depression, anxiety, pd, and lost

[everglades]

i have suffered on and off with depression since my teens
In feb 2008 i walked out of my job and since then have been told it is not just depressions but personality disorder too - and anxiety.

The anxiety has got increasingly worse and stops me travelling on trains, etc.

I have had 2 meetings with my employers re returning (my contract is held for 2 yrs which ends in feb) - and my 3rd and final meeting is in 2 weeks.

Throughout this time i have been up and down and my mind cannot settle on what i truly want or should do - and since i have been v v depressed the occ health and doc have said not to return. But now i feel this is my last chance - i said in sept i intended to return from jan, and i have an occ health appt on monday to see if they consider me fit. Long story - sorry - thing is my anxiety is shit atm - i am already sick and panicking about this meeting already - it is in a different place to the others, with different person , and i am terrified she will see how anxious i am and tell work i am unfit.

i am so depressed over all this, too, as i feel its my own fault for delaying my decision so long and moping about in the house for almost 2 years.

i am going to pump myself full of propranolol and maybe diazepam on monday - but i am too honest and will end up telling her.

I dont really know what any of you can say - what i need you to say - i just need someone to hear me and understand the mess i am in. I keep telling myself if i get back to work it will all go away as i will be so busy i wont have time to think - hmmmmmmmm

Please hear me

(sorry if this is in the wrong place)

[everglades]

ok

will carry on alone then

sorry

angry (not with people here) and confused
the self hate is filling in the gaps where the anxiety goes

not for this forum i guess

xx

[ash1807]

Hi everglades,
Don't feel alone. There are times when there may not be many peokple about and also some struggling to give an inpartial opinion
Sometimes it good to pop inot the chatroom if you need to talk urgently

Take care

[everglades]

dont think i can go in there atm
but ty

[Chris 22]

Hi.

I recently have resigned from my job because of my anxiety. I had 3 meetings with Occ Health and they said I wasn't fit for work and think if I hadn't left on my own accord I would have been asked to leave.

I am looking for something less taxing but like you say the theory of being in work to take your mind of things rarely works for me. I can have a panic attack or have depersonalisation feelings anytime anywhere. Of course there are things that make them worse but I never feel safe anywhere really. Just about having to cope with the feelings when they occur. Far too frequently for my liking!.

Hope your meeting goes OK and you get what you want.#

Chris

[faith]

You sound like you are going round in circles with lots of problems and no answers. It sounds like you do not have the knowledge to solve any of this so why don't you settle on getting yourself some proper help,like a counsellor, otherwise you are going nowhere fast.

[everglades]

ty chris

i am a teacher - and the children can really lift bad days
but they do expect and need 100% and it is exhausting

when i walked out - my head was all over the place - i was crying walking to work, crying walking home, and just eating, sleeping and working

it is scaring me

i am sorry you are having such a tough time
xx

[mrmerlin]

your a teacher oh my god i really feel sorry for you but i have read that thousands of teachers suffer from this due to the amount of stress you are put under , surely there is some sort of group that teachers in your position can chat to each other , are you in a union if so contact your union they may be able to help you really need counselling , i am so glad i don`t have the responsibilities that you have i think i would be in a assylum by now

seek any help you can get

[everglades]

my problems where not caused by my job
they are long standing
but work made many of them a lot worse, esp as my self-esteem is so low

It is a very hard job, but it can also bring immense joy.
I really have NO idea if i can cope with going back or not, as i have been out of it for 21 months, and it will be just 5 weeks short of 2 yrs if i return in Jan.
Part of me thinks i will just drop back into it, and in some aspects i guess i will - but i will be teaching in a different room, a dif age group, and dif content - so that will all be new to me.
Standing in front of the kids, adults, is not a worry for me, it is the concentration, the organisation, the constant constant judgment by parents and others, that i struggle with. AND the endless change - i find change very hard and its like whenever anything is working we have to change it.
and i loathe and detest the whole 'prove yourself' ethos that pervades not just education, but everywhere it seems/. MORE MORE MORE - BETTER BETTER BETTER - nothing is ever ok. OMG I have enough of that going on in my head - i dont need it endlessly on the outside.

I JUST DONT KNOW - i am hoping the anxiety and depression will just leave me alone, but in reality i guess that is rather unlikely

[mumsie]

Hi everglades
Have you considered part time voluntary work as an interim measure to get back in the zone and see how you go? Or even a part time job somewhere else. Hang on in there.x

[everglades]

bless you all

i think i have probably considered every possibility known to man
and some
am in the lap of the gods now
decisions and me do not sit easily together
when you are so unsure of who you really are, it is hard to know what to do for the best.
People have endlessly said - 'do whats best for YOU' but i really have a very unstable sense of 'me' so it just makes me more stressed.

Will just go, see, talk, and hmmmmm, whatever

[Malinga]

Hello everyone, i was wondering if any of you could help me?

My partner has just been diagnosed with depression and has been put on Citelopram. She's only been on them a week so far and I know they take a while to kick in.

I love her very much and I don't know how I'm supposed to be with her. I'm scared anything I say will upset her. No matter what it is.

I know this sounds selfish and its not supposed to be, but she's pretty much moved in with me. We both work and I seem to be doing everything for her. Cooking, cleaning, laundry. When I've asked her to pick her clothes up from the floor she took it as I was saying she was in the way, which is not at all what I meant.

I'm trying to keep things as normal as possible around her but don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I can't find any advice as to what loved ones can do to help. I want to help her, and will do anything if it helps her get better.

