Posted by Meltingpot on September 20, 2009, at 11:19:55
In reply to Was Psychiatry your 'last resort' ?, posted by herpills on September 9, 2009, at 11:47:57
Hi,
When I was 17 I suddenly felt very different somehow to how I had before, I felt lethargic, sick, anxious, weak etc etc, none of these feelings had I felt before. I stopped wanting to go out, suddenly started feeling totally disconnected from the world and from my best friend.
At that age being naieve and always believing that only people in a cotamose state were depressed, I was terrified that I was dying and so began days of pouring through medical books searching for my diagnosis. My first thoughts were that I was suffering from leukemia and that I was slowly dying (I also felt very morbid), then when leukemia had been ruled out it became a brain tumour and then it became lung disease and so on and so on until finally the Doctor pretty much told me to stop going to see him as there was nothing wrong with me.
A year or so later, as I was still alive I concluded that I couldn't be dying because I was still alive and I just plodded on with life, figuring that I had some mysterious illness that they had yet to diagnose. I managed to keep going by keeping myself distracted with work.
Then when I was 24 I started feeling worse, waking up in the early hours of the morning dreading the day ahead, dreading holidays, the usual things so I went back to the doctors again this time convinced I had lung problems and sometimes even fantasising about having a lung transplant to cure me. On one of my visits to the doctor I burst into tears and he looked at me thoughtfully and told me he was going to prescribe "antidepressants". To be honest I didn't know that there was such a thing as antidepressants and I certainly didn't think they would work for me as I wasn't depressed I was ill!
However, I filled the prescription and then one night feeling desperate again I started taking them. From then on (and this might sound corny) my life was transformed, I suddenly had all of this energy and motivation and the world suddenly seemed like a beautiful bright place instead of the bleak grey place I had become used to. I really couldn't believe my luck. I carried on taking antidepressants for another 10 years or so and I often thanked God that I had got worse otherwise I would just have carried on plodding along, never really feeling any good and not really feeling like other girls of my age.
Unfortunately the antidepresants no longer work like they used to but I still don't regret from one minute taking them because If I hadn't I wouldn't have made the friends I made, I wouldn't have had the really good and happy times I had.
Denise
poster:Meltingpot
thread:916197
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090912/msgs/917799.html