To not accept MH diagnosis?

[Pimfree]

I've been diagnosed with depression. I accepted the first diagnosis (eventually and reluctantly) a few years ago and used medication. I came off medication last year and it's back.

I've lived most of my 36 years depression free - this experience is still new to me and I thought I would beat it and be fine again. Be me again.

It's a living nightmare. I'm scared to go back in ADs incase I never get off them again.

I don't want to be unwell and I would never judge anyone else with a MH problem but i just can't accept that this is happening to me - I have nothing to complain about and I worry that my friends and family are now always associating me with not coping and being a bit of an emotional wreck. I don't want to be judged. I want to be well and believe in my own ability - surely if I restart meds I'm just on a roller coaster which I can't get off of?

Pomfret do you have side effects from the ADs? If so try a different one. If not and it is just the thought of "relying" on them long term that bothers you then don't worry about it. As others have said, long term medication for physical ailments does not have a "stigma" and you wouldn't hesitate to that them. IMO you need to be on medication and feeling on top of your game to benefit from counselling, otherwise your mind goes in circles or is too lethargic to make changes. The current view appears to be that people who suffer from depression have a genetic predisposition and that people of NW European stock are especially prone.
I've been on medication for relatively long periods on and off through my life and don't really know why I've been able to cope ok intermittently but that's the way it is. Nothing at all to do with mind over matter or strength of character so biochemistry is the only likely explanation. Be happy that the mess make you feel ok and then look for counselling and other ways to maintain it without the mess.
Good luck

Counselling might be better right now to get you through this bad psych, if you prefer.

I meant bad patch! My autocorrect has a sense of humour…

have other conditions been excluded that could mimic drepression? thyroid
deficiencies (iron, vit d, vit b12)?

Hi OP

I recently returned to work after a period of severe anxiety.

After trying numerous things my acupuncturist suggested I have a blood test to check my hormone levels. The test revealed I was in the menopause.
I went on HRT and after a month I felt well again.

As you have not been prone to MH problems in the past, it might be worth considering that there may be a biochemical reason for your depression. Just a thought. :)

Clinical depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain (it's obviously much more complicated than that)

For lots of people who have depression that has no traceable cause like childhood trauma etc do very very well with a combination of ad and talking therapy.

The ads help to balance the chemicals in the brain so you are able to cope enough to then do the work both in life and emotionally so that you can get your life back.

Lots of people have a maintenance (small) dose of ads long after they are "better"

It is a disease just like any other. It can be in remission for ages or can flare up. it has absolutely nothing to do with not coping or being weak
You would never tell an insulin dependant diabetic they are weak or can't cope but...

As an example

The two have similarities in that to cope with both diseases, the sufferers must be strict in choosing healthy choices to manage their illness or it could have dramatic effects on their health and make the illness much worse.
Like both illnesses once you have had them for a while there are little changes and precursor symptoms that you can recognise as the start of a downturn and can put extra things in place to try to offset the fall.

I hope Iv not rambled on op. Don't be ashamed your just ill and that's ok!

I'm not sure how much I can trust my feelings vs what is the depression talking

That was my experience and from reading what other people with depression have been through, it's quite common. The only thing that really helped me was group therapy with professional therapists and other people with similar MH problems. It helped us all see what thought patterns we had in common that were part of the illness and what thoughts were healthy. (Although healthy unfortunately isn't synonymous with happy!)

I completely understand where you're coming from OP. At time I struggle to believe my anxiety and depression is a 'real' condition despite having it from a young age.

Recently I had to take some time off work and try some new meds and was so relieved that it coincided with me getting physically sick with a virus and therefore feeling I had a legitamate reason to be off work.

op I can't imagine a more succinct or accurate way of describing depression than I wake up and feel empty. Just numb. I can't think of anything I want to do. Or people I want to see. Its an awful way to exist. To not want to face the day. I'm in so much pain and everyone around me has that look of 'oh here she goes again, poor thing can't cope

It is bloody horrible isn't it?

I think private therapy is absolutely the way forward, the difference in quality from NHS to private can be huge! You also get to make the call as to whether or not the person you are seeing is giving you what you need or not, which is important.

