![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 4250 to 4274 of 10407. Go back in thread:
Posted by Rickey on June 13, 2003, at 5:12:58
In reply to Anyone had success on Effexor XR? , posted by jp on October 24, 1999, at 14:59:14
Started out with 37.5 for 6 days, then to 75mg. So far so good. The only side effect was sweating the first few days, Ok now. The first day on 75mg was rough as I was very tired and sleepy(maybe it was because it was Monday). Feeling MUCH better. Able to handle stress at work better. Do not go to sleep as soon as I come home like I used to. Seem to have a deeper sleep and don't wake up every two hours. Sunday I actually put on a CD and danced around the apartment(first time in 4 years I felt like listening to music, never mind dancing!!! Have to admit I was kinda scared after reading some of the post here, but for me it seems to be working. I realize however it is early in the game. What really worries me also is weight gain(as I don't need that) however it seems to be steady.
Some of the post have really helped me to get started. enjoyed reading all the good and bad. Hope it continues to help. One day at a time like they say.
Posted by KimberlyDi on June 13, 2003, at 11:34:56
In reply to My Story Day 13, posted by Rickey on June 13, 2003, at 5:12:58
Rickey,
Your post made me smile. If I lived alone, I might be dancing too! As for weight gain, the dancing should help. You can't solve everything at once. Throw away the scales, eat healthy, and keep dancing.Good luck, Kim :)
> Started out with 37.5 for 6 days, then to 75mg. So far so good. The only side effect was sweating the first few days, Ok now. The first day on 75mg was rough as I was very tired and sleepy(maybe it was because it was Monday). Feeling MUCH better. Able to handle stress at work better. Do not go to sleep as soon as I come home like I used to. Seem to have a deeper sleep and don't wake up every two hours. Sunday I actually put on a CD and danced around the apartment(first time in 4 years I felt like listening to music, never mind dancing!!! Have to admit I was kinda scared after reading some of the post here, but for me it seems to be working. I realize however it is early in the game. What really worries me also is weight gain(as I don't need that) however it seems to be steady.
> Some of the post have really helped me to get started. enjoyed reading all the good and bad. Hope it continues to help. One day at a time like they say.
Posted by sierra1 on June 13, 2003, at 19:07:38
In reply to My Story Day 13, posted by Rickey on June 13, 2003, at 5:12:58
it's seems we all have different reactions to this med. to get a better idea lets post whether it has a positive or negative on us.
for me so far, its positive....
Posted by bgbham on June 13, 2003, at 19:21:29
In reply to Re: lets have a role call, posted by sierra1 on June 13, 2003, at 19:07:38
Posted by sierra1 on June 13, 2003, at 19:51:38
In reply to Re: lets have a role call (nm), posted by bgbham on June 13, 2003, at 19:21:29
sorry brian what does (nm) mean?
how are you today? hope you are feeling better..
if you need to talk or anything i'm here.
lynn
Posted by sierra1 on June 13, 2003, at 20:05:50
In reply to Re: lets have a role call, posted by sierra1 on June 13, 2003, at 19:51:38
Brian, do you have ICQ? if so and if you do want to talk my ICQ # is 198031924
or i have msn messenger too but i have to see how i'm listed.....
let me know how you are ok?
Posted by bgbham on June 13, 2003, at 20:28:47
In reply to Re: lets have a role call, posted by sierra1 on June 13, 2003, at 19:07:38
Lynn, I think I checked that no message box by accident. tells you how good I am doing, huh? To answer your question, I have had mostly good days, but a few rough ones. (depression-wise) I have had to see the doctor a couple of times since I have been out of the hosp. and he has raised my dosage, yesterday adding wellbutrin in the mornings. he told me that it was really to be expected to still feel not completely well (this is my 4th week) , and reassured me of how long it does take some people to feel better. This afternoon I feel a lot better than the previous 3 days, all in all, I am going to say "positive". My best friend Anna a few yrs ago had a lot of success on Effexor as well. Neither of us have had any of the adverse side effects I have seen posted. No withdrawal, weight gain, brain shocks (that one really gets me!) I do want to talk more, my email is bgreenbham@bham.rr.com.
Posted by Paco on June 13, 2003, at 20:30:49
In reply to Does everyone on Effexor gain weight?, posted by kalypsa on June 12, 2003, at 13:04:10
Depends on the person. My weight has not changed a bit.
