Messages By: foxylass

Hi there,

I'm a 38yr old ,single,Australian Woman. I am an RN & Midwife by occupation. Secondary to an extremely stressful 1996 which saw me being bullied at work,returning to part-time university study and my grandmother dying I naturally became depressed. Unfortunately I had an adverse within two weeks of commencing the SSRI ant-depressant Zoloft. I suddenly became suicidal. This lead me down an unforgettably horrible road of having the meds increased,anti-psychotics added , ECT and frequently changing diagnoses. Eventually the psychiatrist decided I was schizophrenic ! He commenced me on Seroquel and Clozapine. I gained 77 pounds in less than six months , was extremely suicidal and couldn't string a sentence together. I came close to perishing at the hands of this madman who called himself a psychiatrist.

  He refused to discuss my condition with any family members. Citing that I was over 18yrs old and it was confidential. This was despite me having never instructed or suggesting he do so. I was admitted to a locked psychiatric ward  after trying to suicide. He outlined a grim future of drugs,ECT , having to resign from working and being cared for by others for the rest of my days. Would you want to live after being told that ? I was held for almost 9mths there.

  Eventually I was released after my father threatened to take out guardianship over me. I was flown from New South Wales to Queensland. The psychiatrists there concluded I was had never suffered from any  schizoid illness. I was depressed and had PTSD due to earlier traumas in my life. After 18months of similar treatment I flew to the US for a holiday. There I tipped the Clozaril down the toilet after suffering signs of possible heart failure ( possible side effect of Clozaril ).

  When I arrived home the withdrawal symptoms began. I became hypomanic for a week and then severely depresssed. Again I ended up in hospital being locked away for my own safety !

Shortly after that whilst in hospital I became angry. I began kicking a reinforced gate relentlessly. Rather than allowing me this outlet for my anger , hospital staff called security , sedated me and left me in a seclusion room for 12 hrs. They said that I was being violent. I was not near any patients or staff and it was impossible to harm the reinforced gate ! After recovering from the drugged daze I sat and wrote a long list of goals,how I would acheive them and the time frame to do so. They were surprised but scoffed that I was aiming too high. I proved them wrong and achieved each goal on that list in the time frames I had set.

  I lost 77 pounds in less than 8mths with vigourous exercise and a healthy diet. ( Meds caused weight gain , over stimulated apppetite and decreased thyroid function.). I returned to Nursing and gained further qualifications. I weaned myself off all meds and sought counseling for my PTSD. My personality has changed dramatically not to mention regaining my body again after almost a decade. I am writing a book about my experience and hopefully will publish it next year. If I can give any advice it is look before you leap. Don't have blind faith in psychiatry. Psychologists , a good diet , exercise and support is preferable. They cannot tell which people will react like I did to SSRIs. It is not mandatory for doctors to report it at all. So the number of affected people goes unnoted. SSRI meds ARE ADDICTIVE. You WILL experience physical withdrawal if you attempt to reduce dosage or stop the drug. Serotonin levels in the brain are not able to measured in any individual. There is no way of testing it. If you increase serotonin levels in some peole they will become inexplicably suicidal suddenly. Please read literature published by Dr David Healy, UK. Don't become a statistic. More people suicide on SSRIs than those taking nothing at all. Choose your doctor and advice as carefully as you would a tradesman building your home. If it doesn't feel or sound right listen to your gut instincts. They are there to protect us from harm.  If I had listened to mine I might have climbed the ladder in my career , had a family or be well on the way to owning a home.  Doctors/psychiatrists are educated by drug companies. They are offered gifts, funding etc for prescribing a given psychiatric drug to X number of people per month. The drug companies are not forced to publish negative studies about their drugs.

  Thank you for your comments. I agree with most of what you said. However, the team of psychiatrists that treated me at Logan Hospital did not treat me as an outpatient. The psychiatrist that I saw as an outpatient was a registrar who worked on the open ward only and also worked at the local Community Health Centre. He was the only one who treated me with any dignity and was willing to help me. The psychs at Logan Hospital simply advised me to go to a private hospital and have CBT as in the end they told my parents that I only had a behavioural problem ! I went to the private hospital to enquire about their program. The psychiatrist there spoke to me for an hour and then told me that their program was unsuitable for me. He said that I would simply become lost in the group CBT that they provided. I would only benefit from one-on-one therapy according to him.

