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Your Stories About Depression
bipolar woman w/ ECT brain damage
Written By:anonymous
I was diagnosed as bipolar over 15 years ago. I was a successful professional woman with kids and a husband. The medications quit working and I went into debilitating depression. Then electro convulsive shock treatment (otherwise known as ECT) was used to treat me. I have never been the same since. I suffer from short and long term memory loss. Sometimes I get easily confused and become unable to do a simple task I was able to do moments before. Facial recognition can be difficult for me. One day I may not know the person that is talking with me. I will not know if they are a colleague, friend, client,relative, or it could be a stranger just striking up a conversation. Hours later I may have no problem recognizing them. One day I can not figure out how to pay for a candy bar with the change in my hands and hours later I may be capable of doing math with no problem. I am very easily distracted and have a difficult time staying on task. There is no predicting when or how this damage will manifest itself. I was able to continue to be employed for years after by working 16 hour days and weekends to do what use to take me 40 hours. I became unable to do my job no matter how many hours I put in and am no longer working. I found a few people in the medical profession that were brave enough to admit that one of their medical procedures permanently damaged me and changed the course of my life. However, the brave psyciatrist that I had been seeing is no longer working. I can not find someone who will be open about the fact they are dealing with a bipolar woman AND that I have brain damage from ECT. Psyciatrists who are reluctant to be open about this tend to try to blame the brain damage symptoms on the depression. I am well aware of what my depression symptoms are and know the difference. I am trying to find a psychiatrist who can work respectfully with me, one that can be honest about what is going on with me. Usually the depression can be controlled with medication. I know that the brain damage can not be fixed. It is a part of who I am now. Does anybody out there know how to locate a psychiatrist able to work with someone like me ?
I am not looking to go after or blame someone for what happened. I just want to go on from here and deal realistically with who I am.
SAD
Written By:Steve
I first wrote on this site 2 years ago and despite some fantastic support I still struggle. One major part of the depression appears to be SAD. I am falling into this utterly dark hole that I simply can’t get out of. I lose all self worth and hope and the complete and utter misery makes me want to take as many Temazapans as I can.
I can’t find any one else that has to endure this horrific daily experience. I used to be a thrusting businessman with bundles of energy and have become a fraction of the man I was.
I just want to sit and cry. And in the morning I have to find the energy to get up and face a world that I’m falling out of love with.
Does anyone feel so desperate and frightened?
Steve
This is My Story
Written By:Anonymous
This is My Story…I’m a 37 year old Mother of 3
wonderful boys. They are 13,10 and 8. The problems for me started during
pregnancy. I had pre-eclampsia all 3 times which is highly unusual. The
pre-eclampsia made me gain about 70 lbs with each child and placed a lot of
strain on my back. The pain started with the first child and got
progressively worse with each baby. I didn’t have any problems losing the
weight but the pain lingered. I never took any pain medication while I was
pregnant or while I was nursing but started taking it after I stopped
nursing. The problem with my back was what they call degenerative disc
disease. I’ve lost height in 3 of my lower discs and they pushing on nerves
and ligaments.
I started seeing a Pain doctor when my youngest son was about 2. They gave
me Percocet and/or Vicodin but those are short acting drugs so soon I needed
some extended relief. Being a Mom taking a lot of physical (and mental)
energy and felt like I need the medicine to keep me going. The doc’s soon
gave me a extended relief medication along with the break through pain
meds. So, since 2004 my Mother passed away at the age of 49. She was a
nurse living in Fairbanks. AK and had flown to a remote location of
Kotzebue, AK. During a day at work she re-injured her knee and flew home
immediately. What the doctor’s expected happened is that during her flight
she developed a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot. She told my step-dad what
she had planned for the next day and week then went to bed while he went to
work the night shift at the hospital pharmacy. She died in her sleep and he
came home and found her. She died on St. Patrick’s day 2004.
I received a call from my husband and all he said was “you need to come
home”. I knew immediately that someone had died. I came home and he told
me what had happened. All I felt was disbelief. I had just talked to her
like I did everyday. She was so young and so hopeful about the future, they
were even planning on moving back to be closer to their grandchildren. I
had to call and tell my sister to come over right away. She too felt just
disbelief. For the next few days my sister and I cried, prayed and even
slept together. Thank God for Xanax. I felt her presence very strongly and
my middle son told me one day that Grandma was there and she hugged him and
wanted to tell him that she loved him. She came another time to him also.
He said he saw her at the foot of the bed and just waved at him. He
described everything she was wearing. Her favorite purple shirt but there
was no way he could have know that.
