Please, please someone tell me it's worth carrying on with the ADs despite feeling suicidal since taking them for a week

[Faigle]

I suffer from anxiety and depression-the depression got much worse recently so went to GP who prescribed me Amitriptyline. Previously Citalapram & Mirtazipan were unsuccessful-they made the anxiety much worse and gave me panic attacks.
I've been taking Amitriptyline since last Friday. At first I thought great, much less severe side effects than the previous times I'd tried ADs, so I have continued taking them. I still felt desperatley depressed and unable to do do anything, but I haven't felt panicky and paranoid as such. So I have been sticking it out in the hope that I would soon start to feel better.

But this morning I feel almost suicidal. I feel as if I just can't carry on living with the mental pain anymore. It's like I have a "white noise" inside my head and it's throbbing with negative thoughts and anguish.

Please, does anyone have experience of feeling this desperate before getting
better first. Is it worth perservering in the hope that this terrible stage will give in to soon feeling better.

I don't want to stop taking them as I've never given ADs a proper chance to work before, but I'm in a real quandry.

Perservere or stop?

Please someone help me. I'm all alone and just want to curl up and never wake up again. I feel as if I'm in a living nightmare and sleep is my only respite

Do you think they will make me feel better soon.
Is ther anyone with a similar experience, who carried on and felt better.

I don't have experience with those specific drugs, but some ADs do have a reputation for making things worse for the first couple of weeks and then helping afterwards.

Sure someone who knows more will be along, but didn't want you to sit there unanswered.

Thanks for taking the time to write Nilgiri.

Hopefully someone who has had this experience will post soon

If it weren't a Saturday, I'd suggest going straight back to your GP.

Could you make an appointment for next week, and cling onto that thought to get you through the weekend? (Easier said than done, I know.)

Sorry you're feeling rubbish. If you weren't feeling suicidal before and you are now, it could well be a side effect. Probably a good idea for you to and see GP first thing tomorrow and discuss it, there are still lots of other antidepressants you could try, and things like CBT may or may not suit? If it gets worse before tomorrow, and you think you may act on the thoughts, call an out of hours GP, or go to A&E for advice. Most A&Es should have a psychiatry team who will help if it's an emergency.

I don't want to stop taking the ADs because I'm clinging on to the hope that they might eventually make me feel better.

If I stop, then that will be the third time I've not given them a real chnace to work.

The "not giving it a chance to work" is something you could discuss with a doctor who has experience of ADs - so the A&E psych team might actually be a better bet than your GP.

They might say it's a temporary side effect, plough on through. Or it might be just that certain ADs aren't right for you and you haven't yet hit on the right one. After all, if this were an antibiotic you were having a reaction to, you'd need to have the same conversation.

It is quite normal for ADs to make you feel worse for about 2 weeks before kicking in properly. Still, feeling suicidal is serious and best discussed with a doctor. If you don't feel you can wait until Monday contact out of hours. if you believe yourself to be at risk go to A&E.

Make sure not to drink any alcohol and rest as much as you can, also get some gentle outdoor exercise for half an hour daily, walking is fine.

Faigle so so sorry you are feeling the full force of this unbelievably horrid illness, which I know from experience. I am on imipramine which is a tryclic drug (one of the older ones) which is very similar to amitriptyline. Mine is quite a long story but I'll keep it brief. I had a severe major depression in 1995 and another one Easter 20210 (admitted to psych ward for 3 months both times) Thing was I was taking the ADs for 15 years and then gradually came off them and 4 months later - wham another major episode, so I am now on them for life.

I certainly felt much worse after taking the ADs but the trouble is we don't know if it is the depression just getting worse or the drugs making us worse. A Dr in the hospital told me that we very often feel the side effects (one of them being increased thoughts of suicide) before we begin to feel the benefit of the ADs.

You really must not stop taking the drugs - a week is no time at all for them to kick-in, this can take between 2 and 4 weeks. You have to experience the torment of depression to understand it and it defies description sometimes. For me it is a feeling of emptiness, flatness, no interest in anything and an absence of any emotion. I just want to crawl under the duvet and hide away. However it isn't really a good thing to do this. You need to get up, shower etc. and take the day in 15 minute chunks because a whole day or afternoon stretching ahead can feel endless. Don't stop yourself from crying, try to distract yourself, and take a very small walk, even to the end of the road and back. I used to be scared to do this in case I saw the neighbours. I used to jump if the phone or door bell rang.

The other thing about depression is that it is two steps forward and one step back sometimes (it's the nature of the beast). I have had many ups and downs during the last 2 years but the downs got less severe over time and would only maybe last half a day or a few hours.

Do you have any RL support, partner, friends, relatives. I know depression make us want to hide away but you do need to be able to talk to a trusted person about how you are feeling.

