To point out you can have a diagnosis of severe depression and anxiety

[LunchpackOfNotreDame]

And still function

Because some helpful 'friends' are trying to undermine me by saying I cant possibly have that diagnosis because I'm not in hospital and I still work (albeit on reduced hours)

Hold on while I ring my cpn, Dr and crisis team then and ask them to reevaluate my diagnosis based on what some lay people think.

I agree completely.

I have anxiety and depression and am not good at all at the moment. I started new medication two weeks ago. I'm still functioning. I'm still working. It's business as usual as far as my dc are concerned. Dh is the worst offender for not getting it. I "seem okay" this week apparently.

I don't even feel particularly well supported by my GP, who thinks that I have no reason to feel the way I do.

Aside from my DH, the only people I discuss this with in any detail is one close friend and my manager. The latter has seen me in a very bad way recently.

In fact i've just realised, that thread would have been a year ago today - it was started cause of RW suicide!

I have been told I have 'too many nice things in my life too be depressed'.
Yeah, coz that's how it works!?!
I am functional. Mostly.
I had to decide - career or children, I can't cope with both. I chose children and now I keep getting guilt trips, I should be earning money, giving them a better lifestyle, showing them a good example, blah blah blah.
Can I envoke a mumsnet favourite phrase but with a twist?
Some mental health problems are invisible. Doesn't make them any less real.
and for us all.

Ignorance is bliss!! Lots of people are suffering in silence unless you have been there or had someone close go through it then people should just wind their neck in.

Ive suffered on and off for years and its no joke, my sister battles bipolar and my boyfriend has been suffering on and off for years aswell to look at us all you would think fine. Its a bit of a bug bear at the moment constantly having to justify my 7 year old with autism (i know its different) but still he looks fine so people just see him as this problem child who "just needs a good hiding" as i was told today

RANT OVER X

God you lot are amazing. I wish you could tell my Fil how you all cope and get on with your lives so well. He has been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and has completely given up. Won't drive, won't do anything for himself and is expecting us to run round after him and organise his life, carers, assessments and medications because he can't possible do anything for himself. He's only 69 and he's given up on life. He does nothing except sit and feel sorry for himself. My poor dh is heading the same way, he's so stressed out by it all.

I have had MH issues all my adult life, depression and bipolar. I came off medication when I was pregnant (almost 4 years ago) and have not returned to it, although I have definitely not ruled out treatment if I feel I need it. The infuriating thing is how many people think I am 'better' now because I am medication-free! I am a working mum and so busy I don't often have time to feel anything, but the struggles are still there. I wish people understood it's an ongoing battle for all of us, no matter how well you 'seem' to be coping

msadorabelle your fil way of dealing with it is as right an as acceptable as every other person dealing with it.

I learned a new word the other day. Ruminating. It's what us depressive types are prone to doing and apparently the key is to stop doing it. Helpful titbit from the cpn there!

Haha oh yes. I have personality disorders and I'm perfectly comfortable with my diagnosis, but one person, when I told them (can't remember the reason!) said, oh no, I don't think you do! As if she was paying me a compliment

MsAdorabelle, some people cant cope though. My depression is currently bearable, but my anxiety such that i dont leave the house alone. I have children, can go out with them if dh comes, so i look fine to anyone who looks.

As an aside, my mh problems are now thought to be caused by undiagnosed asd, so i would suggest all wimen here have a look specifically in how autism presents in women

Women*

Oh God. This has just made me feel worse.

I have had depression/anxiety since my early 20s. 15 years later I have had 2 periods of time off work and the latest one, earlier this year, was a complete collapse when I couldn't even look after my children for a week.

I felt like I should be coping. I felt like I should be able to function. I beat myself up about being so useless and pointless and not managing like I usually do.

My psychologist told me that my constant coping and functioning had brought me to that place. It was my brain's way of saying 'help!'

Now you lot are making me feel pathetic and like a failure for letting it get the better of me.

I'm ok now. Functioning fine. I have re-jigged my work-life balance a bit to try and make sure I never reach the point of not coping again.

I am a single parent of 2 and a full time teacher with a disabled child. I have no time to myself. I could exist, but wasn't living. I reached a point when I wanted to do neither.

But I get what you are saying. I was ill for at least a year, but no one would have known. Right up until the day I ended up in hospital and had to call in sick. Everyone I work with went ?! 'But she was FINE yesterday'

lifeissweet, please don't start beating yourself up. Sometimes falling apart is what you need to do in order to start recovering. I don't have children but if I did, there is no way I would have been able to care for them adequately when I was at my lowest. I was utterly bereft and barely communicating - the future looked like a black hole.

