meds please save me.....please

I can't anymore..I don't know over the past 20 some years I've been on so many anti depressants.
I can't count. TrI'd vibryd.
wow what a mess. Suprised I didn't just jump.
this is crazy. What hrlps. Can't take this anymore.
and I don't know if it can get better.

Try Fetzima. Twenty years of being on them and that one has been by far the best for me. Some others have worked. They always poop.

What have you tried besides meds?

Hello tifferific: I've also been on quite a few antidepressants (& other stuff) over the years. For the past 2+ years, I've been on 120 mg. per day of Cymbalta. (This is the maximum recommended dosage.) It's not great, but it's the best med I've tried. Plus I have virtually no side effects.

The thing I wanted to say though is that my experience tells me the most I can hope to get from an antidepressant is that it will keep me from plunging so deep that I become a danger to myself. Beyond that, I have come to the conclusion it is up to me to manage my day-to-day and week-to-week fluctuations. My personal perspective is that we err when we think any med is going to make us feel well. To me, med's are simply one component of an overall plan to deal with my chronic mental health issues. My best wishes to you.

How do you do that, follow through with a health plan? I'm unable to make myself mediate, exercise, etc. I'm stuck. I can't help myself. I can't control the anxiety. I'm always so tired. I've lost all will power, self control, and self confidence. It's been a year and a half and I don't know how to have a life when I can't work and don't want to talk to anyone. I was recommended for ECT because meds didn't work and my program said I knew all the DBT skills but was unable to apply them. I feel hopeless.

What meds have you tried for anxiety? There are meds that are very effective for it.

What meds have you tried for depression? These are not so great and it can take lots of trial and error to find one that works.

The goal of meds is to lift you up to such a place where you can apply your DBT skills and meditate, and exercise, and so on.

I know exactly what it is like to be stuck in bed and not be able to do anything to help myself. When I am in that space I have to set very small goals. Like I will brush my teeth. I will open my mail. I will make that one phone call I need to make. I will take a shower. It may be just one of those each day. When I do that one small thing I feel better about myself and I need to pat myself on the back for doing that one small thing and not beat myself up for not doing more. Baby steps. Go back to the psychiatrist and come up with a new plan. My therapist just pointed out to me that the time of day makes a big difference. I had never thought about that. When deeply depressed I tend to sleep during the day and have absolutely no energy. At night I am more awake. My circadian rhythms get all whacked out. So the most likely time for me to take a shower is not in the morning but late at night. It is probably much more likely I will check my email and phone late at night when in that place.

Another thing she is always telling me is that I have choices. They may not be great choices but I need to figure out what choices I really do have. Even in the most hopeless state we have choices. Realizing that is empowering. They may be very small choices and not the big life changing choices we would like to have. Focus on the very small things you have some control over.

Thank you so much. I would have responded sooner but I was stuck and didn't sign on again. I thought it was weird that I "woke up" at night and thought that was the reason for the insomnia -- I've gone 36+ hours without sleep. I'm useless then because I'm unfit to drive just when my mood motivates me to do something. I wouldn’t use my night time energy because I thought it would add to the insomnia problem. My psychiatrist said it was related to mood and when my mood leveled out my ability to sleep would also. I live alone and find that my behavior and sleep normalize somewhat when my boyfriend is here or I am staying with other people. My psychiatrist encourages the baby step approach your recommend. I also have lowered my expectations. That was hard to do. I've always had high expectations for myself. I never thought of myself as a perfectionist until I was in DBT training. Frankly I was shocked. I had a highly visible job and in some areas of my work "perfect" was expected and I felt absolutely necessary. I strove for perfection when close is the best anyone can do and not necessary in all aspects of the job and not in my personal life. Since I posted the doctor has increased my dose of lamotrigine. It has begun to kick in and it helps. This is my second attempt. I ended the first when I began to have tremors in my non-dominant hand that I found scary and embarrassing. I also had an increase in the twitches I have due to disk damage in my neck and back. The tremors stopped when I lowered the dose. I do not know if it was a coincidence or a true side effect. I’m sorry this is so long. I am anxious as I’ve backed out at the last minute of six social or doctor appointments and I have my son and his girlfriend coming for brunch tomorrow and have a weeklong visit to out of state relatives. Everyone has been so patient with me and I am so unreliable. Again, that you so much for your response.

Female, age 62, on disability
Treatment Resistant Depression & Anxiety
- Bupropion HCL ER XL 150 mg
- Duloxetine 90 mg
- Lamotrigine 50 mg
- Xanax 0.5 mg as needed
- ECT treatments 23 treatments over five months
Additional medications for:
Acid reflux
Congestive Heart failure
Degenerative disc disease
Narcolepsy, sleep apnea, insomnia

Hi tifferific,



Maybe you should talk to your MD and suggesting getting a second set of eyes to review your situation? That's a very normal thing to do. I wouldn't be shy about asking something like that if you think things aren't going well.

It might also be worth double checking that there are no medical or nutritional issues that are underlying your depression that might have developed over time or might have been missed at the beginning. I made a partial list of these things here

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...escaped-8.html

from a talk by Mark Hyman. See post #74.

- vital

I have the same problem as you. I have tried almost all the antidepressants out there. I am now on pristq & it is not working either. I do not know how much longer I can go on like this either. Hating everything, nothing brings me pleasure. I have my son & 2 grandsons coming to visit on Fri. & instead of looking forward to it I am dreading it. Just want to curl up in a ball under covers forever.

Me too. I know all the good stuff to do, and lack the motivation to actually carry through with it. I try to count the small bits of action. the days I work. I've tried so so many antidepressants. but sleeping is easier than anything else. It kinda helps to know that i'm not alone in this. It helps to be able to grump about it, too.