Seroquel Side Effect

I am going absolutely crazy with one of the side effects of Seroquel. My legs are driving me mad. I take my medicine and then a while later I get this awful feeling in my legs (or my head ABOUT my legs) I can't tell if my legs feel awful, or if it's my head telling me my legs feel awful. It gets worse each time I increase my dose.

At first I described it to DR. X as a feeling like there are worms crawling inside my legs amking my legs feel like they need to move. The more I try to figure out what the feeling really is the less I think it is coming from my legs and the more I feel like it is a figment of my imagination (caused by the Seroquel).

The feeling is hard to describe...The closest I can think is that it is an obsessive need to move my legs, caused by my brain telling me moving them will make them feel better. If I try to sit still and not move it feels like the tension and need to move builds and builds until I can't stand it anymore.

Dr. X says maybe restless legs (but when I read about it they say that is painful). My feeling is not physically painful, rather it induced and intense and unmanageable irritability and anxiety in me. I feel like I am going to be driven even more mad than I already am.

Dr. X. has also talked of Akathisia. I don't really know what the difference is except from what I read it sounds like Akathisia actually makes your legs move...I am the one moving my legs...it is not an automatic thing...I can, for a short period hold back from moving...it is the intensity of the annoying feeling that makes ME (my conscious self) need to move my legs.

Can anyone shed some light on what this feeling is and if there is anything non-medicinal I can do to stop it. Right now I am taking larger and larger doses of muscle relaxants and Advil to try and stop it (I thought it was helping, but I think maybe I was imagining it helping me because it is not helping at all right now.

Please...if anyone can give me info please do, because now my legs are feeling annoying. Dr. X. mentioned medication, but I don't see him until Thursday...and right now I do not want to take any more medication.

Also, can someone explain the differense between RLS and Akathisia?

A Life Worth Living

I am so annoyed and irritated for so many reasons...but this time it was triggered by blogger. I just COMPLETED a post and went to put an image on as a finishing touch and all my edits to the original post (which was actually most of the post) disappeared.

I don't feel like writing it again...but my point was that unless I get my old life back...the one where I unselfconsciously sang out loud at the top of my lungs...I don't want to live.

...and I feel hopeless and pretty certain that life, the one worth living, is gone for good.

ECT & Media Portrayals of Depression Treatment Options

Dr Shock's blog is a wonderful mix of informative articles, videos and analysis of a variety of things from music, travel and art, to psychiatry and back. Of course, his focus is psychiatry, but the renaissance man in him shines through in his blog.

In one of his recent posts... "Illuminate Depression" he has posted a video about different treatments for depression. It is fascinating and talks about a variety of treatments. A big kudos to it for bothering to mention (unlike most overviews of depression treatments) some people's depression is treatment resistant.

I have pretty much given up hoping that main stream media will explain that depression is not always as "treatable" as they would have us believe. Nothing annoys me more than the statement "Depression is a treatable illness". It's the opening line of so many self help and depression information books...and for many of us it sounds like a lie. For me it creates an intense internal struggle within me about whether or not it is my fault I remain depressed despite trying several different kinds of treatments.

While the video is informative and interesting I found it very curious...and annoying...that the makers of the video included talks about all kinds of different treatments, some common, and some in the early stages of development, including rTMS, (which from what I understand has not been shown to be any better than a placebo***), yet it neglects to even mention Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT); even though ECT is a well-studied, scientifically proven, highly effective treatment for resistant depression. (***see this recent post in the blog "Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry: A Closer Look" for a scathing look at the FDA's approval of rTMS and you will wonder how it was possibly approved)

It irritates me, (and does not help me explain potential treatments to concerned family members), when the media, either by negative portrayal or by leaving positive and informative information about ECT out of stories about depression treatments, subtly dismisses or devalues an effective and proven helpful treatment for resistant/refractory depression.

I feel confident I have informed myself about ECT as an option. What though of others who have not had access to any information about ECT except what they see, or don't see, portrayed in mainstream media? What about those who only ever hear negative information, or who trust that the books and videos the media are promoting and showing them the best, or the only, options available?