I think that people like us are very good at holding it all together, because in many ways we have to be, but maybe we hold it all a bit too tightly sometimes, and need to get better at recognising that signs that we need a break,a meltdown, help, support, whatever. You are not pathetic or a failure at all - you're still here and coping and functioning. You made it through your recent collapse and you're still intact. I'm sure you're still hurting and still fragile, but you're still here

Yes I suppose that is his way of dealing with things but there's a lot more back story that I won't bore you with now. Dh says a lot of it is just his own self-centred bone idle narcissistic personality. He's always been like it. In fact I have to remind dh that his dad is unwell. It is a shame though. He's got four dgd's that he has lost all interest in. He's got friends he won't see. He seems to be slowly wasting away from life. I wish I could help him but he believes everybody is trying to kill him and won't listen to us. My dh suffers with stress and this is very difficult. I worry about him going the same way.

Okay this is like having cancer. You can have the same diagnosis but be at totally different phases of treatment and recovery and relapse.

Someone on chemo is going to struggle a lot more than someone who isn't...that doesn't mean that one of them has cancer and that the other one doesn't. It also transparently doesn't mean that one of them is a brilliant coper and the other one is pathetic!

Depression anxiety is exactly the same. I couldn't function this time last year and now I can (reduced efficiency no doubt but functioning) I have the same diagnosis last year as this - ie. severe anxiety depression. Currently I am compensating efficiently...last year I really wasn't. I am no more or less pathetic now than I was then.

MsAdora The pulling away and losing interest is an absolute classic symptom of the illness. One critical step towards getting better again is to re-engage and rebuild interest and enthusiasm levels. Is your FIL getting counselling or CBT to help him do/understand that?

to you all.

I've found great comfort here in recent weeks as I try to piece my life back together. I've felt broken and utter despair, like all the lights have gone out. My problems are stemming from intolerable stress at work, something I'm banned from talking about at home as dh doesn't like it. Dh says quit, but in the same breath tells me we'd have to downsize. So his support comes with a dollop of guilt.

So I broke. At work. It all fell on top of me, and I had a panic attack. My manager couldn't have been lovelier and having that support at least does help.

You can have a diagnosis of anything at all, mental health or physical, and somebody who is completely unhampered by any actual knowledge about the condition will tell you that the professionals who diagnosed you are wrong. The correct response is either "I didn't know you had a professional qualification in this", or "I will let my doctor/psychiatrist know, I'm sure they will be incredibly impressed with your diagnostic ability", or (and this is my favourite) "Fuck off".

Yy bitter

People are just very ignorant about mental health.

For people who can cope, and who have a job that doesn't exacerbate their illness, working and doing your best to "function normally" is actually good for their mental health. My DH, who has severe chronic anxiety for which he has been hospitalised several times (last time he was in hospital for the best part of a month), now runs his own business and being successful at something has massively increased his self-esteem and has been positive for his overall mental health. Working for himself means he can work more hours when he feels well and back off a bit when he is unwell. But he is still under a psychiatrist and on fairly strong medication, which he will most likely require for the rest of his life.

Yep, i have both.suffered anxiety for as long as i can remember, and depression since i were a teenager. In my 30s now and still have both.
I did work as it helped being out the house, however at times that was impossible.last year it was just too much.
Everyone copes differently though.

Last year out of the blue I started suffering from severe anxiety. I was having panic attacks all day and night, I was literally having panic attacks in my dreams. It was a nightmare. Fortunately or unfortunately when they started I was 2 months from starting my Bar exams. I had to continue studying and sat 14 exams, all of which I was in a high state of panic/anxiety for. I got a first class honours degree and no one knew how I was feeling.
I struggled on in silence for a few more months but I was having sucidal ideation from the torment if it so I sought help. I had CBT and it changed my life. I still deal with it but on a massively reduced level and it's manageable.

Lifeissweet, please don't feel bad I think forcing myself to carry on made me worse, I was too afraid to give in to it, if that makes sense. Hugs to you.

My MH is shocking at the moment. You'd have no idea to look at me, working my extremely demanding role full time and with my wonderful husband and son, that I am constantly fantasising about self harming and am incapable of functioning in the evening. I've spent all day laughing and smiling in tough meetings but tomorrow will be back at the GP because I am just not coping with life.
Depression and anxiety are cruel, invisible illnesses and they are robbing me of my life. I am dead inside and nobody has a clue.

Yanbu

We all know that depression is often flippantly used and we probably have all said it at some point when we are not really depressed but are feeling down

But it is not for someone else to judge how depressed or anxious you are (unless that is their job). Our understanding of depression and anxiety is progressing all the time someone people deal with it differently the impact is different many function fine to the outside world while they have a constant internal fight others are not able to function as well

I would never dismiss someone if they were to say they are depressed even if they would not necessarily by diagnosed with depression (but how would I personally know) the are telling you something it should never be ignored