At a time of need

[Katieb30]

Hi all,

I'm a 30yo woman and have had depression for as long as I can remember. I've been on medication since I was about 15yo.

On Wednesday I went away with my partner for a few days to help him out for work. I forgot to pack my medication and therefore hasn't taken it since Tuesday.. The effects of not having my meds are physically and emotionally draining. Physically I have been feeling myself suffer the withdrawals from the medication and can only describe what happens as some sort of electrical impulse that goes right through my head and the rest of my body. It's an awful feeling and not one I hope to feel again.

emotionally I have not been able to stop crying. My life is great. I have no reason to cry but alas am fighting back tears as I type this.

i wanted to come on to this forum to see whether anyone out there living with depression and anxiety believes it is possible to manage these illnesses without being on medication? I think it's wrong that one would go through such physical and emotional trauma simply from not taking a tablet!! Am wondering if anyone out there has had success from just CBT and leading a healthy lifestyle?

Thanks in advance!!

[geoff]

dear Katie, I feel for you, as I know what's it's like when you aren't taking your antidepressants, the same happened with me, when I rang out of scripts, and had to wait another week so that I could get them again, I couldn't stand it, so I went to my pharmacist and told him my situation, so he gave me enough until I saw my doctor.

I would cry with an ad on TV, anything, and my CBT was going well, and had been for a few years, but no, I couldn't go off them, as my doctor said to me this week 'that I can't be cured it's how I manage it'.

This is because a depressed person is always the first to suffer from any event that has gone wrong, unfortunately we inherit it from being depressed before.

I have said before that I have overcome depression, maybe, I feel OK, but that's not to stop me from having a relapse, and my chances of having this are so much greater than a 'normal' person becoming depressed.

I am basically not prepared to try and come off them, as I have been told that I will need to take them for the rest of my life, I accept that.

As you have been taking them for 15 years doesn't necessarily mean that will be able to stop, and by the way you sound from your post, it seems as though you should keep taking them. L Geoff. x

[The_Real_David_Charles]

Dear Katie,

Go to the nearest pharmacy/chemist and they'll be able to make up an interim supply and take your GP's details etc as a back up.

I always feel that CBT therapy sounds a bit like CBD therapy - imagining driving around madly within the city and enduring heaps of frustration so that at the end of the day you mellow out.  My bad.  It probably doesn't matter what therapy you try as long as your heart's in it.   If I don't take my bipolar meds within 48 hrs I am climbing the walls and not much later in intensive psychiatric care.   However, some bipolar sufferers enjoy this flight of fancy despite the drawbacks.

Hope you find some gentler times ahead.  Probably best not to drive

Adios, David.

PS  All rise for the National Sympton:   Advance Depression Fair.

[christopher]

Went off my meds once, thought I was invicible, had 3 awesome days, then I walked down the back paddock and collapsed in ball crying, crawling through the dirt, took me an hour to get up and gain some control. Back on my meds now and levelled out again. I'll stick with what I have, it aint so bad after all !!!!!

take care all......