Question:
I guess im asking those of you who have been or are in this type of
situation, can the depression ever go away?, do meds actually help you be
yourself or do they just numb you to the rest of the world?, i want her to
get better and become the person that i fell in love with, but i dont want
to end up with a stoned zombie and its because of that that im scared to
death of her going on any type of medication. From reading posts in thiswebsites
it seems that people just go in and out of depression, meds or not, is this
generally the case?
What can i do to help her?.... advice, links to web sites, just general
information about depression and other mental problems (honestly, ive never
believed in psychiatry (sp?) or 'mental problems', im one of those 'suck it
up and deal with it' kind of people which im sure is partially to blame for
how she is feeling, so im trying to find out as much as i can about all of
this), if there is any 'light at the end of the tunnel'?, heck, even some
success stories to give me some hope that we can pull through this!
Answer:
from the looks of it there are some geniune
people in here who are willing to help, so ive decided to post here. First
of all, im 24 and my 22 y/o girlfriend is going through some really hard
times with manic-depression. I use that exact term cause she has had
depressive mood swings for many years and has been 'labelled' this in the
past by a few therapists she has visited, and over the past number of months
it has been getting worse and worse and honestly, i have no idea what to do.
The past few months have been the worse, she doesnt eat right, doesnt go out
as much as she liked to, constantly feels alone and has the occasional panic
attack (breaks into uncontrollable tears, hides in a corner rocking, etc),
has completely lost her sexual drive (and we used to have a fantastic sex
life) and has begun to hurt herself again (she scratches her arms with her
nails or safety pins, or other such stuff, never to draw blood, just to feel
the pain). She had a fairly shitty childhood, was sexually abused when
young by a family friend, abusive father, useless mother, recent divorce of
her parents as well as my parents and she has always had very low self
esteem and low self confidence, no matter how much i try to make her feel
good about herself. Along with all of this, we are of course having huge
problems in our relationship because of the depression, and im sure that im
not the easiest person to live with (kinda moody myself) but i try to help
her whenever i can, it just seems to me that she is not interested in my
help. She is in a waiting line for a therapist at the hospital, but i dont
even know if she can make it that long (its in 4 weeks) as she has even
started talking about suicide when she is really down.
I guess im asking those of you who have been or are in this type of
situation, can the depression ever go away?, do meds actually help you be
yourself or do they just numb you to the rest of the world?, i want her to
get better and become the person that i fell in love with, but i dont want
to end up with a stoned zombie and its because of that that im scared to
death of her going on any type of medication. From reading posts in thiswebsites
it seems that people just go in and out of depression, meds or not, is this
generally the case?
What can i do to help her?.... advice, links to web sites, just general
information about depression and other mental problems (honestly, ive never
believed in psychiatry (sp?) or 'mental problems', im one of those 'suck it
up and deal with it' kind of people which im sure is partially to blame for
how she is feeling, so im trying to find out as much as i can about all of
this), if there is any 'light at the end of the tunnel'?, heck, even some
success stories to give me some hope that we can pull through this!
Short answers. Meds helped me.
I have had several bouts of depression 2 severe, 2 attempts.
I am depression free now. I might get it again but am trying to learn
all I can to stop it in it's tracks next time.
This group has helped me a lot in the past as it has for many people.
Watch out for disingenuous people, some say I am.
Here are some links to help you understand below.
One last thing, people with severe depression cannot snap out of it!
Learn this and go easy on her.
toad
http://stripe.colorado.edu/~judy/depression/asdfaq.html
http://gosh.ex.ac.uk/activities/societies/psychology/ptest1.htm
http://www.dr-bob.org/
http://www.suicide-parasuicide.rumos.com/en/resources/psychological_t...
http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/injury.html
http://soberrecovery.com/
http://gosh.ex.ac.uk/activities/societies/psychology/ptest1.htm
http://www.allhealth.com/onlinepsych/
http://www.firelily.com/support/depression/newbies.notes.html
http://www.etiquette.net/
http://www.mentalhelp.net/guide/quizes.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/on/piecesofme/asdrules.txt
http://www.angelfire.com/on/piecesofme/asd.html
http://www.allaboutdepression.com/
http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html
http://www.ansir.com/ansirnew/index.htm
http://shattering.org/asd/asd.html
http://www.mentalhealth.com/dx/fdx-pe05.html
http://www.colorquiz.com/
http://vinland.org/scamp/institute/dsh.html
http://www.apa.org/pi/cdip/
http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.html
http://www.mentalhelp.net/guide/quizes.htm
A lot of times, she _won't_ be interested in your help, because she's
not interested in _anything_. In a big way, that's what depression
is--an inability to care about almost anything A lot of depressives
(such as myself) get into this pickle by trying to avoid feeling the
pain of life, and just erecting a psychic "wall" (a la Pink Floyd) to
block the feelings out. Eventually, the wall gets so big that very few
things get through, good _or_ bad. As far as suicide goes, the fact that she's talking about it is a bad
sign. Consider that this is equivalent to finding her on the street,
hit by a car and bleeding badly. This isn't too far off from the actual
situation. Your job isn't to heal her; your job is simply to _keep her
alive_ until professional help arrives. Just deliver her to the
therapist alive, and let them take it from there. You may want to let
the therapist know, once your girlfriend sees him or her, that you are
supportive and willing to help; sometimes that may give the therapist
more options.