Will some people with resistant depression, some who might be helped with ECT, miss out on the chance to become well because popular media at best has failed to share balanced, scientific information about ECT, or at worst is colluding with naysayers to portray ECT as either a dangerous choice, or a barbaric one?

I worry also that the lack of accessible and scientific information in the media about ECT perpetuates the fears and myths that exist about the treatment. In effect this may (and I am certain does) lead fewer people to see it as an option...even if they have tried many, many other unsuccessful treatments for their mood disorder. I also think the negative media, and lack of media, and especially lack of an unbiased media about ECT affects how willing partners, family members and friends are when it comes to supporting a patient's decision to try ECT.

The media, when they discuss and examine depression treatment options and leave out, dismiss, or malign ECT as a valid and valuable treatment option, is not doing anyone with treatment resistant depression a favour. In doing so the media perpetuates ECT myths, hysteria and misinformation.

Caged

(Thoughts like this post are partly why I stopped writing for a while...yeah I didn't have the internet at home, but I also couldn't find the energy to make the effort to get outside my home and make my way to the library only a few short blocks from my house, to rant about my depression, anger and inability to get well. I don't know if my continued diatribe about my depression is helpful to anyone, myself included.)

I'm cranky, irritable and at times am feeling a rage swelling inside me. The anger is mostly focused at myself and my inability to manage to help myself get better...either by somehow influencing a/any medicine to work, and by doing the things I keep being told to do in order to get well...for example:

• eat well,
• get some decent, cardio exercise...other than dragging my sorry slow ass for a painfully slow walk with the dog...(painful for me, because even slow seems completely exhausting...and painful for the dog because all he wants to do is run.)
• sit under my lightbox
• challenge my thoughts
• read
• get my sleep schedule/wake schedule the same everyday
• don't eat sugar, so many carbs, eat more veggies
• take my vitamins

...yadda, yadda, yadda.

I feel like screaming I am so angry with myself for not being able to, or willing to, or trying to, or whatever the hell it is...do something to save myself.

I feel enraged also, by all the "helpful" ideas in psychiatry/psychology that seem to presuppose some magic energy resource or will, or that the ability to motivate oneself exists in me, and people like me.

Maybe it's true...like I think sometimes...that I am the only one who fails to get better, 0ver and over and over again Otherwise, why do people always tell me to do things that I can't seem to do because I'm to exhausted/amotivated to do them....because I have an illness that exhausts, overwhelms, and robs me of all your desire, ability, and motivation to actually DO SOMETHING to help myself.

If others with this illness have these same difficulties why the hell do doctors and therapists and studies, and papers and books and friends and family keep telling me to do all the things I feel unable to do?

Am I crazy, 0r does this sound as crazy as a hockey coach screaming at a tiny kid; who knows how to walk and run pretty well, but who has never been on the ice, or in skates, to speed skate, intuitively know how to handle the puck and get a goal when they aren't even able to skate yet; or like a doctor telling a person with no legs to just walk around the block a few times a day and they will feel better; or like telling Cinderella to go find a prince to marry when she is so busy trying to clean up after, and appease her evil siblings' and stepmother's demands, and to even just protect herself, that she doesn't even know a world outside her abusive existence exists.

SURPRISE! I am really depressed right now. I feel overwhelmed with life, and once again underwhelmed by my depression treatment plan. I am pretty sure that even if something helps it will only help a bit, or for a while, or it, like everything else I've tried will simply stop working. I am pretty sure I have lost my old life; my old me.

It's not acceptance I am feeling...but an internal rage at losing what I valued so much...my joie de vive, my adventurousness, my wildness, my positive outlook (yes, I did say that...I used to have a pretty bubbly positive outlook about the awesomeness of life)...and my lust for life.

I do not want to live if it means living without those things. I don't want to continue taking medication, continue psychiatric treatment, continue existing, if it means I have to accept the dullness, ineptness, anxiousness, sadness, fatigue, blah, blah, blah my life has become.

My Mom used to tell me I would get better when I accepted I had an illness. I think I accept I have an illness. I just don't want it anymore and I feel completely helpless, and hopeless, that I will ever be able to stop my symptoms.

