I have not posted here for quite a while but have been drawn back to it by my continuing problems. Sorry if this goes on a bit ....
I have always had a somewhat anxious / highly-strung nature, but all seemed well with me until July 2013 when I thought I had contracted HIV - I had put myself at risk and had suspicious symptoms that could have indicated acute early infection. I was abroad at the time and quickly developed insomnia - I didn't really sleep for over two weeks until I got home and was prescribed Zopiclone by my GP - quickly followed by anxiety and depression.
I started having panic attacks and then thoughts that my life was not worth living.
These feelings continued in spite of negative HIV tests - it was as if the cat was out of the bag. I know that I don't have HIV, but the damage was done.
I also started to have feelings of extreme regret at ending / messing-up a 7 year relationship with a great guy in 2010. That was something that I felt I had coped with OK, but I knew that the HIV scare would not have happened had I still been in that relationship. He also told me that he had met someone else, and I took that badly. (They are still together.)
I also started to feel aware of my ageing parents, and their mortality. My mum had also just been diagnosed with dementia.
I had taken voluntary redundancy from my job in 2012, and felt liberated at the time because it was getting on my nerves. But, after I got ill, that also felt like a bad decision. I've felt increasingly unemployable.
Finally, I have developed some phobias over the years - in particular of heights (including being inside higher floors in buildings), bridges, and driving or being driven on motorways. These have worsened because I now link them with suicidal ideation.
I was a frequent visitor to A&E departments in late 2013 and was finally admitted to a psychiatric hospital in December 2013. There, I was put on various meds, which did not seem to improve things. Nor did the few psychological sessions I had. Then, I agreed to have ECT. I had 12 courses of that.
I felt a lot better in March 2014 and was released from hospital late in the month. I was still on Venlafaxine, Mirtazapine, Olanzapine and Zolpidem.
Happy with feeling better, I booked flights to see and stay with my relations in New Zealand. I had been there six times before and always thoroughly enjoyed it.
However, before I set-off, my mood dropped again. I hoped it was just nervousness, and I flew to New Zealand. But I did not enjoy it there - I was disinterested and increasingly anxious and depressed.
I got very tearful and came home early and was relieved to get home.
I went back to see my GP and he managed to get an appointment for me to see a consultant psychiatrist on 22 May. I was getting morbid thoughts again.
At that appointment, I broke-down. The psychiatrist went to have a word with some others, came back and told me there was a bed available at a different psychiatric hospital and did I want it. I said I felt I needed it and was admitted.
There, my meds were changed - I was taken-off Mirtazapine and put onto the maximum dose of Venlafaxine. I was also kept-on Olanzapine and Zolpidem.
I was released at the end of June and felt a little better. I was to continue to be seen regularly by a psychiatrist and a community psychiatric nurse as an out-patient.
However, the high dosage of Venlafaxine had unpleasant side-effects and I decided to come-off it. Coming-off it produced withdrawal symptoms, but I managed it.
Unfortunately, my depression and anxiety got worse by August. The psychiatrist experimented with Trazadone, but finally settled on the maximum dose of Mirtazapine, changed me from Olanzapine to Quetiapine, and I was also changed from Zolpidem to Zopiclone for sleep.
However, my depression and general anxiety continued, including morbid / suicidal thoughts.
In October, I felt so depressed that I turned to alcohol and had two serious drinking binges. I just wanted to block everything out. On both occasions, I was admitted to general hospital wards, but also assessed by mental health crisis teams. They did not feel that I warranted re-admission to psychiatric hospital.
I continued to see my psychiatrist, CPN and GP. Between them, they decided to add Pregablin to my cocktail of meds to help with my anxiety.
I took a panic attack on 12 December and went to A&E again. While there, I took another panic attack and was moved to one of the treatment cubicles. There, I was overcome by serious suicidal thoughts and informed one of the doctors. He arranged for one of the mental health crisis team to come to see me.
She saw me, one-to-one, and was quite dismissive because I had been to A&E and assessed so many times and had no history of suicide attempts. She said she didn't want to say I was an attention-seeker, but .... She also said that I was a responsible adult and if I wanted to take my own life, that would be my decision. I was quite calm during this discussion, but do remember feeling that she was uncaring and callous.
I left the hospital feeling despondent. I remembered that I was due to collect my weekly prescription of psychiatric meds from the chemist on the way home. I did so but, when the pharmacist was talking to me, it was all a blur.
I walked home with my meds and remember looking at the Christmas decorations in peoples' houses and it all seemed really poignant to me. I was sweating when I got home, and went to bed crying and took all of my weekly meds in one go. As with the drink in October, I just wanted to blank things out. I woke-up at lunchtime the next day, feeling awful, then I fell-asleep again for several more hours.
As I said to the psychiatrist: I didn't want to die - I just didn't want to wake-up.
I somehow got through Christmas and the New Year despite feeling that I wouldn't see either of them. For a long time now, I have had the feeling that my suicide is inevitable. This frightens me, because I don't want to die. I want to get better, but it just seems to me that I won't because everything has gone badly in my life because of a 'perfect storm' of negative life events - some in my control, some outside it.
I have gone into the centre of Belfast, most recently this week, but the anxiety I feel in a busy place is terrible. Yet, before all this, I was living in Budapest and teaching English to Hungarian students. My fellow student teachers would have regarded me as out-going and quite confident. I feel like a completely different person.
I am currently on 45mg Mirtazapine, 300mg Quetiapine, 450mg Pregablin and 7.5mg Zopiclone.
It has taken me over an hour to type all this, and I'm not really sure why I have done so. I guess it feels somewhat therapeutic to vent in a forum like this. Maybe other members have or have had similar experiences. There's also the faint hope that others have some suggestions to aid my recovery.
I live in hope. Cheers.
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