By God, am I tired with this.

Hey guys, how's everyone doing? Just joined the forum although I 've been lurking for quite a while, so hi to everybody.

It takes quite a bit of effort for me to write this post, but then again almost every single task I try to engage in takes tremendous effort to do, so I tend to abort it.

Well, here's a bit about my story. I've been diagnosed with MDD since eight and a half months ago. My psych (who I trust and respect, that's one of the few positives really) has me currently under 450 mg venlaxafine (effexor) in the morning and 40mg of Citalopram (many brand names) and melatonin at night plus 3mg of Invega at night which is on the way out. This dosage began with a low dose of effexor and citalopram at night plus Levomepromazine (nozinan) 25mg and inveiga 9 m, so the antipsychotics were tapered and the anti-depressants increased in dosage. I am staying at the aforementioned dosage for the next 3 weeks or so, and then we are switching to another -tricyclic this time- AD if effexor bears no fruit. So that's at least another month (and I am very doubtful effexor is going to do pretty much anything to help even at this high dosage) and if things don't work out, a new AD so give it a month and a half at least to work. Time is always an issue, but time under such an un-effing-bearable daily existence is martyrdom.

In terms of the depression I don't have suicidal feelings, neither did I from the beginning, or feeling life is worthless or the typical depression ideations. I am depressed at my state of life and mind. What I have is a constant and unrelenting malaise, for lack of a better word. Nothing comes easy, a trip to get a pack of fags feels like a mini trip to some mountain or other, can't cook for myself and I always did that, horrible headaches, and popping zannax high dose benzos as if they were mints, they do pretty much nothing for me right now, well, some infinitesimally small relief, awful awful sleep and waking up with the gazilionth nightmare feeling tired. I went on vacation close to the seaside and I managed in two months to swim (love swimming) 4 days, and it felt like I was dragging a ball and chain doing it. Can't go out for a walk, let alone a run, can't pick up a book and read (loved reading), can't listen to music all that much, and about 3-4 times a day a catch myself saying to myself, god, jesus, how the **** could I be feeling so damn unbearably awful. I am also pushing forty and past memories are always there to constantly haunt me, or whatever "me" is left of me and despite the consolation I get from my shrink, that me is a tired, torn, battered, ever tortured broken up me.

I wanna tell you guys, I 've no idea about coke or meth or heroin withdrawal symptoms and after detox the compromised quality of life that there might be, but I feel right now that someone who's not suffered the way I am suffering right now doesn't know what suffering in. Despite having my fair share of suffering in my life, despite say active alcohol abuse ( I dislike alcoholism as a word) with the shame, the guilt, the physical and mental torture your body goes through, the relentless brutal hangovers etc. I really had no idea what suffering really was up until now. Everything until now was kid's stuff, this is the real mother****ing deal, and it's as ugly as a Medusa's head.

So how did this martyrdom start:

I was smoking weed daily and drinking about a bottle of wine or so daily (a spliff and great glass of wine or two or three, after a nice home cooked meal, what a ****ing dream,I wish I 'll be able to do this in my life at even some distant point in the future..), or anyway most of the days of the week. I have a history of alcohol abuse, with long bouts of sober living and weed helped me curb my taste for booze to a great extent. I almost always stuck to wine and binging was very very rare. I was also really productive at work, in the first few months of relationship I was into and happy about that. You 'd think that this kind of drug habit wouldn't have done me in so badly.

It didn't.

What did me in was a time frame of terrible stress during which I was sabotaged at work (a family member included in that nasty little conspiracy to freak me out, sadly), I had intense fears that my small weed growing side project would be reported to the coppers via my ex girlfriend, I had a neckless gorilla break my door almost right in front of my eyes, I had my life threatened twice, the second time with bodily harm (not taking place ultimately), I took a trip to Amsterdam (I remained sober there) under, well, very complicated circumstances to spell them out here, where I met a very unfriendly former lover and friend, I received a few emails supposed to freak me out... to cut it short, some people where out to get me, well, not to get me, but to terrorise me for sure. Pisses the **** out of me, that here I am minding my ****ing business, maybe going a bit further down the wind and weed road than I should have, and at the same time some people are minding my ****ing life and plotting how to **** me over.... At some point the immediate threats stopped and things calmed down, but I didn't, I threatened back, and I got into a manic phase overworking on a work idea I had, not sleeping well, fitting the bill of a manic episode to the t.

And then I ****ing crashed. I had pain all over my back but the doctor couldn't pinpoint it to anything after the cramped muscle healed, and this ongoing excruciating pain took about 30-35 massage sessions to heal, and then I crashed even worse, I became a shadow of myself going to bed at 8 pm and waking up at 5 am, every turn to the other side on the bed feeling like a cripple's struggle, my voice was almost lost to a laboured trembling whisper, I found it impossible to even roll a cigarette (tobacco), felt incapacitated, and then I visited the shrink, under the impression that a clinic would probably be where I ended up. I had and still have a good rapport with the psych, but the first few weeks were more than unbearable being in a constant haze, unable to as much as open up the computer, walking around my neighbourhood with a family member everyday as the only means to ever so slightly feel less unbearable.

So, I am opening up this topic, although my persecutory experience is probably the stuff that bad dreams are made of for most here, but resistant MDD is something I am sure others have gone through regardless of the stressor that got them there. Glad I managed to write this post which I 've been postponing for so long, because the intention had been there but the capacity to do so was absent. Anyone wanting to commiserate, or who's struggling right now under similar conditions (my shrink tells me there's worse, can't believe that, but I trust the guy, so there must be worse), feel free to join this thread. And again hi to everybody.

Hi Chris. Good description of what your depression is like, not easy to do. I haven't had an episode that hellish for several years, but I recognized it in what you wrote.

