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i don't know what's wrong with me
20/F here. I've been struggling with my mental health for the past three years or so, but I can't give a name to it.
At first, it was a lot of depressive feelings. I saw my doctor after about a year, he told me I had dysthymia and basically told me to get exercise, take vitamin D, and see a counselor. I already had a counselor but wasn't getting a lot out of it. It felt good to talk to her for the time I was there, but as soon as I walked out of her office, everything went back the way it was.
I had some pretty bad insomnia, and had messed up eating habits (sometimes eating way too much, sometimes hardly eating, but never purposely starving myself).
I had a couple panic attacks which terrified me because I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me.
I developed a habit of self harm, but convinced myself it wasn't a big deal since I was just digging my nails into my arm, I never drew blood (but I still have scars), and I only did it when I was really stressed.
About 16 months ago I suddenly got super stressed and anxious all the time. I was having panic attacks or breaking down in tears literally every day for a couple months. It got so bad that there were a couple days where I had slightly suicidal thoughts (I didn't have any plan in my mind, just a vague concept. I've never told anyone that). Was still talking to counselor weekly, but nothing she suggested helped matters. Went back to my doctor, got put on a mild dose of a "mood stabilizer" (venlafaxine), but he didn't really give me a diagnosis?
The past year I've had days and weeks where I've felt depressed, or where I've felt anxious, or both, or neither. I've had a few panic attacks. I've stopped seeing my counselor because the situation just wasn't convenient anymore. I've been back to the doctor and am still on the meds he gave me last year.
I just don't know what's wrong with me. I know something is wrong, but I don't think I have major depression, or really dysthymia, or anxiety disorder, because none of it is constant enough or severe enough. I just...struggle with mental health? I don't know how to phrase it.
What am I even asking here? I guess I just want advice on how to approach this topic with myself and with others. People like labels, and i don't have one, so what do i say?
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I'm completely against prescription medication without a definite diagnosis and in your situation I'd get more than one opinion. The meds could actually make things worse. You're so young actually going through big changes from youth to adulthood I think you're just having a difficult time transitioning. More than anything I feel you need to keep a journal and try to figure out your triggers. What is going on when you have these anxiety attacks. Do they seem to happen around the sms time of day or after certain activities or being around certain people. Once you get a sense of when they occur figure out what helps calm you down. Is it time alone, talking with someone, having your favorite snack, taking a break etc. Often things aren't as complicated as doctors or others make them out to be. It's just a matter of figuring out how to deal with feeling over whelmed and letting those close to you know what you're dealing with so they are helpful and not harmful.
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Sounds like the Dr gave you a label, Dysthymia. I hadn't heard of it, so I looked it up. From what I read, it was a term some Dr came up with in the 70s to use instead of the term 'depressive personality'.
Almost all our Drs today do not question what they have been taught or look into researching disorders for themselves and trying something different. So they are only doing the thing they are taught will help people but it doesn't really. Like you said, you feel a little better at the time you are doing talk therapy which is what medical journals written in recent years say is the treatment for dysthymia. To me, it sounds like the same symptoms of depression, just that the intensity of it wavers a bit, ebbs and flows but is always there.
I knew a man who was a counselor in the Army, had bad depression back in his early days and on a few occasions was planning to kill himself, all while his wife was frantically trying to find him better help. Obviously, he'd been getting the same kind of treatment as you, medication and it wasn't helping. Yet Across the country and perhaps in much of the world, the current way of treating people with any kind of mentally debilitating thing have pretty much the same diagnosis, talk about it and take some kind of medicine that doesn't help, makes you feel worse like suicidal or other nasty side effects.
This subject is close to my heart because I have a daughter with mental illness or at least severe depression which she saw a Dr. about and was put on medicine for, stopped taking since she hated the side effects and didn't want to try what I was learning at the time due to my ex, her Dad also having mental illness, he saw a Dr. for who confirmed it to me but hubby still didn't believe anything was wrong with him and was only going for visits because he felt just going would fool me and keep me with him. After almost 30 years of abuse due to his problems, and what I learned about the ex army friend who'd finally found a cure, I tried to steer her in the right direction but she married a guy worse than herself mentally and cut off all relating to family and moving away. I divorced the ex because in a private talk with the Dr. alone, if a patient isn't willing to acknowledge there is something wrong with them that they need help with, then their likelihood of improving is not great. Even with people who understand they have a problem, they may take a long time to change, or never change by time they reach the end of their life.
So now on to what I learned, that the majority of problems like depression, anxieties and other mental disorders are for the most part cureable or can be lessened. A Dr. whom my friend gave me a book of in hopes hubby would read it, this Dr. had been practicing the old way, meds and talk therapy and had many clients who never improved. Then a colleague told him about a new method to help such people that did not involved medication,, it was called CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. He dismissed it as unlikely to work and wouldn't do it until colleagues said they had a couple client it seemed to work for. So he said he'd try it with his most difficult client who ended up totally healed of depression and living a normal life now. So he researched more, became an expert on it, training Dr.s on this method and going on to write several books and creating a website to let people know there is real working help out there. He estimates that about 90% of people can be totally healed as it is not a chemical imbalance, real mental illness behind it or something wrong in the brain as it was developing in-utero, but all the isues stem from one source 'distorted, incorrect thinking' where the cognitive part of CBT comes from since cognitive means simply the thought life of our brains. All people have distorted or negative thoughts at times. Even healthy people like myself but what we do is almost immediately dismiss the thought as distorted or negative, mayve laugh at ourselves, but we choose to tell ourselves that is not going to happen and we stop focusing on and do not keep feeding the bad thought. Many people find they are unable to do it until they have actually been taught how. This is where CBT comes in. It saved my ex Army friends life, the cure for social anxiety in this Dr.s book is exactly what cured me, though I got my information long before I read his book, I got it from God in prayer when wanting to be normal and not have this anxiety so in my early twenties, I was cured of it. It just made the hairs on my neck stand up when I read the same stuff in this book years later. SO I can say it works.
I am giving you the website to check out. It the website of Dr. David D Burns
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
What I suggest is checking with your medical insurance, no matter if the Dr you see had been refered by your primary Dr. They don't have time to do the foot work and sometimes send you to someone who is a friend and trade clients back and forth. Get a list of mental health Dr.s, psychologists in your area that they will cover, and call each one to check if any of their Doctors are trained in CBT. When you find one, take that information to your Dr. YOu don't have to explain or get into it with him, just say the referral is not helping and you checked with insurance for a new Dr. and have a name of one you'd like him/her to refer you to. Dr.s will do this if you supply them with a name, makes no different to them if you did the research.
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