Dealing with depression

this post is heavy as fuck, so i suggest you skip this unless you are really...really ready for it

I'm so sorry, MulMizu. That's an absolutely horrible situation that you're in and I really really hope things will improve.

It might be hard to do, but I think you need to put your own needs above everyone else's here, for the state of your health. Maybe you could unfriend/block the worst offenders after sending a message explaining that they've forced your hand by being utter fuckwits. If they still want to be friends, they're going to have to understand how traumatic these things can be and why victim blaming is never okay.

I know it can be so hard and so lonely to cut people out of your life, but if these people don't understand, I really think you need to get away from them.

and just as a side note, if you ever need a new friend, i think you're great and i always enjoy talking to great people <33

I am going on a friendlist purge while tackling a bottle of this...smirnoff...soda but not shit idk what it is i just went and go tit okay
NO FRIENDS BUT THAT'S OKAY

Plenty of friends here - don't forget that x

Griot, that's like the fact that 90% of schizophrenics smoke. Nicotine has a huge effect on dopamine, so much so that researchers have been studying schizophrenic brains for years to figure out how to create stop-smoking drugs. Smoking, for a schizophrenic, is self-medicating.

I smoked for 19 years (ages 13-32), for most of which I had a 2 pack a day habit. Quitting was one of the best things I've ever done for my health, but man, I miss the bump in focus I got after a few drags off a cigarette. On the other hand, after I quit I realized how much of my time either smoking or thinking about when I could have my next cigarette. I was a serious addict and I'm glad that's done with.

But back to bipolar stuff: mixed episodes suck. That's actually when a bipolar person is most likely to attempt suicide, because they have the energy to do it. Most regular depressive episodes are apathetic and too exhausted to try suicide, but mixed states are really fucking dangerous. Take care of yourself, Griot.

You may think you have no friends, but you've made some around here. People who stay friends with a rapist and are not actually your friends. they're thoughtless douchebags and you're better off without them. If you like having Facebook friends, I'd be happy to add you there if you PM me. Or not, your call. I won't be offended. :)

another nightmare
i am so done
so, so done

Edit: Sorry, I realize I didn't openly thank you guys for being so great about this. Thanks. I really mean it, thank you so much. It's taken me a long time to get over the "excuse what your friends do because they're still friends right?" stage and I... /sigh
some of them were some great people, I just don't understand why...

Yep. I think there are a number of anti-depressants and other similar meds that do this. I've been told that Wellbutrin (I think?) doesn't have that effect, but it's not like I've noticed anything different in all the years I've been taking it. I think the only reason why they're giving me Wellbutrin is because I'm a non-smoker, though, not because of the reduced sexual side effects. It doesn't help that depression already messes things up sexually to begin with, of course, but your medication can make it worse.

Indeed, bupropion (Wellbutrin) is used as an add on to SSRIs to get rid of the sexual side effects they have.

Hmm. The things no one ever really explained to me. >_< I know I've asked my past psychiatrists at least a couple of times, too. I was told I was on it for depression and to help with my low energy issues.

Though my first two psychiatrists through the county had English as their second language, so maybe the didn't quite understand what I was asking. Guess I should ask my current one for a better explanation.

Sadly I think Wellbutrin quite frequently increases anxiety, and that would be so far from useful for me -- yesterday I was close to a panic attack in the supermarket because I couldn't decide whether or not to buy cereal. (In the end I didn't, and got the fuck out before any other groceries could start being stressful)

Oh, Wellbutrin is an AD used on its own most of the time. But sometimes it's an add-on for other problems as well.

Does it? That's not good. I've never had a panic attack, though I'm on Celexa for anxiety. Maybe the first psych I had figured it was a safe bet to put me on it, anyway.

Are you doing OK now? My sisiter used to have panic attacks, and they can be quite frightening.

I was on Welbutrin for energy/mood and Celexa for ... dunno what, but they just switched me from Celexa to something else due to anxiety. Maybe the Celexa wasn't doing enough to offset the anxiety? I'm not sure. I was also over the recommended dose of Celexa, which has changed since it was first prescribed for me, so maybe they did that instead of bumping the Celexa up.

