Just another day

I felt better for three days. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Monday I was back to feeling off, slightly depressed. And now I've sunk very low. Lower than I have since I had ECT. And it's been going on for longer - this is week 3. Today I feel like I just want to go back to bed and never get out. I stayed in bed an extra half hour today because I could not get up and face work. I dragged myself out because I don't have any paid days left to take and I need a full paycheck. But I don't feel capable today. Time is moving so slow. I'm moving so slow. Yesterday it took me 20 minutes to get off the couch to get my son an ice pop. It was just walking to the kitchen (which is like fifteen feet away in my apartment) and opening the freezer And I had to really psyche myself up for it. Thankfully my husband made dinner last night. He won't be home tonight so I'm all alone with my son until about 8pm.

I really hate this. It's not fair. Invega squashes all mania. I never get euphoric for more than a couple hours. But I keep encountering depressions. So wtf is the point of being on medication? It's ********. If I have to take the lows I want the highs as well.

Right now I don't ****ing care. I hope I lose my job at the end of the school year, then I won't have to come back here and get cursed at and disrespected all day.

I just want any to stay in the social worker's office and cry and sleep and then go home and stay in bed until this is over. It has to get better, right? It has to. I don't want ECT again. Not so soon. I'm just getting my cognitive functioning back. And I lost so many memories. I can't work and get ECT. And I can't afford it with my ridiculously high out of pocket costs. I haven't even paid the bills from the last two years.

It's just not fair. I'm sorry for complaining, I know a lot of you are dealing with bigger things and mine is so petty but I just feel so desperate. Thanks for listening. I'm going to try to get through my day now.

Hi wildflower. I am so sorry you are feeling so down. That sucks! I hope something happens today that gives you a glimmer of hope (a smile from a child, a kind word, etc.). Gentle hugs.

I'm dealing with similar things as well right now, so you're not alone.

Sorry that you're feeling this way. I hope that you find more stability today.

I can understand your frustration about the unfairness of meds taking away the highs but not the depressions, when what you really want is to experience the highs if you already have to take the lows. I often crave hypo/mania. I just can't help it. Even though I know that every manic episode does physical damage to the brain and worsens the prognosis for the illness in the long run. So really, it's technically a good thing that the invega is keeping away the mania for the sake of your brain's health, but depression is damaging too, so it's kind of unavoidable.

Have you been on another drug like Seroquel that has both depression and mania controlling properties? Some of the drugs are better at one thing than the other and I'm pretty sure Invega falls in this category. There are others that cover both; I just know for sure Seroquel does because I'm most familiar with it. I don't know a lot about Invega because I'm allergic to Risperdal and they are related so I can't take it.

I hope that you have a better day today.

I took seroquel xr I. The past and it pulled me out of a horrible depression in like three days. It was great. But it was so sedating that I was falling asleep while driving to work, even though I took it the night before. I didn't fully wake up until noon and by then half the school day is gone. I had to stop it. But maybe if I tried the regular seroquel the sedating effects wouldn't be so pronounced.

I see my pdoc on June 5th. That's ten days away. Right now in this condition I can't fathom making it through tomorrow, much less ten days. But she rarely has emergency appointments available and for all I know I could wake up tomorrow and be fine. That's what happened last week - moderate depression on Thursday and the mild euphoria on Friday. But now I have admitted to myself that this is severe. The suicidal thoughts have come waltzing in. Just thoughts, no plan to do anything but still. It sucks to have " I wish I would just die" be stuck in your head.

I spent a lot of time in the bathroom today, hiding from everyone and their demands. I can't believe there are two days left in the school week. I don't know how I'll make it.

Ugh I'll stop complaining now. I know no one wants to hear about it.

Complain away, that's what this forum is for. I doubt you can find any other place that could understand the way folks here do.

Order pizza tonight, and have it delivered. That way you won't have to cook.

