Okay, if I could have lived my life without pills - best outcome ever. But that is not the case.
I went to doctors for years! YEARS! And they couldn't give me a diagnosis. Apparently doctors like to say, "Where were you before?" and "Why are you only coming to the doctor now?".
Well, that is not the case with me. Went to doctors for years to get answers. I had no idea whatsoever about any mental illnesses. All I knew was that people can be "crazy", that's it.
I was diagnosed at 24. That was the first time on my life I was hearing about anxiety and depression. I had heard the words before but never knew what they actually mean or feel like, while actually going through them in real life.
I was so against pills. Especially cause I listened to my mum a lot and she told me not to ever go on those pills. That they're "bad" pills.
Also, I'd like to point out, it was no doctor that told me to go to a psychiatrist or seek councelling. It was my mum who told me to see a shrink cause every other doctor I'd been to kept telling me the test are fine and they can't find anything wrong with me. I was faaaaaar from feeling okay though so I obviously didn't believe them and kept going to more doctors to get answers.
So, at 24 I was diagnosed. But by that time my health had plummeted. I was not working anymore cause I felt physically too sick. Doctors had prescribed me so so so so so so many different (no antidepresants) pills, mostly for my stomach and none of them worked. Nothing made me feel better. Nothing! Cause my problems were not stomach related. It was just a symptom, the debilitating nausea. I was feeling sick constantly. Constantly, no breaks. If you go back to 2009 or 2010 on my blog you'll see how I was feeling. And that ill physical health brought on my depression. Cause I was just physically and mentally exhausted from feeling so sick all the time (not just nausea, general ill being aswell).
And all the doctors kept telling me I was fine. Cause their tests told so.
I became suicidal. Cause the doctors didn't believe me and the pills they did give me weren't helping. And I was just drained of life from the sickness. The depression only worsened my physical health, anxiety and my mood and way of thinking.
Then one time at a psychiatrist's office I told him I was done with life and had no hope left to ever get better. Why would I have hope when the docs tell me I'm fine and give me pills that make no difference?
I was desperate. When you're in that state where we can't even talk about not being able to work, socialize, do chores and the likes, when you're ina state when you can't even function on the very basic level, right there in the moment, in your body, not even in your life cause your life is completely out of the picture in that state, when you're in that state where you can't sleep, can't eat, can't think straight, can't even sit still, cannot concentrate on absolutely anything, other than the need to kill yourself cause the haywire in your body and brain are unbearable, you cling on to anything that can potentially make you feel better cause you're at a point where nothing can make you feel worse.
I was prescribed the antidepressant Mirtazapine. It completely knocked me out. For days. Weeks. But it made a little difference. At least I could sleep which I couldn't do before. It took away my nausea just a notch at times so I could eat more than before.
But my health, my immediate health, not the quality of my life - that is still out of the picture at this point, everything was still really bad.
I lived in ireland at the time and my dad kept calling me and telling em to come back home cause I "wasn't doing anything in Ireland". He meant the life - work, socializing etc. But he knew about my health.
I went back. And that was the complete breaking point to me. I hadn't been home for about three years. And with my health already this fragile, it couldn't handle all the emotions I got when I got back to Estonia. I stayed with my dad in county Viljandi while my mum lived in Tartu.
And my brain started to mess up on the first day I got in the country. I became obsessed with getting to Tartu. This whole shit-day is on my blog, around the 10th of July, 2010.
This obsession drove me literally insane, my body could not handle the emotions it was generating. My anxiety rose through the roof on the fifth day in the country.
I started getting constant severe anxiety. Not just a little "Oh I feel a little jittery." No. Severe anxiety. Severe nausea. Absolutely unable to concentrate on anything. I could not function on the basic level. I couldn not sit still even, there was no way I was able to do anything, like having a conversation or jsut being relaxed. It was not happening.
My father's family called the ambulance. And I was taken to the madhouse where I spent a month.
When I was taken to the hospital I was completely out of my mind. Not psychotic, just severely anxious. There was no way I could have tried to relax cause my brain was not working like a normal, healthy person's brain. The only thought process I had was having the thought of killing myself looping in my head cause my body was literally going haywire. I was not psychotic! I was just anxious. Severely anxious. There was no way I could have even tried to begin to start working on getting better. Without meds. I was absolutely unable to hold a conversation cause my anxiety made it impossible. All rationality was out the window. My body was working on instincts. My instinct was telling me to kill myself. Nothing else. My brain was a mush of insanity. Anxiety, not psychosis. I was well aware of everything that was happening in my surroundings but I was completely unable to engage. Later on the doctors told me when they first saw me they thought I was having a "schizophrenic episode". I was that bad but I was just having severe anxiety and wanted an out.
