Update: finally got my card activated and paid the most pressing bill. I’ve been dealing with this for so long and have lost so much sleep it doesn’t feel real.
20 Likes
This is it. Mental health treatment feels like its all about crafting functional economic units. You are supposed to have relationships with other people and have a job. If you are already pulling that off then the mental healthcare system - at least the one I’ve experienced - doesn’t have anything further for you.
I never used to self harm before I had doctors helping me with my mental health. And to be honest I don’t entirely understand why I do it, but recently I feel like it’s because I need to do some reality testing on how bad I feel. Evidence seems to suggest that I’m basically fine.
11 Likes
I think one of the main things that helped me was actually identifying what was bothering me - which wasn’t always what I was anxious about at the time. While it wasn’t pleasant, this year and my mental state under Strattera has at least made things clearer. The last 3.5 years have been really stressful, starting with a birth and adoption, closely followed by family illness, forced job and country changes, financial insecurity and times where I’ve been the only one providing any money or looking after the kids. Last summer my wife and in-laws (who live with us now and were both working) all had to stop working and weren’t even well enough to do much around the house. My wife was told that she may never be able to work as a nurse again because of shoulder pain (she’s mostly better now, no thanks to most of the medical professionals she saw). My main company was being very demanding and unreasonable and I had to leave (this happened just before the medical problems came up). Nobody believed me that we should have a contingency plan in case we couldn’t pay the rent, and they had confidence in me to keep going, even when I said I couldn’t. Meanwhile my son was also having continuing health problems and staying home from school, and I had to look after him. Fortunately this was all relatively inexpensive because we’re in Germany, and my wife was still getting paid despite long absences from work, but that wouldn’t last forever.
Enter Strattera to help me concentrate more on my work. Unfortunately it also increased my anxiety, depression and obsessive tendencies, and I didn’t even identify it as a cause for quite a while. While it does help in some areas, it was a bad time to start taking it. Every little thing could be a trigger, and as I didn’t know I was vulnerable or what my triggers were, it kept happening. My tendency toward black and white thinking and catastrophising didn’t help either. I couldn’t stop working during this time, so I whined about it on Fuck Today (thanks everyone) and relied on an article that I’d read about a study suggesting that depressed people can actually perform as well as other people even if their idea of what they can do is much lower (I can’t even find that article anymore, but it helped). I had to get the kids to school in the morning, so I had to get up even if my 3 year old daughter was dragging me out of bed (seriously, it was kind of funny). I had to look after their schedules and diet, which meant that I had to go outside twice a day and make healthy food for myself too (because it wouldn’t have happened otherwise).
Most of the problems have improved in the last year (although my in-laws still aren’t able to work), so a lot of any continuing mood issues have been processing discoveries about my neurological issues and finding out what is an underlying issue and what is just a reaction to stress or medication. The ADHD issue has really taken a back seat during this time, although on effective dosages if I don’t have work to focus on, my brain will find something else to obsess about.
I’m not really sure how this all worked out, but we seem to be reaching some kind of stability. I felt that the depression was something to process rather than fight, but at this point I’m hoping that the next medication will be easier to deal with.
18 Likes
Yeah, this happened to me on Adderall. Since my Rx really helped me with my concentration and follow-through (I had major issues with completing any project or goal, no matter how insignificant or important), the doctor added a very small dosage of Celexa and it helped with the anxiety.
eta: as with everyone else, I’m out of likes do early in the morning. 
3 Likes
Being adopted at a young age must be stressful, but I’m sure you’ll forget all about it when you are older. Having to deal with all of this at the age of 3.5 must be very hard. I have to say, for a pre-schooler you have very good sentence structure.
(I couldn’t stop myself from writing this)
13 Likes
And please all, I’m reading you, feeling.
But I really had to laugh very loud at this. Maybe also as not native English speaking grogging such a joke, and also because it is really good.
And isn’t humour, laughing, even doing if you are laughing, some of the copings?
