Please read, really need some help

[imshaking]

Not sure if I will click the "create conversation" button or not after I have typed this. I really, really don't know what is wrong with me. Can anyone please tell me how you would know if you were having a nervous breakdown. I just feel as if I am going crazy, everything is on top of me at the minute and I am just not able to cope anymore. I just fly off the handle so easy at the minute and it is really god help anyone in my path. I don't know where it is stemming from in the last 3-4 weeks.

imshaking - sorry about that hun, i had to go to the phone. I'll be here on and off if you need to talk. To give you my own picture, I have been on a long and rocky road to recovery from having a history of mental health problems. I think i will always be on the road to recovery, just sometimes further along it and sometimes falling back a little iyswim. I have had a history of depression since my teens, have suffered from very poor self image, low confidence and poor self esteem for what seems like forever. I have also had a long and difficult battle with self-harming, something which i can have not done in 20months now. So at least i have one achievment! Lifes road is a rocky one sweete,and mental health issues affect each and every one of us to some degree. I certainly wouldnt say you are having a nervous breakdown, but it sounds like you could do with some support. The first step could be to make an appointment with your doctor, and explain how you are feeling. It doesnt matter if you sit there and blub for the whole appointment, the fact that you are there is enough for him/her to know you are asking for some kind of help. And that is the first step to change honey. Sending big hugs to you x x

Well done Pussycat.

I guess I have known for a while that I should see my gp but have chickened out twice before. If the kids would just stop fighting with each other for a while it would make such a difference but I have to admit that some of their fighting is because of the way I am at the minute.

All hell breaks out and I just end up shouting and feel worse afterwards. They just really know how to push the wrong buttons and then wonder why I end up shouting.

I guess there are some things that have happened over the last few years which I have not yet dealt with properly and push them to the back of my mind when I am feeling good. I just hate seeing my friends who are happy, go-lucky and are great mums and never seem to let their kids fase them.

imshaking, I don't know if I can be of any help, but just to give you a big hug. I've been there and I know what you mean about not wanting to go on about it to your RL friend. I finally went to pot in January this year, but it was a long time in coming. I'd had counselling a couple of times before and the last time was so awful that this time round I was adamant that I didn't want to talk about it, I just wanted to feel better. So I got put onto ADs. They have made a massive difference (as well as taking 6 months off work). In fact, one day last week I suddenly started to think I was crap at my job. Then when I got home I was a rubbish mum. I finally looked at my pill packet - and I'd missed 3 out of the last 4 days. So although I now feel happy, balanced, calm - everything I should be - it is because I am using chemicals to keep the right balance in my brain. I don't know why I didn't do it earlier.

You are worried about going to your GP. I was pg when I hit rock bottom. I called my HV and saw a GP and they both advised me to slow down, look after myself etc. I kept going, but felt worse and worse. Then one day I just couldn't get up, so I took the day off work. The next day I felt the same, but forced myself to go in, as I didn't feel I deserved 2 days off just because I couldn't get up. I lasted less than an hour. I couldn't make eye contact with anyone, let alone talk to them. I saw a trusted boss who told me to make a GP appointment, and went home. When I saw my GP 2 days later I was finally diagnosed with depression and never went back to work after that (I've now started a new job).

I started this year at the absolute lowest I've ever been, and am now the most content, happy, calm and balanced I've ever been. So do see your GP, and so talk to your friends. And take as long as it takes to get better.

Thank you Fisil that is really exactly how I feel so promise this time I will do something about it. Am opting for an early night. I know I won't sleep very well because I haven't done so over the last couple of weeks either but at least I know that even I am really just typing words on a screen I have gotten some things out that I wanted to and even though you are all faceless too you have given me support when I needed it. I am just so tired of feeling this way and tired of being tired all the time. Thanks, goodnight.

hi there-glad to know i'm not the only one that thought she was going mad-do you find you struggle with making even the simplest of decisons? i still cant see the good in myself but i refuse to listen to myself pulling myself down - its the first step to getting better. so is finding something that you are good at - if you get thanks and praise (which happens very little with kids!) it does you the world of good!
find positive people in your life and dont be too hard on yourself...you can do it!

It really is great to see that I am not the only one. Spanner thanks for those words of encouragement. I guess I do need to find something in life to focus on that doesn't bring out the worst in me. I always feel that I do my best but my best is never good enough. I had an early night and slept a bit better than usual, perhaps because I had got some of this out of my system.

imshaking, believe it or not talking to someone, anyone who understands really helps but sometimes professional help is needed. After a stressful time recently all the help in the world from friends and DD wasn't enough to stop me at first contemplating suicide then starting on self harm (something I haven't done since I was a teenager). It took contacting the CRISIS team to be able to help me and with regular visits to the hospital I am slowly starting to feel like me. One day at a time. Please try to get help. My DD nearly lost her mum before I was able to ask for the help I needed. Don't let it get that bad for you.

Oops there is a great book avalible called Mind over Mood that was recommended to me by the hospital. It really has helped. Sorry for the previous rant. imshaking really touched a nerve

Thank you to everyone who replied to me. I am very grateful in the knowledge that I am not the only one like this. Today I decided to be positive about things for a change and it worked. I kept busy.