  Feeling rather confused as to what to do next I went back to my psychiatrist and told him. He had no actual experience with CBT as patients are not offered any therapy other than drugs or ECT at Logan Hospital. He then told me that he had resigned from his position at Logan & the Community Centre. He offered to  see me at Toowong Private Hospital and work with the guidance of a psychologist and give me one-on-one CBT. The psychs at Logan had no intention of ceasing the Clozaril & Seroquel or Efexor. That only stopped because I stopped it. Otherwise I know I would be dead right now. I would have successfully suicided or had a heart attack and died.

  When I had the outburst of anger it was because the staff really didn't talk to me and I had no outlet at all. When I was sedated and secluded , I was given too much Midazolam. I was also not given anything to eat and only one glass of water in more than 16 hrs. Consequently the next morning they told me to get into my bed and I could not stand. I crawled into my room and into bed. After an hour an RN walked into the room and snapped,"Get up! Your parents are here."  I began to walk toward my father and then collapsed on the floor. I was unable to open my eyes,move or speak but I could hear. She said to my parents," She's just bunging this on. You both go to the cafeteria and we'll deal with this. I'll come and get you soon."  I was clearly not "bunging it on" and had never even tried such a thing in the past. I could hear everything but could not respond. After a while I started to regain consciousness and tried to sit up. I could not manage it. An EN there had said to the RN that she didn't believe I was faking anything as I was extremely pale. She put a plastic chair with arms next to me and attempted to help me onto it. The RN barked,"Don't help her. She can do it herself. Theres's nothing wrong with her !" The EN disagreed and continued to help me up. She then took my blood pressure 60/40 mmhg ! Next the RN in a panic rang the doctor and said , " Young *****  has just collapsed and is very hypotensive. You'll need to come down and put up in an IV and order fluids !"  No doctor came and instead I was told by the nurse that it was because I had not been drinking enough this morning." You brought this on yourself. " Next they made me drink 250ml glasses of water ,glass after glass until I'd had nearly 2 litres and was ready to vomit.  Days later a doctor admitted that I had fainted as a result of too much Midazolam and they had not given me enough to drink whilst in seclusion. This was about the time I made my list of goals. I felt so dehumanised by what that staff member had done to me. She did not even look at me closely enough to know that I was unconscious. You cannot fake syncopy !  A professional can tell the difference. What if I had had a CVA or AMI ? How would she have known?  She was callous and irresponsible. I have worked occassionally on psych wards and I would always thoroughly check a collapsed person and not simply assume they were faking collapse. You cannot fake pallor  & hypotension! The only thing they got right there was their original diagnosis of depression & PTSD. Otherwise they did nothing more than animal herding there. The other psychiatrist was the only one willing to try to help me and actually achieved it.

  I believe that only a small percentage of people benefit from anti-depressants with or without CBT etc. I can say this with confidence as I have been in several hospitals during that period. I did not ever see any patient ,that I got to know ,actually get better and get off medications without it all going askew and then they were forced to keep taking and the cycle continued. If depression is mild then medication is not indicated.

    As far as the confidentiality issue was concerned he would not speak to my family at all. My sister was my next of kin and yet he would not even tell her as little as 'she is unchanged' or 'improving'. I'm sorry but I disgree that he had the right to not communicate at all with my next of kin. That is unethical. They were not asking for intimate details or interferring. I did not ask him to do that and he never told me that he had done it. I thought my family was simply disinterested and had given up on me because I never heard from them.

  Hi there !  You were very fortunate that you actually received decent care that included therapy.  That doesn't really happen here. 21st century psychiatry in Australia is archaic to say the least. They are quite happy to sit back and witness the mistakes made in other countries and then simply repeat them here. In European countries they abolished the use of ECT altogether. It is of no value at all. It is highly dangerous and can result in stroke or death. But they gloss over those details whilst selling it to patients. We give epileptics anticonvulsant medication to stop them from seizing because all seizure activity kills brains cells by the hundreds. There is no way to control what areas of the brain will lose cells. Eventually after enough seizure activity  areas like the frontal lobe that determine and control emotion and personality can die. You would be a walking zombie if that occured. 

  However, we are dealing with big bucks. Drug companies need to push their product and so instill a "reds under the beds" mentality. The anti-depression campaigns try to convince us that 49% of Australians are mentally ill  ( suffering from depression) and we must seek them out and treat them. If that were actually true our country would have already gone down the toilet ! Just imagine if 25% of our politicians were mentally ill or 25% of our work  force were mentally ill. There would be nobody well enough left to run the country!  Get real. People throughout history learned to deal with it without the chemical wonders that are being pushed on us. Give us sensible ,plausable & practical solutions I say.

