anxiety and depression

[redroseart]

hello i am new to the site and suffer from anxiety and depression

[redroseart]

i think i have treatment resistant depression as i dont respond well to antidepressants. i also have a social phobia dont like social gatherings i get very anxious. i have tried psychologist and psychotherapy and still get a severe form of depresion

[Cleaner]

Hi I also suffer from these to, I am taking AD which sometimes take the edge of it but each day is a suggle. Like you I have seen psychologists and psychiatrist had CBT and then been told that there was nothing more they could do for me. So the long shot is I have to live with it. I have been diagnosed with Borderline PD GAD . Sorry cant give you any advice except your not a lone x

[Golfer15]

Hi I also suffer with anxiety and depression and the main thing to realise is that we are not alone. Why do we feel like this? I am starting to accept it is just the way I was made. I also dont like social gatherings and have no motivation to do anything. I have seen counselors and done a cbt course but I still have bad days. It is easy to say 'it is just the way we are' but not easy to accept. Just keep trying and do things you enjoy. See my other comments about making yourself feel good. We are all important!

[redroseart in reply to Golfer15]

hi golfer thanks for your reply you sound like me everything is such an effort.sometimes i cant get out of bed. i make sure i go out everyday. i have joined a mental health group doing art and gardening. only feel at ease with people like myself. hope things get better for you.i try to challenge my negative thoughts as in cbt doesnt always work.

[micant1812able]

I too am new to this site, so I am just browsing for a while, read and learn from others. I will be here now and then as depression often hits me (yes I have good days but some horrible days too).

[Photogeek in reply to micant1812able]

Welcome to the site. It's great here and you will have support here

Hannah

[Hidden]

Hi, I felt sad to read your blog and even sadder reading Cleaner's reply. I know from experience how anxiety and depression seemed to have destroyed my ability to lead a full and happy life for so long, butt there are no easy answers. I can only tell you about my own experiences and tell you what I have learned from them.

I spent my childhood feeling highly anxious and as a result was extremely isolated. Even when I was with people I felt alone. I have since learned that I am a sensitive person and had scary experiences in the past which led to my becoming anxious. I had to learn to feel the fear and do it anyway, to face the situations I found most scary. With me that anxiety was about having to learn to trust people. One day when I was totally exhausted as a result of feeling so anxious I remember thinking that I couldn't go on any more and would let the worst happen. I believed I would die, but of course I didn't. The more I fought anxiety the more it ruled my life - now I just live with it.

Sometimes when I was depressed, which felt like it was most of the time, I could hardly move out of the chair, but even when I was able to function normally, bath the children or go shopping, I felt like I was dragging a dead weight around with me. I used to contemplate suicide, longed to drive my car into the nearest brick wall because I was so tired, exhausted by having to cope with so much anxiety and depression. I used to feel self-pity sometimes. but then hate myself and feel stupid for not being able to get on happily with life as other people seemed to do. It was frightening when my feelings changed so quickly - one minute I would love my husband, the next I would wish him dead! One minute I felt I was being helped, the next it felt useless. I felt despair. I didn't understand why my feelings felt so chaotic. The only reason I didn't behave in typically Borderline chaotic ways and cause problems for myself and other people was because I was too afraid to do so - I believed that if I did what I felt like doing then I would be locked up in mental institution or murder someone! I really believed that at times, there were few things I felt myself incapable of. I was so angry that someone didn't understand how I felt and that they didn't make me feel better, and I was so hurt as a result of all that had happened to me, but feeling all of that still didn't help and so I became depressed.

Life is so hard sometimes. I felt resigned, believed I was fated, that there was something wrong with me, that I deserved to feel the way I did. But of course I didn't deserve to find life so hard. I was just hurt. I was lucky because I am intelligent. I found through studying child development and learning about the ways children developed anxiety and depression, the kinds of things that led to those behaviours, that I came to understand some of the reasons WHY I was so anxious and depressed. I had a history of being neglected of care and then abused. Although understanding didn't help immediately it did make me feel less alone, at least there IS understanding in the world. Feeling that understanding existed enabled me to turn to people and gradually learn to behave towards them in ways that have eventually helped me. I have slowly learned to trust people who are safe and know when people are going to hurt me because of their own problems. I've learned to take their advice from people who care and to believe their care will work. It took a long time to find the right help and even longer to be able to use it and find it helpful, but once I did I began to feel less anxious and depressed.