The following year was a blur. In July of 2005 my Dad started acting very
strange. I went over to his house one day to find him in the bathtub. He
couldn’t remember who I was and kept telling me not to tell “Crissy”. He
thought I was my sister. I called 911 and the police and fire department
came over and it took about 6 very strong men to get him out of the bathtub
and onto the stretcher because he was morbidly obese. They admitted him to
the hospital and about 3 days later one of the doctors told me that his
liver was failing and considering the state he was in, he probably wouldn’t
last for 3 more days.
He did pull through and started showing signs of improvement although we
knew for sure that he would not ever be able to go home. Reluctantly, we
had him admitted to a hospice facility. He didn’t want to go because he had
to face the fact that he wasn’t ever going home. If he was going to die, he
wanted it to be in his own home. A program called Namaste came and they
counseled the family. My Dad had called himself an atheist but we felt it
was important that he dug deep and found peace with himself and his Father.
My sister and I took turns caring for him at the nursing home. Sometimes we
would be there together but because of work schedules we had to take turns.
I often took my kids with me so they could be with “Papa” as much as they
could. A couple of days before he passed, my youngest son refused to go
into his room and threw a total tantrum and I ended up taking him home. We
had made a pact though, he promised that when he died he would come back and
“haunt” me.
I got a call from my sister one night and she said I should come quickly to
the nursing home. The nurses said that he was breathing a way they had seen
often in people just before they died. I got to the hospital around 11pm.
We called all my Aunts, Uncles and cousins so they could say goodbye.
Everyone came and told him it was okay to pass. We even got my Grandmother
on the phone and she was mentally “not all there” but she told him goodbye.
Shortly after that he passed away. It was peaceful and my husband was there
as they took his dead body away. He wanted to make sure that he was moved
with dignity. Because of his size and weight, it took several large men to
take him out. He was only 54.
The next year in February, my Grandma died. All her organs were shutting
down. I received a call from my cousin to come to the ICU and was there
when she passed too. Right before she died I was in the room with my Aunts,
cousin and sister and felt someone rubbing my shoulder. I looked behind
thinking it was my sister or Aunt but there was no one there. I got chills
knowing that my Dad was in the room with me. He was taking my Grandma to
heaven. Another blurred year.
In 2007, I got very sick. I had chronic diarrhea and lost 15 lbs. I had
high fevers and was even seeing people in the room that weren’t there.
After many tests and consultations, they determined that I had Chron’s
disease along with IBS. During the next two years i was admitted to the
hospital 7 times due to the Chron’s.
In August 2007, I was with my sister having dinner after a grief counseling
session and received a phone call from my husband, John. He said “the house
is on fire” and hung up. I didn’t really understand what he was saying
because he said it so quickly and hung up. I called him 3 times and each
time he said the same thing then hung up. I drove home about 100 miles/hour
and saw our house engulfed in flames. The good news is that everyone was
out of the house and safe. My cousin, Ciria, offered her house as a place
to stay and we were all there for about 2 1/2 months. There were 4 adults,
and 5 kids including a very colicky newborn. Incredibly we had survived the
fire and all lived together without killing each other. 70% of the house
was destroyed and the worse rooms were the boys. Thank God again for Xanax
and for the fact that the fire happened during the day and not night while
the kids were sleeping.
Another couple of blurred years! In November 2009 I had been drinking all
day long. At about 7pm I left the house to take my son to a school
function. I spent the next couple of hours at a bar and in a drunken
stupor, left to pick him up but could not find the school since we had
recently moved to Fort collins, CO. I was pulled over approximately 1 block
from my house. After failing a road side sobriety test I was put in the
police car. The officer was very polite and courteous and put the handcuffs
on me fairly loose which I immediately slipped out of. This made him pretty
angry so he pulled over to put them back on and tightened them and I became
belligerent and enraged. I slipped my shoes off and fit my foot through the
divider hole and kicked him in the head. He also had searched my car before
we left and found a prescription I had picked up for Xanax.
I spent the next 10 days in Larimer County Detention Center. The charges
were as follows: DUI (BAC-.147) wreckless driving, possession of a
controlled substance, assault in the second degree (a class 4 felony). The
assault charge was eventually plea bargained to a felony drug charge for the
prescription Xanax I had even though it was my prescription. I had to spend
another 14 days at LCDC to complete my jail requirements. I also have to
attend 12 driver educations classes with 42 additional hours of counseling
and complete 120 hours of community service while under supervised
probation, taking random BA’s twice weekly. Being in jail was hell on
earth. The guards were disrespectful and the condition inside the jail were
unsanitary and overcrowded without any means of personal space. Locked
inside a concrete coffin.
