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No information on this site should be used to replace that of your own personal physician. The people that participate in its forums are NOT medical professionals. Those that do participate have suffered with depression or are loved ones of these people. If you need medical advise, please seek the appropriate medical professional to assist you. Only you and your physician can make the appropriate health care choices for you and your situation.
What I would like to put on this site is information about the following topics:
I've suffered most of my life with some sort of depression. When I was a teenager, my mom always blamed it on puberty. I thought it was due to my abusive father. He was verbally, physically and emotionally abusive. Besides dealing with that in my life, I was also being sexually abused by my oldest brother and an ex-brother-in-law over many years. Then when I was 18, I was date raped. T here was more sexual abuse also done by others... but these were the main ones that messed up my life.
Any way you look at it makes no difference. I just know for a fact that I was very easily depressed. And things somehow got worse while having my babies. It was while I was pregnant with my youngest, that a doctor found out I suffered with a Chemical Imbalance. So pretty much ever since I was done nursing my youngest, I have been on many different types of anti-depressants. It took me years to find the correct one, that was most beneficial. At one time, I had found that Prozac seemed to work best for me. I have had tons of different diagnosis's, and with each one different medication changes. Also, when you are on anti-depressants for so many years, it is not uncommon for your body to become immune to the medications. This happened to me. At this time, I am now on Effexor XR and diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
I have been in and out of psyche floors more times than I care to remember. I have also had shock treatments (ECT's) at least 4 times that I can remember. The ECT's were helpful at the time that I thought I was just crazy. I thought I was hearing voices in my head, but instead, I was hearing me at different ages. The ECT's were to quiet the voices, and I felt that they worked overall. But many doctors now a days are pulling away from doing this procedure for some reason that they only know about. However, they saved my life each time, so I am not sure that I would ever say that they were a wasted treatment for me. One thing that I should state - I have lost many memories over the years due to them, and now suffer with a very bad short term memory. Which is sadly one of the side effects from these treatments.
I have recently been diagonosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). This does not mean that I have Schizophrenia. It just means that I see life either in black or white terms only. There are no grey areas in my mind. Either I am right or I am wrong and never the twain shall meet. The main sign that finally helped my Therapist and Psychiatrist in their diagnosis was the fact that I was a Self Injurer (SI). In other words, when really depressed, you will find me doing things that are not acceptable by the real world. I would take a sharp instrument and scrape the skin off from my lower arms and hands and my feet or legs. While some SI's cut themselves or burn themselves or such, I wasn't out for anything that I felt could be as dangerous. In all my years, I had never heard of this term, but the last time I was hospitalized, three other patients told me that this is the term for what I was doing. The strangest part, was those same three said that theirs was no where as bad as mine (I'm not trying to gloat here in any way). Their reasoning, their's was instantaneous and a quick action. Mine took time and concentration. I had never thought of it that way prior to that. One of the other patients even asked me if I could show my injuries to his/her friend's and family. At the time I didn't think to much about it, so allowed it. They then stated to their friends and family members that he/she wasn't as sick as I was, so they could let him/her go home for burning his/her skin with a cigarette. It was then that I felt totally ashamed of showing them.
Unfortunately, I have reached bottom a few times - Suicide attempts. I was very lucky that I had someone looking over me and they prevented me from succeeding. I have been working occasionally over the past few years on writing a book of how I was able to get beyond my deepest depressions. Not sure if I will ever succeed in getting it printed, since I have lost half of it from my computer crashing... but it has helped me tremendously working on it. I am still learning more things all the time. A part of me just wants to know what truly caused this in me. Was it from the abuse, or the chemicals in my own brain? I know that it probably is a combination of both of them. But since I still have problems, I still have more questions. And will continue to search till I find the answer that will finally bring me peace. There are hundreds if not thousands of web sites around out there that each has different information. One day, perhaps I will be able to visit a quarter of them, since more keep popping up daily. All from people that are like me - wanting an answer to finally bring this all to an end for them. Until then - the search goes on.
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