What should i do about my anxiety depression and mental health?

[Kokaine]

I have had anxiety since i was 8 years old and it has ruined my life.i have been on medication for about 20+ years i have seen psycologists psycotherapists i have done CBT EBT been to rehab gym eat well meditate breathing exercises and i still always end up doing the same thing.deciding that i dont want to be on medication.so i stop cold turkey and end up bed ridden like i am now.i want to know if medicinal marijuana will help me because i know pharmaceutical companies are corrupt and i cant keep going on like this.im sick of feeling like dying once i am finally off the medication.should i stay sober and put up with the feelings of dying for a long time to see if they go away what if they dont.im not coping and it feels like a loose loose.i cant accept medication being the solution because a it doesnt work b relying on the system that way doesnot serve me well and c the side effects are an added issue to my exsisting issues.i cant do drugs because i have feelings of guilt and feel like a criminal. Feeling mental..

[boldbeauty]

Hello, sorry you are feeling this way. I am going to say that you need to accept that medication helps the quality of your life and that you need to be on it or you will end up suffering. Never cold turkey of any medication, as you can make your mental illness, much more worse. Please go to your doctor and ask about Lexapro/Cipralex ( they are the same thing called Escitalopram) It is an SSRI for anxiety.

I have had severe mental issues and anxiety and this medication has saved my life. It took away the anxiety and I can live a normal life now. The first step is to accept that you need to medication. Your brain does not provide you with enough chemicals to be stable enough, especially since you have been suffering a long time. I can promise you the Lexapro is going to help you. You start at 5mg(Half a tablet) then go to 10mg. But you need to take it everyday!!! I promise things will get better after a few weeks of the medication!!

I have been on 10mg for a long time now and my life is much better now. I am able to shake things off and no longer feel anxiety! Please get the help you need as you have to be on medication.
If you would like to try something more natural first before you decide to go on an SSRI, you can try St Johns Wort or Passion Flower. These things can help your anxiety.
By you continuously going off and on your medications, I fear that you have made your illness much more worse now.  
Good luck! And do not be ashamed of the medications, they help you! When doctors prescribe things, they go by the pros and cons and it is quite clear in your situation that the pros outweigh the cons and that medication is need but you can't keep stop taking them, you mess up your brain! Much love to you!

[boldbeauty]

As for the marijuana, I find it makes my anxiety much more worse so I can not smoke it. I was just recently diagnosed with Bipolar II So I am now on lamotrigine. :)

[Paxiled]

I think diagnosing people over the internet can be pretty difficult most times.  It's also true that medication is seldom necessary, it's just easier for doctors and sometime patients, so counseling people that they have to take meds just isn't accurate -- they're no more successful at treating mental illness than talk therapy or anything else.  They help some, harm others, do nothing at all for others.  And to say that someone should try one medication because it helped you, well, we're all different with these meds.  That med didn't help me at all, but it has helped others.  None of these meds helps everyone, it's trial and error.  Personal anecdotes, of which we have two here, are helpful to express hope and help but not that useful for diagnosing people, who on here are only presenting pieces of lives just as complex as out own.  We also might have been misdiagnosed ourselves, as the science on mental illness isn't very good.  We're trying, but we're not there yet.  Peace to all of you and hope that we all find our solutions and not more suffering.

[Paxiled]

If you've been continually stopping medication cold turkey, you could be suffering from protracted withdrawals.  Why do you keep doing that?  As for medical marijuana, who knows?  You will be stoned all the time, which you're not with antidepressants.  The problem with marijuana for anxiety sufferers is it causes anxiety for a lot of people.  Supposedly, strains have been bred to minimize that, but also consider that marijuana today isn't a natural product really -- it has been hybridized so much to make it stronger and stronger that it's far from the natural plant people have used forever.  But some people do very well on it.  My own experience is when I got anxiety that was the end of my marijuana use -- it all started when I was stoned, as was the case with so many of the people on this site over the years.  But you're also suffering depression, and if the anxiety is caused by depression, well, marijuana, like any sedating drug, might increase depression.  You really have to try stuff to see if it works, because individuals respond differently, but one other thing to consider is, when you've been on antidepressants for a very long time as you have, sometimes the brain just can't adapt to working naturally anymore.  Again, the only way to know if this is true for you is to go without and see what happens.  There is another option, which is natural medicine that doesn't include drugs as strong as marijuana or pharmaceuticals.  A book by Hyla Cass, a psychiatrist at UCLA called Natural HIghs will give you an introduction into this approach.  My own feeling is, the anxiety we feel at age 8 is almost never the same as the anxiety adults get, and when you're young and get put on these drugs they can inhibit your natural brain development.  Or, they might not.   So again, only trying stuff tells you what will happen when you do, so given your history, if you don't mind being stoned all the time, and a lot of people really like being stoned all the time, maybe the new strains will help, but don't worry about illegal vs. legal -- that's just people's biases, not anything objective.