GRcade

8 weeks of counselling for being a self harming nut job.

about half way through, it's good talking to someone, but haven't really got to the bottom of anything.

also been off work since January, with every 6 weeks getting more increasingly larger doses of antidepressants.

Had a 'sit down' with the wife. We actually came out of a good conversation both feeling a lot better about what we mean to each other, the family unit and our future. Naturally this eased my anxiety and snapped me out of my recent down time. As of right now feeling much better in myself.

That said I have agreed, and think it will do some good, to go see my GP and discuss my options for maybe talking to a professional about my anxiety and depression.

Chatting is good. I reached a similar point with my ex but sadly we just came to realise it had run its course. Honesty and saying how you feel and how you can make each other feel is the best course. Hope it works out.

Denster wrote:Chatting is good. I reached a similar point with my ex but sadly we just came to realise it had run its course. Honesty and saying how you feel and how you can make each other feel is the best course. Hope it works out.

Yeah it's definitely helped both of us. Thanks, mate

May it continue to do so.

A colleague's partner committed suicide via overdose at the weekend. Poor fella has two young children to care for now.

Just reaffirmed that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Not judging her, just tragic all round really.

I need some advice, my girlfriend was in an abusive relationship before being with me which has just really messed with her head.

We've been together a year but she will constantly ask me if I think she is annoying or hate her, I'm being as supportive as I can but she doesn't really seem to be getting any better and I don't know what to do. There's no real public services that deal with the kind of mental health problems she suffers from.

Every so often she we just freak out and tell me to leave (over literally nothing, or me changing plans because I feel ill)

Like last Sunday I spent 5 hours just sitting next to her while she cried and talked about wanting to die, I said all of the things you're meant to say to a depressed person but at the end of the five hours she tried to go in the kitchen and I assume take an overdose of paracetamol (she had taken 8 tablets at once that morning) but I stopped her and hugged her for like 10 minutes while she cried and she calmed down a while after that.

Sorry if that seems like a bit too much information I just really needed to get it down and ask for some help

Is there any way that can get her to see her doctor to discuss this? They may be able to help her somehow, maybe even point her towards some councilling for what has happened to her. I'm sorry if that's no help, I don't know what else to suggest.

She goes to counciling but only every month or so and she has to pay for it herself. italk is available in our area but they said they couldn't help her as her symptoms were too severe.

Fade wrote:I need some advice, my girlfriend was in an abusive relationship before being with me which has just really messed with her head.

We've been together a year but she will constantly ask me if I think she is annoying or hate her, I'm being as supportive as I can but she doesn't really seem to be getting any better and I don't know what to do. There's no real public services that deal with the kind of mental health problems she suffers from.

Every so often she we just freak out and tell me to leave (over literally nothing, or me changing plans because I feel ill)

Like last Sunday I spent 5 hours just sitting next to her while she cried and talked about wanting to die, I said all of the things you're meant to say to a depressed person but at the end of the five hours she tried to go in the kitchen and I assume take an overdose of paracetamol (she had taken 8 tablets at once that morning) but I stopped her and hugged her for like 10 minutes while she cried and she calmed down a while after that.

Sorry if that seems like a bit too much information I just really needed to get it down and ask for some help

She needs to get some therapy ASAP. Unfortunately this will cost a lot of money.

Johnny Ryall wrote:A colleague's partner committed suicide via overdose at the weekend. Poor fella has two young children to care for now.

Just reaffirmed that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Not judging her, just tragic all round really.

That's heart breaking.

Drumstick wrote:

Fade wrote:I need some advice, my girlfriend was in an abusive relationship before being with me which has just really messed with her head.

We've been together a year but she will constantly ask me if I think she is annoying or hate her, I'm being as supportive as I can but she doesn't really seem to be getting any better and I don't know what to do. There's no real public services that deal with the kind of mental health problems she suffers from.

Every so often she we just freak out and tell me to leave (over literally nothing, or me changing plans because I feel ill)

Like last Sunday I spent 5 hours just sitting next to her while she cried and talked about wanting to die, I said all of the things you're meant to say to a depressed person but at the end of the five hours she tried to go in the kitchen and I assume take an overdose of paracetamol (she had taken 8 tablets at once that morning) but I stopped her and hugged her for like 10 minutes while she cried and she calmed down a while after that.

