So I've been having this conversation with my wife and she made a valid point. Meds and things (ive been hospitalized and did ECT) have never really worked for me and her obversation is that I don't open myself up to let them work. I'm too married to feeling like shit so if I think it won't work it won't. How do I actually think positive and let something work. How do I believe it? I really want something to work, I don't want to die but I'm in so much pain I can't live like this. I want to want to live. I really want my treatment plan (i see a therapist 2x a week, psychiatrist once a week and TMS) to work but I don't know how to let it. What do I do? I need so much help. I sob constantly and have severe suicide ideation. I am so emotionally and physically exhausted I have no energy and I can't stand it anymore. I just need something to work now. I'm at the edge.
Don't know what to do. I can't live l... - Anxiety and Depre...
Don't know what to do. I can't live like this anymore
your depression is married to feeling like shit, not you. One symptom of depression is no motivation and no interest in anything. For me I need hand holding to move on. May be a therapist, or a support group. Don't give up hope.
Thanks, I appreciate that and responding. It's just that I have had so many treatments and in therapy so long I'm so damn exhausted.
Print out this post and bring it to your therapist. Literally ask ask them.
I have a son who has had every treatment possible. I feel as though he shoots it down before he even has the treatment. I believe there is something to be said about your attitude towards something. But with that being said it’s difficult to have a positive attitude when you feel so lousy. So what do you do ? My suggestion would be grounding yourself where you are. Start at day one of a new treatment. Don’t take your suitcase of failures
with you/ Be accountable to your caregivers/stop negative behaviors for example
( too many hours sleeping) ( too many hours on your electronic device)( isolating yourself) on and on.
I will pray right now for a break thru.
Dear Joshgw,
have you heard of Nuero Linguistic Programming (NLP for short)? It is, I believe anyway, a Method of 'Reprogramming', in other words 'Changing' the way people, like your good self, actually View their Situation.
I haven't had any direct 'Experience' myself but I used to know a Hypnotherapist who, as part of his Remit, had/ did Practice it.... on those he felt it could Help.
I don't know were you might find a Practitioner of NLP, especially your side of The Pond, but a 'Chat' with your own Doctors/ Consultants might, very well, be a Good Start.
May my, indeed All our thoughts, and Prayers be with you Josh. Good Luck, my friend
AndrewT
I dont think what your wife said is very helpful. Its like blaming you for your treatment not working, which is not the case. I too was suicidal at one point in my life and believed no medication would work for me. I was wrong the third one i tried (clomipramine) worked wonders. Remember depression is an illness and not a chioce. I agree with what the other repliers have said, it is the very nature of your depression that drains you of hope & motivation. Have you heard of Faster EFT by Robert Smith, it could help but it takes time. Coherence Healing, mindfulness although difficult to do while depressed. Do not believe the thoughts in your head, they are not true and the more you listen to them the more exhausted & worse you will feel. Are you religious or have faith in some kind of God. I know you cant pray yourself because of how you feel but others can pray for you. Ask your wife to find a prayer group that would include you in their regular sessions. I had my friends & relatives pray for me as i lost my faith while depressed. Also do not look ahead, live one day at a time only, this helped me to keep going. Maybe a change of therapist if you feel your not getting anywhere with your usual one. You are depressed for a reason and you will get better. Do not give up hope, i know because i did. Every little change you see is a step towards recovery. I wish you well on your journey to healing. Grab all the support you can because its out there.
I used to think my depression defined me. I'm depressed so be damned everything and everyone around me. I didn't realize how much my depression effected my family. It's a very selfish disease my lot in life and I had no choice. My wife never blamed me from having depression but how I refused to fight it and can get better if I tried. She was mad that I didn't take steps to get better and how that hurt my family (I have a 12 year old son being traumatized). The world does not revolve around me. It wasn't until after I got out of the hospital and found a new treatment team that I realized I was getting the wrong treatment for 20 years. Now I'm trying, she understands that and agees im doing the right things. It's long, slow, hard and painful but maybe my new therapy and meds I can feel less like shit. I will always have it but I have to fight it. I'm no where near that yet, still very suicidal. I don't want to die but sometimes I feel it's the only way out. But how do you say goodbye to a 12 year old and leave a widow when she's 50? I can't bear not watching him not grow up. I have to do something.
I think there may be many NLP practitioners in the UK, since it is frequently included in life coaching courses, and some coaches specialise in it. CBT is another way in (cognitive behaviour therapy). However, while it may help with attitude towards to pain remedies, it's unlikely to help the pain which is physical. People who don't suffer from pain don't understand that telling us to be more positive is just a bit insulting and dismissive of what we are going through.
