Sertraline and any other AD's Support Thread Part 2

[PackItInNow]

Just a continuation from the original thread, which is due to finish soon. Anyone and everyone needing some kind words, and hand-holding, are more than welcome .

Hi all, had a better day today, kept busy with getting things ready for tomorrow.
Managed to go all day without a nap too. Over the Christmas hols I have been having a lot of daytime naps so I really need to get out of that habit now.

evening all

a better day for me too though i still look like crap....got up early and went riding and instructor has asked me to go in and help at weekends which while im off work is great motivation for me to get up.

i have told myself i am going to get up tomorrow and have a run. we'll see.

fluffy hope the sertraline helps, im on a few days now of 100mg.

sunny i think they all need to be stopped gradually - i would see the gp for advice rather than just stopping them all at once.

anyway - off to read a bit and try to sleep. i have drunk too much wine tonight - hope i do manage that run tomorrow.

Good afternoon Vicar, BlackCat and Sunny. Hope you're all hanging in there. Bloody miserable weather over here in Northern Ireland.

Sunny, I always assume by default that it's better to slowly decrease the dosage very gradually on the say so and agreement of your GP. I'm lucky that I can stop stop almost any medication immediately without any withdrawal symptoms. Well, my DH says I'm grumpy most of the time anyway, so he wouldn't notice the withdrawals if they came up and bit him on the arse . I have stopped many a medication immediately and been fine.

Still feeling like I've got the flu with the sore joints and muscles and stuffy headache, but the kids want to go to St John's Ambulance, so I'll have to take them and pop into my friend's house for a cuppa once I've dropped them off. Said friend lives about 2mins away from the St John's Hall, so will dump and run as we call it.

Anyway, will plod on as usual, as there is nowt else we can do, is there , just grin, bear it and carry on.

Will hopefully be back later. Take care y'all .

Hello all

I got my prescription an hour ago and have taken a tablet for today - I hope that I'll be back to normal quickly! I've never had a reaction like it.

Back again good people. Right, won't be on for long as I'm absolutely exhausted and in pain all over my body, bones and joints. I literally feel like I've been battered.

Was speaking to my friend about 1/2hr ago and she asked if I have the norovirus, because it's not all diarrhoea and vomiting. She know some people who had it, but they had flu-like symptoms, ie, sore muscles, joints and bones, but no D&V, sweats etc, . I said that I wasn't sure what I had because I haven't been to the GP during our morning surgery, or requested a ring back for advice.

I haven't done the symptom checker on the NHS Direct website, so will try that.

Hope you feel better soon PackIt x

sorry to see you are feeling ill packit - get well soon.

i managed to actually get out for a run today - im amazed i did it - i havent been since last april!

then because of this i had to have a shower, and get dressed.
then because i was showered and dressed i felt able to go out and do some shopping and sort out my new bathroom.

i may pay for this surge of energy tomorrow but for now i feel very proud of myself.

work rang me tonight and i said my dose of ADs had been doubled so supervisor basically said to stay off....suits me.
i have phoned occupational health and have an appt for end of the month.
i am tempted to ask if its possible to go back part time.....but really not sure how realistic that is.
i feel so burnt out.
but today was a much more positive day. Tomorrow DD is back to school and has asked for a lift to bus stop - this means i could either get up and go in my pjs and go back to bed - or i could get up, dress, take dd and then walk the dog.
ive no idea which it will be yet. DH has gently suggested option 2.....but im not putting pressure on myself.

anyway - hope everyone has a good night.

So not a good start today. Dd (18 months) was up at 6:15. Normally she comes into my bed and goes back to sleep....not this morning, this morning she laid in bed 'talking' and pulling at my eyelashes to open my eyes
Dd (6) comes in and as I'm absolutely shattered I let them go and play in her bedroom. Bad move.
At about 7:30 I wake up to a chomping noise at the side of me. Open my eyes to see dd chewing on something. Turns out its an earring (obviously she opens her mouth to show me) and as I try to get it out she promptly swallows it, says 'all gone' and toddles back off to play!

Bad parent award of the day goes to me
I don't know what I was thinking letting her just go off and play.
Can't believe how stupid I was. Completely selfish. I should of just got up with them, tired or not.

Dreading school run tomorrow. And getting dd to childminders and me to work, all by 9:30. Feel so out of practice.

Anxiety is well and truly back.

Wow vicar...you did good today!!

dont feel too bad up - the earring will i am sure just pass straight through. When you are tired sometimes you just cant help it - i am thanking my luckies that mine are teenagers and im not having to supervise little ones while feeling this off it.

You might actually feel better for the normality of a routine from tomorrow - see how it goes.

hope its a better day tomorrow.

Well done vicar that all sounds very positive, do you feel like the new dose is helping?

upthestars you are not a bad parent at all! I am sure it will come out the other end very soon ;)

sunny I am pleased you got your prescription, I hope it helps with the withdrawals soon

I have had a funny day. Had a serious appointment with my psychologist and for the first time in a while felt ready to talk about my SI. Discussed that I felt like I had crossed a line in terms of my cutting. I feel very unsafe when I am alone. Then went clothes shopping in town (oops) which was a nice distraction. Also got my meds sorted out, got a prescription from the CMHT psych which saved me from having to go to my GP for it. My DH is doing a degree and he has a billion essays due in on Thursday, I am trying to help him but it is so hard, he is so whiney! I should be more useful, I am a qualified teacher! My psychologist today suggested I do a PhD or teach adults - after today I think not!

I have lunch with a friend on Wednesday and I am getting a tattoo(!) on Saturday so nice things to look forward to. Trying to focus on that rather than on my worries about getting through the harder times.