> I've just been reading all the posts about weight gain and am freaking out now. I've been on Effexor XR for almost 3 weeks and haven't gained any weight, but I'm worried that it's only because I haven't been on it very long.
>
> One poster said it slows down your metabolism - does it do this for everyone or does it depend on the person? Help!
Posted by NThompson on June 13, 2003, at 20:51:55
In reply to Re: Does everyone on Effexor gain weight? » kalypsa, posted by Paco on June 13, 2003, at 20:30:49
I went to a psychiatrist yesterday for the first time ever. Eleven days ago I tried to commit suicide. Obviously, I failed. But now I am glad I did. Just a tip for those of you who are so depressed that you try to overdose on pills... Charcoal is NOT the taste you want in your mouth as the last thing you will ever taste! It is very disgusting! So I started the Effexor today, I really hope it works. I can't put myself or my family through this again. Does anyone know about how long it will take before this kicks in and I'll start feeling better? I hope soon. I want to start LIVING my life again.
Posted by CherC68 on June 13, 2003, at 20:58:36
In reply to Re: lets have a role call, posted by bgbham on June 13, 2003, at 20:28:47
I'm glad you are doing better Brian, and I'm equally glad that your side-effects and the other's side effects are not so bad.
I've been off Effexor for a few days, and the brain twitches and the forehead feeling and the nausea have passed. I'm very glad that Effexor is working for a lot of you. I wish it did for me. Today, I'm crabby and I guess a bit depressed. I've tried Zoloft (24/7 nausea) and you all have heard my complaining about the Effexor. I've always stated that just because it didn't work for me doesn't mean it won't work for you.
As far as weight gain, I did gain weight immediately on it, yet, Delta Burke, I believe lost weight with it, as did my cousin who is now on it and swears by Effexor XR.
My best friend is on Paxil and has lost 20 pounds (too much I think) but again, she swears by it.
To me, all AD's work on everyone's individual chemistry differently. I'm hoping that someday there will be something out there that will not effect me so much, so I can get the help I need, with my anxiety, stress and depression. Good Luck to all. Cher
p.s. Zinya, if you are reading this, i'm keeping up with the posts, and you are m.i.a. right now. I'm a little saddened, and hope to see you on here, and if not, please write me CherC68@aol.com to let me know you are doing well.
Posted by bgbham on June 13, 2003, at 22:19:57
In reply to This is my first day on Effexor XR 37.5MG, posted by NThompson on June 13, 2003, at 20:51:55
i am glad you are still here also. why a charcoal taste?
I believe in Effexor, and I think you must have a pretty good pdoc to have prescribed it. It has helped me, but everyone is different you understand. It may or may not be the one for you, and there could be a lot of trial and error. I recommend that if you are not feeling better, not great, but better in a week or so to let the pdoc know. I have had to do that a couple of times already, I am at 4 weeks. There have been a couple of days I have felt almost as bad as in the beginning. The pdoc will likely up your dose if you tell him that. It is not likely that she/he will change to another so soon, since the drug is in most peoples eyes an excellent med, as it treats anx and dep. I have become discouraged a couple of times lately because I want it NOW. It is simply not that way. Plus, in truth, your brain ain't working right at present, and that can lead to thoughts that are conterproductive, ie, suicide, change meds, I feel bad, etc. I am very sure of another thing - severe depression can be very dibilitating, and a lot of people are not going to understand how you are feeling. I described it to my mom as best I could today. Broken hearted, heavy, sickening feeling in your soul. It is very awful, and you think it is not going away. The good news is that it is, and you will be better. I would say in less than 8 weeks. Be patient, it is a very bad illness, you can't just snap out of it like a lot of people think. I am thinking about you!
Brian
Posted by Susy on June 13, 2003, at 22:46:07
In reply to Re: I am scared of this medicine, HELP ME!, posted by Cindy W on July 8, 2000, at 11:41:37
Hi, I been taking Xanax for years also and lately I've been feeling like I don't have energy to do anything but still, I feel agitated inside.
My pdoc gave me Paxil and recommend that I take it along with Xanax to overcome Paxil's side effects. I am scared...whenever I read the instructions it says not to take an AD with a Tranquilizer, have anyone of you do it before?
By the way...I took Paxil alone and I experienced the strongest panic attack I ever had!
