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What is your experience of mental health?


AstonMartyn88

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7 hours ago, Chindie said:

From my own perspective, I've been on anti-anxiety and now an antidepressant. I've not really noticed much difference in either. I was on the strongest anti-anxiety medication they would offer me at a GP, which did nothing (possibly made things worse bizarrely IMO). The antidepressant has made me tired, irritable and put on a load of weight (which was kinda needed as I lost a **** ton beforehand). So I'd probably say they aren't helping.

I'm awaiting a referral for CBT.

Are you on an SSRI? If so Are you comfortable in saying which one? 

Understand if you wish not to answer either question. 

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Just now, Vive_La_Villa said:

Which type is it? Is it working for you?

Mirtazapine.

It's made me put on weight. Otherwise, not really. It makes you tired and I've noticed my temper is shorter than usual on it. Hasn't really affected what I'm taking it for.

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2 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Mirtazapine.

It's made me put on weight. Otherwise, not really. It makes you tired and I've noticed my temper is shorter than usual on it. Hasn't really affected what I'm taking it for.

Have you been taking it long? 

several years ago when I said I didn't want an ssri because of certain side affects I think I was given Mirtazipine. The name rings a bell.

The first day I took it I felt an intense tiredness. I just wanted to sleep straight away so I did. When I woke up a few hours later I felt a hunger that I'd never felt in my life. I could have eaten for England. 

I went straight back to docs next day and said put me back on an ssri. The side effects are bad on it but manageable. The previous night was ridiculous! 

You considered trying something different? 

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Couple of months.

The tiredness isn't so bad, the eating is maddening though. You compulsively eat, even if not hungry. It's bizarre.

I'm due back in a week or so to see how it's going. I think I'll ask them to take me off it.

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47 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Couple of months.

The tiredness isn't so bad, the eating is maddening though. You compulsively eat, even if not hungry. It's bizarre.

I'm due back in a week or so to see how it's going. I think I'll ask them to take me off it.

Good luck. If you do decide to try something different and I know everybody's body is different but setraline has worked for my depression and anxiety. Not that many side effects either. It can help to get you in a state where you can combine with talking therapy. 

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2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Good luck. If you do decide to try something different and I know everybody's body is different but setraline has worked for my depression and anxiety. Not that many side effects either. It can help to get you in a state where you can combine with talking therapy. 

Me too. I didn’t want therapy but it did help me to be more comfortable talking about things with close friends.

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2 hours ago, mjmooney said:

I have a friend who is a clinical psychologist, and he has always maintained that in most (obviously not all) cases, the single biggest factor in dealing with mental health problems is having mates to talk to. Isolation is deadly. 

I agree with this but sometimes it can be difficult for people to understand. They can just see you as ungrateful for what you have in life.

edit: I'll add to this isolation and alcohol is the deadliest. 

Edited by Vive_La_Villa
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I do wonder how much alcohol contributes to depression. I've increased my dose of medication for around a month now as things got bad but I also haven't touched a drop in that time. 

Now im not feeling overly happy but I'm not depressed either. Just in a 'normal' state. So as far I know it could be the abstinence and not the medication that has helped me. 

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3 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

I believe you :D

I'd love to put my mind out on paper.

It's a **** good job I've never been interested in drugs, lemme tell ya.

It's **** fun though.  I blame being bought up on Vic and Bob, Ren and Stimpy, Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber etc.

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1 hour ago, lapal_fan said:

What is "normal"?

I wouldn't know what that felt like.

I don't think normal exists. We're all wired up slightly differently. 

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On 23/02/2018 at 18:46, Vive_La_Villa said:

On NHS or did you have to go private?

i feel like a prisoner to medication. 

NHS, sessions were at a place I later in life ending up working at which was really weird. Where I work now has a psychologist there to see patients on Thursdays and Fridays and he always asks me if I need to chat as he knows about me which is a massive **** boost to know he is there if I need him or not. Top bloke. One of if not the best professional I’ve ever met in my 11 years working for the trust. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/15/2018 at 22:12, leemond2008 said:

Isn't it funny how times change.

Since I posted that at the end of January I've pretty much had a full on breakdown myself, to the point that I was pretty much forced to leave works premises because they were worried about me.

I very nearly had full on meltdown at work purely because of the amount of work that they was piling on me.

When I posted the quoted message I had no idea how close I was to the edge myself, it all boiled over at work and now I find myself on the receiving end of the "mental health" shit, I was plumbing the depths without knowing it, I managed to catch it before it got too bad and things are already feeling better for me.

