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I called my friend Dr. Joey and got him to prescribe me some anti-depressants. The type I used to take I had to quit taking cause they made my diabetes worse. Now I have to go up there and pick them up. Which is being ridiculously difficult, in that I have hardly moved in 2 days. I'm still feeding the cats and bathing, but I seem to bog down at the point when I have to put on clothes. I'm sleeping about 20 hours a day, and crying most of the time I'm awake... and visions of cutting my carotid artery with a sharp knife keep popping unbidden into my head. I'm not going to do it, though. The images just keep popping into my mind, which is unpleasant and weakening. I managed to get all dressed and ready to go out and run today but didn't make it out the door.
I'm listening to Radiohead which is comforting for some reason. This evening I feel a little better. I'm going to try to get to the drugstore. The drugs take several weeks to kick in, but what else can I do?
Index, give us an update on how you are doing.
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Did anyone know whether aka was planning not to be around today? She's not online (which is odd, usually she's online but idle or away if she's out) and she's not picking up her mobile. I don't have her home number so I can't call that. And she didn't say she'd be out... so either she hasn't bothered getting out of bed today or something's wrong. Anyone with any information, please post it or email or aim me.
*worries*
Aka, I know you'll hate me for doing this, I know it, but I'm worried and I'm too far away to do anything at all... please if you read this, check in with me okay?
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Ak, I am wondering if it is a good idea to be alone in the house if you are as sick as you describe? Shouldn't someone come over to help get you out of this? And about the images you spoke of: I have no medical background at all, but it is so unlike you to have these, I was thinking maybe it is a message to yourself about getting rid of your blood because it is poisoning you? Would a blood tranfusion do any good in some cases of diabetes problems?
Still praying for you. Hope to see your next post soon.
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I'm okay. I took the first of those elavils that Dr. Joey prescribed to me last night and apparently they make you very sleepy cause I just woke up at 4:30pm. Weird. Not sure how this is going to work.
I still do feel better. The weight has lifted somewhat off my chest. But I'm still very sleepy. I could sleep another six hours. Weird. I can't believe it's so late.
Index, how are you doing? We haven't heard from you in a couple of days. Can you still type?
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Do you go to a therapist, ak? Medicine is often only a stopgap unless there is some actual therapy to accompany it. People who take meds without therapy usually need to do so for life.
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Actually, people who need to take meds for biologically based illnesses often need to take them for life, even with therapy.
Index needs a proper psychiatric evaluation and to be under the care of a psychiatrist and therapist right now. She knows this, I've already offered her my opinion. She could have one of a few illnesses, each of which has symptoms that could mimic the other. PTSD often looks like Bipolar Disorder in children and adolescents. Depression can often look Bipolar in children and adolescents. So, she needs a proper evaluation and good medication management. If it's PTSD, with therapy and medication, eventually she may be able to move past it and stop medication. For depression, it can happen a few ways. In some folks, they need only to take medication for a year are so, then are good to go. In others, they may need meds for 3-5 years. In the last group, they may need to take medication for life. As for bipolar, medication is a must. I know this because of my current situation and from my professional work. However, I don't currently practice what I preach as I keep resisting medication. It's okay, I mean, it's what most newly diagnosed bipolar folks DO. It's all in the pattern.
And anne kate, I am concerned about you.
Also, I do not think that mood disorders add to the quality of life. I think they take it away. I really do. I am taking this moment of clarity in my own crap to finally be able to post things that aren't irrational. I know, with the pattern of my illness, that by later tonight and tomorrow, I will be irrational again. My senses and thoughts are already revving up. I tested a dose of the Seroquel last night and it knocked me into zombie-land till an hour ago. I won't take it again. But that's what it took for this moment of clarity. That is scary. This havoc that the illness is wreaking on my life is not worth whatever worth the illness might bring.
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I've lived with mine for more than half my life now and it's better now than it's ever been. I do know that I will most likely have times when I'm very depressed off and on for the rest of my life. It's really just a small part of my life. It's something I can live with and survive. I know that because I've made it this far.
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I hope not ever, mac. But I know this. I've come to the very brink of the abyss, and I don't ever want my agency taken away. I can't think of any torture worse than being forced to stay alive against my will.