Dear MaggieSylvie,
I have clearly Insulted you, for which I can only appologise. My answer, to Joshgh was intended to be taken as 'Kindly Advice', for someone who felt Very Down- NOT as a Put Down to genuine sufferers of pain. I really do, I assure you, understand- as far as I can anyway- what you Go Through.... I knew a girl who would sometimes 'Just Scream', with pain and frustration!
So please do accept my appology Maggie, if I appeared 'Less Than Caring'. Sorry again
AndrewT
I don't feel that you appeared less than caring. The opposite is true, you were very gracious and caring in your reply. Please do not feel bad.
Thank you.
No, Andrew, you didn't insult me at all! Sorry if my wording came across like that. The slightly uncaring part came from the original posting (I think) where the sufferer was told that they could probably manage their pain by being more positive about the remedies. This may be true but I don't think having a positive attitude is enough. So no offence taken.
It's possible that your meds aren't working because they aren't the right med for you. You might suggest to your psychiatrist that you want to take a psychopharmacological test that uses your dna to determine which meds are best suited for you genetically. My test was from Genesight and was paid for by my insurance. It showed that of the half-dozen meds I had tried none of them except a benzo I had tried were right for me. I started on one it recommended, It took about 3 weeks and it has worked well for me. The test takes a lot of guess work and trial and error out of the process that happens even with a good psychiatrist.
Personally, and from what i've read, I don't think medication is the sole answer but the correct medication can help and make a difference.
Thanks designguy. I have done the GeneSight thing and I have a bad history with benzodiazepines. And now my anxiety is crippling (it hasn't been for a long time) I feel I'm fucked because buspar isn't helping either. I've been on 20 meds already.
hello Josh, sorry to hear that Genesight didn't help you. Another thing to consider is to make sure your hormones (testosterone), thyroid and adrenals are functioning properly, if not, they can cause or contribute to mood disorder/anxiety. A couple of years ago, I felt like I had hit a wall and that my meds weren't working, it turned out that my testosterone was extremely low and I was on the wrong thyroid med. I started testosterone shots and switched the thyroid med and started feeling better about 3 weeks later.
Another thing to consider is that maybe you are suffering from childhood trauma and emotional neglect and need different therapy. I grew up thinking that there was something wrong with me and that I was never good enough. I grew up in an emotionally repressed, shamed and physically punished household with no emotional support. I was also bullied in school and developed social anxiety and high functioning anxiety disorder. I went on for years thinking there was something wrong with me and finally started therapy and was diagnosed with GAD and put on meds. I still continued to have the anxiety and finally realized that I was actually dealing with social anxiety and c-ptsd from my childhood and the bullying which was a turning point for me. There wasn't a therapist who specialized in treating social anxiety near me at the time so I did an online program which helped some. I then found a therapist who specifically treats trauma and c-ptsd using emdr and started to heal and realize that recovery was possible. I also realized that I had to change my thinking and what I thought about myself and that it was really up to me to heal myself, a good therapist can only provide you with the guidance, right tools and support but you have to be willing and do the work. And, like I said earlier, meds help but they are only part of the solution.
I had a vicious inner critic and I had glimpses and awareness that I suffered from low-self-esteem and low-self-worth because of the anxiety, trauma and bullying so I started reading about how to heal and reclaim my true self. There are numerous good books available and I found the articles on Tiny Buddah to be very helpful and a book called "There is nothing wrong with you" by Cheri Huber. I also really liked the articles by Dr Bernadette Sewell and signed up for her "Break Free" program which has been very helpful for making friends with my inner critic and undoing the negative programming.
One of the other helpful things was learning about ACT therapy (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and realizing that the healthy way to deal with depression and anxiety is to be willing to investigate the thoughts and emotions, accept and allow them and process them and don't suppress or deny them. It made so much sense to me. I also found the DARE Anxiety book very helpful because it uses the same principle as ACT and deals specifically with anxiety/panic. They have helpful youtube videos and a phone app that is like having your own coach.
Hope maybe some of this is helpful for you.
Thanks again for your caring insight. I had my blood tested a lot in the hospital, so I'm OK on that point. But I did have a lot of childhood trauma from being bullied and a controlling father with an anger management problem. Before the hospital I didn't realize I wasn't getting the right treatment. Now I have a new therapist I see twice a week, I'm learning DBT and CBT and have a new psychiatrist. For the first time I'm addressing these issues. It's a slow, painful hard road that takes a lot of time. It's waiting in the meantime that sucks and why I have such severe suicide Ideation. My diagnosis is treatment resistant MDD and GAD.Thanks again for listening and thinking of me.
Josh
You're welcome, sounds like you are doing well and making progress in-spite of what you believe and I know it is sometimes agonizingly slow and frustrating.
Occasionally in the past my anxiety has presented as health anxiety and I came across something called "stress intolerance" which is common in people with c-ptsd and trauma and even health anxiety. My guess is that your ideation is a way of coping with that intolerance - just a suggestion. Don't know if you are like me, but it helps me to understand what is really going on.