Please help me with your experiences.Susy
Posted by zinya on June 14, 2003, at 3:13:05
In reply to Re: Role Call - » bgbham, posted by CherC68 on June 13, 2003, at 20:58:36
Hi Cher! (and all)
i'm here! i actually sent you an e-mail the other day, cher, and again just now because it seems you didn't get the first one...
I'm doing okay. The main thing is that all side effects have essentially disappeared for now, and this just now was my 7th dose at the new 2nd level ... and I think i'm noticing some real change in terms of depression, though a new situation made me realize i'm not so sure my anxiety level is much altered yet... Most importantly, there's still no more energy for anything beyond the most minimal of tasks. I have resumed a daily walk this week, which was something i just hadn't managed for a couple of months, minimal as that is...
I have jury duty starting this Monday morning and the idea of rallying the energy for this is going to be a real test...
I wrote something to a friend earlier today which might (or might not) resonate with some here, so i'll share it as my perspective-of-the-day on this still a tad weird idea and reality of perhaps entering into the a-d 'zone' for a truly extended, indefinite period:
... it makes me reflect on how odd it is, in a way, to think that one's body could be "off" in a way where, upon taking something to "correct it," the body's first reaction is to seem to protest or even try to reject it -- by means of the various side effects. One would think that such side effects are the body's way of saying "Hey! This is bad for us in here!" Yet on the other hand, there's the realization that bodies seek equilibrium, even in dysfunctionality, and adapt to the familiar whether it's "off" or "on" target and so to realize that strong side effects are not necessarily a sign of something "wrong" for the body... Well, it's just a bit odd. With previous efforts with other drugs, i did have stronger side effects that made me go off, but maybe that was cuz i didn't divide the initial doses in half like i did this time and taking it twice as slowly as prescribed.
Well, i'm not sure if anybody else here thinks about such paradoxes (?) but maybe...
zoning out here, with hugs,
zinya
Posted by NThompson on June 14, 2003, at 10:13:11
In reply to Re: This is my first day on Effexor XR 37.5MG » NThompson, posted by bgbham on June 13, 2003, at 22:19:57
Thanks for responding. The charcoal well, when I had taken the pills, in the ambulance and hospital they make you drink charcoal to neutralize the pills in your system. And to make you vomit. Very bad taste. Yes I am still here and I am glad. I have two very wonderful children ages 6 and 2. And a husband who is awsomely standing by me, helping me. I almost lost everything, even our house (which we are keeping) and he loves me so much that he's staying with me. Unfortunately, he didn't know how bad I screw things up until I tried to commit suicide. I was hiding, I couldn't face anyone, wasn't paying any bills and when he asked if I did I told him yes. I would turn the phones off and close all the doors so I wouldn't talk to anyone. I would sit and cry all day long. The weird part about it is that no one noticed it. My friends and family had no clue. I hid it from everyone. So, I am now getting help and with the help of a few family members (not everyone knows still) I will make it through this!!!! I want to feel better, great would be nice, but better will work for me. Thank you for your advice and support. My family doesn't know what I'm going through because they haven't been through it. I will stick with the effexor and see what happens. Good luck with you, we will make it through this!
Posted by notquitethereyet on June 14, 2003, at 10:35:46
In reply to Re: I am scared of this medicine, HELP ME!, posted by Susy on June 13, 2003, at 22:46:07
> Hi, I been taking Xanax for years also and lately I've been feeling like I don't have energy to do anything but still, I feel agitated inside.
> My pdoc gave me Paxil and recommend that I take it along with Xanax to overcome Paxil's side effects. I am scared...whenever I read the instructions it says not to take an AD with a Tranquilizer, have anyone of you do it before?
> By the way...I took Paxil alone and I experienced the strongest panic attack I ever had!
> Please help me with your experiences.
>
> Susy
I took paxil for years, all nasty side effects
wore off after a while and it was a very helpful
medicine, so maybe you may improve also
Posted by racergurl74 on June 14, 2003, at 11:05:21
In reply to Re: My Story Day 13, posted by KimberlyDi on June 13, 2003, at 11:34:56
Thank you for your post. I am only 2 days into effexor and I was really discouraged from all the bad results from others posters. But yours gives me hope.
Posted by racergurl74 on June 14, 2003, at 11:21:34
In reply to Re: lets have a role call, posted by sierra1 on June 13, 2003, at 19:07:38
> it's seems we all have different reactions to this med. to get a better idea lets post whether it has a positive or negative on us.
