Does counselling ever work or should I just take the drugs?

[idunnoanymore]

I've hit rock bottom. I've never felt this low before.
I feel so so lost. I've no one to talk to. I've had counselling before when off work with stress but it didn't really work and I just got on with life.

This is different. I really need help but I don't want to resort to ADs. At the same time I can't see how counselling would ever work.
Has it worked for anyone else?

Dp took a mild dose of sertraline alongside cbt for severe health anxiety and i guess depression. It has worked wonders for him he is doing great now.

my sibling had CBT and it worked but it was alongside drugs and it wasn't a couple of sessions.

I've just had to go back on Citalopram having coming off it earlier in the year.

I started taking just 10mg a day 9 days ago and within hours I felt like a different person.

I'm also waiting for counselling and supposed to be doing an online stress management programme but ironically struggling to find the time!

You are an individual and need to try things until you find what does work for you. Every situation and every counsellor is different. There’s no harm in trying another one. If you need to try a few different ADs then in addition, it’s worth it to find what works for you.

I'll tell you why I think counselling doesn't work for a lot of people, me included! I think you need to be in a relatively strong place before it starts so that you have the emotional strength to deal with discussing and addressing any problems. Would you consider the use of AD's as a short term thing? They would get you back on an even keel. Then you can get the most out of counselling. Then later on, look at reducing/coming off them.

In my personal experience, I’d do both. As PPs have said (and in a very crude nutshell) the ADs can take the edge off so that you can get yourself in a place where you are open to the tools offered by talking therapies. Neither are a quick fix but both are very useful and work even better together.

Remember, just because you take the ADs now, it doesn’t mean you have to take them, or continue talking therapies forever.

I am a counsellor and psychotherapist. It can work brilliantly for some people, be pretty good for someone else and not work at all for others. That can be down to timing, the client/counsellor combination or just your personality. The only way to find out whether it can work for you at the moment is to try it.

And don’t think it’s an either drugs /or talking cure situation. Sometimes the two simultaneously can be very effective.

When trying out psychological therapies remember they are like physical therapies. Just as one drug regime or dosage might cure one person but not another, sometimes you have to try different psychological methods until you find the right one for you.

Good Luck. I hope you get what you need.

OP, have u tried taking vit D?
I was seriously down last week due to ongoing long term issues at home, was I tears and even said to someone I understoof why people kill themselves.
Then I took vit D for 3 days and this week the gloom has subsided. I don't think counselling would work for me either as my problems are unfortunately permanent and not easily solved.

Personally I found psychotherapy to be way more beneficial when I was depressed.

Counselling is just someone listening and nodding in my experience.

Psychotherapy is someone who actually gives you feed back, coping tools, ideas and advice.

Take the drugs. They'll get your brain out of the hole its in. That'll allow the therapist (counsellor, psych, whoever) to give you tools to change your mind and keep you from falling back into the hole. Otherwise you'll simply ignore the tools because your in a depression.

I had a breakdown last year due to a combination of workplace bullying, stress and bereavement. Luckily I was referred to a psychologist, paid for initially by my employer. I was adamant that I didn’t want antidepressants and luckily the psychologist supported this choice. It took from December - April to really feel ‘ok’ again. But it has probably cost at least 30 sessions at £109 per session to get there - in the beginning I was seeing him twice a week because I think he feared I was a suicide risk. I was off work for 7 months and I’m still seeing the psychologist every six weeks or so and paying for the sessions myself now. I wonder in hindsight if medication would have made it quicker - there were sessions initially where I just sobbed for an hour and couldn’t engage at all whereas medication would have hopefully taken the edge off it sooner. But now I feel a sense of pride that I’ve made it through, and I feel I’m genuinely in a much better place not just that the drugs have solved it.
Best wishes to you whatever you do - it’s a really hard journey and you are doing the hardest part in seeking help.

Thanks for the replies all, much appreciated.

Sertraline is what was suggested last time I think. Apart from feeling like I could get through without it (after all, I was functioning like a normal person day to day, right ), the side effects terrified me. Been through morning sickness so I can deal with nausea but the possibility of weight gain completely put me off. It also seems counter-productive - drugs help, gain weight, miserable again due to weight gain. I also don't like the idea of my emotions being numbed.