Sorry if that seems like a bit too much information I just really needed to get it down and ask for some help

She needs to get some therapy ASAP. Unfortunately this will cost a lot of money.

Like I said, she already goes and it does cost a lot.

But it bums her out every time she goes and I don't think she wants to go anymore.

In a strawberry floating foul mood today. Woke up to the Frightened Rabbit news which was just heartbreaking, then at work our boss said for the first time in 20 years she's not sure about the future of our site (I'm sure most of you know where I work but I won't say in case it bites me on the ass).

I've been strict with diet and exercise this year but bollocks to it this weekend.

Johnny Ryall wrote:In a strawberry floating foul mood today. Woke up to the Frightened Rabbit news which was just heartbreaking, then at work our boss said for the first time in 20 years she's not sure about the future of our site (I'm sure most of you know where I work but I won't say in case it bites me on the ass).

I've been strict with diet and exercise this year but bollocks to it this weekend.

Hope this week's going better for you fella

Jazzem wrote:

Johnny Ryall wrote:In a strawberry floating foul mood today. Woke up to the Frightened Rabbit news which was just heartbreaking, then at work our boss said for the first time in 20 years she's not sure about the future of our site (I'm sure most of you know where I work but I won't say in case it bites me on the ass).

I've been strict with diet and exercise this year but bollocks to it this weekend.

Hope this week's going better for you fella

Ish, thanks man.

I had a big pizza loads of cake and beer and came out at a net zero on the scales so not too much damage done.

Johnny Ryall wrote:

Jazzem wrote:

Johnny Ryall wrote:In a strawberry floating foul mood today. Woke up to the Frightened Rabbit news which was just heartbreaking, then at work our boss said for the first time in 20 years she's not sure about the future of our site (I'm sure most of you know where I work but I won't say in case it bites me on the ass).

I've been strict with diet and exercise this year but bollocks to it this weekend.

Hope this week's going better for you fella

Ish, thanks man.

I had a big pizza loads of cake and beer and came out at a net zero on the scales so not too much damage done.

Y'legend

Hey all,

Bit of a double whammy story for you this evening, but also just a private place to share my story and vent a bit.

So I've had bouts of anxiety for years, but after getting help with coping strategies when I was a teen (and spending a lot of time on here to get away from it all! ) they have generally been pretty rare occurrences that I've always been able to deal with.

When I was a teen, and was first discovering what this was, one of the suggestions was to confide in friends who might help. Sadly, that wasn't a good experience for me and the end result was that I lost some of my friends due to it. It's regrettable, but I don't hold it against them. We were young, my anxiety wasn't that well understood, and their intentions were good... if impatient and insensitive.

Anyway, the result from that was that I've largely flew solo ever since and none of my current friends knew anything about it. So when I had bouts of anxiety I would just deal with it by myself. I didn't want to risk confiding and losing my friends again.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a mate and he was having a bad time. He seemed quite upset about work and stuff, and I could tell he wasn't feeling the best. We were chatting about it, and he confides in me that he believes he has been suffering from depression and that it has been really bad recently. So I told him about my anxiety, and ever since we've been talking about it pretty openly and I've been sharing some of my experiences with him to see if they help his situation.

However ever since then my anxiety has came back really really strongly. It feels like telling him has opened some sort of Pandora's box, and I've been all over the place with regards to my mood. It's the worst it's been in years. It feels like I'm waiting for the axe to fall and to now lose this group of friends the same way I lost the last one. I know it's irrational, but it still really strawberry floating sucks and it's left me in such an exhausted state.

Mental Health Week has also had lots of friends and colleagues at work sharing their anxiety and depression stories, and some of them suffer far far more than I do. Yet I'm seemingly in a foul mood because I'm worried the person I've told will gossip about it, despite all the evidence that suggests my friends and work would be incredibly supportive. It's such an exhausting contradiction, and makes me think that I would feel a lot better if I could just own my anxiety and not be so terrified of people having a bad reaction to finding out. Apparently easier said than done though.

