To realize the NHS is still apalling when it comes to depression and mental health

[emptyshell]

I think it's well known we've been close to hell and back this year. Three years of infertility followed by two miscarriage, one of which was the most drawn out/giving hope/taking it away debacle. I was struggling to cope before, now I'm crumbling completely - and, having been severely depressed before, and having a nervous breakdown in the past - I know the signs I'm due to collapse badly.

So I go to the doctor, who is normally very helpful and I do have a lot of respect for - this is about the second or third time I've sobbed in the waiting room begging for some help - and yet again, I'm denied. Basically it's get a coil fitted, give up on motherhood and everything - or suffer the complete insomnia, depression, utter misery and agoraphobia forever. I'm not ready to give up on hope yet (hell it's all I've got and time's ticking away before my reproductive organs get ruled a fossil in NHS terms)... so it's back to being too scared to leave the house unless absolutely necessary, having to promise myself I'll be home in X minutes, having panic attacks in Tescos, and having one hour's sleep a night lying awake crying most of the small hours (I'll be fully practiced in the lack of sleep thing if we ever do manage to get up-duffed without my body killing it).

I KNOW that there are other women out there who DO get help, I know that thousands of women get pregnant while on tablets of all kinds - it is seriously beginning to feel like he's punishing me for wanting to keep trying and not going quietly into the night accepting my lot meekly. Hell, he even challenged tablets that the consultant at the recurrent miscarriage clinc made a point of reinforcing that she'd prefer me to remain ON!

Can't change doctor because others are much worse to anyone overweight than this guy is (losing the weight before anyone tries to fatty-internet-bash) so I'm stuck. Quite how any human can sit there listening to someone cry, beg for help and tell him they can see no future is utterly beyond me.

Frigging fed up right about now. Want to brutally murder someone with a folic acid tablet.

So, what happened?

Were you offered any type of referral, medication anything at all?

You sound like you have had a very grim time ... Can you return to the docs but could someone go with you?

What have you been denied specifically?

As a start point, have you been in touch with SANDS?

So, so sorry for what you are going through

"it is seriously beginning to feel like he's punishing me for wanting to keep trying and not going quietly into the night accepting my lot meekly"

Without wishing to sound heartless, perhaps the doctor has a point? 'Contentment' IME is often not about achieving unobtainable targets so much as accepting your situation and making the most of it. You sound like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself in pursuit of something that is increasingly unrealistic. And the hope you speak of that you claim is 'all you've got' is actually at the root of your depression.

Good luck either way but think about it. Happiness is not always having what we want but accepting what we have.

Sorry I am a little confused by your OP - is your fertility issues causing depression? And you want help with your fertility issues? If so, change practise. Or pay to go private? You do need to try and deal with the depression this is causing on it's own though, you can't waste your life - you need to think you may not have a child. Being upset and desperate for one doesn't make it more liekly to happen. You will not be wrecking your chances by trying to come to terms with it. {hugs}

Hi

I don't know your back story, so apologies if what I am saying is utterly useless.

Yes you can be pregnant while receiving help for mental health problems, I have been twice. I have been on Prozac for a long time and it hasn't effected any pregnancy. It does mean that I get the option of consultancy care and also a midwife who specialises in mental health issues.

I don't quite understand what the doctor won't do. Is he unwilling to give you any chemical assistance while you are trying to get pregnant? Or does he think it is unilkely you will become pregnant?

What do you want to happen? Have you tried CBT?

Sorry for all the questions

Sorry, don't understand what you say you are being denied here??

What do you feel you should be getting and aren't?

Recurrent miscarriages now, I was slipping before these kicked the boot in (I'm always going to be prone to the black dog and I'm very good at spotting it coming into the picture). We're in the system for recurrent miscarriages and subsequent monitoring - no thanks to the GP who refused to refer us, but purely by luck since the last MC was a long-drawn-out silent one so we had to go via the EPAU system.