Yeah, funny you should mention that. I'm pretty sure I was once on a dose of 60mg for Celexa before I was switched to Lexapro. When they switched me back, I was on 40mg Celexa. I asked why I wasn't on 60 and my current psych said I'd always been on 40. She took over when I was on Lexapro, though, so maybe she didn't know.

Mmmmmnaaah....you should see how thick my file is! She probably doesn't have time to dig through it and figure out when I was put on Lexapro to find out how much Celexa I was getting before. I don't even remember when that happened, so I'd be of no use in helping her. :D

I had been on 60 also. From what my NP said, the max dose was reduced to 40 after some (older folks) had medical issues at 60, so if she saw a note saying "max dose" she might have assumed 40? I don't know. 40 is in fact the max dose now, which matches your experience.

Oddly enough since switching I have been sleeping an inordinate amount and am about ready to complain about it to my NP -- it's been a few weeks of gradual changeover so I would think transitional effects should be done by now.

I saw the new psychiatrist today. He's... okay. Kind of quiet. He's comfortable calling me by my guy name, though, which is nice.

My psychiatrist is pretty cool too. She doesn't think I'm crazy because of the trans stuff. She barely even mentions it beyond checking I'm ok. Apart from saying, "Keep seeing your therapist" the only mention of it was when I was talking about trouble with my father, she asked "does he have difficulty with acceptance." To which I said, "Yes, but we never really got on." But I really wanted to say, "Yes, but we never really got on because he's a giant ass."

All in all, I think my relative stability will help in the doctors seeing my transness as the underlying cause of my issues rather than other mental health problems, which would have caused a lot of difficulty.

My psychiatry referral letter arrived at my parents' house yesterday (it had to be sent there rather than my flat because of reasons). My mother called to tell me that I had a letter and asked if she could open the Private and Confidential letter. I said not to and thought she'd drop it, but then she noticed the post code: "Hmm, that doesn't seem very far away. Could it be the dentist?"

I was already freaking out at this point because my parents don't know I'm medicated and don't know I'm struggling because when I did seek help from them they assumed I was in an angsty teenage phase, but I just said I'd collect the letter today and finished up the call.

Soon afterwards I got a text from Mum asking if there was anything she should be worrying about. It seemed really out of place, especially since we'd had a fairly normal phone call not half an hour before. I'm. pretty much convinced that she looked up the postcode and discovered it was the hospital

i'm so scared
the thought of having to cope if all this shit comes out is making everything blurry from fear

edit: i'm feeling really sick b/c of stress and i want to go home but i have no reason to give to my boss
none of my friends are online either

sorry if my typing's bad

Would you be able to tell her not to worry, but that you don't want to discuss it? If not, maybe you could practice having the conversation in your head so you feel more prepared for the possible questions you could get (assuming that's why she texted. There's still a possibility she meant something else).
Good luck and make sure to breathe :).

Thank you it was very much needed as I managed to get a flat on the way:(. Doc says anxiety and recurrent depression with a seasonal element. With fucked up sleeping patterns. Being a dumbass I forgot to ask what my official diagnosis is. But I presume he meant generalised anxiety disorder with MDD and or SAD. It mostly makes sense. He reckons my up moods are just because I have been depressed so long I'm not used to being normal'ish, that coupled with constantly being on edge/wired and you get something similar to what feels like mild hypomania. Hence my confusion about what the hell was going on.

I learned that music can be a really, really...really good thing to knock me out of a funk.
I was starting to feel a little bad, but then a friend chose that moment to share something by Caravan Palace with me and SUDDENLY THE HEAVINESS WAS GONE AND ALL I COULD THINK WAS "holy fuck i am feeling positively euphoric right now what is happening"

man.
man.

I like Caravan Palace too. I learned about that band on this forum, actually, and yes, they're great for making me smile. (And dance around the house when no one's looking....)

So last year I could use my political science major as a minor for an advanced degree education degree but this year I can't? Fuck you Brandon University.

I can't afford to go somewhere else in the province.

Guess having a degree is good enough to be an officer in the forces.

Caravan Palace are great. I was at an electro-swing night a few months ago and it rocked. I didn't get to dance as I was bro-ing it up chatting with a bro, so I'm going to have to go back to another one (and this time dress appropriately instead of pretending we were time travelers (I even downloaded a star trek tricorder for my phone.) And Last.Fm has been playing a load of trip-hop and electro-swing for me. Been really chill dang!

