Feeling so low. Need help. But there isn't any.

I'm really glad to hear you have a good friend that's there for you, and that you had a good talk.

My depression also can manifest as too much sleep, so I hear you on that.

I'm a little different in that I can often run down the worst in the evening. Even just doing the dishes, I often recall the saying that "thinking about it is so much harder than doing it". It may not sound like much, but although it doesn't touch the overwhelming stuff, it helps me get through the merely "ugh" stuff. And I understand how much it can help to pull yourself back up with routine and little things.

I hope today is a little better.

Better than I did. I've stayed up all nite.

TY

I have to start picking up this apartment. I stayed awake all nite. I knew if I fell asleep, I would wake up depressed and do nothing.

So now I will start. It has taken me all nite to talk myself into starting. You're right. The thinking is harder than the doing.

Thank you all for encouraging me. Being very, very discouraged is one of the worst things that can happen to a person.

Hope a little tidying has helped. I understand. My working life takes so much out of me at the moment that, on my days off, housework is the last thing I feel like doing.

I always vacuum my carpet. It's light-coloured. I put on some music, and Hoover and do my dishes and those small things give me a sense of being more on top of things.

Don't be discouraged. We all understand. I've seen some of the thoughtful support you've given to other members here.

Yes, the tidying helped. That was Friday. It was a pretty good day. I made fish for dinner. Later, I even baked cookies.

Then Saturday I got upset over nothing. Then I fell into Hell. Saturday and Sunday were beyond awful. And I acted bad. Then I couldn't forgive myself for being a jerk.

That's the worse part - feeling ashamed and hating myself. I can't express how bad this has been. I was wanting to exterminate myself.

Not as bad this morning.

So sorry; the weekend sounds awful.

Big hugs.

Getting out the door, though it was just to Walmart's, helped. I feel kind of okay now.

The big problem is morning depression. I fear going to sleep for how bad I feel when I wake up.

Yes, I understand that.

Anything you can do right now is a big achievement.

I've been awake now for 2 hours and the sun hasn't even come up. I wish I could get medication to make me sleep normally.

Woke up at 4 a.m. Couldn't fall back asleep. Stayed awake for over 6 hours. Around 10:30 a.m., I fell asleep. Mostly today I slept. I got little done today. The tinnutis has been bothering me terribly this evening.

I am very depressed. I'm worried I will never feel okay again. But I've felt that way in the past and gotten over it.

I feel just awful.

(((((Hugs)))))

I'm staying awake because I'm afraid to fall asleep. I wake up so awfully depressed. Then I keep falling back asleep all day, until the evening. Then I feel pretty awake.

I'm starting to think I can't cope with taking care of my boyfriend. I'm letting his apartment get untidy. I'm not wanting to prepare meals, do dishes etc. I do get him fed somehow. A home attendant is here part of the day. I try to get the supper dishes done in the morning before she gets here. Mail is piling up. When the attendant is here, she stays in the living room with him. There's only two recliners there. So I stay in the bedroom all day. I wish she wasn't coming tomorrow. I'll end up staying in the bedroom all day.

I don't know what to do. I don't want to deprive her of her job and day's pay. After tomorrow, she won't be back until Monday. But each weekend I say I'm going to pull myself together . . . and I don't. She'll go to the laundromat tomorrow, so she'll be out for awhile. I don't know what to do. I'm trying to think by writing.

This tread, now, is more just for me to collect my thoughts on. I don't expect people to keep responding to the same old thing. I have to stop sliding downhill and have a plan to act sensible.

I did call that national hotline. I said I was not a danger to myself, but awful distressed. I'm afraid to tell my PCP how bad I feel because I'm afraid she might not continue my hydrocodone. Then that would be a fourth stressor on top of the three that I am hardly coping with now.

The three things: 1)The morning depression. 2)The tinnitus. 3)The oversleeping in the daytime, where I can't resist going back to sleep.

