Replies to 'Giving and Receiving Support'

Dear Shelly ,

  You actually owe no one an explanation. It is your business. Unfortunately people with depression have always and  are still discriminated against. It is ignorance that drives their comments. Only approximately 49 % of people suffering depression have any biochemical imbalance which is why the medication actually does help them. The remainder will try various antidepressants/antipsychotics (shrinks call mood stabilizers) and anticonvulsants to find they only get worse. That is because they don't need medication rather they need to consult a psychologist and get to the root of their problem/s and learn life strategies/tools to cope with or overcome certain lifestyle or psychological situations. The problem is that GPs and psychiatrists tell them that all depression is a biochemical imbalance and it is simply not true.

  Because you suffer from epilepsy your depression would very likely be biochemical due to the interruption to normal neurotransmission by the seizure activity. This happens even when you are not displaying any seizure-like symptoms as there are often small electrical seizures occuring intermittently. It has been proven that people who suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy have a higher than average incidence of moderate to severe depression. 

  If you would like more information on anything I've mentioned just post questions. I will provide references for the same. I am writing a book for laypeople and professionals on depression. I have done a great deal of research and I am still finding more new information. I have more access to information than the general public as I work for the health department .

  I was lucky to escape with my life and my mind after ten years of psychiatric treatment .I was unfortunately given Zoloft by my GP in 1996 for 'mild' depression and became suicidal within 7 days. The medication was not stopped but doubled , others added and then I was hospitalised and given ECT. This beautiful scenario continued for another nine years and after countless cocktails of medications , a hundred rounds of ECT

and I ended up obese, with hypothyroidism (from the meds) and unable to string a sentence together.     

   Finally in the middle of a holiday in 2004  I decided to tip the Clozapine down the toilet and begin weaning all of the other meds slowly. I lost 40kg in 8 mths, regained insight and clarity of thought and set about writing a page long list of goals. The doctors scoffed at me telling me I was being 'too ambitious'. I made them eat those words. By July 2006 I was off all medication. The psychiatrist tried to tell me that there was a 70% chance of 'relapse'. I laughed and said ,"relapse of what ?". I had been given the diagnoses of depression , psychotic depression ; bipolar disorder , schizophrenia;major depression and schizoaffective disorder with borderline personality and obsessional traits ! I'm sure that if I had continued to go along with what they were telling me they could have completely exhausted the DSMIV of  all possible diagnoses. All they were seeing as symptoms were the effects of the drugs they were feeding me. No one out of six psychiatrists who treated me had the brains to consider stopping all medications to see what was really going on underneath the confusing mask of medication.

   All of that aside I do understand what it feels like to be depressed and lose your independence ( on more than one level). Try to consult a psychologist also rather than just treating the symptoms with medication. Your depression is multi faceted. You are likely to be greiving for the loss of your health , mobility and independance on top of the biochemical disturbance. A good psychologist will help to learn to deal with how all of this is affecting you and develop some strategies to deal with ongoing problems and any new ones that appear. I'm sorry to say psychiatrists are rarely prepared to talk to you about anything more than how to adjust the medications. They don't offer you practical strategies like a psychologist. The role of psychiatrists has deteriorated to psychopharmacology. Freud and Jung would turning in their graves.

  I live in Sydney and I am a paediatric critical care nurse. If would like to email me personally just let me know or if not that's ok too.Take care and remember that being comfortable with who you are is far more important than what other people think.

Cheers,  Donna.