Any advice or direction to some advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[everglades]

dont tell her to snap out of it
and dont tell her to stop making a fuss

listen if she needs to talk and tell her its ok to feel how she does, its not bad and she should not feel guilty

its hard
my hub copes with his work and hobbies - but then he always has which is part of the problem

just try to let her see that you love her - however she feels

[viking warrior]

Hi everglades

I hope I am able to give you some good, sound and supportive advice re your work

Firstly you are not alone,

I have to deal with a lot of these situations in my profession whilst fighting my own depression . see my other posts.

I don't know if you have been to see occupational health yet, but GP's and Occ health bods can be as much of the problem . If the occ health people and some gps I work with are anything to go by.

The problem as I see it . is that they take the easy option and just sign you off from work , here another prescription and here is your medical certificate for x weeks. a number of employees are quite happy to accept that with out challenging the GP/occ health prof

When I saw my GP he wanted to sign me off immediatley I said no that will make matters worse as the one thing that was keeping me going was actually going to work. If I stopped that then < I wouldnt get out of bed, wouldnt wash etc etc. and would then take my life. He was taken aback and listened to me and said yes going to work will give you a purpose and a focus to carry on. When I had a previous episode I was sent to Occ health, I wasnt sent there from a supportive employer quite the Opposite I had a very bullying manager who referred me. By the way I am a personnel Officer. The occ health told me why I was referred. and asked me what he wanted me to say to my employer. I told him exactly how i was feeling.
And he agreed that I needed to be at work and be more involved with more interesting aspect of personnel work.

He wrote everything I asked him to do. It annoyed my bullying boss big time. but I had the tenacity at that time to overcome the illness even though I was stuck in a room for four years with very little people contact
and no natural light in the room I worked out of.

My advice therefore everglades is to go back to your GP and Occ healgth and tell them what you want to do , that you would like to go back to work on a phased basis take the bull by the horns. it will not be easy but you can do it. Your employer as a duty to support you and even if you reduce hours or have the phased return then it will help boost your self confidence.

I have only confded with one person at work (not my immediate work colleagues) as they have no idea the state i am currently in) about how I am feeling at present. but it is comming to work sitting in an office on my own that is somehow keeping me going,

I hope this guidance is of some help to you


If you want to PM then please feel free.

[viking warrior]

Hi Malinga

Be tolerant my friend. Your partner has only been on the citlopram for a week. The side affects are horrendous for the first few weeks < I am now starting week five and still feel crap with them but they are helping

Like your partner I couldnt be bothered to do anything

be very supportive and suggest to them maybe theymight want to try doing a couple of very small tasks and if they do praise them.

My GP advised me the same , that I should write down three things that I was proud off, It was very hard to think of one thing let alone three, but I did it. when I saw him a few days later he said I would like you to do two simple tasks. I mentioned that I had loads of ironing to do and hadnt washed up for a week or so. His suggestion was to iron a couple of shirts and do the washing up.

I did the washing up and it has taken me a further two weeks to start the ironing. but I have achieved it. It wasnt much but it does help a little as while your doing these little chores your mind is distracted all beit a few minutes form the depression. Try that method it may or may not work but be supportive of your partner.

[LuckyLuke]

bless you all

decisions and me do not sit easily together
when you are so unsure of who you really are, it is hard to know what to do for the best.
People have endlessly said - 'do whats best for YOU' but i really have a very unstable sense of 'me' so it just makes me more stressed.



everglades, I know the whole thing of not knowing who you are. I've struggled with that my whole life and the confusion over who I really am has been excrutiating.

I even quit my job recently (eveyone's told me I'm mad to do so because it's such a "good job") and the time off I've had I used to do a lot of soul searching.

I did a personality test here

http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/register.aspx

which I happily paid for, really because I was desperate and would try anything at this stage. There are free versions but the reports I paid for were well worth every penny.

I can't tell you how much this has changed my life, too see so much of me printed out in black and white, all the things I always knew about myself but didn't have the confidence to admit.

I've never been happier that I quit my job because the job was so counter to my personailty that it was making me depressed, despite it being such a "good job".

I'm now planning a complete change in my life and determined to make 2010 a very different year to what was a horrible 2009 !

I hope you find a sense of yourself and soon because in that lies happiness.

all the very best to you

LuckyLuke

[everglades]

i will look at it
problem is
i have bpd and/or other pd traits
so my personality is disordered - apparantly!!

its weird - some yrs ago i was on a course with work and did a left/right brain test
i came out dead centre - but the others who did said yey its great - get best of both, but for me it is torture - endless conflict
when i am v depressed i feel like i am actually splitting apart - and there is so much rowing going on in my head - god only knows who i should be listening to

[LuckyLuke]

I'm no doctor/psychologist but one test or one doctor won't give you the whole picture, so you could do as many personality type tests online as you can find and see what kind of picture emerges.

The more I read about my personality type (ENFP), the more I realise who I am (who I always knew I was) and the happier I am becoming in myslef which is very calming.

I hope you have as much success as I have had.

[everglades]

i cannot answer lots of questions in these things since i am split between them
i am glad it has helped you

personality disorders are very dif to personality types though
and they basically mess with your life and mean that the way i see the world, is not necessarily how things truly are

[Jill-Louise]

LuckyLuke...i did the personality test and it was spot on. Very inciteful, thanks.:)

[loopy loo]

Hi Everglades,

It sounds to me that first and foremost you need to get help with these long standing issues that are keeping you so anxious. Can your doctor refer you to counselling? No one should be alone with these feelings everglades and you need and deserve some support so that you feel more confident about work rather than just struggling through it, which is exhausting for you. If your doc won't refer you, try looking at www.bacp.co.uk to find a counsellor. Good luck,

Loopy Loo