This is our Village, People! Need support? - Move In Here....

[ThatVikRinA22]

My Friends... theres no need to feel down
i said My Friends..Pick yourself off the ground
i said My Friends, cause youre in a new town
theres no need to be unhappy....

Our new thread folks (number 5!!).....i need to dash as im on nights but i will be back!
love to all. xxx

Yay vicar.

I know. I have let my neighbour bear the brunt on my mums need for support. I have had the neighbour on the phone in tears tonight because she is worried about her.

Apoarently my mum is thratening to OD as the only way forward. I need to shoulder some responsibility for support now. My DB is useless.

Tbf I haven't seen her since Christmas. I've been hiding.

I just don't wanna have to deal with it.

I was talking with a friend yesterday. Shr had talked me around and into a position where I had a potential plan to negotiate with tutors for going back to uni. Now I can't even think about that again.

im sorry to read how everyone is struggling lately.

snowy - hugs.

ed - email your tutor. Explain what is happening - tell them you cant manage to sort uni out while you have the added responsibilities around you mum.
but - your mum is ultimately not your responsibility. She needs to access help, just as you have. You cant care for someone else while you are ill yourself - what input is your mum having? has she seen gp? counselling? CPN?
I think you need to let people know you are struggling with your own stuff just now and that you need help to deal with added stresses around your mums illness. Why are your meds reduced?

i realised today more than any other day that the meds have really had a positive impact for me. I used to be an absolute bag of nerves, i used to hide from the scary stuff, my stomach used to flip when i was called on at work....
now im shouting up for job after job. its just not phasing me. i dealt with my absolute worst fears today - alone. serious accident, and no help available as it went mad on the radio at the exact time - i was actually one my way to another incident...incidents were coming in faster than we could resource them. So i was alone, at the scene of a 60 mph head on collision.

and i coped. inwardly i flapped. it probably came across on the radio.....but i coped. i did what i needed to do. i had 2 ambulances, fire crew, 2 first responders, and a whole lot of backed up traffic on a major arterial road. This was my worst fear to deal with. And i managed it. it may have been a bit cackhanded but i did it. And i learnt from it. It was probably a saving grace that i just happened upon it rather than had time to think about it.

i have had the busiest, most hellish day. and im still here.

i have counselling again this week. i feel like ive turned a corner. im me again, im just me with added courage....god knows whats in these pills but i dont think i want to stop taking them....my stomac
h used to flip at the merest hint of anyone shouting my call sign.....now im throwing myself in.
and finding out what the worst that can happen is........nothing, as one of my colleagues on another group said to me today....whats the worst that can happen? they can put you on a response group....oh - you are on a response group!
i consoled myself with my cock up that others cocked up too....it was an immediate and live incident with split seconds to make decisions.
i made a wrong decision. hey ho. no one died.

and ill go back and do it all again tomorrow.....hopefully getting my time back as i was very late off.....

Uou did good vicar. And the best thing is that you know you did.

My reduced meds are because I am weaning of fluoxetine to start venaflexane on weds.

I was kind of ok. If anything sleeping less. Struggling with the depression symptoms less. Anxiety a bit of a problem though. Words were a bit confused. Tomorrow will be tough.

See you at the end of it.

I need to sleep, but I'm not sure thats going to happen.

I don't know if I had anything to eat today.
I don't think I ate yesterday (bar cream cakes and a homade golden syrup cake).

I just start moving forward and then something hits me head on.

Oh and if it helps I think you sound better than you have in a long time snowy. And I mean that.

Sorry I can't keep up with everyone. Need sleep. Need a miracle. Need a new life.

ed..... what has made your gp switch you to those particular meds?

have your tried sertraline? its registered for both depression and anxiety - once a long while ago when i was fighting the education authority for DS education my gp put me on citalopram.....it just didnt agree with me at all.

sertraline has been a revelation. i cant quite describe what its done for me - im still me, in not numb, i just cope so much better with the stresses that get thrown at me.

is there any reason you cant try it? my gp is fabulous - it was the first thing she suggested - yes i struggled with the side effects for a few weeks but the benefits have far outweighed that - and i dont even know im on them now.
you know that barrocca advert? the one that goes " you - on a really good day"....
thats the effect ive found.
nothing major, im not ecstatically happy or anything - but i can now cope with stress, anxiety, problems, without falling to bits physically or mentally.

could you respectfully suggest trying it?

hi everyone,

busy week here (well horrible week) started my meds last week and am struggling with the side effects of the sertraline vicar how long does this go on for ie the nausea and the spaced out feeling coupled with the headaches? I have been ready to throw in the towel as on day 6 and thought they would start to lessen. the only thing thats keeping me going is reading how well you are doing.

ed sorry your going through a rubbish time, is your mums gp on yhe case?

waves to bobbly lonely ciq* lem hb bassettnanasnowy spc sorry probably missed lots out.

