Depression caused by life circumstances

[Teddysmum43]

Hi everyone,I've been to the docs this morning regarding how low I've been feeling. She has told me to raise my amytriptiline dose from 25 mg to 50mg and then up to 75 mg in a weeks time. If this doesn't work then she is going to change the duloxetine that I'm on. She also mentioned that if this doesn't work then I may need to see a psychiatrist as I've been up and down since I had my daughter 16 years ago. But to be honest how is a psychiatrist going to change my life circumstances? All the things that have happened throughout my life that has led me to where I am today let alone living with fibromyalgia? Is there a pill to make all this better? Really? All this is really worrying me as I'm currently doing a counselling course which I'm hoping is going to really help me but it is very very hard to cope with and probably another reason I'm feeling so dead inside,a lot has come up for me already which I knew it would. I guess my mind and body is shutting down because dealing with the feelings is just too much. So where does that leave me with the course? I don't want to give it up and there are a lovely group of people I'm studying with,very very supportive and caring and have also been through their own crap in varying levels. I have never been surrounded by such amazing people in the whole of my life! But if the course is going to cause me to become very depressed that's not good either? Or is that quite normal do you think? I know a few people on here have studied counselling too. Any feedback would be welcome.

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Gosh Teddysmum you have a lot on your plate right now. My advice to you would be to take one small step at a time, increase your dose of Amitriptyline as your GP suggested to 50mg and see what difference this makes to you within the week. Then increase it again if it's all going ok to 75mgs again as instructed by your GP. This change in dose is quite significant, you should feel a difference.

I used to take Amitriptyline myself, starting off at 25mg and gradually increasing to 100mg. The difference was very noticeable, but as we all tend to react differently to our meds and doses, only time will tell as to how effective it is in helping you with your symptoms.

Once you have increased to 75mgs, see how you feel after a week or so on this dose. You might be surprised and feel more able to cope and have no need to see a psychiatrist. At the end of the day it's up to you. You can discuss this at greater length with your GP at this point.

Regarding your counselling course, are you taking this course for your benefit or to counsel others?! If it's for your own personal benefit keep doing it if it helps you to offload. Sometimes hearing about other people doesn't make our own situation looks so bad and that in itself can be a sort of therapy. If however you are doing it with a view to counsel others and you don't think you are going to benefit from doing this because you feel vulnerable yourself then don't do it. I hope that makes sense. I suppose it depends what your priority is regarding this, whether for you or eventually for others?!

When being counselled yourself one of the emotions that comes to the fore is when issues and worries that may have been embedded deep within us are brought to the surface again so they can be dealt with and put to rest. This is all part of the process. It makes things raw again but in dealing with them, you can pass on from that point. That's the theory anyway. It is very difficult to do this, but when you come through the other side, hopefully you will feel the benefit from having done this.

It sounds like the people in the group are just what you need, lovely and caring, supportive etc. Being counselled is never easy and if these people make it easier for you, then that's a really positive thing you're getting from it all.

Hopefully on the higher dose Amitriptyline you might find the counselling a little easier to deal with, only time will tell. I hope so!

Please feel free to off load in here, we are always around to listen or to try to help you in any way we can. We do understand and we do feel for you. If there is anything we can help you with, please just ask.

Take care, here's a hug for you. (((hug))) xx

[Teddysmum43]

Thank you for for your reply Liberty. I went into the course with the view of Counselling others one day but now I realise that the first year deals with how you feel about yourself and how you deal with what has happened to you. We are also learning a lot of theory which is so interesting and I love that side of it. I am also having to learn self acceptance and I think that will be very valuable to me. I will keep on with the course as I have paid for it and see where I am with it at the end whether to go and do the counselling diploma or I may decide counselling others is going to be too risky for me. I hope not,in the listening skills practice we do I do really enjoy it. I upped my amytriptiline last night and have a mega dry mouth today even more than I usually do but that is a small price to pay if upping the dose helps me to cope.