>
> for me so far, its positive....I am new to effexor and new to posting. I have only taken it for 2 days and was looking for info on the med. when I found this website. I think it's great to read all of everyone's experiences. So far, I haven't noticed any side effects. I will keep up with everyone and let you know if anything changes.
Posted by zinya on June 14, 2003, at 11:38:15
In reply to Re: Zinya » zinya, posted by CherC68 on June 11, 2003, at 19:29:08
dear Cher,
Gosh, It seems this post of yours came in the very next one after i had last checked the posts here on Wed. and it was truly surprising to me last night when i checked again and got your latest post to realize that two days had gone by since i'd checked....I dont' quite know why, but in part i've been preoccupied with something here i had to deal with that was making me anxious, but other than that it may have been a good sign cuz (knock on wood) i've been side-effect-free for a few days now ... As I mentioned last night, i had taken up your suggestion and sent you an e-mail and so i was meanwhile a bit surprised i hadn't heard back from the e-mail yet and wondering how you were doing! ;))
But last night when i logged in I was already crashing and only now got to this post of yours about your grandmother and your mom and your wonderful and much appreciated comments, some of which i dare say feel like projection a bit cuz your own tremendous compassion and caring comes across loud and clear... or, maybe, soft and clear :))
Indeed, it does sound like your mom went through and reacted in much the same way I did ... as did you... It was such a complex set of circumstances at the end with the sudden belated discovery of cancer and having to repress at least some of anger i felt at all the doctors for failing so miserably to diagnose it much earlier because i knew i didn't want anger being part -- or much -- of what characterized my last days with her. It's still eerie, surreal, to believe that a year ago now, we still had no clue even 7 weeks before the end. I won't go through the saga here but it was wrenching...
What i realized with time afterwards -- and which was a realization that made me "put off" taking this anti-dep route because I thought maybe just time would heal, not sure what was mourning, what was depression of more than a 'natural response' -- I realized that there was also an overlay of, as a friend perceived it, a kind of post-traumatic stress ... There had been the inordinate stress of the entire last year when mom's pains had started to become a daily reality (and yet the alzheimer's kept her from being able to ever recall when a pain had started or how, and given that she was never one to speak up about pains as well until it was 'too late') and taking her to specialists, testing, etc... finally deciding to buy a home where she could live with me, moving myself and her in together, never really finishing get unboxed and settled into the house except in the rooms she frequented -- fortunately in retrospect just so exhausted from all the moving that i devoted our first month together to just being with her and it was a month of hiatus (turned out to be remission) in which her pains had lapsed, allowing to think that maybe indeed it had been the fact that the nurses at her retirement home had screwed up her daily medicines for some months until i'd discovered it, that they kept screwing up the dietary changes the md. had ordered because of the pains) and allowed me to think that indeed the pleasure of our mutual company was going to be blessed with a return to health for her... And then bang, six weeks after moving in the pains were back and within another month, back with a vengeance... So then kicked in the traumatic stress of the helplessness of desperately seeking yet another doctor (who finally performed the right test) and then of watching the person who loved me more than life itself fade away... The stress of having to make those awful decisions you know as well, after the initial massive increase in pain meds caused her to have some reactions so horrible she wound up for five days in the hospital -- the worst days of all really and also just in those days they too managed to let her get a bedsores on the heels of her feet and never ever getting the pain meds to her fast enough -- then back home and the wrenching decision to agree to the hospice conditions, the ones you had to override your mom to put into effect... And still she fought in her spirit like crazy to survive... One of the last things she said to me - more than a week before the end -- was that she was "gonna get well." A real trooper all her life. And it was both a harrowing and inspiring life lesson to watch such sheer will, in someone who'd already lived 93 totally loving but also many rough rough years, more than her share of life traumas, and yet such obvious desire not to give up ... the hospice nurses were amazed -- by that and by the fact she still looked more like 73 than 93, and that was in such a state of pain and dying ... There were the little things that were part of the process that had their inevitable guilt-inducing voices, but for the most part i kept them at bay and just focused on the moment ... on surrounding us both with transcendent music in her room and constant tenderness...