I have waffled on, I hope everyone is ok today :)

Good morning ladies? How is everyone today? Hope you're all hanging in there .

Feel like a bag of crap today (worse than yesterday). I literally feel like I've been run over by a truck and then battered with baseball bats. Luckily College have been great and have told me to come back when I'm feeling better. Dh is away to get my prescription for my pain relief, but funnily, my back is less painful than my body and the back pain seems more settled than it has been for a while . Ach well, I'm not dying, so I'll stick my smile on me gob and carry one .

Hello all

Fluffy well done for talking honesty with your psychologist.

I took my AD yesterday pm and slept like a log last night - 10 hours. It was bliss. The party in my head left me to it.

I'm back at uni today :)

Go for it Fluffy, the tattoo, that is. I'm wanting to get my kids names, in chinese, down the inside of each forearm. Something small and dainty.

You know Fluffy, you do have a choice between cutting as a way of taking back some control in your life, but sometimes it's better to accept that you won't have control of everything in life. That's just the way life is, uncontrollable, BUT, there are certain aspects of your life that you can take control of now, in order to gain in the future.

For instance, I'm choosing to complete the access course because I'm setting myself up to gain better qualifications in order to gain a better paying job. All this involves hard work, but I have a steely determination to do this. It's like the short term pain = long term gain IYSWIM, and by taking control now, I can set myself up for better jobs in the future.

Even if you chose to go and enrol for the Essential Skills courses (ICT, Literacy and Numeracy), they are free to all regardless of whether you are working. It gets you out of the house and if the tutor is anything like the ones I had, they will be by your side throughout. You could, essentially, be setting yourself up for making new friends, and not only that, but at the end of the course, you'll know more than when you first go in.

My phrase is "You can't control life, or others, but you can control what you do yourself and how you react to different situations".

Glad to hear you got some sleep Sunny. Do you find that sometimes a good sleep makes a difference, when you realise that it's hard to cope when you're tired/exhausted?

If you don't mind me asking Sunny, what course are you doing at Uni?

hi all :)
so one by one all of us have had the cold/flu/bug whatever it is. on a plus point DD is back at nursery so now I get sometime to myself. although I feel a bit lonely now she's not here to annoy me, weird hw I cudnt wait for her to go back to nursery now I wish she was here. at least she's not here to see my bad mood swings!

been trying to keep myself busy & mind occupied so I dont think about all the negative stuff from my past. flashbacks have been a bit tough to deal with past few days but that could be cos I'm over tiredd from lack of sleep .

pack hope ur feeling better lempsip are great I'm about to go make some for myself :)

plan for the next couple of hrs is to watch big bang theory & keep mind occupied till DD gets back from nursery. might get some sleep if I can shut down.

hope u all r doing well & hopefully will pop back tomorrow x

Hi Pain, I haven't taken any lemsips as I'm already taking co-codamol, so I'm taking the full 1000mg per 4hrs, and Lemsip would add even more to that and could damage my liver ,which I don't want as I've already had a bad renal infection which spread to my liver and almost ended up with me needing dialysis for the rest of my life. The good thing is that I recovered in 11 days, whereas the minimum stay my consultant has seen before me was a month. I was then asked to be a case study as I recovered so quickly.

Anyway, life goes on as usual and I am just heading out to pick the kids up and waddle down to get some flowers for a friend. Will be back later.

Sorry.....really struggling. Holidays great. Back to school-awful. Hate the house being so quiet.

Pain, sometimes we have to accept that negative things have happened to us because there is absolutely nothing we can do to change the past, so I can't really see that we actually have a choice IYSWIM.

I did find that accepting the good and the bad in my past has helped me to move on. I now accept whatever life throws at me, shrug my shoulders and plod on as usual. I feel that my past has made me the person I am now. This is because of the negative things I have been through, and TBH, I have come to the conclusion that I will never be afraid of the abuse I've had in the past, because it can't hurt me. Actually, it's not worth letting your past do anything other than make you a better person.

Sorry you're struggling Turned. Are you struggling with having no-one around?

I'm a bit like yourself. I used to hate the house being so quiet when the kids were back at school, but I learned to make use of the child-free time. I get the housework done, sort out tea, wash the dishes and numerous other things. I hated having a spare moment because sitting with nothing to do gave me too much time to think about negative things in life.

turned - I am so sorry you are having a rough time, do you have anyone you can meet up for coffee with during the day?

pain - I hope you have got some sleep, hope you feel better soon.

sunny - I am glad you got some sleep!

packitin - my choices around SI are something I battle with endlessly, to cut (hah) a long story short it is very much linked to my OCD and it can become very compulsive for me and very difficult for me to control or manage which is why I have such a lot of support from the mental health team. I agree that you need to make positive choices, and I make loads, but ack, this self harm stuff, it is just hideous.

I am in a funny position in terms of courses. The essential skills courses would not be appropriate for me as I am actually qualified to teach them myself, I have two degrees and a post grad teaching qualification. As a result I can't get funding to do much more education wise and we can't afford to pay for any courses right now. Very frustrating. I would like to do something vocational, or maybe a Masters in English but no money for it. Ho hum.

Evening Fluffy. First of all, can I ask you what SI is? Never heard of it before so I don't know what it stands for. You say you can find it difficult to control certain feelings, but that tells me that it isn't impossible to control, it's just very hard for you. It sounds like you could do with more constructive ways of dealing with the negative feelings and I suspect that they are those types of feelings that drive you to self harm.

Would I be right in saying that your self harm, driven by the negative feelings, has become a habit that is very hard to break, because when you have those feelings, self harming is an automatic response and a release?

Sorry to post and run but I'm so tired, so will head of to bed now, and will be back in the morning briefly.

Good night ladies and take care .