In addition there is the responsibility for taking care of my guy. But that can be good at times by giving me something constructive to do.

I have hydrocodone, baclofen and amitriptyline. The hydrocodone relieves back and neck pain. I live in constant fear of losing that prescription. The most I take is 10 mg twice a day. Rarely, I might take it three times in a day, if I was doing a lot of housework or heavy errands with lifting stuff. It might seem like my pain couldn't be that bad, if that's all I need. But, often I feel too sore to do anything until after I take it. Or I get partways through doing work and can't continue without a dose. It works great on my achiness and soreness. It makes me feel physically normal. Then I can be active at a close to normal level. It does, incidentally, often make me feel less depressed. But I don't usually take it for that effect. Being able to clean, and cook and shop make me feel pretty okay emotionally.

If I don't take my amitriptyline in the evening, I usually will not fall asleep all night. Nor will I fall asleep next day. Without that med I will tend to stay awake for 24 - 36 hours at a time. That has been true for decades. Even, as a kid, before I got that med, I would often stay awake that long. I would go to school with no sleep.

So I'm awake now and unlikely to get sleepy because I did not take that amitriptyline 50 mg last evening. Sometimes skipping a night of sleep and staying awake the next day helps me be less depressed. I did that several nights ago and it did help. I wish I had the discipline to keep a journal.

The baclofen seems to help me sleep. I was supposed to take it 3Xday for neck and back pain. It wasn't too good for pain, but more effective for making me sleepy. So I tend to not use it in the daytime. If I am well rested, hydrocodone does not make me sleepy at all. It makes me much more willing to become physically active by getting rid of soreness.

So I'm awake now because I'm afraid to go to sleep because, if I do, I believe I will wake up much more depressed than I am now. And right now the depression and anxiety has eased up to where it is bearable. Plus, when I wake from sleeping, the tinnitus seems particularly bad. When I'm posting, the effort of concentrating on writing makes the tinnitus less noticeable.

I'm kind of okay at this moment, but I don't know how I'm going to get through tomorrow. If I take no pills, I might be able to stay awake. In the daytime, I'll have to be doing something, or I will get depressed and anxious.

My thought was that, if a doctor would order me a stimulant, I might be able to get up after sleeping and do something that involves moving around. Otherwise, I wake up tired and do nothing and go back to sleep. If I could stay awake in the daytime without that nearly irresistable urge to sleep, I think I could get passed being so depressed.

If I explain all this to doctors, they might give me nothing and stop ordering the stuff I now get, to boot. So I'm afraid to talk to them. These days doctors might not want to order hydrocodone for a depressed person. What a dilemma.

I think I might have found a psychiatrist to request an appointment with. I looked around online.

I calmed down a lot over the past 5 hours. At midnight was when I called the hot line, pretty upset. Four hours ago was when my boyfriend went to bed and the TV got turned off for the night. He has that TV going the entire day. I'm finding it stressful to have to listen to it. It's quiet now, and I'm coping with the tinnitus better. It seems it is harder to endure when I lie down.

I'm getting tired, yawning . . . but I'm afraid to go to sleep. I'm not too upset now, but I'm afraid I'll get all distraught again when I wake up, if I go to sleep. There's got to be some help for me somewhere from someone . . . that will actually help me.

Thinking of you, Rose.

This sounds awful to me. I completely understand the dread of morning. I'm going through that myself right now.

But staying awake all night.

That can't be right.

Glad you found a psych. Sounds like its worth the risk.

Big hug.

Thank you, PVB, for your understanding. I would guess that among those challenged by chronically recurring depression, many have their toughest time in the morning. There is the inertia. Once I've had to get moving and have gained momentum, that momentum can carry me along. But I'm a homebody now; my job is mainly here in the apartment. I wake up sore and tired and now with that tone in my head.