I'll talk more about my own situation later when I feel up for it, but the one person who has helped me out and been a proper friend is the very one I was concerned About in the quote above 

Well I feel like I'm in the right sort of headspace to revisit this.

Without getting too deeply into the work related shit, basically we should be getting a maximum of 10 new claims a week, I worked it out that I had been getting on average of 14 new claims a week for 18 months, and whilst it seemed like I was keeping on top of it, it got to the point where every single call I was taking was someone chasing something that was overdue, I was promising them that I would do it that day to try and stop them from issuing court proceedings against us,I knew full well that it would be at least 2 weeks before I got to look at it, I was basically juggling 250 claims

one day I had to put a note on the system which read 'called TPS, when through to voicemail, left message for them to call back' and all of a sudden my whole body froze, I sat there thinking to myself why have I stopped typing, I took a few deep breaths and I still couldn't bring my hands to the keyboard, I got up and walked out, a colleague followed me out and I was nearly in tears to her (and that isn't like me at all, I'm a hard faced bastard) and she told me that I had to speak to them and tell them how I was feeling.

Well I told my team leader that I needed to speak with her and she told me how she could see that I'd been struggling, I told her that I wasn't enjoying life purely because of work, I was waking up at 3am thinking about claims that I needed to action, thinking about claims that I had **** up on, thinking about how I couldn't bare to look at certain claims, my weekends were non existent, work was on my mind constantly, I stopped reading books, I stopped playing piano, guitar etc, I ended up watching shit telly and going to bed at 9pm with nothing on my mind other than what I had to face the following day, Friday nights were the worst because I knew I had 3 nights of brooding before I would know what I was going into (again I had broken to the point that I was nearly in tears whilst I was telling her all this)

I explained how I have been battered with work more than most over the last 18 months and now those old cases were catching up with me and I couldn't cope with it, she got a woman in who is kind of (but not) from HR and she had a chat with me, I was told how we would work together to get my work up to date, they would switch me off so I wouldn't receive any new work until I was ready for it, it was a clean slate, there was nothing for me to worry about, they actually sent me home from work early and told me to relax, chill out and not worry.

I went back to work and they were right, I was given time to get everything in order and it was slowly working, 8 days later I was told that I'd had enough time and I was going to start getting new work, I made my opinion known but it was to no avail, I had worked my way through about 100 of my 250 claims, I tried to explain that I didn't know what was lying in wait in the other 150 claims that I hadn't got around to looking at.

Now the funny thing is that where I work has got a massive thing at the minute about 'mental health' and when I approached my team leader she said 'I could tell that you wasn't right and I was going to speak to you about it' now that is all well and good but it took me having an actual breakdown and being physically unable to put a simple note on the system and nearly being in tears and she it was still me who had to approach her, even after that I wasn't given the time required.

I'm rambling now and this is all probably incoherent and messy but that just goes to show my state of mind at the minute.

I took 4 days holiday last week and it is going to take me at least 1 month to catch up, whilst I was off I have received emails to say that I have had too much litigation against my name, I have too many activities, I have got more documents to review than anyone else on the team (which one would think is understandable considering I've just had 4 days off whilst everyone else on my team have been at work) and I have been told that I have until next Wednesday to get everything bang up to date.

When they switched me back on I told them that I had given them there chance and I felt like I had been lied to and the second that I felt like I was losing it again I would be straight up the quacks to get myself signed off because for all their hustle and bustle about 'mental health' they obviously don't care a shit.

the lad that I mentioned in my previous posts in this thread summed it up perfectly, he said ' if you watch a cliff fall into the sea there is only two things that can cause that, it is either a massive explosion or it it a gradual erosion over time, they both lead to collapse'

I thought I was improving and I'm making a concerted effort to carry on outside of work as normal but I'm struggling like **** at the moment, its getting on top of me again, I wouldn't mind if I had something to fall back onto but I have nothing, I'm a single bloke living in a one bedroom flat and lining off ends meat as it is

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3 hours ago, leemond2008 said:

When they switched me back on I told them that I had given them there chance and I felt like I had been lied to and the second that I felt like I was losing it again I would be straight up the quacks to get myself signed off because for all their hustle and bustle about 'mental health' they obviously don't care a shit.

Have you been to your GP? I'm not about to suggest that they're going to sort things out or that there are lots of options but this is definitely where you should be looking to begin with.

You should also be looking either towards a union if you're a member or the CAB if not as it sounds as though your employers, whilst initially, apparently, helpful and considerate, have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the depth of the potential problem.

Otherwise, make sure you come back to this thread as there's a whole forum to listen to you even if we don't always respond or proffer (constructive) answers.

Edited by snowychap
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