Would anti-depressants help me?

[latrucha]

I am a SAHM of two toddlers, married. I have recently lost both my parents and have just finished around a year?s worth of counselling with CRUSE which has really helped me get over their deaths and their very difficult legacy to me. A few days after I finished DH told me how unhappy he has been and how difficult he has found the last few years (which is all the time we have been married). It has been difficult but there have been reasons why it has been so difficult IYSWIM. I think my marriage is salvageable with work.

However, after DS has woken me up tonight I can?t get back to sleep and have realised how lonely and unsupported I feel. I?m not blaming DH for this. I am alone: we live miles away from any remaining family I have (and it?s not much), my husband?s family are Spanish, my best friend is also miles away and while I have lovely friends here they?re relatively new.

We are all very tired, the children don?t sleep well, DH is very often away with work and I have been ill but I am for the first time wondering if anti-depressants would help me. I often struggle with my moods and feel I might not be affecting the children badly. My heart is in my boots and I wonder if a little lift, or support, would give me the help I need to tackle the problems in my marriage in a positive way.

I have (probably ignorant) reservations about anti-depressants though. I worry that they will take me over, or make me crazy (this did happen to my best friend on Seroxat). I feel embarrassed and ashamed at the idea I might need them. I don?t think I could yell DH right now. I also worry about not being able to some off them once I start.

If you have any advice I would be very grateful. Do you think they might be a temporary lift, or will they cause more problems than they solve.
I probably won?t be back on tonight, but I will check tomorrow (probably a lot!)

If you want a personal reply then no..anti-ds are not the answer. You are tired and fed up..trust me I've been there. Anti-d's can make you feel very detatched. I needed to calm my brain down..everything was that last strw IYSWIM. BUT they are serious drugs,had night sweats and visions when getting of them (seroxat).

Struggling with moods is not the same as depression...Don't take any drugs unless you have no other choice. You sound more like you need someone to talk to/ confide in. PM me if you want to talk!

Hi latrucia

I wrote a great big life story (kind of) but I realised that hearing about me dooesn't necessarily help you so....after a world of shit which involved me being raped, having an abortion, losing one job to stress and another because I flipped& tried to steal from the store I worked in and got arrested, telling my mother I wanted nothing more to do with her (ever) and then having a very public meltdown, I eventually agreed to go to the doctors and find out about meds (which I had been dead set against).....

I was put on fluxotine and I think the knowledge that I was taking it helped me to confirm to myself that I was trying to deal with the depression. I took it for about 6 weeks in the end as I had started a new job and felt embarrased about going to the docs for medicine once a month - I just couldn't bring myself to ask for the time off. I have been doing ok without it but I really needed it at the time (I don't think it had the time to have a biological effect but mentally I knew I was doing something positive).

The take my friend had on it was 'they just make it a bit easier to do what seems impossible without them'. You should go to your gp and explain that you need some help. You can then talk over what the best option is. And try to talk to DH - if you can't say it then write it (I am extremely lucky to have my DH - he is from a functional, loving family which I find very overwhelming but he has so much love and patience). Tell him that things aren't right but that you will do whatever is necessary to make it so. Hopefully he will go to the docs with you. Make an effort to go outdoors together (sunday walk after dinner etc) and try to remember what you used to do that made you laugh. I found just putting my make up on in the morning and making sure I was dressed by a certain time helped me alot. Baby steps are fine - so long as you are moving forward. And if you have a setback - acknowledge it, learn why it happened and move on. I know this is all abit pieced together - I may not be thinking straight but the crux of it is, if you are thinking you might need the tablets, you should go and find out more about them. You are under no obligation to take them but you feel alot better for knowing that you are trying to make things better.

all the best, xx

Latrucha, you have obviously gone through a lot and its no mean feat tackling any motional upheaval with the added extreme exhaustion that comes with having a young family.

I think you may want to sit and have a calm chat with DH and establish that the same cause (having 2 toddlers to care for/lack of sleep) has the same effect on BOTH of you. Your time is secondary because they take precedence not because you are not putting enough efforts in the relationship.
Most of us have experienced exactly the same thing, without the added trauma of bereavement.

I quite agree with Velcro re AD's.

You said you have just finished counseling. Do you feel that you lost valuable support? Ad's would replace that?
Can't you call your counselor to discuss?