...it was intensely difficult to write the word "helpless" in that last paragraph. I feel like I have fought so hard to try to help myself, but nothing ever works, nothing I do ever changes how I feel for any length of time...Maybe it's time to give up trying. It is this intense feeling of helplessness that enrages me. I feel like a caged wild animal. Caging an animal just isn't right. Wildness tamed is just a captive. No thing, no being, wants to live as a captive.

Am I BeingSpied On

Am I being spied on? Am I doing something wrong that I should worry about being spied on?

I feel really rattled right now. I just had a most uncomfortable interaction with my landlord and I cannot shake the feeling that he is spying on me and came to my door to interrogate me. The conversation was very stilted, sounded planned, and awkward. I wish I just had the courage and conviction to tell people things are none of their business.

What happened:
My landlord, "C" rang my doorbell. I answered,as my door was open and he could see I was in...I probably wouldn't have answered if that weren't the case. I would have shrunk into the shadows and pretended I was not home, because he and is family scare me.

When I answered he asked me how I was doing...but the tone wasn't a polite, light conversational opener type "how are you"...it was more demanding information sounding. The reason I say this is because upon my saying okay he immediately asked me if I was working.

This question caught me completely off guard...though it shouldn't have because I stress everyday about him, or his family learning I am on a leave from work. He was just so blunt. It was weird. I didn't have time to think of how I could protect myself, and maintain my privacy...so I blurted out, yes I am working.

Immediately I thought ...He is asking me these questions in his professional "insurance adjuster" capacity. This belief was further enhanced when his next question immediately popped out of his mouth: What do you teach?

I could feel myself getting increasingly stressed...how do I answer without being dishonest, but also without telling an insurance adjuster I am working. The last thing I need is for him to think I am being dishonest by being on disability, but still working.

Note:(In reality I am not "working" in the sense that would be construed as fraudulently collecting disability insurance and working on the side. I "work" (volunteer) in an art clubhouse where teaching classes is a part of a mental illness rehabilitation program)

Regardless, of what a big part of me understands is my rehabilitation as opposed to my fraudulently working...I am so scared by all his questions.

I told him I teach printmaking and mixed media art classes. His questions kept coming...he asked twice how my boyfriend was...and he had an look of concern/perturbation on his face that was so strong that I asked him if everything was okay with me as a tenant.

Am I doing okay as a tenant? Are there any problems with my being here?, I asked. At this point I was almost on the verge of tears, and could feel myself overheating because of the stress. He said no, I was a perfect tenant.

Why then is he asking me all these questions? (His Dad has asked me about my working, and a couple times asked me why I am not at work too. I feel so uncomfortable with these questions, but I cannot think of what to say to avoid answering)

Then he asked me if I had the internet hooked up. I did this morning I told him. He then asked if I wanted to share the connection with him; me paying half and he the other half. Immediately I became intensely paranoid again. I asked him about how that might affect my privacy, i.e. if he had access to my connection via wifi/or shared connection could he see what I was doing online? Does anyone out there know the answer to this? How secure is my browsing/laptop info if I share with him, especially given he has the computer skills to spy?

When "C" left I almost got sick. I am freaking out right now...I revealed so much...told him I was working, said I'd think about a shared connection etc. He then asked me if I had my new computer. I told him I was getting one soon.

He offered to help me get a computer saying he had vendor connections. He asked me what I used it for..and I overshared and gave out too much information. Rather than say it was none of his business, I said that would be great...but inside I kept thinking he was doing this so he could install some kind of spyware on my computer so he could monitor me/spy on me.

Every time I see him, or his sister or Dad I freak out and hide in my suite until they are gone. I think I do this because I feel scrutinized and criticized at best, and spied on at worst.

I want to think I am imagining all my fears of spying, and I keep trying to reassure myself and act like I have a right to be off work and taking care of myself without fear of getting in trouble for doing things "worklike" to try to rehabilitate myself, and get back to real work and a life worth living...but more and more I think I really am being spied on.

Am I being spied on? Or am I delusional? What do those reading this post and my recent experience think?

Note: He works for a giant insurance company, has seen me receive mail from my employer's HR department every two weeks, lives in the house my suite is in so sees me home all the time, always seems uncomfortable around me and way too snoopy.

