Extreme Fatigue / World Too Loud, Too Busy - Help

[DharmaGirl]

If you are enduring life you are still living. Keep enduring. Your therapist (T) should expect you to be depressed, you haven't had her support in FIVE weeks. That is a long time! You did a great job holding on this long! Your T should be expecting a wild woman. At least my T would. Keep holding on, you can do this. Keep posting.

 

[NovemberStar]

Thank you @FridayJones and @DharmaGirl for the encouragement.

@FridayJones I don't think it's that the med is working yet - I'm on a very small dose and only just started it - my depression is very up and down - I can be feeling great one day and then into the depths of depression hell the next. My worst depression lasts days rather than weeks - although overall I can be feeling depressed for weeks or months, more low grade though. It's when I look into the future - as in the next week or few weeks and months, it seems so bleak and hopeless. Bottom line my feeling is 'I really don't want to do this anymore'' . Looking into the weeks / months ahead I just feel despair - it feels too much - that it will be summer is especially triggering somehow. Because I can't remember the trauma at the heart of the flashbacks, I can only guess that perhaps it happens at this time of year. Things such as the smell of cut grass, the warmth if the sun, the summer feeling in the air triggers flashbacks - or not even flashbacks but just a desperate need to AVOID having flashbacks.

The problem with 'getting more help' is that there isn't more help. I WISH I felt there was back up support - I wish I felt that if / when I am very suit dial I could rely on someone else to keep me safe, but it's not an option where I am. The psych services seem to only give a rats ass if you're 'crazy' and suicidal - if you're not experiencing delusions, and want to kill yourself, then it's up to you whether or not you do. They don't seem to see 'being suicidal' as anything that requires support for. Not if you're not delusional anyway.


@DharmaGirl - that's probably true. Sigh. Just feeling like I'm a massive burden and that she will be DREADING seeing me and having to listen to how bad and terrible I've been feeling while she's been away :(.

I feel I OUGHT to email my pdoc and ask for advice about the med. I really don't know if the thoughts of suicide are in response to everything that's happening (ie PTSD related) or if it's the new med making them worse. I think I'd still feel suicidal but it's the almost obsessive nature of the thoughts - they come up and interrupt in my head a LOT. Intrusive thoughts of suicide - 'just do it, stop just thinking about it and debating ...'

Logical part of me says I need to email her - the other part of me says I'm creating drama, that she will roll her eyes and be absolutely sick of me. My T is back Friday. My pdoc is only here for the rest of the week then away for 3 weeks; I ought to email her while I can. It scares me she won't be available AGAIN for most of a month - what will I do if I continue to really struggle when she's gone? Seems the only back up option is to turn to the public system and that is seriously UNhelpful.

 

[NovemberStar]

I emailed her. I've asked if I can stop the lamotrigine. I think my mood would be fluctuating whether or not I'm on it, but I really do feel it's impacting my thoughts and how I'm experiencing them. It's unsettling. I'm going to take larazepam I've been prescribed to help deal with a) the thoughts, b) coming of lamotrigine. I suspect the way Risperidol works is different to lamotrigine but they seem to both affect me in this strange way.

 

[new gamma rays]

Do not just ditch the lamotrigine because you are feeling weird on it. If you want to go off of it, you need to titrate as slowly as you went up on it - i.e. very slowly. I think of it as sort of the bricks or mortar that keep my mind's structure in place. If I go lower, my mind is likely to fall apart a lot easier. In essence, because that is what it is - a mood stabilizer. And without going into the neurological aspect of it, it controls the basic structure of your brains communication. So tapering is very important. If you do go off of it I would consider trying to phase into another mood stabilizer while you are tapering. Just my thoughts.

It may very well be making you feel off. It did that to me the first time I tried it. The second time I really didn't have much of a choice and now I am on 200 mg. I hate having another medicine I can't reduce without major problems, but it does some kind of job for me.You may have gone up too fast and that may be what's making you feel off. I"m not saying stay on it, but you definitely don't want to add withdrawal from an anticonvulsant into the mix all of a sudden.

Also I'm sorry that your pdoc is going away. Can you reach her by email while she's gone - on the understanding that it will only be on this important matter. Does she have an associate she could recommend to cover while she's away?

 

[NovemberStar]

@new gamma rays I'm only on 25mg, and only been on it for 10 doses. I doubt there will be much of a drop if I go off it at this point.

I haven't heard back from my pdoc. I might try half a tablet tonight instead of stopping the one 25 mg tablet - although I think I'd rather be free of it and just drop the one. I think it's making the other meds I'm on less effective - I read how it makes the larazepam metabolise faster (less effective for less time) and I rely on that med to get me through the very severely risky times (I take half a tablet of 1mg twice a week so really not using it much but don't want to have to use it much).

I feel more "awake" when I prefer feeling a bit sedated. I don't know if my thoughts are worse or not on it but I'm prepared to stop it for now, and consider trying introducing it again in a wee bit.

All the psych Drs where I see my pdoc are booked up for weeks in advance... What I do want to do is to see my pdoc when she's back and one up with a more concrete plan for the times she's away and I need to be seen. Even if I just have a letter from her to take this me if I ever have to use the shitty public service - since they don't listen to me, maybe a latter from my pdoc might mean I'm listened to and believed.

 

[anthony]

but last time this passed and it was ok in the end

I will tell you the same thing I have told others in this case.... get yourself into a routine and stick the evidence on your fridge, inside cupboards you frequently open, phone reminders, so forth. Basically... when a constant and ongoing update you keep that bothers you to remind you, so that when you are feeling crap and can't remember the realism of the situation, you have something prompting you.

This works... until you finally get it engrained and no longer require those reminders.

 

[new gamma rays]

Well if you're only on 25 mg, you can disregard pretty much everything I said.