Also, it seems that counseling was useful. Would DH maybe consider couples/family therapy?

mrsmartin, glad you came through.
Always great to hear about supportive husbands.
I know what you mean by being overwhelmed by the model of a functional loving family!

I've found ADs do help to calm your thinking if you are feeling overwhelmed. When I went on them, my mind was racing and over analysing and my emotions were seeming to be uncontrollable. I'm not sure if this is how you are feeling, just wanted to let you know the symptoms that put me onto them.
I'm on 20mg of Citalphram a day and I feel they make me 'normal'.

How sad that you've been through so much and now you have the worry of your DHs words. Life just can sometimes throw too much at us at one time. My only advice would be to really look into building a strong support network around you now... get to know those good friends even better.. do coffee more, go on kids outings together more.. etc etc.. as it sounds like your DH is feeling the strain and may not be the one who can be strong enough to help you for the time being.

Gosh, you're all very nice over here. Thankyou for your generous replies.

Velcrofanjo - thanks for that. It confirms my own caution.

Mrs Martin DH is also from a loving and functional family! It's actually a bit of a problem betwen us. He has been very supportive with counselling but now I've announced I've finished I feel that any more 'problems' are not what we/he needs right now. He's very down himself for the first time in his life. I have worn him down. He needs TLC himself. He's coming back from abroad today and I am worrying about being up to the job.

Laptopweildingharpy - I do feel the loss of my counselling. The last session was very positive and I felt great. Thren DH sprang all this on me ad I'm panicking. My problem is, the counsellor was for a charity -CRUSE - and I'm getting myself in a paddy about the idea of acalling her. She thought it was time to end - sprang it on me a bit - so I feel awkward ringing her for (free, by default) help about something that may or may not be related to bereavement. The idea is making me very anxious but I would love to go.

I don't think DH is up to counselling, or even major talks right now right now. He is totally exhausted. He's been looking after me, working really hard and hardly sleeping. He feels detached from everything aroound him apart from work and needs some unwinding time before any major proposals So, twange you are right!

Hey LaT - just wondering why I'm seeing this only now and then I notice the time you posted it - not a good sign. You know where I am if you want a good old fb or telephone rant xx

Whether ADs will help you will depend on whether you have a depressed reaction to what is going on or whether you are 'just' fed up.

If you are:
Enjoing things less
Eating more or less
Sleeping more or less
Feel hopeless or helpless
Can't see how it will get better

then you might be.

In any event if you feel you are not finished with counselling and you are struggling to cope why not visit your GP and discuss this? They may well be able to refer you for more.

Latrucha it does sound like you have a lot to deal with. It may be that ADs may help for a while. Think of them as a cushion to keep you afloat. That's what I do. I went on them after a long time of stress, a bereavement and a general feeling of sadness that wouldn't lift, together with feelings of doom and panic about the future. I also felt unsupported as DH was often away and I had and still have no family nearby, so was spending quite a lot of time on my own with three dds and very little money.

I don't think ADs have changed my personality, they've just given me my sleep back and I'm no longer really anxious or sad and angry all the time. Taking them has also given me more energy to do more things that make me happy and ditch what doesn't.

I do agree with madmouse in that you should talk to your GP about how you feel and whether you can have more counselling. Often a combination of counselling and ADs (if you are depressed) can really help.

I was given anti-depressants by my doctor b4 christmas as I am a SAHM with two toddlers and a husband who doesn't support me and tells me to pull myself together. I was also given phone councelling through my doctor by www.rethink.org where you can refer yourself. They have been OK but only started a few weeks ago and I'm not sure if it's just for the Essex area. I never took the tablets as i was so worried about the side effects and then coming off of them. The biggest problem for me is my husband, but one of their suggestions was keeping a positive thoughts and actions diary and I only put good things in it, IE comments people make on your appearance, things the kids have done etc etc
My husband is useless at looking after me in any way, but underneath I think that he has realised I am suffering from depression and he can't cope with this and in turn it's making him depressed, which is making me worse!
I hope whatever you decide to do works out well for you and please PM me if you want a chat x

Thanks again.

TBH I do feel that I am just tired and fed up really. I did feel good after counselling but feeling I now immediately have another mountain to climb (marriage!) has got me down (plus DH away, laryngitis, not enough sleep and half ill children). Also, I'd been very impatient with the children at bedtime and this also makes me feel terrible. Last night when I posted I couldn't get to sleep and everything felt very oppressive and as if it is always like it.

