feel so low

[AutumnMists]

I finally accepted that I cannot deal with this alone and went to the docs; he gave me citalopram plus signed me off work for 2 weeks.

I thought I would feel better but I feel worse, drained of energy and worried about the future - there are two empty weeks sretching ahead of me and am not really sure what I am going to do with them .....

Well done for making that first move. I don't know what your circumstances are, but do you have friends or family who can visit? Can they come and see you? Do you feel you could plan something small each day, just to get you through this season?

Sorry you are feeling so low

Try and manage the basics, if possible: try and eat regularly (even if no appetite), try and maintain a healthy sleep pattern (if sleeping's a problem do things like avoid caffeine and alcohol, relaxing bath before bed etc), try nd get a bit of exercise each day (or at least get some fresh air).

Can you get help with childcare? Someone to help out with chores etc, cooking?

Remember the Citalopram could take 4-6 weeks to kick in.

And take one day at at time... when the future feels uncertain it's sometimes better to concentrate on the 'here and now', until you start to feel better.

Stick with it, they take time to kick in but remind yourself that you have taken a positive step in getting help and this can only be a good thing...well done you!!x

Citalopram really helped me - for about three days I felt a bit sick on them though and the feeling got worse every day then suddenly it went.

Started to feel a bit better over the course of a few weeks and was very glad of them by the time I had been taking the for about 4 weeks. Just wanted you to hear what it can be like taking them at first.

Exercise is a very good way of dealing with depression, it has a very positive effect so anything relaxing which will also give you a bit of exercise and get you out and about would be a great help to you if you can manage it. I used to enjoy going for a swim or doing some gardening (not in the rain though ) but you may have totally different preferences. Try not to shut yourself away over the next few weeks (which is probably what you are going to feel like doing) as mixing with others (even if it is just a quick hello to a fellow swimmer for eg) is another big boost in combatting depression.

Hope you start to feel better soon

stick with it autumn, i had some terrible panic attacks when i first started, i just had to sit with my head in the corner of the sofa saying over and over, its the pills, i CAN breathe, frightening. I knew it was the tablets though so i got over that, they worked quickly for me, then i slumped again, i found i needed a higher dose.

So, now you have all this time on your hands you are going to spend more time fretting. Try and plan something, no matter how small, for each day, so you have something to look forward to. Even if it is a trip to a coffee shop to people watch. Its a shit time of year too. I dont know if you are by the coast? I love the beach in the winter, no other bugger there, its really dramatic.

Just go with the flow with the pills, they have saved my marriage. They are not a miracle cure, i still have some big issues to overcome, but they certainly help. Very brave of you to take that first step. You'll get there, i promise.

Autumn

I am sort off in the same situation as you, I accepted on Monday that I needed some help and went to the GP. She has signed me off for 2 weeks, and wants me to consider either HRT or Anti-D's. For me, I feel relieved because I don't have to face work for two weeks, but I have been trying to rest but also set myself small tasks to do to keep myself busy.
Last night though I was really exhausted, not helped by eating loads of chocolate, so I didn't do anything.

Try not to put any more pressure on yourself, give the tablets time to work, and good luck.

aarrgghh

I feel 10 times worse today. My boss said he would supervise my team or I would not have agreed to take the time off but he has gone and put another manager over them instead, and he is crap to say the least. I will have to spend months undoing the damage he does

I am so fed up now I know it should be irrelevant and I should concentrate on getting better but I feel so let down when I trusted him (which is very hard for me anyway let alone at a time like this)

Autumn, you sound just like me. It is really hard not to be in control isn't it. You don't say what it is you do. Would it put your mind at rest if you asked a trusted team member to make sure certain important things were done according to how you like them done and then just pretend you are on a tropical beach where mobile phones do not exist and forget about the office for a while. Easier said than done.