8 Likes
This. And I have a ton of friends who go to therapy, and imagine it’s the only way to deal with mental health, that it’s a personal problem, which has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
To be clear, I have no object to therapy. I have an objection to being looked down upon for not going the therapy.
8 Likes
“Functional” in this sort of context is already pretty slippery- there are plenty of people that are (by society’s measure) “functional” but are miserable; there are plenty of people that are totally “non-fuctional” by societal norms but are happy folk.
In my world, it’s about finding the process and balance that works for you- that allows you to be functional and happy (as you choose to define those things). Assuming, of course, you’re prepared to deal with the wrath of not fitting into the norms of a given culture. That can suck.
Me? Oh, glad you asked.
I deal best, I think, with mental health stuff by riding bikes. Honestly, it’s the only thing that really works and has side effects I’m ok with. It was hard for a few years (what with babies around the house and all that), but I’m starting to get back to it, and I’m please to say it still seems to do the trick.
8 Likes
I think some form of creative expression and/or helping others is a good bet for many people. When I was at my worst, I took some time off work and built a gingerbread model. It required a few attempts and the final version collapsed overnight (the weather was too wet and the gingerbread got too soft), but I still felt much better for having done it. We also switched our normal couchsurfing to longer term guests who really needed it, and were able to help a number of people find work and accommodation in the city. It’s easier to feel that your life is worth something if you are helping others, and they were sometimes able to look after the kids if we needed some time off. In fact, most of the people living in our house over the last year had a good reason why they would not be able to make it alone, but together each of us was able to support the others in important ways.
I really think that considering people in terms of their economic achievement is bad for everyone’s mental health. We should really be beyond this as a culture.
11 Likes
I’ve been talking about this with a friend recently. Both of us have the same issue: people say exercise makes you feel better, but exercise makes us feel like crap (not muscle pain, but disorientation and sadness); meditation does the same. I was out at the splash pad on a sunny day watching my kids run in the water and the bright sunlight and splashing water kind of empties my head out, and it was the same - a sort of undirected bad feeling.
For any Modest Mouse fans out there, I think of it as “Standing in the tall grass, thinking nothing.” A lot of people find that mind-clearing activities leave them feeling content. Some of us seem to find that mind-clearing activities leave us feeling hollow/sad/angry.
It’s almost like everyone gets the same advice and then, when it doesn’t work for some people, no one stops and wonders, “Hey, what if it doesn’t work for some people.”
11 Likes
They just assume it’s something with you that’s the problem, and so you’re back to square one, has been my experience.
Honestly, I think we have a major empathy gap in our society, and that makes us all sadder, more prone to depression and just the feeling that you’re talking about. We’re so monomanically focused on “THE ANSWER” that we ignore that there might not be a single one and we dismiss people who don’t fit in, because we lack the ability to empathize with something we may not have direct experience with.
I think that’s what’s made this thread so great, because people come here, vent on their problems, and we don’t have to hear a bunch of piling on for people trying to deal with their problems “wrong”.
Am I making any sense?
9 Likes
That is more than worthy of being shared in the ‘Victory!’ thread. Wow. That’s just…that’s great. Good on both of you.
7 Likes
I am type 2 diabetic, as is my mom, as was her mom. My latest Hb A1C test results came in today, higher than ever, showing that Januvia is not doing anything helpful for me.
Januvia (a DPP-4 inhibitor)was my insurance company’s idea, after my doctor tried unsuccessfully to fight their prior authorization idiocy over both Invokana and Farxiga (SGLT-2 inhibitors).
So today she took me off both Januvia and Metformin, and tried to prescribe Glyxambi – a combination med that is partially another SGLT-2 inhbitor (Jardiance). I got an automated text message from my pharmacy shortly after the message from the doctor, so I figured everything was good.
NOPE! It was a refill of Januvia, which I no longer need. Prior authorization is required for Glyxambi.
