I don't know what to do next

patchwork_cat

bubble173 wrote: »

I was prescribed citalopram and told it would take 6 weeks to start working but that the side effects can be awful. The GP has also increased the dose on 4 occasions without any input from myself. It was once doubled without me even talking to them or going to the surgery. They've never asked if I take it or if it is working. I'm just asked how i'm feeling and reply with "ok". And then the dose gets increased.

I don't feel like I can confide in my current therapist about how I feel. I don't trust her, and she isn't a nice person. I suppose I should probably stop wasting her time and mine by seeing her every week and ask my GP for a referral to something else.

If you are worried about side effects ask for it's newer cousin escitalopram. It is more specific so less risk of side effects and start on a low dose and only increase after 2 weeks, it could take 3 months for the full effect.

Finding the right therapist is hard and if you don't trust her then it isn't going to work. I understand that completely!

bubble173

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Firstly, I am sorry that something has happened that you are having difficulty adjusting to/accepting/whatever way you want to put it.


1. You go to the doctor, are clearly still depressed, so because you are lying to them, they think the dose of medication needs to be increased. It's not their fault that you are lying to them and don't take the course of action they have suggested may help. They're not psychic.

I am honest with the doctor but i'm never asked about medication. It is just assumed I'm taking it and they increase it. I've never said I am taking it, and i've never said it isn't working or asked for an increase.

2. You go to the therapist, are clearly still depressed and not only do you lie to them, you don't take any action they suggest which could help if you actually did it.

I don't see how sending a text message or walking to the shop will help with my problem. I go out, I see friends, I text people, I go to the shop. So doing them and writing about them in a diary isn't going to help.

3. Your family. Sound like k.nobs. But, on the other hand, maybe they think they can jolly you out of yourself, get you to smile and laugh, have a joke with them, get you to open up with an approach other than 'poor you'. It's not working. But then again, you won't talk to them about wanting to die, so they don't have much to work with. If they stopped and said really gently 'how are you really feeling?', would you not just say 'I'm fine'?

I have told them how I feel. I've asked for help. They don't care. They don't believe my problems are real. They think i'm putting it on. They don't even try to jolly me out of it. They just don't bother with me.

4. Every suggestion that has been made has been blocked by you. You don't want medication, you don't like the therapist, it's never going to work with her, with a new therapist, etc.

Every suggestion hasn't been blocked. I've worked with a different therapist for a very long time but she moved to a different area. She helped. The therapy worked. Her moving was not me blocking it. I haven't said it wouldn't work with a new therapist, but I don't think CBT will help. I agree with posts in the thread that say I probably need a different type of therapy and I will speak to my GP about it. To change the way I feel I first need to deal with what happened, and I haven't. I don't see it as blocking anything. I have tried really really hard to overcome this.

5. You feel terrible, you have thoughts of harming yourself, but aren't honest with anyone about these feelings. So they don't know they are there.

I am honest with people about it. The only person i'm not honest with is my therapist who I don't trust.

Perhaps the therapist is there to address some passive aggressive attitudes of yours, and isn't there to make it all better and nice and cosy? She can't change your past. Nobody can do that, cos if they could, I want to go back and delete a rather embarrassing situation involving Barry from the 5th form when I was 14 and we were in his best mate David's bedroom with Bob Marley on the stereo :whistle:




If you were to consider how your approach to anything is influencing your behaviour, the way you interact with your family, doctors, therapists, perhaps you would be able to take some useful steps to moving away from the past and towards some kind of future.

As it is, it would be a possible reaction to say, well, you say you're fine, you won't take medication because you say it can't work, you won't engage with non medicated treatment as it won't work, you don't engage with anyone who could conceivably support you as you are convinced it won't work, so you are obviously more comfortable in that unpleasant little circle of I feel rubbish, but I'm not going to do a single thing about it except for continuing to feel rubbish about it.

I have seen people about this and many helped. The only thing I am convinced wont work is CBT. I have tried other things and some worked, some didn't. But I do try.


You are therefore sabotaging any attempts to help you or to get you to help yourself.

What do you gain from this?

Why do you feel safer being this way rather than any other?


How is it easier for you to trundle along saying 'oh no, don't worry about me, I'm fine, nobody can ever understand or help me, so don't bother, I'll just linger around like a lost soul worrying everyone, but refusing to do anything that may potentially help matters'?

I have never said nobody can understand or help me. I've said a few times in this thread that a previous therapist helped me a lot. I'm not refusing to do anything that might help at all. I've tried so many things.


Are you angry?

