Confussed...

[female25]

Well I am a newbie here! First post! here goes...

About 8months ago I had a breakdown due to many stressful reasons...
Anyway I was put on anti depressants (Cipramil).

I was taking 1 a day for 6 months and recently cut down to half a tablet.
Whilst I was taking 1 a day I was on top of the world and felt great.. It actually felt like the first time in my life I was in control and new exactly who I was.

I was having a fair bit of trouble with headaches and migranes from the tablets and was also having very heavy night sweats. I regularly visited my doctor and he thought it was time to cut down the cipramil as I was feeling well and also in the hope of reducing my headaches and night sweats.

I was also put on Tensig (Beta blocker) tablets which are used for blood pressure and help reduce migranes.

I was on half a tablet of anti depressants for 3 weeks and then the depression viciously set back in very quickly... I was arguing with people and picking fights to make myself feel better! But of course after an hour I would be angry at myself for picking a fight!

So I went back to the doctor's and I am now on 2 tablets a day aswell as 1 tablet for of tensig for migranes.

At the moment I feel very angry and frustarted with myself at the realization of needing medication to make me feel good!
I was so close to getting of the medication and to suddenly realise your lost without them is hard to deal with.

With the combination of the Cipramil & Tensig at the moment I am feeling so dizzy, tired and have no motivation...
I have a brand new dirtbike to ride and would love to be out there with my partner at the moment, but I just could not get out of bed!

My partner is supportive but it worries me so much that I am letting him down!
He does so much for me and I feel I cant do enough in return. I used to be so motivated and it was hard to keep me still.
Now I find myself with a dirty house, have pushed all my friends away and cant find motivation to do the things I love most!

Anyway..this is turning into a bit of a whinge story, which I didn't want!

But this is me!

[ar81]

As I see it, you are still trapped by your past, living in your past with problems that are long gone.

My experience helping people tells me that depression comes when you feel powerless to change your life. Change looks impossible. It was impossible to reach the top of Everest until someone did it, it was impossible for humans to fly until someone invented the plane. So is a change of your life that hard? Or can it be done? The good news is that as soon as you understand that "stressful reasons" were an isolated incident or source of unhappiness, and the rest of the world awaits you, you understand that you control your life.

Problems of people nearly a block away from you are far different. So your problem is smaller than a block.

Medication helps you to apply brakes when you go down hill, but they will not help you to go uphill (being happy). How can you be happier?

By definition we learn that happiness is the absense of problems. Since we always have problems (in Iraq the problem is to stay alive, here our problem is to have a scratch in the car or being trapped in a traffic jam when we are in a hurry) then by definition we are never happy.

But what if we change the definition and think that happiness is what we do WHILE we have problems?

I am not telling you to quit medication. But certainly medication won't provide a long term solution. Medication is good to stabilize a person during a momentary crisis. The business of health is to have sick people. So the point when you leave medication is something you and your doctor must discuss, but you also must consider alternate reliable sources to confirm what your doctor says. I have worked in the health business and I have seen some not so nice practices.

But also you need to heal your inner pain and understand that you control your life. That all those ugly things you lived were an isolated incident and the rest of the world is waiting with happiness, but you need to see it. Without it there is no way to get rid of medication.

You can't grab an apple and take it from a tree if you are not seeing it or if you think you can't grab it. So if the external sources of stress are gone, the remaining work takes place inside you.

The bad news is that we can't solve the problem of your interior, your pain, no one can, not even medicines. We can only show you the door, but you are the one who needs to get in.

The good news is that since no one can solve your problem, it relies entirely upon you, so you are in control, having the control and what happens to you is up to you.

You say that you feel tired and with no stamina, or that you are in a roller coaster of emotions and sensations caused by medication... So in a way that's good because you may understand that how you feel now is not a real feeling, it is the product of a biochemical process in your brain, and if you get to internally overcome that chemical process, the world seems bright out there. You are not those emotions. Can you see yourself beyond those emotions?

Your old habits and situations created biochemical reactions that caused you to be depressed. Do you want to be depressed? So how about trying to understand that you are in control. It will be tough, very tough, overwhelming at the beginning to take control, because you never did that before, and you will make mistakes as part of the learning process. So be prepared to face lots of obstacles imposed by a brain that is used to cheat you to keep you inside the circle of unhappiness and be ready to face biochemical reactions that will try to make you see the world as dark and hopeless.

But those are illusions, biochemical illusions that cloud your happiness. As you overcome that you started the path of recovery.

So what do you do once you feel happy (and guilty of feeling happy)? Guilt is another way of your brain to cheat you. You deserve to be happy, and many people need that happiness: your loved ones or many other people.

After you learn to live in happiness, you will have to spread that to others permanently. It will require your time and effort, so this advise is not for free. The price of helping you is that you will have to do the same to others once you overcome the problem.

[distinctionsforlife]

Try changing your focus. What is going right in your life? When have you felt good?

What are some other ways to make yourself feel good than starting fights? Most people don't think being in a fight feels good, maybe you could adopt that belief.