I would take the meds if you strongly feel they helped last time, but otherwise wouldn't bother - the therapy will likely be far more effective.

Keep reminding yourself of how you would feel if this was cancer instead....so if you had cancer...then got better for a while...then relapsed...would you assume everyone thinks you a pathetic non-coper? Or would you ditch anyone so unsympathetic that they couldn't understand a disease can relapse or take a long time to get over?

In the mean time try and work out if there is anything active you do that leaves you feeling better (sport, going for a walk, getting a coffee with a friend, playing a musical instrument, drawing, or a particular aspect of your work that leaves you feeling better than average) then make sure you do that whenever possible (and remember that you should judge possible against a backdrop of recovering your all important health - so really it might be possible all the time!)

The more time you spend, even in little tiny chunks doing things that you actually like the more you will start to remember how to like things and hence the upwards spiral can begin....

I've been on ADs since I was 16 and diagnosed as being bipolar (there were no numbers, back then). I'm now 40. I remember how awful I felt growing up - and the look of startlement on the consultant who diagnosed me's face when he asked how long I'd felt like that, and I said "ever since I can remember". I had a plan for how I was going to kill myself when I was barely 3 years old. My self esteem was so low that I was sexually abused at 7 and didn't tell anyone, and raped at 10, and again... didn't tell anyone. The ADs (and I've been on many, many different ones) help. They really do.

My daughter (20) was diagnosed as having bipolar2 and NPD in January. She refuses to accept that there's anything wrong with her, won't take her meds (she's been off them since the middle of May, at least) and is currently in an awful lot of trouble with the police because of it. She doesn't understand that it's not her fault, that she was born with a chemical imbalance inside her brain, and that the meds will help her level out and be able to live a "normal" (whatever that is) life. Until she does understand that, and takes the ADs, her life... is probably going to be extremely unhappy. As are those of the people around her.

Having depression isn't something to be ashamed of, OP. I've always been very open about my brain not working the same way as most of my friends/family (although my father was also diagnosed as being bipolar about 10 years ago, again won't always take his meds... and it's glaringly obvious when he's not, and in hindsight my grandmother probably had some form of depression also, so it's probably genetic in our situation!). Don't let anyone tell you that it is. If my daughter would realise that she has no choice but to accept that this horrible illness is not going to be miraculously cured, and would take her medication, she'd be able to have a relationship with her younger brother and myself.

ADs are not the evil they're often portrayed as being. You may not have been on the right ones - as I said, there are so many different ADs, it's horrible and frightening, but you do need to find the right one for you. I don't particularly like being on them, but I'll tell you this - I don't ever want to go back to how I felt for the first 16 years of my life ever again. I remember feeling like no one was actually real, including myself, and was horribly reckless with my own life/safety... at the age of 3 to 4. Certainly before I started school. I tried to kill myself when I was 10, and have permanent damage as a result of that. I tried again when I was 14, and 16 - which is probably why I had the early diagnosis. Within a few months of taking the ADs, I started to actually enjoy being alive. It takes time, is what I think I'm trying to say to you, OP, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Those who matter won't mind, and those who do mind, don't matter.

But you, OP... you do matter.

I know lots of people with more stressful jobs and life situations than me

Please don't compare yourself to other people, OP! You don't know what goes on behind the scenes of the perfect life they might present.

OP I can sympathise.

A few years ago, I was a fit healthy 30-something who had hardly visited the GP in a decade. Then I was diagnosed with long-term kidney disease. I have needed several operations, not all of which worked, and I don't know what effect this will have on my life expectancy.

I remember lying in a hospital bed on a ward full of older ladies thinking 'but I'm not one of these people! I can't be! I ran a half-marathon last year! I can't be ILL!'

I think it's a very common reaction to physical and mental illness. When you are strong and healthy, 'sick people' are a sort of separate category. Having to put yourself in that category involves a massive re-orientation in how you think of yourself.

If it helps, there's another way of conceptualising it........ It takes a strong person to deal with having a serious diagnosis and getting through medical treatment. I don't always cope with my condition with grace. I often feel peevish and resentful. But I try to be someone who gets on with the treatment and is as healthy as possible.

Can you think of your depression that way? It's a challenge to you, not a weakness or something to be ashamed of?