Yeah, same here. I listen to a fairly wide variety of music, and anything upbeat and uplifting has a tendency to lift my mood. If it's rock, the lyrics can help, too, because I'm more of a lyrics person.

I don't know who Caravan Palace are, though. That's okay. :D That's what Youtube is for.

Brandon is an online university, no? Unfortunately, I haven't heard good things about online universities.

Meh, the college and university I attended were at least good about warning us ahead of time about policy changes, even if we didn't have any other option except to accept the changes.

If you like Caravan Palace you might like this song


He came up on my last.fm a few minutes after reading your post. It's not as upbeat or over the top as Caravan Palace but it's got a real groovy 1920's Bedouin vibe going on.

For some reason I can't seem to get it into my head that what I do to my toes is self-harm. I mean, literally, yes, I'm not dumb. Just. Something about it doesn't hit me in the same way that cutting does/did, so I can't use that feeling as motivation to resist.

I guess I should update people on the letter situation but I just kinda feel like talking about toes before I go to bed.

Hopefully him being quiet means he's a good listener. Says the person with "silence" in her username. :D

i love you and i am here for you
and i am going to hold and hug you because I understand the "self-harm? but i'm not cutting what are you going on about" feel. (personally, i get into a tub of "hot as it can get" water and sit in it until my skin turns pinkish and gets kinda numb/tingly)

but christ my fear of feet has been amplified by 500

No it is a real university up here in Canada, with a campus and everything.

Ah, okay. I think I've heard of an online university with a similar name, that's why I got confused. Sorry about that.

I do the same thing to my fingernails and toenails, and the latter have been in particularly bad shape over the last few weeks. For some reason, it doesn't really register as self-harm to me, either, mostly because it feels like I have less control over it than I did when I cut myself, if that makes sense? Like, with my nails or my hair, sometimes I'll pick or pull and not notice until the next morning that, hey, where the hell are my eyelashes? Other times, I notice, but I try to stop and I can't.

I brushed it off as stress from exams, so I didn't mention it to my psych last time I saw her, but it's persisting even now that this round of exams is over.

Thank you, I've been really busy so I couldn't reply, but I read this yesterday and it just made me so happy
<3

sorry for having scary feet though

aaa see, I don't pull hair or eyelashes but that's definitely how I feel sometimes. And the last time I mentioned it to my doctor he just said that my medication would sort it all out. Uh. Thanks. I've finally got my letter from the psychiatric department so hopefully I'll get to talk to someone about things before the year is out.

I've found some decent moral support on the dermatillomania* tag on tumblr (although it's good to be careful because there's probably gross things there), but it's so habitual that most of the time it's too late by the time I've noticed.

I wrote a more detailed post on my side-blog a while back, but it's got a nasty photo so THIS IS YOUR WARNING: BLOOD, TOES, BEWARE

*Saying derma makes me feel embarrassed because it's self-diagnosis and everyone knows that that's never right but if I try to take a step back I realise that this really isn't something I should be doing to my skin and I should probably not patronise myself!

Can anyone recommend any books/resources on being in a relationship with a profoundly-depressed partner? I want to be supportive, but not risk undermining.

Having been in that position in the past, I can tell you it's a difficult balance to manage. I didn't always handle it well - I blame it partly on youth, partly on feeling overwhelmed at something I had zero experience with. Looking back, I think the worst thing was asking "are you okay?" or "what's wrong?". You can't explain depression, and it made her feel worse. The best thing a partner can do is to be there, I think, and to let them know they can be as real as they want. At the same time, you can't take it personally if they don't want you to be there, which is going to be true sometimes. It can also be good to help out with the mundane things that can feel so difficult to do when you're depressed, but that's a delicate one because you don't want them to feel like they're unable to manage their own lives.

The suicide talk is brutal, there's no getting around that. When someone you love tells you they want to die, well...it took me a long time to accept that and deal with it calmly. It's important to be calm and accepting about it though, since those are exactly the kinds of feelings that need to be shared. Love isn't going to make it go away, but sometimes it seemed to help.

She found a kind of happiness eventually, far from here and with a very different person, but we still talk sometimes. She tells me that on the whole I did okay. I was good at the "find the obscure flavour of Gelato at late night drugstores" thing at least, heh.