dont want to be treated

[BCGRMDP]

i have severe depression and am supposed to be starting sertraline but truth is i cant remember what it feels like to feel and have emotions. im so blank its easy to put on a normal front at the moment. i dont want to feel hurt or anger or anything, im happy as i am.

i cant be the only one?

Personally I wouldn't wish depression on my worst enemy and that soul sucking dispair is not something I would want to live with. Everyones different though, theres no right or wrong. Can I ask what prompted you to see the Dr about it if you really are happy as you are?

Sertraline won't give you emotions. It's more of a numbing effect. It will just ease off the cloud of depression slightly.

Bear in mind that depression is often caused by anger turned inwards. To resolve the depression you will eventually have to face the anger and hurt and process it.

The purpose of sertraline or similar antidepressants should be to help you in the short to medium term to get back onto a more even keel. After a few weeks your mind should be more free of negative thoughts. Thus affording you some breathing room as it were.

In the long term, wait until you're ready, maybe 6 months to a year or more from beginning the drugs, to begin addressing the feelings of hurt and anger.

Good luck

i was fprced to see the dr by the health visitor and support worker. i want to sort the anxiety side of it but otherwise i am so numb and distant it is better than having to face my situation.

i domt want to have therapy, i dont want to talk about things i just want to be able to lock them back away in my head

I'm not sure severe depression can be equated with being 'happy as I am'. Obviously it's your choice but surely for your long term mental health it's better to get to the bottom of what's causing the depression, however scary that might be to contemplate doing, than to continue to just exist rather than really living. But as I say it's your call to make.

Recovery is scary. The medicine alone won't make you better but it might get you to a place where you feel you want recovery. I totally understand the happy as I am feeling but for me that was more about it being familiar and safe in my depression and wasn't happiness. I promise you it can and will get better but it's hard work and takes a leap of faith (in you not religion) - The right time to face recovery is up to you and it may well be days, weeks, months or years away but the meds can make things a bit easier for you in the short term until you're ready to face things. Take care x

i think im just too lazy to try face facts right now and would rsther plod along than add getting better to my list of things to do right now

No one can force you to be treated if you don't want any

apparantly the perinatal mh team are calling me this afternoon.

i know they cant force me but i have two tiny kids that i cant lose

That feeling of not being able to focus on getting beter yet is probably the depression itself. As PP said theADs can help you get to a place where you do feel able to start getting better. The only effort required for now is taking the tablets, they will do the next bit themselves. ADs can also really help with anxiety.

Its great that the perinatal team are seeing you soon too you can tell them how you are feeling about this and see what advice they give. It sounds like your little ones need you to get better too.

i domt want to have therapy, i dont want to talk about things i just want to be able to lock them back away in my head

Could you start therapy by telling them this?

A bit of tough love here but......
You will not succeed in addressing your depression and anxeity if you try snd "lock them away in the back of your head".

I am saying this from experience.

Please please consider addtessing whatever there is in your history. Don't be wortied that it is too bad. Everyone here has experienced so many issues that no one is judgemental.

my history is horrendous. i had an abudive childhood with an alcoholic mother and various violent step dads. then i moved out and in with my first violent ex. went straight from him to my most recent violent ex. this ex raped me, beat me, insulted me, hurt our toddler, tried to kill our unborn son and still wont fucking leave me alone.

my mother 3 days after i left ex ended up in icu from liver failure.

im painfully alone and i have a 2 year old and 5 month old and no one else. im petrified of my kids being taken, the same kids i also cant stand half the time.

i tried to kill myself at 36 wks pregnant because ex beat me so bad i thought baby had died.

the only reason this has all flared up now is because i have had to do police reports, social service related things and talk abot things i really dont want to bloody talk about instead of jist being allowed to move on.

whoops long post

and the only reason my exes did these things is that thanks to my shit chikdhood all i ever do is push and push to see if i can trust them and evidently find out i cant

Oh op.

You can't know it yet, but there is help and support and it won't change your past, or your worries for the future but it might ground you a little bit in the present.

You have said you were suicidal. You are saying you don't like your kids half the time - what have you got to lose?

Just start by telling them what you wrote here. You can can can do this. I know, the world looks grey now but it is colourful and beautiful when you start to recover and you can recover.

This was in your past but your future is not yet decided.

What Mss Goggins said

OP I can understand you not wanting to talk about all that. Talking about trauma isn't always helpful. Therapists who specialise in working with people who have experiences like yours have theraputic techneques that can really help you put these experiences behind you. I found something called Eye Movement Integration incredibly helpful to remove the difficult emotions attached to the trauma. This then stopped the panic attacks, and anxiety. Theres another similar therapy called EDMR which seems to be more mainstream and available on the NHS.

Trust that the professionals have helped lots of people through similar situations and you can take therapy at your own pace. Often the first part of the process is getting you to a stable place before they even think about tackling any of the underlying issues.

I'm so sorry you have been through all that. I completely understand why you don't want to pick over it all in therapy.
BUT depression isn't being happy. Your kids need you well.
Can you take the pills and maybe see if you can get some CBT. You don't have to talk about why you are depressed but can work out strategies that can help you start to feel properly happy again.

BCG that is so much for one person to go through - I don't blame you for not wanting to rake over it. You don't have to at the moment. Hopefully the mental health team will support you with what you need to keep going immediately, help you build your strength and resilience before you consider going through therapy to explore those issues. It sounds like you have a pretty good insight into how your experiences have affected you already.

Sertraline won't knock down your barriers and make you feel the pain buried inside, until you are ready. I started taking it for anxiety symptoms. It's helped enormously. I haven't found it's especially helped with depressive symptoms - maybe I don't scrape quite so low any more, but I find the euphemism "happy pills" a misnomer put it that way .

I completely recognise the fear of stepping into the unknown and the feeling - not quite of comfort - but of the familiarity of depression, you know where you are with it, you're not going to be disappointed or have your hopes dashed, because there really is very little hope and you expect the worst anyway.

This is just something to try, a first step.

im going to write today off as a complete and utter fail and first thing im going to do in morning is take the AD.

then monday morning im going to call my oitreach worker and ask if she can be there for my perinatal appointment. its not strictly what she is meant to do but i think considering my MH is so bad that it should be ok. will make me feel beter having someone who knows me as a mum there to help me if my ability to parent does come into question!

Sounds like a plan. ADs don't work straight away, so don't expect to start feeling better for a couple of weeks. Sometimes they can make you feel a little odd to start with but that normally settle after a couple of weeks.

Sounds like a good plan to have someone you know with you. The perinatal team will not be coming to judge your parenting. They are coming to see how they can help and support you. They may have to ask some questions about the kids and establish they are not at risk. Remember this is not a reflection on you, they have to ask these questions whenever kids are involved as protocol. They know that its incredibly rare for a mother to ever be a risk to her children. The best thing for children in 99% of cases is to be with their parent and all the agencies involved will want to support you to keep your kids with you, and to keep you all safe together.

Good plan OP. Tomorrow (today!) is another day, as they say. Having someone with you to support and advocate a little sounds like a very good idea as well.

I take my sertraline at night, by the way. I don't think I have many side effects on it (apart from it's messed my menstrual cycles up a few times) but I read that some people find it makes them sleepy at first.

Do ask about EDMR - it seems to be relatively easy to get on the NHS and is meant to be very effective for trauma.

Oh and with EMI you don't need to talk about any of whats happened not sure if EDMR is the same.

so it looks like im having the insomnia side affect. just what a single mum with two non sleeping kids needs.