I'm having a bit of a crisis moment

[KeemaNaanAndCurryOn]

Bit of background. I was signed off work at the start of Feb with stress and have been on Fluoxetine for depression and propanolol when needed for anxiety. Started off on 20mg Fluoxetine, but upped to 40mg after 6 weeks as I was still pretty frantic.

I started back at work last week as I really had to. They're reorganising again which means my job is under threat for the 5th time since 2007 and I have to be there. My managment have been really good over the last few weeks and have allowed a gradual return to work with me working a lot from home as so long as I have a good internet connection I can do a lot of my job from anywhere.

The thing is that I am back in the actual office on Monday and since mid last week I have been back to where I was before I was signed off which to be frank is a pretty dark place where all I can think of is getting in my car and driving off somewhere and not coming back. This is not a good thing.

Realistically I know I am not well enough to be working. I've not slept properly for two weeks, I am so on edge I can't bear the thought of going out and doing anything and I am feeling pretty close to the edge of reason, but I don't see what else I can do. I support my family financially, DH's salary wouldn't cover the mortgage let alone anything else, so I have to go back and start earning again, even though the thought is, frankly, making me suicidal.

I don't even know why I am writing this here as there's nothing much anyone can do, I just need to get on with it, but I just had to get it out somewhere how bloody awful I am feeling right now. My life is bloody hard work and a bit too much to cope with. Two small children, one with SN. A stressful management job that supports the whole family. Its too much and I just don't think I can do it any more. But I will. Monday will see me getting dressed in my suit and killer heels and going and managing a load of staff and picking up a load of projects that have been iced in my absense and all of the rest of the stuff that needs doing, but I am actually sceaming inside at the thought of it.

I'm glad you got back to sleep

Im doing ok, it's very different to my experience of non PN depression in that there are some good days mixed in with the bad - so far managing without medication but constantly assessing that with my psych and therapist.

I hope you have a better day and your adjustments to dosage works quickly x

I am having a really really bad morning to be honest. I've taken some more diazepam to try and bring me down a bit but am still not feeling good. I need to make it through the afternoon until 3 when I have my outpatients appt, but am battling feelings of impending doom and despair. I hate feeling like this. It sucks enoumous butt.

I was also wandering why you were doing the pick ups from school with the kids, your husband should be taking that role.
I also think you need someone from the mental health team to come and talk to him as it does not sound like he is at all savvy about the seriousness of d/a.
If you are not sleeping, could you not get some sleeping pills too as your going to find it very hard to be on an even keel with disturbed sleep.
If your job is essential for supporting the family, then you need to be allowed to make that combined with fighting your depression your sole focus. Not having to worry about getting the kids dressed, making meals or cleaning etc. Either your husband needs to pick up the slack in these areas or make everything non-essential not an issue.

Dh drops them off most mornings and I pick them up we share it. His work isn't as flexible as mine for needing time off. After my initial appt I will prob have visits at home from the crisis teams so they can talk then I think.

GP won't prescribe sleeping pills at the mo due to risk.

I think zopiclone is fairly safe as a sleeping tablet.

Hi Keema so sorry to hear you are still suffering but glad you got to see a GP who was helpful. I think that receptionist had no right to ask why you wanted to see a GP. This happened to me once and I refused to tell her, and asked her if she was qualified to make a clinical decision about whether my condition was serious enough to be seen as an emergency. I also wrote a letter of complaint to the Practice Manager who sort of slid around the problem. Anyway this business of "emergencies" is stupid, because if it was a medical emergency you would go to A & E not the GP.

Am wondering how you got on with the crisis team, which sounds more than it is tbh - it will probably be a couple of CPNs, (Community Psychiatric Nurses) not that I am knocking them at all. Mine was very helpful even if sometimes I could only get her on the phone to reassure me.

You do sound like you are really struggling Keema and I'm glad you are signed off sick again as you are in no state to go to work. Waking at 4.00 is awful and this is a sure sign of depression and anxiety. A CPN can refer you to a psychiatrist if they think that is necessary, and they are usually good at diagnosing and treating, although it's still trial and error where MH meds are concerned, which makes it all so much more difficult. I know people say what has worked for them (and what hasn't) but it doesn't really help because they work differently on different people. Just another damn trick Mr Anx/Dep plays on us. I am sure it is a he!

