working affecting mental health/mental health affecting work

[WhatInTheWorld76]

Can anyone reassure me that working full time is eventually manageable on antidepressants when you have severe depression and anxiety? Every day feels like a pointless struggle. Every afternoon I leave work dead on my feet and my brain is scrambled. I cant cope with housework, I have no ambition and I feel like life is just a repetitive exhausting hamster wheel. I hate my life and I have no idea how to escape it.

Sorry to hear your feeling like this i work full time and have depression & anxiety its been fairly managable for the last year although i've struggled this past week hence why i've came on here.
Do you think you need to go to your Dr to tell them that your struggling? Maybe you need your medication increased?
I just didn't want you to think your on your own.

Hi, I normally work full time but have needed significant periods of time off when I have been unwell with depression and anxiety to recover. Definately speak to your GP. It might also be worth talking to your employer/occupational health to see if anything at work can be adjusted to make things easier. (I am currently on reduced hours and duties) Under the disability discrimination act your employer needs to make reasonable adjustments for your anxiety and depression. Also if they can make adjustments that mean you don't end up off sick it benefits both parties.

On the otherhand if your job is contributing to your anxiety and depression its worth considering if working in this role full time is the right thing for you or if it it making you ill. Councelling can be a good way of working through these issues.

Thanks for both replies. I've been told dropping my hours isn't going to happen so its all (full-time) or nothing. That's why I'm so fed up. It's put up or pack up, basically. If i leave my job, I will feel like my demons have won but to carry on living like this full-time struggling to function for the next fourty years is just soul-crushingly depressing.

I dont like the idea of being pumped full of mind altering chemicals just so I can cope with work. (My friend suggested up my medication dose to make it feel more manageable).

Having said all that, nursing is my life. I just wish i wasn't so pathetically ill.

It's totally possible.

I think it depends on what other support you have, whether you enjoy your job etc

I've been depressed and anxious now for about seven months but I've suffered with both for years and years - as long as I can remember. Currently on prozak, previously been on the usual cheap SSRI's. Been on prozak for three months nearly four before that I was on various others which were no help.

I cant work out if its the medication making me ill or the illness itself but I've never felt so down, lethargic and apathetic in my life. I want to go to sleep and wake up when I'm happy again. Sadly, it ain't going to happen.

I have to resort to bribery to get up in the morning. And caffeine. I have to say just get through today then it'll be tomorrow, and then i say it all the way through the week til Friday comes around. I just have no interest any more. Life's not worth the effort, iyswim.
I've also ballooned to triple my original size recently. Which feeds the low mood.

Definitely discuss with your GP. I think different meds affect different people in different ways. I was on one type of AD that wiped me out and I literally told my GP that I would rather go back to feeling really low than stay feeling so exhausted all the time. She swapped me to a different type of AD and I am definitely much less tired, and not too low most of the time.

Nursing is a tough job, I'm also NHS though not nursing. Have you spoken to occupational health? I've found them very supportive providing councelling and psychology input.

Are there any oportunities to change your job without leaving nursing? There are more supportive managers out there.

I'm caught up in the vicious cycle that no one likes to admit: I'm so up to my neck in promoting other peoples health that mine is totally fucked. I know that sounds like martyrdom but it's true. I just want the world to stop. Now. I was warned for years about how nursing can ruin you but when I am well I genuinely enjoy it and find it so rewarding. It's very out of character for me to not care.

Its so easy to keep caring for others and forget about ourselves. You need to make yourself your priority and give yourself the same level of care even if this means some time off sick to focus on you. Once you are looking after yourself better you will be able to look after others again.