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Hi, I am kitties. I am a newbie here, but not to illness. I have chronic pain 24/7 in my back and neck. Mentally....here are my diagnoses (got a second and third opinion....all objective and a consensus of the exact same diagnoses.) Bipolar 1 with psychosis, extreme, treatment resistant, rapid cycling. Mixed features predominant. Never had a remission to date...just a couple of weeks with my bipolar disorder. “Normal” for a few weeks a couple of times per year. No anxiety remission. OCD, GAD, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety disorder, PTSD...I think that is everything. Oh, I am significantly affected by a very strong dose of agoraphobia stemming from my PTSD and Panic Disorder. I have a great psychiatrist and I e been in treatment with him a since 2006. I had a great therapist that had a co-transference issue and I ultimately ended my therapy with him. I have tried four therapists since firing the aforementioned therapist - but I unfortunately have lost faith in the process. I am a night owl by nature and it has really ramped up since being declared disabled in 2009/SSDI/cannot work. I struggle with having a “routine,” although I have read that one with bipolar disorder tends to be more stable with a routine. I’m easily overstimulated so I like the quiet and darkness.. I know I have an eating disorder (anorexia, restricting type), but I politely yet firmly said I have had “eating issues” but I have no desire to “go there.” My psychiatrist respects that although I am subject to a monthly weigh-in and I self-manage it. I am currently relapsing right now, unfortunately. But, I have had it for so many years that I know at what weight my body and mind take a turn for the worst. And I have to rein it back in and stop losing (meaning eat more). I’ll never seek treatment as the recovery model, IMO, is ridiculous. Kudos to those that have been able to “recover.” I take a bunch of meds, mainly psych meds I like to read, Enjoy spending time with my boyfriend. Internet. I like learning things, I am currently and reading up on world history (pre-USA). I keep up with psychology and sociology. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

Hi. I'm not new, I just lurk around a lot. My life is in disarray, I'm the most depressed I've ever been, my hubby's in his 4th psych ward/hospital in 3 years. Before that, he was your ordinary, dual diagnosed, drinks too much kinda guy. No delusions. No psychosis. At 50, he just bugged out. More on this later. I am so ANGRY! I shouldn't be but I am. I resent being having to deal with pdocs and Psych social workers (OMG sooo clueless) and researching antipsychotics & SSRI'S & SNRI'S & so on & so on. I take 300mg of Wellbutrin 150 2 x daily, 4mg of Klonopin 2 mg at a time. I ALWAYS run out! A cut of 2 mg daily is not working out well...lol. It's almost a month but nothing. It worked before but I dunno... I'm frustrated, alone, and scared. Ok, I don't know where to post this,so here goes nothing. Invega - is anyone else on this and what do you think about it? Thanks in advance, Doe

Hello everyone, thought I would do what everyone else has done and introduce myself a little. (Possible Trigger below) I am George, I live in Dagenham with my soulmate. I suffer from social anxiety disorder, and depression. I spend everyday indoors, but I do try to go outside at least once during the day. I used to be a member of the Mental Health Forum but felt unwelcome after a couple of years, then I joined RethinkTalk which was great until it closed down and ever since I have been trying to find somewhere else to go...Then a few days ago I found this place! It seemed good to me, and I put a lot of effort into getting here..Considering I had to register over ten times, and create a yahoo account. So obviously I am glad I finally have an account, and can check the place out. I used to be on Citalopram for a short period of time, but then stopped taking them and decided to improve myself, by myself. Last couple of years have dedicated my time into doing just that-sorting my head out! I have not self harmed since a year ago, I no longer starve myself or force myself to throw up, I even ate some things in front of people (phobia of eating in front of people), have gained confidence in myself, haven't tried to kill myself since 2010 and I am generally doing a lot better in life. Although I still have a LOT to work on, I am getting there slowly. Anyway yeah that's me, and my shitty intro