Can you let us know how you got on today Keema and keep posting if it helps.

Oranges & Lemons. Zopiclone is a very effective sleeping tablet (half a tab used to work for me) but can't take them now as am on ADs. I don't think it's as addictive as some of the older sleeping pills, but I think youwill find that GPs are very loathe to prescribe them for more than a few days because of the possibility of addiction.

Thanks for checking in NanaNina. I've not been having a good few days. Went to my outpatients appt yesterday to find it wasn't with the crisis team who my GP had referred me to, but an urgent therapy assessment. The MH Nurse who saw me and spoke to me said I was too ill at the moment to go down that route and she got on the phone to the crisis team while I was there. They are coming round to see me this afternoon. They want to do a medication review, which is fine by me as I'll take whatever they can offer at the minute.

I was slightly surprised at how insistent she was that I was ill. I've always been very good at getting on with things but obviously this time I'm not. Its certainly never got this far before and thats slightly scary.

I should have listened to my head and not gone back in the first place as I think it has made something that was bad a hell of a lot worse. Its like my brain is making sure that I can't go back right now, since I was ignoring it the first time around.

I take zopiclone, and I am currently battling through the hell that is known as sertraline. I have taken them with several other ad's.

Sleep is really important with depression, as lying awake ruminating on stuff makes you worse. The only relief I get from my Spanish Inquistion type hell is my little zopiclone tablet, which puts me out for about 7 hours.

I do think you need a medication reveiw. Your heightened anxiety sounds like a med side effect to me. Good luck x

They need to do something. It's a beautiful sunny day out there and I can't even get out of bed. arse biscuits. Not a good place at the mo.

Have you ever been like this before? Or is the the worse ever? Is it outside the papremeters of what you have ever felt before? Don't forget that a raising of the fluoxetine may make your anxiety worse.

I have been this bad but not for a very very very long time - nearly 20 years. I'm not as bad as I was a couple of days ago but I am almost out of diazepam so can see that changing. I will see what they say when they get here this afternoon.

I wonder if you need to be in hospital

Oh Keema you will have to accept that you do absolutely have a depressive illness and it sounds like it is quite severe, and it maybe that you are having a second major episode. My second major episode came 16 years after the first one. I know so well that feeling of not being able to get out of bed. When I am this low and I am quite often, I somehow feel safer in bed and almost as though I don't have to deal with how I am feeling if I just stay put. Even the thought of getting out of bed and into the shower is sometimes like thinking of climbing Everest for me. I do however finally do it and feel marginally better for having done it.

Do you have a supportive DH/DP as I know you have young children, one with SNs. Do you have any RL support, relatives/friends. I wonder how you are going to cope with your children whilst feeling so ill. You must be very honest with the CPN who is coming out this afternoon. Are you up yet - I think you need to force yourself because the CPN will certainly say it isn't doing you any good staying in bed. The trouble is that any medics who try to help us just don't understand the torment of severe depression, as no-one can understand it unless they have experienced it.

O & L is wondering if you need to be in hospital. I was admitted both times when I had 2 major episodes and 3 month stay on both occasions. I made a complete recovery the first time and so when it cam back Easter 2010 I wanted to go in hospital again and the pyschiatrist gave me the option of upping the meds and staying at home or doing it in hopsital, so I chose the hospital. The only thing about hospital really is that you do get away from everything and don't have any responsibilities, but it is very boring and no one talks to you about your distress - they just dish out meds and leave you to it really.

Hospital admission is quite rare I think because it is expensive and they tend to treat people at home, and sometimes that can be a daily visit from CPNs and if they think you are in danger of over dosing, they give you the meds daily.

