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Posted 7/22/2017 6:38 AM (GMT 0)
Hi kellyinCali. Yes it was an SSRI, it was fluoxetine. But I was not sleeping many nights before I started taking that too. And was still not sleeping after I stopped taking it. It was definitely worse when I was on the fluoxetine, but I still felt depressed, it was not 50 hours awake and doing things, it was lying quietly in bed at night waiting to fall asleep and it just didn't happen, and then getting really upset and anxious about it and tired the next day.
Posted 7/22/2017 10:57 AM (GMT 0)
Learn some meditation Somegirl, it calms you and I use it to go to sleep every night. It works. Just takes practice...

Hugs, Karen...
Posted 7/22/2017 11:31 AM (GMT 0)
So, this new med is somewhat helpful in letting you sleep? That sounds like a step in the right direction. I'm sorry that your therapist dismissed your claim as an exaggeration. Maybe you could keep a sleep journal to show your P-doc. Hugs.
Posted 7/23/2017 2:23 PM (GMT 0)

somegirl123 said...
Yes it was an SSRI, it was fluoxetine. But I was not sleeping many nights before I started taking that too. And was still not sleeping after I stopped taking it. It was definitely worse when I was on the fluoxetine, but I still felt depressed, it was not 50 hours awake and doing things, it was lying quietly in bed at night waiting to fall asleep and it just didn't happen, and then getting really upset and anxious about it and tired the next day.

Insomnia is one of the major side effects of fluoxetine (Prozac). Discontinuation syndrome - withdrawal, also causes insomnia. A lot of people have trouble with Prozac. It was really popular some years ago, but I think more effective agents exist today. It wouldn't hurt to read up a bit... /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoxetine
Posted 7/26/2017 6:17 PM (GMT 0)
Have you tried the Melatonin supplement from the health food store, or the net, for sleep?

I've taken it for years and it puts me to sleep.

I also like it because it's not a doctor med, and is not habit forming.

I take 1 mg. of Melatonin at night, and it puts me to sleep, but only because I also take doctor pills for my bipolar.

Without the doctor pills, I might have to take 3 or 4 mg of Melatonin. It comes in 5 and 10 mg. tablets, so it must be OK, but you'll have to decide.

Some on this website say you need to check with your doctor or druggist to make sure its OK with the med pills you are taking. My doctor says its OK because it's been around for so long.

Melatonin is also sold at Walgreens and other chain stores.
Posted 7/26/2017 8:05 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks guys. Yes I am definitely sleeping better on the mirtazapine instead of fluoxetine. I sleep pretty much every night now and usually manage to fall asleep fairly quickly. The only problem will be when I have to go back to night shifts 😐 not sure how that will work out.

Tim Tam, I did some research on melatonin and it turns out I need a prescription to get it where I live. Since the mirtazapine gets me to sleep, I didn't ask my doctor for a prescription for it, but I will keep it in mind for if I have to come off that med in future or if it stops making me sleep for some reason.

I had another appointment with the counsellor yesterday which went okay, she said I need to learn to let things go (like you said RobLee!) But I don't really know how to do that I guess.

Thanks for all the suggestions and help guys!

Somegirl
Posted 7/27/2017 9:54 AM (GMT 0)
Just keep trying to move forward. The letting go comes with that. Take it one day at a time.

Hugs, Karen....
Posted 8/3/2017 6:55 PM (GMT 0)
Somegirl:

What's the latest?

When you were first reporting on your condition, you couldn't figure out heads or tails.

You were saying, "I figure that if it is something in my life that is making me feel so unhappy and low on motivation then the solution is simple. If it's loneliness, then organise to do things with people more. If my job is making me unhappy, then look for a new one or retrain or something. If my relationship is making me unhappy, then just end it. And I've thought about all of that and if it is one of those things wearing me down. My job is the job I always wanted, and I used to really enjoy, though not so much recently, but I think that's not because of the work but because of the fact that I just don't care anymore. My relationship can be rocky at times, and I think sometimes I can be a bit distant, but nothing has changed in my relationship so I don't think it's that getting me down... I have been trying to make sure that I do things with other people atleast once a week to try to combat loneliness, which is hard because I'd really rather be on my own... I know that makes no sense, but that is how it is."

So you thought it was something in your life that was causing you to be depressed. It could have been inherited depression. Maybe when you reached a certain age, it occurred.

Now that you are on an antidepressant, how do you see possible loneliness, your job, your relationship, each of which you thought might be causing you to be depressed?

You were first put on Mirtazapine around July 21, so you've been on it for about two weeks. Is that going OK, you said sleep was improved vastly with Mirt. I'm on that antidepressant, also. I think it's a good medicine.

