Good mood gone

[ruby7]

I've had recurring anxiety for the last 7 years, and i found a therapist who said she could really help me, and that I'd not been given the right help in the past. She made me feel so much better, and i have to say in the last week I've felt so normal. I've been so terrified that no one can help me and that I'd reached the end of the line.

She sent me to a psychiatrist who I saw yesterday, to review my drugs situation. And he has terrified me with charts and statistics (eg. teh more episdoes you have the more likely you are to have another, and this increases with each time) and talked me through who kills themselves and who is hospitalised, and I feel terrified again! The upshot was that people don't get cured of depression, but that they can manage it through their lives with drugs.

I now feel back to square one and the anxiety has all come back. I feel like this is a life sentence.

He also said I should up my dose of citalopram to 40mg, which makes me feel like a total failure.

And I just confessed to my fella that I saw a shrink yesterday and he's got really frustrated with me that I've gone down again.

And once again, my DS is watching CBeebies while I get obsessed with my 'illness' and feel myself slipping again. i was doing so well.

There's nothing anyone can say, but I had to tell someone....

[lucyellensmum]

Oh my god, what a complete and utter prick!!! How the hell did he think that was helpfull, you cannot apply statistics to peoples brains, its basically why i shied away from psychology as a student. The brain is not even marginally understood. I remember having to take my dad (who had alzheimers) to see his quack of a shrink. The bastard just sat there with a bored look on his face and when i told him he was getting worse he said "oh well that is to be expected". He didnt even talk to my dad, who at that point could still communicate. He basically shooed us out the door and signed off his sheet i guess he used to show the government that he had "treated" another patient.

For one thing, your major problem, like me, is anxiety, you can manage it, i am on 40mg too, i am not happy about that but i will give it time and see how it goes. I very strongly believe that you most definately CAN get over it with the right help, and i do believe the drugs are a necessary evil. The trouble with statistics is you can make them say anything you like depending on how you manipulate them. For example, it is perfectly feasable that people with "hardwired" mental illnesses are going to battle with depression throughout their lives. So if you don't exclude those from your statistics the depression stats start to look pretty grim, exclude them and well it may well look a bit brighter.


Don't let this bad experience put you off, go back and see your therapist if you can and then if you still need to see a psych, ask to see someone else or refuse to see this idiot.

So on your behalf.

Im not saying all pyschs are crap by the way, not in the slightest, just this one, oh and the one that saw my dad.

[Anna8888]

What the psychiatrist told you is unhelpful in the extreme and untrue.

Plenty of people go through periods of mental illness, including depression, and get over them with the help of drugs and, more crucially, therapy and by making changes to their lives.

Please remember that.

[HonoriaGlossop]

I've worked with people with mental illness for a good few years now; some as clients, some as volunteers. MANY of them have worked hard with, as Anna says, therapy and/or drugs/and/or life changes, which has led to complete and lasting recovery.

I know a lady of 87 who had severe depression as a younger woman; really severe. She has led a long, happy life and enjoys life to the FULL, at rising 90!

Of course recovery happens.

It's that blummin' dr who has the life sentence. He's always going to be an idiot

Best of luck. Please don't let it affect you.

[ruby7]

God, thanks so much everyone. Your messages have made me cry. I hate hate hate the medical profession at the moment. I'm sick of being treated like cattle and just being given the 'facts' and not having my individual case looked at. Doctors and psychiatrists all say the same thing - once you've got any kind of depression/anxiety then you're labelled that way and there's no way out. I feel so trapped.

[ruby7]

Do you think it's possible to recover after 7 years though?

[HonoriaGlossop]

Yes I think it is possible.

And have confidence in yourself; YOU are the expert where your depression is concerned. If you were feeling that you were doing really well, and had found the right therapist, then you know best basically!

just try to get back to the place where you were before you saw this psychiatrist. his words can't actually have the power to make you ill again. Maybe replay the appointment in your head but instead of him talking about charts, depression etc, play it in your mind with him singing an ABBA song or something, or imagine him with Rocky Horror style stockings under his clothes

It might just work to give his words the importance they really have, ie, none!

[Anna8888]

I agree with everything Honoria wrote.

And I would add - if you haven't received proper treatment, then your depression will have lingered longer than it needed to. Seven years is in itself meaningless - someone could have very severe depression but get wonderful treatment and get better in a couple of years, or have mild lingering depression that isn't properly treated that goes on forever.

Ruby7 - do you have any ideas about what might be behind your depression? You say it is in "in your family"? Do you have any idea why?

[ruby7]

Hi Anna

I've no idea what's behind it. Or even if it depression. It started with panic attacks and has developed.

There isn't anything in my family - my parents are a bit morose but never depressed. That's what I hope to find out in therapy. Or have been hoping to find out with countless useless ones.

But now I have found one I really trust, and who has just called me to say that psychiatrists have a totally different view of things, and to them it's all about the drugs. And to trust her that she's going to get me through this. So that's what I'm going to do.

And I'm never ever ever going to see a shrink again!

x

[Anna8888]

I had counselling (on the NHS) just over 3 years ago and I thought it was wonderful - within 10 sessions I felt so much better, I just got rid of a whole load of bad feeling that I had been carrying around and that had been distorting my view of the world.

Hope it works for you .