Dave T-S

X
Hang in there, and you'll get it sorted. It will take time, and be possibly unpleasant along the way. With any issue like this, the first step is recognising it and making yourself do something positive about it, which you have started to do.

As the old Chinese proverb goes, every long journey starts with a small step

Hoppy

Final word from me.

GPs have one hell of a job and keeping up with all the antidepressants now available (literally hundreds) is a specialist task. It's unrealistic to expect what you get from a GP for free in ten minutes to be the same as a two-hour consultation that's costing £250. My GP is great - he knew when a specialist was needed.

Here's a couple of things I bet you didn't know. Prozac, though still widely used, is as old as the hills. It takes a week or more to kick-in, and several weeks to wash out of your system so it's very hard to build any meangingful track of your mood changes.

And I take supplement medication which is called, wait for it, Optimax Not joking!

Richard.

Blackscooby

X,

I was diagnosed as having depression in late 2002 following some relationship issues I was having at the time. The most important step I feel was recognising that something was wrong and simply going to see my GP. Just this inital stage took me probably weeks of "working up to".

I hadn't talked to my parents / friends or anything as in my mind at the time depression was a sign of weakness. NOT AT ALL, its a chemical imbalance in the brain. Once I started on a downward spiral I found it more and more difficult to do something about it.

Eventually I went to see my GP who was fantastic. He just sat there and listened to me open my heart, something I'd never done before at all. It took a lot of courage on my behalf to do that as I thought everyone would think I was "just being silly", but that was my state of mind at the time.

Once I'd spoken to my GP, I then spoke to my parents and told them what was going on with myself and my (now) ex. They were upset that I hadn't spoken to them before. I'd been in this state for probably 3 months before I told my folks.

To be honest the best thing I did was talk, talk to my GP, it really didn't matter..... just to tell someone something which had been getting me down was a massive relief.

Talk to someone, its what friends and family are for. They'll listen....its the best thing I did.

Strangely enough I first posted on here, like yourself before I went to see my doctor.... The SN community is fantastic

My saying to myself thoughout was "poco y poco", (little by little)


[Edited by Blackscooby - 1/23/2004 9:45:48 PM]

BumbleBee

I have recently suffered from anxiety which my GP said was like depression. Having been worried about things for a while I suddenly started to cry alot not really knowing why I felt like this. I'd wake up in the morning really upset but during the day I'd feel better, then wake up the next day feeling really down again.

After a few months of taking anti-depressants and talking with family and friends about what I was worried about, I started to feel a lot better and now feel I am back to "normal".

I think talking to people helped me get through this period. At the time I spoke to as many friends as I could about how I felt and surprisingly found that all of them were very supportive (I was scared that they would laugh at me and tell me to pull myself together).

I also found that I was sleeping a lot more especially through the day and although my family were trying to tell me to stay awake more during the day I actually think sleeping more helped me.

This is my first post on scoobynet (I'm not a regular trying to stay anonymous). What a way to start!!!!!!