Depression & Anxiety

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Comment by Panic Attack Relief on October 27, 2009 at 8:23am

Hi there!
I'm an ex victim of panic attacks. I started to look for panic attack relief treatment few years ago. The first thing I have noticed is the sheer number of different anxiety and panic attacks treatments available online.
I have (actually, had) Anxiety and Panic Disorder. For years, well since I was a teen, I have suffered from anxiety/panic attacks.
I came across this community long ago while trying to find some answers and hoped that maybe someone here could help me.

Comment by slowlysurfacing on August 9, 2009 at 11:49pm

Hi there, I'm new and definitely have some anxiety/depression issues that I'm going to see a therapist for. I've recently talked to my family, boyfriend, and friends about it more and more, and they're very supportive and want to help. It's hard because i feel so alone, scared, depressed, anxious, nervous, and overwhelmed pretty much everyday. I think it's a mix of my environment (I work in Travel Sales in Boston) and my upbringing (my mother usually always said 'no' to things i wanted to do/asked for) and my general perfectionist tendencies/wanting to please everyone but myself. I need to retrain my brain and start thinking in a more positive way (cognitive restructuring?) and see my therapist and see if anything else is needed, so I think I'm on my way to recovery. But i also have eating disorder issues too (related to perfectionism I believe). So any help is appreciated! Any advice, tips, stories, etc. Thanks!! :)

Comment by RonPrice on August 1, 2009 at 9:47am

Here is a segment of my "depression story."-Ron in Tasmania
-----------------------------
1.3 My account provides a statement of my most recent experiences in the last two years, 2007-2009, with manic-depression(MD) or BPD as it has come to be called since 1980. Some prospective analysis of my illness is also included with the view to assessing potential long-term strategies, appropriate lifestyle choices and activities in which to engage in the years ahead in the middle years(65-75) of my late adulthood(60-80) and old age(80++), if I last that long. For the most part, though, my account, the statement I have written here in some 33,000 words is an outline, a description, of this partially genetic-family-based-predisposed illness and of my experience with it throughout my life.

1.4 Some of the personal context for this illness over the lifespan in my private and public life, in the relationships with my consangineal family(family of birth) and in my two affinal families(families by marriage), in my employment life(1961-2005) and now in my retirement(1999-2009) are discussed in this document. I include some of what seems to me my major and relevant: (a) personal circumstances as they relate to my values, beliefs and attitudes on the one hand--what some might call my religion as defined in a broad sense; (b) family circumstances; for example, my parents’ life, my wife’s illnesses and the life experiences of my three children; (c) employment circumstances involving as they did: (i) stress, (ii) movement from place to place and (iii) my sense of identity and meaning; (d) aspects of day-to-day life and their wider socio-historical setting and (e) details on other aspects of my medical condition to help provide a wider context for this BPD in the last two years.

1.5 This lengthy account will hopefully provide mental health sufferers, clients or consumers, as they are now variously called these days, with: (i) a more adequate information base to make some comparisons and contrasts with their own situation, their own predicament whatever it may be, (ii) some helpful general knowledge and understanding and (iii) some useful techniques in assisting them to cope with and sort out problems associated with their particular form of mental illness or some other traumatized disorder that affects their body, their spirit, their soul and their everyday life.

1.6 This document was originally written in 2001 to assist others in assessing my suitability for: (a) employment, (b) for a disability pension of some kind and/or (c) a volunteer public or private office. This document is no longer needed for these reasons since I am fully retired from FT, PT and casual/volunteer work and am on two old age pensions. Although this document no longer serves the purpose of helping others to make the evaluations it did eight years ago in 2001 and make their decisions informed ones; although there is no need for others to assess my capacity or incapacity to take on some task or responsibility, I have kept this original general statement, what was a first edition in 2001 and have extended it to what is now a 7th edition eight years later for other purposes.

1.7 Many do not feel comfortable going to doctors, to psychologists, to clinical psychologists and, more especially, to psychiatrists. Perhaps this is part of a general distrust of certain professional fields in our world today. Perhaps it is part of a general public being more critical, wanting to be more informed and wanting to play more of a role in their own treatments. People seek help in so many different ways; some try to work things out themselves and there are, of course, various combinations of those who try, those who have given up and those who go back and forth between the two poles of trying and not trying to sort out their disorder. Many often find the journey through the corridors of mental health problems so complex, such a labyrinth, that they give up in despair. Suicide is common among the group I refer to here—the sufferers from BPD and I could include depression(D) as well as a range of other illnesses and life battles of a traumatic nature. This account may help such people obtain appropriate treatment and, as a result, dramatically improve their quality of life. I think, too, that this essay of more than 33,000 words and eighty-eight A-4 pages(font 14) is part of: (a) my own small part in reducing the damaging stigma associated with BPD and (b) what might be termed “my coming out.”

Comment by LOL on August 1, 2009 at 9:12am

UPDATE - THE ROAD BACK PROGRAM - is working - my daughter is down to 5 mg (from 20) of lexapro - uses the nutritionals - and guidence from their wonderful staff -seems to feel great. My son has been off of his meds for 60 days (stopped prozac and welbutron) cold turkey - but has added some nutritionals from Road Back Program and sticks with his own amino acid supplementing. Lets keep our fingers crossed!!

Comment by RonPrice on July 31, 2009 at 10:38pm

As a sufferer of BPD, depression has been part of my experience. I will drop in here occasionally and offer, I hope, some useful comments.-Ron in Tasmania

Comment by LOL on July 4, 2009 at 11:10am

My son, who stopped his meds abruptly is doing ok so far (35 days) - maintaining at college - works out physically daily and takes a protein supplement with a ton on amino acis. My daughter is weaning through a program called the Road Back- so far so good.

Comment by jolly on July 4, 2009 at 5:41am

i have had anger problems for years also depression i suffer with B-P-D my name is Jolly i am a 48 year old femail i have had mental health problems for years.
people who have not got mental health problems dont understand what do we have to do to be heard Jolly

Comment by greeneyes on June 15, 2009 at 2:58pm

Hi LOL: To answer your concern about your son abruptly taking himself off his medication after 12 years, I had a bad experience when I took myself off my medication (Xanax) after 6 months of taking it. After 3 days off the medication, I had a seizure at my doctor's office and had to be rushed to the hospital because I was incoherent. You may want to talk to his doctor and find out if he will be okay and whether he can be weaned off the medication. These drugs your son is on is very addictive, just like Xanax is.

Comment by LOL on June 14, 2009 at 11:44am

Worried MOM Here: My son abruptly stopped welbutrin/prozac (he has been on SSRIs for 12 years). He is 22. It has been 2 weeks and he feels, "happier than he has ever felt." I am scared to death that he will crash when these drugs are out of his system. He exercises lots, eats a very nutritious diet. Has anyone done ok with the sudden halting of medicines like these?

Comment by greeneyes on June 12, 2009 at 11:02am

I'm new to this discussion group and I was wondering whether anxiety and depression is a life long disorder treated by medication or can it be cured. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression a little over 2 years ago, and I've been thinking about weening myself off my medication under doctor supervision.

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