This is so stressful. Every time I leave my suite I look first to see if anyone in the house is here to see me at home (again), because I am so afraid of being seen as not working. I try to plan to stay away for at least 1/2 days if I go out...so it at least looks as though I might have at least a part time job. I am getting worn out by trying to pretend all the time...or by trying to reassure myself that it doesn't matter what his family, or him know about me. I really don't believe it doesn't matter, and I really believe something weird /nefarious is going on.

Online Disconnecting and Reconnecting

I'm back...PHEW!

Going completely offline for a month and a half was eye opening. During that time I accessed the Internet only a couple of times. It surprised me how easy it was to disconnect. I thought I would have withdrawal.

If you had asked me before I stopped accessing the Internet, if I thought it were possible to "electronically disconnect" for such a long time I would have said no.

I am glad I did disconnect because it showed me a couple things:

1. I am much more aware that given my low mood I have limited energy to use and I need to choose carefully the activities that provide me real life value.
2. Far too much of my available energy and time was previously spent online.
3. That "real" life activities and interactions are extremely important to my helping myself manage my mood. This does not mean "online" life activities and friends are not extraordinarily important to me...they are...it just means that I cannot spend all my spare time online. It isn't good for me.
4. I missed my online friends, but I did not miss the Internet very much at all...I wasted a lot of time online just surfing to nowhere.

The biggest and most surprising discovery:

5. I always wondered if my spending time online focusing on my depression, its symptoms, my difficulties, pain, fears etc. via my blog, and through reading, and interacting with other blogs/bloggers, made me stay depressed, or fed my depressive symptoms.

I do not see that it did at all. My mood did go up a bit this past month and a half, but I started a new medicine and I think it lifted my mood. The past couple weeks, despite not having and online influences, my mood crashed again...so I think it is my brain that is the biggest culprit in terms of affecting my mood and mood cycling.

Anyways, I really did miss interacting with my online friends, and I missed the creative process of writing. Now that I am "connected" again I am going to focus on staying connected with others here and on your sites. It might take me time to catch up, but I will.

I Wish My Family Members Cared Enough to Become Informed

Please do not treat me like I am not trying hard enough, or if only I tried harder all would fall into place. Severe and Chronic Major Depression is not like that...not for me anyways.


Me: "Sister I need help. I don't know what to do anymore. I am so tired all the time. You know how people with cancer or hepatitis feel so tired they can't do anything? I feel like that. Exhausted. I am scared. I have suicidal thoughts all the time. I am so sick I want to give up. I won't because I love you and our family so much, but I can't handle this anymore. I need help."

Sister: "You are not sick. You do not have cancer, or hepatitis, or any other illness. All you need to do is get doing things. Get busy. Go kayaking, go for a walk, do your art."

Me: "I have an illness that makes it hard to do things most times. I have no energy. I am sick."

Sis: "You are not sick, you don't have an illness. You are depressed."

etc., etc.

I am lost. I really am sick. Last week I asked my sisters to call me every couple days, just to let me know they love me and care about me, I felt it would help me stay here. I felt really proud of myself for asking for help. Once again though, I reached out for help and have been pushed away.

I am so depressed I am having a hard time functioning. No one sees it. Not the Art clubhouse, where I have tried to explain I need some concessions during this time; not my family...who are telling me not to phone.

On some level my boyfriend is there for me and I really appreciate his being there, but I brought up the fact that I wanted to go to the hospital for ECT and he flipped out; saying if I went to the hospital I would be abandoning him.

I tried to explain that my going to the hospital was nothing about abandoning him, and everything about taking care of myself. He said:, "Don't turn this around." (as though I am abandoning him, but just excusing it by saying I am helping myself???? I don't get it.

He constantly denies I am depressed, or that I have anything to be depressed about. The latter may be true, but from my perspective it seems I am depressed...even if most others in my life don't think so. I really get confused with his attitude, given he has a mental illness and is depressed himself.

I feel so intensely frustrated that those closest to me are telling me I do not feel, or look like I am, depressed. I feel like screaming I am so frustrated. I know I must annoy others...but imagine what I feel like, never getting well....nothing ever working.

