Question:
This is really interesting to me. I started in the depression internets a few weeks ago. I was (am?) in bad shape. Lately I have been coming back to
life. I have come from depression to anxiety/stress (is there a difference?).
So I checked this group out. Lo and behold, the medication discussion is
exactly the same! The same meds exactly! Is depression and anxiety so
inter-related? I think I was depressed (and I don't mean a little bit)
because I couldn't cope with my situation. 2 days ago when my p-doc said to
try a different med, i thought to myself: no, that's it, damn it. No more.
I am going to try to force myself to "act normal". yesterday was my first
day at that and it was very very hard, let me tell you. I was trembling all
day. Today I was trembling too, but not as much. Right now I feel almost
normal.
Answer:
You are almost certainly still being helped by your previous med. The
tricyclics, SSRIs etc. can take months to be completely eliminated,
even the shorter acting benzos take days. While I respect your determination to "act normal" experience suggests
that you won't 'beat' your depression that way, it just isn't that
easy. You need to understand that depression/anxiety involved physical
changes to brain cells and how they communicate with each other. It is
possible to 'reverse' these changes just by altering your though
patterns - IN THEORY - in practice its very difficult. At the very
least you need some coping strategies to deal with the inevitable bad
episodes. I hope you're not going 'cold turkey' on the meds you have been taking,
possibly medically risky and withdrawl symptoms aren't going to help
your memtal state! Some doctors think that anxiety and depression are the same thing, it just
affects defferent people differently. Pesonally, I'll take depression over panic attacks any day of the week! At
least you do get some relief from cyring... With anxiety, I've found that
walking/exercise helps alot. Depression, anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive
disorder are three ugly sisters - all grouped together,
according to some experts, under the general heading
of 'depressive disorders'. All three are treated using
similar medications and similar methods, so the similarity
you found isn't much of a surprise.
However, that doesn't mean they are experienced
in the same way. I have a brother with OCD and
his problem is vastly different from my panic
disorder.
As a matter of historical record, this group was spun off
from alt.support.depression. The time was when ASD
was the only place to discuss anxiety states and
it was felt that ASD was too busy and, well...
often too *depressing*, so we started ASAP as
'a place of our own' I think the two conditions do have a fairly wide area of overlap, but it's
possible to have anxiety without depression and vice versa.
I have depression, anxiety, PD, and OCD.
Although I understand the feeling of not wanting to be on meds, I've found
that I do much better when I am on them. YMMV of course. Please don't push
yourself too hard to 'act normal' if you feel you are only increasing your
stress. There are therapeutic non-medicinal approaches as well. CBT is one. I believe that this group split off from alt.support.depression, though that
was before my time. Many of us here have been in 'the black pit' of clinical
depression. You are right; it is awful. Anxiety may take different forms as well: there's GAD (generalized anxiety
disorder) and PD (panic disorder) and probably others as well.
