Posted by sleepygirl on April 7, 2007, at 21:48:07
In reply to Seems like it's always either Limbo or Hell, posted by University on April 7, 2007, at 21:20:00
well, I did enjoy your writing :-)
sometimes I would like to stop taking the meds
but I don't
because I am afraid that I won't be able to handle tomorrow
but somedays I just want to "feel"
so the question is why mess with what's working?
I don't know....I'll likely find a reason soonwell, best of health to you
-sg> Hi all,
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> I've been through three, severe depressions in my life. I'm now 37, and haven't had an episode since I was 27 (touch wood).
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> I've been on Prozac for 14 years, plus Klonopin PRN for anxiety (~.5mg every two weeks-not a lot). Also Ritalin 80mg/day for
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> ADD. Anyway, although I have not had a depression, per se, for over a decade, I have come close. My depressions are
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> triggered by loss, usually, and before each episode--or potential episode, I experience this chilling anxiety where it feels
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> as if my blood cools down; my extremities become tingly, and I literally have a sinking feeling--and abject, existential,
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> insufferable anxiety.
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> I have been able to--I believe--thwart many would-be depressions by taking an mg of clonazepam sublingually when I feel this
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> downward spiral. Doing so arrests the anxiety that, in my experience, is the "kindling" that becomes an inferno of
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> depression. In the past ten years, this has happened maybe twenty or thirty times, and the causes vary, but mostly it
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> happens after months of being careless about taking my Prozac; I wake up on a gloomy Sunday, feeling melancholic about
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> various things, and it comes over me like a wave of prickly pins of panic.
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> I am VERY grateful that clonazepam has been the saving grace it has seemed to be in these situations. Moreover, it only ever
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> takes a 1mg tablet to thwart the spiral; I never feel it "wear off," because, I suppose, by the time that drug's long
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> half-life has approached, I am in a different state of mind. Indeed, almost always, these would-be depression are blessings.
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> That is, they always give me the kick in the pants I need to address things in my life that certainly contribute to my
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> susceptibility to depression. For example, the last time it happened, theh horror of coming so close to depression made me
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> swallow the pride that had been preventing me from talking things out with a family member by whom I felt hurt and neglected.
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> Another time, the close-call motivated me to get more serious about looking for a new job (as I hate my current one). But,
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> as thankful as I am that I am spared full-on depression, I also lament the all the briefness of panicky motivation that the
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> potential depression caused. There's nothing like that kind of motivation for me--it makes me do things I know I should, but
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> would otherwise not. It's as if my life carries on in a confining--but cool--frying pan, and I am "happy" to stay there in
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> spite of my unhappiness. Then, when a depression threatens, it's as if the burner is turned on; I scramble and jump and do
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> whatever it takes to escape. Sometimes I question how "lucky" I really am, being so capable of extinguishing the heat (with
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> clonazepam). But I always conclude that I'd rather live the rest of my life in my bland, relatively unhappy, cool pan, than
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> to risk a depression that could ruin me completely.
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> Yes, very all-or-nothing, but I honestly don't feel as if made or make it this way. This is how my "wellness" has always
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> been; absolutely utopian compared to depression, but achingly deficient of joy, risk, passion, and all of the things that
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> make life what it probably ought to be. I've posted about this before over the years, and quite naturally have gotten advice
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> about considering changing ADs. But tampering with the drug that has ostensibly kept depression at bay for so long is
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> unthinkable. So, perhaps I have made my own jail--my own all-or-nothing situation. I don't know. The one bit of advice I
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> remember being so sensible was from someone whose situation was similar to mine. He said that he'd sometimes titrate down
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> his Prozac for a time--until he was close enough to the fire to get motivated/passionate/serious/committed but not so close
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> that he'd be consumed by the flames. And I suppose when I "forget" to take my Prozac many times a month, that I am trying to
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> do what he advised.
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> I had no intention of writing all of this! For the record, I'd been in psychotherapy for 11 years, but stopped going many
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> years ago. I'm considering that route again, too, but wanted to post here, too.
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> One thing that really scares me is that I suspect that my "cool pan" --aside from being a joyless place--is not even
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> something on which I can always depend. That is, when and if a "real" trauma hits me (death of a loved one, etc.), I don't
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> think a tablet of klonopin under my tongue and taking my prozac every day would prevent my grief from segueing into a
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> hellish, sunless depression.
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> Anything anyone might have to say is welcomed--even if it's of the "you lazy, self-indugent cad" variety. I am just so tired
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> of being in this comfortable but souless limbo.
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> J
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poster:sleepygirl
thread:747991
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070407/msgs/748002.html