Saw my pdoc yesterday. I have a million billion things going on in my life, largely related to a major physical illness, which has led to loss of income, hours and hours of paperwork and dealing with bureaucrats who still insist on making things impossible for me, weekly outpatient clinic visits for shots and transfusions and whatnot, etc. It's the money that's the most problematic -- I just had to dump $250 into my car, and now I can't pay my March rent. Blah.

My point is, I have plenty to be depressed and anxious about -- and I have been -- and everyone I know has been sending me articles about how exercise helps depression (I send them back and underline the words "mild to moderate", which are not me), or how I just need to get out of the house more, or hey, you almost died, be glad you're alive. And I am. But I tell these people, "GOD, I'm depressed," and they say, "get over it already." (I know we've all been there.)

I spent almost an hour with my pdoc yesterday -- he schedules appointments for half an hour. We talked and talked about all that's going on with me, and how I've been reacting to it, and he concluded that I really AM depressed, and it's really NOT just situational, and it needed intervention with an increase in my antidepressant. I have to watch what I take now, because they think a couple of my psych meds caused my physical illness, but it was the hospital psychiatrist who put me back on Effexor (after they cold-turkeyed me off all my psych meds -- UGH), so we figured it would be safe to up the dose and just wait to see if we need to add anything else.

I just wanted to say how good it feels to have my feelings and my self-knowledge validated. I want to try to be better about that for people I respond to here. It pissed me off so bad every time somebody told me I just needed to stop sitting around moping, when I knew I was really having a recurrence. My pdoc and I have been together for over 7 years, so he knows me extremely well, plus he's trained to figure out the difference between situational and organic. I've just had it with "friends" who think they are doing me a favor by telling me I'm just feeling sorry for myself.

Thanks for letting me rant

Candy