Antidepressants

I hate to disagree with you JJ, but........

My depression was triggered by a number of factors piling upon each other, with the root starting many, many years before.

On the day that things finally peaked, I had left work as normal and had apparently driven home - however, to this day I have no idea how I got home, or which route I took. My neighbours son found me in my car, parked up near my house, hands still gripping the steering wheel and staring into space; he went and got his mum and dad who eventually extracted me from the car, bundled me up on their sofa for the night, and the following day his mum took me to the doctor who immediately put me on Seroxat and signed me off work for four months on the spot; at the same time, the doctor asked my neighbour if she was willing to look after me for a bit, which thankfully she was.

Overnight, I had gone from someone who was relatively confident, working two jobs, one of which was as a joint director of my own business, to someone who could barely be trusted to go for a pee on his own (and that was before the medication); the Seroxat worked to some level, in that it got me up and about a bit once more, however I then suffered from huge suicidal tendencies, and tried on more than one occasion to see myself off (thankfully unsuccessfully). I also hit the bottle - hard, and I mean hard. Two bottles a night just to get to sleep.

The trigger? My aunt had quite recently died of cancer, and I was as close to her as I was my own mum. I had done the 'man thing' and tried to be there for everyone else after she died, bottling up my own grief. Another aunt shortly after died of cancer, and then the icing on the cake was my business partner pulling the plug on our business only days after I had saddled myself with debt on a personal credit card for stock, vehicles and a huge fuel bill, with not a grain of proof that it was company debt; in short, I was screwed. I started working as a carer, travelling the countryside to clients with various conditions doing sleep-over shifts and night shifts before returning to my main job in the mornings...... even still, I couldn't keep up with the increasing demands from the finance bods; eventually, something had to give.

Counselling had its place, although the counsellors were a bit bemused with me as I was able to identify things going right back to childhood - - the damage started with parents divorcing, moving to a new school and area miles away, being made (by my father) to live in circumstances that were subsequently described by social services as "can't be the right place, not fit for habitation", then being abandoned by my father and then ending up in care. That led on to a bit of an uphill struggle to carve out a life, and come the time of the double bereavement and financial woes, the bubble went bang big style.

Now, admittedly the original meds were as bad as they were good, and the second meds were pretty unpleasant, I eventually got onto the right ones for me, and within a matter of weeks of going on them, I was back firing on all cylinders.

Years on, I have a fairly stressful job - nearly 500 staff, and responsibility for multi-million pound contracts on what is one of the largest public transport networks in the world; do I get stressed - hell, yes; do I get depressed - again, yes (it never fully leaves you in my opinion), but I am now able to cope with it reasonably well. Sure, the drugs alone were not the cure, but I am firmly of the mind that I would not be here at all were it not for them.

@val - another offer of a 'cyber-ear' from me; any time you want to get things off your chest to someone that is impartial and who won't judge, you know where my inbox is!

 

I've read through this thread and haven't really much to contribute. Outside of having a bit of a tantrum occasionally I've never had depression but am interested in reading other peoples experiences and recommended therapies (if that's the correct term). I definitely agree that too much information contributes toward depression in people and there is simply so much of it that mostly it's hard to ignore - perhaps ignorance really IS bliss? I read the news some days and want to stop the world to get off!

If I were to ruminate a touch there is the school of thought that says the mind can indeed overcome physical maladies but not simply overnight. I have never liked to take medication outside of aspirin or 'brufen and my mindset is such that I am fortunate enough to be able to pick myself up and dust myself off in somewhat 'stormy weather'. Maybe I'm just lucky.

This is not a comment on anyone's postings here, but my own personal belief is that in times of grief you do absolutely anything it takes to get you through but for it not to impact your longer term life enjoyment. In terms of work related and other types of depression triggers, I believe people should take the time to examine their life and think long and seriously on how long and fulfilling they want that life to be and make the changes.

As all people differ, there isn't a miracle solution, it's whatever works for you but be wary of dependency.

 

Good morning I to cannot add any more to this excellent heart warming and positive thread ,apart from a very old Romany saying and I have found to be very true

"If you think to much you will forget how to laugh"