Posted by Enigma on August 13, 2007, at 14:08:08
In reply to Re: Still no cure for my depression - tried everyt » Enigma, posted by Bob on August 11, 2007, at 21:24:50
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> > Heh, my name isn't Joy. I meant it as a sarcastic adjective. I haven't stopped saying it since I saw my first Ren & Stimpy episode.
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> > Anyway, I'm not glad you are in the same boat, but it IS good to know that I'm not alone. I could swear I read that a few million people have treatment resistant depression, which is odd, as most doctors I've been to are fairly surprised by it, and by their "treatment" of me, I can swear that I'm the only treatment resistant patient they have ever had.
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> > Thanks for responding.
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> Ha! And I had half a mind to include a statement in my first response commenting on the irony of your name. Good think I didn't.
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> Anyway, you continue to read my mind. I also have little indication that there are people as disabled or more so than I out there. My therapist has told me more than once how she's been practicing for 35 years and has never seen anyone even remotely like me. I don't probe too much about where I fall in the spectrum of severity relative to my psychiatrist's other patients, as I'm afraid of what the answer might be. I too often feel like I'm the only one, or the first human that's ever felt like this. I know it's preposterous, but this is a lonely disease when it gets this bad. Most other chronic serious diseases seem to have much more public support and recognition. I have yet to see someone with one of those colored ribbons on their cars for "treatment resistant depression". I think the general public thinks that people just go take medicines and get better (that's when they think about it at all).
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> My guess is severe treatment resistant people are falling into the shadows and the cracks when the options dwindle and drain away. I mean, I've made it as urgently obvious as possible to a number of doctors just how dire I feel my situation is, and nothing good or different ever came out of it. In fact, I sometimes got the feeling that they hoped I wouldn't make another appointment.Hehe, Joy would have been a totally ironic name for me for sure. I'm not even female either.
Anyway, AMAZING post. Now *you* are writing about MY exact experiences. ;) I never heard anyone put it quite the way you did.. "a lonely disease". That gets 5/5 stars *and* 2 thumbs up. Even with a wife and 3 kids, and WHEN I HAD friends, I still felt/feel like the loneliest person on the planet.
Going to a doctor, and then specialists on top of that, and STILL EASILY managing to stump them, is very discouraging/annoying/frustrating/depressing and so on.
Honestly, this sounds sick and all, but I'd rather have cancer (treatable, hopefully)! I had so many problems tying to communicate the severity of my illness to my previous employers, so much so that I'd get more accomplished by hitting myself over the head with a bat for several hours at a time.
The worst for me is how they judge you and belittle you and your condition. I can tell you for a fact, that if several (in fact, MOST) of the people who mistreated me (or even the ones that didn't) had my exact condition, they wouldn't have been able to fight it like I have, and would have committed suicide long ago.I've lost 2 jobs, no 3, due to my depression and previously, hypo/mania and lost many (now all) of my friends. Due to my road rage (that's pretty much subsided - but then again, I don't drive much anymore), I almost died several times, and/or severely injured others (or worse). Lost my license a couple of times as well and lost a LOT of money in fines and penalties and insurance adjustments. But, like I said, most to all of that has subsided, the road-rage, irritability, anger, etc, to be taken over by severely debilitating depression.
Besides the high-risk factors, I was at least able to hold down a job, albeit with great difficulty.
When people say "life is unfair", I just have to laugh and thing, you have NO idea...
poster:Enigma
thread:775476
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070808/msgs/776018.html