Help/Support ► Mental Health

[Enchanted Rose]

Earlier in the year, I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and severe depression. To be honest, this had probably been going on for some time, but it was only intercepted and identified after I had a series of particularly bad panic attacks. I was referred to a Psychological Unit, but bureaucracy and lack of resourcing meant that it was months later before they started on treatment. This took the place of several CBT sessions (or rather, a ‘lite’ version of CBT, guided by ‘psychological well-being practitioners’). I hugely appreciated the support, but being as superficial as it was, it had very little curative value. In my opinion, its chief flaw is that, even though it tries to correct negative thought patterns, it doesn’t establish and untangle the origins behind these.

All this was very low-key. I never went on any medication. I didn’t really tell anyone about this, even my parents. It was a terribly sad time - probably exacerbated by the lack of a support network. I simply internalized all my distress in the most accommodating of ways, so that I could go about all my daily activities, as per normal.

To contextualize: I’ve always had melancholic tendencies, but I think the severity of the depression was attributable to few very testing things which regrettably happened simultaneously - and, I believe nearly everyone would have struggled given the conditions. Thus, being ‘circumstantial’, many of these problems have more or less dissipated, but I still feel highly anxious. I still have incredibly bad insomnia, and have many symptoms of anxiety, like trouble breathing and tightness in my chest. I heard that depression is a response to pass loss, and anxiety a reaction to future loss. I feel like I’m preparing for that time when things will inevitably fall apart – as they had previously done – and I will be unable to cope. I often find myself preparing for a fight or flight scenario that will only manifest within the confines of my imagination. I’m obsessively trying to control as much as possible, because of the things that I couldn’t control, that I suffered so badly from.

In short, I’m expending an unnatural amount of mental activity with constant worrying, and over speculation, and meanwhile, I feel physically drained. I don’t have many serious problems, it’s just the ‘what-if’s that are stopping me from living my life...

So, I was wondering if anyone had any experiences with depression, anxiety or any other variants of mental health problems? If so, how has it affected you and how are you dealing with it? What treatments work the best? Did you manage to recover?

Thanks in advance for any comments, advice and so on.

 

[inasuma]

First of all, I'm very sorry to hear that you have such crippling anxiety. I know first hand what that can be like. It isn't something to wish on anyone, even the worst of enemies. Good job not taking meds and seeking CBT. I had talk therapy and that worked moderately well, and my therapist was a hot chick to boot.

At any rate, I've sort of had depression growing up, but never had anxiety until January of 2011. It amplifies depression quite a bit, as self-realization is at an all-time peak in anxiety. Among the many symptoms, the worst has probably been the feeling of having crappy vision (less peripheral). Vision is actually fine, it's just the feeling. Also, feeling dizzy/having vertigo-esque issues has been a problem. The other horrible thing is depersonalization/derealization (which I'm sure you've experienced? It's very common). It feels awful to not feel like yourself, and your body doesn't feel like your own.

All the symptoms can shut you down pretty quick. I was down in the dumps/doing the absolute minimum for about 6 months before I started getting better.

Feeling better isn't easy but if you are adamant and persistent, it's possible; also, it's just good advice in general: exercise, eat healthy, practice exercises to calm yourself during panic attacks as well as other self awareness exercises (meditation, sitting out in a park, observing nature, etc etc). It took me about 8 months of that and a few months of talk therapy to really feel better. There's lots of other things you can do, like taking fish oil or vitamin (B vitamins especially), but those never worked for me. People have had success with those apparently, so I can't write it off though...

Minimize stress and your point of view on the work/activities that are stressing you out. And have someone to talk to, ffs.

On a side note, the lingering anxiety doesn't really go away... but it gets tolerable. idk, mine's gone 99% of the time nowadays, only ever creeping up when I'm under a stressful situation.

 

[Ehres]

Yeah. My uncle is 33 years of age and he's had paranoid schizophrenia since birth. I've lived with it all my life. He went to boarding school, special college, etc. and even then lost 10 years of his life to hospital. I've seen him running in front of cars and pretending to kill people and walking into walls with blood running over his face. Without his daily meds, he's screwed. But for the past few years he's done very well for himself and has a nice, quiet little routine. My aunt at the moment is severely bipolar and mentally delusioned. It's very difficult but with my uncle it's all about pacing. Control. You have to really organise yourself in advance and know your limits. Don't fluster yourself or you become stressed. ALWAYS take your meds and if you feel bad side-effects, talk to your doctor about it to get them adjusted. Just don't stress.

