Medication just doesn't seem to work for me. I've been working way harder than I think I have to to keep my mood at an even keel and to keep from relapsing (which hasn't worked lately). I'm on 3 different medications and each time they change or the dose gets upped, I'll feel better for a little while but eventually just crash and I'm sick of it! The side effects are near unbearable, but I stick with the treatment because how I feel without them is way worse. I don't know what to do, and I don't want to complain to someone because I feel like they'll either not believe me or think I'm doing something wrong (because that's what I think). I feel so stuck and it's not helping my recovery. Any advice at all would be very much appreciated!!
"The man in the song tries to love the girl, but she's not really there, not all the way. She's running from something inside of her that he can't see. I think that there's something like that inside of me." - Laurel, Love Letters to the Dead
Unfortunately this is true for a lot of people. I'm on my 8th antidepressant. Only one has worked but I put on 2 stone!
The only advice I can offer you is to try alternative therapies. Medication isn't for everyone and getting to the cause of your low mood may be more helpful than trying to boost your brain chemistry a bit.
Medication never worked for me. I have been on basically everything. I was on meds for ten years. I finally said stop a bit over six month ago. I found out just how many negative things the pills had done to me besides the very obvious side effects. I felt so much better coming of them in many ways.
Pills doenst work for everyone even though the professionals want them to. I have had so many discussions about how horrible the meds made me but they had one excuse after another about it being my illness etc. It wasnt. I found out when i got off them that i was right and now my psych even say it was the right decision i made even though she was so against it. The pills never made my symptoms less, they just made me not function in many other areas.
For the first time in many years they are providing me with other treatments. They are working far better for me. Therapy in different forms is the right treatment for me. Not medication.
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I must say, I'm a bit confused by your post. On one hand you say that the meds aren't working for you, but on the other hand you say that if you go off them you feel way worse. This would seem to indicate that they are indeed having some effect on your life.
I was put onto meds for about 6 months but they never did anything except me gain weight. I felt no better when I was taking them, even after several weeks of waiting for them to kick in. And I didn't feel any worse when the script ran out on them.
Mind you, the shrink and my GP could never agree on my medication regimen. My GP kept saying that I was on a very low dosage, which would kind of explain the lack of impact, whereas the shrink refused to increase the dosage as he said it'd put me into toxic shock.
Thank you all so much for your input! When you say "alternative therapy," what kind of things were you referring too? I'm a researcher when it comes to this stuff, so just some names of differing treatment would be very helpful.
ctried, let me explain myself a bit. Re-reading what I wrote, I realize I was very confusing. So lets say off the medication, I feel like my mood is in the bottom of the Marianas Trench. On the medication, I feel slightly elevated but only so much so that I'm still in the Tonga Trench (2nd deepest trench in the world). My goal is to be at sea level. So basically it works some, but nowhere near the degree that I'd like it too. I've been in therapy since I was 2 and like the medication it helps but not as much as I'd like. I hope this makes things a bit clearer!
"The man in the song tries to love the girl, but she's not really there, not all the way. She's running from something inside of her that he can't see. I think that there's something like that inside of me." - Laurel, Love Letters to the Dead
Cognitive therapy, group, art therapy, music therapy, one on one therapy etc.
I have also gone to a physiotherapist simply because i have a lot of fear and anxiety that sits in my body, then we challenged that. My reactions to getting touched. Just accepting that someone else was looking at my body without me thinking it was negative, getting upset and paranoid. That kind of things.
Then i had therapy with a different type of therapist. I dont know if you have a name for it but its called an ergotherapist here. We would cook together, do shopping etc. And she would see how i reacted in certain situations, when i needed help, if i could concentrate on one thing. This helped us find out in which areas i needed help at home.
Ive had teaching groups where i learned things of my illness as well as groups where i talked about me, my feelings etc. Both small group and big. I had two different kinds of music therapy. One where i played instruments, with a musictherapist and a group where we would pick songs each with certain meanings to us.
There really are a lot of options. I also have the understanding of medication that it can make your symptoms less severe but it wont cure you. Only working with yourself through therapy has the ability to truly do that. I would never suggest that people take medication as theonly treatment cause honestly, it wasnt meant that way, but it became that, at least here, to save money. It was easier and cheaper than sending someone to talk therapy even though they may have avoided medication that way. But because we already have huge waiting lists, and the government still take money away from psychiatry, gp's feel it necessary to give meds rather than refer to therapy.
Medication helps some people, not all. Medication and therapy helps better. For me therapy alone is best because the pills numb my feelings to the point that therapy is not effective at all. How can i talk about my feelings when the medication numbs everything and i dont feel at all?
Anyway, just letting you know that there are many options when it comes to therapy.
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Medication has helped me but it's not the whole picture. I think therapy has helped a lot too. It's helped me with coping skills and changing my thinking patterns.
It is recommended that those with sever mental illness should have a mixture of talking therapies and medication.
Very rarely does medication fix all the issues related to mental illness.
It sounds like you would benefit from some talking therapies.
Have you thought of maybe starting with a self help book?
The average,
well-adjusted adult
gets up at 7.30am feeling just plain terrible.
Call me Kate.
I have dyslexia so please excuse my poor spelling and sometimes poor understanding.
Thanks for putting some options out there Morpheous. My mom is a music teacher and music has always been a huge part of my life, so I think I might talk with my current psychologist about maybe doing a combination of talk and music therapy.
I think one of my problems is that both my mother and I have had very high, unrealistic expectations with medication. Having thought about it more and more, I would really like to see how I do with therapy alone and without all of the medications over the summer. Summer is very low key for me and I think it would be a good time to fine tune things. Again, thank you all so much for your input. It really means a lot!
"The man in the song tries to love the girl, but she's not really there, not all the way. She's running from something inside of her that he can't see. I think that there's something like that inside of me." - Laurel, Love Letters to the Dead