Now I mostly experience anxiety when there is a risk - when a crazy driver pulls out in front of me much too quickly on the motorway and I feel momentary fear, or when I had a bad fall a few years back and feared being seriously hurt. Those reactions are appropriate for the situation. When I go for an interview I feel anxious because I fear the possibility of being rejected and know I will find that very painful. I would like to avoid pain but know I can't and that makes me anxious.

The depression has not totally gone and perhaps it never will. However I do now feel reasonably happy most of the time and extremely happy when I feel wanted, loved and of value to other people. Most of the time I can remember those feelings but sometimes I can't and at those times I still feel depressed - but NEVER the heavy depression that I felt for so long. Nowadays I am likely to feel depressed because I am lonely and bored.

I don't know whether what I have written will help either of you, but telling you about my experiences is the only way I know of helping you on the website.

I found medication great for extremely deep depression but not useful once I realised that it wasn't what I needed, as then I felt I was being fobbed off, that people didn't want to know how I really felt. I found CBT great for nudging me forward when I had a sense of what I was feeling but useless before as it only served to make me more deeply depressed - what I was looking for was understanding.

I don't know what will help either of you. The only advice I could give is that you read about the different treatments and therapies and decide for yourself which one you think may be able to help, then look for it, either privately if you have the money or via the NHS if you don't.

I wish I could be of more help, but I can't.

Suexx

[Cleaner in reply to Hidden]

Hi sue Thankyou do much for sharing all of your feelings. Most of what you have said could be me, I wish I could write down everything like you , I find it very hard to put things into words that make any sense. Things just go round & round in my head . X

[Hidden]

Hi Cleaner, yes I used to have that problem but found that the more I wrote the more I was able to write, until now I'm very verbal about my problems and able to put that onto paper. The hard bit is allowing what feel like 'crazy' thoughts and feelings to be expressed. I find it helpful to write down the crazy thoughts and feelings, then go over them time and time again, each time trying to make them seem to make more sense, gradually they do. That's especially true I find when it's about things that have heppened in my life and my thoughts and feelings about them. The thing about putting thoughts and feelings into words on paper is that then we can read them and then begin to think about them. Give it a go! You will need to go over and over it all many times until it does begin to make sense though so don't give up in anxiety or frustration too quickly. Let me know how you get on if you like. Hope it begins to help make things less confusing. Suex

[redroseart]

hi cleaner thanks for your comment i have been told i am borderline personality disorder and gad.i have tried different anti depressants had counselling. i am now on lofepramine 140mg anti psychotic olanzapene and zolpidem been in psychiatric hospital a few times.nice to know i am not alone. this is a good website have had some good responses. hope you are keeping well. i wish ihad a physical illness

[redroseart]

hi anyone been feeling bad these last few days especially in the mornings. i seem to feel better at night.i was wondering how i go about getting cbt. do i see my gp or psychiatrist. i am still not sure which therapy is best for me but would like to try group therapy.

[sherdane in reply to redroseart]

Hi Redroseart,

I was referred for CBT through my GP, I had to ask to be referred though.

I wasnt sure what to expect from the sessions because I had initially gone in thinking that this would be the end to all my "problems" sadly it isnt.

Some sessions were better than others, I am just about to have my last one.

With regards to feeling worse in the morning than at night. I tend to feel worse in the morning also, I think perhaps because I have bad dreams sometimes and I wake up feeling terrible. At other times I just feel bad and dont know why.

Im being treated for depression at the moment - just thought I should mention that so you know what the treatment and couselling were for.

I know this response is a month late but hope you have managed to get the CBT that you referred to.

Ive only recently joined the site, hence the late response.

Nicky

[redroseart]

shut up about the coconut oil wish it was that easy

[Photogeek in reply to redroseart]

Here here , if I hear that stupid platitude again . Ridiculous . Oh I wish it were so simple. X