past two years, I have been going through some very stressful life issues, and they got really bad at the beginning of the year. The stress got so bad that (the doctors are speculating) I started to get really sick. It was a case of my body saying that it had enough. I am not very old (although I think old is a state of mind anyway), but it seems that I aged 10 years overnight. I have been spending the past year (almost) trying to figure out what is going on with me. Since then I have had one operation (on my eyes - detaching retina) and countless doctors appointments. My counselor left his practice, and they have not bothered to help me find someone else. I can feel myself slipping, but I have been holding on. Today, I had a VERY rough day. One of my doctors said that I needed yet another surgery, and the other doctor in her practice thinks I may have something going on in my inner ear. My neurologist has no idea what is going on, but is referring me to the movement center in the hospital (shaking and twitching hand and side (same side as the hand). My regular doctor is now referring me out to doctors without seeing me since that is all she would be doing anyway.
I feel so tired. I am so depressed (today at least). I am not falling anywhere near to where I was 5 years ago, but I don't want to get there. I am afraid to talk to my psychiatrist because he said that my dosage of my antidepressant was about as high as he wanted to go. He said if he needed to go any higher, then we would have to think about switching. I am afraid to be on anything else, because when I was on Effexor, the side effect I had from it was a suicide attempt. It almost killed me (literally). I also do not respond well to medicines, so the idea of trying and not succeeding with antidepressants is terrifying. I don't want to go through it again. It is not like the med I am on now is not working. It is that I have been going through so much stress, it seems like it needs a boost. I am feeling so frustrated.