It's funny how people will admit that nobody can possibly stand up to torture without breaking, like in a war situation, but they won't admit that for some people being alive can be torture too great to take.
Looks like this latest medication I've tried isn't going to work. I took one and then slept almost around the clock. I'm still feeling groggy from that one pill, even the second day. Right now I feel better just naturally. It just eased up for some reason. But if and when it comes back, it's back to the drawing board.
Mac and Index Card, what I pray for you to be given is courage to face what's ahead for you. Courage and faith, that your lives matter, that there are things that need doing in the world that only you can do. Faith that God would not put you through this for no reason. Because after you face this down and conquer it, there is nothing in seven circles of hell that you need fear ever again.
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I don't know what terrible thing I've done to deserve these images in my head when I try to sleep, but it must have been something awful. I used to not be able to sleep hardly at all, and maybe this is why I was an insomniac. I just don't know. Everything is so confusing. It's not even 5 in the morning and I refuse to go back to sleep... as if I could, anyway.
Before, of the short hours that I slept, I never woke up to an awful dream. I almost never rememebered my dreams. Ever since about a month after the doctor gave me Ambien to help me get to sleep, I've been able to get to sleep easier. But sometimes I still go for nights and nights witho no sleep at all, and sometimes I sleep for so long that I can't walk when I wake up. But of all the times that I do get to sleep, I have horrible, scary, angry and depressing dreams. Sometimes they involve me and people I know, and sometimes they are like I am watching a movie in my head with actors I've never before seen. I just woke up from a dream that wasn't even close to how awful the rest have been, but it was still awful enough to wake me up at 4:30 and not let me go back to sleep. Here is what I can remember.
I'm older. Maybe 30. My mom is dead. My brother is dead. Sadly enough, so is Emp, and me and Emp's son (in the dream) who I never got to see in this dream before I realized they were all dead, and whatever other relations I may have had- my uncle, grandparents, pretty much anyone who mattered to me... I have a feeling they didn't die of natural causes... I don't know how they all died, but they did. I am alone, but for my few friends that I met while traveling as far away from this place as I can. I make two really good friends, a lady and a guy. We are at the beach, a beach with many large gray boulders on the shore instead of sand. We climb out onto the farthest ones and the girl, she dives in but the hits her head on the rock and drowns before me and the guy can reach her.
That's when I woke up. This is incredibly tame compared to the other dreams (like the one where two enraged men brutally and graphically killed everyone in a car around them on the freeway as I watched in my head) but it was still awful enough to wake me up shaking and on the verge of tears. I was paralyzed for ten minutes, trying to figure out if this was a memory or a dream, and when I was finally able to turn my head, I started crying from relief that I was just me, and it was just a dream.
This kind of thing has happened every night that I have slept. Sometimes the dreams are too small to mention to anyone, because maybe they are just really angry but not scary or sad, but for the most part, my dreams since I've been able to sleep again have woke me crying and scared every time. I haven't a clue how to deal with this, except to just let them happen. I get to the point where my body doesn't get tired sometimes at night and I know it is because my mind is scared to death of going to sleep again, so it tricks me into thinking I am wide awake and not sleepy at all.
But you know what else scares me to tears?
quote: And I wonder when this illness will kill me.
That.
'Cause I hope not ever too, Mack. I love you so much. Of all the people here who are wonderful enough to have helped me, you were there for me before I ever even was a lurker here. You've become a hero of mine and I really hope that I don't outlive you. You helped me beat the bulimia, you helped me get the courage to go to the doctor's and you helped me finally go to the evaluation that I've needed for years now. And thank you for all of that. You're really special and dear to me, as to everyone else here at Hatrack. Jamie, you're my hero. And when I say that want to be like you, I mean it with all of my heart.
And everyone else.... You guys, thank you so much for caring about me enough to post or send me a message when you haven't heard from me in a while, or even just to talk to me when I randomly send you a message. All of these things, small and large, mean a great deal to me. So thank you. ((((Hatrack))))
posted
anne kate, as him about lexapro. seriously. few side effects and certainly not the sedation you're talking about.
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I'm just about to go to bed and I remembered your post about your bad dreams.
