So 7 weeks off work and now on 40 mg citalopram and I'm still stuck.
The thoughts of overdose are dogging me and each day I'm fighting it but I'm even dreaming about it now so no escape. I pray for peace and an end to this hell and yet no answer. When will this end ? I want my life back !
do you have anyone to talk with? The tablets should help you in the long run and ease the depression. be strong.
Richard
"So 7 weeks off work and now on 40 mg citalopram and I'm still stuck."
- Have you considered that the medication is not working, and that regardless of what medication you're taking, nothing will make your life better?
Medication doesn't push people out of the door and make them change anything. I'd speak to your doctor about guided self help rather than medication. Also ask to be referred to a doctor who has the necessary training to be able to deal with those who suffer from psychiatric problems.
Hi boing333 thank you for your comments and yes I am fully aware that the meds only keep my anxiety and emotions dulled or in check and having been in the system most of my adult life I know all the "speak" regarding recovery ie don't be too hard on yourself, excercise, good diet, set small tasks for yourself, dismiss negative thoughts, god the list is endless ! And prior to this current break I was aware the dreaded "devil" was creeping in so did the usual and increased my excercise, gave myself the freedom to have time etc and yet it has consumed me once more.
I have been referred to the mental health team again ( appointment next week) but what I have found is unless you have a serious mental health diagnosis or a break down they seem to be very dissmisive of depression and anxiety. To be honest dreading going to be told " well you look ok " like last time and not sure how to approach it. Sorry I've waffled on
Thanks for your comment Richard but I'm not a big talker, I tend to try and sort things myself as ultimately it's down to me to help myself, my frustration occurs when i can't get myself out my own hole when I should be able to. Thank you though
No no don't say sorry for saying how you feel. I appreciate it.
Consider viewing my thread titled 'To medicate or to not medicate' - there may be some answers in that.
Like you I've spent years on medication. I've developed a loathing for the services and have a deep rooted cynicism too boot. Thankfully, I've been 'clean' of medication for years. How I get through the depression? I completely let it consume me in every way possible. Why? Because in doing that, I become stronger.
Picture this - a man/woman is being whipped and tortured at the post for something they didn't deserve, and they know that regardless of their protests, the punishment will continue.
The torturers whip the man/woman so severely that they develop whip marks on their skin; cuts, lacerations. The wounds are deep but they heal into scars. Once healed into scars, the pain from the torture becomes more bearable because the skin has hardened and calloused in such a way that they no longer feel the punishment.
Depression - once accepted - is bearable because it is not killing you. It is punishing you, yes, but it is not killing you. How long you stand the punishment is entirely up to you but the longer you spend accepting it, the stronger and more hardened you become as an individual.
No therapist will tell you that. They work aimlessly for a cure even though there isn't one. They cannot stop you from being whipped, so to speak. I would teach you to accept it and learn from it; draw power from it. The saying is, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. The depression doesn't make you kill yourself - YOU do that. A weak person does that. A strong person will learn to accept it and become even stronger in the process.
I appreciate your comments and your analogy is spot on but could I question the letting it consume you totally ? I ask because how does that fit into your life ? Work, people in your family etc because for me as at the moment my functioning even on the most basic level ie showering, moving from my bed, eating etc would be none existent and that is not compatable with life, you just can't shut down for an undetermined amount of time, work still needs doing, the phone doesn't stop, the kids still need you and so and so on, maybe you know something I don't ?
What you have is a condition (a disability, actually) beyond your control that is variable and can, sometimes, have no cause or trigger - though most of the time there are triggers and causes, whether conscious of subconscious (different debate entirely), and it has - as you say - no timeframe. You know that already. It's up to others to understand that and accomodate it. If they can't, that's not your problem.
My situation - I live with my partner (who is pregnant) and I'm self-employed. When I become depressed, it's often down to anxiety; the be all and end all of my diagnosis is 'anxiety' and the depression is symptomatic of that. Alleviating the anxiety is one thing; finding clarity when otherwise my head is disconnected is the challenge, but when it overcomes me, I begin to feel depressed. How I deal with that is, rather than say to my partner, "you're going to have to call the crisis team because I'm 5 seconds away from putting that kitchen knife into my throat" (actual words spoken by me once upon a time to somebody else when I was younger and more stupid), I simply take myself out of the situation and for my partner, she will see that and say "I'm going to leave him alone for the next couple of nights".
Quietly concerned, of course, but she'll know I'll work my way out of it in my own time because - maybe it's just me, I dont know - of my survival mechanisms. I've spent 15 years coping with this almost completely by myself and in doing that, I've developed my own tools that require real strength to be able to utilise. She understands that. She accomodates that. She doesn't often help with anxiety (in fact, actually creates it most of the time) but when I'm depressed, she knows to let me work my own way out of the labyrinth inside my own mind.