But then of course atop the stresses of the year of moving and desperate pain diagnosis plus that of witnessing the process itself was overlaid with the grief of loss that was not only losing my mom, my last immediate family member, but also i had become (as had your mom) "my mom's mom" for the alzheimer years and so it was also like losing a child in an odd way, cuz i had so happily filled my sense of identity and self with caring for her as you would a child, helping her with all the things an infant needs help with... My sense of loss of purpose, compounded unexpectedly by having resigned my job to care for her full-time, became at first gradually and then increasingly overwhelming such that i didn't foresee even after she was gone just how bad it was going to get...
What i realize now -- or at least i hope will prove to be borne out by this -- with the months of energyless stasis, almost a kind of paralysis (fortunately having a bereavement group to attend and especially a counselor there who remains a source of tremendous strength as well as my two best friends in particular), i managed somehow, almost miraculously to get through some very dark days of such a sense of loss of "raison d'etre" that the only thing at times that kept me going was remembering (rather guiltily) how hard mom had fought for just one more day. And how could I not fight at least as hard? ...
But I realize now that what this all may have done is to finally force me to face a depression which had been either just below the surface or in full consumption from time to time for years ... that had led to abortive anti-dep attempts over the last 15 yrs without relief or with too many side effects... and that this grief ... and no longer having mom literally here as a if not the raison d'etre that had eventually made me somehow rise to the need ... but this time it wasn't happening, and I do now think that i may always have been a matter which a biochemical component that finally just has refused to go unremedied any longer. It took a lot to reach such a level, to realize that there was more here going on in me than even the grief and the three layers of post-traumatic stress, but something that nine months later was telling me "This is healing with time; this needs something other than either time or mind over matter."
And so here i am.
So so appreciative of the compassion your post conveys and projects and reveals, Cher, and so appreciative of everyone here... whose tales even of horrendous negative reaction I think i required to read and process fully, which took me some extra months to absorb, before realizing with eyes wide open to the risks it represented that i had to take this risk. It was and is, or at least seems now, to be the specific form of 'being a trooper' that mom would have wanted for me, even though she herself needed no such 'supplement' to be the lifelong trooper she was. I actually realize increasingly that it was my dad who i think lived with an unacknowledged depression for essentially all his life (and had been alcoholic for some years that ended when i was 3 and my gentle mom took one of her most courageous stances of giving my dad an ultimatum, and he went cold turkey at the prospect of losing mom and me)... And I may have more of his biochemical predisposition in me than i'd ever fully admitted, seeing now in myself resorting to some of the withdrawal which i saw him go through so chronically...
So what i'm trying to say through all this babbling is that there's been new learning, about myself, about how confronting life and taking risks sometimes means very different decisions than one might expect. Of course, if the side effects from Effexor were (or still prove to be) "over the top" I probably would have to rethink this entire sense of silver lining yet again. But for now, taking this on as a new experience in surely the most "precautious" way any taker ever did ... turning a one-month intro to the drug into a two-month intro by taking only half the prescribed daily dose, aware of my history of bad reaction to others in the past - prozac, etc etc etc - But even though there's still not much improvement in energy, there's already a sense that maybe there's going to come out of all this grief, this trauma, this massive depression, a righting of some kind of imbalance or lack which has really been tugging at me for years, maybe all the way back to a horrid childhood auto accident that left me essentially parentless at age six for a year as mom and dad were nearly killed and laid up for months... a 'theme' of abandonment that has resurfaced and come to be 'understood' via therapy off and on for decades now, yet still maybe i'm finally finding that there was something more than understanding it which was required... and maybe there's going to be some basic 'repair job' here ... That's the sense i've got at this juncture, not "counting on it" cuz past experience lets me know that i could still have prohibitive side effects surface, but for now, i'm optimistic, more frankly than the depression itself had even allowed me to be when i started 3 weeks ago so guardedly...
Well, gee, could i have babbled any more? With my apologies for any tedium in this 'saga' but reaching out here in response to your heartfelt message, Cher, to convey just how magical this bridging via cyberspace feels, and to reciprocate your warm spirit of serendipitous new friendship here...
wishing to hear further that you are doing well, especially since your latest post conveyed your own sense of letdown ...
sending love and embracing warm good wishes,
zinya
Posted by zinya on June 14, 2003, at 11:58:14
In reply to Re: monitoring what we say, posted by Dr. Bob on June 11, 2003, at 20:31:43
Dr. Bob,
I'm a couple of days 'behind' in reading posts here, and just now came on your response here to my post back to you the other day. Thank you for that clarification. And now i'm wondering if I can pose two questions to you directly which exemplify the kind of comment I had thought (perhaps wrongly) might have been challenged if they were in error here. My doctor didn't seem sure about either of these matters.
