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[littlefallsmets]

I do not have the depression but I do have the anxiety, hardcore, and though they are different, they are treated with some of the same medicines and are somewhat related in their underlying biological causes and...

The medicine has helped me, it's all I can say.

Doesn't help me all the way but the big attacks don't happen anymore... and the small ones aren't nearly as bad and don't last nearly as long.

Now, do you need a good doctor who's actually paying attention to what you're struggling with and actually knows all the new medicines and stuff?

Sure. My first head doctor misdiagnosed me AS having the depression and as such it only helped me partway until I got a better head doctor.

But there's hope, kid.

There's hope and you deserve access to it because you are a good person.

You are a good and quality imaginary internet person.

[jaydub]

Another of the walking wounded chiming in.  I struggled along for 5 years with gradually deepening anxiety disorders that eventually collapsed into fully fledged major-D once I graduated college.  Although my family is medical, its also Irish - so identifying and admitting a mental problem was deeply taboo.  I finally got some initial help when my family practitioner referred me to a heart specialist (!) for tachycardia.  They stuck a Holter monitor on me for a week, during which I ran through my daily hours of night terrors and panic attacks.  When the cardiologist reviewed the data and ran some sort of ultrasound test, he diagnosed a slight mitral valve prolapse and gave me some literature about the association of that condition with depression.  He referred me to a psychiatrist, and told me not to worry about my heart.
My family was more understanding than I gave them credit for (although we still rarely discuss that period in my life - and only then with evident communal discomfort).  My doc diagnosed major depression secondary to panic disorder.  She treated me with Zoloft (which has an anti-obsessive action in addition to its anti-depressive payload) and Ativan for breakthrough attacks.  It took about 6 weeks for the depression to lift (although I was feeling somewhat better after 2 weeks) and 6 months for me to feel like myself, which was something of a novel experience after, literally, 6 years of downward spiral.  Now, 13 years later I'm still taking a small dose of Zoloft to control the panic disorder, but I've never had a depression relapse.  I keep the Ativan prescription current, but don't take any for the most part, unless I have a night terror (usually related to stress).

My story is something of a counter to Linnea's experience - the doc got the drug right on the first crack (it sounds like we actually had similar conditions otherwise!).  It didn't dumb me down, zone me out, or prevent me from experiencing life's normal highs and lows (shitty stuff still sucks in my world).  We've tried backing off the Zoloft a couple times, but the panic disorder still seems to be burned into my neural circuits.  After a few weeks, the nightmares start and recede once I resume a small dose.  I otherwise keep myself fit, train in martial arts for relaxation, and try to keep my life together so stress doesn't get overwhelming.  On the other hand, I've been wanting to give the therapy thing a whirl, as I do have issues - so maybe then I could drop the meds entirely.  It annoys my libertarian tendencies to be dependent on anything.

[RMJ12345]

Chiming in for more imaginary hugs.

[Ben-San]

I really hope this works out for you.

I tried Prozac once and it made me paranoid. Now I have a prescription for Effexor that I got a few weeks ago but it turned out that the cheapest generic would cost me $300/month which is $300/month more than I have incoming starting this month. I called and left a message asking if there was something else I could be prescribed with a cheap generic equivalent but the place hasn't called me back. I have another appointment at the same place but it's with someone else so I don't even know how that will go down since I was unable to buy the drug I was prescribed or an equivalent.

Anyway my sister had the braincrumple about as bad as I do for a while and now she's all teaching English in France and Korea and getting articles published in magazines and so forth, so it can work out. I don't mean to get you down with what I'm saying about my thing, is the point.

[robot_god]

As a pharmacy student, I can attest to the fact that anti-depressants are effective.  The only downside with them is that they can make it very difficult to reach orgasm if not impossible when the drug is at it's peak effect.  I've come across a few of them in my travels and have tried some myself to see what they were about, and they've all been quality drugs.

[pmcd9]

Damn all y'all are crazy.

Seriously Melanie, I feel for you.  I want you to feel better because you are a great person and I love you.

Re:  Medications.  I have mixed feelings.  Having never taken any medications of this type myself I can't comment from personal experience.  My brother however is bi polar manic depressive.  Before medication full of inner turmoil, but outwardly appearing fine with random bouts of total insanity.  After medication, he's become zombified.  He sleeps about 14-16 hours a day and doesn't do a whole lot of anything other than watch sports at my parents house where he now lives.  Before medication, had a job and a wife.  After, on social security disability, divorced, lives with my parents.  Before medication, hated the world and everything in it.  After, doesn't seem to care about anything.  Obviously there should be a happy medium.  I've spoken with my Mother about this, but she says he is satisfied with his treatment.

I hope you get all the help you need and come on strong.  We are praying for you.

[jaydub]

The only downside with them is that they can make it very difficult to reach orgasm if not impossible when the drug is at it's peak effect.

On the plus side, this turns a fellow into a stallion of admirable endurance.  At the very worst though, sex becomes a friendly full-body workout.  Which is still pretty good.  Also, it encourages diversification.

[AugustWest]

Anybody else hear about the study that found that ketamine has an almost immediate anti-depressant effect?  I think I heard something on NPR about it last week.  As opposed to the weeks and weeks that SSRIs can take, ketamine seems to have a measurable effect very quickly.  They aren't developing it for use as an anti-depressant because of the abuse potential, but are studying it to see if they can determine how it works.

What we need more of...