Now, this sad little man in the comments said, everyone is able to come out of anxiety and depression without meds. Okay, there was no way I was gonna be alive within a few weeks, maybe even days from that time. I did not have any space in my head for rational thought or the ability to receive any kind of therapy. I needed medication. Immediately. Anxiety and depression are illnesses and need to be treated according to their severity, just like any other illness.
In the hospital, I developed a fixation with how all food was plastic and shouldn't be put into body cause it makes you sick. I didn't want those thoughts. They were not rational. I knew I had to eat to survive and I wanted to eat. But my brain was making my body work against me no matter how hard I tried to eat or rationalize the importance of eating to myself. It would physically lock my throat so that I couldn't swallow. It would give me even more nausea and make me gag whenever something went down. Food was bad and it didn't belong in the body, is what my brain was telling my body. The nurses had to sit with me and count my little and few spoonfuls cause I was struggling so hard to eat.
I got out of the hospital, still on Mirtazapine. I was put on Escitalopram. To tame my anxiety.
I never felt better in hospital or when I got out. For a couple of years I struggled hard. Especially with eating. I just couldn't do it, still. My throat would lock and I had to slap myself in the face repeatedly to shock my body to unlock the throat.
Then I met my current psychiatrist. She put me on Olanzapine. And that pill saved my life! It was the first thing that I truly felt in my whole life, made an actual difference. i could eat! I've said this so many times on my blog how ignorant people say that pills like these don't make you gain weight. This pill made me gain 30+ kilos over the years. If I don't have any lifelong side effects from it or any damage then I'm doing good now, dropping most of the weight I gained. I'm going off the pill and it looks very likely I will get off of it. If not, I can maintain a very very very low dosage. Dosages like that are probably not even prescribed to patients. I had an ultrasound a while back and my liver looked fine.
My prolactine levels and white blood cell count were normal earlier thi year, so looks like no damage there either.
Oh and I quit Mirtazapine in 2015.
Now if walking in the woods would cure anxiety and depression, no one would ahve these conditions. And if the woods cured anxiety and depression they'd cure any other illness aswell. Anxiety and depression are not some abstract...things. They're actual illnesses. Physical illnesses. A walk in the woods will not balance your chemicals, it will not make your receptors work better. Just as it won't cure cancer or grow a limb to a limbless person.
This man in the comments said, he's been able to combat anxiety/depression without meds, so anyone could do it if they did it the right way.
Okay. When I was in that state when I went to the hospital, what would have been the right way to combat my anxiety? Given the fact that, I was gonna kill myself within weeks or days if there was no improvement in my wellbeing? Given the fact that there was no rational thinking? Given the fact I was completely unable to communicate in a productive way? Given the fact that I was just unable to to enagage with anything in my environment?
Also this man said he also beat cancer. Now, he said, weirdly enough, he beat it with chemo therapy. How is it okay to heal cancer with meds but not anxiety/depression? He said, he had no choice but antidepressants are a choice. Okay, so my choices were, like his, take the medicine or die suffering. Why is cancer so glorified and any mental illness completely belittled? You get so so so so many different physical symptoms with anxiety and unfortunately there is no euthanasia available if you suffer from anxiety. With cancer you will die quickly. But there is no quick way to go when you have anxiety and suicide is made very hard for people. It's definitely a lot easier to die from an illness than to take your own life cause of an unbearable illness. You kill yourself when all your energy is gone and somehow you have to find the courage to hurt yourself even more and end your life. How is that easier than cancer? Besides there are so many worse illnesses than cancer.
You can die from a papercut or a runny nose. Any illness that is severe is serious. And if you're feeling unwell you have to take care of yourself. And taking meds is one way to do it.
You don't have to suffer, it's okay to make yourself feel better and help yourself heal. With anxiety and depression, just like with any other illness.
Also, when you are as down as I was, you simply have no energy to fight the fight. That man or anyone who thinks mental illnesses are just "a bad mood" or "bad attitude" ahve clearly never been in that state, never experienced the severity of anxiety or depression.
Also, people who tell mentally ill people to just be positive... Like, I've been told I have my arms and legs, so I'm "fine". Baically to get over myself and be positive. Why don't you tell a legless person to be positive and get voer themselves and see if their leg will grow back. If it does one day, or if you can cure cancer with willpower or positivity, then you can come to me and preach about how unimportant non-existent mental illnesses are, but until then - go fuck yourself with your ignorance.
Thank you! :)
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