confused and lost any ideas

[richtaz33]

Hi, thankyou for reading post i appreciate the help and support. I am getting a little confused,frustrated,and lost now. Its been 18 months since my medication was changed from effoxor which i was on for 5 years. I have various stresses which seem to have major impact on my illness, but i dont appear to be stressed at the time which is odd it seems to affect me later ie a few weeks. At the moment i am weeaning off sertraline after being on it 14 weeks at 150mg and it just seemed to make me worse. I was recently being started on mirazipine but it made me too drowsey so i abandened it and awaiting to find out what doc is going to try next. I feel like a lab rat. in the 18 months i have gone from not loving my fiancee to breaking up to getting back together to loving her then back to not loving her. when i dont love her i feel depressed and dull and upset inside, sometimes i cry as well or feel like it. I have lost interest in sex as well and most other symptoms that go with depression. I have been to numerous councilors and hypnotherapy to find the route of the cause and to find no answers only the fact that somewhere under all this i still love her. I have done loads of cbt and no effect. I get irritable easily,stressed easily,tired,eating allot,crying inside and outside,ruminating 24/7 thoughts of not loving her,feel numb accept sadness.
I dont know who i am anymore or what is what,I zone out allot, lost interest in things. sometimes happy to be alone. lack energy sometimes.
I am saying all thses things and most of it is all the time but i have had to really think about how i am if that makes sense. people say you look better or seem better. but inside i feel like i am being tourtured with my thoughts and feelings. When i broke up with fiancee i was devistated and i get sad now when it crosses my mind. All i keep saying is that i want to be how i was before this started. I forget things easily and dont seem to be able to think clearly as if i cant make out exactly what i am thinking if it makes sense. just feels like i have fallen out of love. last week i had a day that seemed like i was back to normal i started to feel again etc. next day nothing all disapered and i went back to torture. They say dont concentrate on thoughts then they say attack them. which ever way i do it nothing helps. Cant even feel anything during sex and struggle to keep a erection etc. I feel like a shell like have mental black outs. anyone else experience any of this for this long etc. just looking for reasurance and similar experiences really. because i dont know anymore.
thanks for reading sorry it was long.

[grotbags]

That sounds very similar to my battles with depression. The question is, it it your relationship that's an issue, ie have you actually fallen out of love; or is the feeling that you may have fallen out of love a symptom a the depression. I suppose you won't know just yet, until you get through this period of low. So probably during a depression it's not the best time to make big decisions in your life, such as whether you want to continue a relationship or not... Why did you sto taking the Effexor? Did it work for you? You say Sertraline didn't help you and you're now tapering off. That is bound to affect your feelings a lot because you are not stabilised on an antidepressant that suits you. Sometimes it's trial and error. Makes you feel like a lab rat and it's very frustrating. But it might be a case of getting on a certain type of medication that does actually help you, and then going from there. Does that make sense?

[richtaz33]

yeah thanks. just i dont understand that all of a sudden i woke up and had no feelings etc when before all was great. been together 4 years. september last year i had three weeks of feeling like my old self again. like this week i had one day.

[ems73]

Rich, please try and remember that losing your love for a partner is a very common symptom of depression.
If you didn't want to be with her and really didn't love her you would surely have felt relief when you briefly broke up, not distress.
When you don't love someone you start thinking about a life away from them, start thinking about how you can finish things. It's upsetting because you know you will hurt someone but you rarely have agonising indecision, worry, desperation. These are all symptoms of depression, all of which I have been through myself.
You need to get back sorted on the meds. There are lots of things you can try and yes it does feel like an endless medical merrygoround.
Have you tried Prozac or Citalopram? They are very common and the most regularly prescribed. I had great success with both and each time I got stabilised on meds, all the love came back AS SOON as I was feeling myself again.
Try not to focus on your relationship at the moment, focus purely on getting your medication sorted out. By the way I tried Sertraline and it didn't help me either. Currently back on Prozac, not 100% but feeling much more myself.

[richtaz33]

hi thank you for that much apreciated. tried citalipram but not much progress,prozac made more anxious. sertraline has made me more zoned out etc. effexor just pooped out on it. i have tried mirazipam big mistake.

[ems73]

Have you tried Claire Weekes? Her method really works for me. More for anxiety than depression though. Her books are available on Amazon.