Blackwidow I'm sorry I touched a nerve but am glad that you are still there for your DD. I wish you continued recovery. I will look up that book.

I admit that my life is too stressed and that I have only been looking at the negatives and know that I need to talk to someone about all the sh*t that has been going on. But at I am glad that I have you lot to come and talk to if I need to.

After a "good" day yesterday had a really awful day again today. Totally stress day at work, after that kids drove me mad with their fighting when I got home so ended up what I promised I wouldn't do and just shouted at them. don't know if it goes over their heads or not because eldest ends up crying and shouting at me and once distracted by TV stops and youngest (because he sees the others playing up) starts laughing. Ended up with a total stress headache.

I just can't take the kids fighting anymore, it is never that physical but they end up screaming at each other. that on top of everything just wears me down.

I know I'm not alone so anyone have any tips on how to calm things down at home before the storm errupts.

Can't help about the calming down I'm fraid - I tend to explode first and ask questions later.

BUT - you do need to see your GP. It will help you be able to cope with the kids shouting etc.

Please please do this ASAP.

Hugs

I intended to it yesterday Buda but all felt fine waking up and got through the day quite well.. I have made appts in the past when i have felt bad and then I wake up and feel good the day of the appt and think why did i do it and cancel it. If i could go at the moment I explode i t would be gr8 cos she could see me as I am but when i calm down or remove myself from a situation I am fine. So how do you explain that to a GP. I know it is not normal but I am so good at camaflaging things.

imshaking, it is normal to be so good at camoflaging things. I reckon it's one of the reasons why I became so ill - cos I was even very good at hiding from myself how I was feeling. When I contacted my hv she came to my house, and the first thing she said was "your house is always so beautifully clean and tidy." Yes, of course it bloody was, because I couldn't let anyone see how I wasn't coping. But I felt that her subtext was "see, your coping fine, I don't know what you're moaning about." Now I have the persepctive of distance I can see that I was doing what was necessary so that I would be judged as coping (even though I was also desperate to be identified as being ill) and I now accept that if to me it is not coping if you shout at your 2 year old once, then that is not coping. So what if other people shout at theirs regularly and still feel fine, for me it was not coping, and that matters. But of course when you're feeling crap you feel that you are not only crap for doing the bad thing, but you are also crap for thinking it is crap!

You are normal, you are just unwell. If you had problems with your periods you would go to the doctor. And you wouldn't cancel the appointment because it wasn't your period, would you? You are not well, go to the doctors and tell all. You may have to go several times - well, thats a good thing because it shows they are taking it seriously and not just listening to people the first time they come in and say things are tough.

Didn't want to take from UPJ's thread but can identify with her on one point and that is drinking. I don't have a drink problem per se but drink quite a few more than the safe units per week. But didin't realise that this can add to insomnia , which I suffer from, or a depressant .

Shit, shit, shit. Just have to sort myself!

first of all a big virtual hug for you and now a bollocking go and get help now! It's out there and it's not an admission of failure to take it. For a long time I suffered in silence and if it wasn't for the constant questioning from my HV and GP that made me finally realise that yes I was depressed and not coping then God knows what mess I'd be in now. It's not easy, you think your letting yourself down and wonder why everyone else looks like they cope so well. People think I'm wonder woman walking to school with the 4year old with twins in the buggy and dragging the dog behind me but they don't see me when I get home and sit crying at the pile of ironing thats obliterating one wall in my kitchen, the dust you can write your name in and the washing machine that keeps calling me to empty it. You need to be able to put things into perspective and get your priorties right which are your own health and wellbeing and your kids in that order and bugger everything else and that's what help will do be it AD's or counselling. Go on you know it makes sense Rodders!

Hi Imshaking, was wondering how you are doing? Have you managed to see the doctor yet? Just wanted you to know that we are still here for you.

i made countless appointments at the doctors and cancelled them - because your moods go up and down so much i would kid myself that i felt better again and cancel each appointment. i found locum doctors were better than my usual doctor. they took you seriously as they didnt know you as being any different. my named doctor kept telling me i was fat and lazy and needed to get out more e.g. join a gym! (i was sleeping 14 hours a day and still falling asleep feeding my baby in her highchair)the new doctors were prepared to listen and took me seriously.they didnt make me feel as if i was making a mountain out of a molehill.......this is why mumsnet is so good as you know other people are feeling just as bad and youre not going mad!so please make that appointment and dont take no for an answer - i eventually took tablets and counselling - i wish i'd done it a lot earlier....the best advice i was given was to accept that i couldnt do everything , i couldnt be supermum and just because so and so brings up their children in a dust free, organised home it doesnt mean you have to!

my gp diagnosed a lesser form of depression when I went to see him about anaemia, feeling run down, finding it hard to cope with kids/work/dh,poor sleep even though kids were sleeping... put me on prozac, I took it for 5 months, spent i month reducing dose, andits worked. I also had developed ibs, and it cured that within 4 weeks. I was in complete denial about what was happening to me, but it made me think, and I haven't looked back since. still struggle with sleep though, I'm often awake at 4am. See you gp asap.