You said your counselor was generic in her comments. For instance, when you told her you were not sleeping on the fluoxetine antidepressant, you wrote:

"She told me not to drink coffee three hours before bed, which could be useful if I actually drank coffee."

OK, demanding a lot from our counselors. My favorite from counselors was, whenever you told them about some horrible experience, they would respond, "How did that make you feel?"

Well, it could have been a three-car pileup and they would ask that question. It was a stage they went through for many years.

Oh, I did have one who went to sleep during one of my more interesting responses. Well, at least she was honest. She explained she did that with all of her patients because she had some kind of ailment, which made me feel better.

Anywy, so you're entering the counseling stage. Just wait till they learn you have insurance, and they suddenly realize you need to be hospitalized for four weeks, on your dime, to the tune of $40,000, at which time they will pronounce you cured, and turn you out into the street you haven't seen in a month, and you won't even know how to function.

Welcome, to the world of psychodrama. But they're trying, bless their little hearts.

So you've got the same mindless counselor, I mean, caring therapist. You've had your fourth appointment, is that right? What words of wisdom did she impart?
Posted 8/8/2017 4:07 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Tim Tam,

Thanks for your message.

I guess I am improving, but slowly. I still have times where I question just about everything in my life and nothing seems right, but there are brief times where I feel genuinely content with things. I had a pretty bad week about a week or so ago, which was right before I had to see my doctor again. Despite that, he thought there were positive signs that the mirtazapine is doing it's job, e.g. sleep has improved and I've been feeling less anxious. I have been more motivated, and been getting more things done each day, but then I still seem to beat myself up about it if I have a bad day and don't achieve much.

I don't feel that the counselling has been much help. I don't know whether I've just got an ineffective counsellor, or if it just doesn't work for me, but it's probably a bit of both. She tells me I need to "let things go". Wouldn't that be so simple.

Though she did encourage me to write a complaint letter about the doctor I saw for the health issues I had at the start of the year. He basically discharged me without hardly speaking to me, after firstly confusing me with another patient, he had all the wrong symptoms written down for me and didn't do anything about it when I said his list was wrong, and then never came back to speak to me after the procedure. So I've written a letter to the hospital about that. I felt better having written it when I first wrote it, but sometimes it just stresses me out.

If only life could be simple, hey?

Somegirl
Posted 8/8/2017 5:24 PM (GMT 0)
Good to hear from you.

Prior to getting depressed, how were things going with you? Did this depression just come on for the first time in your life?

Do you think there were any circumstances surrounding it, like relationships, job, things like that?

How is your relationship going? Was it going OK before you got depressed?

How is your job going? How was it before you got depressed?

You said you used to volunteer, was that when you were feeling better? Do you feel like volunteering now that you are on a medicine?

Did you go out with friends before your depression? Do you feel like going out with them now?

You said in your most recent post: “I guess I am improving, but slowly. I still have times where I question just about everything in my life and nothing seems right”

Did you have the “nothing seems right” feeling before you had the depression?

Sleep has improved to six hours a day on the anti-depressant Mirtazapine, is that about right?

“more motivated” after about 2 weeks on the Mirtazapine, and “been getting more things done each day.

Then you say, “but then I still seem to beat myself up about it if I have a bad day and don't achieve much.”

I don’t think I ever got a response to the question of, “Did you come from a negative or positive family?”

You may be tripping yourself up if you have a negative attitude. I did, until reading about having a positive attitude.

I now try to be positive before going into a problem that I can solve it, which opens up more areas in my brain to try and solve it. If I think negatively about a problem just ahead of me, my brain closes down those areas of victory, because that’s what it’s been ordered to do by me.

So, are we being positive?

You said, “I don't feel that the counselling has been much help. I don't know whether I've just got an ineffective counsellor, or if it just doesn't work for me, but it's probably a bit of both. She tells me I need to "let things go". Wouldn't that be so simple.”

In that report, you had several negatives. You said counselling has not been helping much. That’s a negative. You then said, “I don't know whether I've just got an ineffective counsellor, or if it just doesn't work for me, but it's probably a bit of both.”

That’s three negatives. You have closed down in your mind first, that counseling will help, either because 1. Ineffective counselor or 2. It just doesn’t work for me. 3. Probably a big of both.

There is no way these sessions are going to help, either because of the counseling, or because you have a negative attitude about counseling, and perhaps have a negative attitude in general.

How do I know this? Because I had that. I know how rough a negative attitude can be, because I learned such from my parents, plus I had the emotional problem of bipolar.

But my negative attitude really caused me problems.

Even the letter you wrote complaining about the doctor, which you were glad you wrote, had a negative side, as you noted:

“I felt better having written it when I first wrote it, but sometimes it just stresses me out.