First, have you talked to your doctor at all about the nightmares? Some medications can cause abnormal dreams. I had quite a few nightmares when I started Prozac, but they eventually ended. I did a search for Ambien and it doesn't look like nightmares are a common side effect, but you never know. When did you start having nightmares?
Oddly enough, I find that my nightmares are more frequent when I'm actually sleeping in a bed. I had terrible nightmares when I would stay overnight at my ex's house -- kept hearing things and thinking there were intruders in the house. And since I broke up with him, I simply cannot, for some strange reason, sleep in my own bed. I'll just lie there awake all night. So I sleep on the couch. I think I feel less pressured by the couch -- like I have a mindset that I'm not actually sleeping, I'm just going to lie down for a bit and daydream or rest or whatever, and before I know it I'm asleep. Maybe you might want to try sleeping in a place other than your bed?
I know what it's like to not want to go to sleep. I get like that when my depression flares up. For me, it's about feeling like I haven't accomplished anything during the day, so I want to stay up and do something to "save" the day. But I almost never do. It's also about fearing the future, and fearing that I may not wake up in the morning. I've spent many sleepless nights battling such irrational fears.
*hugs* Have a good night's sleep and pleasant dreams. It will get better. It always does.
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Yeah, I finally shook the grogginess tonight and now I'm wide awake at 1 AM.
<<<<<Index>>>>> I'm so sorry about the nightmares. They are awful! When you have nightmares all night long, you wake up more exhausted than when you went to bed. The only cure I know for nightmares is to sleep a long long time. I seem to get them mostly when I don't get enough sleep. Sleeping longer seems to help.
Mac, is lexapro an SSRI? Tell me what sort of drug it is. I will ask Joey about it. Certainly I don't plan to take this Elevil again, even at half dose. It took 48 full hours for the grogginess to wear off. I must be extra sensitive to it or something.
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Actually, elavil is a VERY sedating drug and comes in lots of doses. What dose did you take?
Lexapro IS an SSRI, closely related to celexa. It has been used more and more the last year and is thought to have less side effects and to work much faster than any other SSRI. I've seen it work amazingly well on patients.
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This is what I do to prevent bad dreams: Before I go to sleep, I read something very soothing and then I lie down and imagine a wonderful place. Sometimes I take paracetamol to relax before I go to sleep, just to be able to do this.
I also on purpose try to remember my bad, recurrent dreams during daytime without the bad feeling, as if looking to the images from a distance and then I try to decide for myself what to do in this dream the next time it happens. You seem helpless, paralyzed in your dreams, but you have power! It is possible to turn away from the bad things, just imagine for example you have a guardian angel that is able to pick you up from the bad scene, take you away and put you down in a wonderful place. Something like that, this is just an example, pick something that feels like it will work for you. Tell yourself and tell your bad dream: 'I'll defeat you! Next time I'll escape you' and if you really believe you can do this, the good/the escape you imagined will actually happen in the dream and that will be the last time you had that dream. It works, really.
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quote: You seem helpless, paralyzed in your dreams, but you have power! It is possible to turn away from the bad things. . . .
I have actually developed the ability over the years to consciously take over a dream if it crosses a certain threshhold of "unendurabilty" and basically say, No, this is my dream, and this isn't going to happen. I don't know quite how I came to be able to do this, but perhaps an awareness that it's possible helps. I can't do this for just any bad dream; I die in airplane crashes a lot (an exaggeration). But if it's really awful, like I am watching a loved one die gruesomely or I am reliving some trauma, my mind can seize control, kind of like a network censor. I'll see if I can karmicly send you this gift.