So your saying depression doesn't make you kill yourself?
A weak person does that. Sorry but that is total rubbish. It's all very well saying a strong person is this and that, but the fact is some are not that strong........so does that make them weak? No it doesn't, it makes them human.
I am very anti drugs, but not everybody is as string as you or I, and it helps them on the path to where they want to be, let them walk it
"So your saying depression doesn't make you kill yourself?"
It doesn't. Like a gun that kills another - it takes a human to pull the trigger; their own free will and determinism. Why they pull the trigger is not important; what made them do it is not an answer anybody can give; it's simply a way of justifying something and giving a name to an act of human freewill that comforts others when otherwise it can't be justified. 'Depression killed him' - no, HE killed himself. Humanistic psychology teaches us to admit responsibility, and it's not the fact depression killed him, it's the fact an individual wasn't strong enough to face depression as a concept and decided to opt out because it was easier. Therein lies the weakness.
Depression is the illness that determines which process you go through in order to alleviate it's symptoms. The effort you put into it determines which path you follow, as I found out. Submitting to the will of the GP (often) or the psychiatrist (only if serious, and usually necessary) without raises the question - 'just how strong are you as a person to be able to make your own decisions; to ask questions?' and 'just how weak must one be to say that the solution to a problem is death?'
So yes, I am saying a weak person kills themselves rather than finds inner strength to try and get better.
You are so very very wrong. We are all Human, and we are all different.
If you kill yourself you are not weak. FACT.
You can't come on here and make judgements about people you don't know. There are people on here who will have lost someone to this illness. They are not weak. You or me are not here to give judgement on them.
Leave those thoughts to yourself. We are here to offer support and help and advice, not to tell people what they are or are not. They are your OPINIONS and you are welcome to them, but keep those opinions to yourself, they could be VERY hurtful, this is nit the place fir that
Depression is an illness. Using suicide as a means of self-medicating, if you like, is a weakness. FACT
Justifying suicide as viable option is deeply irresponsible. Saying depression killed an individual relinquishes responsibility from the individual's act, which he or she committed out of his own choice - the wrong choice. FACT
Is submission synonymous with weakness? Yes. FACT
People submit to the will of GP far too frequently in my opinion and do so out of desperation more than anything. At that point it's entirely up to the GP to describe the necessary precautions in taking such medication; how this medication is not going to sort out their 'life's problems'; how that medication can cause dependency if the patient does not use his or her strength to sort things out.
Etcetera
What's dangerous is the fact these drugs are often prescribed by people with no training in the mine (mind?) field of psychiatry to people who are currently tiptoeing their way through it on the basis that these patients have a “chemical imbalance”, which begs the question, empirically speaking, can a GP properly determine that without actually conducting the necessary tests that prove an individual has a “chemical imbalance”? They cannot because the process would be too time consuming.
I was told that I had a “chemical imbalance” once upon a time. I didn't, of course. I just needed to re-examine my life and make some decisions, and most importantly I needed the right guide to help me.
I never found that guide.
So it was necessary for me to find my own way and choose my own path. There were times when suicide cropped into my mind, of course. What stopped me? Hope, ultimately. Hope that tomorrow will be greater so long as I know, deep down, that my life and what I do tomorrow depends on what it is I 'create' for myself, and that takes inner strength.
So you say, “some people aren't as strong as you” - no, that's submission again. That's you admitting that you are weaker than I, and I won't allow another human being the chance to say that. I'm no stronger than you are or they are. We are all as strong as each other.
Strength comes when one can see that another individual, another human being, has been at the point they're at now and somehow managed to come out the other side. What that is, is proof it can be done.
I am a human; I hurt just like you and anybody else does. What I haveas an advantage over a person who struggles, that is different, is something called 'tools', and these tools make the job of climbing out of my own personal seven circles of Hell a lot easier when I'm pushed into it. These tools are inside every human being; it just takes strength, self-discipline and patience to develop them into working and practical objects.
All the while, though, people take medication, the less time they spend developing these tools for themselves, and the longer they spend submitting to that, the weaker they become in the process.
Furthermore
Basically, if you say to me “we might be the same but I'm going to kill myself because I can't find it in myself to create these tools”, I say that's a weakness. I'd say that's submitting; or rather, admitting defeat.
When people can look at an example and see that it can be done, with proof (in the fact I'm still alive), but don't find that inner strength to try and find these tools for themselves, I consider that weakness.
Fight or flight. Basic human response.
Suicide is flight.
Life is fight.
Hope is worth fighting for.