My best to you.
The following is a post I put up in reply to someone in a similar situation as you. Maybe not all of it will apply to you but I think most of it will -- you can sift out what doesn't. I really hope it helps because what follows suicide is far uglier than anything you could ever experience on earth. I know you're weary and at your wit's end, but please give it some consideration.
***
Some pretty solid advice I've seen in here so far. The most critical thing is to never, ever give in to the idea that your mental illness is anything like a reliable indicator of the truth about the world outside your head. Once you understand that it's a lie, it becomes far less powerful because you become much less afraid of it. On the other hand, fear that it will come again will often make it come again.
In my view, the people at greatest risk of suicide are the ones who start to believe that the whole world is hopeless and pointless, not just their own situation, meaning that in their minds, there is nowhere for them to escape the rising floodwaters even if they can get out of their heads for a moment. At that point, you're in a tailspin that's hard to pull out of. I almost ate a pistol in '94 because of it.
Something that really helps me is remembering that the moods do come -- and go. Just remembering that largely de-claws the lacerating despair that may be slicing and dicing me at the moment because I know from long experience that it will go. Yes, in the moment it feels like I have been in this nightmarish mood from eternity past and will be in it forever, but it will go. In remembering that I immediately feel significantly better. But again it is absolutely critical that you believe that there is goodness and worthwhile-ness in the world outside your head. Because it really is there.
Another thing that may sound stupid but really works for me is that just scrunching up my shoulders or allowing my face to sink into a grimace is a trigger. I start to get anxious and my stomach starts to boil. (Your physical posture really does make a big difference in your mental state.) But if I force myself to relax my face and shoulders, the anxiety will largely go away almost every time. Subconsciously I'll start to scrunch and grimace again and the anxiety returns, but again I force my face and shoulders to relax.
You may have to repeat this process about 50 or 100 times until it goes away for an extended period, so DO NOT be discouraged if it doesn't work right away. After a while this and other 'tricks' become second nature and you're able to judo this thing almost absently, like flipping a light switch or flushing the can. There will still be bad days but there will be fewer of them and on average, they will be less severe.
Some have said to focus on things that produce good feelings in you to push out the bad. You have probably heard this a lot but again, this is solid advice. Different things work for different people but I love looking at pictures of fall foliage, just hypnotizes me. In person is ideal but you can do that any time of year on line, lots of great fall picture sites. Maybe a favorite restaurant or some happy memories. Or going to the hardware store and feeling the constructive atmosphere -- positive things you can do with tools and parts and nails etc to fix something at the house or maybe a hobby or project -- that runs so contrary to the sense of futility this illness stuffs down your throat. ANYTHING that gives you even 5 minutes away from the bad thought patterns is a point gained; it's 5 minutes you weren't feeding this snake. That matters because mood disorders rarely if ever stand still; they are either getting better or worse, depending on your behavior and attitude. Once again, it will be difficult at first, but once again it will become second nature after a while.
Last but not least, these things and all the other solid advice I've seen in here are coping skills -- or more to my point, weapons. DO NOT be passive and hope this illness will go away on its own, it won't. You must stomp the head of this snake day in and day out, because you are in World War (original poster's name here), a war for your soul -- and the souls of others (more on that below).
This means you must be willing to fight and fight hard, which means you must believe you have something to fight for. You do. Friends and family and -- get this -- others who are as sick or sicker than you and me, who you don't know yet but who will die by their own hand if you give up now because they will never get encouragement and advice from the voice of experience -- you. God will put you in the path of people new to this illness for this reason, as he has done with me. He will make this illness, yes, worthwhile...
If I sound like Patton in front of that big flag, so be it. When you're up against an enemy as cunning and deadly as mental illness, you need to be a rabid rottweiler with stars on its shoulders. FIGHT!!!
Thank you so much for taking the time and caring enough to respond. True, I feel like I'll always be this way. Since you obviously took the time to read my original post you'll see I do have a treatment plan in place and I'm trying. But I also have to learn how to change my thinking and let myself open up and think more positively that something will work because I dimiss a lot out of hand because of past experiences. This goes for meds and coping skills. Sometimes I don't want to do them because I think they'll be too hard or I can't find the strength or energy. If you're interested, l'd love to talk to you privately and share stuff because you've been so helpful and nice. I started following you here.Thanks again for caring enough about me for this.
PM me.
No PM?
I love your posts. I need a whole book of them right now. I’m in a deep black hole
Do you have a diagnosis and more importantly, the cause for your illness? On any meds?