The world wont end without you, and, if he fucks up, then your boss will be made very aware of how good you are at your job!! The thing is, you are unwell, it is just that the mind is not straight forward like livers and stomachs and other thigns that give us a hard time. But if you had a dodgy liver or bad back you would allow yourself the time to get better, you MUST allow yourself time to recover from this. There is no shame in it and you deserve to be on top of the game, plus to be frank, you will not be on your best performance at work unless you do allow yourself some time here. Sorry to be blunt, but i just want you to stop feeling guilty about letting go of the reins. Easier said than done i know. One of the reasons i havent returned to work is because i cannot bring myself to hand the child care over to someone else, because they couldnt possibly do it as well as i do or maybe i am scared they might?

Tell me something you have wanted to do recently that you havent had time to do because of work? Decorate a room, read a book, take some riding lessons? Anything? Even putting some obnoxious wall paper in the toilet or bathroom has got to better than sitting there worrying. Hmmm, listen to me, i can talk........im quite good at handing out advice, lousy at following it, so i do understand, i really do.

LEM Thank you - you made me laugh with the obnoxious wallpaper as we have some in the cloakroom that needs painting over

You are right of course but this illness messes with your mind and I cannot think straight.

I know he would have had little choice in the matter as the big bosses made the decsion. He does know how good I am at my job so he is probably as gutted as i am but it still feels like the ulitmate betrayal. I just wish he had warned me rather than me finding out from the e mail to the whole office

And of course even if we had anticipated this I would still have had to agree to time off as I really cannot face work atm

I went swimming today for the first time in years and it felt great - I will hang on to that and keep slowly plodding onwards and upwards ...

Thank you - no one in RL can really understand

I absolutely know what you mean about no one in RL understanding. Also, it can put pressure on relationships too. Does your partner understand/help? I found taking him to the doctors with me was necessary as he knew i wasn't right but couldnt see it as the fact i was unwell. He thought i would just gradually get better, ive had a rough few years and he thought it was that, but it made me ill. The doctor put him straight and its easier for him now, less hurtful when i am shit to him.

Sounds great about the swimming

um, taking my partner to the doctors, not yours

Unfortunatley dh does not understand - as soon as I told him I was signed off he was rattling off a list of things i could do around the house etc

Told him to treat it like i had flu and needed to stay in bed but not sure he got it

He has been great dealing with the kids tho so that helps (and thankfully they are now back at school!)

Thanks for your support - I hope you are feeling OK at the moment

It could be that he is a tad (well quite a bit really) scared. Obviously i dont know him or you, but i think my DP finds my depression harder to come to terms with than i do. He was brought up to just get on with things and deal with it so this whole PND thing has been a steep learning curve for him. To be honest, i think it has made him depressed too. So it might be that he is trying to make less of it, not because he is not being understanding, but because he doesnt actually understand.

When you told him you were signed off, and on the ADs (have you told him about them?) did you explain to him really and truthfully why? I was behaving pretty irrationally so DP did sort of get it but couldnt believe i was so bad that i needed ADs. The way i see it, you don't have to be a raving basket case lunatic to benefit from ADs. They are not like they used to be. It is just a case of returning a chemical balance to the brain that is out of order for whatever reason, be that hormonal, as a reaction to bad stuff happening or just because it is. Once the chemical stuff is back online it is easier to cope.

I do hope you persevere with the citalopram. For what it is worth, it is thought that when you finally come off this type of AD, providing you do it properly, the positive effect continues because the amount of seratonin receptors in the brain has increased leading to more being produced and used so it is a circle. The same as the vicious one that happens when we are depressed, the seratonin drops, we make less receptors, so we make less seratonin etc etc etc.

So don't be sad that your DH still thinks your superwoman, it is because you probably are!! Just do what you feel like doing, he WILL understand, he might not show it, but he will. If not, then you should help him out, take him to the doctors with you, ask them to explain things to him, it helped my DP loads.

I have told him about the ADs but cannot tell him why as i am not sure myself. Everything seems to have spiralled out of control in the last month but I cannot really understand the cause.