** Please do not read this if you are easily triggered. I go into graphic detail about my past, as there is a lot I need to get off my chest anonymously. However, caveat lector. ** Hello! I go by the name Hellbent. I'm 18, and live in the British Isles. I have a long and storiaed history of mental quirks and quiddities. I taught myself to read at tewo from reading the captions underneath pictures in my grandfather's newspapers, and from reading food packaging. I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism at 5 or 6, and declared a "gifted and talented child". I'm uncertain whether the "gifted and talented" diagnosis still exists, or whether it ever meant anything at all. I was offered a scholarship to a prestigious educational institute for the gifted and talented in the Western Isles, but my mother held me back because "my emotional development would never catch up with my intellectual development". The institute in question mostly catered for teenagers, and my mother feared that I may have been bullied. I resent that greatly. If I had been sent there, I would have escaped the living hell that my mother put me through. Although I was originally diagnosed with "high-functioning" autism, my IQ testing well over 100, my behaviour as I slowly, slowly grew up would certainly have landed me in the "classical autism" group had my child psychiatrists been around to see it. (I spent a lot of time as a child playing cruel games with my child psychiatrists!) There were holires in the plasterboard walls of the house where I grew up because I'd throw myself against them repeatedly at the slightest inkling of frustration or sadness. Indeed, I don't believe I ever felt any emotion but frustration until my preteens - when my grandfather died, confined to a nursing home after a life of undiagnosed PTSD from fighting in the Pacific Theatre and depression resulting from a series of disabling strokes and TIAs, in and out of the local mental hospital in which I would later spend time, I felt more empathetic frustration for him, having been trapped in a dark, stinking, crude environment for almost a year, most likely the home's only inmate with an intact mind, than I did sadness. I feel strong empathy, but I am almost unable to feel sympathy. In a poem whose name I cannot remember, the Scottish poet Norman MacCaig talks of "the distance of pain which nothing can overcome". In that line, MacCaig expresses his frustration that he cannot share in his dying wife's pain. I am that nothing - I feel very acutely the pain of others. I felt everything that my grandfather went through, from his horror of a pot lid rattling - my synaesthesia brought on tehe exact same imagery of gunfire that I am certain must have occurred to him - to his unspeakable despair at his confinement to a nursing home. Thus, I felt no true sadness when he died, but, rather, an intense echo of his lifelong frustration at his inability to function. He had been an actuary before he had been conscripted - he taught me to multiply and dievide on an abacus when I was 6 or 7, and many, many arithmetic shortcuts - but, as far as I know, he never could hold down work after the war. Until the ages of 11 or 12, I never felt any emotion of my own, only empathetic feelings from others, except for frustration. I first experienced psychosis at around 9 or 10. I heard my aunt's voice calling my name repeatedly, as if from the sky. She wasn't so much as in the house at all. I ascribed it to angels, and became obsessed with angels. I was intended to be raised a Catholic, but after my parents' divorce my mother tried to get me into the Free Church of Scotland Continuing - which I had no time for. I found their cadence to be dour, inhuman, and deathly sexless. I collected holy cards obsessively. I was especially fascinated by St. Christina Mirabilis and by St. Sebastian, and I had quite a few of them. I ordered them from the Internet. At 11, menarche hit, and, in a fit (that word will occur again in quite a different context) of confusion eerily echoing what was later to be one of my favourite films (guess?), I believed that, for it to have come about quite so early, it must be a sign of something. I came to believe that I was St. Margaret of Cortona. I cut the word "Cortona" into my chest with my grandfather's whittling knife, and came quite close to slashing up my genitalia on several occasions. I tried, thankfully fruitlessly (funny choice of word!), to find one of those extremist Islamist doctors who carry out infibulations. Later that year, I came across a website dedicated to a - clearly somehow mentally ill - Internet artist and unintentional celebrity. Years earlier, she'd posted an innocent picture of herself on a forum, not realising how obsessive the denizens of that forum had been. They tracked down her Livejournal, where she had posted page after page of conceptual photography, some explicit. The website I'm now discussing sprung up as a place of veneration for this unfortunate girl. The website kicked off my first phase of serious self-injury, as the girl being so intensely deified had been a heavy self-injurer, and many of the posters on this website encouraged self-injury. I was a believer in mortification of the flesh, and