I've looked in to CBT but I just don't think it would work with me. Too practical maybe and I'm just not sure I'd have the drive or motivation to put the tools into practice.

@glassheart1 - funny you should mention Vit D as I've just remembered I was Vit D deficient when I was signed off with stress that time. I had completely forgotten. It's probable that I still am as my diet isn't great. But I'm nowhere near as tired as I was back then. Maybe a tonic might help though. Thank you.

@ThatOneHurt - I had no idea there was a difference between psychotherapy and counselling. Going to look into that more.

@thereinmadnesslies - I think I've broken. I'm a bit more 'normal' today but I've never felt as bad as I did over the last few days, it scared me. I couldn't make sense of or do anything. I've started waking up feeling like I've been punched in the stomach and like I could be sick and that feeling lasts all day. When I was like this before, I had very good reason. This time, although I have a few stresses and huge decisions to make, I don't really have that level of reason. So glad you got through it and hopefully it will stay that way.

I've booked a therapy session for Monday and I'm thinking about going to see a GP re AD's before Christmas. If I was to start taking them, I'd wait until January. I couldn't face the side effects before Christmas.

I feel like such a failure.

For those of you who did take AD's, what was the deciding factor as it can't be an easy decision for anyone?

I think counselling can be amazing BUT you have to be willing and able to engage. Ad's in the short term to help you function might be a good idea but you def want counselling too imo to help you work through what's going on
Good luck

For those of you who did take AD's, what was the deciding factor as it can't be an easy decision for anyone?

All I knew was I had to make it stop and I got to the point where I would’ve done anything. I was desperate to stay alive and feel something again and I literally would’ve sold my soul to make it all stop. The side effects (no weight gain for me - not everybody has the same side effects and if anything I got my emotions back,I felt nothing with depression) were worth it.

I really do believe you have to make a conscious decision to make the talking therapies (and the ADs in some respect) to work. It is scary, you cancan do it though.

I take ADs and took them because day to day life was completely unmanageable. Research shows that ADs tend to be effective for moderate-severe depression, and that other things work for mild depression. So talking and exercise might work for mild, but medication might be necessary for someone with more severe depression to get to the talking/exercising stage.

Even with ADs I still get the stomach thing at times, but I’ve learned to label the emotion that causes that feeling- usually sadness in my case. I don’t know why labelling it helps, but it does, and it makes it less frightening. I learnt how to label the emotions as part of talking therapy,

I find exercise helps a lot as well, even if I don’t want to do it.

But the drugs do help too. The thing is, you can always try them if you think they might be helpful, and stop them if they are not.

Hello. I've been in your situation. I've taken a low dose of 50mg a day for post natal depression. I was on them for three years. I didn't put on weight. In fact I lost loads of weight as they stopped my emotional binge eating. You will feel better. A combination of both will help. From my chats with the doc, sertralin eis non addictive nor does it build up in your system. Plus the initial sickness side effect wore off within two weeks.

Good luck, you'll be ok. X

Have had loads of different types of therapy, including CBT, counseling, pyschotherapy, human given, clinical psychology.....
Didn't find any of them helpful.
Anti depressants saved my life. Found it a very easy decision to take them. Why wouldn't you try them?

The most effective treatment for depression is anti-depressants alongside spoken therapy.

I am a MH nurse. If I was depressed I would take anti-depressants. I've seen them help so many people.

In my long experience of MH issues, it's been the combination of medication and therapy that's been most effective.

That's not clear - my experience is as a patient.

(I've got a cold and am temporarily stupid with it!)

I took anti depressants when I had anxiety. They were amazing - took me out of the hole I was in. I had no side effects at all. Then I did CBT. Haven’t had problems for years now.

If you were diabetic you wouldn’t worry about taking medication to correct insulin imbalances. So don’t worry about taking drugs to correct brain chemistry imbalances.

Well the bottom line is that the NICE recommended treatment for depression is a combination of drugs and therapy.

So good luck with both