Ongoing mood disorder?

[Zeldazonk]

I'm guessing there are people here who feel that they never had a serious mood / anxiety disorder, and therefore should never have been prescribed meds, others for whom medication has muddied the waters so much they're not too sure, and then there are those (like me) who feel that they did have a serious mood disorder, but that medication has complicated things terribly by causing new symptoms.

 

I guess I'm wondering how the people like me have managed through tapering and beyond? I'm worried that my moods will be such that I have to go back on meds.

Also, I'm thinking that I'll never really know what's my brain / nervous system in its natural state, and what are changes brought about by drugs.

 

Do people find that they can tell when their brain returns back to a more natural state? If you know what I mean...

This all sounds dumb. Sorry, I have cognitive impairment.

 

Thanks for reading.

[Junglechicken]

I think I know what you mean : Your baseline mood versus your drug induced mood?

 

Right now I am in my baseline mood (feel ok and not manic with anxiety due to WD symptoms). I feel more relaxed today, as though my appetite is back a bit. I can laugh and even smile.

 

At the height of anxiety (when suffering with a WD symptom) I completely lose my appetite, have to walk for miles to distract myself, can't concentrate on anything at all, and get sucked into my vacuum of doom. I cry a lot and tremble with fear. I also go to the doctor a lot.

 

Before the depression/anxiety hit me like a train and I subscribed to the drug merry go round, you could say that I had it all.

 

The old me was fearless, dynamic, self-assured, very sporty, charismatic, socially well connected, blah blah blah. ALL GONE.

 

I cannot relate to the people I was once socially connected to (haven't seen them for years either), but my life has changed/I've changed irreversibly. Anyone who goes through this and gets through to the 'other side' can probably say they have 'died' and been re-born.

 

That's just my take on the mood thing.

 

Hugs,

JC

[SquirrellyGirl]

Hi Zeldazonk, 

 

You pose an interesting question, one that is tough to tease out from all the many folks' stories here.  As they get better in their recovery from psych meds, they tend to disappear!  Have you checked out the success stories forum?  You can always read peoples' threads and then message them to see how they are doing these days. 

 

I read your original thread and this post got me thinking:

 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/11511-zeldazonk-ad-induced-bipolar-2-diagnosis/?p=212689

 

where you wrote: Just that, using Prozac, the actual tapering and stopping for me has been quite easy in the past, but the eventual mood / emotional problems have been huge.

 

​When I came off Effexor, it was too fast, but I did NOT have the horrid WD symptoms that people complain of when cutting too quickly and steeply, never had a brain zap etc!  But physical symptoms such as severe hot flashes/sweating, burning skin, and mental fog came on slowly, followed by the severe depression and anxiety many months out.  Since the mood problems didn't start until months out I like everyone else thought it was relapse.  I tried replacing the meds with tryptophan or 5-htp and Sam-E, but they did nothing.

 

I had only ever had situational anxiety, usually social, especially with authority figures, but in WD I was having global anxiety with a sense of doom, terrified of the future.  That was definitely not like "me."  My depression was also magnified, and the negativity was extreme, though still based on concepts that had plagued me throughout my life.  Before and even during drugs, I had super low self-esteem, no self-confidence, always thinking poorly of myself, feeling "less than, not good enough."  But I still had drive to do things that mattered to me.  When I was in WD depression, I lost interest in things that really mattered to me and was just generally apathetic, and I know I hadn't been that way before or during drugs. 

 

Towards the end of my protracted withdrawal, before reinstating, I came across a type of therapy program called Emotional Brain Training.  I had decided that I couldn't stand to live with who I was for the rest of my life, so I was finally going to do the work to change.  EBT helped me develop a sense of inner sanctuary, and to get more in touch with my feelings, corny as that sounds.  They teach tools to process your feelings and raise your brain state from stress (where that might be depression or anxiety) to a state of connectedness and balance without negativity.  