I did some quite unmentionable things in pursuit of paying tribute to the girl I too came to worship. The website closed down a couple rof yearrs later, but a similar, although far less extreme, site survives, and I was a regular poster there until recently. I would dress up in the vogue of the "goddess"'s most famous pictures on group video chat. The worst phase of my cult membership, for it was indeed a cult, was the time I covered my school uniform in menstrual blood, smeared it across my face, and wrote the address of the website all over my school in it. That incident led to my first non-PDD diagnosis: psychotic depression. I was put on fluoxetine, which quite possibly explains what happened next. The next notable incident in the development of my health occurred, again, at the tail end of my eleventh year. Quite possibly my worst year to date. I had what I now recognise as a manic episode, and adopted an alternate identity. I developed a fixation on an anime cartoon, and spent all of my time on a website dedicated to it, mainly populated by older men. Being hypersexual (indeed, I am constantly hypersexual, even when depressed; I am beginning to believe that I am a clinical nymphomaniac) and a raging teleiophile, I attempted to proposition many of them, addressing them using my adopted identity. Said identity developed into a full-blown manic personality. I became somewhat bisexual, but in a very bizarre way: I was attracted to very, very young girls, and to far older men. These days, I've settled down into simply heterosexual attraction to moderately older men, but those days were wild. I never looked at porn, oddly enough - I gave it a try, but found it all too synthetic and silly - but I constantly fantasised about things I don't feel that I can mention. In the real world, I insisted on being addressed by my alternate name, and acted incredibly callously and antisocially. I became obsessed with computers, built one, and then began to collect them. My room was small, so I could barely move for all the computer rubbish. My mother indulged my eccentricity at first, but later began to lose her temper with my Victorian style of dress, borderline-hoarding, and use of gamers' language in Blakean syntax, and took me to a chiropractor, who "prescribed" multivitamins. By 12, the cycling induced by the fluoxetine had thrown me into a depression. I had had suicidal thoughts since 8 or 9, but first acted on them at 12. I put the Manics' song "Die in the Summertime" on repeat and attempted to slit my wrists with the same knife I'd pulled the "Cortona" nonsense with. Thankfully, I think I only hit a bunch of capillaries, and I managed to stem the bleeding in about seven hours once I realised it wasn't going to work. My mother let it slide, but I was bullied at school. I'd already been bullied at school for my meltdowns, but it worsened so, so much when my classmates noticed the cuts on my wrists. From 13 to 14, my mental health improved greatly. I was taken off the fluoxetine, shook off the manic alternate personality, and excelled at school. I passed my Intermediate 2s with seven As, and two Highers with an A and, er, a C. I was invited to an Advanced Higher English course, and accepted, but had to drop out before I began my dissertation - it was to be on Irish vs. Scottish black humour in literature, comparing MacCaig's poetry and The House with the Green Shutters with The Third Policeman and After the Wake - because my aunt, who mostly brought me up and whom I loved dearly, developed throat cancer, and I couldn't focus on writing when I could feel the agony that my aunt was going through. In late 2010, I began to believe that I was beginning to look old, and that I needed to look younger to find a re al boyfriend, so I stopped eating for days on end. In 2011 this worsened. In January 2011 I was almost 9st; in July 2011 I was close to 4st. I was hospitalised with multiple organ failure, and diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. In September I was sent to residential inpatient, where I spent one day short of a year. Being a CAMHS unit, it was dire; I would far rather have been sent to an adult mental hospital. My fellow inpatients competed with one another constantly to be the sickest. At one point, I lost my temper with one girl to the extent that I punched her in the face and slapped her against a wall. The incident was recorded on CCTV, and, had I not been so underweight, I would have been expelled from the unit. I was NG fed for some time. My more recent mental illness experiences are a little too raw yet to be spoken of in public, and, besides, I've rambled on long enough. My final major diagnoses were occipital lobe epilepsy - I had what I now recognise as partial seizures, many, many migraines, and a couple of possible tonic-clonics as a child, but was only given an EEG at 16, and had a tonic-clonic during the strobe test, and subsequently had several MRIs which confirmed brain damage and epilepsy - and schizoaffective bipolar disorder at 17, which I doubted at first, believing myself to be borderline, but, after some research into the topic, found that it fit (hah) perfectly. I hope that I'll fit (there I go with that same pun again) in here alright.

