Depression

[sisu]

Sorry, this is a little long…

Here is the deal….my friends major issue with his ptsd ~ or the issue that seems to effect us the most is his depression. A couple times a year he goes into this deep depression and just wants to be alone and sleep. He works during the day as a teacher and goes to school two nights a week, so he has to function “normally” at both of those places. He has two kids who come over on the weekends and one night a week. When they are over he minimally functions….cooks for them, does their laundry, fills their basic needs. But other than that he just sits there even when they are over.

He takes about 5 pills per day prescribed by the psych doc at the VA ~ not sure what all of them are. He has told me before…I think back pain, depression, hallucinations and sleeping pill. The one for depression is Wellbutrin and he was on the max dosage for that. He just visited the psych doc for his 3 month visit a week ago and he told them that he was very depressed. All they did was tweak his meds by actually lowering them. Lower on his hallucination med and a tiny bit lower on his Wellbutrin.

I have known this man for 4 years and his depression is cyclical. He goes into these deep depressions a couple times every year. We are about 4 weeks in and it seems to last on average about 6 weeks. When he is in the “dark place” he pushes me away and is convinced that I deserve someone better. However, when I am around him and we are talking and doing normal things, he actually seems happier even when he is in that “dark place”. We are sitting on the top of the fence right now with our relationship. He is on the brink of trusting me enough to see the bad and is on the brink of understanding that I am there and I do understand. I know if he just allows me to be around him and I can get him back into life his “dark place” will go away quicker. The self-deprecating thoughts he is having right now are making him think that I would never want him. He is not always like this and the good far outweigh the bad…but he doesn’t see that right now. He had convinced himself that it would be better for me to be with someone “normal”, but after we last talked he is now confused and I am too. Honestly, in our society today…what or who is “normal”?!?

So, I have a couple of questions…(and I know you aren’t medical professionals ~ just asking opinions)

1) From your personal experience, do you think that he is just on the wrong meds or is this “dark place” depression a couple times a year unavoidable with ptsd?
2) Does therapy help depression?
3) When he is in his “dark place”, he doesn’t reach out to anyone because he feels unworthy….I want to reach out to him, but I don’t want to make it worse. What should I do? How often should I reach out? This is something we will talk about when he is feeling better. Like, what does he need me to do… But, I can’t ask him that now, so I need to get your viewpoint. What you want people who love you to do…

Anway, thanks for your help. I have learned so much about combat ptsd and what he is experiencing. It’s so nice to talk to other soldiers and soldiers wives who understand. Thanks!!

 

[femaleveteran]

I am always encouraged when i hear about one of the partners in a relatinship who so badly wants to understand their partners PTSD like you obviously do Elizabeth. It gives me some hope that maybe I will one day find such a person myself or maybe my ex and I will be able to patch things up somehow.

As far as the VA that sounds about on par with what I have been experiencing when I go there. I go to a group once a week but other than that I only have individual appointments with a counselor about once every three months. I have only seen my counselor once since I have been diagnosed. I have another appointment coming up shortly but I know it is only a fifteen miinute appointment and then I have not even seen the actualy doctor who does the prescribing of my medications. I guess the person I see individually tells them what they think about how I appear and what I tell them is going on and the doctor prescribes based upon that.

I do not know about medications and all that. I cannot say that I have noticed any tremendous difference since being on mine. Sometimes I feel like I do not even know why I have been taking them the last four months. I hate to say this but the only thing I think is beneficial is the Clonapin I take when I am feeling really anxious and wound up. It brings me back down to normal and slows my brain down enough so I can think stright and not have a hundred and eleven thousand different thoughts running through my head at one time. but as far as the Zoloft I am on and the Mirtazapine...well, I really cannot say if they have helped at all. I cannot say that they have not. I mean maybe I would be even worse now if I had not started taking them but I really cannot be sure of any change in either direction.

I don't really know how to answer any of your questions other than to say that I think that coming to this forum and to a certain extent going to the PTSD group I go to do help me with not feeling so depressed sometimes. ever since I found this forum I can honestly say I am feeling a bit better about a few things. And the group I go to I have to say that there are many days, just like today when I do not want to go there, but I never feel worse afterwards. I might have some confusion afterwards and some questions about things that other veterans say in there but I never feel worse. It helps to get out and get some of that social interaction stuff and I do tend to isolate quite a lot so I think it helps me to get to that group once a week. I do not know if individual therapy would help as I have not had that opportunity yet, but from what I have been hearing from others on here, if the therapist is decent and knows what they are doing with regards to PTSD then most on here tend to think it certainly cannot hurt.

Back to the medications though. From the reading I have done on other websites about psychiatric medications, and what I know myself a little bit about having been a medical person in the military, it does take some time for the meds to start working and othe veterans in my group have said that not all meds work the same for different people. Some people might take one med and they notice a big improvement right away whiel other guys I have talked to have been on five or six different meds over rthe course of a period of time and it took them all that time to find something that even just "seems" to work. So I do not know about meds like I said. Call me a skeptic but I do not think throwing medication at the problem of PTSD, Or any other mental health issue for that matter, is any kind of silver bullet fix, does that make sense? I just have come to truly believe that there has to be some kind of care taken of the soul and the wounds that medications cannot heal before one can truly see any relief from this hell of PTSD. I really feel like I am in hell, or at the most just a few blocks away from it, sometimes so that is how I have sort of referred to the illness lately.

