Member Comments are provided by individuals and reflect their personal opinions only. Under NO circumstances should you act on any advice or opinion posted in this forum. ALWAYS check with your personal physician before taking any action regarding your health! MedHelp International and our partners, sponsors and affiliates have no obligation to monitor any comments posted on this site, or the content and/or accuracy of such exchanges. MedHelp International does not endorse the views of any user.
Mental Health (Expert Forum)
Depression...getting over many things
Answered by
Roger Gould, M.D. - Mental Health, Wellness
Questions posted in the Mental Health forum are being answered by Dr. Roger L. Gould, author of the Mastering Stress and Depression program and affiliated with the UCLA. Department of Psychiatry. Topics covered include anger, attention deficit disorder (ADD), bipolar disorder, dementia, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), learning disabilities, memory, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic, personality disorders, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, stress, transitions, and work problems.
Depression...getting over many things
by Introspective, Apr 20, 2003 12:00AM
Ok has to be short =). I am just now starting on wellbutrin but I havent yet found any therapist. I am trying to get over a relationship so bad that it basically crushed me, but moron that I am I still love her...though it has been many months and she already moved on. I instigate contact with her and she basically tears me up and tells me to go die...not the most compassionate person. I cant understand why it ended up like that when the year and a half we were together she couldnt stop saying she loved me. In any case my question
I would like to know if you have any ideas on where I could find some sort of low income solution to therapy. I have a little money and i am currently paying for my own psychiatrist visits etc..but as I am not working due to being so depressed I am very hesitant to go out and try to find a good psychologist just to find out that I cant afford it.
As for the bad relationship thing...I dont know how to avoid wanting to talk to her. I feel that I am scarred from this relationship and the 2 attempts I made at dating the females fell for me right away and I found that I couldnt get over the bad relationship so I had to end it. I cant move on and i cant get over it ! Darn catch 22's.
1. Anyway...Any ideas on a way to find a good psychologist even though I wont be able to afford 100 dollars a session or even 50 would start to be difficult very quickly.
2. Taking Wellbutrin or any psychiatric medication how long would you say I should stay on it before I should expect some sort of results. I believe I have been depressed a good deal of my life if that has any bearing.
I would like to know if you have any ideas on where I could find some sort of low income solution to therapy. I have a little money and i am currently paying for my own psychiatrist visits etc..but as I am not working due to being so depressed I am very hesitant to go out and try to find a good psychologist just to find out that I cant afford it.
As for the bad relationship thing...I dont know how to avoid wanting to talk to her. I feel that I am scarred from this relationship and the 2 attempts I made at dating the females fell for me right away and I found that I couldnt get over the bad relationship so I had to end it. I cant move on and i cant get over it ! Darn catch 22's.
1. Anyway...Any ideas on a way to find a good psychologist even though I wont be able to afford 100 dollars a session or even 50 would start to be difficult very quickly.
2. Taking Wellbutrin or any psychiatric medication how long would you say I should stay on it before I should expect some sort of results. I believe I have been depressed a good deal of my life if that has any bearing.
Doctor's Answer
by Roger Gould, M.D., Apr 21, 2003 12:00AM
, Apr 21, 2003 12:00AM
You should expect results from Wellbutrin by the end of the second week, and getting better, and you should stay on it for as long as you need, until you feel well and function well.
Low cost therapy is hard to find but the place to start searching is a community mental health center in your home town or an outpatient center at a university medical center.
You can get some inexpensive help online by going t0 www.masteringstress.com.
Low cost therapy is hard to find but the place to start searching is a community mental health center in your home town or an outpatient center at a university medical center.
You can get some inexpensive help online by going t0 www.masteringstress.com.
3. I took acutane once upon a time, I didnt have to stay on this forever, it actually changed my body permanently so that I didnt have to stay on it after the 6 month period. With anti depressants is this possible or am I looking at a life of pills? I am the most anti drug person I know, I dont ever get sick, and even after a shoulder surgery I only took 2 of the pain pills to help sleep 2 nights then tossed them. Am I going to be changing my body with these things or are they some sort of replacement that I am looking at taking forever?
(It is hard to fit these questions in at the psychiatrists office...only been once so far =))
Narcissist ?
I took this from a post further down...is this treatable? This is my X about 99%.
An all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts. Five (or more) of the following criteria must be met:
1. Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion
2. Firmly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions)
3. Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation - or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (narcissistic supply)
4. Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favorable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations
Is "interpersonally exploitative", i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends
5. Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with or acknowledge the feelings and needs of others
Constantly envious of others or believes that they feel the same about him or her
6. Arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes coupled with rage when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted
Some of the language in the criteria above is based on or summarized from:
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition, Text Revision (DSM IV-TR). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
In any case my problem is just that I cant get over it hehe =P, mixed with lots of other tragedies that struck right around the time of that relationship. Thanks for responding though =).
Oh well =). Thanks for the answers about my problems =).
I think I will just end up spending a lot of money on a psychologist vs pursuing low cost help, calling around it is very difficult to find in this area =(.
I am finding that although I live almost 3000 miles away from my X, whom I havent seen since August, I still think about her daily...really often daily.
I know I can go online and read a message board where I know she posts about a game she plays. Now i realize the intelligent thing to do would be to stay the hell away from anything that would remind me of her...but I cant seem to keep the willpower to do that when I get to thinking about her.
Ironically im taking Wellbutrin right now..only second week of it...and I cant fall asleep at 3 am because of the damn medicine.
I feel more active now, but that is because the damn drug is a stimulant and it forces me to be. If I had my choice I would still sleep when depressed.