Keep posting - lots of support on here. MN MH thread has got me through many a dark day.....sending good wishes...NN

Faigle I don't know if you saw my thread few days ago?

Anuway I have same issue except it takes 8-12 weeks to get that bad weeks of wanting to die (when 4 weeks earlier never even felt that!) is a sign for me personally not to carry on esp as a single parent no one their to phone 999 etc.

Ask for emergency appointmant on Monday am or turn up at A&E/out of hours doc and ask for on call psychiatrist to see you if you can as don't know if you should stop them or carry on this torture.

Some people are so low that when they start ADs their mood lifts slightly and the motivation to want to commit suicide returns.

However some AD's cause greater anxiety than the person had to start off with!

Have you adult support 24/7 I mean dh or another adult etc with you if so I would say stop under supervision...otherwise supervision needed anyhow as you are experiencing tomented side effects

It is crazy that ADs cause suicial thoughts!

But on Monday you need to make appointment wit GP and ask for referral to Community Mental Health Team re further assessment

Hi I have taken both ssris and tricyclics in the past - and in both cases I have got much much worse before i got better.
I have needed a lot of extra support in those early days of taking the ad's.
In my own experience some gps have no real understanding of this possibility and just say that its down to the depression getting worse.

Agree with all the others - if you need help over the weekend call the out of hours team. And if you dont get sufficient support go to A&E.

Also agree with Nana Nina re breaking days into tiny chunks - just to get through.

And hold onto the fact that no matter how horrible things are now, you will get better.

ps. just wanted to add that even if it turns out that this AD isnt the right one for you dont give up. That can seem so difficult ('ive got to start again') but in the long run you'll be able to look back and just see it as adjustment/transition period.
Sorry you are going through this - its truly horrible. But you will get there.

Thank you everyone for replying.

Thankfully I feel less "suicidal" now, but more spaced out and slightly panicky. I have done nothing today except lie in bed, stare into space and post on here.

It's possible that I have felt worse today because I spent the the whole day on my own and somehow gave into it more.
Up til today I have tried to carry on as normally as possible- that is doing my p/t job, taking care of my ds (14) who today is with his dad.

I have many good RL friends, but I avoid them when I feel like this, despite them making it clear they would do whatever they could to help me.

Like you NanaNina I jump when the phone rings, and go out only when necessary (such as shopping, work etc) as I can't bear the thought of bumping into someone and having to pretend all is ok.

Everything at the moment seems a monumental effort, even watching TV is somehow "painful".
I haven't cleaned the house properly in weeks. I'm amazed I haven't taken any time off work. I think somehow if I did I would feel worse, as my job is important for my self esteem.

I just want to start feeling better, which is why I am prepared to carry on with the ADs in the hope they might make a difference.

However, I am also a bit worried that they won't work because I think my depression is more reactive rather than clinical. I have been dealing with a very difficult issue (don't want to say what) for many years with little sign of improvement.

Well done - you have got through the day and feeling less suicidal. Many people with depression feel better in the evening, whereas for others they are better in the morning. Mornings were awful for me. Panic is extreme anxiety, which is the medical name for fear and I think you will probably agree that feeling like you do is scarey.

You really shouldn't avoid all your RL good friends. I found that I was only able to cope with a few of my good friends seeing me in a state (3 of them in all) and one lives 100 miles away, so mostly we have spoken on the phone, or I have cried down the phone and she has managed to soothe me, and help me get out of bed some days.

You are doing well if you are still working, but you must realise that if the depression worsens, you may need to take some time off, but only if that is what's best for you. Like you when I had my first major episode in 95 I was still at work, and kept on going until I could hide it no longer and ended up sobbing at my desk and having to be taken home.

Don't worry about not cleaning your house or anything else non-essential. How is your son coping - difficult for a 14 year old boy to understand isn't it.

I am a bit confused by your last para about your depression being reactive rather than clinical. All that clinical means is that it has been diagnosed and treated by a qualified medical person i.e GP or Consultant Psychiatrist. I think ADs can help with reactive depression, but they only treat the symptoms and not the underlying cause. I think it is important that once your mood has improved you seek some therapy to deal with your difficult issue. The NHS usually only provide 6 sessions of CBT, which doesn't sound like what you need as it just deals with the "here and now" rather than delving deeper for traumas that are buried but still causing problems, which seems to fit with you?

Can you afford a private therapist - usually around £50 an hour. Failing that is there anyone is whom you can confide amongst your close friends, because it sounds like it is something that needs to "see the light of day" IFYSWIM.