Again though and this is the most important thing I want to say to you is THANK YOU. You are being there for another veteran and that means alot to me personally. There are so many vets who have no one at all to be there and support them in those "dark places" , as you put it, and I know that I personally am grateful for all of you out there who manage somehow to continue to want to love people like us or be a part of our lives. I know it means a lot to your man and I know that it gives me hope that there is someone out there like that who I might one day meet, or maybe my ex- will get himself some education about all of this and he and I will start speaking again and be able to work things out. Bottom line is i say again...you all who are spouses of veterans really give me some hope and you have no idea how much it means to us to have someone in this life who actually wants to be around us. When you have seen or been a part of some of the things that a combat zone has to offer it can make a person feel very unloveable and really as we are terrible people....I am sure for many others it is far worse for them than it has been for me since I was just a medic person. But like I told my ex one time, it is one thing to admit that you have seen or been a bystander to the worst parts that humanity has to offer but it is an entirely different proposition to admit that you were an actual working PART of the worst that humanity has to offer. That is the thing that I struggle with. I know when I volunteered for the military I knew that I could one day be called upon to engage in certain activities but when it became a reality it was something far different and it has been hard for me to admit that I was an actuall "cog in the machine" so to speak.

maybe that is what your guy is feeling like a little bit too. Maybe that is why he feels so unloveable and all that. But see those are exactly the types of issues that I do not personally think can be solved by any type of pill. Only therapy with someone who knows what they are doing is going to help any of us with those types of issues. I still view myself as largely being not just unloveable but I do not even think I am even likeable most of the time. That again is a hard battle to fight with oneself. People can tell me all day that they like me but until I believe it myself and until I can like myself again then none of it is ever going to matter what someone else think about me.

I do not know if any of this helps you at all. I just thought the way you describe how you feel about your guy was very touching and it is so obvious that you care and I was moved by that. Again thank you for being out there for at least one of us. It means more than you will ever know to ALL of us. I truly mean that.

 

[zigadenus]

I have not ever had PTSD, but I have been on meds, etc. for depression and anxiety for over 20 years. (A lot of mine is genetic) It frequently takes a few tries to get the right medications working, and most of them don't show a real effect for 2-6 weeks. I also think Dawn is right in that you can't just throw pills at something like this. I think the best thing would be a combination of talk therapy and medication. It is possible that PTSD is going to be a chronic illness like diabetes or heart disease. We can only keep trying to make things better. It might help for your SO to have letters and things you have written to him when he begins to feel like he isn't worth much. It is hard to remember the good times when you are in a pit. It is a very hard thing to feel worthless and not worth people's bother. It could be that his depression is related to Seasonal Affective Disorder. Sometimes there is more than one reason for depression. Just my 2 cents:)

 

[willis williams]

Elizabeth, look up wellbutrin and combat PTSD I was on it and blacked out and lost a hole day and a half was told later what I had done. Then I was told at the VA by a dr. that the FDA had change the recomendation of that drug which is a antiphsycotic because it can cause depression to worsen and a risk for phsycotic episodes in combat PTSD vets. I don't know how much validity there is to it because I quit taking it and never followed through on researching it. I hope that everything turns out for you! TEX

 

[zigadenus]

Thanks for your recommendation Tex. It shows that PTSD can affect drug effects/interactions in ways that are unknown right now. I have been on Wellbutrin for over 10 years and is hasn't caused me to have any blackouts or anything. It would be nice if we had all the answers but medicine at it's best is sometimes just an educated guess and wait-and-see. Best Wishes!

 

[Jimmy1]

I don't know if you guys would remember, but Wellbutrin over here is also know as Zyban, and although its an anti-depressant, they used to use it to aid people giving up smoking. That was over ten years ago I tried it, and it did not work. The only way to give up smoking by the way is if you want to. 20 weeks now and I still don't want one, stress and all.

 

[Jimmy1]

Now for my two cents worth on depression.

I only have three children of my own, but another 4 that I call my children and who call me dad, and soon when I marry again, another 3. There may be more out there I don't know about (Jokes).

Anyway, before I go off on a tangent, in 2004, a few years before I knew about the effects of depression, one of my sons, who was 15, I think, was being treated for depression, and was given liquid anti-depressants. My first thoughts were, 'What in the f*ck does he have to be depressed about'. I used to tell him so too.
I used to say 'harden up mate. You have your own room, your own tv, you have a pc to use, you get fed, clothed and are basically allowed to do what you want' So what are you depressed about'.

Now I know that a lot of things can aggravate and cause people to be depressed, and sometimes you just are.

The one thing we were taught on the course is that its ok to be depressed. And if there is a reason, try to extricate yourself from that thing. But sometimes, you just don't know why. And, you can get yourself in a frenzy over trying to work out why. Does that make sense.

 

[zigadenus]

That make a lot of sense. Sometimes things just are, and the letting them be is the point of the exercise. There are some things that we can get away from and some things that we just have to deal with. One of the major problems with life is that we can't escape our old one, we can only modify how we think about it. The old "Wherever you go, there you are." problem. Sometimes we just have to get to a point where we accept where we are and what we are and go from there instead of wishing so hard that things were different.