 

[stephaknee]

I've been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD, and Major Depressive Disorder. I have tried meds a couple of times, with limited success. I attribute this mostly to the fact I did not want to rely on medication to be happy. I've had some very low "lows," including two deliberate drug overdoses and ER trips. Mental illness has a way of enticing you in and not letting you go.

I think the first thing you need to do, per your statement "In my opinion, its chief flaw is that, even though it tries to correct negative thought patterns, it doesn’t establish and untangle the origins behind these," is to let go of this idea, in a sense. Focusing on why you have these feelings is almost counterproductive. If you have a mental illness, you will /always/ have a mental illness. It is part of who you are. Let go of what you think "happy" is. I used to get so focused and caught up on achieving this make believe idea of happiness that it brought me even further down. Depressed and anxious feelings will always surface. It is part of who you are.

And even though you can never eradicate this, you can control it. And this is far more important and this is why CBT is the most successful therapy. Mental illness, like I said, has a way of snaring you in. It's because there is some intrinsic reward to giving in to negative thoughts. There is some relief and comfort and it's hard to let go. I've compared it to a drug addiction before. You know it's not good for your health but there is some reward value.

What has helped me more than anything is realizing what I'm feeling and then forcing myself to think about other things. It is not easy, and it sounds absurd. And I'm not trying to be like "hurr all you have to do is not feel that way derr." I'm not talking about burying your feelings and pretending they don't exist. I constantly have to say to myself "This is what I am feeling. What I am feeling is irrational. I am going to change how I feel about this." And it is hard, it is a struggle, but it works. Depression is so hard because you lose that motivation to change.

I still get lows. I still get "crazy" thoughts. But my life, compared to a year ago, is infinitely better. It is a struggle and it is hard but I finally feel like a human being again. Things can and will get better but fighting mental illness is very hands on it is just that - a fight.

Feel free to PM me if you ever need to talk to anybody, too. And feel better <3!

 

[Enchanted Rose]

Thanks everyone. I’ve heard that 1 in 4 people in the Western World suffer from mental health problems, but I haven’t personally come across anyone, and of course, it still does have a level of stigma attached, so it’s really useful to hear people’s experiences and opinions.

First of all, I'm very sorry to hear that you have such crippling anxiety. I know first hand what that can be like. It isn't something to wish on anyone, even the worst of enemies. Good job not taking meds and seeking CBT. I had talk therapy and that worked moderately well, and my therapist was a hot chick to boot.
....

Minimize stress and your point of view on the work/activities that are stressing you out. And have someone to talk to, ffs.

On a side note, the lingering anxiety doesn't really go away... but it gets tolerable. idk, mine's gone 99% of the time nowadays, only ever creeping up when I'm under a stressful situation.

So glad that you’ve almost entirely recovered, and I’m going to take on board what you’ve said here. I kind of like the idea of therapy too – perhaps it’s kind of retrograde to champion ideas like ‘talking makes it easier’, but I guess it’s also that knowing someone has your back makes it feel like you have a safety net. I feel that having someone neutral to talk to is key too, as you never want to become dependent on friends, or shit gets kind of messy.

Yeah. My uncle is 33 years of age and he's had paranoid schizophrenia since birth. I've lived with it all my life. He went to boarding school, special college, etc. and even then lost 10 years of his life to hospital. I've seen him running in front of cars and pretending to kill people and walking into walls with blood running over his face. Without his daily meds, he's screwed. But for the past few years he's done very well for himself and has a nice, quiet little routine. My aunt at the moment is severely bipolar and mentally delusioned. It's very difficult but with my uncle it's all about pacing. Control. You have to really organise yourself in advance and know your limits. Don't fluster yourself or you become stressed. ALWAYS take your meds and if you feel bad side-effects, talk to your doctor about it to get them adjusted. Just don't stress.