So angry you can feel it bubbling down deep inside you? Trapped, wanting to get out? Wanting to scream and cry and rage about what happened? It wasn't fair and it wasn't right and you shouldn't have this memory?

Are you scared that letting anger out will sweep you away? That it won't ever stop, like a tidal wave of fury? That people won't want you if you are anything other than the passive, brooding, I'm alright, I'll just sit here and wait to die that you appear to me at the moment?

I'm not angry at all.


A step towards genuine recovery would be to approach your GP, even with a handwritten letter to say that you haven't been taking your medication at all, you are thinking of harming yourself and you have not engaged with your therapist. That way, even if you answer 'I'm fine', you can hand over the letter and they can read the truth in way where you don't have to say out loud

'No, I'm not OK. What happened was not OK. And I want help to get this out, for people to acknowledge that I AM NOT ALRIGHT'.

I have tried to give the GP a letter before. I was told I had wasted my time. I will try again with a different GP.

Thanks patchwork cat, i'll try to remember that drug.

Pixiechic

Hi again bubble, having read through some more of your posts I can understand your fear of taking the medication. If your anxiety about possible 'awful' side effects is adding to how awful you already feel, your apprehension with taking them is understandable. Especially when you don't have a very big support network and you do not feel that you can trust your current therapist.

It sounds like you need long term therapy and as you only have four sessions left with your current therapist in depression support, it must be very hard to build a relationship when you know that you won't be seeing her again very soon.

I think that going back to your GP and asking for a referral will help you. Try to ask for a different GP as one post said that you didn't feel that the last one was hearing you. As you mention a certain event that happened, post traumatic stress is something to look in to. Also, mentioning your concerns over the medication might provide some much needed reassurance. Your GP will understand your concern. I have a friend who has been in a similar situation to yours.

I really feel for you because a lot of good, practical, helpful advice is difficult to do when you feel so terrible inside. You need more support and you are worth more than you realise. Even thinking about harming yourself is worrying and your lack of family support is a concern. Go back to the Doctor and explain again how you feel. I gave you the link to Mind earlier and they have a phone number you can call http://www.mind.org.uk/, just to speak to someone and they might be able to help you. Keep strong, don't feel alone, your'e not .

soupdragon10

Bubble I don't want to guess what the traumatic event was that set things off for you, but have you looked into specialist support dealing with the results of this specific kinds of trauma? You mentioned that you hadn't dealt with this, and in my limited experience until the cause is looked at, you can't begin to move on.

This doesn't mean years of going over and over it, but talking to someone about what happened, how it made you feel etc. so you can lance the old wound and perhaps start to see a way forward.

bubble173

It is really hard to open up when I know my time with the current therapist is limited. Regardless of the trust issues, knowing from the outset that I only had 12 x 45minute sessions I think I felt it would fail. I do think long term therapy that isn't CBT would help, but my doctor referred me to a counselor who told me after a 20 minute assessment that he couldn't help me. He didn't even ask what had happened to me for me to find myself in this position. If my doctor referred me again I worry I would end up with the same counselor and same problem. I will ask about it though.

And I will email mind to see if there is any help they can provide.

Soupdragon, I asked my GP for help dealing with what happened but they dismissed my concerns at the time. I never had the confidence to ask again I think at the time although I was in a bad way, part of 'me' still remained and on the surface I seemed ok and so everyone from doctors, to family, to friends assumed I was coping when in reality I was falling apart and every day another part of 'me' disappeared. I think getting the right help when it happened would have been invaluable and I wouldn't find myself in this position today.

I have since spoken to my first therapist (the one who has moved) about it, but not in depth. I think talking about it properly, in detail, breaking it down and going over what happened and why would help, but I don't think it could be achieved in short sessions. I think it would take a few hours during one day to sit and go through everything all in one go. In the short sessions by the time we get over the basics of hello etc and start to talk about things there's not enough time to really get in to it, and then the next session is recapping the previous and starting to talk again so I don't get to talk in enough detail to really understand what happened. I don't know if there's any kind of therapy that would allow me lengthy sessions to go over that or not. I wouldn't have thought so.

Liquorice_Twirls

CBT is not for everyone but the NHS is making this the therapy that is mostly offered. There are many other forms of talking therapy such as humanistic (person-centred) or psychodynamic and you can sometimes get this on the NHS but you may need to ask.

It may be that it is just this therapist that you just don't get along with. This isn't any failing on your part, really it is great that you can step back and see that this is the case. You now have a choice about what if anything you want to do about it.