Revolting I think it would help if I could see it as a challenge and not a weakness but I'm scared to accept it because I'm afraid that means I'll always think of myself as being depressed or mentally unwell - which may be the truth but it's a hard truth to accept.

The fear that at any moment my mind can bring my world to a halt and there's nothing I can do about it.

It's the hopelessness of it all I can't come to terms with. Maybe if I knew what treatment or life change I could make to protect myself I could do these things and see it as a challenge but right now, it's something that I can't control, I don't know how to treat, I can't identify the cause, I'm completely at its mercy and it's so debilitating it scares the life out of me.

I don't want to die - I'm not suicidal - I want to recover - but I don't see the way to recovery - there's no magic pill, no quick fix, no way of knowing how to get well and even more scary, how to stay well. I don't know who I am anymore or how to protect myself

When my DH told my FIL I had depression FIL asked what I had to be depressed about . Even people with no home, life, money, relationship worries get depression because it is an illness like any other.

If you want to be well and you again you have to accept you are ill and take the medication to give you a fighting chance.

Pim the brain is so complex! Is has many different states it can adopt. Right now your brain has fallen into a pattern that is not its normal basic functional state (at least judging from your 36 years depression free!). This unwell state of mind isn't you. You are still the person you always were, you just have a different circumstance to deal with right now.

Maybe think of it like the operating system of a computer. You are the core beliefs that underpin everything, and running that core code on a nice stable operating system works just fine. Suddenly you got a forced update into an unstable operating system that is trying to undermine your core beliefs in yourself - or at the very least is conflicting with them.

You would like to return it to that previous state (cancel the update maybe)....now it may be possible to do that through therapy or it may be that the new state you will return to is a different but also basically functional and healthy state. The later is more likely because we GROW through our experiences, and believe it or not (and I know you will find it hard from where you are now) it is actually most likely that you will come out of this having developed significant resilience to recurrence.

That might come from knowing what things can trigger unhelpful mind states in you and being more aware of your general mental health in the future. But it might be that you gain a deeper awareness of yourself as a person and genuinely find more depth and breadth of self-acceptance.

Gah this is all just so much technical mumbo jumbo.

The point is that not only is it likely that you can heal from this illness, you can gain in strength from it too. You can come out more robust with a stronger self image. You can update your core beliefs about yourself so that they are less susceptible to being undermined by the universe generally being an arse to you....

Is it possible that your job causes you to doubt things about yourself that you believe at a deep level to be true?

I personally have a huge amount of my self-esteem tied up in the idea that I am viewed as 'competent', 'reliable'. When I began to suffer depression I lost my ability to be reliable. I had to let people down. This MASSIVELY compounded the original problems....

My core belief in my own competence was being directly conflicted by reality and the result was severe depression.

Obviously it likely won't be that for you - though you mention hating to let people down - but it might be worth having a deep look at who you think you are, and why your job/lifestyle might be causing the foundations to be shaken up?

Good grief, sorry OP none so adamant as a convert.....

Ice I loved the operating system update analogy - that's exactly what I wish, that I could cancel the unwanted update and revert to my original OS but I'm not sure that's possible - or at least I've not managed that so far.

I too have a huge amount of my self esteem and identity wrapped up in my career - coming from a very modest background I have somehow managed to make quite a successful career for myself and seem to have adopted this as who I am. Except it's not who I am. I'm a people person, I like to be in a relaxed environment and I am a curious person, I like to have a topic I can get into, research, learn. My job for the last 4 years is isolating, pressured and not a topic I enjoy. I may be good at it - or at least I was - I no longer have the drive or ability to push on and the thrill of being a high achiever (at least on paper) has long since vanished.

But do I believe if I were to give up my job I'd wake to be the old me? No. I think I'd be lost, cut adrift, without something to identify as me. Does that make sense?

I worry I give up my job, still don't feel any better, then end up in a worse position (particularly financially) and then what? Keep cutting out things/situations/relationships in my life until I find the toxic part?

