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Old Nov 27, 2009, 09:25 AM
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kerbear1973 kerbear1973 is offline
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Member Since: Dec 2008
Location: Arizona
Posts: 5
Hi! I am a 36 year old mom who has had suffered from depression (diagnosed with dysthymia at age 11) and anxiety and ADD my whole life. Usually I am juggling one of my conditions at any given time but I'm relatively used to it. I take Adderral XR for the ADD, Sertraline for depression and Buspar for anxiety. I see my psychologist 2Xs a month and have a super supportive husband (who does not have mental illness) and relatively supportive family. My brother has ADHD and depression and I suspect my 11 year old daughter does too. I am a huge nerd and have read soo much about mental disorders and drug and talk therapy as a result of that. My issue right now is my best friend. My best friend is 25 and has kinda been my sister in all this stuff for the last few years. She has suffered from bad depression and anxiety for years. She has been my close support group because as we all know, its easier for people who have been there to really understand what we go through. She has a tendency to self-medicate with pot which I've never been happy about but?? I'm also close with her sister who, like my husband is not MI. We work together and about 5 days ago a few of the people in her inner circle got a rambling text about how she "had an epiphany" and her depressions gone etc. In the next few days it just got worse. At first I suspected more drugs and her sister called me to see what I thought. We went back and forth the next 24 hours trying to figure it out when as I was getting ready to work with her Sis sent me a text saying BF hadn't slept the night before. Thats when I thought Bipolar! She goes through terrible depressive periods and now this. She comes into work and it was worse. She was rambling about how she's figured it all out and its about God and gender and race are the same and on and on. The people who didn't know her well I'm sure thought she was on serious drugs. She told me she loved me at least 10 times as she walked into our shop. It was very hard for me seeing her that way- I've never been around anyone who was manic. Apparently it got even worse yesterday. So her family takes her to the intake facility and they diagnose her as bipolar and send her back home with no meds and tell her to see her dr. Her parents don't want anyone to know- including me- but her Sis was texting me. Last I heard, last night they were back at a different hospital cause she got even worse. My issue is I feel so helpless and I want to be there for her (she once sat for 5 hours with me at a mental health intake place) but her parents are being closed off about it. I can understand its their choice and I really can't help nor change anything. I just feel its triggering all sorts of uncomfortable restlesness and anxiety in me because of that. I guess my problem is, how can I be there for her from afar without sending myself into my own mental health tailspin like I feel is brewing? I see my dr on Tuesday, btw. Sorry this was so long, but thanks for reading it.