YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

It's one of those days where I want to tell everyone to f**** off. I don't want to be messed with. My pdoc says I need to be on something for depression , but everything I've tried had horrible side effects. I guess I'm just sensitive to the side effects. Depression is interesting for me to say the least. That's when I start doing things like tarot cards, chakra meditations etc. I'm not saying they're bad, they just happen to be a trigger for me. I also hear things that aren't there. When the depression goes away, I don't notice the audible hallucinations so much.

I went to a therapist this week, and even though I told her a few times that I'm not interested in antidepressants bc of side effects, she ignored me and asked me for my pdoc's phone #. I'm going to try another therapist. I understand why the therapist feels I need additional meds, but let's face it...I have to function at work. I can't do that if I'm asleep at my desk or if my heart is beating out of my chest and I'm lightheaded on top of that.

Thanks for listening. Hugs to you all.

Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with meds. My mother also has depression. She is poorly served by meds because she doesn't do talking-therapy/cognitive-therapy - she just wants the pills to handle everything. But all pills for mental illness seem to have a poop-out factor where they just don't work as well anymore, and a change may be needed. But when you change pills, all the horrible side-effects rise up.

I just use the pills to level me out - but depression is still a problem. Lately, in the mornings, I feel the hopelessness and my early morning dreams are about my hopeless and powerless times in my life, and I feel it strongly. I use cognitive-therapy to raise my mood to where I am as productive as I can manage. So the two used together seems to work for me.

You are the expert on your own situation and experience. Please take care, all the best, thanks for keeping us informed and keeping the forum vibrant. Cheers!

That EXTREME irritation -- that was something I never felt any relief from until I got on mood stabilizers. From what I know, that's a form of mania. When everybody's mannerisms and little slip ups make you immediately want to condemn them to death -- that's some kind of frenzied overreaction. I know the feeling well. I never felt any relief from it outside of medication and if that's not what you're looking for, I may not be of any help but for me, I've punched far fewer walls and the teeth I've ground to a fine powder have been rebuilding themselves pretty well since I got on mood stabilizers.