I just wanted some help with the depression before I drown completely. He won't give me any help at all. Quite how he's happy to leave someone in utter despair, sliding further and further down, barely able to function and still sleep at night (God knows I can't) is beyond me. He does seem to delight in forcing me to push through it all - but I'm out of push. There's just no help out there, and I do feel utterly abandoned by it all - I put on the brave face, can just about function through a day of work, but I'm just destroyed, lower than I was when I crumbled completely... somehow I'm dragging myself through each day, but this isn't life - this is just existing to keep people happy.

As for the child thing - I'm not even opening the can of worms of defeat yet (I've got a point in my mind when I'll call it quits - I'm not going to sadly trudge into my 40s still living in cloud cuckoo land don't worry). If I lose that focus, I'd be done completely - I've got to have something to fight for, because otherwise life's wading through a pile of excrement between paydays.

Can't change practice - this is the only one who don't yell at me about my weight and actually have helped me lose enough so that hte infertility problems eased off... enough that the miscarriage problems could start to kick in... gotta love my luck huh.

I know that dh and I got to a point in our struggles to conceive where we had to sit down and consider whether we should just stop trying. Fertility treatment, miscarriages, ttc, can and do take over your life, I know I got to a point where I was just too scared to try again because of the consequences of what might happen, and dh really struggled to come to terms with the thought of a life without children. We looked into adoption, which wasn't for us, I was down to see a counsellor, and then we went to see a consultant at our local hospital who we knew to be a very sympathetic yet straight talking man. He was fantastic, and really helped us through a very hard time.

I don't know if it would be possible to find anyone - a dr, consultant, counsellor someone who you can talk to about your situation. I don't know how old you are, but I was 37 when I finally had dd1, so maybe it is too early to give up hope.

It sounds as though you are having to deal with 3 major issues - depression, weight and fertility. Maybe if you try and address each one seperately it would be easier to make progress, and because they are all linked it would help your whole situation.

Good luck on finding your way through this desperate time.

So the dr wants you to try and fight depression and anxiety with no help through drugs or counselling? Surely he must realise that it won't go away?

While I know, first hand, how hard it is to feel a doctor is only concentrating on weight, they are usually very supportive when they know you are trying to do something about it. I would ask another doctor at the practice for a second opinion regarding the depression. This will be affetcting your weight, and quite possibly your fertility.

As I said in my last post there are facilities to help pregnant women with mental health issues so I don't understand why your GP is being so awkward.

Yep BertieBasset - exactly right. I KNOW there are options out there accessible to me even if I did become pregnant - but he's just decided I'm some little project for him to try to practice his pep talk skills on. I know from past experience that I've slid to a point lower than I've ever hit before with depression - and I know I'm at the point where I need help, and I've begged for it.

Hazeyjane - I'm 32, I've promised myself I'll give it a shot till 35 and then start to take stock of it all (cos by then it'll have been 7 years of hardcore horizontal ping pong... God I'm sick of the shagging!). Recurrent MC consultant seems really good and I know they'll monitor me closely if/when I ever get pregnant again (I obviously lost enough weight to kick the whole plumbing into operation - before drowning my sorrows over the last disasterfest in Quality Street) and hopefully get some idea of what might be going on. That's a help in itself knowing that's out there - but if I hadn't ended up in the EPAU with this most recent loss... GP would never have referred me into the system.

I think you can only think about it in chunks of time like that, Emptyshell.

In the end it took dh and I 7 years, the second miscarriage that I had was a molar pregnancy, and in some ways I think that the huge medical process that that started was helpful in me finally having dd1. It also meant that I became well versed in phoning consultants for myself, writing stroppy letters, badgering medical secretaries and generally trying to take some control, because it does sometimes feel as though you are just being blown around in a shit-storm!

Would it be possible for you to write a letter to your gp, or your hospital discussing the various issues you've set out here. Sometimes it is easier to get these things across in writing, especially if, like me, you have a tendency to collapse in tears when talking about it all.

Am I rigt in thinking the GP is saying he will only treat your depression if you have a coil fitted?
He has absolutely no right to do this.I think you need to see another GP quickly and take someone with you

OP, YANBU.

Have you told him how you are really feeling?

I ask because i don't admit "out loud" how bad i feel even when i have been and begged for ADs.