Now more than ever...

[phoenix_kaji]

...I need help.

For once, I don't even feel like giving everyone an earful of the details of what's happening right now. Probably because I'm actually quite ashamed of myself for once.

...Anyways, if anyone is feeling so bold (or bored?) as to give me advice, I'll listen the best I can. But really, I only want advice if you can back it up. I don't

Comments

[mizunoseiryuu]

I think what I have to say is the last thing you want to hear. Because you've tried how many different meds in the past four years? How many of those meds were you on for less than a month? Do you know how long it takes for any individual medication to build up in your system and start working? I had to be put on anti-psychotics because of the side-effect of a drug I was taking that meant it WAS working, even though it seemed to be making things worse.
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that's all a general practitioner really has about treating one's mental health. Relying on an underinformed, undereducated doctor for something he or she might not have known much about means that you might have actually found the PERFECT medication before now, and the doctor wasn't firm enough about making you take it long enough to see if it was really working or aware enough to treat the side-effects so that you could actually get the benefits of the medication.
According to my physician, who has extensive training in mental health issues, explained to me that during periods that depression goes untreated or unsuccessfully treated, the brain begins to change, and when treatment begins on a new medication, the brain is under-equipped to deal with all of the benefits. Imagine your brain as a tree, and depression is a drought. The branches of the tree begin to die off, so there are no leaves there to catch the healthy rays of the sun. Treating the depression, trying to end the drought, doesn't immediately give you a healthy tree with full branches, leaves, and fruit. The tree needs to grow back. In the time that the tree is growing, it might feel like things are not improving. It might even feel like things are getting worse. Giving up before the meds have a chance to get your tree back to a healthy, functioning level isn't going to tell you whether or not that's the right medication for you. I've been frustrated on your behalf, watching you go through medications like they're going out of style. But I've been most frustrated seeing you give up on drugs that take weeks to months to actually show signs of effectiveness after a matter of a week or two of taking them. No medication is going to fix things right off. No medication is going to make things immediately better or get you immediately to a sustainable level or help you cope as soon as you start taking it, and yet watching how quickly you decide that a medication is not working for you makes me feel that you think there will be some instant effect from your medication that is just not coming.
My advice, which is tried and true and tested by science and can be supported with logical, empirical fact is this: Give the medication time. LOTS of time. Weeks. Maybe even months. Because it may take that long. There's a lot of damage to your tree that needs to be fixed before you can really take advantage of the healthy rays of the sun. It isn't going to happen in a matter of days. It's going to take time, and sometimes, you're going to feel like crap and do things that you think later maybe you shouldn't have. And sometimes you might need to take supplemental medications to help treat side effects, either of the medication you're taking or of your brain repairing itself and getting itself up to functional levels.
Now that I've gotten all that off my chest, I'm going to go take my meds and go to bed.

[phoenix_kaji]

No, actually, it's sort of something I'd thought about before. For most of those years, I had a GP who was basically just throwing random SSRIs at me and saying 'try this'. So I'm sure that there were plenty of those... that, truth knows, might have been helpful.

Ind I had no idea what was going on, either, and I... well, it was hard watching my life slowly fall apart in front of my eyes. I was a hardworking, university-bound AP student. My parents and everyone around me had high expectations. Then it all crumbled like the foundations were rotted. The grades, the stability, the success, even the perhaps 'pretty' 'girl' they saw all burned.

The two things that make the wait hardest for me are my family's expectations and ...mine. It's been hammered into my head that I could, no, SHOULD be so much better than this that it's incredibly hard to watch myself flounder. It's really taken away most of what little self esteem I had.

Ha, so bumping off a medicine that wasn't working in less than a month (or sooner, if it made me want to kill myself or someone else)...seemed like a damn good idea at the time.

Yeah, that was then. Feels like I've wasted years, really... I do know better now, with this new doctor. the zoloft/strattera/lamictol was honestly ...the best combination I'd achieved in years. And I had that going for... I don't know, but it was a long time, I think.

And now I'm waiting for this emsam to work its, well, whatever it does.

I think I have a doctor who finally knows what he's doing. (I hope?) He was using the lamictol and the strattera to help supplement the zoloft,...

It's just hard. I think what I need is to find a way to allow myself to wait (and to get my family to do the same.)I guess I need help waiting without feeling like an absolute failure. *eh heh*

But thank you, wait I will.

[mizunoseiryuu]

I was very sad to hear that the combination you were on didn't work out for you. I know you gave it a long try, and I know that you were given it by a doctor who should know what's what in medication like that. I'll keep my fingers crossed on this new drug. I know that there are a lot of things you CAN'T take with an MAOI, but I also believe that this new doctor will help you find the things that you can and that can help you find (in time) the stability you seek.

[phoenix_kaji]

Yeah I have to watch everything I take now.

At the very least, I know that that combination stabilizes me and allows me to function (albeit at a fairly basic level), and can go back to it if I never find anything else that works. (which is unlikely, I hope...)

Thank you, and I hope listening to my long winded ramble isn't too draining... I'm not thinking fluidly right now, and I think my brain's trying to compensate with wordiness.