Depression and anger

[BEANBAG]

Depression

Depression is a symptom of MS and if you are in the SP stage of MS you most likely will have depression and anxiety that needs Medication. Most of the others in this site will tell you to get back to your neurologist or primary care doctor and tell them you feel the need for something to help with your blue mood.
Cheryl

[mercadies25]

I went to a counselor, she asks "what do you want for yourself right now" I said "well that's easy a cure for this damn disease can you provide that?"

Well that is what has ruined my happy go lucky life. So just give me my old life back and I would be much happier.

I take my anti-depressants because I don't want to know how DEPRESSED I would be without them.

I just wish us all good luck!!!!!

[bwmorris]

azalea, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I have a degree in psychology and, more importantly, I've been involved with the mental health consumer community for many years.

When I read your 9/25/12 post about your weight gain and spending binge, what immediately popped into my head was "mania".

I don't know what exactly is going on with your brain, but when a bipolar person is just put on an antidepressant, what usually happens is they experience mania, which can result in the effects you reported. Or, with someone I'm close to (for example), the feeling that she was a fairy, coupled with the urge to jump from a balcony.

Either way, that's serious stuff.

It sounds like your current antidepressant is ineffective. If you were upfront with your psychiatrist about the symptoms that sound an awful lot like mania, then I'd expect a good psychiatrist to try you on a different antidepressant, but couple the antidepressant with a mood stabilizer to prevent manias. That's just standard fare, in my estimation.

I think you probably either need to be more upfront with your (good?) psychiatrist and let her fix things, or take control/be your own advocate and be more insistent with your (bad?) psychiatrist, doing a little research and suggesting a game plan to get you functioning better. There's no need to sit there and take what the depression's dishing out.

It's easy to be flippant about this when you're depressed, but the MS literature says that depression and suicidality don't track strongly with level of disability. That may mean it's more about our attitudes toward the things in our lives that suck, than it is about how much those things stink.

I didn't want to believe this when I was depressed, but my disability level suddenly got worse while my years-long depression magically went away. I guess depressed me was wrong!

But yeah, depression in MS is can be purely organic (a symptom of MS), or situational (a reaction to having MS). Either way, I really hope you try to get this under control. They say good meds and good therapy are the best combination.

It may not seem like it now, but if you keep trying, you will feel better.