 

It was hard to do this work while I was still in extreme withdrawal, but once I reinstated and got stabilized, I was really able to do the work and change my thought processes.  Still a lot of work to do, old "wires" to break, but much better than I had ever been in my life, and that remains despite now being well under the therapeutic minimum dose of Effexor!

 

So, the 10% (or less) taper method won't make things go faster, but what it will do, over faster tapers, is allow your nervous system to adapt very gradually to less and less drug over time, so that by the time you jump off, most of the recovery has already been done. Any withdrawal should be mild and over with faster because there is so little recovery to be done. Faster tapers leave the CNS scrambling to keep up, and when you jump off, the CNS is still so behind that there is still a huge amount of recovery to be done and huge symptoms due to all that instability.

 

I think there are many on this forum who have made it to quite low doses, where most of the nervous system has recovered, and they are not falling back into their pre-drug depression/anxiety.  This may be because they have lived and gained life experience which gives them a new perspective, or they'd done "work" that broke the old wires, or.....some say that having been through this journey, they now feel they can handle anything!

 

For me, it's the ol' cross that bridge when I get there deal.  I have learned too much about the negatives of these drugs, that they INCREASE the likelihood of having depression, shorten life spans, and increase the odds for getting Alzheimer's, to name a few. 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing who I am when I finally get off the meds, but I would be lying if I said that I never had those thoughts of trepidation about being a depressed person off the drugs.  But I must give myself the chance that life could be better than I ever imagined!

 

SG

[Meimeiquest]

Although I haven't been tested much, I think I have some of the genetic patterns associated with bipolar disorder, partly because there is so much mental illness I many y family...we're now seeing it surface in the children of my siblings. But I think these are things that can be managed as long as we realize that more self-care is needed than for most people. The genetic things that I am aware of are especially related to handling stress, and some other things.

 

These are issued I have uncovered so far that affect my mental health: sleep apnea, gut issues (including giardia for something like 14 years), probably mercury overload, I am also just now learning about how insulin resistance destabilizes serotonin receptors and the effects of elevated blood sugar and cortisol on the brain and brain inflammation. So basically lots of fallout from obesity. I think if and when I get to the bottom of it all, I'll be all done with meds. For right now, I was on six drugs and am down to about 1/3 of my original lithium dose, off everything else. I work full-time and have a busy family (although neither of these things always go smoothly). I don't sleep great, and I often don't feel well, but I am making it. So I don't know if that report is encouraging or discouraging

 

I would really recommend to you a book that recently came out (I haven't read it all yet) by Kelly Brogan, A Mind Of Your Own.

[Zeldazonk]

Thanks Jungle chicken.

 

Before the depression/anxiety hit me like a train and I subscribed to the drug merry go round, you could say that I had it all.
 

 

How long did you have that depression/anxiety before you started on meds?

 

I had melancholic depression for years which is why i'm thinking that I might still have a mood disorder to deal with once I've finished the withdrawal process.

[Zeldazonk]

Thanks Squirrelly,

 

​When I came off Effexor, it was too fast, but I did NOT have the horrid WD symptoms that people complain of when cutting too quickly and steeply, never had a brain zap etc! But physical symptoms such as severe hot flashes/sweating, burning skin, and mental fog came on slowly, followed by the severe depression and anxiety many months out.  

Since the mood problems didn't start until months out I like everyone else thought it was relapse. (my bold)

 

That's exactly what kept me confused. I've asked my psychiatrists again and again - how I could tell what was mood disorder and what was withdrawal? They didn't know, and so I assumed that if I was still having really bad agitated depression almost a year after stopping meds, it must just be me. Grrrrrrrrr.

 

SG -

"I had only ever had situational anxiety, usually social, especially with authority figures, but in WD I was having global anxiety with a sense of doom, terrified of the future." (sorry don't know how to do 2 quotes)

 

I so know that sense of doom. I remember saying to my psychologist that I was horribly frightened and it had a really sinister edge to it. Really scared and really despairing. Of course she attached it all to my childhood which I never felt quite right about.