I'm very glad I posted as it seems to have lifted my mood in itself. Perhaps it was one of those moments of recognising the reality of a situation which actually helps in the long run even if it's very scary at the time.

I've also found the comments very useful and I will bear them in mind in the next few weeks. And if I feel like I did last night much more, I will go to the GP and talk about it. I do have one I like and trust and she's familiar with my situation.

I would say its good sign that you recognize you might just feel tired and fed up. And you should be!
It is a good sign. From experience, I would think that if you were clinically depressed you would not be able to have this measured assessment.

Definitely worth seeing your GP to prevent the sinking feeling from setting in.
Do your kids regularly wake up at night or just because they are ill?
Maybe worth taking a sleeping aid for a week or two to re-establish sleeping patterns?
Lack of sleep is your worst enemy. Remember everything is totally blown out of proportion with lack of restful sleep.
Maybe you could help DH recognize that when you are all well rested you can have more constructive discussions.
Hope you are having a good night.

I mean sleeping aid for you, not the children of course!

One thing I can really recommend is 'free writing'. You basically sit down and write about how you are feeling - you will find after a couple of minutes that you are writing at lightning speed and pouring out everything that is bothering you, your concerns and fears and anger - everything. My DH doesn't work away but he does do shifts (he is a paramedic) and so I tend to do this if I am feeling emotional (I used to do it alot ). I then fold it up when I am done and put it away until the next day/ when I am feeling a bit brighter. I then sit down and read through it and look for places that I might have overreacted or taken something too personally and I look at how I might avoid that situation/reason with myself for why I feel like that. It then goes in the bin. I find it helps to keep things in perspective.

I am a lucky one, DH knows first hand how it feels to be depressed (he has also suffered in the past and has small periods where he can completely withdraw from life). However, I feel the best way to beat this thing is to do something small for yourself everyday (mine was getting dressed, looking after my skin and putting my make up on). Getting outdoors is also great for acting as a distraction and I found getting back into reading really helped me to escape the bad times and also to restore my sleep patterns back to normal.

Talk to DH and tell him that your illness does not lessen your concern for him and his feelings (speaking from being on the other side when DH was suffering and I wasn't - part of me hated that everything was about him - it was exhausting and difficult to cope with alone). Just the reassurance that you acknowledge that something is wrong and that you want to support him just as much as he wants to support you will go a long way.

All very good advice from mrsmartin.
All those things helped me a lot too.
And the notes are always useful if you have more counseling.

mrsmartin, get yourself to bed!

LaT so sorry to find you feeling like this. I remember your bereavement from our anti natal thread....

I was looking on here for advice about coming off my anti depressants... They have helped me regain perspective, like someone else said, like a cushion of support. Do you trust your doctor to have a conversation about all this?

Thankyou.

My son wakes up because hes very little - only 18 months. He's going through one of those pahses. It's lasted months so far. I'm actually sitting next to hi cout because he's teething, not sleeping and screaming every time I move.

I could really just do with the prospect of a break, even for few hours, in the near future. I'm up at 5am every morning with DS who is also up in the night and sleeps with me most of the time. DD is on half term and I'm finding that rather difficult this time(usually I love it but this time she is repeating back to me any word of warning or cross word I say twenty times a day which is making me feel like I do it all the time, which I don't).

I asked DH if he would look after the children for a couple of hours from 6am this morning so I could have a lie in for a couple of hours (he had offered) but I gave up at 6.45 as he had already shouted at them three times. I think it's all just a bit relentless right now. I just have to hang on in there for a while.

sorry for typos.

Hang in there.
You already know your/they are going through a "phase", so you can see the bigger picture and it will be better.

In the meantime, please do talk to your GP as how to best supplement with good nutrition and whatever help you see fit.

Am still not sure Ad's will help as they will not help anyone but you establish slew. But certainly worth considering if you feel that it becomes out of control in the next few weeks. Its great being pro-active about these things and that you have a sympathetic GP.

You can find comfort in the fact that so many of us live in the fog of broken sleep with young families and it does get better with time.

take care

They will not help atone but you establish sleep patterns

sorry auto-correct out of control!