Specifically, two different posters at different times had said that
a) It's okay to divide capsules in half, which means taking roughly half the granules one night -- just downing them without being in any capsule -- and then the remainder in the capsule the next night.
Is it true that there's no problem with doing this -- which in my case allows me to adjust even more gradually, in light of a past history of bad side effects and ultra-sensitivity to such drugs ??
b) Another poster said that the complementary effects of Effexor on the adrenal system don't start to kick in until 150 mg/day dosage? Is that true? Or does it vary by individual?
If you can answer these questions here, just as confirmation of what i've taken somewhat on face value here, i'd appreciate -- partly cuz i've already on occasion relayed this info on to others and i dont' want to be doing so erroneously. I guess until being reminded by your post, I half-thought that if such things weren't true, you would have stepped in to say so. But I gather your message here to be that that isn't necessarily the case, so I'm posting directly and hope you'll be able to confirm.
Thanks (for future ref, is this the kind of post that instead should be an e-mail to you instead? It seemed to be something of general value so i'm posting here)
zinya
Posted by zinya on June 14, 2003, at 12:29:01
In reply to My Story Day 13, posted by Rickey on June 13, 2003, at 5:12:58
Hi Rickey,
A couple of things in your post really resonated with me in particular... I've been posting a while so maybe you're familiar with me but i dont' think i've read you before, so first of all, welcome!I'm doing this twice as gently but when i moved up from 18 mg to 37.5, i had the same initial reaction as you mention at 75 - sudden overwhelming grogginess and sleepiness and sense of 'fog'... but for me too it passed and i'm letting myself stay at this side-effect-free stage for quite a while before moving up again. A part of me is impatient for more of the positives that are potential, but a bigger part of me is concerned enough to keep to my plan of taking each step twice as gradually, and i'll probably even try to go from 37.5 to about 55 before moving up to 75..
The other thing I reacted to which i'd never seen mentioned and which i find curiously almost embarrassing to mention and so i'm so glad you did: Namely, my aversion to music when i'm depressed. I LOVE music and have the most enormous rich collection of music and the "old me" loved nothing more than to fill my home with brazilian samba or to drive along with music filling my car and singing along when i knew the song... But for years now, and realizing it coincided with periods of depression, i can only listen to "talk" -- meaning tv (mostly news, i'm a fairly politicized person--although, granted, i do wonder sometimes if this world isn't too depressing itself -- although rightly or wrongly i don't think that, for me, compounds my depression and in fact at least mentally energizes me and gives me a focus outside of myself when i can't muster energy for much else) or newsradio like NPR ...
But it's always been a bit baffling and a sense of almost a helpless loss to me that i just can't "do" music in these states. I try every once in a while, but it isn't the same - the instinct to respond to it with gusto isn't there, and I suspect that i avoid the music in part to avoid feeling the lack of gusto that would feel "normal" to me ... Or maybe because music really does tap my soul whereas the news stuff is a mental activity, and maybe my soul is on hiatus? ? or too vulnerable to be tapped into right now? I don't know what it is but i've tried and it's not a matter of "will" ... The very same music i adore feels almost like something i'm 'allergic' to when i'm depressed. As if hearing it now just makes me miss more what is missing. I'm not doing a very good job of articulating this, but I was so glad in a way to read of someone else expressing a similar experience even while you're now doing so as part of celebrating a sign of recovery. I know exactly EXACTLY what you mean and know that for me too that will be a glorious sign of 'resuscitation' of my spirit.
thanks for writing!
zinya
Posted by zinya on June 14, 2003, at 12:50:25
In reply to Re: My First Day on Effexor » bgbham, posted by NThompson on June 14, 2003, at 10:13:11
wow, NT. How brave of you to be confronting this now. I'm so moved to read of your step back from the brink, and what i hope feels like the relief of having your 'secret' out of the closet. For so so so many of us, in fact i would say almost a universal experience -- about whatever phenomenon, for us about depression (and probably other specific things too), it is the hiding which is the worst of all. Not feeling able to reveal to anyone your reality... surely from early deep-seated fears that it's not okay to be not okay. Even though we know intellectually that everybody is not okay about something. Yet *our* not-okay thing seems worse, seems more shameful or more something to feel guilty about... and also to tell ourselves somehow, magically, we'll conquer it from inside our 'closet', while still in secret and no one will ever need to know.