  A  one hour workout will leave you feeling a hundred  times better than any drug can. Do that often enough and you will not feel unhappy. You will have an entirely different focus than the one you have now. You are living day to day just waiting to feel depressed again. Don't give it a chance to sneak up on you . I didn't put much stock in the value of exercise to your physical and mental health until I started doing it. The endorphins your body releases make you feel fantastic. They are our body's 'opiates' you might say. That is the reason that people take illicit drugs, for that kind of high. Exercise gives you the natural high you need to succeed.A lot of our health problems reside in the lifestyle we are leading. If you're body is not getting the right balance of vitamins, minerals and exercise it will eventually affect how our brain functions. The two are connected.

  I hope I haven't come on too strong. People have often told me I should look into becoming a personal motivation coach. I don't know about that. All I know is that I draw on my observations and experiences to help me to 'think outside the square' in most aspects of life. Some people find that too confronting but it is who I am today. Ten years ago I was so introverted and painfully shy that I would never express an opinion for fear of offending even one person. I guess it was the only positive thing to have come out of my experience.

 Take care now Suzanne and never lose sight of the wonderful things you have yet to experience.      Donna/foxylass.

   I'm curious. Were you at any stage ever taking Zyprexa (Olanzapine) ?  It can actually cause diabetes in some people. I may be entirely wrong and it may well be the polycystic ovarian disease. I know of an Australian woman who was put on Zyprexa and ended up with type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes mellitis.

   I'm sorry to be nosey. You don't have to answer that if you would prefer not to. I know from your profile that you have concerns about revealing too much information to others online. Just playing clinical detective again !  It's served me well in the past to discover crucial links  that a treating doctor has overlooked in  patients  I've cared for.    Take care now, Donna.

      I was scrolling through the board when I read about your problems. You may think I'm sticking my nose in but I don't believe any anti-depressant is going to make you feel 'better'. You sound as though you are suffering from PTSD and haven't greived properly for your Father. I can't imagine how awful you must be feeling. However, rather than just seeing a 'cousellor' see a qualified clinical psychologist. With the techniques like neurobiofeedback therapy you can most likely learn to overcome your depression and anxiety without harmful chemicals. You need proper grief counselling especially if your Mother can't talk about him. She obviously hasn't grieved properly herself and can't help you either.  As for the incest a psychologist can help you work through that too. It is a major thing to feel that you can't trust the very people you should be able trust. The thing to remember is that it has stopped and as scarred as you are by that experience it will never happen again.  That sounds easy enough for me to say but I have had a similar experience. I reported it to my male teacher. He interviewed the much older school boy involved then hauled me into his office and said,"If you ever tell lies like that again,I will contact your parents and you will be put in a girl's home!" My trust was utterly abused. I kept that a secret for twenty years ! Because I had no counselling at all about for it eventually under the immense pressures I faced in 1996 it eroded my coping skills and I became depressed.  Grief and PTSD are incredibly major contributors to depression. Working through those may be the answer rather than popping a pill. As much as they are called 'anti-depressants' they really can't reverse or correct it. Your own mind is far more effective at that. I hope you are not blaming yourself for your Dad's death. He was an adult and in his pain 'he' made the choice to end his life. Nobody else had any say in it. Nothing you could have said or done differently would have altered that. If he was either unable or unwilling to get the help he needed you cannot have changed that.He would not like to know you are carrying this pain I'm sure.

    To help you get through the winter months you might possibly invest in a 'sun lamp' like they do in Scandinavian countries or visit a solarium. Low levels of sunlight cause depression in people who have never even experienced it before. We need our melotonin levels to be able to distinguish night from day to be able to function normally. Sunlight does just that. And most of all vigorous exercise, a diet with five servings of different vegetables,two servings of fruit plus a good multivitamin. The soil we grow our food in nowadays is quite depleted of natural minerals so our vegetables don't contain the level of vitamins they used to many decades ago.

     I hope I've not offended you at all or misunderstood your situation. Please take care and take  one day at a time. We are here to enjoy life because we are not here for very long at all !    Cheers ,Foxylass. XXX

       Thank you for the Kitty it's  so cute. Hope you are feeling well.  I'm pretty tired and today resetting my bodyclock once again after three 10hr night shifts. At least the weather is cooling down here now . Even though it's Autumn we have been getting unseasonably hot & humid days. That makes it difficult to sleep properly during the day before starting work again in the evening.