hey, i just need some advice and support, i suppose. I was going to post in the schizophrenia forum, but i don't have that diagnosis. in the past year, i've gotten increasingly more paranoid. i used to sit up in bed and stare into the dark corners of rooms, looking for i dont even know what. made me lose a lot of sleep. uh, the main fear i have is that somebody is going to try to murder me. there's nobody obviously trying to kill me. but sometimes i feel like im not alone in my house, and every little noise sounds like footsteps. i've talked to my therapist about it and he tells me its all in my mind. which i completely understand! yet, when it comes down to it, i get very scared and its making it very difficult to concentrate and go about my life. i'm just wondering if anybody else has problems like this, and what i should do to stop that fear from creeping in. thanks lots, good vibes

Hi there everybody. I was recommended to this site by .id and I am very excited to start using it as a place to meet other people with MIs who can relate. I am 23, diagnosed with dysthymic depression, and I also fall on the bipolar spectrum. In the past, I have had hallucinations. That was toward the beginning of the times when I first started noticing symptoms, about 8 years ago. I have been on antidepressants for three full months now and they are starting to awaken my irritation/mania, although it may be paired with stress/sleeping/eating/general lack of routine. I have been touch and go with different counselors/therapists for the past five years. I do not see a one-on-one specialist at the moment, but I do go to Al-Anon (12-Step) meetings regularly and work the steps with a sponsor. I have been in Program about 7 months and it has been helping me in some ways. Posting on here is a next step in my recovery. I am only beginning to accept that my bipolar and my depression are part of who I am, but I do not have to treat them so vehemently as defects. There are many positive aspects to it. I am very creative and clever, poetic, book smart, street smart, very kind and friendly. However, I would like to have my illness under reins and stop blaming my screw-ups on the bipolar. I want to have some say in the way that I act, and the way it comes out. I don't mind if it comes out, as long as it's in a positive, proactive way. Anyway, cheers to you all and I am looking forward to getting involved on the board. Keep it real, Hrv

I'm Jess. I'm 22, and I was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder (as recently as six days ago). I'm obviously really early in the process of finding the right combination of medications and coping through talk therapy. But for now I'm seeing both my psychologist and psychiatrist once a month, and am taking Lamictal as a mood stabilizer and Ativan for anxiety as needed. It's nice to meet you all.

Hi Everyone, I just came across these boards doing a random search on Google. I have read a few threads and I figured I would join and see if anyone could offer me some advice. A quick background. I have had bouts of depression since my early 20's (I am 41 now) and it has never been as bad as it is now. When I was in my 20's it was mild and I think I managed it with Prozac for a little while and then just drank a lot. In my early 30's I found Lexapro and that was my ace in the hole. It made me feel like I didn't care about the things that were bothering me and a nice side effect was that it made a lifelong intravert who cared about what everyone thought about him not care anymore. Last year around June I had a major panic attack. I had never had anxiety like that, I was always more of a depressed person. The attack was so bad that I call 911. While at the hospital I mentioned that I had been sparring with someone that same day (I like to box in for exercise and sport) and they hit me in the open portion on the top of my headgear so hard that their knuckle came through their sparring glove and they broke their knuckle. That made the physician think possible concussion so the did a CT scan and the results were negative. They attributed my experience that night to a panic attack and sent me home. The next weekend was July 4th and my family and I went to the beach. I was at the hotel by myself and here comes another panic attack. The same feeling as before, a rush of warmth running over my whole body followed by racing thoughts. I was able to talk myself down. But on and off throughout the following weeks I would have these same sensations. It was always that warm rush and an "uh oh" thought. Finally in October I had another really bad one. I went to the hospital again and again it was attributed to anxiety. This time they gave me a few Xanax and sent me home. Things were different in the following months than they had been after the first panic attack. I felt "disconnected" from my surroundings. It bothered me to feel that way that it would create more anxiety. I would sit at work all day worried about myself, worried about death, thinking about lifes meaning. I saw one pdoc and he put me on celexa because he could go higher in dose than on Lexapro. It was terrible and he was not very helpful when I called him about it. He told me to stop cold turkey and I had been on it a month. I asked if there would be any side effects and he said no (I knew better). I called him later that night telling him I was feeling even worse and he said "maybe its because you stopped cold turkey" but I hadn't even stopped yet, it was the same day. I quit him. I went to another pdoc and he put me back on Lexapro with Wellbutrin. That didn't work well so he tried Zoloft. It was still the same, anxious about life, feeling disconnected, thinking about death. Eventually I quit him. I am currently on my 3rd pdoc and she started by having me take clonozapam mg along with the Zoloft at a higher dose. No good so she recently moved me to 50mg Pristiq (weaned me off Zoloft over 3 weeks) along with clonozapam 5mg in the morning and clonozapam 5mg in the evening. I felt great the first week but the next week was back to how I was before. She thought that may have been because I still had some Zoloft in my system that first week and it made for a good combination with the Pristiq. She upped me to 100mg Pristiq with the Clonozopam 5mg in the morning and evening. After a few weeks of that not working well she moved me to 150mg Pristiq. I just stopped that today because after 5 days of that dose I felt crazy. Everything around me was weird, I felt like there was a dark cloud around me and I couldn't think. I was out at the store and felt like I could easily just pass out but I never did. This morning I went back to 100mg. I am going back to her next week. Bad part is I lost my job of 7years just 2 weeks ago (yeah that doesn't help when you are depressed and anxious). My wife and I had just bought our 1st house and we have a 5 year old and a 5 month old. My question is, do you think the person I am currently going to knows what she is doing? As you can see from switching docs so much, I have trust issues with them. I am only asking because 150mg Pristiq seems like a lot and I have not been able to Google and find many people that talk about being on 100mg let alone 150mg. Lastly, does anyone think I should have went to a Neurologist or should go to one since this anxiety all started on the same day I was hit in the head? I know the CT scan was clear and I know you are not doctors, just asking opinions because I have had pdocs tell me no and my primary physician tell me I probably should have. Thanks! Chad

