depressed and no help

[BusyBB]

I posted recently that I'd had a horrible initial assessment with healthy minds. They got back to me saying they can only offer 6 sessions of telephone low intensity therapy and the waiting list is 8 months.

I feel like I'm really trying to hold it together and continue going to work and functioning while balancing on the edge of the abyss.

I'm the only support for my father with schizophrenia and I'm scared because I'm at the beginning of the age group where women are typically diagnosed.

I feel like I'm asking for help but it won't be given until I've already fallen and ruined my life.

@JellyfishAndShells if anyone is being sweeping and inaccurate it's you, because you're taking a single person's experience with their dry mouth and assuming that's how all people will respond.🤦‍♀️

I'm speaking fact, that recent studies are showing it has an array of nasty side effects, and I've sent you studies and articles to back that up.

@FunkyWiseWordsYou really have an obsession about this, don’t you ? The ‘natural remedies ‘ in your original post is a bit of a give away.

@JellyfishAndShells - I like to back up what I say with science and openly share where I'm getting my info.

I am sorry if sharing a few research links that counter your argument offends you to the point that you feel the need to call me obsessive. You clearly can't handle hearing alternate views.

If you read what the op has said, she has already tried one type of anti-depressant and she didn't do well on it. This is why I and others on her suggested alternatives - natural remedies such as vitamin D3 (which has heaps of scientific backing on how it can help with depression), walking and simply talking to someone professional.

I think a society where a doctor would rather throw drugs at you than get you counselling is messed up. The Op feels guilty about her desire to want to reach out and talk to someone because in this society people are told to eat their pills and that's that.

I take antidepressants/anxiety medication. There are a couple of side effects but they are very minor compared to feeling so unwell. They have given.me my life back

No-one who has ever suffered a true depressive illness would be so cavalier as to diss them online quite so comprehensively. They have saved many lives. Depression is a serious and potentially fatal illness.

All drugs have a list as long as your arm of possible side effects.

If you are well enough for "natural remedies" to work, then you are not ill enough for anti-depressants in the first place.

Be careful what you say online and the detrimental influence that this might have on people who are seriously ill.

FunkyWiseWords, please take your quack agenda somewhere else. It wont be helping the OP who is really struggling (with the exception of the advice on Vit D which is good).

@Mishappening -

*" If you are well enough for natural remedies to work, then you are not ill enough for anti-depressants in the first place."
*
This is pretty cold, and very simplified. There are many people in need of psychological care and counselling where medication does not work. The Op herself has been on medication for 2 months and has said she's still down. The first medication she was given made her feel like a zombie. Now she is trying a second drug.

I haven't suggested she stop, of course not. All I am saying is she's not alone in the side effects she experienced and it doesn't always work for everyone. I am just showing her that she isn't alone and there are others who do not respond well to anti-depressants at all.

@funnylittlefloozie hi there, see below. No quackery here. Yes, vitamin D3 is good. 👍

Reddit style ‘Big Pharma is evil’ rants, with ‘ look at my citations , look at my links,’ is not persuasive.

Counselling and therapy have been helpful aspects in the recovery but it is the antidepressants that have saved my family members life, with no exaggeration. Just one person, I know, but once you are involved with this nightmare of seeing someone suffer deeply to an extreme , you do hear plenty of other stories.

People do react in different ways - some do have side effects, some don’t. It’s successful for some and not others.

But our experience , with a busy London NHS GP practice is not that of just ‘ throwing pills’ at it. There was a compassionate hearing, a plan for weekly monitoring of effects and dose level and referral to different talking therapies ( that was something that had been tried before reaching the point of going to the GP and had not made any difference, in fact made them feel guilty at the lack of improvement )

Oh, and yes, we had had folate, iron and vitamin D levels checked, got the light therapy lamps etc. Nobody took the decision to medicate lightly.

There are many aspects to depression, it is complex. Different things work for different people, no one person's illness is exactly the same.

My mother worsened on anti-depressants and it was months before she recovered, but my best friend suffers from schizophrenia and asenapine** helps keep her going.

I wish the op the very best on her journey and hope she finds the right solution for her.

Don't stop trying op, you will get there. If your instincts are telling you to talk to someone, do it. Don't hold back. Don't feel guilty. If you don't feel good on your new medication, tell your doctor. Don't suffer in silence. You're not alone.

From what I'm seeing, people are being too dismissive of each other here.

It is completely valid that these drugs don't work well for everyone and new information is emerging about that.

It's also true that these drugs have saved lives and do work for a good portion of people.

You just have to go with what works for you.