But today a neighbor told me my car tires looked low. The car sits unused so much. So I took off to a shop to get air. Just getting out of the house to do that interrupted my awful train of thought, where I felt the tinnitus was crushing me and I wished to be taken out of this life. All I could think is: this won't ever stop. I can't escape it. But I was, at least, partly wrong. Once I was out in the sunlight and bright, crispness of a nice fall day, I was able to stop thinking about it. Once out, I decided to do some shopping that I enjoyed. At the store, I lost awareness of the "tone." Surrounded by the sights and sounds of nice things at the store, I wouldn't even know it was there.

I have to not forget the lesson of today. But I will. I will. That's the awful thing. In the morning, going out of the house will seem like too much effort. I have to find a way to not get sucked down by that undertow that will be there.

I spent the morning calling pdocs. I could not find a pdoc taking new clients. This was terribly disappointing. Not one. I spent hours, finding phone numbers on line and making calls and leaving messages. Could find no one that I could see. This never happened to me in bygone days, when I spent a lot on getting psych care.

I had thought a reasonably caring doctor could help me adapt . . . with maybe some temporary pharmacological crutches. But I am on my own. And my S.O. scarcely grasps what in the heck I'm even talking about.

But I tried. Got through the day. I have to plan tomorrow . . . or I'll wake up and do nothing.

PVB, I hope you get through your morning tomorrow.

Rose, I’m sorry you’re having a tough time in the mornings and that you didn’t find a pdoc today. It was good you got out for awhile. I hope you have a better day tomorrow.

I can have a better day, if I will put effort into that goal. But my bag of effort is completely empty when I first wake up. I got to find some way to trick myself into just getting going.

Thinking of taking up coffee drinking. (I'm a tea drinker.) I should buy a machine for brewing strong coffee. Maybe I'll write myself a pep talk to read in the morning.

Thanks for the kind wishes, Rose.

That really did make a big difference to your mood. If you do start drinking coffee, you will be able to find a nice coffee shop which you can throw yourself at first thing in the morning. One that let's you stay for hours. Where no-one bothers you.

I've started my non-work days that way for years.

Worth considering?

I'm sorry you're going through such a rough time Rose.
That's really horrible that so many psychiatrists aren't taking new patients... actually kind of ridiculous, how do they expect people to get help? do you have any other pdoc options or have you called every single one available? x

Last night discovered I did have a voice message from one of the pdocs I called. So I can call that one and see if she takes my insurance.

Actually, I feel much better today. The "tone" seems much softer. I think how bad it seems has a lot to do with my state of mind. By getting all upset and freakin' out, I made the problem seem intolerable. But, while that's going on, I can't seem to get a grip. I say the right things to myself, but, only after a certain amount of time has passed, can I return to a state of emotional equilibrium - like I am in right now. I've always been this way. I just over-react.

I just read some articles about this. Supposedly, it's related to an overactive amygdala. I think it's a form of immaturity. But, having that insight, doesn't help as much as insight is supposed to help. This is why I stopped going to therapy. It doesn't change anything.

What changes things is making myself do what I know is sensible, when I don't feel like doing it. So I hauled butt out of bed and went for a haircut. Then ran a few errands and a bit of shopping and got the car washed. Consequently, I feel just fine. Just had dinner with my guy, including a glass of wine. I couldn't ask to feel much better than I do right now. I picked up my boyfriend's watch that I dropped off for a cleaning and new battery. The jeweler decided to throw in a new chrystal for free. Sometimes life just blesses you when you least expect it.

Then I stopped at a religious goods shop to buy some reading material of a spiritual nature, and I bought a CD of monks singing chant. All the while, I lost awareness of the tinnitus. So I'm recovered from my mini-breakdown. Seems most of it was my mind torturing itself.

If I could just sustain this current sense of wellbeing.

Thinking of you, Rose.

The "tone" seems to have quieted down remarkably. I'm starting to think I'm crazy and this whole tinnitus thing was a hallucination.

I've read that, with some sufferers, tinnitus can come and go. Maybe I'm one of those. This seems remarkable. At any rate, I'm very happy about how this has turned out.