Posted by Noa on September 11, 1999, at 18:37:41
In reply to Re: I need a reference point!, posted by dj on September 11, 1999, at 17:24:59
Wow, when I read your post, Bob, my heart nearly stopped. This is such an issue for me. I don't know if I have ever been "euthymic" but this is something I am only realizing/accepting now. I am starting to conceptualize my illness as "Double Depression" a term first used, I think, by Akiskal, who, by the way, is an author you will see a lot of if you do a search of abstracts on depression, bipolar, cyclothymia, or personality disorders. Dysthymic is probably my highest state. On top of the dysthymia, I have a cyclical major depression similar to the kind of depression in bipolar disorder. I think that over time, the cycles have gotten more rapid. I used to think of my depression as something I would get rid of, and that someday I would not need medication anymore. Now I am beginning to accept the illness as chronic. If I can control the major depression part of it and achieve a stable state of dysthymia, that would actually be a major accomplishment. My therapist thinks that my experience of the dysthymic moods would be a lot different if I weren't constantly in fear of falling back into another episode of major depression. That might free me up to be able to build some changes into my life, or as I put it, to begin to have a life at all. I was reading Jamison/Goodwin textbook the other day on manic depressive illness, and they say that a lot of people with bipolor spectrum disorders have the same types of self doubt you describe--how do I know what is the right way to feel? It is so complicated too, because like the zoloft reaction you initially had, your feeling good seemed to be tipping you into a hypomania, or at least your doctor thought so. This is a self doubt a lot of people have. YOu feel so relieved to be out of the depression, but anxious about becoming hypomanic, which contaminates any good feelings. I have also heard that starting and stopping a med and then starting it again makes people less responsive to it the next time. I don't know if this is true.
Can you say more about why you were so devasted by your girlfriend's and your pdoc's comments? I think I understand but I'm not sure.
poster:Noa
thread:11426
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990829/msgs/11435.html