I just joined and am happy to have found such a forum.I am a Poet,Writer,lover of animals and a big classic rock fan.I guess you can say I have been suffering from dysthymia since childhood and have had a number of major depressive episodes since my twenties.i also have some anxiety issues,but nothing too major.Right now I am coming off of Effexor,which I found too stimulating and made me feel like I was walking in a daze.I am in therapy and hoping to find an anti-depressant that will help without making me anxious.I also am looking forward to going back to work,hopefully in September.

Hi crazy people, I'm a 28-year-old guy currently living in Las Vegas. I make films as a career - but I'm taking a much needed break - to work on myself mentally, learn how to play poker, and become a bartender. I have some form of clinical major depression and some kind of anxiety -- once the science actually figures out how to narrw this down, I'll let you know too. I've been using state provided mental health services because I can't hold a job right now... it's helpful for getting you free drugs, but the therapy side is a bit lacking. Aside from group options, I've been waiting over 3 months for my first one-on-one session with a counsellor. Not being brave enough to go to these group sessions, I've started particiating in online forums. So, hi, I'm here. Oh, I also really like weed, and I feel it's just as important to me (medicinally) as is, let's say, my lexapro. I wrote about my feelings on another forum -- feel free to check it out: http://suicideproject.org/2014/03/i-smoke-weed/ And yeah. Here I am, let's share and shit.

Hey, I'm B and I'm 28 and I live in Vegas. I sort of wrote about what brought me here already in my general intro... so, this post can direct you there - if you care. http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/69929-ohey-crazy/ Also, that post will direct you to this other "forum" where I wrote about how weed is just as helpful to me as, let's say, my lexapro. I'm still depressed but I'm kind of rounding a corner on it - so I feel like I can be useful to other people still in the early / getting-help stages of their depression... Also, just having others to talk to on days like today is great. So, yeah, words that are more eloquent and entertaining can be pursued through above link-age. I swear, those posts are better than this one.

I found CB last night, in the midst if a full blown BPD dysregulated freak out session. And though I've been told I tend to have a flair for the dramatic.. I'm pretty sure the clouds parted, the sun appeared, and music was softly playing when I discovered this place I spent, quite literally hours just reading and feeling this sense of calm that I think comes from feeling, even briefly that I'm not alone. Anyway, I'm 28, female, dx borderline at 16, PTSD due to early medical trauma followed by multiple re-traumatizing events that occurred as I spiraled out of control. Now, finishing my second year of DBT, still struggle, but somewhat hopeful.. Which is something. That's a little about me more to come.

... and it's taking me forever, I'm only up to the second town and I just want to have caught everything already because DAMN I want that Mewtwo and- Hi, I'm Nel. I like my games and I like my therapy and I am ecstatic to have been diagnosed. I'm of that group of people who just really wanted a name for the thing that keeps going wrong so they don't feel like it's all (hah) in their head. If you wanted to know, it's all in my signature. I love talking about it. I love thinking about it. Mental illness and mental health fascinates me, because there are all these people who have different experiences and who don't look at me like I'm a lunatic when I try to explain why I can't quite string together a sentence today. Feels like home when someone else describes dissociation, or laments the flick-of-a-switch moodswings, or the sudden rage. I might be afraid of people, but I don't actually like this feeling of being alone. I write, I game, I love my cats, I make soap. I swear a lot in real life and I have the most patient and understanding lover in the universe. I also really want you to like me. So there's that. So hi. I'm new. Please love me. - Nel.