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Thank you for your advice, everyone. I have been able to control my dreams ever since I can remember. But lately I can't control what happens inside my dream, all I can do is wake myself up if it starts getting unbearable, and I do. But when I wake up during the night, I can't go back to sleep, even if I was not having bad dreams. I have never been able to fall back asleep once I've been woken up. I have not taken Ambien in a while... lately when I wake myself up from a bad dream it is around 4 or some hour like that, when it would be absurd to take an Ambien and sleep again because then I would sleep right through school or something. And I can't miss any more school. But anyway, I know the Ambien isn't what gives me the dreams. I stopped taking Paxil a long time ago because I wanted to wait to see an actual psychiatrist, so I know it isn't that because this started a while after I stopped taking that. I do take Zantac every now and again, but since I have very few left, I only take it when I really need it, which lately hasn't been much at all... so I don't think it is that. And sometimes, in my dreams, I don't want to step in. I just want to see what will happen so that I can try to interpret it or have my therapist (if and when I actually have one) interpret it. Because I am having hard times interpreting these ones, even with my dream analysis books and all, and I have a feeling that they all are telling me close to the same thing, and if I can just interpret it, maybe they'll stop. And you know, maybe if I actually had a therapist that would work. But alas... *sigh*
Anyway, I was excited because I got to drive on the freeway the other day. I've been driving a lot lately. I have only had my permit a couple weeks. My mom said I am a really good driver, even for how short of a time I have been driving. Just thought I'd put something positive in there so that this thread isn't quite so depressing. (sorry, everyone...)
Today, I have to go to the Dept. Of Mental Health place to fill out the minor medi-cal. That psychologist has not called back for the SECOND time she said she would, and believe me. My mom and I will sure give them heck about it. (I get to drive there. ) But anyway. wish me luck that it all goes well...
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Shan, your brother, IMO, has problems of his own which are only making your problems worse. I don't know what to suggest about this, other than to use your friends. Friends will be there to do what they can to help.
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Faith, Hope, and Love don't live here anymore. They've abandoned me and left me unabashedly bawling my eyes out, again. Posts: 219 | Registered: Jan 2003
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::hugs:: Sweetie, we'd all love to help but I think a lot of us are at a loss as to what can be done. Basically, ditto what T said. We're all here for you, Shanna, so don't be afraid to lean on us. Even those of us (myself included) who don't know you very well care a lot about you so don't turn away from people new to you either. Sometimes strangers see things we don't.
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I'll do nothing, Mack. The only thing I can do is nothing, apparently. Everything else that I do makes people hate me. I just wish I knew why I was so unloveable.
Goosfaba. Gooooooooosfabaaaaaaa. OH waa ta GOOOOOSFABAAAAAAAAA!! Oh waa ta gooosfabaaaa aye yam.... goosfaba.... goosfaba.... lickety lickety lickety bareeeeenooooo goosfaba...
Hehehe... just typing that made me laugh.
Index, I too have grown to love you like a sister. If you needed anything from me, I would do my best to give it to you. You are not a problem. Please, don't think that.
*HUGS!*
Like I said, I don't know everything on how to help, but I'd really like to. The best I think I can do is just offer my friendship.
But I have given up on the psychiatrist. If they don't care enough to even call and make an appointment, then how in the world could they help me? I've bugged them enough. I don't know what else I can do... Any suggestions? I fear that I am unintentionally pushing Emp away little by little, as well as every one else. But how do I solve this if the only psychiatrist in the city that we can afford won't even call?
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I don't know about this IndexCard, but it could be the case that this psychiatrist has the results of the forms you filled in and reached the conclusion for example that compared to other patients your situation is not urgent. This is no excuse for not calling back, I know.
Tell me, do you have waiting lists in your country for getting medical attention? We do, I have been on a waiting list for about 5 months before I could get my therapy. I remember I was very angry about that, but that anger was only eating my energy, not theirs. Sometimes, when there are far more patients than there is help available, they just use what we call the 'beep-system': as long as you don't keep calling yourself, you don't get their attention. It is not a very nice system, but understandable under those circumstances.
So keep trying to get an appointment. What might work is getting this psychiatrist's emailaddress and send an email. Or maybe the psychiatrist has a phone-consulting-hour?
Good luck! And right now don't give up on this psychiatrist!
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I gave up on psychiatrists and psychologists long ago. Really those people know nothing. Quite honestly, they truly don't. People only go to them because when things are extremely bad you feel you have to try something. And they claim to be able to help you. But they can't.
What does help is the drugs. They have side effects and they are far from perfect but they're a whole lot better than sitting and crying for days and weeks while your life crashes around your head. I take them from time to time for a few weeks or months at a time, only when things get very bad. They knock you out of the spiral.
