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paddym22 · Jul 25, 2009, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Babysteps09

I've been diagnosed as being Bi-polar , Chronic Severe Depression , Generalized Anxiety Disorder , Social Avoidance Anxiety , so is it possible to have all these
diagnosis together or can one cause the other . It is very confusing to me .

There are so many illnesses listed on this site that I could possibly have . So how can they be sure based on your symptoms alone , being that alot of these illnesses
have similar symptoms. If this is not making alot of sense it's because I really
don't know how to word it. Has anyone ever had ECT treatments for depression?
I'm willing to try anything right now because nothing seems to be working.
I know for a fact I am mentally ill , just not sure about the diagnosis

Can anyone relate to what I am saying? Any help is always appreciated

Babysteps, I am sorry this is all so confusing for you and you are very correct to say that a lot of mental illness have similar symptoms. I am not a psychiatrist so I wont diagnose you but in my case I am Bi Polar and chronic severe depression is a symptom of that, I get severe anxiety as a result of the Bi Polar and I used to avoid people as I was so embarrassed by my illness and consequently isolated myself when both depressed and stable.

I get very long severe depressions that do not react sufficently well to standard anti depressant therapy so I have had 3 courses of ECT to date. I cannot speak for anyone but myself when I say i found it very effective and quite quick to alleviate the depression, the only initial side effect was a blurring of my short term memory and a slight headache but both went away after a while. I would sooner get ECT now than wait to see if an anti depressant works after 3 / 4 weeks which it invariably hasnt for me in the past.

If you need any information or have questions about it by all means please PM me.

Thanks