Let us know how you get on this afternoon Keema. Thinking of you and understanding how bad things are for you, but you must try to hang on to the fact that you got better last time, and you will do so again at some point in the future. NNx

Let us know how you get on this afternoon Keema -

Right they have been and gone and I am feeling better as in the short term at least they're going to get me some more diazepam until I have a medical review with the psych on Tuesday. That should get me through the weekend. They're also going to visit me every day for the next few days at least and I have the 24h crisis number that I can call.

They're also going to do a careplan which will outline what happens for the next couple of weeks while I am getting this sorted out. Slight panic about how I am going to tell work that I am off again, but they will just have to deal with it. Fingers crossed I don't lose my job.

Thank you for your support. It really means a lot to me that someone out there is listening to my ramblings and gives enough of a shit to respond. I need all the help I can get at the moment and its apprecitaed.

Ah so glad that they have been helpful Keema and hope they get the diazepam to you asap, and I'm glad to hear that you are seeing a psychiatrist on Tuesday. They would not be planning daily visits if they did not think your anxiety/depression was quite severe, so you have to come to terms that you are quite ill or "poorly" as the medics put it. They are clearly looking ahead to ensure that you have support over the next couple of weeks, and will no doubt review the situation then and decide whether you need daily visits or can get by on 2/3 times per week.

I hope that you are now able to believe that you are far from well - pyschiatric services (like most of the NHS) are very under resourced and are likely to be more so in the coming months (if not years) and they do not use their resources on people who are not in absolute need, if you see what I mean.

It is really a matter of getting the meds right and the psychiarist might be of good use in sorting this out, though it is still trial and error of course but now you are in the "system" you will I hope get the help and support you need.

My last episode started in Easter 2010 although I had been feeling pretty awful for the past 3 months and had been seeing a psychologist x 2 per week and she didn't believe in meds, but as I got worse and worse I stopped seeing her and a week after that I took a terrible nose dive. Oh god when I think back, my grand-daughter was Alice in the yr 6 production of Alicein Wonderland and I sobbed all the way through, not a few tears that you might have at seeing kids perform on a stage.

I saw an out of hours GP and my friend and DP came with me, and he was truly awful. I had my head on his desk just saying "I want to die, I want to die" and he turned to my friend and said "is she suicidal" - he never looked at me but just tapped get looking at his screen. He said I had to go to the local hopsital A & E to see the crisis team. I was screened again by a Dr in A& E just to make sure I needed the crisis team and decided I did. My anxiety was sky high and we had to wait 3 hours to see the "crisis team" - they didn't tell me who they were. It turned out to be a CPN (who I thought was the psychiatrist) and a GP (who I thought was the CPN!) But by the time I saw them 11.00 at night, my anxiety had subsided a fair bit and they asked me a lot of things, including had I made a plan about suicide (which I had) but said No I hadn't. They gave me diazepam and sent me on my way.

Over the next 2 days I got worse and worse and was waking at 4.00 a.m. in complete terror and afraid to get out of bed. On the Tuesday after Easter my DP went to the GP practice at 8.00 am but they didn't open the doors till 8.30 and then told him all the appts had gone! I don't know what he said but a GP arrived about 9.30 a.m and he was lovely and knelt by my bed and held my hand and I was apologising for calling him out. He prescribed more diazepam and said a CPN would visit me later that day. He even called back in at about 5.00 pm to see how I was. Then while he was with me the CPN phoned to say they weren't coming out but the consultant psychiatrist was going to visit me the next day, which he did and I went into hopsital.

I had some terrible days in there, when I just didn't feel part of the human race, and could not get thoughts of suicide out of my head. As I said before none of the nurses or nursing assistants bothered to talk to the patients and would only do so when we felt well enough to have the normal chit-chat about kids, weddings etc. I was in there for 3 months but started to come home for days and then overnights and weekends, but it didn't go smoothly and I would be scared of being at home and have to go back to hospital. The pysch who wasn't very nice was trying to get me out and I wanted to be discharged but wanted to feel totally well again like I had the first time. Trouble is I was 66 by this time and not 51 and they said that made a difference.

I am still not fully recovered and can have weeks (even months) of feeling fine, and then wake up feeling shite for no reason.

