Still struggling!!!

Hi @Doglover

I am very concerned to learn that you are really struggling of late and that you are expressing in your posts that you just want to die. That must be a very hard place to be in. Are you able to keep yourself safe this evening? I will send you an email off the forums to check in with you and offer your support. Please reach out for help if you need to.

take care

Whitehawk

ohhh my @Doglover one day at a time my awesome friend

@Doglover, you can do this my friend and @Former-Member , @CheerBear , @Eden1919 and I am right beside you all the way xx

my mr shaz is having a bad night tonight my friend

but sitting with you everyday xoxo

Thanks @Shaz51 . It's been such a long time of absolutely torturous symptoms, I just don't know how much more I can bare. I rly need a miracle becoz there's nothing and no one in the mental health system that can help me.

I'm sorry Mr Shaz is doing it tough tonight. He's lucky to have a loving supportive wife. My husband just doesn't know how to deal with me anymore..

Xxx

@Doglover, I am here for you xxx

I can understand how your husband feels because I don`t know what to do sometime either my friend xxx

but he is there for you even though he does not know what to do xx

have you told him what you want him to do at those times , like just holding hands or just sitting with you xxx

like my mr shaz , sometimes just sitting with him and not saying anything helps him

Thanks @Shaz51 . I guess the hard thing is that there are no good days and bad days for me, every moment of every day is absolute torture so generally speaking my husband is pretty fed up with it all and doesn't really want to be there for me. Most of the time he just leaves me to my own devices and does his own thing. Occasionally he will listen and talk with me but far more common is just not wanting to know about it. I guess bcoz it's every day and there's no good days, no reprieve. As much as anything he's probably protecting himself. He's said he doesn't want to end up in the nut House like me which is pretty hard to take. He's doing the best he can but really doesn't understand and I don't think he wants to understand. He just can't get his head around MI. So it is a very very lonely road. It's so hard bcoz we had such a happy loving marriage but now it's more like we are just 2 people living in the same house, but with a burden on him of caring for me. But it's also like he's a single man bcoz he does so much by himself without me because I'm unable to do it. It absolutely breaks my heart what has happened to our relationship. We used to have so much fun and laugh together and enjoy just being together and doing even the simple things in life together. That's all gone out the window now. It's just heartbreaking.

I'm really scared what is going to happen to me if things don't change.

@Doglover Hello I am sorry to hear you have been struggling lately if I remember you were having trouble with bad anxiety and depression and also a lot of physical symptoms and issues with medications? I am sorry about the relationship with your husband being damaged. Is there anything we can do on here to help you feel more supported?

Warning: Could be triggering for some

Hi @Eden1919 , thank u for ur post and support. You have a good memory. Yes I have extreme anxiety constantly, and severe depression. And ur right, I have a lot of physical symptoms, like it feels like my whole body and head is burning constantly, my legs and feet feel weird, my eyesight has drastically declined, my head feels like it's on fire and lifting off my body, to name a few. And yes I have issues with medications. I'm on more medications now than I ever have been and I'm worse than I ever hav been. My mind races out of control constantly, I have involuntary leg movements most of the time, severe insomnia, totally unable to rest and relax, it's like my entire body and mind is over over stimulated. I believe it's ingredients in the drugs that are doing it because I have had similar experiences in the past with non psyciatric medications before I had any mental health issues, but no one will believe me. So they just keep putting me on more drugs and I just keep getting worse. I've now lost my job, I can't drive, my cognitive function is shot to pieces and i am a dependant on my husband. I also have constant suicidal thoughts and images and at times urges, which is so traumatic. They are there all the time - I believe that is also caused by one of the medications as it started about a week after I started taking it and the medication has a warning for that. Again they won't listen to me. I have had 2 admissions last year, I came out worse both times. The last time was in Nov/Dec and they discharged me saying there was nothing they could do to help me (another reason why I think the meds are the problem becoz nothing works to help). There's much more I could add but that's probably enough for now. As for what people can do to make me feel more supported, that's a really thoughtful question but I don't know of any answer, but I appreciate the question. Thanks @Eden1919

@Doglover That is hard I also struggled with medications and side effects so I ended up coming off all of them and haven’t gone back and I do think generally speaking I am more functional off them. I am not sure if I have asked you this before but have you looked into auto immune issues? Some of the things you describe really do sound like things that fall into that category but I am not a doctor. The thing is most autoimmune disorders don’t show up in a normal blood test or sometimes any blood test so it can be hard to find them. As you have said though it is completely possible these are things from the medications. I did a lot of research on them over the last few years read books and as many other quality sources I could find and there have been a number of lawsuits to pharmaceutical companies due to them not listing side effects that they were aware of on the pakages and not telling doctors about the side effects as well. It does happen and some people just react badly. I know it would be hard to come off the meds and it is your choice completely but you do have a choice you don’t have to take them just because they are supposed to work. if they aren’t working for you then maybe they aren’t the right option for you personally.

