9/7/14

We were traveling off and on for 4 hours today... It was a LONG trip. Last Friday was rough. First I had the horrible headache, then the headache medicine made me feel loopy, which has never happened before. I would spontaneously start crying and had fleeting thoughts of "things will never get better."

I had skipped group the night before, after all, I was feeling FINE, I didn't NEED to go. Friday afternoon I was desperate. I have no family or close friends within 2 hours. I posted on Facebook asking if anyone could watch my kids (so that I could go to group that night). Thankfully, a friend said she would watch them.

I desperately needed to be at group that night. My emotions were everywhere. Which included the wonderful spontaneously bursting into tears during group! The topic was on Hope, something I was struggling with.

I have gone trough so much in my life. There were times I felt like I could not live with the abuse another day, and now here I am suffering from depression so deep at times I feel like it will defeat me. At 19 I moved out of an abuse home, stopped cutting, married the man of my dreams, dealt with past sexual abuse, suffered from infertility for 6 years before adopting my daughter, now having a happy, wonderful life... but these silly thoughts of "life will always be miserable"run through my mind.

I have mentioned in group before that I feel like I'm not allowed to be happy, it just isn't meant to be. I'm destined to be unhappy in this life.

Tonight as traveled I told my husband, not that I am on the medication the lows are so much lower. I tried explaining how up and down I have left over the past 9 months. The straight down I felt last week felt so devastating.

9/6/14

Let's start way back when... I did NOT want to go on an anti-depressant! Then I accepted them. If it is the answer to my prayers to help me with my depression then so be it! I went on Prozac at first. I had been on it before. Life went from 10% to 110%. I felt wonderful. I LOVED life again. Except for the one little thing... It made my menstrual cycle go CRAZY. Okay, no big deal, this happens all the time, I'll just go on the medication that regulates my cycle. Except that it didn't work... Now, I'm not just saying my cycle was just a little messed up, I was literally bleeding to death! The days leading up to me stopping Prozac my iron level was so low due to the blood loss that I could hardly move. Getting out of bed to go sit on the couch took all the energy I had. Out of desperation, I quit taking Prozac. Within 24 hours my bleeding stopped!

I went back to Doctor P, 3rd time this year. He prescribed me Celexa to try at first, if that didn't work then go to Wellbutrin At first my Prozac was still in my system and I felt fine. Eventually the withdrawals caught up with me! I got horrible headaches and extreme nausea. As soon as the withdrawals went away going on Celexa had horrible side effects too... I had no appetite for 3 weeks. I literally eat maybe 1 meal a day. I also had a extremely dry mouth (I literally eat cups and cups of ice every day to try to keep moisture in my mouth). FINALLY the side effects wore off. Yay. On Prozac I slept so wonderfully. I LOVED it. I have always struggled with sleep with my whole life. Prozac was like the best sleep aid I've ever had. Not even melatonin works for me all the time. The Celexa very slowly started working. Oh yeah, within a few weeks of going on Celexa I found out my mom is on Wellbutrin and it was working well for her! FYI, if depression runs in your family, if one medication works for a family member it is more likely to work for you too because of genetics!

I kept up with the Celexa, not feeling as 110% as the Prozac made me, but not as low as 10% with nothing in me. I still slept horribly. Which was miserable. I woke up feeling tired and groggy every morning. On Prozac I always woke up feeling SO refreshed. I should also add, I had a really hard time falling asleep on Celexa! The other day, I couldn’t fall asleep until 5 am. I still have to get up, be a mom and I woke full-time. No sleep makes the depression worse!

Well, something interesting happened... 2 nights ago I forgot to take Celexa. I thought, oh I'll just take it in the morning. I woke up the next morning and didn't feel all groggy. That night, I forgot to take the Celexa AGAIN. Guess what happened? Yep, I woke up and did NOT feel groggy! I called my husband to tell him my discovery and he suggested I go off Celexa to see how I do sleep wise.

Another interesting story there... So my doctor, who is AWESOME and takes into account that we have no insurance, prescribed 2 prescriptions so if the first one didn't work, I would have to come see him again and get another prescription! After I was on Celexa for a while and didn't like it, I told my husband that I wanted to go off it and try the Wellbutrin that my doctor also prescribed. Brad was adamant that I HAD to go back to my doctor before switching. I kept telling him, FYI he was there with me when my doctor told me he was prescribing the 2 so I would NOT have to come back, that I didn't have to go back.

So today is day 2 off Celexa and I all of a sudden got a horrible headache, like I did when I went off Prozac. I took some headache medicine and then I kept spontaneously bursting into tears. Wonderful... Oh yeah, I kinda sorta lost my prescription to the Wellbutrin. I called my doctor's office to see if they could call it in to my pharmacy and they did! Yay! Now on to see how I do on Wellbutrin. And now... Wellbutrin is out- $90 a month- Nope! Back on Prozac.

Off and on today I had these fleeting thoughts of “Things will never get better.” or “my life will never be completely normal”. It felt discouraging. Things haven’t felt this dark in a LONG time.

I had group tonight and the spontaneous crying kept on coming... not fun. As I sat in group I thought- Maybe I need to go back to counseling. Since James is the last counselor I went to I thought of him. For some reason I knew he wasn't how I was supposed to see. Yet I do NOT want to go to a 4th counselor, not way. So I had a crazy thought, what about Joy? I told my husband, I’m serious, I will travel 3 hours one way just to see her once a month! I want someone I already know and trust.

Group has helped, medications have helped, writing has helped, doing things I enjoy that distract me from the depression (like crafting) helps... but I still struggle. I wish there was an easier way. I thought Prozac was going to be my answer.

Update: 10/13/2015- Once we got health insurance I went on Wellbutrin. It has been the best, most consistent anti-depressant I've tried!