Posted by David on March 4, 1999, at 12:13:31
Hello everybody,
I have been mildly depressed for a long long time,
without actually knowing it. But it seems to me
that it has been forever.But last year I had two bouts of severe depression in
late spring and then again in winter. I could not make
myself go and seek professional advice, hesitating all
the time, "lingering on the edge," looking for excuses
all the time (look there, it's not so bad, pull yourself
together, there're lots and lots of other people that
suffer much more... and stuff like that).Finally I managed somehow to walk into a psychologist's
room, it was about the time, when my suffering lasted
for about 2 months and I could no longer pretend that
everything's fine with me (you know, all your friends
asking "how are you?" and you saying with a warm
smile "fine, thank you" but deep inside longing to
scream to the world "miserable!!!").The psycholigist sent me to a psychiatrist to have some
medication prescribed since I was to leave my home
country to study in the Netherlands temporarily.
I received a diagnosis of major depressive disorder,
anxiety, depersonalization, derealization, and a few
other things that I could not understand.The psychiatrist gave me Zoloft 50mg, twice a day and
Lexaurin 1.5mg (Bromazepamum), a total dose of 3mg a
day. At the same time he said that my depression
has its roots in the structure of my personality, my
character. And he added that a psychotherapy for me
would be difficult and complicated.I had been skeptical about medicines for depression as
well as any kind of conventional psychotherapy before,
although never actually tried them (I had always
really doubted that they could be of any help to me...
maybe I had some kind of prejudice...? I don't know.)
and now the psychiatrist, although being honest,
even enhanced these worries in me!I have been on Zoloft and Lexaurin for 2 months now,
I can see a slight improvement (I have enough energy
to pretend again that everything's all right...) but
very often I slip into despair as to whether there
really is any kind of help for me? Any positive vision
of the future, I mean bright future? I don't know...I have a very intense feeling that these antidepressant
drugs just suppress the underlying causes of the
state of my mental health without really "removing"
them. Maybe the most severe symptoms disappear so I
can get through a day somehow...But I am sure I do not want to switch to any other
kind of pills and then to some other pills and on
and on... and although in psychotherapy it might
be nice to have an opportunity to talk to somebody
(especially when my social life is and has for a long
time been virtually non-existent), I don't believe
I can make any progress.What do you think?
Thank you that you have endured to read up to this
point.Good luck to everyone,
David
poster:David
thread:3400
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990301/msgs/3400.html