Treatment Resistant Depression (sensitive content)

[SB1967]

I suffer from very severe depression.
They've told me that according to their records I've tried every available antidepressant.
In April I saw a psychiatrist and asked for electro-convulsive therapy , which they rejected. I've tried to beat this depression with gym work, cycling and other exercise. None of it has worked. They told me to go to socials with other people struggling mentally and struggling with social isolation but my depression is just so deep that I don't want to be around other people , especially strangers .
I am now seriously planning my own s***e
I've told my closest relative that "I have to die". I suppose I should see a GP or ring NHS 111 but I'm not sure they'll help me. I'm struggling to leave the house during the day too. I absolutely cannot get out of this. I assume they'll continue to deny me electro convulsive therapy in which case I feel I have no choice but to delete myself.
The depression has become very extreme and frightening and I'm scared it'll turn into depressive psychosis. It's like they're waiting for me to get much worse before they help me. It has been a slow torturous descent into an extreme state and it's agony.

Does anyone have any experience of treatment resistant depression?

How are you feeling today @SB1967?

Every day is so so tough.

What do you do on an average day when you are feeling like this?

Increasingly I struggle to get out of bed.
I know I have to take action to try to help myself but I've got no energy.
I'm so scared of developing serious mental illness or practically being forced into suicide due to the way I'm being dealt with.
I rang my brother sobbing and he said "Unfortunately this is something you'll need to tackle yourself" . Meaning my general situation of loneliness.
He , like the NHS, does not grasp how terrible my situation is.
Recently I've been taking Mirtazapine as soon as I wake because I just want to sleep.

I think I probably need to be in a care home I cannot get out of this trap of loneliness and the related problems stemming from that.
I'm 59 which would make me eligible.

Are there any mental health support groups near you I wonder? You need to be out of the house doing something, anything. Talking to others in the same situation might help. Try and give yourself small targets. Have a shower and go for a walk round the block. Sit on a bench and watch the ducks. Try and listen to an audio book or podcast. Instead of focusing on your anger and helplessness , try and find something small and proactive to do each day even if it's really hard. Also, try and vary your routine in whatever way you can manage.

There's a mental health centre two miles away. I tried going to their social. But I struggled to go more than once. I'm just so depressed that I don't want to do anything

I've stopped eating. I almost "harmed" myself a few hours ago.

I can't believe they let people like me rot in agony. I don't have the energy to even ring NHS 111 or the Samaritans.

I'm truly in hell but I have to believe I can get out of this somehow. Or else how can I keep breathing for another day ?

Ask your GP if it has a social prescribing service. If it does, the social prescriber will discuss with you what sort of groups or activities might be possible and constructive for you at the moment. And if appropriate they will go with you the first time that you visit a group to see if it is for you.

I found it helpful. I know you say that you just can't do anything at the moment, but unfortunately this sort of depressive inertia is self-reinforcing, and the only way to begin to tackle it is to start making baby steps. The key thing will be to set your initial targets very low and genuinely notice and appreciate your success in achieving the small things. Be very compassionate towards yourself but very firm.

None of this sounds workable for you in your current state of mind, I know. That is the nature of depression. But really it is the only way forward. I think you have made a trap for yourself by grasping at what could be called fantasy solutions, solutions that you can imagine 'making things go away', like ECT, a care home bubble, or the other solution you have mentioned.
Those fantasies are very very natural and understandable, really they are. When things are terrible we need a comforting image of escape. But the actual escape is only going to come through tiny incremental improvements achieved by you, in a spirit of self-kindness.

What are you living on for money OP, sorry If you have already said

An inheritance that is going to run out soon

This is such good advice.

I know it feels impossible at the moment, but you can manage one small task a day and it must be really small to start with.

I’m speaking from personal experience here, as I am around the same age as you and have suffered with severe depression on and off for the last forty years.

I also know how it feels to be socially isolated with no friends or family so I’m wondering if it would help for us to try to support you to tackle small tasks on this thread?

If you could manage to get out of bed and make yourself something to eat then I think that would be an achievement for today and we could all work with you to think of how to move forward from there. What do you think?

You can do it and we are all rooting for you 💐

Have you got any appointments upcoming, @SB1967 , e.g. with your GP or the community mental health team? What 'next steps' were spoken of when you last had an appointment (I don't mean the A&E interaction, I mean your more 'routine' appointments)?

You've mentioned that an autism assessment was spoken of in a previous appointment. Have they given any indication of a timescale? And are you sticking with any of the anti-depressant medications that have already been tried, just in the hope they might be doing some little thing to keep you going?

I assk partly to get a sense of what help is currently underway or in the pipeline: I'm hoping that there is some supportive infrastructure around you, even if you don't experience it as being helpful.

But I'm also asking this to try and understand something that is very striking about your posts: I get the feeling that there is a very strong impulse in you to mistrust or discount whatever attempts are already being made, in favour of looking beyond those attempts in pursuit of something else - new medication, electro-therapy, a care home.

You very often make reference to your suicidal thoughts and activities, and I wonder if that is because you don't trust us to see (to really, really SEE) how unhappy and desperate you are. I wonder if nothing we say really gives you confidence that we do see that. And I wonder if that is how you feel, too, about the professionals that are trying to help you. So whatever they are offering, you don't really trust them to have seen exactly how desperately you need help, and you push for something more or different in an attempt to convince them how much you are suffering.

I'm sure that there is a lot in your frustration that is completely realistic, because mental health care is so often slow and/or erratic, and can seem bureaucratic and uncaring. But I also want to try and reassure you that, no matter how inadequate their response, they almost certainly will have seen your level of distress and do care about helping you. Same as we, too, on this thread do see you and do care.

So I hope that, even if you want something more and different, which may or may not be attainable, you will feel able to engage with what is on offer, and to try and trust that the professionals involved really do see you as deserving of their care.

Thank you, there’s something in this and I will think about it carefully.

xx

I won't go into what I said that got the post removed but I also said that they told me I wouldn't get antipsychotics or whatever else they give those for whom antidepressants haven't worked. I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do now. I was at A&E because I'd been threatened with the police (If I didnt go) after comments I made at a counseling session about certain things I'd done that pointed to the fact that I was planning to end my life.
I've just been rung by Adult Services and they've told me I should only get an autism test privately through my GP so that's another hoop to jump through, I was about to hand over thousands of pounds to an Autism test company whose diagnosis might be seen as worthless by the NHS.

I'm fighting to live a life I absolutely don't want and resent being burdened with and which will likely bring me nothing but more immense suffering. It's a f*g joke and I wish I lived somewhere where I could be voluntarily euthanised on mental health grounds. I can't leave without causing distress to my relatives so I'm stuck here trapped in this f*g no win situation suffering endlessly , rotting and just getting worse and worse. Sorry is this too self pitying ?

Your last paragraph, I understand it all. Its not self pitying.

I saw someone say this last week and I wrote it down because it really struck a chord:
Suicide doesn't work. People commit suicide because they want to get rid of the pain. But you can't get rid of the pain. All you can do is redistribute the pain to the people that loved you.

Social services rang an ambulance for me today but in the end I just had a long phone conversation with a doctor who mentioned antipsychotics.
I also discussed wanting to be in a care home or supported living. I can't stand my isolated lifestyle much more. I'm suffering terribly and the stress must be ruining my physical health.

That's such an insightful post and so true.