Supposedly I meet all of the insurance company’s requirements. But last time, they denied the appeal on the basis of a test result that I actually PASSED. And the way it’s worded, they still have the option of denying coverage even if I qualify.
This is part of why I am a Sanders supporter – Hillary’s inisistence that the ACA is good enough with a couple of minor tweaks.
A note from Wikipedia:
A 2009 study published in Health Affairs reported that primary care physicians spent 1.1 hours per week fulfilling prior authorizations, nursing staff spent 13.1 hours per week, and clerical staff spent 5.6 hours.[11] A study in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine found that the annual cost per physician to conduct prior authorizations was between $2,161 and $3,430.[12] The cost to health plans has been reported at between $10 and $25 per request.[1] It is estimated that current prior authorization practices cost the US healthcare system between $23 and $31 billion annually.[12]
6 Likes
Isn’t it galling to have people who’ve never been seriously depressed tell you that exercise will cure all that? Now whenever anyone tells me that, I tell them about the year where I rode a stationary bike hard every day, got up to an hour on it every day, and didn’t feel any better (or lose any weight either for that matter).
Agreed. 
11 Likes
Just to be totally clear: I was only relaying what works for me- I in no way intended to imply it might work for others.
I just hope people can find something that works for them.
9 Likes
I think you were very clear. You wrote from your experience. That’s the most noble viewpoint anyone can write from.
I haven’t met a single clinical praticioner—psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker—who conveyed the belief that exercise as monotherapy can fully treat, let alone cure, anyone’s brain cooties. For some, exercise alone helps—maybe a little, maybe a lot. For some, it’s only helpful with concurrent med therapies—again, maybe a little, maybe a lot.
And for an unlucky few, it doesn’t seem to help at all. I can’t imagine what a steep hill that is to climb.
4 Likes
Oh, I didn’t take it that way. I mentioned (I hope?) up above somewhere that I haven’t slept properly in about two weeks thanks to stress. Along with causing all my old injuries to flare up, it’s made me more distractable than usual.
I meant about people you’ve poured your heart out to about how badly you’re doing and they go “there there it’ll all be better if you go jogging every day.”
I took your post as being “do what works for you.” Kind of a “throw yourself into something you love that’s super distracting” sort of thing.
No one has tried to tell me to cure my anxiety or depression through exercise in years and I didn’t take your post that way. 
8 Likes
People don’t tell me that anymore, either.
Exercise has a tendency to make me edgy and angry, rather than anxious. And prone to violent outbursts. Not actual physical violence but the sort of raging, bullying assholery that gives the impression it could easily turn to actual real aggro. Best if I do as little as I can. Nothing worse than seeing how you’re acting and being a passenger in your head as it happens. Fuck that noise.
And fuck the last few years really. With a cactus.
Slowly starting to re-engage with the world again after a long period of self-imposed protective retreat. Long-term mental-illness-type-brainfuckery and stalker issues are just a winning combo, eh.
I’m not holding much hope it’ll turn out better this time around, but not much hope is still some. So there’s that.
7 Likes
Well, I chose the suitcase with the strap instead of the suitcase with the wheels because I thought the strap would be infinitesimally more convenient on this trip. I didn’t count on the strap anchor breaking while changing planes in Seattle, Now it is far less convenient, and I have most of the trip yet to go.
On a related note, why do all the food/coffee shops in a major hub like SeaTac close so early? Apparently the only way I can get a cup of coffee involves going through security again. No thanks.
11 Likes
Had to get passport* photos the other day. Got them taken looking as twitchy, stressed, disheveled and bone-weary tired as I could. Figured that way at least I’d actually look like my photo when I get there. Airports. Fuck airports. I feel your pain. Fuck crappy luggage too.
The coffee would have been lousy, so you may have had a lucky escape. #brightside
*Mom has cancer, so fuck cancer, but that’s a whole other bucket of crap to deal with. 
12 Likes