This, I think, is a really important point. Sometimes I feel like I should take things down a level. One reason for my excessive anxiety was borne out of me trying to do a billion things and then feeling stressed and anxious when I couldn’t meet my expectations and feeling guilty for being lazy and evading stuff I needed to do. I would mentally plot things that I could do to better my life, and then when I couldn’t realize them I felt even more hopeless. I think understanding limitations is essential.

I've been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD, and Major Depressive Disorder. I have tried meds a couple of times, with limited success. I attribute this mostly to the fact I did not want to rely on medication to be happy. I've had some very low "lows," including two deliberate drug overdoses and ER trips. Mental illness has a way of enticing you in and not letting you go.

I think the first thing you need to do, per your statement "In my opinion, its chief flaw is that, even though it tries to correct negative thought patterns, it doesn’t establish and untangle the origins behind these," is to let go of this idea, in a sense. Focusing on why you have these feelings is almost counterproductive. If you have a mental illness, you will /always/ have a mental illness. It is part of who you are. Let go of what you think "happy" is. I used to get so focused and caught up on achieving this make believe idea of happiness that it brought me even further down. Depressed and anxious feelings will always surface. It is part of who you are.

And even though you can never eradicate this, you can control it. And this is far more important and this is why CBT is the most successful therapy. Mental illness, like I said, has a way of snaring you in. It's because there is some intrinsic reward to giving in to negative thoughts. There is some relief and comfort and it's hard to let go. I've compared it to a drug addiction before. You know it's not good for your health but there is some reward value.

What has helped me more than anything is realizing what I'm feeling and then forcing myself to think about other things. It is not easy, and it sounds absurd. And I'm not trying to be like "hurr all you have to do is not feel that way derr." I'm not talking about burying your feelings and pretending they don't exist. I constantly have to say to myself "This is what I am feeling. What I am feeling is irrational. I am going to change how I feel about this." And it is hard, it is a struggle, but it works. Depression is so hard because you lose that motivation to change.

I still get lows. I still get "crazy" thoughts. But my life, compared to a year ago, is infinitely better. It is a struggle and it is hard but I finally feel like a human being again. Things can and will get better but fighting mental illness is very hands on it is just that - a fight.

Feel free to PM me if you ever need to talk to anybody, too. And feel better <3!

That must be extremely difficult to contend with, and I’m really happy that you’ve experienced such an improvement.

What you’ve said is really interesting. My reason for slightly slating CBT is that I felt it was too soon for me – it was trying to impose a set of rational frameworks on some very irrational thoughts and feelings, and it was jarring me. But I see that you are right in the fact that perhaps PTSD aside, then if you have a disposition towards mental illness, then that’s it. And obviously it’s changing your way of thinking that then becomes the most important ally in recovery, rather than focusing in on particular incidences that may have made you feel even more negative etc.

Actually, the element of CBT that I did find most useful was precisely trying to undermine negative thought patterns, so for instance reasoning why worrying was pointless - these were some notes I made at the time:

Spoiler Show

o Worrying is unproductive: it can’t solve problems.
o Worrying is detrimental as it makes one tired and ill. Choosing to not worry is a step to protect one’s mental health.
o It’s better to be optimistic
- you are competent and experience enough to probably be able to deal with unfavourable outcomes/situations
- besides, what’s the worst that could happen, and is that really that bad?
o Worrying during a set time, and writing down worries can help (noting whether they are solvable or unsolvable). After the worries have been identified, and articulated, it’s time to move on.

Yeah, so I will persist in trying to find the right treatment, but I feel quite positive from what you've said. Apologies in advance if you get any overly emo PMs from me in the future

 

[inasuma]

So glad that you’ve almost entirely recovered, and I’m going to take on board what you’ve said here. I kind of like the idea of therapy too – perhaps it’s kind of retrograde to champion ideas like ‘talking makes it easier’, but I guess it’s also that knowing someone has your back makes it feel like you have a safety net. I feel that having someone neutral to talk to is key too, as you never want to become dependent on friends, or shit gets kind of messy.

Great! Having a "safe" person helps a lot, too, in co-op with therapy. I had my dad to call, even at the latest hours of the night, which was super reassuring. I hope you feel better and good luck with therapy (CBT or otherwise).