Depression

[Irishgurl123]

I'm depressed looks like I'm going to lose my job any help out there ?

I know, it's awful. Am only just out of the hospital. It sucks 😞

I’ve had bouts of agitated depression (a nightmare mix of anxiety and depression). The last one was in 2016. Utter horror beyond words. I’m sorry you are suffering in this way. People who’ve never had it simply cannot understand. It is pain, pure and simple. Raw agonising pain. I wanted to scream and tear my hair out.

Best advice I can give is:

Get outside and walk in natural light
Eat healthily - avoid junk, caffeine, sugar and alcohol
Stay away from other depressives - especially online
Try a routine of yoga, deep breathing and meditation
Avoid all stress (easier said than done)
Meet up with good people and be honest with them about how you feel

I totally understand. I’ve had depression my entire life, I remember being devastated and crying myself to sleep when I was 5 years old but I never knew why. As an adult it waxed and waned - I had years of being ok, and then years of feeling horrendous. My last terrible bout caused me to develop life ruining insomnia and lose my job. It was, to be frank, fucking awful.

Finally, like a previous poster, it was Mirtazapine that sorted me out. I had tried 5 other antidepressants that did nothing (some actually made me worse) before I was prescribed Mirtazapine. It is a sedating antidepressant that works for insomnia. I’ve been on it for 6 years now and it really has worked wonders for me. I can function better than I ever have, I can sleep every night, I don’t feel suicidal, I feel hopeful. My depression is never going to completely go away but it’s so, so much more manageable.

When I think about it, I am pretty pissed off with the NHS. The GP just kept prescribing SSRIs, which clearly didn’t work for me - one of the side effects is insomnia! It took 5 prescriptions that made me worse and me doing my own research to be finally prescribed Mirtazapine. I’m so glad I finally got there because I feel so much better now! They’ll have to pry my Mirtazapine out of my cold dead hands 😁

My point is, there is help out there, but I know it’s hard. The NHS isn’t great when it comes to mental health. They chuck fluoxetine, sertraline or citalopram at you and hope it works. When none of them do, it can leave you feeling that you can’t be helped. But you can, there are other drugs out there, this is a medical condition and you deserve treatment. Life can get better 💐

Yes, they chuck five different drugs at you before finally prescribing Mirtazapine and in the meantime I wanted to die! Like you I suffer with insomnia, yet all of the five are known to make it worse.

And others of us can't tolerate Mirtazapine at all. I rarely see it acknowledged on Mumsnet that significant percentage of people are not helped by SSRI/SNRIs or associated drugs.

I'd be trying to explore what is causing it and how you can get help to deal with the issues that are the cause of this. Hopefully that will help to reduce the response you are feeling.

Yes, exactly! I was trying SSRIs, being advised by GPs to wait at least 6 weeks for each one for it to start to “work”, and while this was happening, I was getting worse - I was ruining relationships, losing my job, actually becoming suicidal, and my life was basically falling apart. It took a long time to get my life back on track after this horrible episode - so much damage had been done.

I’m glad I finally found something that helps, and I am grateful, but I try not to think about that period of my life - because to be honest, I was screaming for help and I don’t think the GPs I saw were taking it seriously enough or considering my symptoms. It felt cruel.