[ambivalentlythere]

Hi everyone, I'm new here. I had a question in mind but after thinking about it in detail I think that I over analyzed as I tend to, and now I feel very lost and unsure, so please bear with me while I try to make some sense.

Recently I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. My doctor has suggested that I start taking medication for the depression, but I feel like there is something else going on besides depression, and I feel like medication might make things worse. I know that I am suffering from severe depression, but it seems to be at times only. My moods tend to fluctuate through out the day; further, they seem to be receptive to situations. I do get depressed and low, and sometimes it seems that the depression comes for no reason and other times it's a result of something that happened. Then there are times that I feel anything from ok to extremely good and happy, and the thing I guess I could compare this feeling to would be a high. Yet, other times I get irritated quite easily, frustrated, and extremely angry. There seems to be little cause for this. I also am easily angered, more, the anger makes me someone else and it doesn’t seem to take much for me to blow up. Basically it seems to come out of nowhere with lightning speed, I blow up, and soon after everything’s back to normal as if nothing really happened. Sometimes just someone talking to me makes me really angry and I start to have very negative feelings toward them, and it feels like I hate them, but these are people I love. Sometimes I go from feeling sad, to raging mad, to I guess ok and quite fatigued all within a few hours. It just doesn't make any sense, at least half the time I feel like I'm going crazy. I never know how to expect to feel, or how something is going to make me feel. This interferes with my life, because I function according to my moods. I can't ever seem to make plans because I never know how I will feel when it's time to follow through, even simple things such as meal planning. I mostly live from minute to minute and I can’t see past my mood at any given time. I just feel so lost, I don’t really have anyone to talk to about this. I honestly think that I’m slowly destroying my life, and I do feel like I’m going insane, and I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. Is all of this typical of depression?? I feel so lost and confused, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of depression but now I feel that I know less than I did before I started actively learning about it. I guess I should end this here, my apologies for this entry being this long.

[leacon]

Many years ago before I was first diagnosed with depression I read many books on mental illness and got very confused myself. Every symptom of every disease sounds like your own. Medical students get into the same problem only they think they have a physical illness from reading symptoms from a book. You need to accept the diagnosis of your doctor and learn about that mental illness alone. If you do want to check anything else out, check out bipolar. Sometimes depression can be easily confused with bipolar.
Good Luck

[Rohag]

Hello & Welcome, Ambivalentlythere!

I am depressed. I also have auto-immune and neurological disorders. The depression diagnosis preceded the other diagnoses by 4-5 years. It is possible the medical folks might have caught the other problems earlier, but the depression diagnosis acted as a lens through which they interpreted all other symptoms.

If your situation allows, make sure your doctors screen you for other conditions. People can have more than one sickness.

I wish you well.

[ambivalentlythere]

I also forgot to mention that on top of all these quick changing moods, there are times when it feels like I'm on the verge of different moods but not quite there. It's like I don't know how I'm feeling or how I should be feeling. If I try to analyze it, I'm not quite sad, not quite angry, not quite frustrated, it's like I'm existing in an emotional limbo. If I were to actually feel something, I think it would be several different emotions at once, not just one. This limbo is not a feeling of numbness or being dead, because I do feel I just don't know what. I often end up feeling anxious about floating in an emotional void.

[ambivalentlythere]

Thank you for taking the time to read and reply to my post

Yes, I know people tend to believe that they are suffering from an illness after reading symptoms, at least from psychological illnesses. For students, there is actually a term for this, which of course I can not remember lol. I really don't want to self diagnose, I'm pretty sure that would only cause me more stress. Now, the reason I question my diagnosis is because it doesn't seem fully correct. I think what the problem is, is that I'm unable to speak thouroughly with someone who actually works with mental illness who could answer all of my questions and address my concerns. I did look into bipolar but again it doesn't seem to fit, I get extreme happy moods but I don't think they would qualify as mania or even hypomania so I just don't know.

I was given a referal to a psychiatrist for further assessment but this won't happen until probably middle of july. I just wish I knew more so I knew what to possibly expect and maybe what sorts of questions to ask, and if I should take the meds my doctor has suggested or wait. These depressive symptoms are really interferring with my life, but I really feel like they might make things worse. Call it intuition...or maybe it's just simply fear.

Thank you again for the replies

[Elysium]

Hi!

The things that you have explained sound like they could definitely be related to depression, however, there are some other things that could point in some other directions as well. The one other that came to mind is maybe bi-polar disorder. But you can't know without a proper evaluation.

I am not a mental health professional, but I have some suggestions that you could consider if you want. One is to accept the depression diagnosis and start on the anti-depressants; this at least would get some medication on board which might help you start to feel better, however the more commonly used meds can take about 2-3 weeks to get into your system and start working.

The other options you have are to not accept the diagnosis and ask to be referred to a therapist for a more in-depth eval.

If it were me, I might think about starting on meds and asking for a referral to a therapist. This doesn't mean you have to go to therapy weekly for a long time, but it might help to figure out what is really going on. I do work in the medical profession and in my experience, medical doctors will throw anti-depressants at just about anybody and ruling in or out other mental disorders really isn't their specialty.

Good luck to you...and keep us posted if you like.

i think it doesn't hurt to question a bit more since you're feeling depression doesn't quite capture your experience. You mentioned you saw your doctor but it might make sense to see a psychiatrist to get a full diagnosis. The doctor would be a good choice for a check up, lab work, check your hormone balance, thyroid, that sort of thing. The psychiatrist might be better equipped to determine what sort of brain chemical issues you may have. Without knowing more about your personal history and tests done it's hard for anyone to say definitively what's going on.

Often times people are misdiagnosed repeatedly until the right one comes along. i doubt treatment for depression would be detrimental as it is too often part of the overall picture. At the same time, i think it's ok to trust your instincts too and look into it further.

Best wishes on your journey.