[linnea]

On the plus side, this turns a fellow into a stallion of admirable endurance.  At the very worst though, sex becomes a friendly full-body workout.  Which is still pretty good.  Also, it encourages diversification.

For a long time I had problems with a crippled sexual drive. As Jerod puts it, I couldn't get it up with a forklift. Such as it is when you have brain cooties. (Edit: I think the crazymeds site is down for now, but it should be back up) For me I think my utter disinterest in sex was related to feeling utterly overwhelmed and other fallout from Depression. If your basic needs from Maslow's hierarchy ain't gettin' met, you're going to have a hard time focusing on activities that fall outside Basic Survival.

The zero-sex-drive and delayed orgasm stuff really bothered me (e.g., my crap dude ex-fiance went down on me for about 50-60 minutes and I had high hopes, but frustratingly enough I could not get mine. Sadly, I told him it wasn't gonna happen. Guy was a douche but damn, he was gifted in that department), but now I am back to normal. Normalcy happened for me once I got stabilized on the meds -- the sexual side effects were still bothering me so I started taking EFA Capsules (salmon and other giraffe oils that have Essential Fatty Acids) and other vitamin supplements and my sex drive improved markedly. They say that the EFA capsules also help improve mood, but I don't know about that.

It doesn't surprise me that many of us have struggled with the Big D. I've read studies about how higher intellect has been linked to depression and related disorders.

Also, AW, that thing about Ketamine is pretty interesting. Personally, I want the transcranial magnetic stimulation shit to be available NOW. I am sick of all this fuckin' around, I think that people with injured brainmeats should be able to get noninvasive therapy that fuck*ng works and makes them feel better.

[RMJ12345]

It doesn't surprise me that many of us have struggled with the Big D. I've read studies about how higher intellect has been linked to depression and related disorders.

Thinking sucks sometimes.

[littlefallsmets]

I am open to the idea that... y'know... how can I phrase this...

People with anxiety disorders and panic disorders and many of the depressions, we're right, actually. The whole world is actually this fucked, things actually make this little sense and everything good still floating about is actually the fluke it seems like.

That the mechanism around us, society, culture, technology, it has outstripped out ability to adapt to it and... early in the Industrial Revolution, only the very smartest people and the people with the most spare time were able to experience it and start to go crazy but...

The faster and bigger and more inescapable the machine becomes and the less and less substancial ghosts that we humans are within it, the more this madness trickles down.

We only need to have a little free time or kinda smart at this point to see it and be driven crazy by it.

But as wrong as it is and as nice as it would be to get ourselves into situations where we are not driven mad by this... feeling... this knowledge that everything is broken...

There's no escaping now, y'know.

There's nowhere to run from it, there's nowhere to hide from it.

Wherever there is another living soul, there are echoes of that great insanity machine some people have called Western Civilization.

There's no going back, there's not even any slowing it down... so we have the choice of using more and more complex drugs to insulate ourselves from this truth, with occasional side-effects, or... otherwise give in to death or a madness worse than dying.

We could've been shamans, y'know, in a world that hadn't rendered shamans obsolete. Or poets if the world didn't have a whole history of better poetry already finished and accessable in fifteen clicks of a button. Or philosophers, priests and priestesses, leaders and dreamweavers...

But the world doesn't need them anymore.

The machine of societal structure and all the machines in our hands and in front of our eyes can basically go on without us... or without critical thinking from humans, anyway, just keep fuck*ng to supply the people, just keep making energy to run all the engines...

We just kind of have to Be Here.

And that drives us all mad, more and more of us the more and more of us are rendered obsolete for anything other than simple attendance.

Still, we're hardwired to desire life and living over madness and death and so here we are.

Popping just enough pills to keep ourselves interested.

It sounds kinda awful but I am hardwired to consider the alternatives worse so what the hell can I do? This is the programming I started with, I had no choice in the matter.

Drugs it is.

Drugs until the machine breaks down or until we as humans die off and allow it to churn for itself without our bare attendance.

No, wait, don't read this at all.

It, uhm, definitely won't help the depression.

[pmcd9]

I guess I'm just not smart enough to get the depression.

[Ben-San]

words

I like a lot of your posts but this basically read like a freshman who has discovered postmodernism.

Sorry, dude.

[side_show]

Today was like holding back an entire ocean with my will.  The psychiatrist didn't call.  Monday was a civic holiday here, so I'm guessing Tuesday was a catch up day for most people, so hopefully, hopefully today.  The nurse said she'd call yesterday or today.  I'm in what can only be described as a state of emergency or at least non-functionality - right on the edge.  I can't believe it can be this bad and they still send me home, don't do anything for me, tell me to wait.  I'm pushing away my more desperate, scary thoughts, but they're just a breath away.  I'm not about to surrender, but it's like the dark heavy clouds before the rain.  I could cry for days, weeks, months.  I can tell my SO is scared, and I just want to tell him it's going to be okay, but I'd be lying right now to say that.

Paul, your description of your brother is basically what I fear.  I have a friend like that.  His life is gone.  I know other people who've come out the other side too, but he's the one who haunts me.  I can only hope I'll notice if I'm gradually becoming a zombie, and be able to draw the line.  I don't want numb, I want happy.  Can you maybe develop a zombie test for me?  Something about enjoying puppies and singing along to the radio?

[Doc]

I got no kind of experience in this but just know you are a rad person Smells you create words with ease that I can barely comprehend, you got a purpose and a place in this world.