Depression feeds on itself (as you've probably discovered by now) because once you are depressed, you find you can't sleep or eat regularly which makes it much worse. Also you feel terrible about all the committments you've broken to school and work and family and friends, so that piles more guilt and sadness on. Also you don't get outside in the sunshine and you don't get any exercise. Those four prosaic pillars of good health (sleep, nutrition, exercise, sunshine) can any one of them start a depressive episode if neglected. From there it gets worse. I've learned not to neglect them for any reason whatsoever when I am feeling okay. My first episodes in college were most likely brought about by neglecting sleep and nutrition.
But even if I am careful about those things, the vicissitudes of life can kick off episodes too. I was lucky when my dad died that I was needed so much to help my mom, because that kept my focus off me and kept me busy and active so that I was able to be mostly okay. Also, Dad didn't leave voluntarily.
If someone I love leaves me, because they want to not talk to me or be my friend any more, that makes for the worst episodes of all. It's only happened twice. Both times my life was in danger.
Any family doctor can prescribe you lexapro. No need at all to wait for a psychiatrist, especially one who cares so little as this one obviously does. I hate those people. Honestly, they are evil. Avoid them! Go to your family doctor and get a prescription for an SSRI. Mac says lexapro is the best one now. It will make you better in a few weeks. Take it for a while until this episode is over (maybe 3 months), then get tired of the side effects and go off it for a while. If you stay okay, then you can leave off until the next time.
That's what's worked for me. You will learn through experience what works for you. When you're depressed I know how hard it is to just do anything at all. Just calling Joey to get that elavil took me over a week plus getting better naturally to be able to do. When it didn't work, I haven't been able to call him again for something else. Now I'm starting to come out of this episode naturally, I think, so I'm hoping I don't have to.
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Think about what you've said, though. You have just diagnosed Index with major depression because some of her symptoms resemble yours. You have recommended a drug that has worked for depressed people just because someone told you it is a good drug. Depressive episodes last longer than three months in most people, btw. You have told her to avoid the things that you don't trust. You picked elavil, the most sedating antidepressant in existence to try for yourself.
That is a lot of dangerous assumptions. I am a primary care physician who gives out lexapro all the time. I think I put two people on it on Friday alone, in fact. And yet, I don't feel comfortable giving Index a diagnosis right now. She sounds miserable and I hope that she gets better soon. But she needs a doctor to sit down with her and go over her entire history and do a physical before she gets labelled with a diagnosis. Her words about "mood stabilizers" and "suicidal" make me believe that talking to a psychiatrist would be the best thing in the world for her to do. And, if things work out, maybe her family doctor can take over the case later.
I agree that many, many times the family doctor can handle the case. Twenty percent of Americans will get a major depressive episode in their lifetime. There are not enough psychiatrists to see all those people. There are certain patients I do not treat. They are simply too sick and need a specialist who knows the meds and the side effects etc inside and out. That's basically what psychiatrists are. Experts. Not quacks.
Index...please keep working at reaching them. I don't know why they aren't calling or keeping their word. But don't give up. I think you need their advise badly right now.
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Theca, think what you have just done. You have told Index the only thing she can do is to see a doctor who will not call her back. She's been trying to reach this doctor for weeks now. The doctor will not call back.
I know you are a doctor. But I am a patient. Let me say it again. Index is in danger and the only psychiatric doctor available to her will not call her back.
It matters nothing how much someone knows if they won't call you back.
It matters nothing how much someone could possibly help if they don't care enough to do so.
When you go under a doctor's care like that you put your very life in their hands. Most of them care absolutely nothing about you or your wellbeing. This one has already shown that he or she does not care whether Index lives or dies.
I think Index and her family would do far better to take things into their own hands than to trust this doctor who so obviously does not care.
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Seriously, I don't think doctors realize how bad health care has gotten in the United States. They think the system is working. It's not.
Doctors' offices have to function flawlessly for their system to provide proper care. But they are far from flawless.
Tests are ordered and the results are never even glanced at unless the patient calls and asks. Then for the doctor to remember it the patient has to bring it up again at the next appointment. Doctors give 2-4 minutes per patient. They glance at the chart then go in. They jump from case to case all day long. There is no way that anyone can apply their intelligence to a difficult problem and come up with the correct answer with two minutes of attention. Not unless the problem is an easy one, a no brainer.
They don't listen to what you tell them for more than 20 seconds before they interrupt and start talking to you. Studies show that if they will listen for 45 seconds instead, they can make a much better diagnosis.