It's perfectly ok to go back to your GP and ask to see someone else. The relationship with your therapist is the most important factor in ensuring that you gain as much as possible from the sessions you are offered.

You might check out if any charities in your area offer free counselling. Any good therapist would be happy to meet you and explain how they work and also to let you know that if you choose to ask to see a different counsellor it won't be seen as unusual or a sign that there is something wrong with you.

I hope you manage to get the support that you need.

Counting_Pennies_2

I am so sorry, you are so tangled in a war of depression.

The first thing to do is be honest with yourself. No more hiding, pretending, for yourself or anyone elses sake.

I can tell you from personal experience, there is no bad thing a professional counsellor cannot hear. You might think you are having the worst thoughts, but they aren't, they are your thoughts and they need to be listened to, and dealt with.

You said yourself you don't want your life to end, you just don't want it to be the one you are living now. That just shows you have the strength to get better.

Without knowing the cause of the problem, I can't give any suggestions, I am however well versed in the world of going to a counsellor. Going to an NHS one is hopeless. I have said this before, the NHS counselling is just a sticking plaster service. You cannot be cured after 8 sessions you are allowed.

From what you have said in the post, I think money might be tight because I don't think you are working, it also doesn't sound as if your family have the capability to understand the need for counselling.

If you can get the money together, I think you should source a good counsellor. http://www.itsgoodtotalk.org.uk/therapists/

If after a couple of sessions it isn't working, try another. There will be one out there for you. Mine is my third one of trying, and she gets me, I knew on the second meeting she understood me. Finally I thought, someone understands me.

If you can't afford to pay, I wonder if there is a counselling centre near you. This one near me allows you to be counselled by a trainee who is under supervision, and it is a cheaper, again trial and error to find your right counsellor. http://www.counsellingcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&Itemid=33

The reaction you got from your family is very similar to that I have received in the past. I think some relatives are scared by mental illness, better to be barbed in their comments than face up to the enormity of it all. Others take a pull yourself together mode and if you haven't by a certain period of time, their sympathies no longer lie with you.

I understand your reluctance not to take tablets. I too fought it, and I have managed without tablets, but in hindsight I do wonder if I had taken them if my fight with my depression might have been shorter. The key thing with tablets is to stablise your thoughts while you seek further support in counselling.

To those people who have responded back with hurtful comments, I have only seen links from your responses back, because I haven't had a chance to read everything, but I would say they truly have not experienced the pit of depression and what it is to have a mental illness.

I agree with your thoughts about the help groups, they do sometimes drag you down with others problems, and the thought that you want to see the positive end is a good one. I wonder instead of meeting with people in the thick of their problems whether it is possible to meet someone who has come out the other side, and get their strategies that have helped them cope.

What you do need to do though is find a counsellor, be honest from the start, on the forms you complete, in the answers you give. You will break down, you will feel unsafe about disclosing your worst thoughts and experiences, but without doing that you cannot put yourself back together again.

PM me if I can be of any further help, as I don't always trawl back on all the posts.

hth

PS - also CBT isn't always the right way to go with counselling. In my experience it is looking for the bright side of things in order to think positively. What I think you need is normal counselling to unravel what has gone wrong. Don't dismiss a counsellor because they do CBT, but make sure they have all the other rounded skills on their listings.

I would also suggest changing GPs

bubble173

I will look in to a therapist that isn't an NHS one. The one I had that worked was through my GP, but she didn't work for the NHS support service. I will ask for information about where I could get help that isn't through the NHS. I couldn't afford to pay very much because I don't work but I would be willing to pay as much as I could afford (very little ) if it was the right person and it worked. I have looked on that link but there are only 4 in my area, 2 are male which is a no-go at the moment, the other two charge £40-75 per session (I couldn't afford that at the moment :eek: ) and one of them is only CBT based, which I don't think is what I need right now, like you said, I need normal counselling to work out what has gone so wrong.

Thank you x

patchwork_cat

I've just had a look around me and there are a few that are church based, but they do say you don't have to be a Christian.

meritaten

bubble - you are very cagey about the event which has caused your depression. almost as if you are ashamed of it. was it something YOU did or witnessed? or do you feel to blame for it? you know something? it sounds to me like you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If you were a victim or a witness to a distressing event then Victim Support would give better counselling. If you were in the military then THEY should be referring you to a counsellor who understands PTSD. if you were a victim of violence or rape - then again Victim Support would help. even if you were the instigator of a violent event - and cannot come to terms with it - then there are organisations which will help you. you are being so secretive about the event which has led to your problems its difficult now to help you!