My main worry however is my friend's depression. I can tell he's not in a good place, but he's not yet got any help for it. I know he needs to take the first step himself, but I was wondering if people might have some suggestions around the process for seeking help? He seems to think that any help would be behind a long waiting list, but I'd love to provide him with some resources or just be more knowledgeable so I could point him in the right direction when we talk about it.

Thanks for listening.

Hi TAP. Sorry to hear about your anxiety, and about your friend's depression. It sounds like you are both going through a tough time at the moment.

I wanted to share some of my experiences & advice with both you & your friend in case it helps at all.

Re: your friend: My experience being treated for anxiety and depression - and having friends & family who have gone through the same thing - is that one can often access medication immediately upon visiting a GP, particularly if you tell them up front that you'd like to access that kind of treatment. Could your friend be convinced to try medication and see whether it helps? Many people (like me!) are resistant at first, try it reluctantly, and then one day they find they're functioning again and they realise they made a smart move.

Exactly which prescription he ends up with will depend on the details of his symptoms and on his GP, but since there are antidepressants with good safety profiles which also have antianxiety action - sertraline comes to mind - I would think it likely that he will leave with one script for a single pill to take once a day before bed. He'd have a follow-up appointment a little while later (mine was about a fortnight) to see whether the medication is having the desired effect. If it isn't, they'll try something different until it does work. (It was third time lucky for me.)

He is also likely to be referred to go have therapy. There will be a waiting list for that. This can take more or less time depending on the nature of the therapy and which resources are available in your local area. If there's a counselling charity set up in your area and your friend is a candidate for that, then the wait can be as short as a few weeks; if he's referred to an NHS psychiatrist the wait can be several months. (If your friend is suicidal he will be higher-priority and may be able to see someone much sooner.)

Re: you: It's genuinely commendable that you opened up to your friend to support him, even though it opened a can of worms for you. I am sure he appreciates it, and will appreciate it even more in retrospect once he seeks help and starts to feel better. You should feel good about showing him that kindness.

I can completely understand why you feel anxious about having been open with a colleague about your illness. Mental health issues are still commonly stigmatised in wider society, and you've lost friends to people misunderstanding your anxiety before. It sounds to me like you feel you've 'lost control' of something you'd prefer was totally under wraps - the knowledge that you have anxiety - and that that is therefore causing you to feel more anxiety.

All I can say is that, in circles where nerds work together (like at your office!), mental health problems are both surprisingly common and very well supported in my experience. I think your friend is unlikely to gossip, but for your own peace of mind you could 'come out' and therefore control that narrative. In the same way that you respect and sympathise with your colleagues' problems, I'm sure they would be supportive of you. I work in a similar environment to you, and have been 'out' as a sufferer of mental health problems at work since day one. No-one has ever shown me any malice or disrespect. (Sometimes people might be a little ignorant and might say the wrong thing, but there's no ill-will behind it, so I've found it works best to just gently set the record straight & move on.)

Thanks for the detailed response, Karl. It means a lot!

It's interesting that you likened my current spike in anxiety to a lack of narrative control. I've had similar thoughts myself, especially with watching people (even colleagues at work) discuss it as part of mental health walk. It's something I'm going to work on, as I believe you're right in it being the right course of action.

I actually told a second friend last night, and much like the first they were endlessly supportive. It left me feeling a lot better, for sure. As the opportunity arises, I plan to share it with my other friends too, until it stops being something I'm worried about.

That is all good knowledge with regards to seeking help for depression too. I was discussing the possibility with my friend in question and while he has a strong negative reaction to the idea of medication, he does seem to be coming around to at least discussing the severity of his symptoms with a GP.

Finished my final dental appointment yesterday after 2 years of repeated visits due to an adolescence of not giving a gooseberry fool about my health and a general phobia. This last crown was the last piece of the puzzle and as far as I'm concerned I have my smile back after 10+ years of rot. The immediate difference this has made to my confidence and mood in general is crazy. For a long time I'd literally suppress smiles around strangers lest anyone see the mess inside my gob.

So this strawberry floating rules. Just thought this thread should note the ups with the downs and that self care is so important.