Ah, the irony. Cuz the closet we put ourselves in, the very hiding and secrecy not only worsens the problem, it *becomes* the problem.
Your story, even just sketched as you have shared with us here, evokes such powerful feelings of the false 'knowledge' we can so easily betray ourselves with, by not feeling able to communicate and thus turning in on ourselves.
I hope you hear what a tribute it is to you, that regardless of what you can conjure up to berate yourself with about bills unpaid or whatever, your husband and children are testimony to how much you *are* more than what you *do*. I don't know if you've ever heard of John Bradshaw, who writes and speaks (one of many of course) about family dysfunction and essentially communication skills that most of us don't have, partly cuz our parents didn't either, cuz their parents didn't either... and no one's to *blame* but one of the messages too often passed from generation to generation, esp. in a society like ours, is that we are, as Bradshaw says, "human doings" more than "human beings" -- that our self-worth is measured in terms of what we achieve -- daily or over the long haul -- instead of who we *are.*
It seems clear that you have those who love you for who you *are* ... And perhaps one of the messages that will start to penetrate, as effexor or whatever helps on the biochem side too, is that you're not merely -- as they say about Hollywood -- "only as good as your last film" -- your last deed ... Instead, all of us probably need to take away the internalized sense of shame that is focused on what we haven't *done* (or did *wrong*) ... and is surely the theme of every anxiety at some level...
I'm so glad, in an odd way, that you actually have the bitter reminder of charcoal which perhaps can sharpen for your memory the recall of a path you will only ever take that once.
Welcome here, NT... My posts tend to be long and i've already spoken so much of myself that i won't repeat here, but i'm fairly new too, and it's such a resource and strength that we have each other for support here... Blessings to you,
zinya
Posted by bgbham on June 14, 2003, at 13:58:04
In reply to Re: Role Call - » CherC68, posted by zinya on June 14, 2003, at 3:13:05
Zinya (and all) - I am glad you are feeling better. I too have been able to get in my daily walk, up to a mile almost, around the grounds here at my condo. Even took a moonlight stroll last night with the full moon and was impressed that I had the interest in noticing how beautiful the sky, clouds, and wind were. I too am finding it odd how my brain and body are reacting, both good and bad in terms of emotions and mood. Especially after feeling the physical pain that I had for days that was best described as I have said earlier as "a broken heart". As of late yesterday, my broken heart is gone, and the worst thing I can say about today is the anxiety I have that it may be fleeting. Probably that will subside with a few good days under my belt. Returning to work on Tues for a few hours is scary for me, but I know it will be just what I need to help even further.
Brian
Posted by Sabina on June 14, 2003, at 14:11:59
In reply to Re: I am scared of this medicine, HELP ME!, posted by notquitethereyet on June 14, 2003, at 10:35:46
My doctor gave me Lexapro (10mg)with Xanax (.05mg twice a day). The Xanax really helps with the SE's from the Lex, but it makes me kind of sluggish. I was also worried initally by the combination (then, I worry incessantly, part of my problem!), but it seems like lots of folks posting are doing the same sort of thing with no trouble. I hope this eases your mind a bit.
Posted by stjames on June 14, 2003, at 14:34:46
In reply to Re: monitoring what we say » Dr. Bob, posted by zinya on June 14, 2003, at 11:58:14
>
> Specifically, two different posters at different times had said thatDr Bob does not answer these kind of questions
for several reasons. Some were covered in the
"test" you took to post here.The issue of Effexor at higher doses is well reported, even in the monograph.
Posted by Rickey on June 14, 2003, at 19:21:45
In reply to Re: My Story Day 13 » Rickey, posted by zinya on June 14, 2003, at 12:29:01
Just thought of another example which might give someone some hope. For the past few years it is the little things that really got to me. Practically every day when leaving work and on my way to the bus stop I would see my bus pulling away. I get so angry. If only I had left a minute earlier...why does this always happen to me....etc etc. Yesterday the same thing happened and I thought to myself,,"don't worry another will be along soon". And instead of running and cursing, I just kept walking and caught the next bus. I doubt that this would have taken place 14 days ago(pre-effexor). I am beginning to notice all the little changes.
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