Hi again @Eden1919 . Thanks so much for your response.

I actually believe that the only way I'm going to get better is to come off all the medications as u have. The problem is I think I will get worse before I get better and I don't know if I can handle that. I am so agitated an on edge and climbing the walls now I'm scared I might completely lose the plot and end up in the locked ward, which I just couldn't bare bcoz I am petrified of enclosed spaces and of being locked in anywhere. But I truly believe I do need to get off these medications, I'm just scared of what's going to happen if I try. 2 of the meds are the very addictive type. I have actually requested an apptment with my psychiatrist on Friday to discuss this very thing so it's interesting u should bring it up. I don't think he will approve it though bcoz I have brought it up several times before and he has dismissed me.

I know you can't say what meds u were on but are u able to say what type of meds they were and/or what they were for (not sure of the rules on that)? How many meds did u come off and how did u go about it (with/without psychiatrist approval, in hospital/on ur own, cold turkey/slowtaper, how long it took etc) and how did u find the process? I know everyone is different but I would be interested to hear as much of your experience as you are happy to share.

Thanks so much eden1919.

A bit more about what makes me think ingredients in the meds are a problem...

For a long time I've been hyper sensitive to stimulants - tea, coffee, coke etc. If I had them on a regular basis I would get anxiety, insomnia and racing mind. I didn't make the link at the time, it wasn't until I looked back and realised that each episode of anxiety/insomnia I had (well before diagnosed with any mental health issue) was at a time in my life that I was regularly consuming stimulants. I also found that I was sensitive to certain stimulating foods like chilli, spices, and even salt. I would get what I referred to as bad head (racing thoughts) and would have a bad night's sleep. In latter years, still before any mental health diagnosis I had to have regular iron infusions. Sometimes these were done using a saline drip, other times by direct injection, but both methods contained salt going directly into the blood stream. After each iron infusion, I would get an extreme episode of anxiety and insomnia as well as the severe body burning sensations that I have now. These episodes were awful but went away of their own accord after about 5-7 days. I have also had times in the past as I mentioned where I have taken medications that have had that same sort of stimulating effect (racing mind, bad sleep) which would go away once I stopped taking them.

In the lead up to me getting sick about 14 months ago I had an iron infusion which resulted in one of the severe anxiety/insomnia episodes. This went away after about a week and I was totally normal again for a week. I then without realizing was using a stimulant (American or siberian ginseng, can't remember which) and I got anxiety, insomnia, racing mind and involuntary leg movements like I have now. It took me a while to work out what it was but when I realised I stopped using it. The problem was that it takes a while for the symptoms to settle down and becoz it came so close after the episode with the iron infusion, my husband decided that I had lost the plot and took me to the local mental health hospital. From that time on I have been on varying types and amounts of medications and have consistently got worse and worse. All the medications contain sodium which I know acts as a stimulant for me (even if I had a high sodium meal I would get a 'bad head'). Also some of the medications act as adrenal stimulants which is amajor no no for me. So my history leads me to believe that it is ingredients in the medications that are acting as stimulants and the reason why I am so bad is becoz I've been taking so many for so long it's just stimulating my mind and body more and more. Which also explain s why nothing helps me get better but I've only got worse. Unfortunately the medical profession, and unfortunately my husband, are absolutely adamant that the above is all a load of rubbish and completely dismiss my experience over many years. My husband actually gets really angry if I mention it and says that it is these beliefs that are stopping me from getting better (thus making it my fault that I'm sick). So I'm rly between a rock and a hard place. If I decided to come off the medications, I would have to be really careful about what I ate as it would defeat the purpose of thingsi if I ate things that I'm sensitive too, and my husband would not be supportive of that. Also if I came off the meds and got worse, my husband would take me straight to the hospital, who would then put me back on/increase meds. So it's a really difficult situation. Sorry to be so long winded, it's just nice to be able to talk to someone about it becoz there is no one in my life that I can talk to becoz nobody believes me, the psychiatrists have made sure of that. They actually told my husband that I needed to cut off all contact with anyone that did believe me in regard to these things so I lost 2 friends, people in my support network as a result. My mum was also inclined to believe me but they got to her and told her how imperative it was that my family were on the same page as them so she changed her mind.

Hence it has been, and is, a very very lonely road becoz there is no one I can talk to and the people in my life blame me for being sick becoz I believe these things.

Sorry again for such a long post. Thank u for 'listening' eden1919, I really appreciate it.