I'm very lucky in that I have found a really great primary care doctor, and a fantastic endocrinologist. But my recent experience with my dad's cancer taught me that putting yourself into an ordinary doctor's hands and trusting them to take good care of you is nothing short of suicide. You have to follow everything yourself. Remember every test that was ordered, and what it was supposed to show. Ask about it. Otherwise they simply never ever glance at the results or think about what they mean.
Question your treatment. What is the rationale behind this procedure? What do we hope to accomplish? What are the chances that it will be successful? If you don't do these things yourself they don't get done.
Thirty percent of the people who go to the hospital experience some mistake in the system which causes them physical harm. Thirty percent. One third. Think about that.
It's not doctors' fault really. It's the system they've set up. They need to take a hard look and simply refuse to treat people under these circumstances.
As an engineer I'm also faced with pressures of the marketplace and customers that want me to put my professional approval on things that are slipshod and half done. As professionals it's our responsibility to refuse to do that. I hope doctors wake up and realize how far things have slipped in their profession over the past decades. I hope they start to exercise their professional responsibility to make it better.
[ May 19, 2003, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: ak ]
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I'm glad you think that my profession knows nothing, anne kate. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Since I know nothing, how 'bout I just delete everything I've said?
For that matter, why not just forget anything I say that could have some value, since my profession and I know nothing.
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Mac, I'm sorry I think that. I think that you personally care a lot and are doing your very best to help your patients. But my experience of the people who do what you do is 100% negative for me and for my family members. In all cases they have made things worse and not helped. I would not go to one under any circumstances.
Since Todd has helped you so much I do see that it may be possible that some small percentage may actually help people. You must be in that group. However, the person Index is trying to contact is obviously not.
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Sure, there are good doctors and bad doctors. There are extremes in medicine, just like in everything else. And the best patient is the informed, questioning kind that stays involved in decision making.
In medschool they taught me to listen for up to 2 minutes before interrupting with questions. They taught me to ask open ended questions and wait for the answers. So that part IS changing. And I look at every lab. And every patient gets a call about what that lab value meant. Most of the doctors I have worked with do most of these things too.
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Theca, you look at every lab result that makes it back into the patient's chart. I hope your office is one of the good ones that actually carry through with that. You don't realize how many results don't make it back, though. Unless you have bossy and rude patients like me who remember to ask. Probably half the tests ordered for my dad during his illness and for me as well, didn't make it back to the doctor's eyes until I asked what were the results and we tracked down the answer and oh yes, this wasn't put in the chart yet for whatever reason.
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Is it even possible, Anne Kate, that your personal experiences are disproportionately impacting your judgement?
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Be good to yourself, Indexcard:) You deserve better than what your worst emotions and instincts make you think you do.
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IndexCard, I hope you'll keep this in mind despite all flaws in systems:
Most people who choose a profession in health care do this out of LOVE. Their desire to help other people sometimes goes literally as far as risking their lifes for their patients. Think about the personnel caring for SARS patients in Asia, did you see that on television? Those people are heros. Think about Claudia Therese and Theca and Mackillian who spend a lot of time on this forum, while having a full time job in real life, to advise every Hatrack member when needed. Did you ever read how difficult it is for CT to manage to call and email everybody back in time?
Come on. Call them yourself. You need help and you need it now, so say so, don't sit and wait.
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posted
I'm happy to hear you have faith in me, anne kate. While there may be plenty of screw ups in my field, I do say that those I work with currently at my agency are damn good clinicians, the lot of them. Todd actually brings his stepkid to my agency.
I don't know. I think it's horrible to judge an entire set of people by what some have done. But then again, I know nothing, so what does it matter what I think?
And yes, I realize I'm being petulant. It happens.
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I had terrible nightmares when I would stay overnight at my ex's house -- kept hearing things and thinking there were intruders in the house. And since I broke up with him, I simply cannot, for some strange reason, sleep in my own bed. I'll just lie there awake all night. So I sleep on the couch. I think I feel less pressured by the couch -- like I have a mindset that I'm not actually sleeping, I'm just going to lie down for a bit and daydream or rest or whatever, and before I know it I'm asleep. Maybe you might want to try sleeping in a place other than your bed? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
