You're just knackered and miserable, not useless. Sometimes I think we all just need a holiday from all responsibility. Just some time in a safe place to do nothing and all meals provided while knowing everything else is being taken care of. It's what we're supposed to be provided with as children!
You're not useless at all. You're fighting a battle to stay alive and it's taking a lot of energy.
Lexapro is just escitalopram - it wasn't available as a generic when I had it. It's meant to be more effective than citalopram. My current GP prescribed me something else a few years ago when I was very anxious, but it was situational anxiety and stopped abruptly when the situation changed so I had only just started the prescription and never took the rest.
I'm not a particularly strong person, just a person that knows my limitations and I know what I'm capable and not capable of. I fucked up today in not saying no to a friend who wanted her DS to come for a playdate - both DS and I needed the afternoon to ourselves and she was late collecting. I am exhausted now as a result, small things like that can throw me. I really don't know how people manage to have their houses clean, their personal paperwork done, their part time or full time jobs, shopping, cooking, children bathed and in clean clothes and a little bit of play time or whatever. I can just about manage to keep everything going but I find it hard to get anything extra done. Friends are going hill walking on Sunday and I'm thinking wtf? How are people so organised?
I need a lot of time on my own.
The lexapro took a while to kick in - I don't know how long because it's all so blurry. A few weeks I suppose. I did go on a mini break with my then boyfriend towards the end of January and I think that being booked had been part of the reason I went to the GP at all, I didn't want to go and be miserable there. I think I did feel a bit better by then but not better better by any means. I don't remember wanting to kill myself while I was away, so that was definitely an improvement. But I suppose you can have a couple of good days in the middle of it all.
I stayed on the meds for 18 months, came off them in the summer and went back on them the following November as SAD affected me too. After that I was on them every autumn/winter/spring and I'm be off them in the summer.
When I was pregnant with DS I didn't take them and I was ok, a bit anxious but not depressed. The anxiety didn't develop into overwhelming fear followed by depression which was the previous pattern.
I seem to be ok now at controlling the anxiety by stepping back and managing myself - apart from the situational anxiety I had that I mentioned above. That was full on fear of going to the supermarket and worse it was in the summer which was never a bad time for me.
I think I understand things better. I understand hurt better and what it does when someone hurts you and how to heal yourself and protect yourself. I've become harder in some ways.
I know my DH loves me and that makes a difference. I suppose I feel safe. I never really felt I had a home till I met DH. Now he is a mess in his own right, an addict (clean at the moment), terrible anxiety and OCD (he's on lexapro, mirtazapine (sp?) and pregabalin), much worse childhood than me. But I suppose we understand each other and he's much better at communicating than I am so I've learned from that, and he can't bear for me to be upset so he drags things out of me rather than me internalizing.
There, you got nearly 20 years of my life in a few paragraphs.
Regarding getting things done when you're not really able - your goal at the moment for every day should be everybody fed, nobody dead. At that should be your goal till the youngest goes to school. You're only human. Sending you so much love and goodwill xxx