Some ideas on keeping her alive until treatment starts:
1: Let the hospital know if you haven't already; suicidal people may get
front-of-the-line treatment, depending on their triage policies.
2: Get her to promise you that she won't commit suicide in the next two
months. You probably won't be able to get her to promise not to
_forever_, but this is more likely to work. In two months' time, she
will be under professional care, and the therapist has the ball.
3: Find a suicide prevention hotline, and write the number down on two
pieces of paper. You hold one copy 24x7, and she holds the other copy
24x7. Note that 911 will also work, in a pinch.
4: Come up with other resources that you can call on, and that she can
trust. Is she religious? Talk to her religious leader (no matter what
faith, if any, _you_ are). Is there anybody she trusts implicitly
(probably not parents in this situation, but maybe her best friend)?
5: Call a suicide prevention hotline _yourself_, explain that it is not
a present emergency, and tell them the situation. Then, ask for
resources and/or other things you can do to keep her alive. I figure
hotlines _love_ it if they can stop a suicide attempt before it starts;
you are not wasting their time at all.
6: Ask her to call a suicide prevention hotline, and explain what is
going on. The same logic is in place here; a half-hour phone
conversation when she is sitting down without a knife in her hand is
infinitely better for the hotline than a half-hour phone conversation on
the side of a bridge.
7: Explain the situation to her regular doctor. They may have some
ideas, or may be able to help themselves (if nothing else, they are able
to prescribe antidepressants).
Real life: my girlfriend (wife now) started having suicidal thoughts in
college. Having no real psych resources to turn to, I called up her
pastor (she's Catholic), explained the situation, and asked for an
appointment. I then stayed with her 24x7 until the appointment the next
day, and went with her. He was able to talk her down without any
trouble. Your g/f sounds like she's in tougher shape than mine was, but
this might help somewhat.
The old meds, often referred to as "Mother's Little Helper", just kind
of numb you to the rest of the world. A prime example is Valium.
Fortunately, these are rarely prescribed. There are a host of newer
antidepressant (AD) meds that will typically be prescribed. Some important things to note about antidepressant (AD) meds:
1: If she's manic-depressive, she will likely have multiple meds, both
ADs and specific anti-mood-swing drugs (think Lithium). My experience
is only with unipolar depression (depressed, never manic). Perhaps a
manic-depressive could reply to this to add their two cents?
2: Different meds work for different people. I had one med that didn't
work well with me, and one that I reacted especially poorly to. This
means that she may have to go through several different meds until she
finds one that works. Even to a professional, the prescribing process
is a lot of trial and error. Be ready for this.
3: ADs take two to four weeks to "kick in", so she won't see any results
the first week or two. If she knows about this going in, she's less
likely to be discouraged.
4: ADs don't turn you into a zombie, nor one of those "shiny happy
people". They stop a tendancy to generate negative emotions for no
reason. When on proper AD therapy, she will still feel sad when sad
things happen to her, and may feel happy when good things happen to her.
These drugs attack her tendancy to be sad when good things happen to
her. If she was perfectly medicated (not likely, but the ideal everyone
tries to approach), she would be herself, minus the manic-depression.
5: Bad news on the sex life front. Most ADs tend to inhibit the sex
drive in men, and I think they do in women as well (some female poster
want to verify/deny that?) Cruel joke, that. OTOH, this allows you two
to work on other parts of your relationship.
6: I've been told that manic-depressives are especially hard to treat,
because they often go off their meds. The problem is that they really
_like_ being manic. Often, the meds will take someone from
manic-depressive to unipolar depressive to non-depressed.
7: Meds work well in conjunction with therapy, or the "talking cure".
From what you said, I doubt that straight talking therapy would work,
because it's so tough to get through to her emotionally. Meds can get
her down to a level where talking therapy can work. That is how it
worked for me. I spent several months ramping up on meds, and now I'm
on full regular dosage. Here, I no longer feel depressed (is that a
success story for you?), feel safe enough to dig out what's going on in
my head, with the help of a therapist, so that I can get _off_ the meds.
As far as depression staying or coming and going, it seems that some
people are just prone to depression. Such people will have a good
working relationship with their therapist. I know people who will be
stuck on their meds for life, and there are others who will go on and
off them as the cycles hit them.
The "suck it up" attitude can work when the problem is minor, but not
major. Since depression is a medical problem, think of it in terms of a
physical medical problem. If you have a cold, you can suck it up and
still operate as you do when you're healthy. Some people can even "suck
it up" while fighting the flu (I've seen people play NHL-level hockey
when fighting the flu!). You can "suck up" muscle pain. But you can't
suck up mononucleosis, or a broken leg, or diabetes. I sucked up my own depression for years, until I slowly decided that it
just wasn't working. That's when I went to get help.
As far as mental problems go, you can probably assure yourself and
herself that she isn't "crazy", "mad", or "insane". These terms roughly
map to the medical term "psychotic". Psychotics have difficulty telling
fantasy from reality. This includes such things as voices in your head,
hallucinations, paranoia. From what you said, it seems that your g/f
knows exactly what is going on in the real world, but simply isn't
dealing with it well. Note that depression, left untreated, can become
psychotic. But you're not going to let that happen to her.
You wanted more resources. A good place to start is the Wing of
Madness, at http://www.wingofmadness.com/.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Even if she's stuck on meds
for the rest of her life, that's a damned sight better than she is right
now, and she'll be _enjoying_ life for a change.
