Still Depressed

[jacx]

I finally got in to see a psychiatrist last week. I'd been feeling mostly recovered from my depression - I'm not crying every damn day anymore. But the psychiatrist administered a depression inventory and said that I'm still moderately depressed, so he added lexapro (10 mg) and seroquel (50 mg) to my Wellbutrin (300 mg). Gave me a diagnosis of chronic PTSD plus major depression. I guess it's nice to think that things can get better than the blah way I'm feeling these days but also I'm disappointed that I haven't made more progress in the past year.

The psychiatrist also said that my main treatment wasn't going to be meds but therapy, that the meds are just to get me to a place where therapy can be effective. He offered to refer me to a therapist he knows but I don't want to switch from the guy I'm seeing now. So he said that I must "work hard at" the therapy. Well, I thought that I was working hard! What more am I supposed to do?

 

[EveHarrington]

Hi, Can you explain a bit more about what you've been doing to heal? It's hard to advise due to the vagueness of "working hard" and asking what more you need to do to heal.

Or was that a rhetorical question due to this being a vent thread?

Thanks.

 

[jacx]

No, that's a great question, thanks.

When I first started posting on this forum, I was pretty low & on the verge of losing my job due to illness (persistent infection related to organ damage sustained in one of my traumas), but I saw a bunch of specialists, got put on new (very expensive) drugs and had a bunch of treatments and now I'm physically almost healthy. And I got transferred to a different department at work, promoted and I'm kicking ass in my new job.

So I'm wanting to be over this crap depression now already.

I'm in therapy once a week for 15 months now, which is new for me - I'd only done short-term therapy before (actually, I was in counselling for a couple of years in the group homes, but I got moved around and changed case managers a lot so it wasn't consistent). At our one-year anniversary, I told my therapist "I'd thought we'd be done by now," and he laughed.

Let's see, I go to my therapy appointments, exercise, meditate & volunteer. Trying to do something about my social isolation. I'm supposed to journal but I don't journal.

I'm impatient for some results - more than going from severe to moderate depression.