The road ahead seems daunting and with too many turns and options. I don't feel strong enough to make these choices - that's a part of this condition - a compete inability to make decisions, every set of choices apply pressure and create terror to me right now

Nobody wants to be ill with depression 1 of the symptoms of depression is self doubt the what have i got to be depressed about. we all have it in us to have a mental illness nobody is immune and it is not a weakness it is a chemical imbalance in our brain it is not your fault you are ill.

pim the decision paralysis is one of the worst parts imho. But it might not be a good idea to make big decisions when you are ill, certainly about jobs etc.

I would not think the job is what is toxic. Nothing is entirely good or evil!

It does sound like the job is telling you to value different things than those you actually do value though. If you have a safe place to stand from, you could get some distance from those feelings and pressures. You could say 'I don't care if the job rewards being an over-achiever/ambition, I value the way I can help support other people'. And the job would be no problem to you.

Somehow you aren't getting that space - the values of the job are being pushed onto you and you aren't feeling able to reject them convincingly.

It is maybe like when someone has a low opinion of you, and you either think 'oh maybe they are right and I am a jobsworth or whatever' instead of thinking 'eh? what's gotten into them? I didn't do anything wrong'.

It's 'healthy' to be able to reject other peoples opinions of you and 'healthy' to set your own value system, rather than having your job description impose one on you.

Depression is robbing you of the rock to stand on, and dumping you in the quicksand instead.

Don't worry, the rock is still there (and in fact it is right under your feet!) you just need to get the more obstructive parts of your brain to acknowledge it again. (Sorry - easier said than done).

Pim please get yourself tested for deficiencies, hormone imbalance etc

If you have a biological problem, no amount of talking therapies will help!

I actually thing it's pretty bad GP's and psychologists just dole out AD's without any blood work.

Oh another thing!

Chronic stress in itself can cause depression.

I can understand your reluctance to quit your job- would you able to take a career break for several months, then use the time to work out what's what?

I think private therapy is absolutely the way forward, the difference in quality from NHS to private can be huge!

My NHS therapists were absolutely brilliant. They saved my life and made it worth living. I think the problem is that sometimes there isn't a good fit between patient and therapist and yes, maybe in private care that is easier to change. But don't knock NHS therapists - I suspect you'll find that often the private and NHS ones are the same people anyway.

OP re. the hopelessness, I find it helpful to remember, when the blackness creeps over, that it doesn't last. Unfortunately the good times don't last either, but the bad times won't. They may take a while to get over and you'll probably need help - therapy or ADs or both, but it won't last. And as you get more experienced with your illness, it will get easier to identify when you're about to go down and often you can head it off.

I find mantras help. One of mine is "just because I'm depressed, doesn't mean I have to be miserable"

Part of the problem is that we live in a world where the mindset is that physical and mental illness are somehow different - physical illness is accepted as 'just one of those things' but mental illness is somehow 'your fault'. We've internalised that mindset to the point where some of us do it to ourselves.

I work in mental health research, because I have a number of family and friends who have mental health conditions of one kind or another. I tend to see it like this: I have high blood pressure. It runs in both sides of my family, so lifestyle changes notwithstanding I will be on medication for life. My cousin has depression, has had since her early teens. She too will be on medication for life. I hope that one day we will live in a world where no-one will see the difference.

Lastly, there is a massive amount of research going on into the connection with brain inflammation and mental illness, specifically addictions, psychosis and depression. The connections are complex, but as a field of research it is showing that mental illness does very often have a physical cause. So it's no different from my high blood pressure then, is it?

Thanks for the continued posts - it really is good of you all to post your experiences and knowledge.

pointy I hope the research soon leads to better diagnosis and treatment options. The treatment options are so limited and resources so stretched, more findings would change so many people's lives if it means they can receive a more accurate diagnosis and some causes could be identified.

I don't know why this is happening to me and so I can't tell if talking therapy or medication is the way to go forward. Medication has helped to an extent in the past but the start up is very tough and that alone is a scary thought to go through that again. But if that's what I need to do then I will do it. I just wish I could understand what is causing this so I could make long term changes. Or maybe it is chemical and medication is all that is needed.

The not knowing which way to go is tough.

I actually read a study re brain inflammation and depression and their findings indicated that EPA (found in omega 3 fish oil) was a good anti inflammatory for the brain so I was going to try to find some pure EPA to try but perhaps now is not the time for me to be experimenting when I feel on the cusp of a real spiral