depression

I hope this blog will enable those who are depressed to recognise someone who shares their feelings and those who study psychiatry as a test case.

My depression is about inability to change or tolerate a mind set. It sometimes leads to tears or rage. Every victim either dies or finds a release mechanism; in my case medicines were required to break the loop and remains the only way to break the shell

It sometimes involves weeks of horrible night and daymares formed from all the terrible things I've seen humans do to other humans.

In retrospect I can see that the seeds of the problems were visible from childhood manifesting as nightmares and inability to relate normally and hence almost always ending out the odd one out.

Perpetual isolation results from the perception that I understand no-one and vice versa which means that there is a persistent tendency to shut the world out lest misread emotions lead to enmity rather than friendship. It would be good to talk but bad to do anything that might upset my own emotional balance or that of others.

Nothing is worth doing because nothing is interesting because nothing helps.

If that meant the mind was at rest that would be something but instead it is perpetually engaged in the analysis of its own dysfunction stuck in loop of the insoluble dilemmas

From 14 until 18 I self medicated on amphetamine and nembutal with a group of friends who I will aways remember fondly as kindred spirits. This worked surprisingly well on all fronts. I was able to make new friends, concentrate on my studies and felt quite happy. But I guess I always knew it had to end.

When I went to University I decided that prescription drugs should replace self-medication. This consisted of nitrazepam to help me sleep and later amytrityline for depression then I left and moved to London.

I found London both at work and home very stressful. The only change to medication on moving to London was that nitrazepam became temazepam and Welldorm plus 30 mg amitryptyline

This remained much the same except I started using temazepam as a social lubricant and to control panic so took a lot more ot it when, at age 44, I had to spend a week with two psychotherapists on a routine week long residential management course. This led to a severe reaction both physically and mentally. I had to be helped home by a colleague. It took weeks to recover. Two course members were affected in this way but the other seemed to recover more quickly.

After 6 months new drugs were put in place (40 mg amitriptyline, 150mg, 2800mg Welldorm and 150mg sertraline

I could cope again until 53 at which point feelings of isolation, exhaustion, emotional overload, anxiety and futility reached breaking point over a year. Lots of pain but no gain to anyone. Just total isolation and then psychosis.

In December 2009 came psychosis which was terrifying in that the chamber of horrors continues but mind and body become dissociated so if you try to move you have to first find a connection with a body. Furthermore the hallucinations continue day and night.

This acute phase lasted two weeks controlled by a mixture of quetiapine, chlorpromazine, venlaxine, welldorm, trazadone, mirtazepine

I was weaned off the basket of acute control drugs and onto just venlafaxine and trazadone with my usual welldorm for sleeping. This did not help with the personality problems, anxiety, rage / frustration.

Each of the members of the initial cocktail was then tried with three month gaps in turn each with negative results.

I was left with chronic depression and despair finding it hard to get up let alone do anything. No medication was found in any of the classes of antidepressants UK psychiatrists use despite trying the whole range from major sedatives through the many tranquilizers, antipsychotics and antidepressants over 9 months.

I discovered that the z drugs zopiclone etc made me very much worse so they are on my allergy list.

Last week Lyrica was abandoned and an increased dose of diazepam prescribed and sertraline at 200mg which is what I had before the psychotic episode in December. I've found so far that I do feel calmer and can compensate for lack of energy with liberal doses of yohimbine and caffeine. Nightmareless recipe ended up as 100mg doxylamine, 2800mg Welldorm, 10mg diazepam, 300mg trazadone. I do realise that I won't know if the new cocktail is working for many months but I do have hopes for it.

I've taken an interest in my own condition and a pressure group for promotion of mixed disability assisted living which is something outward looking and the end of the my own hallucinations is a huge plus

I have now seen the psychiatrist 6 times (twice privately). Diagnosis is never very clear but we seem to have ended up with a conclusion that there is an element of autism spectrum disorder and one month supply of adderrall helped so that seems to be the case but since each prescription costs me £300 there will be no more. Instead I am on a long waiting list to the Maudsley Centre but their priority is children. So awkwardness and anxiety in public will remain since I'm advised that the wait will probably exceed my life expectancy.

One morning I just refused all daytime medication and suffered for this oer the next week but then I found I could cope if I was careful during the day. At night sedation is my only solution.

The hallucinations are gone, I can drive again, I can use my PC for hours rather than minutes so all is not lost and there is always the hope of the drug that will fix my serotonin balance, regulate my sleep, control my panic (when allowed enough diazepam) and even enable me to interact with people in a normal ways sometimes though this can rapidly turn into panic.

If you are reading this and seeking help I fear that you will find that the UK NHS will be unable to provide proper care and treatment. If you do raise the money for private care I would warn caution since many private practitioners have hobby horses and also an interest in a continuous income stream.