       I just wish I could get on top of my sinusitis. It's become chronic over the last few months. I'm sure the pharmacist thinks I'm about to start my own 'meth lab' with all the pseudoephidrine I've bought in the last few months. There is just nothing like that clouded feeling and pain to prepare you for a busy night at work !

      I will be glad to move from the apartment I'm renting at the moment. It is very close to a high school and the public announcement system is going constantly. It is so loud. You can hear every word they are yelling at those kids. It is so loud that I have to turn the TV right up or it drowns it out. It wouldn't be a problem if I didn't shift work but it drives you crazy when you are trying to sleep during the day.

      Take care Luv Foxylass.

        Hold the boat ! Just stop for a moment and get some real perspective here. You have just set the forecast for the rest of your days. But the boat hasn't sunk yet so start bailing water. Try contacting a telephone counselling service for a start. You can find one listed in your phone directory or on the internet. You may want to look for a good psychologist in your local area.Forget about attracting a guy right now. Anyone who looks at you is going to run when they see the negative self image you are projecting at the moment. Nobody wants to hang out with someone who is miserable right ? Your priority is to get counselling and begin to set up your own support network. ie. friends, family , other people in a local support group. Once you have begun to have counselling and established your support then think about employment. Nobody wants to hire someone who looks sad and helpless. With initial counselling you can begin to project a better and more positive image that will make people want to hire you. If they think they are hiring someone who is depressed and spiralling downwards that equals unreliable employee. You cannot perform in any job in that condition. Nobody would even think about hiring you like that. They would be concerned that you would not be able to function and perform your duties or take lots of time off when you felt too 'down' to work.

      You are never too old to attend school. I live in Australia and we had a 94yr old man graduate from Law last year ! Colleges and universities do not have age limits at all. If you are applying as a non-high school graduate the paperwork and process will differ slightly. There must be employment agencies also that run short courses to gain skills for certain jobs.

      You are not ugly. At the moment you would say that even if you looked liked  Jennifer Lopez. You are not seeing or thinking clearly. Your perception of your immediate  world is skewed by the depression you are experiencing. Everything looks ,smells , sounds and feels bad doesn't it ? That is only the filter you are looking at the world through right now. It is not how it really is.

      Get some sunshine, about 10mins minimum each day , exercise ( must be sweating and puffing ) for at least 30mins daily and eat a healthy diet. Eat at least three servings of different vegetables plus two servings of fruit per day. Have fish (not battered or fried , just grilled ) three times per week.Drink at least eight glasses of water per day. Buy yourself a multivitimin supplement. Don't take tranquillizers or other drugs. Also don't go getting drunk. The answer isn't at  the bottom of a bottle.

      Your mother probably wouldn't understand what is happening. She is not psychic ! If you can't speak to her then write her a letter explaining how you feel and your concerns. It might help you organise your thoughts better too on paper.

      Just don't give in. People aren't born sucessful and happy. We all have to work at it and keep on working at it. Otherwise there would be nobody left to run the planet !  You are young. I am 38yrs old and hoping to start my Law degree next year. I'm currently an RN/Midwife. I've done that for  17yrs and I need a change. I don't own a home or have a partner. I fell into a pit of despair that lasted almost 8yrs. I almost died several times. One day the penny dropped and I saw that I was only headed down and further down. I sat and wrote myself a list of goals and how I would achieve them. I lost 77 pounds , got myself off medications , got descent counselling and got back to living. So can you. I'm no Wonderwoman but I and millions of other people have made that decision. The decision that we are not here for a long time but here for a good time!

Hang in there,     Foxylass. XXx

   Hi there !  Your counselor is right. Give up the weed. You believe it helps you to cope it is doing quite the opposite. Marijuana is a hallucinogenic depressant type of substance. It will ultimately destroy areas of your brain including the area that is responsible for personality. You need to go to NA and speak to people who know of places you might consider going to detox. This is no minor problem.  Why do you need something to put in it's place ? Try exercise.

   Going to Curves is a great idea. When you exercise your body releases endorphins. These are the body's natural ' feel good ' chemicals. They are the only 'feel good' chemicals you should indulge in. In your clouded , drugged state no amount of therapy or counseling will have any benefit. Keep away from your 'smoking' friends they will drag you down every time. If they can't deal with you being clean and straight then they are disrespecting you not the other way around. Even people addicted to nicotine do that to others trying to give up the habit. They jeer them and constantly taunt and tempt them until they get them to fold and smoke again. It's almost like jealousy. It's almost evil that people do that sort of thing.