Some anti depressant (i am on some too) can make you worse. But i am sure (or at least mine say so) that if yo have any thoughts of suicide or self harm that you should contact your doctor or a & e department immediately, and it might well be worth doing. You could try phoning the our of hours care services, or finding an urgent care clinic, which would be quicker than going to accident and emergency!

I had a year of Psychotherapy on the NHS, which ended in January.
During that time I tried to deal with the issue that I believe is causing the depression.
Clearly, it didn't work, or at least help me enough to prevent this latest depressive episode.

It's very hard re: my ds, not least because, without wanting to say why, he is part of the problem.
There are other people involved supporting me/us on a practical level with regard to our problem. I can't confide in RL with friends because I feel great shame about it.

Sorry for sounding cryptic. I don't even feel able to write about it here.

I just hope that the ADs ease the symptoms enough for me to deal better with what's going on in my life.

Oh Faigle - the feeling of shame might be what is making the whole thing worse for you. Did the psycotherapy help at all; were you able to bring it out into the open or were you sliding around some of the issues?

Look if you have real close friends, which you do, they will not judge you, they will try to understand how your life is being affected by the past. Once you bring these traumas into the open, they do often start to lose some of their power and so ease things up for you. Do you ever write things down. I always feel better if I can write down what is in my head onto paper - somehow gets it out of my head a bit.

Maybe think of your friends and think if you were able to confide in one of them, which one can you imagine you would be able to talk to and there would be a good chance that he/she would understand. Could you also be suffering from PTSD related to past trauma.

I've often felt that I may be suffering from PTSD. But the trauma is not really over, it's on going and I can't escape it.
Because the issue is so sensitive/complex I don't feel I can fully confide in anyone about, which I'm sure doesn't help. Probably having this awful secret is making the situation much worse than it already is.
I did speak to the psychotherapist about it in quite some depth, but for the time being at least, it hasn't seemed to help me much.

I can't write it down NanaNina-it's too painful. It makes it even worse.

You are absolutely right Faigle being unable to confide in anyone is I am quite certain making the whole thing worse. The burden of this "awful secret" you seem to be carrying alone is the onset of depression and anxiety, from which you are suffering a great deal.

It's a pity that discussing it with the psycotherapist didn't help you very much. Maybe she/he wasn't a very good psycotherapist and wasn't very good at giving you the time and space to really engage with you on this issue. Can I ask "did you feel safe" with this psycotherapist because if not then it is not surprising that the therapy didn't help you much. Were you able to be assertive with the therapist or did you just let things just meander along in the sessions.

I don't know whether you think visually. I do, so forgive me if you don't a this might be meaningless. I tend to see difficult emotions/traumas/things that are buried inside me etc as like a football in my stomach. I don't believe that any of us "get over" significant trauma, but we learn a way of living that makes it more manageable, usually with the help of a trusted friend/rel or therapist. Hence the football might over time shrink to a rugby ball (probably as big but a different shape) then a beachball size, a ball the size of a grapefruit maybe, then tennis ball, golf ball, ping pong ball, and maybe just maybe a marble sized ball.

Ok I understand it is too painful for you to write down. It doesn't sound so much like PTSD because whatever it is, is still going on. I think you spoke of having some support in a practical sense on an earlier thread - is that right - it's a bit late, so my brain is falling asleep.

Be good to hear from you again.....NN

Hi, no personal experience but dd also suffers anxiety and depression, she takes ads and I know the Dr told her side effects would be bad for the first couple of weeks but to persevere it would get better - it did. When I read the possible side effects on the leaflet for ads couldn't believe that suicidal thoughts was one of them, seems odd that something that helps depression would temporarily make it worse.

Persevere, persevere. You will get there and you are doing so well. This is normal as the medication does take time to work. Don't give up now, keep at it and things will get better.

If watching TV is too much is there anything at all which is less "painful" such as putting on some quiet background music? Anything to distract you a bit and take you out of your own thoughts.

You say you're avoiding the good friends who'd do whatever they could to help. Wanting to withdraw is part of your illness, but it is an illusion and avoiding everyone isn't helpful to your recovery. I know it's hard, but if you can possibly contact any of them, even just a couple of lines on a text message and send it to a few friends you trust, then you would receive their support too.

Keep posting on here as often as you need to, there is so much support.

How are you Faigle?

Faigle just saw what you wrote about trauma and PTSd. I've recovered from complex PTSD and one of the things that really cemented my recovery is some sessions of EMDR. Maybe worth asking about?

It is true though that if trauma is ongoing it's hard to fully heal from it.

Hi madmouse - what is EMDR?

Faigle, how are you today?

Eye Movement Desensitation and Reprogramming. It's a way of processing traumatic memories helping them to find their correct place in the filing cabinet so they stop harrassing you on a daily basis. It sounds wacky, but it works. It is offered on the NHS at least in some areas. I had it privately.