Are there drugs for these problems?

[BPisme]

Meeting with psychiratrist tomorrow.

Am already on 150mg/day Lamotrigine, and Zimovane when I need it to sleep (which I think has been more than not recently, but I have bad memory so DH keeps a note) and have had diazepam, but I only have two left so am keeping them for a mega emergency. I also have the occaisional coedine for joint problems.

I'm just so anxious, my mind doesn't stop, but I can't actually think about what I want to think about, if that makes sense.

I'm obsessing over things - eg at least once a day I have to run off to the loo and check my c section scar isn't coming undone and I panic if, for example, DH tuches it or my knicker elastic rubs on it. I don't have any children under one, so in my hea I know it won't undo, but doesn't stop me thinking it will.

If the kids start crying I just can't cope, well I do cope, but I feel so out of my depth. I used to be able to dal with it and now I just panic. Making a meal for them just seems impossible - I technically know how, but to actually get the ingredients togather and keep them away from the sharp and hot things and not injure myself or forget about the stuff cooking, then feed it to them and not cry if they just throw it about...all I seem to be able to do is give them tomatoes (even them I pick from the greenhouse as I forget to bu stuff) and ham and cheese and bread, or microwave leftovers from when DH cooked.

I'm not sleeping unless I knock myself out with sleeping pills. I feel fine in the day, until something goes wrong then I just can't cope. My mood is just wildly all over the place.

I just need a "starighten out my thoughts" pill or something. Don't saycounsilling beause I have had that loads, I've been like this forever.

I've been getting this level of treatment for four years, and on and off bits and bobs for all my life. I don't think there is a cure :(

Oh I am so sorry. You sound so overwrought. I really hope the dr can help you tomorrow.

I have had depression on and off for years, going through a very strange time at the moment, very up and down and all over the place. Been on strong meds which haven't worked, doc suspects Bipolar, however the drugs I am on are NOT to be used for bipolar patients as they can have awful side effects. So I need to stop, however I cannot stop dead as doing that can have awful side effects as well. I am very up and down at the moment and am waiting for psychiatrist appointment which is a long time coming.

I really hope tomorrow goes well. It seems to me that drugs don't work in all cases, this is the 4th set I have been on and am tempted to say sod it. But I need to get better. I am sat here on MN because I am too scared to go to bed, because I think about everything when trying to get to sleep, and then lie there and fret and get in a state.

So sorry I don't mean to hijack your thread. I really hope you can find something which helps you.

Well, this is it - I do get breaks. DH only works part time, the ILs babysit about once a week, I go and see my parents once ever 6 week or so (and take the kids, but it is a big choatic house where every one chips in)

Thing is, I bet tomorrow he will say "how hve you been" and I'll just shrug and say OK. It seems so daft out loud, and there will be DH, the CPN, the student nurse and the doctor all there, and the kids will be running about - how can I talk about this stuff in that situation?

Plus...what, the kids do my head in sometimes? I'm tired? I can't find the time to cook from scratch with two under fives running about? It's hardly massive, is it?

I'm really on the verge of not coping now though, and every time I ask for more help off anyone I just get told that everyone feels tired sometimes and i should have herbal tea and go to bed earlier. What would I give for it to be that easy! I say I can't, then DH interjects saying that I can and that I am exaggerrating.

The odd thing is, we get money because I can't "cook a meal from scratch on a traditional cooker without guidance" without causing havoc and danger, we get money because I can't go somewhere new alone with huge anxiety, and DLA is famously hard to get - so why, when I ask for that help, am I told to basically pull myself together? I don't get what the DLA money is meant to pay for - it is very very useful for the bills, but if I had no legs I see it would be for buying a wheelchair or whatever, what could I buy with £70 a week that would make things better?

Given support, I can cope. I need drugs that help me keep my anxiety under ontrol while I sort out practical things. I need easy but healthy meals - if I end up feeding junk to the kids I get more depressed - I need to be able to feel like a good mum, even if that means spending a bit more to get healthy ready made meals sometimes. I need help filling out benefit forms, instead of having to chase them up and nag DH to give me his payslips etc. I need places like tax credits to not send me cryptic letters then be imposible to contact and refuse to even talk to me on the phone. I know everyone needs these things, but if I don't get them I will get really ill, and then there will be nobody to look after the kids. If I get good support and drugs, nobody would even guess I had problems.

I even hate asking for drugs because I worry they will think I'm just wanting to get high or sell them on. Then I think they are just giving me placebo drugs anyway. This morning I was talking to the cameras in the house, then tonight I think why would there be cameras, I'm not interesting enough, but then there are so many coincidences, I think I might be daft not to have noticed them.

ARGH.

I am sane really. If you met me your would think I was just a bit a frazzled young mum, but everyone can't have this going on in thier heads can they? How would any kids grow up?

I don't know if I can ask for that though - I'm just about managing (although I really think I have only a few more days and I wouldn't physically be able to do it any more) How would I even put it?

I've asked a few people for "something else, support wise" but then they ask me what and I don't know.

Aw, DH just told me to go to bed. He's right.