Just a quickie before I head out.

Mums gp is on the case.

Gp has been talking about change for a while. Mainly cause I can't quite shift the shaking on fluox. And because I have stopped moving forwards.

I think those are a different class of AD. They affect noradrenaline as well as seratonin, I can see the point of moving to a different class. Coming off them is supposed to be scary though.

Right. Must go. Tough and long day ahead. Feel sick but not surprised

Sorry I am being very self centred. Really hard to absorb the words from anything other than the last couple of posts. Hugs to all though.

hi to all
vicar well done you!
ed hang in there. hopefully the new meds will work well for you and it wont be long till you start to feel an improvement.
notso hope you start to get some relief from side effects soon.
lem ciq snowy and all others...hi.

I feel awful today. mostly my own fault. drank too much wine last night. stayed up till 2am talking with DH. Very long and upsetting talk but I did say a lot of stuff I had been bottling up for ages.feeling very emotionally battered and bruised today though. hopefully though it has cleared the air and things will be better between us...

Trying not to stress over money stuff. there is a possible threat to DH job, but wouldnt be till Christmas...wont know till Sep time so no point worrying till then so am going to do my best not to dwell on it (yeah right!)
Money is tight anyway...but we manage, and will just resolve myself to no holiday this year, it's not the end of the world...mostly dissappointed for the kids cause they thought we were going.

havent done anything useful yet today. going to colour my hair in a minute and do quick house blitz then take it from there. really just want to get back under the duvet though

Glad your DM's GP is on board, hope that takes some of the onus off you. You need to be 'self-centred' to take care of yourself.

I hope the side-effects become manageable notsoblonde.

You sound so much better vicar, well done for managing every thing so well.

CPN is coming this afternoon.

Haven't been on the thread for ages so Hi to anyone who remembers me. So glad you are feeling so well Vicar as I remember when you started this thread.........think it was just you and me for a short time! Just a word of caution - my advice would be not to come off the meds too soon, and if and when you are ready make sure your GP knows about how to come off them safely. I know you say your GP is lovely but in my experience a lot of them don't know enough about safe withdrawal from ADs. I had 3 abortive attempts in the past, all with "oversight" from 3 different GPs and none was successful.

Snowymouse Please let the CPN in - I know you hate it, but if you don't let her in that will raise their concerns even more. I'm worried about you Snowy you have been low for a long time and when you are becoming unwell again you don't want to let anyone into the flat. You are so brave and caring about everyone else. Please believe me, you are a very caring and sensitive person, but have a complex mental illness which unsurprisingly wears you down. I seem to recall that you agreed to go to the group when you were discharged last time. Wish I could do more to help..........thinking of you. Will pop back later to see how things went.

Hi everyone,

bobbly hope you're taking it easy today - those sorts of discussions can leave you very fragile and tired. I had a similar one with DH at beginning of year (and found out just why yr not supposed to drink with fluoxetine) but it did turn out to be a positive thing for us. Hope its does for you too.

Nana nice to hear from you. Interesting to hear about your attempts to come off ADs. I already have in mind to do it about 3 x more slowly than GP suggests and have also said to her I won't be coming off anything in the winter months.

Vicar so delighted to hear about your refreshed capable self. Brilliant. Interesting to hear too about the impact that Sertraline has made for you.

I have booked an appt with my GP for a fortnight (earliest available!) to talk about the anxiety stuff. I was in such a state for most of thur fri and sat, and although I was there on Sat it was a day of constant breathing exercises iykwim. I know other mums found all the prep stressful, but anxiety was way off the scale. Will see if she has any thoughts. My DH swears by CBT but I'm not sure.