"If only life could be simple, hey?”

Maybe it’s not life that's the problem.
Posted 8/9/2017 12:29 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Tim Tam,

To answer some of your questions:

I have never been diagnosed with depression before. However, when I think back, I think there was probably a time when I had depression when I was younger at university. I never did anything about it then, because I didn't have a nice doctor who I trusted like I do now, so wouldn't have felt comfortable talking about it. So if I had depression then, it went untreated, but somehow I must have figured out how to overcome it without treatment. Google tells me this can happen. I don't know what I did then, but clearly I did something.

I don't think I come from a particularly negative family. My family probably don't really have a culture of talking about problems, more of a "suck it up and get on with it" attitude, but they are not negative people. I think that probably doesn't help though as I have been getting into a negative frame of mind and didn't really talk about it for a long time. However, before this year, I would have considered myself an optimist, and fairly upbeat most of the time. With the exception of that period of time when I was at university, and maybe for a while when I was a teenager too.

My relationship is going well, we have our ups and downs, but overall it is going well.

As for my job. It is a really interesting job, and I get on well with the people I work with directly. I do not enjoy all the politics that come from management... and that is not just me being negative, as everyone I work with agrees (but we have been working to fix problems through our union, to much resistence from management.)

I gave up the volunteering due to other health issues, and then I moved away so it is a bit far to drive to volunteer there each week. But I have thought about finding somewhere else to volunteer if they don't mind if I can't come every week.

As for friends, yes I did go out with them on occasion (I'm not a super social person but not a loner either). Due to the other health issues I've had, it limits my ability to go out with friends as much. But I still do from time to time.

I did not have the "nothing seems right" feeling before the depression, quite the opposite. As I said, I feel I am improving slowly, but I don't expect that feeling to go away overnight.

When I said that I don't feel that the counselling is helping much, I was being honest. A friend of mine has also been seeing a counsellor through the same program, but she got a different person. I think listening to her talk about what her counsellor has suggested to her has been more helpful to me than my counsellor. That is my honest opinion. Where my counsellor would say "you need to let things go", her counsellor would say "you need to let things go, and here are some strategies."

As for the letter about the doctor. It is a pretty stressful situation. Surely that can't be denied. When you are feeling really unwell and struggling to do the usual day to day things, and then basically get completely ignored by the doctor who is meant to be helping you? That is a negative experience whichever way you slice it. I don't think writing a complaint letter is being negative about it. While you may think that complaining is a sign of a negative state of mind, I see writing that letter as more of a social responsibility. If that doctor treated me that way, how many other people had the same experience? How many more would have that same experience if no one spoke up? Yes, sometimes it stresses me out. Sometimes I feel bad because receiving that letter will be causing him stress too. But then I remind myself that he had a responsibility and he didn't carry it through, and all I am doing is bringing that to attention. I don't expect life to be completely void of stress, I think that is unrealistic. Especially when dealing with health issues, and even moreso when the people who are meant to help, don't.

I think you have to acknowledge that stressful things happen in life. I don't think you can put all stressful things down to "having a negative attitude". If all that was needed was an attitude adjustment that you yourself could choose to do, then antidepressant medications wouldn't be of any use. I do feel I am slowly improving on an antidepressant medication. Slowly. I have been going back to all of my doctors appointments to talk about how things are going. As I said, he thinks there are positive signs that it is having an effect.

I think most people would agree that life would be easier if it were simpler.

I hope that answers your questions.

Somegirl
Posted 8/9/2017 2:09 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Somegirl, it's me again. I won't go thru your reply line by line, but the more I read the more I think that you are just an ordinary person undergoing normal experiences. I am not saying you are boring or uninteresting, just that what you are going thru is just simply called life. As you said, "I think most people would agree that life would be easier if it were simpler."

I am not a deeply religious person, but I try to think of each of life's experiences as an opportunity for growth. I always ask myself, what am I supposed to be learning from this? As you can imagine, life would be pretty boring if every day was the same as the day before, year after year. We go thru phases and stages. We encounter other people and certain difficulties or obstacles that are new to us and if I may say exciting. It gives our minds and spirits something to do. That's why we are here.

I don't know your age, but if you are in your 30's then then I would say you are experiencing a mid-life crisis. It is a very common phenomenon. What you went thru at university is also not uncommon. I married into a family with true genetic mental illness, and each sibling was struck around adolescence with some form of psychosis, some being institutionalized. It exposed me to a facet of life that I had never known before, and continues to affect our family life. What you went thru was likely nothing to be concerned about.