 

[Zeldazonk]

Although I haven't been tested much, I think I have some of the genetic patterns associated with bipolar disorder, partly because there is so much mental illness I many y family...we're now seeing it surface in the children of my siblings.

 

Thanks Meimeiquest,

 

Yes, I can see genetic stuff through my family too. My brother, his son, my daughter and I are on the Autism Spectrum, and I do wonder if my parents had known that, and had the knowledge and support we have now, things might have been different for me at least.

My brother has challenges from ASD but doesn't seem to have the mood problems that I do, which seem to come from the other side of the family. That and AD's. (My paternal grandmother who was diagnosed bipolar was always on a huge amount of meds which makes me wonder.)

 

The centre we go to that specialises in ASD aren't exactly anti psych drugs, but they certainly go about trying absolutely everything else before going there. Mainly accepting oneself, acknowledging one's strengths as well as differences / challenges. Just basically understanding that you are different to but not less than most other people.

This is hard sometimes. I've never been able to work full time (I wouldn't be able to work at all at the moment). I did get my uni degree though, which I'm proud of.

[Junglechicken]

 

Zeldazonk - I would say my actual breakdown crept up on me after several years of depression and anxiety following a family financial crisis.  It was the breakdown that precipitated the need for A/Ds as I was unable to function normally (multiple panic attacks etc.,) at work or anywhere for that matter.

 

[ChessieCat]

"It was the breakdown that precipitated the need for A/Ds"

 

The sad part of this for many of us taking ADs, is that if we had been provided with non-drug methods of coping we most probably wouldn't be in the situation we are in now.  It is much quicker and more profitable for them to prescribe the pills.

[Junglechicken]

Chessie,

 

Latterly, my doc insisted that he had to "assess the risk I would have been to myself".

 

At the time I was asked if I was "suicidal", to which I answered "no".

 

This answer obviously wasn't enough to avoid the drugs though.

 

JC

[Zeldazonk]

Thanks Jungle,

 

How is your depression and anxiety now?

[Junglechicken]

Not great Zeldazonk.

 

The stress of an international move back to the UK (among other things) threw me into a mega WAVE along with the depression and anxiety that goes along with it.  

 

Its only in the last couple of days do I feel as though I am coming up for air again.

 

JC

[SquirrellyGirl]

Thanks Jungle chicken.

 

Before the depression/anxiety hit me like a train and I subscribed to the drug merry go round, you could say that I had it all.

 

 

How long did you have that depression/anxiety before you started on meds?

 

I had melancholic depression for years which is why i'm thinking that I might still have a mood disorder to deal with once I've finished the withdrawal process.

 

I am intrigued by this type of depression, because there is no support for the chemical imbalance theory of depression, and there is no genetic correlation, though many, including myself before coming here, continue to think so.  I have also read articles about other causes of depression that we just never even thought to look at before, such as gluten/milk intolerance and gut flora.  Antibiotic use could disrupt the good gut flora and allow bad flora to populate the gut, and apparently our gut flora really can influence our mind!  

 

Thankfully, there is now more attention being paid to the gut-mind connection, and I'm thinking that may be a key towards understanding melancholic depression or depressions that seem to happen despite there being no triggers or thought processes accompanying it.

 

SG

[AliG]

I'm not sure that we can totally dismiss the genetic component to all this , and also the " nature versus nurture " debate.  I think " upbringing " has a large role to play , in this , particularly if there is " trauma" involved.

Gut flora , can only account for so much . There are many and varied processes , at work here , and we will probably never know the full extent of what causes it .

 

One thing we can agree on though , is that the drugs   " amplify and accentuate " , any tendency towards melancholy , whether it is inherited or created environmentally or nutritionally .   As we all know , they  ( drugs ) , in effect,  create the condition , they were meant to resolve.  Also , that - left to their own devices  moods " wax & wane" and will ultimately resolve themselves  in time , when left unhindered , by drugs.