Thanks for your help, I'll be back tomorrow.

Oh BP you really do sound so ill

Is there any way you can keep a diary of how you are feeling? That sounds utterly stupid as a suggestion mind you, just another burden of responsibily for you. Can your husband keep it for you? To act as an aide-memoire hwen you have your appointments so you don't sit there in silence.

I know how you feel - I have tried counselling in the past (to try and deal with an abusive childhood) but remember sitting there in near enough silence, filled with rage, and thiking 'why oh why would I waste my time talking about how I feel to someone who in now way will ever understand or empathise'. A very elaborate way of shooting myself in the foot maybe, but I still don't think counselling works for everyone. It doesn't work for me anyway.

I think the risk is that you get used to feeling so bad, it seems normal. I had a very very bad episode of PND where I thought the walls were breathing and I was being watched. I used to constantly talk to myself when on my own. It was very odd looking back, but at the time felt completely normal. I hope and pray I will never feel so low again. I feel bad now, but managable bad I think (I hope).

Please try and write down now how you are feeling, or if you can try and print off this thread and show to your psych. You have been very articulate on here, perhaps you are a lot better in writing your feelings down as opposed to talking about them. Perhaps this will indicate how in the depths of despair you feel.

Thanksprolesworth - I hope I will get better soon. I have highs and lows so is not too impossible to deal with, the main problem is that I am very tired (up, feeling wired all night, and work FT).

I have had recurrent depression for years, now diagnosed with a mood disorder and taking the lamotrigine. Until I had a frank discussion with my GP, she could not diagnose the mood disorder, tweak my medication and really help me because she did not have the information she needed.

I think Prolesworth's idea is great. Write it down or print out this thread and just hand it over.
It's a horrible place to be in. You're not alone, though. At the risk of being bounced out of MN, have a big ((hug)) disguised as a manly punch on the shoulder.

Well the doctor couldn't come. The nurse came and I told her some of it, but her and DH just told me not to worry, and that if I had something real to worry about I would be fine. I didn't pluck up the courage to tell her about the cameras.

Seems daft now anyway, I'm fine now. I'm honestly fine most of the time - it's just these clouds come over me with no warning and they are getting more and more worse. I feel like a fraud - I was just laughing and joking with the CPN, how can I say that yesterday I was thinking about running away because of all the cameras watching me?

They say I spend too much time online too, so I could lose MN too at this rate. I've already had to change username loads to throw them off the scent.

Hi BPisme I hope you feel OK after a sleep. Some of what you describe rings a bell with me. I feel pretty unhinged at the moment, can't sleep at all, getting through each is like wading through treacle, can't order my thoughts, the only consistent thoughts I have are terribly anxious ones, at the moment I am fixating on a lorry crashing through the front of our house and killing us all. Some days I wake up feeling bright but then within the hour I am sobbing over something, then within another hour I feel outrageously irritable. I don't like me very much at the moment

The thing is though, I have a kind of explanation for my feelings which is that I have an overactive thyroid. I was given this diagnosis after a blood test a month ago. I have been on medication which seemed to help but now things seem to be spiralling out of control again. I am going to the Doc's tomorrow to talk over treatment options.

I only mention this because I read the other day that many thyroid disease sufferers can go undiagnosed for years and often they are being misdiagnosed with psychiatric problems.

Have you ever had a thyroid function test?

I do hope you are OK BP.

Really hope you can get back online soon.

I am not a psychiatrist but this sounds a bit like a mixed episode you are having, with dysphoric hypomania - feeling crap but kinda speedy. BP episodes are often triggered by stress, and I remember how stressful it is having LO's.

Please ask again for help. As I understand it lamotragine targets BP deperssion (although for me it made my moods swing loads of times a day) so maybe you need a mood stabilizer as well?

I thought lamotrigine is a mood stabiliser? That's what I thought it was - last time I had an antidepressant it sent me shooting up high like a balloon.

Stress would make sense - my entire head and neck area is so tense, I keep pulling muscles and getting headaches, I seem to be constantly ready for a fight. Me and DH have also been having problems - there was a massive "leave the twat" style thread on here, but we're still together.

I keep dialling the number of the early intervention team (who I'm under, although they are going to have to discharge me any minute as I've been with them too long and I'm not really suffering from psychosis any more) and then hanging up - I don't know what to say. I have my care co-ordinators mobile number so I can text her when she is working too, but again, what do I say? When she is here I brighten up, and also I feel stupid telling her stuff because I bet she sees loads of people much worse off.

Much better day today anyway, got up, kids ready and MIL took them to nursery, then I basically slept all day, bit of MN in the afternoon, then microwaved fish pie that me and DH made to give to kids. I even gave them a bath and stories, which I've not been up to for ages. Really tired again now though.

And thanks for all your posts :)

Well my psych had me on lamotragine specifically because my default state is depression, plus olanzapine for a mood stabilizer.

So glad you got a good sleep, lack of sleep can get you into a vicious cycle.

It's quite common to brighten up when someone from outside the family calls. it's called something like reactive mood? My poor DP could not understand how I was so down one minute, then brightened when something happened, then back again.