Posted by floatingbridge on November 24, 2009, at 0:04:05
In reply to Re: No benefit to adding psychotherapy to medicati, posted by bleauberry on November 23, 2009, at 18:51:23
Thank you, Bleauberry, for your post. I'm sorry you had to wait so long to reach bedrock. 15 years is a long time to endure--and to delay treatment for Lymes. Since I asked, I thought I'd share, too.
Childhood deprivation, (sadly not uncommon), figures largely in my illness, followed by a traumatic transition into adulthood. After awhile, I think I just broke down, no longer able to compensate. The more I read about c-ptsd and ptsd, the more my life-long 'malfunctions' make sense (inability to sleep, to self-regulate, dysthymia, mood swings). Depression seems to be my only baseline. And, as far as I can see, mental illness 'runs' in my family. Nature, nurture, the whole enchilada. Who or how I would have been in a happier, healthier family is moot--actually it's a self I have to imagine and construct. For me, effective therapy is vital.
This entire thread, and a few others running concurrently, have me reconsidering the weight I've always given therapeutic intervention. No big 'click' experience yet--I am realizing how little I know about other's experience of mood disorders in all its' variants--the why, the how--just how little I really know.
peace, and all the best to you,
fb
> No prob. I had some rather startling powerful issues come up in psychotherapy. Things like losing a lover after spending 1/3rd of my life with that person, a childhood peppered with an alcoholic father, and a serious abandonment paranoia issue from the first 2 years of my life. None of these were the cause of my depression, but were nonetheless serious issues that needed to be brought out, disected, and strategies/tricks put into place to handle them.
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> That was 15 years ago. Unknown at the time, that first attack of depression was about 3 months after a tick bite and a strange flu that followed it. It took friggin 15 years for someone to put two and two together. I can't believe how doctors miss the obvious, but oh well, it happens thousands of times everyday. My guess is that better than 50% of the people here at pbabble are either misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed...all that is being seen is depressive symptoms.
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> So yes, I found psychotherapy very helpful, just not for the depression. In terms of depression, it was helpful to have a coach/cheerleader to keep my confidence up while waiting.
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poster:floatingbridge
thread:926342
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091117/msgs/926760.html