Look I'm only telling you all this Keema so that you will know that I truly understand this horrendous illness and in the hope that it might distract you for a little while.

Do you have any RL support - anyone to help with the children?

I will pop back later and see how you are. I know that MN MH thread has got me through some very very dark days.

Love NNx

Thanks for talking to me. I'm back in bed and just feel exhausted with everything. It didn't occur to me that I must be bad to have daily visits. Thats something to get my head around.

I still just about have my sense of humour and lurking on MN is a good distraction. I've got some pretty cool fb friends too so I'm not alone even when I can't face anyone.

DH is looking after the children. I've mailed my boss and told him not to expect me in next week and I await the arrival of the meds with hopeful anticipation but I am not sure if they meant they will bring them today or tomorrow.

I'm shocked as well at how fast I've gone down hill. I think I ran out of energy to put in the effort to keep pretending. Going back to work must have been the final straw.

Yes I agree Keema - I think you pushed yourself too far by going back to work and and as you say trying to pretend everything was ok must have aldso tipped you over.

Do you mind my asking what your job is? I think you really must accept that you are nowhere near fit enough to work and I know this is a worry for you, but if you were seriously physically ill, youwould not be able to go to work, and you happen to be seriously mentally ill at the moment. Does your boss know that you are suffering from anxiety and depression. If not then I think you must come clean, as your sick notes will say this in any event.

Hope you get the diazepam soon - glad you are back in bed - at least you managed to get out of it this morning. Is your DH supportive, empathetic even?

Back later..............love NNx

Without being too specific, its a senior management job. Lots of staff, lots of writing and enforcing policy and negotiating contracts with people. Something that I just can't do right now. I've emailed my boss and told him I won't be in next week. No reply so far.

DH is supportive, but doesn't get emotional stuff and doesn't know how to handle it. He's had the children almost all of today though and will do again tomorrow so I don't have to, which is a good thing as I don't really feel capable.

The crisis team called me earlier and will be coming round tomorrow at 11am to check up on me and bring the diazepam. They said it wasn't good for me to be lying in bed. I am now sat up in bed instead. I have no desire to leave my room. I have my laptop, phone and cup of tea. The rest of the world can go to hell.

As I suspected your job sounds bery high powered and that makes it all the more unlikely that you will be able to return until you are fully recovered. My son is a primary school teacher but does all the sports in the school but has been covering a class for several months because the class teacher is off with depression. She is hoping to come back on a part time basis after the half term holiday.

I know what you mean about men "not getting" emotional stuff and not knowing how to handle it. BOth of my grown up sons are like that and I think they are a bit embarrassed if the truth be known. Maybe just tell him it's hard to explain, but you need him to be patient and take care of the children when he's at home and listen if you want to moan, cry, rant ot whatever. I think men sometimes think we want them to give answers, when that isn't what we want.

My CPN was always telling me it wasn't good to stay in bed, and I'm afraid sitting up in bed is as bad as lying in bed in their book! I think they are probably right that being isolated is not always a good idea, but they cannot understand the need for us to withdraw when we are very depressed. I imagine you will have to be up next week for the children. Are they school age or not. Are you safe to drive if you have to do the school run?

Will check back in tomorrow. Sleep well Love NNx

Stupid stupid bloody early waking again. It's driving me nuts. I've got my DCs birthday party today and the thought is making me sick. All those parents and kids and worst my folks as well. Aaaaaaaaagh. How I am going to do this in one piece fuck knows.

Morning Keema.not commenting on it's goodness as my own bloody brain also didn't allow me enough sleep yet again Can you call the crisis no to ask for coping strategies for this party? Or talk to your CPN?

Great, strike through fail!

Morning my strategy for today is to take the diazepam, stick this face on and then wobble when I get home.

I am feeling a bit better today which is nice. Still not right, but able to do more than just lie on my bed and stare at the walls. I was anxious about the party this afternoon, but think the lower dose of diazepam (2mg instead of 5mg) has struck a good balance between lowering the anxiety and not wiping me out.

hey, hope the balance worked and you had a successful party! And that your child had a fab time, too, of course! :o