   Getting off the marijauna is the most important priorty for you right now. I have a cousin who is 26yrs old. She is so beautiful that everyone said she should be a model. Years ago she was engaged to be married. Suddenly her fiance found out that he had cancer and broke off the engagement because he did not want to put her through the pain of watching him die. She was devastated and promised to stand by him no matter what.However, he would not allow her to do it. Some friends invited her to have a holiday in Byron Bay , a beachside town with a gigantic number of resident drug users. She stayed for three years smoking marijauna among other things. One day her parents received a phone call from the Police saying she had been arrested for threatening to assault a tourist. This was completely out of character for Suzanne.

    My Aunt and Uncle bailed her out and had her assessed by a doctor. She was referrred to a psychiatrist and the worst confirmed , she had Schizophrenia. She continued to get worse and kept smoking marijauna. My Aunt and Uncle could do nothing. Finally last year she became extremely paranoid. The electricity was down due to a storm and the Electricity repairmen came to fix it. They asked my Uncle to show them where his electricity box was and he walked outside to show them. Suddenly he felt what he thought was a punch in the back. It wasn't. Suzanne had a carving knife and had driven it into his back. Next she launched into a frenzied attack and stabbed him another nine times ! Eventually she was kicking him on the ground as he lay bleeding. The repairmen wrestled her off him. She took a photo with her cell phone and told them they were all "spies" and she was "going shopping". She always got off the train at the same stop so the Police knew where to wait to arrest her. She has been charged with attempted murder. My Uncle almost died due to his collapsed , punctured lung. Did the weed help her deal with her emotional pain !

   Your counselor is right on track. Holding your hand and telling you that it the weed won't hurt you just need medication and TLC is BS ! It's what you want to hear but you will only drown if you don't start facing reality and dump the weed. The rest will slowly begin to change when you have done that. You are defeating your own progress by continuing to smoke it. Any counselor who advises you to do anything else shouldn't be allowed to practise.

    There is no pill on the planet that is going to make you feel great or normal . Stop looking for a magic overnight cure. You are feeling isolated and lonely. Who wouldn't in your circumstances. I can tell that your loneliness is manifesting in some of these symptoms. Medications make little or no difference and will most likely lead to additional medications to counteract the side effects of this one and then you will need another to counteract the side effects of that one and so on.  You need real and practical help not a pharmaceutical nightmare. Take it from me I got onto the medication treadmill in 1996 and it did not end and I did not begin to live again until 2005 when I got myself off them and sought practical help. Seek out a psychologist or therapist. They can offer you practical methods of dealing with these feelings. Not just ,"take two of these a day and in no time you will be back to your old self !" You would be very fortunate to find a doctor who doesn't want to prescribe pills as a solution. Ther is no such thing as finding the medication that fits. I am a registered nurse so I do know what these pills do to your mind and body. Some of them are only second to chemotherapy as the most toxic drugs you can expose your body to. Especially antipsychotics which are often prescribed to treat anxiety or stabilise mood.

   You probably have much deeper issues from your past that you have never dealt with. They cannot be buried. They will always come back to bite when you are least expecting it.  My best advice would be to ditch the pills ( tell your doctor to wean you off them ), find a psychologist or therapist ; exercise and your own endorphins will make you feel so alive and happy you may even meet other people and make friends ; don't hang around depressed or anxious people ( it's almost contagious you only tell each other miserable tales. I know I belonged to a group of them.) and finally find something you are passionate about eg. cooking , sewing ,craft , gardening , writing, volunteer work and do it. Your problems will not disappear overnight but with time, patience and most of  all effort you will start to see some very postive changes.

    I almost died because of the 'non-addictive , safe as houses, pills."  There is no cure for anxiety or depression that resides in a blister pack or bottle. Medication only masks symptoms it doesn't treat or cure them. We are not talking about conditions like diabetes or infections. There are no alternatives but medication for them or death would most likely ensue. This does not compare with any other medical conditions at all.  You will find that almost everybody on this message board would encourage you to take medications but read their messages. Do any of them sound happy at all ? What has medication done for them other than made them prisoners in a revolving door of misery. You may find what I am saying harsh or confronting. But if you don't confront yourself with the truth you will be lead up the garden path by medicos who have no idea of the consequences their innocent chemical solutions really have.