In any case...I have limited funds, very limited..but I need to deal with this somehow. Getting a drug to help with depression wont do a darn thing for me if I keep going back and getting depressed again.
(On a side note she has since moved on and from what I have seen she is very happy...so this being my first meaningful relationship I cant really grasp that she could be happy with someone else after what we had...I can see the things I am supposed to do but not do them =()
Where should I look for help? I have nobody close to me that I would ask, I screwed up and let her be everything, so when she moved on I had nothing left and nobody to talk to about it.
crazy thoughts like him dying i threw myself in the grave with him for i new i couldnt go on with out him till this day he never new why i broke up with him. he probably thought i was just too young and couldnt make up my mind and i know i hurt him. in one aspect, i think it would have been esier on me if we broke with him hating me then i can say screw you, but he loved me and i was so ashamed of my shaking problem so it was that much harder and had him at the tips of my fingers but only if they didnt shake. i thought of him every day and counted the days when i got better , then we would be together. many times i would still call him because i couldnt go on without hearing his voice. he was always so nice to me. even once in a while i would spend a night but thats as far as it could go because i was too afraid to go out to dinner with him or see his friends because of an overwhelming feeling of imbarrasement and fear would rush through my body. years went by and saw him less and less. but in my mind i thought when i got better we will finally be together. all i could think of was him. i didnt see living a life without him . so i wasnt really living , i was biding my time until that day. through those days i grew more and more depressed and wouldnt try to get help because i thought it was from just not being with him. and thought when that day comes i will be happy again. mean while i only did what i had to do to get by. i lived with family member to family member and didnt care much about myself or saving money because someday ill be with him. well, not that they are bad people but my family took advantage of me and i never had much money to spend on myself because i was always trying to help somebody pay their rent. but that was ok because someday he and i will be together. i skipped from job to job because i got boared easily and i was constantly trying new jobs also just to keep my spirits up with the feeling of something new. i figured i would find a good job and stick with it and ill be happy at it when he and i are together. meanwhile i became even more depress that i started to develope health problems from depression and anxiety. not to mention i let people walk all over me. i figured ill be stronger when he and i get back together because this isnt the real life im supposed to be living. so i didnt care about nothing. granit, i manage to get a GED and 1 semester of collage because my life long dream was to become a graphic artist. well, i new thats what i wanted to do but my thoughts were so overwhelmed with finding a doctor to take care of this odd shaking thing so he and i can get back together and i can go on with life. so i didnt go back to college. i wanted to find out what wrong with me first because i have plenty of time for collage. it was more important that i get back together with him. well, im 33 now and guess what i've accomplished? NOT A THING. i mannaged to controll my depression but now i have other crazy problems but ill spare you the details of them. i waisted so much of my life not to mention the grief i felt and the crying i did once a month for him for years. i think about friends i could have had. the happyness i could have felt. the fun i could of had by going out with friends. i could be a graphic artist today if only i could have been able to concentrate. if i could go back to be 18 again i would make dam sure my path wouldnt cross his. so from dwelling on him my whole life i became a very unhealthy person. no matter how rotton, how beautifull, how nice, how hot , how screwed up a person is, they are not worth waisting the only life you get to live on this planet. what makes them so worthy of sacrificing your precious life for them? do not let them robb you of your happyness if they dont care enough to talk to you and hold concern for your needs . i have a chemical imballance but that doesnt make me hate anyone that i would normaly care about or care about anyone i hate. if a person genuinly cares for you and has a problem, they will look to you for help because love is trust or they will ask you whats wrong because they will sense that your hurting. i can plainly see for me that he new i loved him by all the trying i did to keep intouch and he never once asked me why we parted. or if i was happy. i remember this all now. love is either there or not, there is nothing to figure out. im sorry if i sound rude. like i said , i know what that love feels like. god works in mysterious ways and maybe my burdens were ment for you to learn for the sake of your happyness. i am a strong person and a fighter and i know he picked me for these problems to make me stronger. and god knows that the most presious thing to me that i would want for myself is to be able to stand up for myself and even though that sounds so minor, its something i always wished for since i was a child. i have more confidence with this anxiety than i ever did when i was more healthy. im not saying this was a great way to recieve it but my dignity is very important to me. some people are lucky if they found a love like we had/have and your extremely lucky if you find it twice and they love you just as much back and some people never find it at all. so its sad to say ,it didnt work out but now your in control to know the degree of love you want to go. dont let that depression beat you. and i promise you wont have to take medicine for long because your going to move on with your life and be happy. love hurts but the best medicine for that is to truely love yourself and do for yourself to make you happy because believe it or not , that feels better than the love and energy your giving someone else. dont exaust yourself with that dranage. unless they love you back. only then will it balance out . you can get free counciling from your local church. i hope i didnt upset you and if i did im sorry. your a beautiful and special person waiting to happen for someone.
Your Guide to the World of
Alternative Mental Health
Sponsored by
Safe Harbor ,
a Nonprofit Corporation.
Home | Articles | Directory | Donations | Testimonials | Disclaimer | Bookstore
Send this article to a friend
Conquering Anxiety, Depression and Fatigue Without Drugs - the Role of Hypoglycemia
by Professor Joel H. Levitt
The Anxiety & Hypoglycemia Relief Institute
e-mail:***@****
voice-mail:212-479-7805
web-page: http://www.travelersonline.com/anxiety/
(For questions regarding anxiety & hypoglycemia and New York City
classes, contact Prof. Joel H. Levitt ***@****)
Stress is often blamed as the root cause for anxiety, depression and fatigue, but, although stress