Posted by ednababish on February 10, 2004, at 15:27:32
In reply to Re: Recovery and Release » ednababish, posted by sexylexy on February 9, 2004, at 11:16:11
Lexy-- I will apoplogize for the lemgth here and just say that we English types tend to be long-winded. I am at 15 mgs for about seven weeks now; I take 10 in the morning and 5 at night. I was depressed for many years, maybe all of them! I'm thirty eight and I don't remember ever feeling "normal." I have always been extremely sensitive, easily hurt, high strung, given to over-reacting and not very resiliant after disappointments. My first major depressive episode at fifteen that was situational--my brother and his wife moved in with us and the situation was volatile, my grades were slipping, I had broken up with my first boyfriend and my "best friend" went after him and slept with him the same night. My second was at 23--a similar shake-up plus a high progesterone BCP. Graduate school and its stresses and disappointments reinforced a low-grade tendency toward moderate depression. Additionally, I had panic attacks from the last year of my stay at graduate school off and on for three years. This reached a head a year after my husband and I married and in the months after we had just bought a house. We fought every day, I was unable to work on my dissertation, and I realized I felt like s*** every day. Nothing made me happy--I couldn't even think of a single thing that would make me happy. I have never been a a good sleeper, but I was unable to use the bathroom even, and I decided I needed to see a doctor (my internist). She put me on 20mgs of Celexa; we upped it to 40 four months later, then dropped it to thirty after my blood pressure bottomed out and I almost fainting in front of the college class I was teaching. I took this for about a year, finished my dissertation, went to Greece to celebrate and make a baby, dropped my dose to twenty and then to ten when I found out I was pregnant before discontinuing it completely.
I was okay pregnant--I laughed a lot toward the end and after I had the baby, but after about eight weeks I began having panic attacks again, to the point where I could barely drive. I could not sleep, and I became afraid to stay alone with the baby. My internist prescribed 20mgs of Celexa--which left me more anxious than without it, exacerbated the anxiety, and finally started to work, although I was still having a great deal of trouble driving--and which she insisted I keep taking. One of her associates switched me to PaxilCR for anxiety, which made me forgetful and dull but not necessarily any happier; plus it killed my sex drive to the point where I could not get aroused even, no matter how hard I tried. HE sent me to a pdoc when I complained who informed me that I was more depressed than I was letting on to myself who switched me lexapro and referred me to one of her therapists. Now, after eight months, I'm finally feeling better. How ofetn I find myself laughing is always my gauge for feeling better.
On a more personal level, I believe you told someone you are a graduate student and studying to be a councellor. Is this correct? Graduate school is horrible on the psyche--there are no two ways about it, it is just debilitatingly demoralizing from start to finish until you can escape through finishing and moving on. Perhaps there is a reason, too, why this has happened to you: perhaps God wanted you to know exactly where your depressed patients are coming from. When I'm not depressed I try to see a greater reason for some of the negative things that have and do happen--for example, I took so long tp finish my dissertation because I really needed to know that this is what I wanted to do with my life. I'm not trying to be flippant about your situation--because I've been there myself--and I feel for you. Good luck and I hope this information helps.
Edna Babish
poster:ednababish
thread:109458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040210/msgs/311764.html