I'm pretty tired right now, so I'll just say that I noticed that you mentioned headaches. I wanted to ask if you check your blood pressure or if your doctor does. It's important with Effexor to keep an eye out for high blood pressure.

I took 375 mg/day for about five years with no problems with my blood pressure then suddenly (well, after about 6 months of not seeing a doctor) I had alarmingly high blood pressure.

The headaches don't necessarily have to be from high blood pressure. I think Effexor itself often causes headaches.

I hope that you are able to get your meds stabilized so that you can start to heal and recover.

I have been at that can't read/can't listen to music/can't watch a movie/everything seems like a hugely exhausting task place. It's horrible, but it doesn't last forever. Sometimes I was able to lower the level of things and still do some things (like watch silly 30 min. sitcoms or read YA novels.)

It really does feel like your brain and nervous system have taken a huge battering and recovery can take a while.

Last winter when I was too exhausted to cook, I found this list of 10 Foods I Eat Every Day to Beat Depression by Therese Borchard, a mental health writer who founded the "Beyond Blue" online community and is on the board of Psych Central.

A lot of foods on that list don't have to be cooked. I added Greek yogurt and oranges and olive oil (not by itself) to my list of foods to keep around. It really does feel like these foods give my brain a boost.

Hello, Chris22.
That resonates.

Did the social stressors you mentioned stop or recede?

Hey Rohag! Thanks for chiming in.

They 've stopped, thank God, it's been a year that they 've stopped... their remnants are anger and ptsd and the MDD; I am of course furious with my father, I can't fathom what he set out to do against me, and under what conception of an afterlife he thinks he stands a chance. But he and his fraternal "brothers" run a bit short I guess when it comes to atoning for sins and the afterlife. Boy is he in for a big surprise.

I had to meet him today at the funeral of my beloved grandmother and I we had to exchange a few words. He seemed content and impervious. He was joking that he chose his age of death, 99. I explained to him that I only addressed him out of respect for my grandmother and that while a bunch of halfwits who sabotaged and freaked me out are running the company I 'm closing in on a year of an almost endless nightmare, and that we are not on talking terms. At the end I cracked and said bye dad as he was leaving, not sure if he heard it or not.

At the same time my symptoms are again full blown today, fatigue, headaches, a sense of insufferable and inescapable mental pain. At least I am not ten feet under, could very well have been.

To all the other agonies you now have to grieve the passing of a beloved grandmother. I'm sorry.

Good to hear that some of the other threats have stopped.

I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for all that your going through, and I hope it somehow gets better for you! Depression truly is hell on earth!

I feel infinitesimally better, overwhelming fear ( I'd say horror) and sadness engulf and devour me almost all the time though, there's no light at the end of the tunnel as far as I can see, but I can see the tunnel a tiny bit more clearly. I m keeping close to my shrink, my meds, my family, God as far as I can feel his presence and to the faithful departed that may aid me from afar. Thanks to anyone that's voiced their support and my hugs out to anyone reading this thread and facing similar troubles. A time may come when this terrible weight is lifted, a time shall come, it cannot be otherwise. A for alive then, and H for healing.

I am very slowly starting to feel slightly better, there can be off days where it's me going to bed waking up to smoke a have a glass of water and play around with the computer for ten or so minutes then off to bed again, and, there can be days when I can actually find the concentration to watch some courses I m interested in. The best thing that's happened is that I don't get this horrible headaches/instability/dreadful general feeling anymore, or at least not often at all. Btw, three or so weeks ago I said oh **** it, **** all of it, I can't live like that and I spend a week or so on weed and about a bottle of wine a day, which should have set me back immensely but gladly it didn't. It didn't relieve me that much either mind you for anyone who might be as stupid as I and go down that way, to be sure it did make the days more tolerable but the rebound was nasty, coupled with the grief I was going through, and good lord, that was, well, hell, but less hell than a month ago when I was clean and on ads solely.

There are also some terrible nightmares that I wake up to during the night, scary ****, and they carry on for a few minutes after I 've woken up, but that's the least of my problems.

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for God is my shepherd he puts oil on my face, that's what I keep reminding myself.

Today I cooked something simple and served myself to eat, it felt mostly effortless, I can't even remember when it last felt effortless and I was an avid cook before my breakdown, as in I 'd cook three meals in half an hour kind of cook and I d have 15 ingredients to play around with.

I like the way you put it!

That "almost effortless" cooking for yourself is something big. I hope you can reintegrate cooking into your life.

Hi Chris,

I spent a number of years drinking heavily and smoking when younger to try to mask my Demons, didn't work then, still have them over 30 years later.

It brightens my day to read that you are showing any glimmer of improvement and that you find you are able to function to a degree with something you obviously enjoy.

May your recovery accelerate and your Mood stabilise.

Dave.

Many thanks Dave, appreciate it, ELP btw along with King Crimson used to be some of my favourite bands. All the best to you to mate.

hey guys, still a living in 2015, still trying to kick that thing, and still taking a good beating, and I mean a really really good beating some days, almost feels like a physical beating on my head. Depression is something of a misnomer hell training would be more likely.

still ****.

Are you still seeing a psychiatrist? Are they still tweaking the med cocktail?

Right. Sometimes you build something in your head. The I can'ts. I don't feel like it's.
The impossibles.

Then you let yourself do it ( like you made a meal). And you reflect. Guess what. That was easy. Why did I think otherwise.

We are set with 450mg Effexor and 60mg seropram at night with mirtrazapine as an augmenter.

Is the frown a comment on your assessment of this mix, or is it too soon to tell? Or, do you hate having to take three psychoactive meds? (I'm only on two at present... )

Buddy I wish I 'd be easy for me to make a meal for myself I can't instigate the action and I can't follow it through, that's major depression.