I do have a couple people who are very supportive. My friend E is a saint. I feel blessed that she continues to listen to me and be by my side. Same with Dr. X. My boyfriend too, despite his denial of my depression, stays by me and holds me when I need to be held. I have met a new friend to...A and she is so sweet. I hope I can be the friend all these people need when they need a friend.

You might think it was a blessing for others to believe you capable of big things, but sometimes, when a person like me is extremely ill it is hard for others to see such a "strong" person needs help.

Please, if a family member has a mental illness, and is struggling, please take the time to educate yourself about what your family member is struggling with. I feel abandoned and dismissed by my family. I love them so much, yet given I have struggled for years and years, have lost my job, and have basically lost my interest in life...I feel pretty hurt that they have not taken any time, or effort to educate themselves about how these mental illnesses impact the people who have them.

I feel like they do not love me enough to even spend an afternoon at a depression information session, or to read about what it is like to live with severe and treatment resistant depression, or even to come over to my place and go see Dr. X with me. I feel really alone when it comes to my family. So alone I cannot even express it in words...

Will This Pain Ever Really End?

(William Blake, "Pity" 1795, Tate Gallery)

Like in Blake's painting...I feel like a woman who has had her child, albeit in my case, her inner child, ripped from inside her. Is it wrong to feel angry...even enraged, about my situation? Today I felt like walking into the hospital screaming, "HELP ME!...SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME!" I cannot take it anymore. I don't know how to get better.

Of course, I fucking "know" how to get better. Do all the goddamn things everyone tells me to do to get better. Get some exercise, see my friends, make more friends, call the friends I have, call old friends, smile more, look straight ahead, not at the ground, quit shuffling your feet, clean your house, challenge my negative thinking, stop thinking in black and white, go to church, read, go to school, take art classes, connect with my family, eat less, eat better, cook better, draw, paint, teach, take better care of myself, bathe more, dress better, tidy my house, get back to work, budget my money, breathe properly, let go, stop thinking about myself, stop crying, stop being self absorbed, do more, think less, drink more water, take vitamins, take supplements, go to sleep early, get up earlier, stop coffee, drink no alcohol, canoe, ski, hike, camp, work sing, paint, create, love people, stop being angry...STOP BEING ANGRY! STOP BEING DEPRESSED...you have everything you need. So many people have so much less than you and they are happy. Stop thinking about suicide. Participate in therapy, Do what you are supposed to do. Take your medication/s. Depression is treatable. You are just not trying hard enough.

So they say...but how do these things if I am so depressed I cannot do these things. How do I do these things if nothing I try, including medications, ever helps for any length of time?

I love Dr. X. I love him as a therapist, a clinician, and on some level, as a valued friend and family member. I trust him, his knowledge, his ability to help others, his ability to help people manage their mental illnesses. I know he cares about me and my welfare. He wants to see me well. I know he tries so hard to help me...but I think I am "unhelpable".

When I met him I felt so relieved that finally someone was helping me who knew how to help me. I felt so lucky to have met such a patient, compassionate and caring psychiatrist. Finally, I felt I was in good hands. ...and I was, and I am.

I still think I am in good hands. I still think Dr. X is extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder, other Mental Illnesses and their treatments. I still believe he is a great psychiatrist. I even think that for many with a "treatment resistant" depression he is likely able to help them.

I think the problem is that my depression is not "treatment resistant", rather it is "absolutely unresponsive". I feel angry because if I had a physical illness that caused this much pain I would be given something to at the very least stop the pain. If my illness was physical, I could get some relief. I have no idea what a similar "pain medication" would look like for severe depression...maybe morphine to knock me out, to not allow me to feel, or some kind of heavy duty tranquillizer combined with an extended stay in some kind of long term care place...like what a sanitarium was supposed to be.

I completely understand why some people with mental illnesses, especially chronic ones, turn to hard drugs. Last night even I was thinking...maybe if I got some heroin, and just injected enough to relieve some of this pain...even for a while, it might be worth it.

If there is nothing out there that helps me...how will I keep going? Better question is WHY would I keep going. I do not understand what I did to make this be happening to me. I always tried to be a good person. I feel like I must have done something really bad in my past life, or in this life, to be left feeling like this for so long. I feel like I am in Hell.