I have major depression , ocd, anxiety/panic. The major depression has been severe going on a year now. I take Paxil, Ativan, and lithium orotate. Not helping
Have you tried any other meds? Sometimes you have to keep switching til you find the one that hits the sweet spot of your DNA and with minimal side effects. (Paxil and Zoloft made me feel like I drank 20 cups of coffee so I had to move on to try other meds.) If you're having trouble with sleep, trazadone works great. Duloxetine is a good daytime anti-anxiety. It took about 5 years to get to the trazadone -- 27 for duloxetine! There is some med or combo of meds that will work best for you.
As for day-to-day coping skills, the art of replacing bad thoughts with good ones is critical -- but tricky. Tricky because if you constantly think while you're trying to do it that "I am trying to do this" it won't work, because the negative is still backdooring its way into hidden dominance because you're thinking indirectly about what you're trying to not think about. The art is just to get lost in these good thoughts, memories, etc, for their own sake, because they are wonderful things in and of themselves whether you are sick or not. It's almost like falling asleep -- you paradoxically grab on to them by not grabbing them but by allowing them to come and grab you...
Is there a favorite restaurant? What does your favorite food there taste like? What else do you like about the place? Is there a friendly bartender or waitress or two? Was there a good time at the beach or in the mountains? What did the waves or the mountain stream look and sound like? It was probably July or August and kind of hot and sticky, so how did that cold stream water taste or feel? Is there a favorite song or songs? Assuming they're not depressing, what do you like about them and why? What about cute bunny/cat/dog/etc videos? What's your favorite thing about them or what they do? Do you have any pets and what do you love about them? What about favorite people/friends? What do you like about them? Different things work for different people but you get the idea. And some of them may seem silly and shallow, but really the more they seem silly and shallow, the better because your brain needs a break from all these heavy thoughts.
You will probably snap out of it very quickly and repeatedly at first but don't despair. Say again -- do not despair. Every single second you spend in these reveries is a second you're not in the mood disorder nightmare, which means you get a second worth of healing. As these reveries get longer, not only will there be increased healing from the increased absence of negative thoughts and increased presence of the positive, you will become more relaxed from knowing you have this power to fight your illness.
Finally, even more critical than all of that is taking the view that your mental illness is not an accident, that it has a purpose. If it's just another accident from a meaningless universe, then the only rational response is despair. But all the light you experience in remembering these positive things comes from the Father of Light who intends to use you as a vessel to help others like you, people who will die by their own hand if you are not around to give them the voice of experience.
How do I know? He's doing it through me, right now...
Thanks for writing. I've tried at least 20 meds. I've been trying mantras like "I have to push through this, I have no choice" in the hope that I believe it and it will help get better or at least not feel worse. I don't really want to die. How do you say goodbye to a 12 year old. Thinking of good memories is even harder for me b/c they're from the past and I'm trying to move forward and I'm in so much pain none come to mind anyway and I feel worse. Only looking at pictures will help with the memories. I understand completely what you're trying to say. I'm just not there. I don't feel this is an accident and through therapy and DBT I'm trying real hard to realize that depression/anxiety do t define who I am and just an illness I need to conquer or cope with.
I totally got it. I've been on all of those the only thing different with me is that I'm not ocd. I'm going on 20 years
I’ts really harm ocd. Basically constant suicide ideations. But I do not want to die either. I want to live …but without this intense mental torture and anguish. I’m thinking of trying Wellbutrin added to my Paxil . I don’t even have the strength to ask my psychiatrist. Under this depression is anger that I am still like this after a full year. And now my 20 year old son what is an engineering major is dealing with anxiety that is forcing him to miss attending school. He is starting lexapro. I feel so sad and guilty for passing on my screwed up genes
I was on wellbutrin with Paxil a very long time ago. Made my hands shake too much. I was so on lexapro for 13 years but couldn't take the fact I couldn't enjoy anything anymore. But everybody is different and drugs affect people differently. Don't be so hard on yourself about your son. There is no proof that it's genetic. No one else in family is sick. My cousin worked on the human genome project examining genes that cause mental illness. She told me there is no evidence you can pass it on
Don’t give up hope ! Many of us out here …. This won’t be forever and there will be sunshine for all of us maybe not today but it’s coming
I completely understand. I’m in the same pitiful shipwreck right along with you. Nothing is working for me either and I’m quickly losing hope. Same ideations everyday. It’s pure torture. I don’t have answers for you. I just want you to know you are definitely not alone.
Thank you for that. I know I'm not alone (I've been here long enough) but you're right, it's torture
My family is the only reason I'm still alive. I'm trying my best not to mope. I've been hospitalized, done ECT, TMS, 20 different meds. I have a new treatment team with DBT. All i do is try. But very little works and I'm in so much pain I'm at the end of my rope. This has gone on for over 20 years I've had enough but yes, I can't leave my family. I remember a life, a healthy, normal life before this, before my family. But it's all gone now.
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