And what you are going thru now is not extraordinary. But if it affects your life, then you have the power to do something about it. If you are dissatisfied with your therapist or medical treatment, then change practitioners. I had to do that several times. My previous GP failed to take action when I presented him with obvious symptoms of depression, just as my previous urologist failed to properly investigate my cancer. Both are now being successfully treated.

I am not trying to diminish your feelings. If something is bothering you then it deserves attention. It affects your life. Everybody's life has value and everything that we do affects others as well as ourselves. And we grow from each encounter. There's a tag line from a movie: "don't forget to notice the collateral beauty".
Posted 8/10/2017 1:00 AM (GMT 0)
Hi RobLee,

Thanks for your comment.

I like that tagline, "don't forget to notice the collateral beauty." I will try to remember it.

My GP has been fantastic with regards to all my health issues, including the depression. I am glad I have his support. He was very worried about my health at the end of last year so referred me on to a specialist, who subsequently discharged me based on an incomplete and incorrect list of symptoms, without even talking to me. I have since managed to get the symptoms largely under control with the help of a dietician instead of a doctor (the symptoms still exist, but are usually more of an inconvenience now, rather than something that completely controls my life... though the diet I have to be on is a massive inconvenience!!)

At this stage I'd rather continue working with my dietician than get another appointment with that specialist or a different doctor. The fact that I have kind of prolonged the whole debarcle with the specialist by writing that letter does get to me, especially since I am a lot better than I was, so sometimes I feel like I am making a big deal out of nothing... Sometimes when I am feeling really bad about things I tell myself I am just exaggerating things, that it is all in my head, and I should just leave the whole thing right alone. But in the end, it is hard to deny some of the things that happened when I was feeling really unwell, and I feel that writing that letter about the specialist was the right thing to do as hopefully it'll stop a similar thing happening to someone else. Hopefully it will ensure that others get the help when they need it most, unlike what happened in my case.

What did I learn through all that? Well I guess I learnt something about how to navigate the health system... I learnt my rights with regards to healthcare. I learnt the processes I could go through if I feel a health professional's care wasn't up to scratch. And I learnt that you don't have to feel completely hopeless about things involving your health. I guess when I first got sick, I thought that that was it, I'd be dealing with it for the rest of my life and wasn't going to improve. So I probably pushed myself too hard to try to live a normal life rather than taking time out to recover... And probably wore myself down...

I never expected life to be all smooth sailing. Equally, I never thought my life was so much worse than everyone else's. But that doesn't mean that someone can't have depression as a result. Depression is pretty common (something like 1 in 5 people?). I don't believe it is the case that true depression is caused only by genetics. Whether it's depression, breast cancer, parkinson's disease, or many other things... you can have genes that put you at a higher risk of developing these diseases, though it is not a guarantee you will get it. Equally, not having that gene doesn't guarantee that you won't get it. There are many factors that play a part. So while there are some families that have a lot of people that have to cope with these horrible conditions, such as yours, that doesn't make the health conditions of others' less real or "true"...

As for the therapist, I'm not sure what I will do regarding that. I had my last appointment with her yesterday, and I didn't cry this time so I guess that's progress 😂 If I could have the same therapist as my friend then I'd probably go for that option, as her therapist sounds really good. However, she lives in another city so it's not really feasible.

Anywho, thanks for your comments, I will be looking for that "collateral beauty"...

Somegirl
Posted 8/10/2017 1:06 PM (GMT 0)
It sounds like you are feeling much better now, at least compared to when you first came here.
You are sleeping better and are crying less. That is progress. Good luck going forward.
Posted 8/10/2017 2:03 PM (GMT 0)
Somegirl,

You do sound better than you did when you first came here. Just know, as you deal with the situations at hand, the easier it gets. It just takes practice. You become a stronger person. As Rob said, it is just life. We all do go through it. It is harder to face when depressed, but you are actually doing a good job.

Here is to better days!

Hugs, Karen...
Posted 8/14/2017 4:58 AM (GMT 0)
Collateral beauty: I was on night shift last night, so I got to listen to the birds sing me to sleep when I went to bed around sunrise.

Thanks for your comments Karen and Rob. I still have my bad days, but they are not as bad as they once were, and are becoming fewer. There is still a way to go, but I find myself doing things like making plans with old friends, re-invigorating old hobbies, and trying new things... or even simply waking up with an idea in my head of what I want to do with my day.

Thanks again for your support.

Somegirl
Posted 8/14/2017 12:56 PM (GMT 0)
I am so happy that the bad days are becoming lesser. I am glad you are getting together with old friends. We need that even if it is hard to do. Sounds like you are waking up with positives.

There will always be a few bumps in the road, but when we can feel better more than not, we are getting somewhere. Keep posting, it helps. I am really happy to see you are happy in many ways. Sounds like you got a good thing going on...

Hugs, Karen...
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