What I did was wrong. The hurt that I caused my family was almost
irreparable. All of the combined events of the last few years have sent me
spirally down. The on going problems with my back have me on a load of meds
that in the long run are doing more damage to my body than good. I feel
like I have no options besides the dreaded spinal fusion which the doctor’s
are now pushing for. I’m stuck in a deep dark place and I’m afraid of going
to sleep and not waking up. Where do I go? What can I do? I sometimes wish
just for some acknowledgment, someone to say “Whoa, that’s too much for one
person?” For now there’s no silver lining, no happy ending.
Anonymous
Anonymity and a lonely life.
Written By:Anony Mouse
Most people would say I come from a privileged background.
I was raised as the youngest son of an RAF officer who served during the war.
My parents were broken people. My mother was a gunner in the war till she broke down.
She lived her life in and out of mental institutions.
My father was aloof and afar as most military men are.
My parents divorced when I was 12 years old.
I left home at the same age as my father only 15 years old.
I lived most of my life comparatively well and was successful in business.
I ended working in a school where I had a breakdown and a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis 8 years ago.
I have come to the point where I find it hard to care for my family and things like my home are slipping away from me.
my six oldest and best friends have all died in the last seven years.
I find it hard to summon the motivation to go out and miss human companionship.
I am told I am creative but my mental health problems stop me from doing anything with it.
Or so I am told.
I masquerade as a mouse on the MS website.
Mr A Mouse
me
Written By:louise
my story begins when i was 12 and just started secondary school i had met a boy called grant (not his real name) and we hit it off well, we began dating.
1st year of dating grant and things became rocky he was 3 years older then me and he had left school we wasnt seeing eachother in person anymore we were just txting and he asks one night.. “fancy meeting up” so i replied saying “yea sure that wud b great!”
so we decided we would meet by the shop outside my house..
we both went for a walk in the woods by this time it was around 7pm on a winters night.
we sat down he starts kissing me. i let him. then he pushes me down and i yell at him to stop and i didnt want to do this anymore and was going home but before i could get up he raped me.
i begged him to stop.
he didnt and when he had done he got up and went leaving me in the woods.. at 14 crying.. i went to my best friends house elize and she asks me wat was the matter as i was still crying so i told her half the story and begged not to tell anyone.
i was so ashamed, so i asked for a shower.
i left elizes house and went home mum asked if i had a nice time i replied yea it was great trying so hard not to cry and went to my room where i sobbed for hours until i fell asleep.
i eventully started bunking off school and turned into a person no body would want in there life i started to cut my wrists trying to make everything better i felt numb inside i took an overdose and ended up in hospital people kept asking why i wud do such a thing i replied i didnt no. i met another boy through school at 14 called knight i didnt want to be alone with him and i had started to vomit after meals becouse i thought i was fat.
15 years old and knight went to a diffrent school so i was boyfriendless again.
then i met lois and she was a good friend she asked if i wanted to go to the cinema with her and her brother edward so i said yes and there we all met and i met edward for the first time.
edward was really nice to me i turned 16 we were still together i had left school and he introduced me to the world of weed (cannabis) and it was good..
then i met up with an old friend called kyle he was into drugs (coke, smack and E) at this point i was happy with weed.
i then began drinking heavily and even tho i had a part time job i still drank every night and cut myself everynight.
and all through mine and edwards realationship i began to meet guys off the internet so i got drunk and said yea lets meet and with every guy i met i had sex with them and the disgaurded me.
then 1 night i went to kyles and he said “oh try abit of this” it was cocaine so i did and i liked it very much!
then 1 night wen i had nobody to go to. i met a guy called mark.
now only do i realize he saved my life..
i met him we had a good time and even tho we had sex on the first date he txted me later that week.
it was edwards birthday party at a local pub and we got drunk and wen we was on the way home he hit me i phoned mark and he kept hitting me and mark came.
and from then on i didnt see edward until a month later wen we got drunk and had sex. a couple of weeks later i find out im pregnant.
so i told mark i didnt have a clue who the father was it could be edwards it could be his he said ok.
so i had the baby (a boy) then my life changed for the better i had moved in with mark and we were happy this was the happyest id ever been and altho i was still cutting it was everynight it was once a month (i came from a background were u trusted no1 and gave nothing) we had a DNA test and the baby turned out to be edwards he now sees his son once a week and edward has changed his life as well. me and mark have a new addition to our family a baby girl and we are realli happy.
altho now i have been told me doctors i have post- natal deppression as our baby girl has been born with a special need. i still love my family but i do have mood swings and i jus wwanted to say no matter how bad the situation u r in theres always someone who will listen to u and wont judge u because somewhere out there someone will have gone through the same as u. i have never gone to the police about the rape i should have done. i have seen grant a couple of months ago and jus seeing him scared me he has a 2 year old. i hope his son never grows to be like him.
the end.