SO Distraught and Panicky my therapist actually suggested ECT

I don't even know what else to say. This is the worst it has been since getting off the stuff. Literally the worst. It has not been this bad ever before, and the constant physical pain and disability have taken their toll. I feel like this is my message in a bottle moment or something. No family support, it's making my husband angry. At this point, I'd pay someone to pretend to be my mommy.

 

At some points, maybe just typing it out makes it better? How we feel? I wish I was dead. There, I said it.

I remember feeling the 'I wish I was dead' thing during withdrawal.  Not the same as wanting to take my own life but wanting to fade out til it was over.  Is that where you are?

Challis

Yes I think we have all had that feeling. And it is particularily difficult to know how badly it is affecting our loved ones. I ended up doing therapy with my husband and it really helped us navigate this whole thing. It actually made us closer. And we both learned coping skills. Once we did that the awful guilt i felt everyday went away and I was able to do my withdrawal in peace.

 

I had ECT and if you ever need to talk about it or have questions you can always ask me. I will tell you this though, the depression does go away. The ECT helped to manage it, but that was before I realized that the depresion was not because I was depressed but because I was on so many medications and benzos. Once I started tapering and got down to just one medication and at a low dose my depression completely disappeared. Depression is a living hell and you cannot understand how or if you will ever feel happy again.

 

I remember the first time I laughed really hard just because something was so funny. It was such a beautiful moment. Now I laugh all the time and crack jokes and am silly again. I never thought that would ever happen. 

It will get better I promise. Just hang in there!

 

Alabama.xo

Yeah, I'm just so injured and the doctors aren't taking me seriously because I'm kind of freaking out and crying whenever I go in. I'm so sick of waking up in horrible pain every morning. Then not being able to do anything. I could take this, all of this, if I could just get up and walk. The days where I can I actually am really cheerful, then it all just falls apart. My pelvis twists again, sacrum flies out of place, pain shoots down my legs and my hopes get dashed and I am suddenly a disabled pain patient again (). I can't deal with that happening so frequently.

 

Honestly, they taped me up Thurs. and I was fine for 24 hours. In excruciating pain worse than ever, but I could stand and walk and sit OK. Then my pelvis just dropped and twisted back again, the hip pain disappeared, but I couldn't do anything else comfortably.

 

Constant battle. Do I go in and fight for proper treatment for a constantly twisting pelvis and injured hip or just let my brain have a break and deal with it for a while letting it heal a bit on its own? I'm pretty much disabled and in pain either way, really.

Aww Antonius .  .  . 

 

I'm really sorry.

 

 

I think for now, you have to get past this tough point by trying to have as much understanding as you can that the system just does not know how to deal with benzo wd patients.

 

You have to be your advocate and ask for what you need - or find someone who can do it for you.

 

 

You WILL get through this tough part - it's just a matter of how much trouble it will be for you.   

 

 

 

River

Just make it out alive. That's all you can do some days during those first several months off.

 

I have lived the feeling you have now. I wanted more than anything to be well and alive and functioning. Eventually you get worn down and the thought of going to bed and not waking up wasn't the worst thought. Not that I would have done anything to end my life, but if my time came and I was gone it didn't sound horrible some days. In the meantime relationships and finances were strained or crumbled. But I've made it out alive for 9 months and can see improvement happening. I don't know how I did it, but now I'm only distraught, panicked and in despair SOME of the time. Other times, things are "O.K." but not yet normal. Someday I hope to feel normal mixed with some days of "O.K." and rare moments of despair and panic. That is the next step of recovery I have to look forward to, and you will too.

 

Do what you can to be as comfortable as you can and allow yourself this time to recuperate, pass the days, distract and remain with us so we can all celebrate our return to good health and happy life that awaits! 

Thanks, I'll be getting better now, hopefully. It's an infection. A bad, bad infection. Missed in exam first time around. Injury symptoms just didn't explain it all, and withdrawals certainly didn't, so I kept going back and making them look again and again, and they finally saw the nose right on their faces.

 

Antibiotics now, hopefully this will clear up in a week or two, won't know more until Monday when I go back for another exam. Whew. 3 months of infected nightmare nonsense.

That's the best news I've heard all day… truly… antibiotics can definitely be lifesavers… looking forward to seeing some healing posts soon!

 

Challis, thank you so much....I have been so afraid that I keep fearing that this is maybe NOT all due to an infection, but I can't stand the fear anymore....I need to just be able to rest and heal. I'll be happy to post some healing stories, this is actually pretty exciting. Too bad these can't work overnight, eh?

 

It's weird knowing the pain is from something that's wrong and not something they keep telling me to "ignore". Ugh. I'm going to write a book about  this some day.

I know exactly how u feel. I'm tempted to ask for ECT.  I requested TMS already and was turned down.

 

Can't wait for this to end! 

I prayed for dead to 4 months ago..

I know how people just don't understand us hurts…

It really goes away

and don't do that ect! Docters don't know anything whats good for you. Only you know whats best for yourself. And thats time and a middle finger to all the people who don't understand you.

Thank you, edenhazard, and I obviously won't. She's just a therapist, anyway.

I am so sorry that you are having such a tough time. Physical and mental pain together. I just wanted to weigh in on the ECT decision. I am a RN and from all I know about it, I would never, never EVER have that done. It really messes up your short term memory for a few months and you never know how it might affect you. It is risky and I think an outdated treatment, rather barbaric!

 

So hang in there and I am glad that the infection was finally discovered, at least you had something to work on! Take good care of yourself, and we are all plugging along with you!!!

 

Hugs...K   

Thanks, Katia! Yeah, I don't know why she suggests these things. Last time, she talked me into going on Paxil (3 1/2 years ago), and I gained 30 lbs in 3 weeks, got immensely depressed at the lack of motivation and threw it in the trash. She knows I don't react well to this stuff, any of that stuff, so why she suggested ECT is beyond me.

 

They keep obsessing on my bowels, and I try to explain that just the idea of having a colonoscopy throws me over the edge, let alone that I can't tolerate the drugs used during that procedure. No one diagnoses much otherwise, otherwise they just want to drug you.

 

The real problem is that I'm a health nut, and any failing (especially this major) makes my mind loop on it incessantly. I mean, it's still there, and it's still bad no matter what, but I wish I could stop thinking about it for 10 seconds.