Here I am! Just how the hell did I get here? I wandered into the forum by clicking on a link after googling "C-PTSD support." When I realized that I had been reading threads for over two hours and was getting jealous that I wasn't involved in this community, a solution presented itself to me... JOIN, DUMMY! I don't really know what I expect to get out of posting or what I will post, but as with most things in my life, eventually, I'll figure it out. I'm hoping to connect with others that are going through similar experiences, and to receive support and provide it. A little something about myself would be appropriate here, I suppose. I am 29, a single mother of a delightful little girl who is living with autism, and I am divorced. The doc I've been seeing for mental health put "PTSD (Complex)" in my file yesterday after evaluating me for emotional/psychological disorders. I suspected that would be the dx, and I am actually a little relieved that there is a name and treatment for what I'm living with. The C-PTSD is largely a result of my relationship with my ex-husband. People use the term "narcissist" lightly, but the ex actually has it in his medical file. The psychological trauma he inflicted on me during the 8 years of our marriage caused a lot of damage to my mental and physical health, and I'm just now starting to sort out the pieces that were broken and busted. So that's where I'm at on my journey. I look forward to getting to know you better. See you on the boards!

Hello world I have stumbled across this board while trying to figure out how to outlive this day, and the day after, and the day after that too. Sorry if I am going against any rule, board rule or linguistic rule, am a total newbie and English is not my first language. I am writing from a small country in Europe, am 35 years old, married to an awesome man, own 3 dogs, a house and have a job. Well I used to have a job, not so sure about that anymore, since I have been put on an indefinitive medical leave by my psychiatrist after a rather tough break down and because of burnout syndrome. I have registered here because I am hoping you guys could show me how to deal with your daily worries, anxieties, black thoughts, what your strategies are for coping. I am currently on a new run of medication (seroquel xr 50 mg, xanax for the severe panic attacks, and wellbutrin 150 mg). Have been through lycrica, seroxat, cymbalta, lysanxia, none of which have worked, so here is to hoping that the new treatment will kick in sooner rather than later. I am also seeing a psychiatrist on a weekly basis, but I felt the need to talk to someone other than a medical professional. Life has just become unbearable, my poor husband is starting to feel as lost as I am when he sees me going nuts, not being able to read while I loved reading so much. Walks with my dogs make me want to run for cover, seeing my family and few friends has the same effect, used to be able to switch thinking gears by playing my xbox, can't focus anymore. Have tried practising my bass guitar but all I want to do is smash the thing against the walls. There is only so much cleaning I can do in the house, so how on earth do you keep yourself busy when you are not working. Also...I do not want to demonize pot usage, but I have kicked the habit of smoking 14 months ago after 15 years of very heavy substance abuse. I have the impression that never having ever learned to cope with reality is not necessarily helping me get better. I have had intracranial brain surgery too about 16 years ago, not sure if that plays a role, my shrink thinks not So...any guidance, advice, similar experiences, jokes, kind or not so kind words, would be welcome. I used to be a fun person, allbeit an introvert. Now I am more of a panicky introvert, all that is left is my sense of humor. Thank you all.

Hey! I am here to eat your heart... Okay not really,, but I'm new and my current diagnoses are Bipolar (their wrong,) Depression NOS (Major Depression,) and Anxiety.... My current Rx is Wellbutrin SR 100mg (needs to go up) and Lorazapam .5mg. SO I am here to learn more and be a part of a community of crazies like me I guess. PS: I also like cats! =)

I am 38 years old, married 9 years with two DDs, 6 and 2.5. I am a devout Christian and I am a Marriage and Family Therapy Intern. Depression, nightmares, fears, anxiety have plagued three generations, me, my mom, and my grandmother. If it exists I worry about it, if it might happen, I worry bout it. Me irritable? Sorry I bit your head off would you like it back? I am such scum, I am so sorry! Got a lot done today, but tomorrow I may barely get out of bed, and I am so lonely, but leave me alone because everything irritates me! Oh good, a good couple weeks, maybe these meds are working, oh dang, when will it hit me again? Dun dun dun........! The only thing that keeps me going is my relationship with God and meds. I love using emotional tools from Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy that help me combine my spiritual beliefs with my reality. I take 50 mg of Pristiq since Lexapro 20 mg was not working. In January when I started my internship, my blood pressure,went from 112/60 to 148/85! I started the Pristiq after this I think.....I had night sweats, insomnia, and nausea for a bit. I fast 16 hours a day and this helps my energy. Otherwise I am an avid emotional overeater. The fasting kills my appetite, but I still get enough nutrition. It seems to help my focus and depression as well. I still get tight chest and feelins of anxiety and take aprazolam .5 when needed. I also take 5 mg of melatonin and a couple Tylenol if having trouble sleeping instead of the aprazolam. I am non-political, but passionate about gardening, nature, crafts, music, singing, creating, being an earth muffin, and spending time with my DDs and DH. I love life and this mental illness is not going to beat me! It is a thorn in my side, that is all! For me, God's presence in my life has to be bigger, or I'd drown.