Am finding counselling useful. Spoke to today about the impact of my mum (hope you're hanging in there Ed). Eg spoke to her Wed night and I know that contributed to a bad thur morning. Even on sat, everyone who was there knows at least a bit about what's been going on with me this year and were friendly and supportive without any weird "are you ok?" type questions. My mums first sentence to me "Are you stressed?" Well of course I'm f**ing stressed! v annoying. I am trying not to soak all her neediness etc up but its proving v hard. Have just treated myself to a catch up session of episodes of a crap-but-actually-good series I used to watch (had stopped cos a bit stressful) and enjoyed it and didn't get tooooo stressed out

Hope you have some sun and afternoons go OK. Off to school now...

take care x

notso hang in there. It can take a couple of weeks for the side effects to calm down, but it IS worth it. Take care x

oh, ive had ENOUGH I don't feel like i am ever going to get better - i don't want to be like this anymore - i want a life :(

hugs LEM

LEM what's been going on today?

evening all
snowy how did cpn visit go?
lem how are you feeling now? has something happened or just feeling bad? can you do something nice for yourself for 1/2 hour?

ok...I'm feeling slightly better. Been to agility with ddog2 which actually helped cheer me up a bit.Now just feeling v tired and groggy. off to bed very soon.hoping to wake up feeling better and more motivated tomorrow...back to paid work as well...

nothing going on, thats just it, took dd to school went to bed - did nothing. I just don't do anything. Was nice after school, took DD to the beach with her little friend. Hayfever is crap, have sore roof of mouth as i got a spot there and fiddled with it, now its painful - I get these with hayfever. Just feel like im going to be like this forever - you know, a bit hopeless, like this is it - as jack nicholson would say "what if this is it, what if this is as good as it gets?"

Sorry,just feeling sorry for myself.

(((hugs))) lem. It can feel relentless at times. We have to keep believing that things will improve. This week I've been walking for 15 mins after doing the school run and that has helped me (get exercise, sun, and take the edge off the lethargy) a bit. Could you face it?

bobbly well done on the dog training! Hope work is OK tomorrow and you get a good sleep.

P.S. Did anyone see BBC3 Don't call me crazy last night? I thought it was good...

CPN was difficult, I have to make contact on Thurs. I'm exhausted (I did say).
It's ok to feel sorry for yourself.

Well done snowy for meeting with them. I can well imagine its exhausting. Hope you can put your feet up now. Take care.

I watched it CiQ i found it too much though and had to turn it off :( What jumped out at me is that i used to do those thing that the OCD girl does "if i don't do X, then Z will happen" or if i don't get to this point in the road before the red car something bad will happen. Its all linked i guess. A school mum was going on a bike ride this morning, i thought, ooh, i could do that, but didnt want to run into her and have her think i was following/copying - im 42 for FFS! My mum bought me a lawnmower today, second hand, but its brilliant as we only had a strimmer, so i can actually go and mow the lawn properly, will do it in the morning before the pollen count ramps up. It i the aimlessness of my days that i struggle with i think. Anyway, im sorry - im being selfish.

Snowy, do you just have to give them a call? Maybe first thing thursday give them a call, over and done with?

Bobbly - what dogs do you have? Id love to do agility with mine but they are waaay to naughty!

Ed - i hope today wasn't too bad with your mum.

Its funny how our mothers can press our buttons isn't it.

Tomorrow is a new day, im not going to spend it in bed!

lem sorry prog was too much - I can well imagine. You comment about not wanting the school mum to think something really struck home here. I am always thinking stuff like that. Eg bump into school mum couple of times when going round supermarket and worry she'll thinking I'm following her/being lame. For me a lot of it is being paranoid about what other people think of me.
Lawnmower sounds good and yes good idea re: early morning mowing. Is there anyway you can get a bit more structure into your week - I know I find that helpful vs an empty day ahead... And stop with the apologising - you're saying how you feel. That is OK. Especially here x

Email thankfully (I find it easier). I'm exhausted because of lack of sleep, waking a lot through the night. I saw the bbc3 programme, reminded me of inpatient.

God I'm so nauseas I think it's the citalopram :(

Or is it the anxiety ? God I'm a mess :( hope ur all ok

lonely sorry I can't remember how long you've been on them but if it's less than 2 weeks then v likely to be the meds. I was the same when I started mine. Have you tried the usual suspects - peppermint or ginger tea, plain biscuits like rich tea, toast. Eat a little and often to keep your blood sugars even. I also used to get through a lot of polo mints. Hang in there x