XR SHOULD be better for sleepiness in the daytime. Of course people react differently and so what SHOULD be sometimes isn't. I begged to change to it from regular Seroquel the minute it came out because I heard it was for people exactly like me: on a higher dose and having excessive daytime sleepiness. I was on it before the pharmacies had it stocked even though my pdoc normally doesn't let me be the first to try new meds because I'm very sensitive.It made a big difference for me. But I was SO sedated anyway; I was also taking 3200 mg of Depakote ER and ativan at night and PRN and maybe something else sedating. So that may be what helped me; any drop in a desert kind of thing. I used provigil/nugivil with it when my body was used to it (I did with regular seroquel too) and that was helpful although I had to closely self-monitor for side effects. But really until I went on an MAOI and came off Depakote I had a really hard time with being extremely sedated and took advantage of flex time except that 2 jobs in a row started taking it away from me for reasons that were never made clear. I never could figure out why my doing paperwork later in the evening was a big deal. But it was and so I had a lot of trouble at those 2 jobs and was fired from both. Then I got the MAOI and life was wonderful because it is stimulating and I was finally AWAKE. Until I had surgery with some brain damage from a bad reaction to something and then just became so untreatable I had to be on enormous doses of meds and the MAOI no longer helps me wake up early or fall asleep early. I dream that someday that schedule will come back but I don't think it is likely unless an amazing new drug comes along.

I've found this chart helpful in the past although like everything some meds that don't do better than placebo do work for some people; I'm on 2 of those and they do help me.

Mood Stabilizers | PsychEducation

Everything on that page is good information that gives me detail than the chart but I've used the chart as a handy referene for years and it's a place to start with "I'm not taking that because____". Not that it's done a lot of good for me; trial and error is all that works for me. I just gave blood to a clinical trial trying to find blood tests to help determine best treatments and how the body is processing meds. In a few months I'll do it again and this time get my personal results which will be very interesting.

I am so sorry you are feeling this way. I, too, had ECT and am now in a depression for the last 3-4 weeks. It is even worse than before the ECT that I had in January, 2015. Sorry that you are feeling this way. It really just sucks. My husband is out of the country for 6 more days and I have three kiddos to take care of. It's hard to be a mom when the depression kicks in. I hope you start feeling better soon. I don't have any experience with Invega but I am on abilify and depakote and we just added a small dose of wellbutrin for the depression. I wish it were easier to find a mix of medicines that actually worked! I haven't found the right mix yet...

Hope the rest of the day gets better and tomorrow is even better.

Hang in there.

I don't do well on sedating medications. They tend to be super effective to me and make me tired all day long.

Thanks for the chart. I know my pdoc is just going to bump me up to 450mg of Wellbutrin and have me come back in a month. I've tried a bunch of mood stabilizers. The only one that worked for awhile was trileptal. But it seems to always end the same; meds either don't work at all, have intolerable side effects, or quit working after a few months. It's ******** and makes me want to ditch meds completely and just deal with it on my own. But I know once a mixed episode hits I'll be back on pdoc's doorstep begging for something to help me.

I just have to deal with feeling like **** I think. There's nothing I can do about it. It will always be this way. I need to toughen up and just muddle through until it abates. Whenever that will be.

It may not always be this way. I am no poster child for medication success. I've been on everything except Invega which I can't take because I'm allergic to risperdal and they're related, Saphris because it interacts with Seroquel and Fanapt which has not come up for some reason (I think it may have which would mean interaction and I don't remember it). I've been on at least 64 cocktails. And while it's true that right now my life is a huge mess I have had times when I felt ok. I was sedated during those times; that's unavoidable for me it seems because my body burns through lower doses like it is just water. So I always wind up where I should be sedated. And if I'm not manic I think I am (it's been so long now I forget). I certainly can't work anymore and sedation is a HUGE part of that. For me it does get better and worse; when I'm manic I can't be sedated. The concoctions I've been on would scare some people and it hasn't bothered me. I've been on 1500 mg of Seroquel for 2 months now, which is nearly double the FDA approved dose (and I do this with a pdoc who is also a phamacist and who is at a hospital where things are tried so this isn't a bad thing) but even that plus 5 mg of valium added to my 2 mg of klonopin, handful of Seroquel, and 2 or 3 other sedating meds don't work. So when I'm manic I can't be sedated but when I'm not I'm suddenly going to be on 1500 mg of Seroquel and depressed and unable to function because of the high dose knocking me out.

I just know that there was a time I found a balance that lasted well over year and if I hadn't gotten whooping cough and been very sick for 3 months and then dealt with lung damage causing allergic asthma with allergies to everything it would have gone on a lot longer. And I never thought that was possible. It took the MAOI to make that happen for me. Which is extreme. MAOIs aren't easy drugs and they are stimulating so it takes some balancing to get sedation right again (I had to switch from ativan to klonopin and double Seroquel from 300 to 600 mg) but I was really good in that time. And so even knowing that I've been on every reasonable drug for me (I have older ADs but am high risk with those so they are a last resort) until something new comes out I do still believe it's possible. It happened once and even though whooping cough and surgical complications pretty much destroyed my life after that I can't stand to live without thinking something will help eventually.