[mulan]

I was just thinking how better I feel from two years ago. I remembered how I wanted to read sucess stories when I was in my worst days and I just find a few, it kept me thinking that the probability for getting well was to little, but probably there is some error, people who get well little by little maybe dont feel the need to use internet anymore.
The older ones in this forum may know my story.
I have been depressed for most of my life, since early teenage years, probably. In high school I got much worse and college years are almost a blur.
I strugled to realize I was depressed, from very early on I discovered the power of internet, the tests, the testimonies, I scrolled through different pages I diagnosed myself with duzens of psychiatric diseases, but most important I didn't tell anyone how I felt.
I was a very shy teenager, with high levels of social anxiety (and I felt embareced I was shy). But I did very well at school, always, even when my disease was at its worst and so I couldnt focous or think clearly. Through High School and college I was almost always at the top, so people would tell me I was worrying to much whenever I complained my memory felt fuzzy. It gave me the possibility to camuflage my disease.
My mates only thought that I was a nerd that didn't atend any activities because I was home study and was beyond avarege shy. But the trued was nothing like that. I made no friends during my six years at college, I putted myself asside from everyone, and it made me very sad I was incapable of making friends. But I couldnt talk, I hadn't hobbies, passions or opinions, my mind was to flat. I couldnt tell anybody my worries because I felt deeply embaressed by them, my brain worked to slowly and many times I had dificulty finding the words to say. It was awful and I didn't know what was wrong with me. I questioned many times.
One of the things that went worst at first were the doctors I have been too.
When at high school I began to spend hours in front of my computer doing nothing (playing candy crush and similars the entra day) and not wanting to go anywhere my close family made me see some psychologist and a psychiatry. She tried some antidepressants (maybe three for a month and a half) and how they didn't work she quited on me. After I saw a cardiologist at the age of 18 (same year) because I was worried something was wrong with my earth the doctor thought I should went to a psychiatry, but the one he recomended was no good. He thought I was mostly an anxious teenager and he dismissed all my memory and thought complains because I was a brilliant Student... After a year of appointments I thought I was better, and I made him think só, because I didn't like him, and he released me.
So there was me strugling to college (I am a doctor I have a master in medicine), but always passing with good grades.
In the fourth years the class model change a bit, we started to have pratical classes with patients and to spend more time in class with classmates. For a girl with high levels with social anxiety it became harder to deal with. I skiped an exame and I told my parents I didn't feel very well and went to see the first psychiatry I had been too, she was a doctor at the hospital in which I was studying.
I didn't know at the time, but I learnt latter she is the most hated psychiatry at that hospital, she is really a very horrible person, few can deal with. She has a young adult predilection because she loves schizophrenia and psychotic diseases.
As the antidepressants she gave me didn't work on me she became implying that I had a schizoid personality disorder. It made me very sad, I couldnt make my mind if I agreed or not with her, yes I couldnt have friends and I had little interese on people, but deep down I believe I would vê happier if I could make friends (was I associal?), it was embarassing to admit such a thing to the people closer to me, it made me a bad person and I wanted to be a good person. She didn't believe in my memory issues, in my energy issues, in the fogg I felt in my head, for her it was all parte of a personality disease because I was a good Student. It was very sad thinking I would be like this forever, I remember the friends I had in my early Childhood, but maybe I hadnt a personality disorder at the time, I read everything I could find about personality disorder and it all said it was a chronic disease with little chance of success. One day this doctor said she couldnt do anything eles for me and I was dismiss.
By then I was at the first year of my residency, de new people and a lot of things to learn, all very hard, all very foggy. I end up having the worst co-workers (residents, one of then is a very sick borderline antissocial) it wasnt good.
At the end of the year I made the decision to schedule a new appointment with another doctor, I end up with a brasilian grandmother, which I was very septical about, but she nailed it. My sister who is also a psychiatry had given me an antidepressant some weeks earlier this knew doctor made some adjustments and I got to say it worked. From there now I just been getting better little by little. After at least 10 years living with depression I now have some sense of normality and I can work on my career, fight my social anxiety (it is also a lot better) and develop some hobbies. I have a lot to go, but for someone who have been in the mud for so long I can say I am 75% better.
I dont know if I will ever have the courage to stop this medication, evento if it is recomended later. I dont want to go back were I was.

[Yaowen]

Dear mulan,

You have been through so much in your life. Reading your post brought tears to my eyes many times. I am glad that medication is helping you. It helps me too. I think you are a very inspiring and heroic person.

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

[MickeyCheeky]

i agree with the wise and wonderful Yaowen about being glad that your medication is Helping you. Thank you so much for Sharing your story. Sending many Safe, warm hugs to BOTH you, @mulan, your Family, your Friends and ALL of your Loved Ones! Keep fighting and keep rocking NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, OK?!

[Alive99]

Originally Posted by mulan

I was just thinking how better I feel from two years ago

(...)


At the end of the year I made the decision to schedule a new appointment with another doctor, I end up with a brasilian grandmother, which I was very septical about, but she nailed it. My sister who is also a psychiatry had given me an antidepressant some weeks earlier this knew doctor made some adjustments and I got to say it worked. From there now I just been getting better little by little. After at least 10 years living with depression I now have some sense of normality and I can work on my career, fight my social anxiety (it is also a lot better) and develop some hobbies. I have a lot to go, but for someone who have been in the mud for so long I can say I am 75% better.
I dont know if I will ever have the courage to stop this medication, evento if it is recomended later. I dont want to go back were I was.

This is all really cool that you found a working medication. Which one is it? I'm asking just out of curiosity.

Keep going!

[Fuzzybear]

:

[mulan]

Thank you.
I take quetiapin and fluvoxamin.
I am a regular person with regular people's problems. I wanted to share this to tell someone who is strugling that you can and should have hope.

[Alive99]

Originally Posted by mulan

Thank you.
I take quetiapin and fluvoxamin.
I am a regular person with regular people's problems. I wanted to share this to tell someone who is strugling that you can and should have hope.

Thank you for the response! Do you feel the quetiapine helped you in addition to the antidepressant (the fluvoxamin)?