 

Can we go back to pre- drug normality  ?  ( Whatever that means for the individual .)  Everyone has a different baseline.  I don't think anyone has the answer to that , yet . Maybe , one day, hopefully there will be answers.

[peggy]

i was listening to a podcast that was discussing how to be happier - it was saying that about 50%of our happiness tendency is inbuilt - we all have a 'set point' for happiness and from that set point we can manipulate it somewhat. 

 

i think i have a tendency for anxiety - but looking back over my life it wasn't always - i would have a period of anxiety and then it would go away for a few years - as i got older the anxious periods morphed into depressive periods - interspersed with several years of normal mood in between.  And they didn't SEEM to be correlated with any major event (apart from post natal depression) - thats what always made it difficult for me to understand - my life was pretty easy - no financial or marriage problems, no health problems, no work stress - just BAM! one day i was good and the next day i would wake up and everything was changed. It always felt biological to me.

 

but even so, i am incorporating good mental health strategies - meditation and exercise to help me as i continue my downward march off effexor.

[SquirrellyGirl]

You're doing a great job, Peggy!

 

I'd love it if you could mention which podcast that was.  I'd always been a glass-half-empty type of person and gobble up anything that can help me break those circuits and re-wire myself to be a glass-half-full kind of person :-)

 

SG

[Zeldazonk]

I had melancholic depression for years which is why i'm thinking that I might still have a mood disorder to deal with once I've finished the withdrawal process.

 

I am intrigued by this type of depression, because there is no support for the chemical imbalance theory of depression, and there is no genetic correlation, though many, including myself before coming here, continue to think so.

 

 

As far as I know there certainly is a genetic link with melancholic depression.

The chemical imbalance theory I never bought - even back in the eighties. Other things like the gut-brain connection are fascinating, but, in my mind, offer no simple answers at all.

 

Thanks, Zel.

[Zeldazonk]

Peggy:

"just BAM! one day i was good and the next day i would wake up and everything was changed. It always felt biological to me."

 

Me too Peggy

I remember the day "the world" changed for me, I was 13.

 

Having a lot of trouble with quoting, sorry.

 

[Zeldazonk]

Not great Zeldazonk.

 

The stress of an international move back to the UK (among other things) threw me into a mega WAVE along with the depression and anxiety that goes along with it.  

 

Its only in the last couple of days do I feel as though I am coming up for air again.

 

JC

 

Sorry to hear it JC.

Do you think your moods would be better now if you'd never taken psych meds?

[Junglechicken]

Good question - I think if I had had extensive counselling, pyschiatric help and CBT over many months (money no object) then I could have gotten through my issues without having to go on drugs.

 

I would have had the tools to help myself and had a deeper understanding of the causes and why my thinking patterns were so destructive.

 

Through work insurance in Canada I was seeing a pyschologist who did help, and I got to see her twice a month when I was on medical leave (3.5 months). I was then deemed "fit" to return to work.

 

However, the move back to the UK threw me back into my depressive/anxious hole (along with the WD symptoms) and I need to loop back and seek help from those professionals again. The only thing is, this time, I don't have the insurance, or a job so I have to do as much of this through self help as I can.

[Junglechicken]

Forgot to mention that when I am in a WAVE, one of my W/D symptoms is suicidal ideation.  I think about it all the time.

 

Now that I am in a WINDOW:

 

I can think more clearly

Can concentrate better

Thought processes are better

Negative thoughts etc., subside

Feel able to help myself heal more 

 

Its almost as though my mind is released from the grips of the anxiety and depression for a while.  FREEDOM!  It feels amazing and I get to be old me for a bit.

[Zeldazonk]

Forgot to mention that when I am in a WAVE, one of my W/D symptoms is suicidal ideation.  I think about it all the time.

 

Yes , that was one of my main symptoms last time I came off drugs (Efexor & Seroquel - not at the same time, but not very far apart), only I didn't realise it was a W/D thing. Very dangerous isn't it? I wonder how many people actually end up killing themselves in this state!

[Junglechicken]

Yes, I wonder too.