Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Taz2]

I have recently been sent this blog by a friend whose husband has been suffering from depression for a number of years. He said that it is the best description of how being depressed can feel that he has ever read. It takes a bit of reading but it may help others understand just what friends or loved ones are going through while in the grips of depression. It can even help depressives identify with what is going on too. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

Taz x

[Rowan]

Thank you for posting that Taz, for me personally it has made me realise that I have never been depressed and that anxiety is something very different, where you are full of feelings.

Also a feeling of flatness occasionally is very different to real depression.

These are my thought on reading the link.

Another thought that has just come to me is that some ADs prescribed for depression flatten out feelings from what I have read.

[Dyan]

Yes I can relate to that Taz.

I have been there and it is a brilliant description of how a depressed person feels.
I like the bit where it says,"everyone is expressing their feelings all at once"
Something like that anyway.
It does seem like that when you cannot express any of your own.
The bit about the dead fish too.
That is typical of how a person,whose never experienced depression themselves,react to someone suffering from depression.

[honeybun]

It's very interesting but as SL said it also made me realise I have also never suffered fro depression. Being fed up and a bit down is something completely different.

I do wonder why anti depressants are prescribed for anxiety when it's so completely different.

Honeyb
X

[Kathleen]

Very interesting Taz2!
It's odd that anxiety and depression are always mentioned together and are treated with the same drugs but the experience of these states is so different, almost opposite really. Makes you wonder about the medications doesn't it?
K.

[honeybun]

My thoughts exactly Kathleen.

I think I need something to help with anxiety but as I usually react poorly to pills I am truly scared to ask for ADs.
I don't want to feel ill or slowed down with side effects. Neither do I want to feel or be sick.

What's the answer......wish I could find something because I am driving myself up the wall.


Honeyb
X

[Dyan]

I was prescribed the AD Mirtazapine (zispin) 4 weeks ago for my anxiety and it has made me better within that time.
I felt it worked on my anxiety from day one.
It didn't say on the leaflet inside it was for anxiety just depression.
Like most ADs they can be taken and be very helpful to some people who have other problems too.
I have also been taking fluoxetine(Prozac) for 8 years, but not for depression,for OCD and apparently taken at the correct dose,in my case 80mg,quite high,it can work and does for me.
Anxiety and depression are two separate things but there are AD medications out there for both even though a lot of the time they don't actually state for either/or.

Honey B - I found the Mirtazapine very calming and it sorted out my anxiety from day one.Not all of it but as this AD is taken in the evening it tends to work overnight so you wake up without that dreaded feeling.
Saying that though in the first instance they do leave you feeling drowsy for a few hours in the morning when you wake.
I took mine a little bit earlier in the evening and it seemed to get better.
I hope you can find something to help you honey B as I know exactly what you are going through and I am so relieved to well again.
Perhaps talk with your GP about the different ADs.
Yes they can and often do make you worse before you get better but as long as you can ride this out you should be fine.
GPs don't normally tell you this though.
One told me years ago when I threatened to stop them and persevered.

Dyan X 

[Kathleen]

Thinking some more about it,  I wonder if the anxiety and depression occur alternately,  often feeling  one thing or the other, the horrible feelings taking it in turns? The person in the blog definately didn't mention anxiety though.
All I've wanted to do the last few days is lay in bed and now I'm up to eat I feel anxious. I've decided to see how I feel tonight ( not sleeping well) and tomorrow and try and see a GP on Tuesday to see what can be done if I am clinically depressed.
The other thought I've had is that all this meno anxiety does dominate our lives at the moment and is physically exhausting so maybe that is why we become 'down', it's our body's way of insisting that we stop and rest to try and recover.

Honeybun, I know exactly what you mean, although I'm taking ADs I can't be sure they are doing me any good and if the GP wants to raise the dose I would be reluctant to do so, but what's the alternative?
To add to my worries, my husband is going on a long trip in a month's time and I don't want to be ill while he's away, infact the thought of this trip is probably what has prompted this episode!
Take care and wishing you well.
K.
 

[honeybun]

I would worry now about being on my own. Strange how things change. When my kids were young my hubby worked abroad probably three weeks out of four and although I missed him I just got on with my life. It was how we lived. He had a great job and it brought lots of benefits.

I remember my daughter breaking her arm on a Saturday aged eighteen months. On the Sunday he went to Italy leaving me with her and a six year old.
It was hard but I managed.

What happened to that woman.......I miss her very much.

Honeyb
X

[charliegirl]

What a great blog, i can so relate to this, especailly when people say, what are you/do you have/ to be depressed about??? makes you feel so much worse. What you need is people to just walk alongside of you to let you know you are not alone in this and to somehow draw their strength, as you are also very scared.
xx

[CLKD]

I couldn't relate to it at all, I think the format put me off.

ADs take 10-14 days to kick in.  Fortunately the ones I took were making a difference within 8 days.  From leaping out of bed in the early hours, then sitting, staring at 4 walls for hours, not being able to move: to pottering around.  Gradually I began to feel less ill and less despondant.

It was 3 months before I realised that I was less anxious after beginning Beta-blockas.  3 months before I realised that I wasn't looking for the anxiety but I was actually getting on each morning.  Feeling less and less 'what if I can't'.

Eating is the biggest problem for me.  Anxiety = nausea = stop eating.  So my body becomes weak.  My brain begins to focus on I Must Eat But ........

[Taz2]

I related to it - that feeling that you just don't belong anywhere with anyone.

Taz x

[Rowan]

I have felt like that often but not because I am depressed but because of external circumstances, life choices and maybe even personality.

It might be in built in all of us to a certain extent. It could even explain the need for religion ext.

[Taz2]

No I didn't mean that sort of feeling that everyone can get from time to time. Difficult to explain really.

[CLKD]

There is clinical (situational) depression where people have life events which they are unable to change.
I suffer with organic depression which some 'experts' won't recognise.  This can be dominated by hormonal changes.