He does have an idea what it does becasue this is my second time and he was there the first time but I think you are right - he does not know what to do for the best. And I could never tell him how bad I feel as I fear it would hurt and upset him

The meds are making me feel spaced out at the moment but I have to persevere - I cannot go on as I am, I got so low this evening that I felt like giving up and even thinking about my children did not give me the boost it usually does

Autumn, i know exactly what you mean about feeling out of control. It was that feeling, plus the kindness of other mnetters that pushed me to get help. Im not going to lie to you, it is not a miracle cure, i am still in a bad place, but i AM getting better. One of the things that happened to me when i first started taking the meds was that i couldnt think about the future, i just couldnt, either bad or positive, i tried, it just didnt happen, it was almost like i didnt have one. Very strange, and not very nice i have to say. Ive only just remembered that bit.

There will be good and bad days, also, it is unrealistic, which i am sure you know, to expect to feel better after two weeks. But hopefully you might feel more in control. They do say that the meds make you feel worse at first too. I am not sure i did, but everyone reacts very differently. There are loads of threads on here with people threatening to chuck the pills down the toilet because they made them feel so bad, at first. Most of these people are happy they persevered.

Don't worry about the fact that when you felt like shit, even thinking about your little ones didnt help. The problem is, i feel, with depression is that once you get so low, it is purely physical, you could win the lottery and not give a shit. This is because the seratonin levels in your brain drop so low and it becomes a vicious circle. Citalopram works by making your brain use the seratonin it produces more efficiently, as lots of it gets "wasted" in the "conversation" between nerve cell. The citalopram stops it from getting sucked back up and means that it stays around longer, the cells that need it, make more receptors to pick it up and as a consequence of this, the cells pumping it out think you want more and make more. I dont explain things very well, probably because i only just about get it myself. But i do find getting my head around the physical helps. The good thing is, that when you stop taking the meds, providing you are in a good place emotionally at the time, the levels stay higher and it stops the physical slump. Well, heres hoping. I am not even thinking about coming off of mine for a long time.

Its funny, when i have good days, im hardly ecstatic, and i sort of think to myself, is this it? Is this how other people feel, not particularly happy, just not sad? Then i look at my beautiful daughters, my wonderful partner, and (sad though it is) my dog and think no, i should feel real happiness about this lot, i have a long way to go. But i CAN see a future, i even try and think about nice things that might happen and how to achieve that.

Don't expect too much too soon, you will feel better, but maybe you should just take this two weeks to rest up. Read a book, switch your brain off and try to relax (ive not managed that yet but i wil!).

lem I think I get it about serotonin - a bit like breast milk you make more as more is used?

I feel pretty sick atm on the meds but hopfully it will be like Coby's and go very soon. I am taking them at night but think I will change to morning to see if that helps as i cannot sleep atm

I saw my counsellor today and it is hard work - she is still dredging up stuff from a long time ago, but I do feel hopeful that we will get somewhere with it all so it means this never happens again.

My poor kids are being neglected recently - far to much TV whilst I feel so drained

It is so good to 'talk' about this on here - I feel less alone

Sort of yes I had counselling but it didnt work for me, whenever my counsellor could see that something bothered me she said, well we should leave that box shut as we dont have enough sessions to go there!

It certainly does help to talk about it. I have only told a couple of friends in RL one because i know she had PND and was given prozac to help and a couple of close friends. There is a lady at M&T who stunned me when she told me that she had PND and was on ADs, I just said, so am i - we left it at tht, but it looks like we might become friends

Hi Autumn, i hope you are feeling a little better. I have decided to switch my computor off today and leave it off for a week, i am spending far too much time on mnet, and as much as it IS a great support for me, i am getting stressed because of the loss of time etc. Also, i am neglecting my DD which is not good. I just didnt want you to think i had tired of our "conversation". Hopefully the weather will improve and we can at least have a good weekend getting some fresh air.

Good luck
x